in_sidon_we_trust | Hyrule. Thurdsay, [05/03 FT].

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Hyrule. Thurdsay, [05/03 FT].

After it was generally ~~and mostly handwavily~~ decided that the group would use their extra day in Hyrule to visit the far reaches of the land in the Gerudo Desert, Sidon wished them well with his regrets that he would not be able to join them. Sure, winter on Fandom Island had definitely tested his ability to withstand different weather, but he knew the heat of the desert would still be far too much for him. Besides, he would never be able to pass as a vai in order to enter the city, so he would just wait for them back at Zora's Domain.

"I would say to call if anything goes amiss," he said before they left, "but after yesterday, I am not too sure that would be a possible solution."

But Ramella, the Gerudo guide, assured the prince that she would keep them from harm, and they gathered their horses, and set off to the southwest for the next and final leg of their adventure.

[[ day three, almost done! OCD ~~incoming has arrived!!]]~~

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Norman was loving everything about this, honestly. He'd never seen anything like any of it back in Blithe Hollow, ruins and the natural wonders alike.

And none of those things could compare in the least to the moment he looked up to see something spectral and sinuous, lazily winding its way up toward the heavens. He gasped, stopping in his tracks and staring, though to anybody else it would look as though he was just staring up at an empty sky.

It was breathtaking, green lights creeping along the creature's body, legs grasping at air and propelling itself forward as though it was running on nothing at all.

"Norman?" Tip asked, stopping and turning to look back at him. "You okay?"

It actually took some doing for Norman to pull his gaze away from the creature in the sky, so huge and vivid that it took him a few moments to realize that he was the only one who could see it.

"I'm..." He looked back toward Tip, and then back up at the dragon again. "Yeah, I'm fine. I just..."

He waved up at the sky.

"I wish you could see it," he said, vaguely. "It's beautiful."

Tip lookd up at the clear, empty blue sky, picturing some kind of giant ghost bird or something. "I wish I could, too. Can you describe it?"

"It's huge," he said, softly, "eighty, maybe ninety feet long, and in shades of green. It glows. There are spines all the way down the length of its back, and it's got a big glowing horn on its head and feathers around its neck, and it just... twists and climbs and..."

He blew out a breath, not wanting to look away.

"It's a dragon, I think. Like one of those Chinese dragons."

Now Tip really wished she could see it. "I wonder if it died of the same thing that left all these ruins."

"I don't know," Norman replied, looking back at Tip. "I can't tell by looking at it. Usually there's something."

If they died of some sort of physical trauma, anyway.

"Have you ever seen things that aren't ghosts? Like . . . spirits that were never really what we would consider alive in the first place, maybe?"

Norman's shoulders hiked up a little.

"This could be something like that," he admitted. "We don't exactly get dragons in Blithe Hollow, so I'm not sure. I mean... I didn't really have anybody to teach me what I'm doing."

His crazy great uncle didn't count. Ever. By any stretch of the imagination.

"Maybe Sidon will have heard something about it," Tip said. "Either way, I'm pretty jealous."

She could tell just by the look on his face that what he was seeing was spectacular.

"I wish I could share it with you," Norman sighed. "Maybe there's something at the Magic Box that would let me, but that's not here."

It was nice to be able to see this. As always, it sucked to be the only one.

"What are you looking at?" Uma asked, peering up into the empty sky.

Norman hesitated for a moment, loath to look away from the creature.

"How crazy would you think I am if I said there's a dragon up there?"

"Nobody else is seeing anything," Uma pointed out, still searching the clouds for a glimpse of whatever Norman saw. "But you're not much of a bullshitter."

"Why go out of my way to be a bullshitter when I've been accused of being one for telling the truth all my life?"

Little bit of a bitter moment, there. It didn't last long, at least. There was a conversation to get back to and a giant green dragon to distract him from most of that.

"I can see... things. Things that most people can't see." He looked back up at the sky. At the dragon. "I used to think it was just ghosts. And then I saw something that happened three centuries ago and started yelling about talking trees in front of the entire town."

He was possibly not doing much here to make a case Re: being sane.

"Don't get why seeing ghosts is supposed to be weird," Uma said, finally looking away from the sky since whatever had Norman so enthralled wasn't showing itself to her. "I mean, you probably shouldn't make pacts with dark spirits for power or whatever, but otherwise..."

She shrugged. "This all related to the getting-burned-at-the-stake thing?"

"Yeah," Norman agreed, glancing back at her, not quite able to keep the relief out of his voice. "Apparently being able to see ghosts means I can talk to zombies, too, and when a few came stumbling through town the locals all figured it was my fault."

He couldn't even fault them for that one. If you squinted sideways at the whole situation, it sort of was.

"I haven't really met many 'dark spirits' or anything before. Most of them are just worried about stuff like who's going to feed their cat or whether they left the oven on before they died."

Uma shrugged. "Probably for the best. I'd say talk to Doc Facilier about 'em, but you really shouldn't." Not that she'd be bringing anyone home to visit the Sidon was anyway ~~at least until new canon comes out~~. "He's a bokor, or was before he was on the island."

"That's... Vodou, right? I've read a bit about it, but most of what I know comes from horror movies and comic books, and... nobody should base what they know about a religion around what they've seen in horror movies and comic books."

He smiled sheepishly.

"I'm not really looking for ways to raise the dead or capture spirits, anyway. I've seen enough of both already."

Uma shrugged. There were so many things from his world that were like each other in broad strokes but then different in the details. "I dunno. We didn't call it anything, it's just what Doc did before they dragged him to the other side when he couldn't fulfill his end of a deal."

She looked at him, eyes uncharacteristically solemn. "So--good call. Making pacts can be dangerous. And you don't have the streak of bastard to get out of them."

Norman actually grimaced at that. The idea of being dragged to the other side pulled him right back to that moment in the woods, the ground falling away beneath him, a screaming poltergeist trying to throw him to his own death...

"I prefer to stay out of some kinds of trouble unless there's a good reason for it," he replied. "Making pacts for power doesn't seem like a good reason, anyway."

"You'd be surprised," Uma snorted. "It's a fairly common downfall where I'm from."

She glanced up at the sky again and when she spoke, she sounded almost...young?Wondering, maybe? Certainly less jaded. "What's it look like?"

Norman watched her for a moment, smiling faintly at the wonder in her voice, and then looked up at the dragon, really let himself get lost in the sight of it.

"It's like a... like a giant snake," he said, thoughtfully. "Only, take everything that makes a snake beautiful and multiply that. It's long and it's thin and it's twisting up toward the heavens. But it's not just a snake. It's got legs down the length of its body, like... kind of like bird legs, pulling it forward. And there are feathers behind its head, they're green, and the edges of them glow. The whole thing glows, in waves that shift along the whole length of its body like even the light has a life of its own."

There hadn't been a lot of room for wonder in her life before all this, but the trip was certainly bringing it out in spades.

"Sounds pretty," she murmured. "Wish I could see it."

"I wish everyone could see it," Norman replied, his voice soft and a bit awed. "It's amazing."

At least nobody was assuming he was just doing this for attention. That was a nice change of pace.

Hyrule. Thurdsay, [05/03 FT].

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