fleets: And the updates continue. Waiting for that burnout, ha! (I'm just too hyped for this story to stop). I guess this is like my holiday present to my (amazing!!!) readers :D
Chapter 4: Asphodel
The sound of blaring horns and the sputter of cars signaled morning in Hyrule City. Zelda woke up, and then stared at the white plaster ceiling for another twenty minutes as she lay sprawled on her bed. She could get up, she supposed. She considered the option of getting up, but the option of staying in bed seemed pretty good too.
She glanced over at the dresser drawer where she'd thrown her SS last night. It was quiet. Maybe Vaati had finally calmed down…
Groaning, she rubbed her eyes, and made some effort to roll out of bed. Instead, she rolled sideways, and remained under her covers some more. Last night was a vague memory, and she still felt awful and tired; yelling and being yelled at, even if it was by some sentient navigation program, was still tiring. She'd been too frustrated to think about what had set Vaati off (yet again) last night, but now that it was morning and she was rested, her mind kept wandering back to the words he'd thrown at her.
Vaati didn't make much sense, but there was a theme to the things he was telling her. He kept telling her that he was trapped, and implied that he was someone from the past. Of course, she didn't think he meant any of this literally (she couldn't fathom how any of what he was saying would make sense that way). He was a Navi. A program. A very sophisticated one, clearly, and someone had sent her a malicious message to have it downloaded into her SS. What she didn't understand was what his purpose was. It would have taken a significant amount of time and resources to create such an advanced AI like Vaati; this couldn't have been just a simple prank.
In fact, Vaati was unlike any AI Zelda had ever heard of. Vaati seemed to have emotions, and reacted in a way that was like a believable human. According to the public, engineers were still trying to develop an AI that could hold a natural conversation; Vaati was well beyond what people were still trying to achieve out of AIs.
Emotions, huh?
She kept telling herself that he was just a program. She kept trying to dismiss him of having any real feelings because he was a Navi, but seeing how he reacted yesterday… Did she actually think that? Did she actually think that he hadn't felt anger, hadn't showed frustration last night? Hadn't she seen distress embedded in his fury when he was shouting at her about the punishment he'd suffered?
He might still be a program, but feelings were valid no matter who they belonged to, weren't they?
And if that was true, didn't that make him… human?
She slid her feet off the edge of her bed, and then sat there for another five minutes before she finally forced herself out. She walked over to the window, throwing the shades aside to let the light into her room. The skyscrapers reflected a golden brown from the morning sun, and the streets were still a little empty from people sleeping in for the weekend.
Maybe I hadn't been fair to him, even if I was frustrated last night, Zelda thought.
She'd taken a person and shoved them away in a dresser when they had no power to fight back. He'd specifically told her how his anger stemmed from his imprisonment, and then she'd… locked him away.
He was wrong for yelling at her, and she was still upset about that. But someone had to concede. Someone had to listen.
She slipped out of pajamas and threw on some loose yoga pants and a baggy shirt. She stopped just outside her bedroom door, glancing over her shoulder to the dresser where Vaati was still trapped.
Trapped.
Her brows pushed together in the middle when guilt gripped her chest. Then, she turned away, and quickly walked out, shutting the door behind her. She would deal with him, she told herself. Just not first thing in the morning. After breakfast, maybe.
She walked down the hallway which opened up to the high-ceilinged living room of her high-end apartment. From the second floor loft, she peered down over the rails to see if Nohansen was already awake. He was. She could see him, a big burly man who people often joked looked like the fictional Saint Nicholas, in the floor below. He looked out of his element in the kitchen where he was cooking himself pancakes. The post-it notes that had been stuck to various objects around the room were all gone.
Zelda sighed. It wasn't that she didn't like her father, but she just… didn't know how to act in front of him. She inhaled, and then made her way down the stairs to grab food for herself.
"Morning," he said as she joined him in the kitchen.
"Hi," she replied.
She poured herself cereal, and then quickly scuttled out of the way to the dining table. It was already awkward, and she didn't even know why. That's how it always was, to be honest. There was something like… a permanent awkwardness between them. He didn't know how to be a father. She didn't know how to be a daughter.
"Oh, I checked all the devices my SS shot yesterday," Nohansen said. He flipped a pancake, or at least, tried to. It flopped over the side of the pan and started to slide off onto the kitchen counter. He hurriedly picked it up like nothing had happened. "They're all working again, it looks like, but we're going to have to do things manually for a while until my new SS arrives on Monday."
Zelda's shoulders relaxed a little, relieved that there was something that the two could actually talk about, for once. "What happened to it?" she asked. "You didn't happen to get a weird message yesterday, did you?"
"Not sure, and no. Why?"
"Well," Because something happened to my SS too, but I ended up with a sentient, angry Navi afterwards.
It felt too bothersome to explain her Vaati situation. "I heard a rumor about a strange virus being sent to some users. Apparently you get a message without a sender address, and then the virus installs itself in your device."
"Ah," Nohansen said. "No, didn't get anything like that."
"Sheikah Systems let you trade in your SS for a new one?"
"Covered in warranty. Completely broken, and wouldn't turn back on."
"Oh."
And that was it. That was the end of the conversation. Zelda ate her cereal, and her father sat down to eat his pancakes. The awkwardness began to permeate the air around the dining table, though Nohansen seemed to be oblivious to it. After a while, he stood up once to get the remote for the TV, and turned on the news channel.
They were like two strangers who only spoke to each other because they happened to live in the same house. Neither of them knew how to start building something that would allow them to connect in a meaningful way. And so, conversation often fell flat. They barely saw each other except on weekends, and even when they did, Nohansen lived his own life, and Zelda lived hers.
It wasn't that her father disliked her, either. She knew that. However, Zelda always had a feeling that she was never the daughter that he'd wanted. That he'd wanted a princess, like her late mother, but when she hadn't been what he'd expected, he'd settled. It was entirely possible that she was simply being too self-conscious about the matter, especially since the feeling worsened when her mother suddenly passed away ten years ago in an accident. She felt pressure to be like her, even when that wasn't who she was, because she saw her father hurting.
Zelda stood up from the table to wash the dishes. She spoke to her father once, to offer to take his plate as well, and she rinsed off the plates while he continued to watch TV. Then, she made her way back upstairs to her room. She shut the door behind her, and then leaned against it as she stared at the dresser again. A small part of her had hoped that Nohansen had also encountered the same trouble she had, so that they might actually have something to talk about. Something to relate. However, it seemed that only she'd been stuck with a sentient Navi, and Nohansen had been left with a broken SS instead. He hadn't even received any strange messages with no sender address.
And speaking of the sentient Navi…
I should… let Vaati out of the dresser, maybe.
She dreaded having to deal with him again, but she knew it was wrong to keep him in the dresser. She walked over to the dresser, and then placed a hand on the drawer handle. She took a deep breath, preparing herself, and then pulled it out cautiously. Zelda was pleasantly surprised when the Navi didn't immediately start yelling at her like she'd expected.
However, her face fell when she realized why he was being quiet. As she pulled out her SS from between the clothes she'd shoved it under, she saw that the device had died overnight. In her frustration last night, she'd completely forgotten to charge its batteries. I suppose he's going to be angry that the battery died, she thought with a sigh. She looked at the SS for a few seconds, the blue-green case in her hand, and she wondered if she really wanted to revive the angry Navi.
Eventually, she plucked up the courage to charge her device. It was better to deal with this sooner rather than later, and to get it over with. After all, she needed her SS to do, well, anything. She pushed the SS into its charge port on the wall.
Please don't rant, she prayed when the light blinked back on the SS. Of course he's going to rant…
Zelda watched the startup screen glow on the display. "I hope we don't have to yell at each other today," she said stiffly when the home screen popped up. Arms crossed over her chest, she waited for Vaati to inevitably start shouting at her. When no such rant came, however, Zelda took a closer look at the SS. There was something wrong. Something strange. She leaned forward, a concerned frown beginning to stretch across her lips.
The light on the SS was blinking, flashing rapidly in every possible color. It flared blue, then red, then yellow, then orange. Green and white. It flickered from one color to the next erratically, and the SS's display screen occasionally became scrambled and pixilated.
"Vaati…?" she asked quietly, her apprehension being replaced with worry. "Are you okay?"
It was almost like Vaati was having a panic attack.
The light continued its aberrant flashing, alternating colors. After some time, it started to pull itself towards a blue color, but with what seemed like tremendous effort. It took a full ten minutes for the light to finally stabilize to blue.
Concerned, Zelda slowly reached out a hand towards the device, but she was stopped by a sharp voice. Vaati's voice was low, just barely above a whisper, and it was driven with resentment but carried the weight of fatigue.
"You wouldn't understand…" he hissed.
Zelda pulled her hand back, and she sat down quietly on the edge of her bed near where the SS was charging. She waited for him patiently, not knowing what to say.
Vaati continued. There was anger in how he spoke, but he also sounded worn. Ancient. He sounded like a man who had been beaten to the point of wanting to admit defeat, to beg for release, but could not out of pride. "You wouldn't understand what it's like, to be the freest person in the world and then to lose it all in an instant."
Again, she had no idea what he was talking about. But she realized… she didn't need to know what his words meant, to know that he had suffered. Was still suffering. He spoke with the anger of a man who believed he'd been wronged.
This was not her place to interrupt him.
"You wouldn't understand what it's like to neither be granted life nor death, instead walking the line of half-existence. I was punished for taking my fate into my own hands - is this justice?" Vaati was muttering to himself now, almost like Zelda wasn't even there. He was quiet and thoughtful, like he'd exhausted the energy to raise his voice. "The wind was once mine, and now I have nothing..."
Zelda could hear the anguish percolating through the narrative, could feel the weight of something terrible crushing down on every word. This… this was not a Navi. No 'Navi' could convey such emotion in their voice.
But if that was true, what was he?
Who was he?
And if he isn't a Navi… if he really is a person, an individual trapped within a device, Zelda thought, Vaati's panic still fresh in her memory, then I have done something terrible…
"Leave me in peace," Vaati muttered, the light fading into a dim yellow, "I have nothing to say to you."
Zelda sat quietly on her bed, her hands on her lap, and she watched the SS plugged into the wall. Her blue eyes were pained, not understanding Vaati's depth of suffering, but understanding enough that she had been wrong about him. She had severely underestimated the nature of the Navi that had been forcefully downloaded into her SS.
Who are you, Vaati?
Her gaze lowered briefly. Then, a determined glint passed over her eyes, their softness disappearing. She wasn't going to sit and feel bad about what she'd done. To Subrosia with it if she let both of them spend the weekend brooding.
Without a word, she stood up, her expression fierce and resolute. She grabbed the SS from its charger and pulled it out of the wall. Its removal seemed to cause Vaati anxiety and he began to protest, but he quieted when she immediately plugged the device into the white headgear for Asphodel. Zelda had an idea. It was a crazy idea, and maybe even dangerous. She wasn't sure if it would even work, but she'd seen how Vaati had been able to access some of the different programs installed into the SS.
If her idea could somehow work, if there was even the smallest chance that her idea would work…
Vaati's light flared a bright red. "What did you do just now?" he asked sharply. Now that the SS was connected to Asphodel's network, a logon option appeared on the display. It was a picture of a white, lily-like flower with the game's name written hear the bottom of the icon.
"I know you want to be left alone right now, but I want to try something," Zelda said, brushing her long hair aside and pulling the headgear over her head. She laid back down on her bed, and made herself comfortable. "I'm not sure if this will work, but I want to show you something. I'm going to need you to try and access Asphodel's launch menu that should have come up just now. Can you do that?"
Vaati didn't respond. However, his lack of refusal suggested that he was at least considering her words. Zelda continued.
"I know you don't trust me, and I didn't treat you well. You don't want my help, and you're right, I can't understand the things you're telling me. But please," she pressed, "let me try."
Still no response. But again, no refusal. Perhaps her sincerity had reached him, even if only a little.
Zelda didn't wait for his response. This was a risk she was taking, since she had no idea how much control Vaati would have over the headgear. Frankly, it was a stupid thing for her to do, to give an angry Navi potential control over something that affected her own sensory input. But she wanted to try - no, she needed to know if her idea could possibly work.
Hilda always did say that she was a bit reckless.
She reached over her head and flipped the manual initiation switch on the headgear. She felt her muscles relax and her vision fade to black, almost like she was being pulled into an abyss.
"I'll be waiting for you in Asphodel."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Sheik Harkinian. In this world he was Sheik Harkinian, a rogue who was at a loss on finding some way to connect with a soul in a machine.
Sheik had no idea what was going to happen. However, he knew that Navis interfaced with the player whenever they entered the game world, and he also knew that Navis received sensory feedback from the player as well. This had been implemented to make sure that Navis could alert players if there was anything they should be concerned about regarding their physical status (for instance, erratic heartrate would prompt the Navi to automatically log players out if their condition was severe enough. Detecting prolonged lack of sleep would also cause Navis to force players out of the game).
Given that Navis interfaced with the player, there was a possibility that Vaati would be able to see and feel the world as Sheik did. Maybe. It was worth a shot.
The blond rogue waited, sitting cross-legged in the field of Asphodel where he'd last logged out. The field was a haunting grey, the same color as the overcast sky, but there was beauty in its melancholy. According to the developers, the field was inspired by the mythical Asphodel Meadow, a place where ordinary souls were said to wander after they died. While the source of its inspiration painted a dismal picture, the main quest of the game was to find a way to bring life to its ashen landscape.
To find hope with one's own hands.
Ten minutes passed, and Sheik neither saw nor heard any sign of the Navi. However, he was stubborn and determined, and he continued to sit in the field, waiting. His black cloak faded in with the ghostly flowers, and he was like a shadow that melted into the landscape.
He would wait. He'd told Vaati he would wait for him, and so that was what he was going to do.
Fifteen minutes.
A notification popped up in the corner of his vision. It was an alert that he had joined a party with another player. Sheik's eyes narrowed, confused by the message. What in Farore…
He accessed the party status. His breath caught in his throat when he saw the name.
And just as he saw the name, he saw a player walk into view. They were wearing impossibly high level gear; a gilded, dark purple, hooded sorcerer's robe with gold embroidery accented with red gems. They were equipped with a legendary small sword that hung from their hip, and Sheik could also see some high level tomes hidden beneath their robe as well. It was frankly intimidating.
Name: Vaati. Male Hylian.
Rank: Reincarnated Wrath
The rank title… it wasn't even a title that existed in the game…
The player stopped several paces away from him. Their hands reached up to their face, and they pulled their hood down away from their face. Light lavender hair flowed over their shoulders, and the wind played with the strands as it passed between them. A crescent black mark was painted on their pale face, just below an intense, ruby gaze.
Sheik stood up to meet them. He squared his shoulders, meeting them face to face for the first time.
"Hello, Vaati," he said, a small smile on his face, "it's good to finally meet you."
fleets: Based on the feedback from the last chapter (thank you so much!) it seems everyone was hit with the angst. So uh. Here's some… not… angst? You know I'm not going to be pulling any punches next chapter if I write something 'happier' though, yeah? You know the drill. :D
AquilaMage: If he visits a museum he will not stop correcting everything, probably. Ahh thank you! Their relationship's going to be a lot of trial and error :) I'm all for the slow burn.
Serpent Tailed Angel: I decided to keep him awake specifically so I can write a scene with the sword parallel, and his subsequent meltdown.
He has almost full control! He just hasn't figured it all out yet. He's kind of a grandpa at this whole thing. He can stop a manual shut off, just like mute doesn't work on him. I'm assuming Zelda has an unlimited data plan - her family's pretty darn well-off, and having an unlimited plan is nothing (otherwise yikes about data usage haha)
Apocalypse-Mage: First off, I just have to say that just loved reading your live-reaction kind of review ahhhh (hearts!) hahaha I laughed at the flip bird comment :')
They seem to (maybe?) have made a step forward! They still have a lot of things to sort through for sure for sure…
As for Ganondorf, what's he up to, hmm? ;)
Patchworkcrows: When I wake up on Christmas and see a review from The Midna Patchwork. Caw caw.
ohhhhh shoot thank you so much! This story is going to be yet another feels train, if the last few chapters have been anything to go by. Hold on to your butts ;u;
I really have to thank the amazing fandom for it! I didn't give a second thought back in the day but boyo it's really something to think about. (honk honk from the nostalgia bus)
Lunamew: That is exactly what happened with Nohansen. hahaha ahhh I love that description though about the infomercial I'm cry. (if Nohansen had been Guzma…)
Icfehr: Happy Holidays to you too! As for your question, you can thank Caph for that :) Gods have their own kind of rules on reality, and manipulating consciousness, ha (so uh. you might imagine they're going to be Real Big Problems later on). This story might get a little dark yeah haha. Might need to bring in the Neko Atsume intermissions sometime soon :'')
