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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"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.

Yeah. Because everything about Norman screamed I want attention from my peers!

People were idiots.

"You draw at all?" she asked. "That'd be one way of doin' it. Drawing all the things you see to share with folks."

"I'm not really an artist, no," Norman admitted, shrugging his shoulders. "I used to put together model sets sometimes? Mostly weird stuff. But they don't exactly make many zombie model kits, so..."

Hey, he knew what he liked. And what he liked was also apparently that thing that set him apart from everybody and made him a freak.

"I could try to draw, but there's no way I'd be able to do something like that any justice any time soon."

"Fair," Uma said, wondering if she'd be able to, based on just his description, Of course, her medium was more spray paint on walls than pen and paper. "What's a model kit?"

Norman blinked away from the dragon again. Right.

"It's a bunch of little pieces that you put together, and when you're done, you've made a sort of... sculpture, I guess. You can kind of mix and match parts if you want to make something different from what came in the box, but I never really got into that part of it."

"Oh," Uma said. It was just one of those things that she had no frame of reference for. "Like...like a puzzle?"

They'd occasionally gotten those on the ships that brought supplies to the Isle, but none of them had ever had all the pieces. On the other hand, she and her friends had sometimes smashed pieces from other puzzles to make them fit, so maybe they were kind of similar after all!

"It actually is a little bit like a puzzle," Norman agreed after some thought. "You can get creative with it, but if you do it the way it was supposed to be, it just ends up being whatever the picture is on the box. I could get one and show it to you sometime, if you want?"

There was a giant dragon flying through the sky and Norman was talking about model kits.

There was only so much he could say about an invisible dragon to someone who couldn't see it--unless the dragon started doing something cool, in which case Uma would want to be informed immediately.

"Enh, if you were gonna get one for yourself already," she said, trying to balance her curiosity with not wanting to seem too eager. When you were eager for something, it gave people power over you. "No rush."

"No rush," Norman replied, smiling. "I was thinking of getting back into the hobby anyway. There's a lot of downtime between classes here, and I can only fill so much of that time up with zombie movies and a one-day-a-week part time job."

"Right?!" Uma asked, a little surprised to have that in common with him. "I'm not used to having so much time on my hands. Back home was school and my crew and my ship and the restaurant--"

She faltered for a second there.

"Here there's just--time. So much time."

"That's half the reason I got a job," Norman confessed. "It's something to fill some time. And not even nearly enough time. Just... some of it. One day of it. Out of seven. I'm kind of surprised there aren't any classes or anything. And... I mean... the island has an arcade, but there's not really much besides that for filling time, unless you're the sort of person who wants to spend all day sparring or shooting things."

There were so many places for sparring or shooting things.

"I swim a lot," Uma admitted. "Now that it's warmer."

She could have swam back when it was colder, too. There was something about being in the water that the temperature didn't bother her. But the walk back to the dorms with wet hair and damp clothing sure would.

"But other than that, yeah, I feel you."

"I guess it's summer soon," Norman said, looking thoughtful. "I could probably... try to start a club or something..."

He kind of tapered off a little at that.

"For... something."

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Hyrule. Thurdsay, [05/03 FT].

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