"You must stay for the New Year's ceremony," said the Deku King, voice as deep as the foundations of the Earth. "The Pearl must be present for the ceremony, but when the time has passed I will give it to you."

John bowed respectfully, slightly miffed at having to wait again. Carapacian New Year fell in the middle of December this year, but time was still running down; there was now less than three weeks until Jade would be thrown from the top of the Forsaken Fortress. "My companions and I will gladly stay for as long as we must," he said, lying.

The Deku King nodded, as if it were really a choice. "Do not look so glum, Wind Waker," he boomed, "you have free reign to visit anywhere in my city, and a three day festival begins at sundown. We are not so poor a tribe that one night and day here will do you ill." The wooden giant crooked a wooden finger, and lily pad floated across the water, carrying two thick-bodied Carapacians, each lugging jars of rupees. All three of the children's eyes widened. John supposed he had to kill time somehow.

John looked out the window of the shop somewhere on the fifth level of the Carapacian city, wishing that time would kill him instead. Roxy had decided the best possible way to spend their money had been to go clothes shopping. She wasn't entirely wrong; they'd all been wearing the same outfits for days, and John's gear was especially unsuited to all the terrains and environments he'd had to traverse. He'd even complained about his sandals back in the Forbidden Woods. He thought he'd been just thinking…loudly.

The view was lovely. Down below in the King's pond, massive lily pads were being decked out with colorful tents and pavilions, home to tonight's attractions. Smaller lily pads were being set with lanterns to light the festivities; big round things woven from spider silk and huge colorful Deku Leaves. Winged Carapacians were stringing yet more lanterns from the Deku King's branches and other high reaches, linking his majesty to the rest of his realm with chains of light. The sun was far from setting however, and there were many rupees in the jars still.

"Hey John," said Roxy, bringing him back to the present. "Does this match my new machete?" He turned away from the teardrop shaped doorway and looked at her. His jaw immediately dropped. Roxy was wearing a lovely purple dress, dark as wine and the night sky, glimmering vaguely pink and silver in the light. It was short and low cut, with slim black boots that went up past her knees and black gloves that reached her elbows. The neckline was low and a layer of material folded over her chest and shoulders, revealing a rich burgundy color.

John didn't notice any of that because she was holding her machete, and the way it gleamed in the daylight was stunning. "Roxy," he said, jaw trembling slightly. She smiled dangerously. "Can I see that machete real quick?"

She frowned. "My dress is not that bad," she said.

"No," said John, "the machete! It might be valuable!"

She raised an eyebrow, nearly invisible on her pale skin, and handed it over.

John whistled as he felt the weight. Rubbing the blade, he was able to scrape loose some of the accumulated oxygenation and grime, revealing a startling blue. The metal was patterned like Damascus, but unlike Damascus the pattern was circles and ovals of varying sizes, all slightly deeper in color than the surrounding metal. "Wow," said John, eyes dewy as if overcome with beauty, "this is almost completely pure Azurine."

"What's Azurine?" asked Roxy, still slightly upset that he had not complimented her.

"An incredibly rare metal," John said, turning the edge of the blade away from him and flexing it. "Lots of legendary weapons are made with it."

Roxy whooped, pumping her fist. "So this is a legendary weapon!?" she asked, eyeing the piece hungrily. "Did like, Will Smith kill the Clockwork Queen with it?"

John chuckled. "No, it's a piece of shit and the smith's sign is from last year." Roxy's face fell. "Whoever it was had no skill," John went on, ignoring her plight. "Look at this," he said, pointing at a thick scar-like welding mark. "He just hammered out some plates of the stuff and shittily spot-welded them into a sword shape in hopes that the metal itself would make the shoddy work usable."

He took a few practice swings and accidently hacked halfway through a mannequin craved from the living wood. The store owner glared at him with beady bug eyes. "We'll pay!" Roxy said, smiling nervously and holding up her hands defensively as John planted a foot in the side of the mannequin and yanked the machete out with all his might. There was a nasty splintering sound, and John was left holding half a machete.

The shopkeep growled. The mannequins outfit fell to the floor, and an instant later the mannequin itself collapsed.

John gingerly held the two pieces of the broken weapon as he descended to the city floor, walking along a gently spiraling path that snaked its way up the pale wooden walls. The sun was still visible up ahead, but would not be for much longer.

There was a pool at the foot of the path that just barely went up past his ankles; it was one of the few places where the sun hit directly. Some Carapacian kids, all shapes and sizes, all looking like masked, winged trees, were playing a game of catch in it, sending up sprays of water that glimmered silver in the sun, making the pool explode into shimmering ripples when they beat their leafy wings for balance. John watched for a moment, transfixed. Their hard, segmented forms had always seemed to him more like architecture than organism, and he'd never really imagined they could be graceful. They weren't quite that, even now, but there was a sort of heavy elegance to their movements, as if every movement of the game had been predetermined long ago, and they were merely following the steps to a dance that had been laid out for them.

He followed the arc of the thing they were throwing, a yellow blur. A grey hand with sharp red talons reached up and snatched it out of the air. Aradia whooped, fluttering around the pool with her butterfly wings. John bit his lip; he'd hoped to avoid her. She'd gotten out of the shopping trip by saying she wanted to check out some early Carapacian artworks in the lower levels; clearly she was done. He hadn't seen her because by sheer chance the tallest Carapacians had stood between her and him until now. He sidled around the edge of the game, trying not to look too much at anyone lest they felt his gaze. But still, he couldn't just not look at Aradia. She was definitely what he would call beautiful, with her pouty red lips and soft round face. Along with Roxy and Dave, she was one of the strongest people he knew, and that appealed to him greatly. Watching her for a second as she jumped and threw the object was poetry in motion. Time slowed down, as if to show off how her muscles bunched up and let loose like bowstrings, her glorious hair bouncing, letting out a trollish war cry as a smile split her face.

And yet, just as much as he liked looking at her (and there was no denying that any longer) he was just as transfixed by the object in her hands. Almost comically large, built for Carapacians whose sizes were as variable as any math problem, it was a kind of bent yellow stick, flat enough to scythe through the air and carve a curving path back to the thrower if it went uncaught and unmolested. She was too fast for the Carapacians, always catching it as it returned to her almost before they began reaching for it. That must be a boomerang; he'd heard of them but never seen them in action. It gave John an idea.

He asked around and made his way to the forge. It was deep below the city, a cavern in the lump of rock the tree above had taken root in long ago. Some kind of mechanical ventilation system thrummed as he descended the stairs. He whistled when he saw the workshop.

There were a dozen individual forges equipped with blast furnaces big enough to stand in. There were anvils as large as surgical slabs, lathes big enough to turn entire logs, and every foot of every wall was equipped with tools, hammers and tongs and grindstones and diamond edges saws of all shapes and sizes, all carefully labeled.

At the moment only two gigantic Carapacians were at work down here. Their heads nearly brushed the ceiling, and unlike the rest of them up above, these men were like living castles. Their skins were hard and grey, patterned to look like bricks, and their heads were cylindrical, lacking chins or even necks, just fading into the architecture of the chest and shoulders, and topped with ramparts. Each was taking it in turns to pound a huge metal bar into shape with their left arm; the forearm swelled into a gigantic club of black stone instead of a hand. Their right arms ended in huge ham-like hands; their finger rings were simple nails of what looked like blued steel, bent into circles.

Only one other forge was still lit. "Can I use this?" John asked, pointing at the thing. "I'd rather not have to stoke one of these myself." They seemed not to have heard them, though to be fair he did not ask very loudly. Taking that as a yes, he laid down the machete on an anvil. He chose a much more reasonably sized portable anvil from the wall to serve as a table, and a gleaming saw that was just right for him. He would need to break the machete down and smelt the metal into ingots to do what he needed, starting from the ground up as it were. He sighed contentedly and got to work.

When he emerged from the forge it was almost sunset, though the forest had gone dark hours ago. Fireflies flit through the trees and over the waters, and the beautiful floral lanterns had been lit. He carried a dozen daggers in his hands, all sheathed in tin scabbards and hooked onto a belt of braided leather. He hadn't had time to make them himself, but one of the lumbering Carapacian smiths had made the scabbards from leaf-shaped plates riveted together while the other created the belt, both of them much kinder than they could express in their current forms.

Each dagger was slightly shorter than John's forearm, or more accurately had been forged from a bar about that size. He'd given each blade a wicked curve that sharpened the farther along it went and broadened near the tip, making it excellent for chopping despite the small size. The hilts had an oval profile rather than a round one, and he'd crosshatched them extensively to lend a good grip. In general shape, it looked a bit like the boomerang he'd seen Aradia play with. He'd given one an experimental toss; they had an excellent spin, though a tendency to bounce off hard targets and keep spinning who knew where. Roxy would be happy, as long as he warned her about that quirk.

He decided to hide them in one of the rooms they'd been lent until tomorrow, to surprise her, and cut through a copse of small silvery trees to make for the ramp. Roxy and Aradia were waiting for him inside. "Din, Nayru, and Farore!" Roxy shouted, startling John so much he dropped the belt. "It's almost time for the opening ceremony and you're covered in soot!"

John looked down at himself; he really was. His good old lobster shirt was indistinguishable from a blackened rag, and his pants, once a cheerful orange, were some kind of awful yellow-brown, smeared with black along the front. His hands looked charred, and he shuddered to think about his face.

In comparison, the girls were dressed in beautiful robes. They had huge, voluminous sleeves and a straight profile that left them both looking very delicate. Roxy's was colored like the dress from earlier, purple and blue, printed with pink four-pointed stars. A huge broad sash secured the robe in front of her with a gigantic black bow. She wore a fascinator in her short hair shaped like a fan, printed with pink, four-eyed cats. Aradia's robe was acid-green and embroidered with vines in a slightly deeper color, a subtle difference that teased the eye. Her sash was violently red, the bow secured on the left side with the help of a candy-striped rope. John almost audibly gasped at her hair; it had been tamed into bun secured with two thin, red needles. It had been relentlessly brushed into near-straightness, leaving her with bangs, and two free flowing wavy locks that drizzled onto her shoulders like molasses. John felt like a bum. "We need to dress you," said Roxy. "Rae-Rae, hold him down!"

Aradia saluted. "Yes ma'am!"

John had apparently been completely useless at removing his own clothes, so Roxy sat on his chest while Aradia went to fetch water, John being too incompetent to wash himself. Tonight's outfit was lying right next to his head; a deep blue robe with pale blue horizontal stripes, each containing a simple wave pattern in white. There were teal accents at the cuffs and hem. "Okay John, I am not actually mad at you," she said. Looking up through the canopy at a spattering of stars, she added, "Although we really do need to hurry." She looked over her shoulder to where Aradia had gone, ears poking straight to the sides. "That ancient Hylian stone tablet I faked for her won't keep her occupied too long once she realizes it's a dirty limerick."

Her gaze wandered over to the jumbled pile of blue metal and leather, and she gasped. "No way!" she said, covering her mouth. "Are those mine?"

John nodded sheepishly. "I had kinda wanted to surprise you in the morning but then his happened," he said, wiggling vaguely to indicate that she was sitting on his chest.

Roxy reached over as far as she could, and then realized that she wouldn't be able to pick up the belt without getting up. John smiled in triumph.

She snapped her fingers, and the belt de-materialized into a swarm of black panels, re-materializing in Roxy's hands. He frowned.

"These are so beautiful," she said wistfully, drawing a dagger. She pressed the flat of the blade to her chest, "thank you," she said, with such sincerity that it made John melt a little. Unfortunately letting his guard down loosened the muscles in his abdomen and caused her weight to resettle in a much less comfortable way.

"It was nothing," he said. "Just a little something to prevent you from sitting on me in the future." All this talk led to a slight coughing fit, his throat stinging from time spent working the forge.

"It won't work," said Roxy, sticking out her tongue and winking a big pink eye. She threw the dagger with a sideways swing of her arm, and it arced through the air, curving just like the boomerang had, and struck fast in the dead center of a knot in a nearby tree.

"They ricochet when they hit something they can't cut," John warned.

"That's fucking badass," shouted Roxy, leaning over John's head and shaking him. Then, she leaned in even closer, and kissed him on the corner of the mouth. She giggled when she pulled back, but her eyes had been half-lidded, and the touch of her lips as delicate as a butterfly's.

John's face became incredibly hot. "What is your deal?" he growled, once again more out of hoarseness from the heat of the forge than anything.

Roxy laid a hand on his cheek. "You asked Aradia to be your girlfriend back in the Forbidden Woods," she said.

He really wished he was dead, or that he'd at least kept it all to himself. Still, he couldn't run from it anymore. "Before we go on, I have something to say," Roxy intoned, her voice small, her rose-pink ears drooping. "I really like you too John," she blathered, almost too fast to hear. John noticed that Roxy didn't really blush when she was sober and healthy; there were the barest pink spots on her cheeks, so light he'd not have noticed if he hadn't been looking for it, wanting her embarrassment to match his own. She leaned in and kissed the corner of his mouth again, in the exact same spot, but she lingered this time, and her mouth was just slightly open. John felt her breath on him, and it made him shiver despite its warmth.

"I'm really flattered," he said, voice shuddering. "That's really, uh, really cool. I don't think I can, you know, date you and stuff right now though…" he trailed off as she started to laugh. It was just slightly forced, and just slightly due to actual humor. Mostly she laughed because of the ridiculousness of the situation, being rejected by a sooty loser that she was actively sitting on.

"I wasn't asking you out," she assured, ears trembling as much as her voice was. "I know how you feel about me. I just didn't want you to ask me in like ten years, 'why didn't you tell me back then?' I needed to be completely honest with you so you wouldn't doubt my intentions!" She reached up and wiped a few beads of sweat off her brow, flicking them onto the grass. There was soil in the Forest Haven; the trees here were not completely dependent on the host.

"Ten years," she said whimsically, looking up at the stars. At this time of year the nebula Skaia was visible moving across the sky. John had often heard of it called Heaven. "When Caliborn is defeated and we're all happily married, heh."

After a minute, John coughed, "each of us to people we love." The bit of air he'd just expelled wasn't coming back.

Roxy nodded stiffly. "Yes." She sat in silence for a second, shifting her weight just slightly and making John go 'oof'. "Totally didn't mean the three of us marrying each other or something. Anyway, Aradia doesn't know what I'm about to tell you next because she would never agree to it, but she is actually pretty crazy about you too…just not how you want."

John quirked his eyebrow. "What does that even mean?" he asked testily. "I don't need to be let down easy, if she just wants to be friends then we can be just friends! I'll just hold my tongue and move on."

Roxy shook her head. "What do you know about troll romance?"

John made a noncommittal noise to explain that he knew it was a thing that existed, but not one that he knew anything about. His lungs were starting to hurt.

Roxy smacked him, but gently. "Well basically," she said, "ever since you papped her back at The Forge—"

"Papped?" John interrupted. Roxy smacked him with her cupped hand, not nearly hard enough to hurt but hard enough to make a sound, and removed it with a slight caress of the fingertips, before doing it again. "That John, that's a pap. Trolls have some pretty sensitive nerves in their cheeks. Their skin's a bit tougher than ours so they won't be triggered by accident but a light smack like that will do it. When the nerves are triggered, they get calmed down like fuck. It's like getting high without the drugs, and only for a second. Repeated papping can reduce a troll to a figurative puddle of mush." She leaned in and whispered in his ear; "And you are really fucking good apparently," she giggled.

"Touch her face and try to sound like the ocean," said John, eyes widening as he quoted Karkat's long ago advice.

Roxy chortled. "Aradia fucking saw the stars man. She felt like if blue Nayru herself had reached down from space and papped her!" she was cackling now; the whole while her ears had ben pricking back up elatedly, forgetting their former droopiness. John felt only increasingly embarrassed, and his own ears were lying flat on the grass, occasionally twitching at an insect. He really had meant to kiss her that day, because it was either that or kill her, which he did not want to do at all, but she'd stopped her rampage seemingly without him doing anything. Yet the idea of the kiss remained.

Roxy was still talking. "—obably a fuckin' dynamo in bed, hehe," she said. With a cough, as if remembering where she was sitting (and grinding her hips just slightly) she returned to the subject. "But yeah, you've really got her pale humors in a bunch, if you know what I mean, and if you do, tell me, because I barely understand it. Kidding, of course, but basically in troll culture there is an entire form of romance based around that," she said, papping his face again, "just you being a great friend to her and a calming force in her life, and showing it by doing paps and sounding like the ocean, and maybe there's kissing too sometimes, I don't know you'd have to ask her, but it's definitely not nothing, and it's not letting you down easy with some fakey made up relationship. So when she gets back here and starts scrubbing all this black shit off your face—" Roxy took a moment to start at her hand, which was unfortunately smothered with black shit. She carefully rubbed it onto the grass. "When that happens, if you ask to be her moirail, maybe the two of you can find a little happiness that way."

Aradia walked back into the clearing holding two huge ceramic jars. "Did you know that ancient Hylians liked dirty limericks?" she asked as she set the jugs gown next to John. "You were very kind to write a Hylian style limerick for me. You can get off him now Roxy, he looks pacified."

After a bit of a struggle to get John's robe on ("No John you fold the right side across—not so much boys need to show off a little bit of chest hehehe. Now just tie a bow. No a good bow like this. And flip it—what do you mean it doesn't matter if no one sees it? I saw it and that's what matters! I will go to my grave knowing you did a bad job on that bow that no one else saw. And here's another bow on the other side. No you don't get a big one, that's for girls, just two small ones. Because aesthetic John, now put on these fucking awkward wooden sandals if you think you can handle doing it yourself!"), the girls each took one of his arms and dragged him out of the copse and to the pond. He was not entirely comfortable with their proximity. He'd had enough trouble coming to terms with being rejected by Aradia, but now Roxy was in love with him too (or was he being narcissistic to apply such a strong word? She did kiss him twice), and he was very conscious of the way her fingertips tapped on his forearm. He looked over at her cautiously. She smiled wide, her lips as black and shiny as ever, and then began making wild eye movements, as if signaling him to stop looking at her and start looking at Aradia, and possibly put the pale moves on her if need be (whatever those moves might actually entail). He ignored her.

They stepped onto a lily pad as big as a boat, and it floated out across the water of its own volition into the festival. They were among the last to arrive, though they saw a good dozen families catch lily pads after them, and a few loners who were content to just fly or alight on the roofs of the stalls selling food and games. The smell of caramel corn, molasses, and fried anything on a stick suffused the permanently herbal scented air, making the atmosphere delicious. John's stomach rumbled. "After this," Roxy whispered. She mouthed, "with your new moirail," right after, and John ignored her, hard to do with the exaggerated winks she threw his way.

A group of musicians stood on a lily pad directly in front of the Deku King, tuning their instruments. Each was equipped with a coral ring that altered their appearance into yet another form that he'd never seen before. They seemed to be shaped from different materials, wood and shell and metal, but much shapelier than their tree forms and more elegant than their smithy forms. Each had a set of what looked like exhaust ports along their ribs, arms and thighs. One, incredibly pale, had inserted a complicated series of curved Deku wood pipes, all ending in different sized bells, creating an array of woodwind from piccolo to an awe-inspiring bass flute. His twin, nearly identical but for his pitch black exoskeleton, had done the same with brass tubing, turning himself into some kind of cannon-bombardment made of sousaphones. Their chests swelled and contracted impressively as they pumped air from their mouths and vents—they all had powerful chests, unplated on the sides to allow for greater expansion of their lungs, surprisingly human-looking skin stretching to a pale thinness with each puff. One wispy female had grown long strands of wiry hair, each strand tied to a heavy weight. She gently caressed them with fingers like tiny mallets, producing a sound not unlike a harpsichord. Her own, light-shelled twin had long curved claws on her fingertips, with wire string between them. She scraped them along her hair, making it whine like a violin.

Miss Paint stood on a podium behind the band, her new form made of pink shells and coral that darkened as it went down, with a crown of pink-gold fronds that looked a bit like hair from this distance. She wore a flowing black dress that left her shoulders bare, seemingly stitched with the burning green of Farore's light, and spangled with green embers that burned like tiny stars. One side was slit up to the hip, showing off the vents on her pale legs, plated with blue and purple shell that was patterned like abalones. John twitched slightly as he noticed how well the dress clung to her figure, partly just surprised at the idea of a Carapacian even having a figure. The girls still squeezed his arms a bit painfully. But really, he'd only been thinking about the human conception of beauty. That was all.

The band seemed ready to start, but they didn't, apparently waiting for some cue. John heard a splash, and saw some water rise into the air where somebody had jumped into the pond. The water all around rippled, but the gathered mass of Carapacians hid the cause from view. He heard someone running through the water, muttering and swearing to himself. A floating lantern spun into view around the crowd, going so fast it almost capsized. Whatever it was, it was heading to the stage. Miss Paint, the only one with free hands, descended her podium and walked to the edge of their lily, stretching out a hand. She pulled up a sopping wet Tavros, leaf guitar and wind waker pick in hand.

John tensed, but the girls held him firm again. "Don't murder that guy," Roxy hissed. "At the fucking New Year's ceremony? Are you crazy?"

"Why isn't he in…a dungeon or something?" John whisper-shouted, irritating the closest Carapacians. "Didn't he take control of Miss Paint? And steal a bunch of rings? Don't they cut your hand off for that?"

Aradia shook her head. "I heard earlier today from some boys I was playing with. He found those rings while he was exploring the Forbidden Woods, and Miss Paint wanted to help him but felt she was too cowardly, so he took control to help her along."

"Can't he have been making her think that?" said John, glaring at Tavros. For his part, the troll boy, felt a pricking on the back of his neck and stumbled, nearly falling back into the water.

"Nope," said Aradia, not even considering it. "A powerful blueblood with a ton of practice could probably do it, but bronzebloods like him can only control physical functions, not emotions or thoughts." John nodded stiffly, still glaring at the troll. He muttered something about Tavros not even bothering to dress up for the performance, still wearing his blue leaf-sewn coat.

The troll took a few seconds to tune his instruments, and the band began to play. Miss Paint spread her arms, and the lily pad rose, spinning slowly upwards, lifted up by a gigantic root. Water sluiced off the sides, dousing the closest audience members. Tavros looked a little bit like he was going to vomit. Miss Paint began to speak, her voice rich and sweet like honey. "On the third day," she intoned, eyes closed in recital, "The Goddess of Courage Farore, with her rich soul, breathed life into all things, creating those which would uphold the law of Nayru." The music gleamed in the air like a revelation. The forest fireflies began to swarm, little balls of rainbow, but strongest in green and gold, swirling all around the festival, a whirlwind of light.

"Thus, the first day of the New Year is her day," Miss Paint spoke, a melody rising in her throat, fighting to get out. But it was not yet time. "For it was the first day of life on this planet, the last day before the goddesses returned to their home in Skaia—" here she pointed her finger straight up, to the little blue and white nebula; they knew it would be high in the sky even if it was hidden by the canopy—"and the day of the founding of the sacred Triforce." The music was swelling, not in triumph, but like the drawing of a breath. The revelation was preparing to be given, the oracle drawing strength, and the courage to speak truth to her people. Then, the music stopped, the breath held. A few beats sounded, the sound of the oracle's heartbeat, trying to make the moments between each beat last forever. But they cannot, and she must speak. Miss Paint opened her eyes, now glowing yellow-green with the fire of the goddess, and the children almost jumped back.

Miss Paint began to sing.

In vento cogitatio, spirat in vento!

E vacuo lux elucet, lux e vacuo!

E somno somnia cre'ta, somnia e somno!

In clara umbra creatum versat!

In vento spiritus flat, spiritus in vento!

In fusco lumen ignescit, lumen in fusco!

E somnis verita nata est verita nata!

E nihil omnia cre'ta sunt omnia create!

Pel Amar vinya-onant!

Feä raniel vilyadessë sira!

Lindelë sama calad!

Oloriello illuvë onant!

Ëa!

As she sang, the gentle sounds of a piccolo streamed from her vents, visible in the air as a jade wind, the light of the goddess. She was like a living pipe organ that had the voice of a woman. Shrouded in a sparking emerald veil of her own making, the Carapacian woman sang in counterpoint with herself.

John broke free of the girls' grips on his arms. He took Aradia by the shoulders, and looked into her eyes. With just a moment's hesitation, he smiled and cupped her cheek, papping her gently, eliciting a gasp of pleasure. He leaned in and whispered in her ear, and she whispered back. Roxy whooped with pride; the music was too loud for anyone to hear.

Miss Paint floated into the air, dress rippling like a black waterfall. She spoke in three voices, eyes blazing like green suns, and everyone there felt the presence of the Goddess of Courage.

Notes: like nearly every chapter of every fic I have ever written, this was originally going to be longer. Then it got bigger and got out of control and I ended up cutting some things, to be used in the next chapter, like I always do. I swear to God, The Thief of Prospit was gonna be a one-shot but it wound up being my first complete novel.

I don't want to go the traditional path of the love triangle; I think a conflict of interests in romance between multiple parties can be interesting but it's almost always just "WHICH ONE WILL MAIN CHARACTER CHOOOOOOSE!?" and that's dull. John isn't gonna 'choose' anyone and things will resolve themselves as naturally as possible. So from this point forward, while there will be fluff between this main threesome, there will be no dumb drama. Thus saith the Lord.

The boomerang daggers are basically an insane flight of fancy that would certainly never work. But why do the boomerangs in Zelda cut things, and bounce from target to target and all other kinds of things? I decided magical mythril metals were the only way.

Yo the other day I was thinking "boy I sure do ship John and Aradia! …but why is that?" There's a reason of some kind for almost all of my ships other than just 'they would go well together'. And then it hit me! Once again I must refer you to rezi, my much more talented and popular internet sister, whose fan-adventure Starsignstuck was the origin of this beautiful ship. May she update it soon.

Part of the inspiration for my treatment of the Carapacians as shape-shifters, or rather form-shifters, comes from the Brandon Sanderson book Words of Radiance in which an original fantasy race of his (which incidentally are humanoids with carapaces) is able to change shape by binding with nature spirits, though only certain kinds work, and will create different forms depending on the spirit. The various forms include work-form, war-form, art-form, nimble-form, and mating-form. All such forms do indeed exist among my version of the Carapacians, and I will try to showcase all of them somehow. I have alluded to it in vague ways throughout the fic, but since it doesn't really matter, Carapacians punish criminals by chopping off their ring hand, robbing them of their forms, and banishing them, hence Jack's hook whenever we see it.

I wonder why they did that? :O

Next chapter, we learn a little bit more about Tavros before the Tentacrew ships off for Great Fish Island! People who have played the game, fuck off with your spoilers.

Thank you to the lovely polyfandrous for comparing Song of Skaia to a revelation, which inspired me to write this scene the way I did (and of course to Mark Hadley for actually writing Song of Skaia). The song is very interesting because it's a Hometuck fansong, written partly in Quenya and Sindarin from LotR, but it works so well for the Zelda creation myth, particularly Farore's part in it. Here's a translation:

"Thought blows in the wind, in the wind

Light shines from the void, light from the void

Dreams awaken out of sleep, dreams out of sleep

Creation twirls in a bright shadow

Spirit flows in the wind, spirit in the wind

Light burns in darkness, light in darkness

Truth is born out of dreams; truth is born

All is created out of nothing; all is created

Around the new-born world

Wandering spirit flows in the wind

Music joins light

All is born from a dream"

You can easily see that as Farore blowing spirit and consciousness into now living creatures of her own creation.

Also, in regards to a complaint (polyfandrous's) about the previous chapter, concerning mushrooms not being nearly as flammable as plants, my response is as follows: magic. I also thank polyfandrous for being my best friend and greatest supporter. I love you or whatever.

Finally, at long last, and I'm about to let you go, you should totally listen to this song or better yet, read this chapter on Ao3, because the way the scene lights up with the scene is just perfect.