Rito Village

Waking of Saturday, January 5, 2019 ~ 3

Rito Village

I had a feeling I was going to like it here.

Mazli was the next Rito I met; he seemed to patrol the boardwalks about the townward end of the series of bridges. He told me Vah Medoh shot down anything that flew too high, and that it was frustrating for the Rito to have to fly so close to the ground.

I looked up. Now that I was here, on the Rito Rock, I could see that the Divine Beast seemed to be set in a circling course around it high in the sky. Like the biggest buzzard in the world....

Another Rito, this one with seagreen plumage, lazed on a larger landing as the boardwalk veered off to the right and began to circle the Neck. He seemed down; I guessed the oppressive Divine Beast had everyone in low spirits.

Like they do.

There were shops branching off this lowest circuit of the path, and they all seemed similar in build to that house I had seen of Kass’ up on the treeshroom, only bigger. An ample, circular floor, a short wall rising up to about waist-height around the circumference (excepting at the door), and above this, enough vertical supports to hold up the high roof, which was conical, rustically shingled on the outside, and warmly raftered on the inside. The resultant open views onto the lake and the yellow mountains beyond were spectacular.

Each shop seemed to have its own clappercaller standing outside, hungry for custom. There was the Swallow’s Roost, which was the local inn. Two honeymooning Hylians were staying there, but the wife thought this town was a hole; I told her she didn’t know what she was talking about. Then there was the Slippery Falcon, which sold all the goodly foodstuffs you couldn’t find out in the field, like milk, wheat, and butter, as well as some pretty good arrows. And then there was the Brazen Beak, which was the clothing and armor shop. And they sold....

“THE WINGALING HAT!” I gasped. 8D

This set was called the Snowquill Trousers, Shirt, and Headdress. WOW! And they imparted a cold-reducing effect. Excellent! I bought the whole ensemble, and oh did they look smashing.

The basis of all the clothing I could see the Rito wearing included a front-lacing, corset-like girdle that reached all the way up to the breastbone and ended in an acute chevron just below the waist. It looked very aerodynamic, and its design was echoed in the Snowquill Shirt fit for Hylians. The shoulders and waist-back also sported decorative feathering, and the whole outfit was trimmed with the soft-spoken diamonds and gentle geometric patterns of the Rito aesthetic, which I’d seen painted neatly along the boardwalks on my way in.

And with my head at long last under the Wingaling Hat, my sidelocks were now bound into pristine little tresses, completely enclosed at the bottom by those decorative, anchor-shaped jewelry-weights. And leaping up behind my pointy left ear, the namesake of the thing: a single, wing-shaped piece rising white and glittering from the circlet. The asymmetrical design gave the headdress.... an archaic, sylvan kind of grace.

Now these would be good for cold climates!

Further along the winding, rising boardwalk as it wrapped counterclockwise around the Neck, I met more Ritos, in their open, circular dwellings, more Ritos, talking about the Divine Beast, more Ritos, wishing they could give it what for, and—oh my gosh—BABY RITOS! Oh my gosh they were so cute! ^_^

One little one I spoke to told me tales about how “Molli’s dad got hurt—” ( Uh!? D8 ) “—and Tulin’s dad went missing.” Oh my gosh....

Maybe some of them had tried to give the Divine Beast what for, and their efforts had gone awry.... I’d seen that with other peoples. I hoped they were all right—I wanted to help—I can’t help it—when I hear about people getting hurt—

My shrine-detector had been brreep-brreeping at me, and I found the shrine, partway up the spiral, at the end of a little jutting tangent of the boardwalk, on the broad, grassy top of another great thrusting shoot of yellow rock. The Akh Va’quot Shrine.

A dizzying windmill puzzle lay inside. My sleepy mind couldn’t handle much more of this....

I locked it down all the same, and continued along the path.

The spiraling boardwalk just opened up on the right side at whiles, sometimes plainly with simple breaks in the railing, sometimes grandly in broad landings. I guessed these were an airfaring people after all. Perhaps the spiraling path wasn’t so linear as it looked, if you included the airways....

And then I came to the dwelling of one Harth.

Harth sat on the floor at the back of his house, head bowed, holding one wing. “Owwwwwwwww...” I heard him murmur. This must have been the one who was injured.

All of the other Rito I had seen had plumage in a modest rainbow of colors; the children were more and especially vibrant. But Harth was black as soot, with long crest-feathers drooping in a brooding sulk from his head.

I asked him what the matter was, but he didn’t really want to talk to me about it, only muttering about that cursed monster. When I pressed, he introduced himself as the village bowsmith. But he couldn’t raise his arm just now, so business wasn’t that great at the moment.

He left it off at that.

“Are you all right?” I asked him once more.

“Not really... If this is what we are up against, we should have put more stock in the elder’s words.”

I couldn’t get anything else out of him, and on that enigmatic note he dropped his head again and returned to cradling his wing.

What did he mean ‘we’ should have....?

Did he and someone else attack the Divine Beast?

“Molli’s dad got hurt, and Tulin’s dad went missing.”

But where else could one go who went missing? After attacking a Divine Beast?

I hoped missing only meant missing, and not DEAD. For the child’s sake. Though.... some romantic in me hungered after higher stakes and drama.

I left Harth alone. I could only go back to the boardwalk and higher round the Neck in hopes of finding out more from someone else.

But I only found more of the same, Ritos sighing and lamenting about the Beast overhead. And then I came to the home of Saki.

Saki looked different from the other female Rito—for oh she was definitely female, stunning in light, roselavender plumage with bright pink crest-feathers set back into a voluptuous bouffant, upcurled ends in pleasant, bouncing layers. Her face was somehow softer, not as sharp as other Rito faces, her eyes like wells.

Similar to other female Rito, she wore the decorative hoop-bangles where the men wore their anchored sidelocks. But her double-breasted oversash (the men’s sashes were single-sided, as was the one on my Snowquill Shirt) was white, instead of the seemingly traditional red. The rest of her ensemble was also lighter.

Surely now, I thought, maybe this one will open up and tell me something....

“Can I help you?” she asked when I approached.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her.

“Never mind. Forget it.” And she broke off.

Dude....

I approached her again.

“Hello,” she said, “Please. Now is not a good time.”

Nothing.

I was really curious and concerned about the fate of that missing Rito....

And I was quickly running out of Rito houses to call on....