Safe Roost

Waking of Sunday, January 6, 2019 ~ 7

Safe Roost

I’ve got to check on Teba, I thought. Had he been able to make it back to the village?

I dashed onto the twining boardwalk....

And I found—

Harth! He’s all right!

He was on his feet and well again!

And he said Teba was safe at home! Oh thank goodness! ^_^ :’D

I pelted higher up the boardwalk and round the Neck.... and there was that bright white plumage—

“Tebaaaaa!” :D

He stood whole and well in his house with his wife and son. “You... I really owe you for what you did,” he said.

“Are you hurt?” I say, though he didn’t look it.

“I’m fine. Thanks to my wife, I’ve recovered to the point where I can stand.”

I guessed I was on that Beast for a good long while....

“Actually, my wife told me something about you.”

Oh?

“She says you’re a descendant of the Champion.”

My only option was, “...”

“Hahah! Go on. There’s nothing to hide!” Teba laughed. “Your bowmanship...the way you move through the air. There’s no doubt about it, you have the blood of a Champion.”

Well, he wasn’t wrong.

“What? You look like you’ve got something else to say.”

And again, I was only give one response: “Actually...”

Teba stared at me. “Don’t tell me...” he started, “You’re the Hylian Champion?!”

I was then treated to two entire paragraphs of silence from the Rito warrior:

“...” Teba says.

“...” he says again.

And then....

“Hahaha! Good one, pal!” he burst out laughing.

Hahhhhhhh.

“Everyone knows that all of the Champions were wiped out by Calamity Ganon 100 years ago. And even if they survived that, they’d be old geezers with canes instead of swords!”

Heh.... it must have seemed pretty ridiculous after all....

“I let the elder know about what happened with Divine Beast Vah Medoh, but you should probably go talk to him,” Teba finished, and I left his house.

I regarded his family on my way out.

.

Snow-white Tulin really was his daddy’s boy.

....

Despite it all....

I love these people.

I talked with Kaneli.

“You have done it!” he hooted, “And you survived, at that! You conquered Divine Beast Vah Medoh!” His owl eyes really were huge.

“To think the beast has taken up roost at the top of the village! It looks simply...divine.”

Heh, fitting description.

“If the legends are true,” he mused, “‘the light from the Divine Beasts will ravage the Calamity.’ For now, Divine Beast Vah Medoh will become the protector of this village and live on in legend...alongside you. Hoo hoo hoo...” He gave a hearty laugh so low and rumbly for an owl! XD

And then, “...Oh, yes! Of course! I must reward you properly! Feel free to take what you find in that treasure chest. You will get more use out of it than I.”

There was a new chest in his little house. I could guess what was in there....

“Champion descendant... I have only just realized. That sword you have in your possession...”

His big, grandfatherly owl face—heh, eyebrows like Kaepora Gaebora come to think of it—and his half-closed, smiling bird eyes as he stroked his braided beard.

“Could it be the sword that seals the darkness?”

Think so, Elder Kaneli?

“The Hylian Champion who fought alongside Master Revali 100 years ago... Could...that be you?”

Divine Beast Vah Medoh – Complete

The banner flashed across my screen.

I checked the chest beside Kaneli’s chair. Inside was a Great Eagle Bow. 28x3 attack power. Nothing to sneeze at.

Its description read, “A bow without equal wielded by the Rito Champion, Revali. It’s said Revali could loose arrows with the speed of a gale, making him supreme in aerial combat.”

Cool.

....

My inventory was full.

....

Later, I guess.

Wise Old Owl

Waking of Saturday, January 5, 2019 ~ 4

Wise Old Owl

There was only one more Rito house before the spiral of boardwalk finally came to an end. And in this house, resting in what might have been a wooden rocker—I wasn’t entirely sure; there were a lot of feathers in the way—was the largest Rito I had ever seen.

He was aged, with a gentle demeanor, honeynut plumage, and great, cream-colored brow-feathers you could clean a pipe with.

Just as Kass was more parrot-like than most of his kin, this elder Rito seemed more like a great horned owl, with luminous eyes and a fine, pointed beak. Beneath his creamy brows and covering most of his face and neck was an equally creamy beard, brushed grandly out to either side, and braided thickly downward for a foot and a half before it ended in a gigantic bob. Was it feathers or was it hair? He stroked it as he greeted me.

“Ah, a visitor. Welcome to...” But he trailed off before—“Oh. OH! That object on your hip. Could it be...?” But he caught himself. “Forgive me. Where are my manners? I am Kaneli, Elder of Rito Village.”

He asked about the Sheikah Slate, and when I confirmed that that was indeed what it was, he leaned forward in excitement, and his already large eyes widened to an alarming size! Owl indeed!

“Then it is true!” he exclaimed, “You must be a Champion like Master Revali! One of the few people able to board Divine Beast Vah Medoh!”

But here he paused and murmured beneath his breath that the Champions had all been dead for a hundred years.... and shortly concluded that I must be a “mere descendent”. An inheritor of the Sheikah Slate.

He begged my pardon once more before asking if I would listen to the request of this old man.

Here we go, I thought....

And he told me straight up that he would like me to deal with the Divine Beast Vah Medoh.

“Only Champions were able to control the Divine Beasts,” he stressed again. And he told me how he had tried to impress this upon some of the more headstrong Rito Warriors of his tribe, but they didn’t heed his warnings.... He could not stop Teba and Harth from launching an assault against the Beast. And.... it hadn’t gone well.

Harth was badly injured.

And the other....?

“Teba escaped unscathed,” said the Elder, and I was relieved— “but I fear he now plans to face Medoh alone.”

—and just a little bit disappointed at the same time.... No derring-do, dashing rescues of the desperately wounded here. That was okay.

“As a descendant of Champions, you might have a chance,” the Elder went on, “Please, find Teba. If you work together, you may be able to stop Divine Beast Vah Medoh.”

And that seemed to settle it.

Hahh.

I thought about the other places I’d been. The grandness of King Dorephan, Lord of the Zoras, the seclusion of the protected Gerudo Chief.... But this old owl, he seemed more.... grandfatherly than anything else, here in this rustic place of small wooden lodgings.

It just seemed so.... humble.

I kind of liked it. c:

I spoke with the Elder for a little bit longer to get more details. I learned a little about Vah Medoh, not much I didn’t already know, and some about the old Champion Revali. He had been a skilled warrior, wielding a bow twice his own size with ease. Kaneli wondered what could have happened inside the Divine Beast a hundred years ago to defeat such a celebrated warrior....

I also learned that, evidently, attacking Vah Medoh had been Teba’s idea to begin with. Oh gads, that made it even worse that Harth was the one who was injured. Shot down, the Elder said.

Elder Kaneli suspected that this failure may have only strengthened Teba’s resolve to make another run at Medoh, and that he was likely preparing for the assault. Ah, so he had gone missing of his own accord, it seemed....

The Elder directed me to speak to Teba’s wife Saki—oh, that pretty one just next door—Saki, he said, might be able to offer me clues regarding Teba’s whereabouts.

So, I went back to the boardwalk, walked a ninepace downspiral and turned back into Saki’s house. Teba’s house, I guessed.

But Saki had already overheard me talking with the elder. Their dwellings were so close, and these homes.... they were so open.

Saki opened up to me then. She told me she thought her husband was somewhere in the Flight Range, a place where the Rito would go to practice aerial combat. (She gestured over the lake and toward the icy Hebra Mountains.) At least, that was where Tulin, their son, had said his Dad had gone.

She said, assuming I had a means of air-travel, if I took off from Revali’s Landing it would be a straight shot to this Flight Range, and I would easily be able to find Teba.

I looked where she pointed this time.

Revali’s Landing was only a little way down the Neck, and it was one of the larger landings off the spiraling boardwalk. So large it had little landings of its own, stepping off into the sky. The dark planks of its broad platform were painted with a stylized, flying kind of design in white....

I had been here before.

Memory took me....

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....