Waking of Monday, April 22, 2019 ~ 4
I still stood on Zelda’s Bridge.
I was feeling pretty accomplished!
and now didn’t quite know what to do with myself.
....
Well, I came here for the memory,
and I got it.
But before I go, I want.... that. The highest tower.
....
I’m gonna go get it.
*
Okay, Revali’s Gale did not work from my position of clinging to
the top of the spire—scrabbled to throw another A-press and paraglide anyway,
from the spire atop Zelda’s Study to.... further in.
I couldn’t tell. Maybe I could,
once, in another life. But at present I barely had a grasp of the castle’s interior, and a great deal of that was
collapsing in ruin. The higher exterior
was a Malice-tormented forest of spires, tiered cliffsides, battlements running
from who knows to why not, and the mightiest of flying buttresses. For myself
it was only a fretful, embered surreptition of climbing towers....
paragliding.... climbing towers again.... So
much Malice.... the air so blustery.... and I always wondering whether a
Guardian would target me at any moment....
The cross section of the roughly
conical shape of the castle grounds was narrowing; I was definitely making
progress. I paraglided again—Sanctum—the
name of the new locale gleamed into terrible focus across my screen—“NO, I
DON’T WANT THE SANCTUM!” I hollered as I sailed toward the fire-bright architecture
glowing under the hellish sky. I was not
ready for this.
I slammed into a wall and clung on
for dear life and was afraid to touch the ground below me. Would it trigger something? Defying physics I demanded my way instead up over a horizontal battlement until I
could stand again.
I did not want anywhere called a “Sanctum”.... Not now....
I kept climbing.
Oh
my gosh I could see inside windows and places to go, a hole in the floor with a
ladder leading down OH GOSH....
Oh, nope, nope, NOPE, NOPE! Nope, nope. Nope! NOPE! NOPE!
*
I got up on top of a tower with a
busted top; the collapse was flat enough to stand on. I am so high up now. I could see the tops of those five columns....
Might even be able to paraglide to one of them, but.... NO, first....
>_<
Oh man....
Very close.... I was very close.... This seemed to be one of
a handful of side towers encircling the uppermost central column of the
castle’s architecture.
Okay help me, Revali....
And
he did—
OH!
GOT ON THE CENTRAL TOWER.
OKAY.
WOW.
OH MY GOHOHOSH, I COULD SEE THE
WHOLE WORLD FROM HERE! So narrow, so
open, so little to obstruct my views anymore.
All the Divine Beasts’ lasers were
pointed right at me..... oh my gosh....
I kept climbing.... up the vertical
stone, up the steep shingles.... It got cold, and on went one of my warming circlets....
Who built this spire? Did they freeze
too?
“Vah Rudania.... Vah Naboris....” [waitthosetwoaren’tadjacent--] I named the
distant, barely visible shapes as they passed under the orbit of my gaze, the
ends of their lasers so MONUMENTALLY
PRESENT. I kept climbing and looking and I looked up into the raging
yellow-orange-fire sky and “WHAAAAT? WHAT IS THAT?”
THERE IS A DARK BODY IN THE SKY.
ROUND LIKE THE MOON. AN ECLIPSE? WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?
IT IS NEARLY MIDNIGHT. IS THAT THE
BLOOD MOON?
OH MY GOSH.
“I GOTTA SEE IT.” I SAID LIKE IAN
MALCOLM. I MEAN. UM. DAVID LEVINSON. JEFF GOLDBLUM.
IS
EVERY NIGHT HERE A BLOOD MOON NIGHT?
MIDNIGHT STRIKES.
AND THEN THE DARK BODY TURNED WHITE
AND SHRUNK BACK TO SIZE.
IT’S THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT WHY IS
THE SKY STILL SO RAGING?
I KEEP CLIMBING. THE LAST SPIRE’S BASE SO TOWERING AND STRANGE, LIKE A
STACK OF ALTERNATING GEARS.
WHO ERECTED THIS TOWER?
AND THEN.... I SEE FLOWING LEAVES
AND HEAR THAT LIGHT WOODEN CLATTERING AS I NEAR THE TOP.
“Found you.”
I
knew it.
I reached the final,
heaven-piercing end of the highest spire on the tallest tower, and saddled into
a hanging, one-handed cling. My gosh.
I examined the glittering dapple of
leaves and woodwindwater sounds—and it was a Korok. Of course. Even here. Just between the beams of Vah
Rudania and Vah.... Ruta, I think.
Oh my gosh, I could see the whole
world. Everything.
Heuhuhuh!
And on my map in the Castle Map, my location-indicator.... that little yellow
arrow that showed where I was.... I looked like a flag on a pole.
Oh gosh....
The castle’s billowing Orchestra
still blustered all around me like
this hellish, hellish sky! What was up with this sky? The everpresent
cloud wrack was driven endlessly tormented in unholy flames above my head. Day
or night, it was always the beautiful, terrible color of fiery doom, blown on forever by forces unnatural.
So swept the Orchestra. Still
pounding, still ringing, still tipping between the Ascending Organ of the Dark
One, and the Lullaby of She who held him at bay. The tension between them still
tautened on a rusty crank meant for torture before I realized—there was yet another theme there as well. One older
even than Zelda’s Lullaby.
Those five notes ascending,
springing like a flame, tonic to dominant, root to fifth—in minor this time. Preceded by those two hits
that came clomping down like boots with something to say.
1__5__________1_1-2-3-4-5__________!
The Hero’s Theme.
My Theme.
And that made Three.
Should it have come as any
surprise?
It pronounced its presence with a
percussive flare, and swelled heroically with the string section, as though to
proclaim its intention of slicing the ties and bringing this battle to rest one way or the other. Until at the
cadence the Castle’s own theme cycled back round to take up the song again.
Like it does.
Should it have come as any
surprise? That here in the Heart of Hyrule, here at the Crux of the Age, under
the eyes of the Goddesses.... there would be Three.
There would always be Three voices
in this Dreadful Dialogue.
....
I’d thought about the logging of
this part, and had wanted to say that it wasn’t a Dreadful Dialogue after all,
but a Dreadful Trialogue; but then I
looked up the Greek roots, and the “dia” of “dialogue” actually meant “through”
instead of “two”, and I was vexed by the thwartation and couldn’t bring myself
to justify the pun.
