kenoscomm | locked to zenith

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[ Link's mental space feels like being outside, so depending on where you are, you might not realize that someone has started Communion with you. Since joining the Zenith, the landscape of Link's mind has gone from idyllic, sunny forests to icy, overcast mountains. A frigid wind blows against your face, carrying the scent of firewood and meat roasting over an open flame. The diminutive Hylian is not sitting by the fire, but standing at the edge of a rocky ledge, his back turned. ]

There's going to be another Oracle soon. I can feel it. The rest of you can feel it too, right? That... pulling feeling.

[ He sighs. ]

If we lose this one, it's over. The Meridian isn't going to go easy on us. I know them... I know how badly they want to win. To them, the stakes couldn't be higher.

So let's talk. About what we're going to be up against, and... well, planning ahead isn't really something we can do, but at least we can warn each other of the dangers that individual Meri pose.

And I... I want to say something, too.

[ He sits down where he stands, his feet hanging off the cliff. There's a sense that he knows this isn't going to go over well, but it's important enough to him to say it anyway. ]

Killing the other guy before they kill you is what war is. That's normal. But Kenos is different. Death doesn't work the way it should here. We don't die permanently. You can neutralize someone threatening you by just dissipating them. There's nothing to gain by destroying their soul after you're no longer in danger.

So, I don't think any of us should shatter anyone ever again.

If you claim someone's Shard, you should protect it. If you feel that you can't do that, give it to someone else.

...I'm not stupid. I know a lot of you aren't gonna agree to this. And the Meris probably won't either. I'm sure they want revenge for what happened to Quetzalcoatl, and those of you who lost the Shards Yima gave you probably aren't feeling very merciful right now either...

But if we don't come to some kinda agreement now, that's going to become normal. Things are gonna get really bad. I don't want that. So... can we talk about it, at least?

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I'm always ready to add to my collection. Come by whenever your ready. The closed sign will be out, but the door is unlocked.

[Good. She's glad he caught on.]

[ For Link's part, he's not quite sure whether he's understanding what she's getting on just yet, but... Delivering live reagents to her is as good a pretense as any, if he needs a pretense. So this works. ]

Give me a little time to get it all together. I'll be there in the next hour.

[ And almost like clockwork, an hour later, there's a sharp knock at the door to Edelstein, followed by a hesitant turn of its doorknob. From the slightly ajar door, Link peeks inside. Despite what she told him, it still feels strange to just walk in when the sign says the store is closed... ]

Lock the door behind you, [calls Rin when the little bell attached to the door goes off when he steps in.]

I have some tea and sandwiches ready in the solarium. We'll speak there.

[She peeks her head around the corner of a shelving unite that obscures the rest of her. It's a little comedic looking, but she gestures for him to follow her before disappearing behind it again.]

[ Where some might feel put-off by Rin's blunt and brusque instructions, Link does as he's told without comment. There's a comfort to being spoken to in brief, straightforward, easy to understand language; he doesn't have to wonder whatever Rin might really be telling him or asking him to do. So with a wordless nod, he pushes the door open with his shoulder, sets down his gathering basket to lock the door behind himself.

Should I take my shoes off? [ He asks hesitantly, as this custom seems to have no consistency in Kenos, but when he remembers that this is a business, and there's no collection of shoes by the door anyway, he picks his basket back up and walks carefully towards the corner Rin had popped out from. ]

...I've brought a lot with me today. I realized we didn't get to talk about which ones you were actually interested in, so I've got a little bit of everything.

[Since she can hear the sound of his shoes as he continues, Rin doesn't answer his question. In fact she won't really respond to him until they get out into the solarium itself. The once glass addition to her shop has been boarded up thanks to the way the moonlight has, of late, had a habit of scarring things white. Instead the only light seems to be magic baubles simulating sunlight for some of the plants that need it — like produce from Alenroux or plants from Springstar. She'll instruct Link to set his basket down near the table and chairs which she has a warm teapot and a tray of food.

Aroma-wise the tea smells like Earl Grey. The sandwiches look soft with the crusts cut off and the egg salad inside them has a vivid color. Rin sits, and waits for Link to join her.]

We can sort through the items before you leave. Until then... what do you know about Oblivion?

[ The tea fills the air with a crisp, pleasant scent, and the carefully-assembled sandwiches look much better than the wild game and half-frozen roots he's been living off of for the past several months. As he sets down his basket and takes a seat at the table, he tries not to look too eager to partake. The surroundings provide a good distraction, at least; even after she asks her question, his gaze lingers on the beautiful enchanted orbs hanging from the ceiling. ]

Oblivion? That's what they call the force that destroyed everybody's worlds, right? [ Link pauses, considering. ] I can't say I know anything about it, to be honest. I remember asking around when I first arrived in Kenos, but... well, I'm sure you already know how pointless it is to try to find out more from the locals. And nobody in Springstar is any more likely to tell you than here in Highstorm.

[ Finally, he looks back down across the table to Rin. Does she know something? ]

The most I've heard about it is from Yima herself, and... D. I spoke with him when he came to visit Highstorm to check on Gen and Atsumu.

[The man had included Rin in that group but she's eager to gloss over and not think about that. Instead she pours tea for the two of them, and delicately places a porcelain teacup and saucer before link. A small pitcher of cream and a matching bowl of sugar cubes are also available.]

There is reason to believe that Oblivion is coming for this place next, and that they've already started interfering with Oracles. Or at least that's what I suspect after encountering the monster under Yima's mansion, hearing about the shared dream shard-bearers who died during the Harbinger Oracle had, and what D had told me.

[ She said a whole lot of things all at once there. Link accepts the tea with a nod of his head and reaches slowly for the tiny pair of tongs to take a sugar cube, the gears in his head turning and turning to try to decide where to start. ]

The light scars in Highstorm and the darkness in Springstar. Could that be Oblivion, too? And the missing people, the missing places...

[ It's an issue completely separate from all that she brought up just now, but that's directly where his mind jumps as soon as she raises the possibility that Kenos is not safe from the same force that took their worlds.

He drops two sugar cubes into his cup and pours a dash of cream, frowning slightly the whole time. ]

Wait. Tell me from the beginning. There's a monster under the Manor?

[Tohsaka brings her own teacup to her lips. The warm cup soothing out some of the tension in her. After a small sip she adds a cube of sugar and a splash of cream.]

Was under the Manor. Yima asked me and two other Zenites to explore the labyrinthine underbelly of it, and we came across a huge cat made of roots. It latched on to one of the team members, and controlled them against us. In the end we were able to defeat it, but the thing had a shard. When we returned that shard to Yima, she mentioned that it reminded her of a friend she once knew that was taken by Oblivion.

[ Labyrinth...? The first place his mind jumps to when he hears that detail is the maze they were trapped in during the Harbinger Oracle. But that was below Springstar, not Highstorm, wasn't it...?

In either case, this information isn't that shocking. He's heard about a similar case in the past — Manon. He'd been transformed into a monster somehow, hadn't he? Not to mention what Discord can do to Shard-Bearers themselves. Link is intimately familiar with that. ]

And the dream people had while regenerating during the Harbinger Oracle. They saw... Oblivion, didn't they? They saw it stalking them? [ Link squints, like he's trying to remember the details. ] The Tree gives us strange visions pretty frequently, but that doesn't mean we know what it's trying to tell us.

[ Which is a gentle way for him to ask if Rin has a reason to say that it's really proof of Oblivion threatening Kenos. ]

True, which is why I didn't much think about it until a Meridian named D had told me that he had spoken to oblivion. He said that after Cyrus was assassinated he had tried to revive him, there was no soul to recall. Nothing but Oblivion smiling back and thanking shard-bearers for the decisions we have made that have... "allowed them in".

[Rin sets her teacup down on its saucer with a soft 'clink'.]

[ Link stares at Rin as she explains, but he's silent once she's done. That part is... new information. New to him, at least.

With a frown that only barely conveys the uneasiness that's starting to settle into his mind, he looks down to stir his tea with a tiny spoon. ]

Decisions... we have made...?

[ That can't be right. Can't be trusted. Can it? Strangely, the main reason he wants to deny it is because he doesn't really feel like they've made all that many decisions to begin with. ]

And it allowed... "Allowed it in"? I don't understand. What does that even mean?

That's something I would like to know too. I didn't press D for that information, but he gave the impression that it wasn't as much of a discussion as it was a one-sided contact upon trying to revive Cyrus.

[She trusts D not to hold back any information when it comes to a mutual enemy. Gray and D may be her little exceptions, her biased and favored Advocates, but that's because she knows they're much too soft to let another suffer when there's no immediate damage relaying the information could bring.]

In any case, with a threat like this it's possible we have bigger problems than the ones people were complaining about.

[Why didn't she tell everyone about it? Well, she feels people like Silco and whoever Silco's little defender was might try to trivialize the third party threat.]

[ A heavy silence descends into the room as Link looks down into his teacup. On the surface of the steaming brown liquid, he can see his reflection staring back at him, his eyes blackened by Discord. ]

Oblivion's trying to get to us, then.

[ Speaking softly, his tone numb and neutral. ]

I don't know why, but... I've been thinking all this time that we were safe from it here in Kenos, somehow. That it couldn't get to us here.

[ He looks up to Rin again, his expression stern and unemotional. ]

People need to know. We need to tell everyone.

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locked to zenith

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LET'S JUST DO IT HERE? or idk inbox just let me know

SINCE IT'S YOUR POST here is fine

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