In the face of my vexations

Evening of Friday, January 5, 2018 ~ 2

In the face of my vexations

I bought all the arrows from that donkey-pulling merchant at the Gerudo Canyon Stable.

The sun was sinking. I had to hurry.

Calisa was nowhere to be seen. But there was another Gerudo—Lukan—whom I had seen by the stable before. Lukan was a soldier who posed as a merchant, in order to keep a better eye out for bandits from the Yiga Clan.

I thought about walking out with her for.... another attempt at the desert, but....

That life had already been lived.

And yet how I still pressed to repeat even a nighttime journey just the same.

I turned my back on the stable, and set my face toward the end of the canyon and the beginning of the sand....

Three Stalmoblins clawed up out of the earth.

Dang it.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go—

I dashed to isolate one of them, cutting him down quickly and dispatching the head—

But there was another voice behind me.

I turned to take on the second monster—and saw Lukan engaged with the third!

She was a soldier after all.

The manied hands made.... such light work.

And Lukan gave me a warming dish as thanks for the team effort!

Maybe I’ll walk out with Lukan after all, I thought, picking up the monster bits that had rolled back toward the stable.

And so it was Lukan’s company I kept as I walked once again into the icy, starlit desert.

It seemed Calisa did want to come along after all, though; for after a time I noticed she and some other merchant had started out from the canyon some distance behind us.

Well, the more the merrier.

Lukan advised me on the dangers of the desert as we traveled: “There are sandstorms so thick out there you can’t tell vai from voe.”

Vai, huh? Must be their word for female....

It was six in the morning when we came close to the bazaar, and Vah Naboris rumbled and roared.

The sandstorm was greenish, lighter with the dawn, and not the same. Not as good.

Not the blue pre-dawn dimness that was light enough to the eyes, dark enough to the heart, and far enough that it might have held the vast emptiness of space. The color of desolation.

But I took it.

And Ripp the guard told me all about the Divine Beast once more.

....

Nine o’clock.

....

Why is it so difficult?

I wish I could forget, but I have to remember....

Zelda ran panting over the desert sand. Ran for her life. Head, neck, and arms pumping momentum over exhausted legs. Tired, desperate, ragged gasps punctuated by the jarring of terrified vocal chords as she turned and turned again and turned again to see behind her.

A Yiga Clansman. Red and lithe. The vision of speed. Low and streamlined as a cat.

His scythe was drawn.

She ran.

In all the desert so open and vast, the one jutting hill of beige stone approaching fast on her left—

Two more Yiga leapt out from behind it to bar her way. Scythes—

Of course they planned it that way.

She had not wherewith to fight.

She could not turn left or right, only back and forth in snapping glances as they closed in, the chaser stepping now; his run was over. And in the whirling panic to measure and shrink from the press at every side she stumbled to the ground. On palms and rump, heels and elbows she shuffled herself backward, away from the chaser, shaking as he neared.

And the chaser stepped his last step and raised his scythe above his head against the dusty sky and they meant to kill and it was happening too fast and there was no hesitation and his arm reached its apex and came rushing down.

Metal clashed and sparked against metal—the scythe flew up into the air.

One stroke.

Zelda turned with a gasp.

But Link wasn’t looking at her—his sword was still outstretched from the parry as he stared the other two down.

Behind them both, the chaser’s limbs folded and he fell on his side, limp, and dead.

The other two Yiga stepped back uncertainly....

Link didn’t flinch. And Zelda only looked at his face: steady, and hard, the gaze unreturned for it was busy, as her breath came back to her.

I think.... that this is the first time I have ever felt . . . . heartless, for the rapier precision I commit by my words.

What is this log doing to me?

The Entry Not To Be Acknowledged

Waking of Saturday, November 25, 2017

The Entry Not To Be Acknowledged

Upon starting up my game I was presented with a sidequest banner across the top of my screen the like of which I.... really would never have expected.

David did mention something about it happening in his game, though....

Xenoblade Chronicles 2

It was something about.... if I looked into the night sky for red shooting stars in three different locations....

I suppose time will tell.

I ventured into the desert that evening. Calisa, that heavyset Gerudo who had called me a treasure, was headed that way as well. I walked with her.

As the sun set it became so cold I could see my breath. And soon, it became necessary to don my Warm Doublet.

But as always, the climate did nothing to dissuade a resident population of monsters. I had it out with a Red Lizalfos, and Calisa gifted me with a spicy mushroom dish for killing it.

“Why are there so many monsters around here?” she asked.

There were a lot of monsters. I could hear a group of them yammering through the night in a little hidden depression that the road bent around. It was slow going, walking at Calisa’s pace, but I liked her company in this strange, foreign environment.

As the night entered its depth before the dawn, we drew near the oasis I had seen on my map—the place I had recognized long ago—the location I knew contained one of my memories.

Just before we reached it however....

The Divine Beast roared.

It was a terrifying sound. An awful bellowing that rent the darkness. And the cinematic showed the enormous thing moving in the dusky nothing of the desert air. Lightning crashed about its towering frame as it stomped in the gloom, in the terrifying dimness. Left legs, right legs, left legs, right legs.... Heh, like a real camel, I thought in spite of myself, as it faded beyond the night’s sight.

Kara Kara Bazaar.

I knew there was a memory here.

Calisa walked on ahead, but I stopped to chat with the armor-clad Gerudo standing watch at the oasis’ boundary. Ripp was her name.

“Gerudo Town is still a fair way to the southwest from here,” she said, “If you’re planning on heading there, I’d recommend you rest up for a bit first. Though, you ARE a voe... Even if you made it to Gerudo Town, you wouldn’t be able to get in.”

Guess it’s no boys allowed.

There’s a law forbidding it.

Ripp went on to inform me that the Divine Beast, Vah Naboris, had started acting up a while back, kicking up a storm with its endless treading through the desert. A tempest of lightning seemed to follow wherever it went. That’s why she was keeping an eye on it. It kept to the wasteland for the most part, but there was always the chance it could head for the oasis, or for Gerudo Town.

I could see Calisa far ahead now as the sun began to rise and the ground began to warm.

There was only one sensible thing to do now—I could see it glowing there to the left.

Mmmm but I walked past it first to catch a lizard.

Stalling.

The threat of buzzkill hung heavy in the room....

....

Against my better judgement, I stepped into the memory light, and pressed A.

There were no words spoken.

Running.

Running.

Tension.

Imminent impending—

Flash and clang—

Impasse buzzkill dropped and the moment was marked and the imprint was scarred and the sound was Indian ink on my skin in all the shapes I would forever want to forget but would never be able to because I can’t.

Idiot.

I turned off the game.

And I didn’t apologize for being hurt.

A Ride into the Desert

Waking of Saturday, October 28, 2017 ~ 6

A Ride into the Desert

Back at the Outskirt Stable I cooked up a loooot of stamina elixirs for a later attempt at the beast of Satori Mountain.

But for now.... it was time to take Dragmire out for a ride. Up the road we went, between the towering hills and across the green fields, past the lumbering pack of Moblins to Digdogg Suspension Bridge. I walked him quietly here, and we sneaked round the side of the slumbering Hinox before plunging on ahead into the sandy desert lands.

Dragmire it seemed, while not able to put out bursts of speed, nevertheless had a tremendous power of strength. David enjoyed demonstrating this for me with his own tamed version of the Dark Horse—plowing over Bokoblins and Lizalfos, stunning or even killing them. He even took several damaging passes at a Lynel before this last creature had evidently had enough, and started pelting him with arrows.

He fled then.

But for myself I tried not to run Dragmire into too many obstacles. Clomp straight through them though he could, I didn’t want to overstrain him if I could help it.

At least, not without good reason and low-risk opportunity—I make no promises to smaller monsters on foot.

I had often been a very slow traveler, cautiously combing over the landscape as I moved, scouting dangers from all angles before proceeding, and generally creeping with the prudence—and speed—of a church mouse.

But here and now on my gargantuan horse.... and maybe.... just maybe feeling the press of time....

I needed to move.

We just.... went for a ride. Into the canyon. Dragmire led the way; he knew to follow the road. And the path went deeper, and the bordering canyon walls became taller, and the sunbaked land glowed dusty gold in the daylight—it was stunning.

I did not even slow down—except when I briefly had to dismount in order to Magnese an obstacle out of the way.

But onward we pressed. And after a time, we came to the Gerudo Canyon Stable.

I met a treasure-seeking Gerudo there named Calisa.

I am beginning to lose track of all the Sav’greetings they hail me with.

Calisa said that among the voe of this stable there didn’t seem to be too much treasure around here. “Well, except maybe for you,” she added.

^_^;;

I locked down the adjacent Kay Noh Shrine up on the hill across the way—and I decided that that was going to be the last thing I did. It was getting pretty late, and I really did need to get to bed.

I wouldn’t go any further tonight.

....

One guess how long my resolution lasted.