Chapter 23: Helpless
The Lizalfos crawled away, keeping the stump of its missing arm tucked toward its chest. They had done it. By the Goddesses and the Will of the Tree they had survived. She wasn't even certain how. With the Spider there had been a plan, discussion, and preparation. And she had spent most of that fight confined in Link's shirt unable to see anything.
She had thought that was the most terrified she could ever be. Not knowing what was happening outside, bumping against Link's chest with each movement as he struck and dived and raised his shield. Only with dread and the countless maybes that were happening outside to keep her company.
But how wrong she had been. Seeing Link face death in person proved even worse. Every close call, every near miss sent her heart racing. And there was nothing she could do.
"Link," Navi flew to him as his shaking arm lowered and his sword slipped through his fingers. "That was utterly reckless! Insane! Why did you have to do something so-so-!"
"Well, see?" Link said, his voice slurred as he spoke through his own spittle. "Itsz all wuurked." His body waved and his shoulders slumped. He had a cut on his head from when the Lizalfos knocked him over with his tail. The entire side of his face was red, and that wasn't the worst of it. His left arm still had the gaping red wound that dripped down to his fingers.
He fell to his knees, a goofy grin still on his face, his eyes were wide and unfocused.
"Link!" Navi flew right toward him, as fast as her battered wings could take her. The dull ache she always lived with turned into a storm at the joint and down her side. "Link you have to listen to me. Don't shut your eyes. Don't go to sleep. Link listen to me!"
"I'mm fie, realsy," he said. His eyes shut and he slumped to the ground.
Navi screamed. She grabbed, at Link's collar, and tried to pull him up. "Link! Wake up! No! No!" Tears welled up, she tried to blink them away. That doesn't help anything. The bleeding needs to stop.
She rubbed away the tears, or at least enough to see what she was doing. She did not have much magic left in her. But she could put everything she had into the spell. The wound on his arm looked worse, but a head injury always seemed like where to start. She flew to the wound and laid her hand on the cut. The flesh was pulled back and blood seeped out of it.
From her hands she let her magic flow, pouring all she could into the cut. But it was not only a cut, the bone was cracked. How far, she could not say. It didn't seem deep enough to go all the way through, but any such damage was a bad sign. Was Link's loss of consciousness from blood loss or was his brain damaged? She pushed her hands in even deeper until she was touching bone and red blood splashed up her arms.
She groaned, every part of her wanted to pull away. To puke at the sight of blood and bone and go away. But she grit her teeth and let her energy knit the boy's very bones together. Initially the small fissures closed. But there were still chunks of bone that floated in the red. She plucked at the splintered piece and pressed it into place. More magic flowed from her fingers and the bone smoothed started to seal together.
How quickly could she make him heal? Perhaps she managed the equivalent of a few weeks of bed rest. But his skull was still not completely together, and the she felt her energy dwindle to the point there was nothing left for her to give him. And there was still so much more he needed to heal.
"Hold on," she whispered to the unconscious boy as she tried to fly away, to see what she could do. She managed to make it a few feet before her bad wing stopped beating completely and she fell to the ground. She landed hard on her feet and stumbled to her knees.
She had nothing left. She screamed and grabbed at her weak wing, but that just made it hurt all the worse. Why had the Great Deku Tree given this to her? Didn't he know that she'd fail? They should have sent someone that Link actually listened to! Someone that he respected. Not the fairy that had always been sent to scold him, to try and teach him what he didn't want to learn. There had to be someone else more suited than her.
The tears she had been trying to hold back ran down her face. She screamed again and pressed her head in her hands. No! This isn't helping! Why couldn't she just focus on what she needed to do?
But she knew why. Link was dying, how was she supposed to think of anything but terror and sorrow?
Focus!
She needed to stop the bleeding. She needed to get something to close up the wound. The Lizalfos had torn up some cloth to patch up its arm. The same thing should work for Link's arm and head. It needed to be clean cloth. Where was she going to get clean cloth? Link's clothes were dirty from travel even before they were covered in sweat and blood.
The rucksack! It was clean enough, or at least, cleaner than anything else she had.
She tried to get to Link's back, her wings flapped once just to give her a bit of a boost. But that was all she could get them to do. The pain was almost more than she could bare. Almost.
"How does he do this?" Navi moaned as she ran the last of the way. Even with her bad wing, she still flew or at least hopped everywhere. She had never needed to actually run. Her legs felt weak and her lungs burned by the time she reached the ruckasck.
Link had worn the bag into battle. Foolish, Navi had thought at the time, but when Link had been knocked over a Lizalfos had struck it instead of him. It saved Link's life, but now it was in tatters. Some of the items inside poked through. Some wrapped vegetables, bread, and dried meat were broken apart or hacked to pieces. Everything but the most salted of dried meat would go bad. But the worst of it was the paper. Zelda's scroll was ripped into several pieces, and some of it had been splattered in blood and dirt. Utterly useless now.
No time to worry about that now.
Still coughing, she took hold of the largest sections of torn rucksack and pulled.
There was the sound of a slight rip of a few fibers of the cloth, and that was it. No matter how hard she tugged, she was not strong enough to make it actually tear apart. She grit her teeth and put all her weight behind it. She tried to flap her wings to get a bit more, but still nothing but making it shake.
She screamed again and when that did nothing she just wanted to fall to her knees and give up. To just roll up into a ball beside Link and wait for the end. It would be so much easier just to admit she failed. That she couldn't do anything. When she met the Great Deku Tree again, she could tell him that he had chosen wrong.
What else could she do, but admit defeat?
The sword!
She could use the sword. It had fallen on the same side as she was on now, thankfully. One good thing on this entire horrid day. She raced to the pommel of the sword and pushed with all her might.
It budged. Perhaps half an inch. She screamed and cursed and shoved. Her tears and sweat mixed together as she ground her weak legs into the mud and shoved the massive blade. She tried to make a bit of wind behind her to make moving it a little easier. But all she managed was gasp of air to flow around her before the wind died. She did not have enough in her to do the most basic spell.
Her arms and legs burned, and could not hold steady even when she wasn't moving them. Her entire body ached. But she did it. She managed to push the blade up against the bag. Grabbing the piece of cloth she dragged it over the edge of the sword until it caught and sliced through it and a jagged knotty line.
It did not have to look good. It just needed to work.
She scrambled toward Link's head, dragging the cloth behind her. The only way she could think to wrap it around his head was to pin one side down with a stone then slide it under him. Thankfully the grass added a little bit of a space between his skull and the ground making it easier to slide the thin cloth under it.
Then came the hard part. She clutched at the torn cloth and climbed up through his hair until she reached the top of his head. Huffing as she moved she tossed the cloth over to the other side, then climbed down.
She needed a moment to breathe, her hands on her knees. Come on, Navi. Link climbed a tower only a week ago. I can at least do this. She looked over to Link's chest. It slowly rose and fell, still breathing. Still alive. Come on! Move!
She took both ends of the cloth, placed her foot on the side of his head and pulled. With all her might, with every minuscule muscle in her entire body. She pulled until she was gasping and groaning and howling. It took a few tries, tying a piece of cloth wider than she was proved no easy feat. But she did it. That should slow the bleeding, at least for now.
That only left the arm.
Navi took a moment to take a deep breath, letting the air fill her ravaged lungs. Her arms and legs were shaking. But that could not be helped. She needed to keep moving. Link needed her.
By the time she finished the rucksack was in ruins. To the point it wouldn't be able to hold anything anymore. Several pieces of Zelda's message fluttered away in the breeze. The food was all filthy from the dirt. The only thing that wasn't destroyed was the Emerald, which looked completely untouched from the Lizalfos' assault.
But Link was bandaged. And with the pack so completely destroyed, she had been able to tear the last of it away, and then shoved and tugged at Link's body until he was lying straight. She hoped that would ease the healing process at least a little bit.
But now what? She had stopped the free flow of blood. But, what more could she do? Link was still unconscious. What he Link didn't wake up?
Navi put her hands on the Emerald and felt for the magic within. She let it fill her, sustain her at least a little bit.
It didn't make sense. Wasn't this supposed to be some gift of the Goddesses? Or at the least something created by ancient sages to open a powerful portal? It should be filled with magic, shouldn't it? Maybe not as much as the Great Deku Tree and all the Kokiri, but it should have been enough to keep her strength up.
So why didn't it? Why had she spent months as a weakened husk of her former self? Why was she not healing? Why couldn't she heal Link?
Instead it gave only a small trickle of energy, less than Saria's ocarina gave, in fact. Like something was stopping up its power somehow.
Still, some small trickle of magic was better than nothing. She rolled the stone until it laid beside the ocarina. Then she snuggled in between them, letting what magic she could find sustain her. All the while she prayed to the Three Goddesses and even the spirit of the Great Deku Tree, to please, just send some small bit of help. Any would do.
But for hours nothing came. She was alone.
She reached out from between the two magic items and laid her hand on Link. The trickle of magic moved through her and into Link. It was not much. But it was all she could do.
The first thing she did when she woke up was look to Link. Still breathing. He hadn't passed in her sleep, but he hadn't woken up either.
She flew out from her little crook. Her wings worked, even if her entire body still ached. She flew to his wounds. Both were splotched with the brown of dried blood. But little of it was red and fresh. That was something, wasn't it?
She peeled back the bandage along Link's head to look at her handiwork. The wound was not yet scabbed over, and a glistening ooze covered most of it. Still, nothing looked infected. She pressed her hand into the wound, sucking in air to distract herself from the sensation of putting her hand on warm and sticky wound. From her hands, she let her magic flow, just a little bit more. She did not know for certain, but she thought around the edges of the cut, the scabbing grew just a little harder.
That would have to do.
Back in the village, if any of the children had been so wounded all the fairies would come together to either heal them, or bring them to the Great Deku Tree to take a closer look. If they still needed bandages, they would have been cleaned and made fresh at every opportunity.
But there were no fresh bandages. Over the night, the pieces of the rucksack had been soiled in the mud or blown away. She should have collected them when she had the chance. Stupid of her.
She flew to his arm. This wound was not healing nearly as well. She rolled back a section of bandage to take a closer look. As soon as it lifted up, a sickly slurp sounded and fresh red blood rolled out. She forced the bandage back down as quick as she could.
She took a deep breath, "For Link." Sticking her hands underneath the bandage, she poured as much energy as she had into the arm wound this time. She felt the blood start to solidify into a scab, but she did not dare open the bandage to see her work.
Her eyelids felt heavy as the last of her energy went into the wound. With nothing left, she staggered back to her magic items and again rested between them. This wasn't sustainable. She would not heal Link's wounds near fast enough, and she was not getting enough magic.
She couldn't move Link. And if she could, where would she go?
The last village they passed was more than a day's walk away. And that was Link walking. She did not know how long it would take on her own. She could move forward, but she had no way of knowing how far the nearest village was in that direction at all. No one had stopped by the abandoned cart since the day before.
That left only one real option, that source of magic she had sensed yesterday. The one that she had told Link to avoid. She could try and find it, and perhaps she could make some bargain with whoever was there. If she begged, perhaps they would be merciful.
But mercy seemed in short supply out here, away from the Woods.
She spent a few hours absorbing all the magic she could. But when she felt she was strong enough, she found it difficult to actually go. She could not look away from Link. She checked that he was breathing steadily five times. She looked over his bandages another three. But mostly she just looked at him.
The horrors of what had happened and what could happen playing through her mind. The way the Lizalfos had hacked at his back, the flash of swords both theirs and his. What would happen if the one that scurried off returned? What if she was not here to protect him?
It did not even have to be the monsters. What if bandits comes across him and decides to take the Emerald for themselves?
But how would her staying help matters? If the Lizalfos or bandits arrived she wouldn't be able to stop them even if she wanted. Link's only hope was for her to leave. But that didn't make it any easier.
She put her hand on Link's forehead. "I'll be back," she told him. She had heard that sometimes a person's words can invade a sleepers dreams. She was not certain it was true, but by the Goddesses she hoped it was. "I'll be back for you. I just need to find help." She wiped away the tears that were starting to form around her eyes. No more of that. She needed to leave. No more excuses. No more delays.
She leaned close and kissed his forehead. She didn't know why really. There was no magic in it. It wouldn't heal him, and he probably wouldn't ever notice. But if felt right. "I'm not abandoning you."
Then she flapped her wings and took off.
She could not fly long. Not without her wing growing so sore that it threatened to knock her from the air. But she made steady pace. Flying as long as she could, then descending down to start marching along the ground.
It took most of the day, but she started to feel that sense of magic again off to the north. As she drew closer it felt like a great beacon of magical energy. Whatever was making it, they weren't trying to hide themselves. At least, not from fairies.
But that wasn't necessarily a good thing. A flytrap smells sweet to the fly before it gobbles them up.
Another burst of flight and she managed to make it to the source of the magic. Or what she felt was the source of it. But all she could see was a mound that didn't look like much of anything. She had heard the Hylians used to bury kings in great mounds with all the greatest equipment, perhaps magical items were among them. That could be what she felt.
But she did not think that was right. Or at least, she hoped it wasn't. There was no way she had the strength to dig up anything to uncover such magic.
She dropped on top of the mound. Green grass brushed against her, grass more lush and thick than anywhere else in the area. As if something was giving the greenery a healthier life.
"Help!" Navi called. "Please help me. If you can hear me, please!"
No answer.
"I'm Navi the fairy. I need your help. There's a boy, who's hurt!"
Still nothing. She gave wordless scream, then slumped to her knees. There was no one here. She had failed. Did she even have the energy to return to Link? And even if she did, what was there left to do? There was nowhere else to go.
"Please," she begged. If not for her, then for Link. Someone had to be there. "Please."
"What are you doing down there?" came a small voice.
Navi looked up, a small pink light flew above the mound. "Junmi?"
"Who's Junmi?" the other fairy said. "I'm Telti. Who are you?"
"Navi," she said, was she saved? "Please, I need you help. There's a boy, a Hylian, he's dying."
"Seems like you have it well under control then," the fairy said. "Looks like they almost got the better of you though."
"No, I mean to save him. You have to help me."
"Oh," Telti sounded confused. "Why?"
"He's dying! I don't have time to explain."
"And that's important now?"
"Yes! Please you have to save him."
The fairy sighed. "Fine, fine, I'll get some of the others together."
Telti disappeared behind the mound. Navi attempted to follow her, but when she tried to fly up a spasm of pain shot through her bad wing and she never made it off the ground.
Thankfully Telti reappeared a few moments later, four other fairies at her back. "Still on the ground?" Telti swooped through the air, spiraled down, and landed gently to the ground with a flutter of her wings. "Ugh, walking." She muttered as she took a few steps toward Navi. "I feel so… Hylian."
"You'll will help me save Link?"
"I guess," Telti said. "You're going to have to show us where he is."
Navi flapped her wings again, and let out a gasp. "I- I can't."
"What happened to you?" Telti sighed then pressed her hand to Navi's arm. Magic flowed through Navi, and worked around her wings and back. The pain did not disappear, but it became manageable. "There that should get you going. But really, you need to take better care of yourself."
"I know," Navi said. She stretched her wings and moved them up and down, her bones ground against each other and made a popping noise, which made Telti wince. She lifted herself into the air, grounding her teeth together to keep from making any more signs of how much pain she was still in. "He's this way," she said, proud that her voice still had some strength to it.
The fairies followed her as she led them back toward the main road, and the abandoned cart. They found Link lying exactly as she left him. She breathed a sigh of relief as she landed. He was still there, he was still alive. Thank the Goddesses.
He was going to be alright.
"Can you heal him?"
Telti landed on top of Link's chest, her lip curled back in disgust. "This is the one you want us to save?"
"Yes."
"One foot in the grave," said a green fairy, folding his arms. "Lost a lot of blood."
"And I can feel the broken bones just by stepping," said Telti. "Here." She moved one of her feet and pressed on Link's ribs. He shifted in his sleep, and a wheezing strained moan escaped from his mouth.
"Don't hurt him!"
"Right, right," Telti said. "But the only one who can save him now is the Great Mother."
"Then bring him to her! Please, anything you need I'll do."
Telti looked to the other fairies. "What is it with this one? Huh?"
Some of her compatriots gave small chuckles.
"Alright, you love this Hylian so much, we'll take him," Telti said. "But it's going to be rough moving him. Hey Boshi!"
"Yeah?" said the green fairy.
"Keep the Hylian stable will you? The rest of us are going to call the winds."
The green fairy shrugged.
"You might want to get back," Telti said as she started to move her arms, releasing magic in a circle around her. Swirling the air along with her movement. "It'll take a lot of wind to move him, and I don't think you're strong enough to fly through it, yeah?"
"Thank you," Navi said as she flew away from the others. "Thank all of you."
"Don't thank us yet," Telti muttered, "moving him is going to be the hard part."
Wind whipped around Navi. "Stay strong, Link," she whispered then flew a distance away from him. The air swirled around Link, making the grass flutter about in a circle and leaves to fly. Link's hood fell off and flew a few feet away. His loose shirt and hair whipped about.
"Careful!" called the green fairy as he flew over top of Link, a white light radiating from his hands.
Link slowly lifted from the ground. His arms hung limp, knuckles dragging along the grass. The wind was not steady, and Link tossed back and forth. But the one called Boshi seemed to pour more of his magic into Link whenever his body fell to hard from one side or the other.
It was so unsteady. And Link's ribs were broken, who knew if anything was wrong with his spine. She had to stop herself from trying to use her own magic to steady him even a little. She had no more energy to spend.
She almost failed when he banked hard to the side, almost slamming his head into a tree. But before she even could raise her hand to cast a spell, the green fairy soared between Link and the tree and shifted the air back around, spinning Link around so instead only the tip of Link's boot brushed against the bark.
She let out a breath of relief, and followed the group. Occasionally making gasps when Link moved too close to some tree or bush for her comfort. But the fairies continued regardless, until they reached the mound.
This time Navi could follow the fairies as they moved around to the other side of the hill.
"Alright," Telti shouted over the winds. "Straight in!" They sent Link forward hurtling toward the ground. Navi gave an unintentional squeak of fear, causing Telti to spin around give her a confused look.
Link sunk down, his head passed through the grass, then his shoulders and chest. The blades of grass warped around him, pulling him inside like a thousand small arms.
"This part is tricky," Telti called over her shoulder. "Best if you don't make any more weird noises."
The wind lifted Link's legs as the grass continued to pull him deeper into the mound. The green fairy flew into the grass, after a moment he called for more wind to keep Link's torso straight from inside.
Link's feet disappeared under the earth, and the other fairies followed him one by one. And only once they were all gone did the wind disperse.
Telti poked her head out from the grass. "Well, come on! We can't keep it open forever." Then she ducked down and Navi was alone.
She landed just over top of where Telti had disappeared. The grass brushed against her feet and then up to her shoulders. She touched down on the ground, but her feet slipped between the dirt as it shifted away from her. The grass moved, holding her steady and gently pushing her down as the ground opened below her. Her head went below the surface and all she could see was dirt.
Her heart pounded as the she felt the tip of her wings. And she was completely underground and lived or died at the will of whoever enchanted this mound. No treeline to comfort her, nor open sky. Just dirt covering every part of her. Excellent, something new to terrify me. I haven't had one of those in awhile.
The grass at least kept her steady, cradling her neck and her wounded wing, making certain she did not thrash about or get stuck on anything. Then there was a light below her and her body was released in a large underground chamber.
The first thing she saw was Link lay beside a pool of water so clear, where it not for the slight ripples left over from the wind, Navi would never have realized there was water there at all.
Then she looked around, down tunnels and side rooms all she could see were fairies flying through the ground. Some playing, some talking, all going about their business. Except for some who took notice of the boy dropped in their midst.
The grass released her and she flew to the ground.
"Good, you made it," Telti said. "I'd have a difficult time explaining to The Great Mother why I brought some Hylian in here."
"She's going to heal Link?"
Telti shrugged. "If she wants to." The fairy flew over the water. "Great Mother! We stand at your pool and ask for your guidance!" Then she flew a bit away and landed once more beside Navi. "That should do it."
But what it did, Navi couldn't tell. Nothing happened. Link does not have time for this. "Where is-"
The water rippled from the very center of the pool. There was nothing beneath it to disturb the water that way, and nothing had fallen in. The ripple turned into bubbles and a loud laugh sounded about the chamber.
The water burst. The laugh turned into a wild cackle. A pillar of liquid flew into the air before it crashed back down. A wave splashed over Navi, nearly knocking her off her feet. When she blinked away the water a gargantuan woman with flowing red hair flew through the air. Her laugh joyous and madness mixed together. It filled Navi's ears and wiggled its way deep within her as strong as any magic she had ever felt.
And what magic radiated off the creature. Lights followed about her, tiny fairies smaller than any Navi had seen all arranged around her so wherever she moved they moved as well.
"You're a Great Fairy," Navi said, she bowed. "Please I beg of you, I need-"
But the Great Fairy did not pay attention to her words. It flew around the chamber without wings to keep her aloft and splashed back down into the water. Only then did her laughter cease as she bobbed half in and half out of the pool.
"Where have you been, my darling?" the gargantuan woman almost sang. "You look absolutely dreadful, my dear, have you been crying? I see the streaks on your face." Navi opened her mouth to respond but the Great Fairy kept talking. "Where is your light? Oh my darling, my dearest, you're barely a firebug."
"Please," Navi said cutting off any further questions. She should have spoken with more respect to one of the foremothers of her entire race, but Link was still unconscious laying right beside her. "Please you must help him."
"Oh? What have we here?" The woman bobbed in the water, then her torso seemed to stretch as she brought her head directly to Navi. "You're not one of mine. Who do I sense on you? Not one of my sisters or brothers either. Is that the Old Tree's magic I smell? Oh what glorious fun! I have not spoken to him or his fairies in centuries. Or was it millennia? It is so hard to tell. So much time lost and gained and lost again. How is the Lord of Branch and Root? Still teaching his disciples?" She lowered her voice in a mockery of the Great Deku Tree's baritone. "Protect the weak. Defend yourself with all your strength. Be good most of all." Then she laughed again. "What hilarious rubbish."
"What? That's- no. The Great Deku Tree is dead," Navi said. "But please you must-"
"Dead?" the woman shot out of the water, slinging high into the air, she seemed to expand all the larger. The shimmering light from the fairies around her turned from blue to pink to purple and orange. She swooped through the air, her echoing shriek around the chamber as fast as she. "Dead? Dead! What wretches would do such a thing?" she shouted. "What vile creatures? Stolen! Stolen time! Stolen experience! What dark days lie ahead of us?"
And as she wailed all the fairies around them cried out to mourn as well.
"Please," Navi begged, "you must help me."
The Great Fairy stopped, gave one last scream to the sky, then descended down from the air like a feather. "Of course, my little darling. My poor dear. Look at your wing, look at your face. So much pain. Come with me little darling, come and I will ease all your hardship."
"Not me," Navi said. "The boy, please, heal the boy."
"The boy?" the Great Fairy seemed to notice Link for the first time. "This sad, wretched creature? Who is he? Why should his needs be placed before such a noble fairy? Oh, I see, I see. The last of the Trees disciples. The last great warrior he raised? Dying now, his light is low. But isn't that the way all of them go, eventually?" The Great Fairy waved her hands dismissively at Link. "Why bother, I say. Let me look to you, you must be starving. Forget this broken little thing, and let me give you everything you need." She held out her arms wide.
Something pulled at the back of Navi's mind. She could join herself to the Great Fairy. She would never go hungry again. All that magic swirling about her. The power all these other fairies had. How healthy all of them were. Hadn't she done enough?
Navi shook her head. Why would she even think such a thing? She could never. Was that thought always with her? In the back of her mind waiting for an excuse to abandon him? "Please," she said again. "As a last respect for the Great Deku Tree, heal the boy. Please."
The Great Fairy sighed. "Very well." With a snap of her fingers Link raised into the air, no wind to carry him, or any elements that Navi could notice.
"So filthy, these Hylians. So ugly and base, don't you find?" Link floated into the pool, dipping him down until he was all the way submerged except for his face. His eyes were still closed, it hardly looked like he was breathing at all. The water around him turned dark as the mud and blood spread around him. "Disgusting. He treats himself almost as bad as he has been treating you, I fear."
"He hasn't treated me poorly," Navi said as she settled to the ground. It was over. She had saved him. Her legs gave out, as if the need to save Link was the only thing that had been keeping them working. Had she been so tired this whole time. She yawned. "He's sweet and brave. He just needs to listen better. He doesn't-"
The magic about the pool felt so pleasant. Pervasive. On every wall, every tile of the floor. The water seemed more like magic itself made manifest into the purest liquid. And for the first time since she had left the Lost Woods, Navi felt magic flowing into her again.
"There, there, my new darling," the Great Fairy smiled and held out her arms once more. "You can rest here. I will give you everything you need."
Author's Note: Wow, so, broke 3000 views, with one day having more than 200. Which I don't know if that's a lot for this site, but it's certainly a lot for me. Thanks everyone who's reading this. And to the guy who apparently read through the entire work in a day, well done.