Zora's Domain, Hyrule. Thurdsay [12/27 FT].

[in_sidon_we_trust]

After the long, somewhat dangerous, undeniably scenic journey back from Rito Village to Zora's Domain, it was the final day for the Hyrule trip, and Sidon had arranged for his friends to arrive to a wonderful party held in their honor. He and the other Zora had hung up bright and colorful banners and he'd convinced someone from the Wetland Stable to come up to the Domain to prepare a feast: Fish Pie and Seafood Paella, but also non-fish meat dishes, like Poultry Pilaf and Spicy Pepper Steak. And, of course, Creamy Heart Soup to celebrate the closeness of their friendship! There was Fruitcake and Nutcake, fresh bread and Honeyed Fruits. Some of the Zora had tried their hand at a little cooking themselves, but the results were a little dubious. Either way, the royal guests would certainly be eating well tonight!

And then relaxing in the peaceful Domain over stories of their adventure out into Hyrule, or perhaps some excitement to return to Fandom, or whatever else, as their final evening settled into a crisp, clear night,

[[ and the final Hyrule post! No OCD on this one, and a big gigantic thank you for everyone making the slog through the holiday fog to make for another great adventure in Hyrule!]]

Comments

[chirpchirpchirp]

Vette fully intended to try a little bit of everything today; yes, even the dubious food provided by the Zora. She was a Twi'lek of wide and varied tastes, after all (as were most Twi'lek, granted), and she certainly didn't want to disappoint their hosts by having their efforts go unrecognized.

... Besides, she was an adventurous sort, and what was more adventurous at a feast than eating... well... she wasn't actually sure what it was. No matter how hard she squinted at it, she couldn't quite discern what had gone into some of those particular dishes. She thought one of them might have winked at her. But she'd eaten worse before.

"Bring it."

[always_someone]

Norman was intrigued by that soup - it was called 'heart soup,' but it was clearly vegetarian. And... he wans't a vegetarian, but he'd had a few meals give him accusing looks from off to the side in the past, so sometimes he opted to go that route anyway.

He'd managed to avoid any really uncomfortable ghost encounters this trip. He was perfectly happy to keep it that way this time around.

[intotheout]

Tip, on the other hand, was examining one of the more dubious dishes. You didn't spend as much time as she did being friends with a Boov without developing a rather high tolerance for dubious meals, but this was still impressive even by those standards.

Maybe it was an sapient-amphibian thing?

"What do you suppose gives it that color?" she wondered, leaning in to Norman so as not to potentially offend the creator of the dish. "I don't think I've ever seen it on a food before."

[always_someone]

"It's a very... specific kind of shade, isn't it?" Norman eyed the dish speculatively. "I... I guess that would be..."

He paused, at a loss.

"I mean..."

He squinted.

"I mean, not being familiar with the local ingredients, I suppose we'd be at a disadvantage when it comes to guessing."

That was a very diplomatic reply, right there.

[intotheout]

Impressively so!

"That must be it," Tip decided. "It's amazing how culture and place of origin can, um. Change things."

She was doing pretty well there for a while, but she rather lost it at the end, didn't she.

[always_someone]

That was fine! Norman was going to try to cover for the both of them.

"Change things impressively," he enthused. "The creativity it would take to make these really unique," oh god, "dishes when you're used to a very focused diet otherwise is impressive. Is that a carrot?"

He really, really hoped that was a carrot.

[intotheout]

"Is it? I thought it might be a beet."

At least it was probably a root vegetable?

Or just a root.

[always_someone]

Norman wasn't entirely sure it wasn't just a tree branch, actually.

"Maybe it's a beet." He glanced at his soup. "This has beets in it. It's pretty good, if you want to try some..."

Or get her own bowl, Norman? This was a feast, after all.

[intotheout]

Tip was planning to try some of just about everything, actually. But Norman offering her some from his bowl made her blush and smile.

"Yeah, that'd be cool, thanks."

[always_someone]

And there was Norman, biting the inside of his cheek a little and smiling right on back, and if the tips of his ears were just the slightest bit more pink than usual... maybe that was the lighting? Hard to say, right?

He was still sliding his bowl her way for her to sample from, anyhow, ducking his head a bit.

"Any time."

[intotheout]

Tip took a spoonful and blew on it self-consciously. "So, uh. You getting a new sib next week?"

[justice_undone]

She wasn't going to starve, Breq noted.

She tasted a bit of everything, wondering of she could get used to a world like this, where things were so pleasant. Probably not. Still, she enjoyed visiting, and made sure to smile at the locals around her.

[in_sidon_we_trust]

Though he felt his guests had (for the most part) been enjoying themselves, Sidon felt that his duties were a little more demanding on him while he was here than he'd originally suspected, which meant he hadn't nearly had enough time to really connect with his friends. He supposed, though, that the feast would be a good opportunity to do that, for what little time he planned on spending there, as other duties called.

Those duties were far more enjoyable than the princely ones, though.

And he was particularly curious if his assumptions about a visit to the Rito were correct.

"Breq!" he greeted her brightly when he found the time to escape Muzu trying to rope him in to some complaint about his guests. "Can you believe it? It's already our last day!"

[justice_undone]

"Time passes quickly in your homeworld," she said. "Thank you for inviting us again. I think I spent half a day listening to those children sing."

[in_sidon_we_trust]

"I had a feeling you would enjoy that!" said Sidon, with a triumphant pump of his fist that his intuition had been correct. "It's incredible, isn't it? They pass those songs down for generations; it was my first time hearing them myself, except when we have a Rito visitor here in Zora's Domain, which isn't often. So it was a rather exciting experience for myself, as well."

[justice_undone]

"Really incredible," Breq said. "They do enjoy singing."

They probably didn't often get an audience who stayed that long and showed no emotional response.

[hashtag_chocobro]

Sure, Prompto (still rocking his sweet new Rito duds and hair) could reason with himself that they'd all be working very hard and traveling a lot and there were seriously so many stairs in places were people lived in Hyrule, so eating a ton of the food being offered was totally legit...especially those cakes, oh god those cakes looked amazing!...but he was going to be good and not totally gorge himself.

...mostly.

His camera, however, was going to eat up every single one of these amazing looking dishes, especially the ones that he tried that were his favorites, so that he could see if he could pester Ignis into figuring out how to recreate them back home. It wasn't just for his selfish stomach, either! He was thinking of Iggy! Iggy would love a challenge like this! Everybody won!

Besides, focusing on food photos, like the shopping and the fighting, helped keep his mind off of some of the more awkward parts of this whole trip.

[bookbeltof_love]

Yeaaaah, so how would keeping his mind off some of the more awkward parts of the trip go when, er, one of them just sat down next to him.

"Your hair is amazing," she offered, since that... that was not a thing that was awkward.

Oh god, maybe she'd just die. Or maybe she'd go hide behind Vette.

[hashtag_chocobro]

It would be difficult with one of them just sitting down next to him, but that didn't mean Prompto wouldn't still make a very valiant effort to still try not to think about it.

"Thanks," he smiled faintly, ducking his head forward and tapping one of the leather-wrapped pieces of hair framing his face so that it swung a little, which helped make the smile a little more genuine. "Y'know, for not having any hair, those Rito really know how to work with it."

Then he bit his lip for a moment, debating, again, something he'd been debating on the whole journey back, but he figured, now that she was there, he might as well, shifting a little to dig into his pocket (another nice thing about this Rito gear was the space for pockets, which his usual practically-painted-on pants definitely did not leave a lot of room for), and pulled something out, handing it over. "I got this for you," he said; it was a little statue of sorts, simple but a little crude in design, weighty with stone but small enough to fit easily into someone's hand. "We promised you loot, right? It's not much, but, honestly, you weren't missing much in there. It was mostly all old and rotten, musty old books that looked ready to fall apart, some rupees, and a ton of weapons, but most of them were too big and unwieldy to really sneak out. But I found this secret study behind one of the bookcases in the library, there wasn't a whole lot there, but I found this. I think it's a paperweight or something."

And it was kind of dumb, he knew that, but honestly, he wanted to find something cool for her, but was left without many options. But before she could say anything about how dumb it was or before he had to deal with the expression of disappointment he was pretty sure he'd see on her face, he charged in with, "Also, do things bought later with loot still count as loot?"

[bookbeltof_love]

"I… what???? Maybe?????" she answered, a bit baffled, as she took the little paperweight from him. Oh."

It was cute. It was a solid, comforting weight, and it was so kind, when she'd been so beastly about everything.

Nina's eyes filled with tears.

Really, she didn't deserve either Vette or Prompto.

"I love it!!!!!!!!!!" It looked like an angel, but she was pretty sure it was supposed to be of Hylia, the goddess here.

[hashtag_chocobro]

"Yeah?" asked Prompto, genuinely surprised, among all the other confusing things he was feeling right then, because it didn't really look like she loved it. He didn't know exactly what that look even was, and he wondered if she was still mad at him and pretending she wasn't, like he sort of suspected was the deal in the castle, and then that brought out the little burst of irritation in his gut over the fact that she was all high and mighty about him not trusting her when she was the one pretending and lying or whatever else she was doing. Then that burst of irritation was pulled down by regret and guilt, because maybe she wasn't, maybe she meant it, and she'd meant what she said in the castle, and it turned out maybe he didn't really trust her after all, and he didn't know what to think, he couldn't understand any of this stuff, and he almost felt it was useless to even try.

So he just shrugged awkwardly and looked up toward the sky a little as if just admiring all those graceful Zora arches overhead. "I got you something with some of the rupees I found, too, but that's still with my other stuff, at the inn."

[bookbeltof_love]

She traced the wings with her fingertips, blinking back tears, since she was being silly and over-emotional and already he was being awkward about things, which didn't make her want to make things even more awkward but she'd told Vette she'd talk to him.

Really talk to him.

"You didn't have to," she said quietly, "but thank you, I really, really appreciate it."

Nina glanced at him, taking a moment to admire his profile. He was a silly, ridiculous boy and she adored him, but she hadn't been treating him very well.

"Do you, like, have time to talk?????" she asked. "Um, not just… dinner talk, but… more????"

[hashtag_chocobro]

And Prompto sucked in a breath that he thought was much smaller than it actually was, lower lip tucking underneath his teeth a little bit as his brain tried to make one quick leap toward something he could be busy doing. But it was a party, the whole point of it was just to relax and have fun and not have anything else to do.

"Yeah," he said, looking down now a little at his feet, fidgeting them slightly in the water. "Sure. Here? Or...?"

Not a whole lot of privacy in a place like this, but with everyone gathered around for the feast, it wouldn't be too difficult to find somewhere a little quieter. If she wanted. He kind of preferred the safety net of being surrounded by other people, but he also had no idea what he was about to be in for, and avoiding some drawn out scene in front of all their friends didn't sound too bad, either.

[bookbeltof_love]

She… she was really hoping that this wouldn't be a scene, really, since that was… that would mean something had gone terribly wrong. But then, she hadn't been great at things going right lately either so who knew.

Nina looked around at their friends and the Zora and internally cringed at the thought of all of it being said where anyone could hear.

"Maybe somewhere else????" she suggested, because after what Vette had told her about some of the Zora girls, Nina didn't want that gossip going around. "Just for, like, privacy… if that's okay????"

[hashtag_chocobro]

Oh, boy. Privacy talk. This could not be anything good, could it? But he nodded, telling himself it was best to just get it over and done with, and helped his brain from panicking or fretting by focusing on viable places to slip away to. "Back at the inn?" he offered. "Or it's pretty quiet down by where we arrived from the portal. Or they've got those little gazebo things on the walkways?"

Whichever maybe might be easiest to get to without people noticing and quirking eyebrows.