The Inevitable
Jan. 11th, 2015 06:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shinonCharacters: Ravio, Link, Sheerow (actually, does the bird count? ...hell with it, of course he does, I am only flesh and blood)
Word count: ~7500
Warnings: A MORE DIFFERENT BAD ENDING. Some horror, though not gory.
Notes: The other Sad Lorule Thoughts I mentioned. For the prompt "Resurrection."
I thought it was interesting how cavalier Ravio is about Link dying all over the place - though the game is careful not to refer to it as "death" in so many words. "Fall in battle," "keel over," "get done in," etc., I guess for plausible deniability or convenience of handwave. But I have a weakness for overthinking game mechanics, and this one gave me license to write something incredibly weird, so here we all are.
Sheerow flew in through the window and dropped something on the shelf with a mighty thunk. Ravio looked up. So the hammer had found its way home. "Ooh, tough luck, buddy," he muttered, and manfully resisted the urge to rub his hands together. It was a fine line you walked, when your business model relied on your clients dying. Probably dying in pretty nasty ways, too - not that he'd ever ask, but it stood to reason. Oh, well. Someone had to do it, and for as long as it was going on, someone else might as well make money hand over fist.
And he'd worked hard putting this collection together, anyway, sneaking into all the finest dungeons in Lorule and then - the really difficult part - sneaking out again without alerting the monsters. Was it so wrong, not wanting to give that up for free? Of course it wasn't. He swapped out the hammer's placeholder for a price tag and awaited the inevitable.
And the inevitable came, looking a little dazed. How exactly the guy got back here after dying was another thing Ravio wasn't about to ask. He only ushered the returning hero inside and let him look over the merchandise. "Happens to the best of us," he said, though of course he took pains to make sure it never happened to him.
Link said nothing, just walked to the middle of the sales floor and looked along the shelves, frowning slightly. No surprise there. Not a chatty guy, our Mr. Hero. He'd answer questions readily enough, and if pressed was usually willing to explain what he'd been up to since the last time you'd spoken, but that was about it. A "just the facts, no time for small talk if you're saving the world," type deal. Kind of admirable in its way. Kind of weird, too, but considering the whole probably-the-only-person-who-could-stop-Hilda business, who had room to judge?
"See anything you like?" said Ravio, who was already making mental bets with himself on what the hero was going to take this time. The hammer again, sure - he hadn't exactly come back drenched in glory, so he probably had some unfinished business. But what odds on the boomerang? Or bombs, maybe. Who didn't love explosions?
"The Sand Rod is still gone."
"Yeah, no sign of that guy since he rented it. Do you think maybe he can't find the store? I did make signs."
Link turned away from the items to give Ravio a look over his shoulder that said, plainer than any words, "Yes. I know. I have, in fact, noticed the giant purple rabbit sign you nailed to the front of my house."
Ravio didn't really do embarrassment. Or shame. He did get nervous, though, and that expression, on a face almost exactly like his own, definitely did the job. He grinned uneasily and shrank back a step or two. But then he thought, Hey, if he didn't want me making any renovations, he could have put up a bigger fight about me moving in. Cost of doing business. Not my fault if he couldn't be bothered to argue. "Not as nice as those little cards I put together for all the items, but not too shabby, either." He steered the hero over to one end of the shelf. "Here, did you see the one for the Ice Rod? Probably my finest work to date."
The mention of the Sand Rod did raise an interesting point, though. That guy had been out for a while, and he hadn't died even once, right? Otherwise Sheerow would have found him and brought the rod back. Compare that to Mr. Hero here, who seemed to shuffle off the mortal coil in even a moderately stiff breeze. Just went to show people could surprise you, huh? Looking at them, you'd think Link would be way tougher than old what's-his-face. Ravio had actually tried to push more items on Sand Rod Guy in the expectation he'd keel over in short order, net result: profit. But things seemed to be turning out for the best this way.
And he was getting distracted here. Ravio went back to work. The customer left satisfied, with hammer and hookshot in tow, and Ravio saw him off with a cheery wave. He'd be back. He'd be back as many times as needed, because he wanted to save the princess and his world, and when you were a hero, death was barely a setback at all.
Not that Ravio would know anything about heroics. And the business about saving princesses rang absolutely zero bells. Some people just weren't cut out for that kind of thing. Some kingdoms were doomed either way.
Those were not cheery thoughts at all. He started counting rupees again. That tended to help.
There was a thunk, and Ravio dove for cover. A few seconds later he got up, dusted himself off, and said, "Come on, Sheerow, you gotta be more careful with those. You put bombs down gently, okay? Gently." Sheerow blinked and chirped at him. "Nah, I can't stay mad at you, just make sure it doesn't happen again." He straightened up the shelf and turned to the door.
No one came.
After a while, in which no one continued to open the door, Ravio and Sheerow exchanged glances. Ravio shrugged. "You want to play cards?"
Before Link got back, this had turned into "best two out of three," "best three out of five," and finally, "best four out of - oh, whatever, you're probably cheating anyway." Sheerow fluttered indignantly. "Don't play dumb with me, you're not any -" The door opened. Ravio jumped to his feet, glad he hadn't gone along with the urge to flip back his hood. Even in private, it could probably never come off again. There was something creepy in that, knowing you could never really claim ownership of your own face. "Welcome back, Mr. Her...oh?"
Link had brushed past him already, making for the merchandise. Well, he told himself, it's nice when the customer knows what they want, right? So you don't have to worry about upselling them or anything? He followed a step behind Link, saying, "Sorry you're having a rough time out there, buddy, but can I interest you in -"
"The bombs again."
"Of course, of course. Great choice. That'll be fifty rupees."
Link turned and started rummaging through his wallet, and Ravio winced at the sight of him. He was pretty dinged up, and the normal confusion that seemed to come from passing through the great revolving door at the end of life was missing. Normally it took him a little bit after coming back to remember where he was and what he was doing, but this time there didn't seem to be any doubt in his mind. He just looked grim. Grim as anything. "I almost had him," he said.
He forked over the money, stuck the bombs in a bag, and left. A bell rang somewhere outside. In five minutes the bombs were back. In another ten seconds so was he.
"Uh," said Ravio. "Hi, there."
"Bombs."
"You got it. Fifty rupees, you know the drill." And then he hesitated. It wasn't really his place to interfere, but Link had been dying an awful lot today. Something had to be done. "But hey, uh, Mr. Hero? What exactly is it you're fighting this time?" Link looked at him. He wrung his hands. "You've been going pretty heavy on the bombs lately, but it doesn't look like it's doing the job. Think something else might work better? I know all these items like the back of my hand. I can give you another rundown of what they all do and maybe we can figure out a strategy, whaddaya say?"
Link thought about this for a while, then shook his head. "The bombs are enough."
Ravio did not say, "Obviously they're not." You didn't tell people how to do their jobs. That would be like Link giving him advice on how to be a useless coward skulking in someone else's house while you tried to manipulate them into overthrowing your old boss (which would be silly, needless to say, because that was the one thing in life Ravio had absolutely locked down). Instead he said, "Best of luck to you, Mr. Hero!" and put his hands behind his back so he'd have to stop fidgeting where Link could see it.
This time it was ten minutes before Sheerow came back with the loot. That was progress, probably.
He wasn't really stealing anyone's house. Technically. It was pretty much his - there had to be some kind of dimensional law about that - or it was what his would have been, in a world where the grass was green.
It was starting to unnerve him, staying in this house. Sometimes when his mind wandered, he thought he was still at home, and the world wasn't ending, and Hilda had never latched onto this crazy Triforce gambit, and Yuga wasn't scheming to ruin everything even worse than it was already ruined. And then he'd look out the window and see Hyrule, and it all came back. Made him feel kinda dizzy, honestly. A guy could get whiplash that way.
So obviously the solution was to do a little more reorganizing. Make the place look less like home, so it'd stop messing with his head. He got to rummaging through Link's stuff again, maybe see what else he could clear out or repurpose or what have you. And that was when he discovered something.
They had books in Lorule, too. Of course they did. Ravio had gotten his hands on a blank one once and kept a journal for a little while. Hilda had a bunch of history books and legal stuff and all that up in the castle, and here and there you ran into a family that had saved a book of magic or something, but he'd never seen a book like this in his life.
It was full of stories.
Some of them he knew from back home - the kind of thing you might hear if you went down into Thieves' Town and asked an old guy why the moon looked like that, or whatever. Or the kind of thing Princess Hilda might tell you in a really serious voice, saying she'd learned it from her parents or one of the castle maids or some other long-gone person. Someone else who wouldn't have to be here to watch the end of days.
But some of them were totally new. Even the old ones, he'd never seen written down. He hadn't known that was something people did. Was that what it was like, living in a world with a Triforce? Did you have time to record everything? Could you go back later and read the story whenever you wanted? And doomsday mask cults wouldn't go around burning everything they didn't agree with? Imagine that. Instead of spending all your time trying to stay alive and maybe hoping the next time you got a breather there'd be someone around who knew the tales -
Ravio read it cover to cover twice, and then said, "Sheerow, I'm gonna write a book." Illustrate it, too. There were paintings in Link's book - someone had had time to do those. Someone else had expected to have time to sit down and look at them. He was no Yuga, thank the gods, but he was good with a paintbrush, and as long as he was just sitting here waiting around for Link, why not give it a whirl?
But for the longest while he couldn't decide what to write about, and then Sheerow flew out the window and came back with the bow (and the bombs, again. Should he even ask what the guy had been blowing up this time?). Ravio hid the book and several pages of idle scribbling, dusted off his robe, and went to meet the great hero.
"Welcome back, buddy. Hero-ing shaping up to be a tough business, huh? Well, don't worry about it. You'll always get another chance, and you're always welcome back here! Especially with deep pockets like yours -" And he realized that Link was only staring at him in expressionless silence, and hadn't moved since opening the door. He laughed nervously and wrung his hands. "Just messin' with ya. What am I gonna do, throw you out? Okay, so come on in, how can we set you up this time?"
His face didn't change, and he remained silent as he walked over to retrieve the bow and the bombs once more and, after a little deliberation, the hookshot. He paid up in full - deep pockets indeed - but still unspeaking, his face still totally blank.
"You always been like this?" said Ravio. "The strong silent type, I mean? I can respect that. Me, I've always been closer to the flimsy chatterbox ideal. Not that that's actually anybody's ideal." He waved a hand dismissively. "You know what I'm saying. But that's why you're the hero, and you have our full support. Right, Sheerow?" Sheerow chirped an affirmative.
Link said nothing, and walked back out. A bell rang, and he was gone.
Ravio let himself breathe again. "You don't think..." He looked down at his hands, which for some reason were shaking. There had been something really weird in the way Link looked at him that whole time. Or - not even "at," but "through." He swallowed and shook his head. "You don't think maybe dying all the time is doing something to him, do you?"
Sheerow didn't know, or didn't say. And it was hours before Ravio managed to settle down enough to think about books again. It was the way Link had moved - not a single unnecessary motion or gesture. And there was something about those eyes.
He'd started counting down when Sheerow flew off this time, so he'd be ready. The sound of the items clattering down from the window made him flinch anyway. He'd already put aside the pages of what he'd optimistically begun to think of as his manuscript, and he'd been running numbers all morning, so he was ready. Theoretically.
Because as it turned out, that thing with the spooky silence? That hadn't just been a one-time funk. Link never answered any questions now, never offered any information, just got what he'd come for and paid up and left. And that weird hollow look in his eyes had only gotten worse, and last time he came through it had been like he could no longer see Ravio at all, or like the sight held no interest for him now. He was always glancing around like he was watching something move, but when Ravio followed his gaze there was never anything there.
"What are you looking at?" Ravio had asked him. "What do you see?" But he'd been afraid of the answer, and only asked in the first place because he knew he wouldn't get one.
Link had stared at Sheerow like he really didn't like what he saw, and held the requisite fistful of rupees out into empty space, and eventually Ravio had just had to meet him halfway and pry the money out of his hand.
Creepy. Deeply creepy. And Ravio was saying this as someone who'd grown up in Lorule, where skulls littered all the roads and some of them tried to bite your ankles when you went out to get the mail.
(A joke. Lorule hadn't had a postal service in a long time. Friendly civil servants crossing that countryside every day? Ha. You couldn't pay anyone enough to take the risk.)
So he'd made some plans. He still wished Link all the best, of course. Still had all his hopes pinned on the guy, for crying out loud. But he thought maybe, maybe he'd like it better if he didn't see him quite so often, especially not right after he'd clawed his way out of the abyss of death for the fourth time in an hour? And if that was cowardice, then fine. He'd lost any right to argue with that accusation a long time ago anyway.
Link came in. Ravio drew himself up.
"Big news for you, Mr. Hero! Starting today, I'm getting into the sales biz! Great, right?" No reaction. Ravio took a breath and soldiered on. "Just think of it - having one of these items for your very own. You wouldn't have to trek all the way back here after every defeat -"
"How much?" said Link. He was, like last time, staring straight at Sheerow, and only at Sheerow. And this was the first he'd spoken in, shoot, probably days, and Ravio was prepared to swear his voice hadn't always had that kinda flanging quality, and it didn't used to be so low.
He'd had a whole spiel prepared. He couldn't remember it now. He was reduced to mumbling, "Uh, first-time buyers get... half off?" Link picked up the Fire Rod. "600 for that one, with the discount. One time only."
Link held out two golden rupees, again without looking at him. Ravio took them, pulled the bunny ears off the Fire Rod, and said with a mostly unsuccessful attempt at enthusiasm, "Ta-da! She's all yours. So now you can, uh... Now you can do whatever you want with that."
Link gave the Fire Rod an experimental wave, and Ravio threw himself backward out of its arc as a pillar of flame roared forth across the floor. It caught one end of his scarf before it went out, and he was lucky that was the worst he got. He busied himself stamping out the scarf, and only looked up when he heard Link speak again, a single word: "Good."
"Yeah, uh, works just as advertised, right? That'll burn through just about anything. But how about taking it outside? This is still gonna be your house after I move out, y'know. And also, we're both in it right now. So maybe don't burn it down. Sound good?" If Link had been any less personally terrifying right now, Ravio might have started gently pushing him toward the door, but things being what they were, he wasn't about to touch the guy.
There was no indication Link had even heard him. But there never was these days. He just left, like always. Ravio sat down on the spot as soon as he was gone. He didn't know how long he stayed there, picking at the singed scarf, but eventually he blinked and looked up at Sheerow and said, "We can fix this, right?" and saw that the sun was lower in the sky than it had been.
Link came in looking more distant than ever, and unsteady on his feet into the bargain, which was not an encouraging development.
"Look, buddy, I'm not trying to tell you how to save the world or anything. Wouldn't dream of it. But, hey, you know fairies? If you catch one she'll watch out for you if you take too many hits. I mean, I'm sure you already knew that, but - Mr. Hero?" He was still only standing in the doorway. Normally he'd make a beeline for the goods, but this time it didn't even look like he knew they were there. His eyes darted around wildly, while the rest of his face was so still it might have been frozen.
And Ravio knew that look. All too well. No, he thought, you don't get to be afraid, I'm afraid, I handed the bracelet off to you because you're as far from being me as anyone could ever be, that's why you're supposed to do what I can't. And another part of him thought, if it's bad enough to scare this guy, whatever it is, isn't that more proof I'd never make it?
"You aren't looking so hot. You wanna take a break? I know I left your bed around here somewhere. No sense going out to fight evil in less than tip-top condition, right? You'd get shredded. But get a little shut-eye and the whole world looks brighter. That's what my ol'... someone used to say. Man, I forget who it was. Sounds nice, though." Link wasn't reacting. Ravio cautiously moved over and took hold of his arm. "Right this way, then, young hero. Yuga's goons can wait til -" He stopped, unsure what he'd just heard. "You say something?"
Because Link was saying something, mumbling the same words over and over. And piece by piece they reached Ravio's ears and, slowly, he started to make sense of them. "Keep going," he said, "have to keep going." And the next part... His voice was barely above a whisper and his enunciation wasn't so great, but it didn't matter. Whether it was "save Hyrule" or just "save her," it amounted to the same thing.
Link shook him off. Ravio was admittedly not holding on very hard by then.
Under his breath, he said, "I really hope you can."
Link bought the bombs, rented everything else he could carry, and left. Ravio watched him go and kept staring at the door after it closed behind him, feeling a weird heaviness in his chest.
And then a burst of frantic cheeping and fluttering from Sheerow brought him back to his senses. "Oh, whoa, what am I doing? We can't let him go out there like that. You're right. Uh..." He hesitated a moment, biting his lip. His fingers twisted together involuntarily. Was he really going to have to do this?
Sheerow made a low pass over his head and zipped out the window. Translation: for shame, Ravio, of course you are. So he ran out after him.
But a lifetime of prudence and caution stopped him from calling out after him and - hey, wouldn't you know it, a lifetime of prudence and caution could be self-perpetuating? Because somehow, when he caught up, Link had already gotten himself surrounded by a bunch of guys in armor. All of them had weapons. All of the weapons looked nasty. And because Ravio had for once kept his trap shut, their attention was staying on Link, and he had time to nip behind a nearby boulder and stay out of sight.
Yeah, but, he thought, this isn't helping. All those sharp edges were still pointing at Mr. Hero. There was another word for those prudent, cautious people who hid behind a rock and let someone else get filled with arrows. Ravio looked at his hands. His empty hands. Link had already taken anything he could've used as a weapon, so what could he do anyway? Distract them with a rousing rendition of the Earth God's Lyric? He didn't even remember how that went.
So he hid behind a rock. Nothing else for it. Probably. Sheerow landed next to him, looking reproving. Ravio raised a finger to his lips. A lecture now would only give up his position. Sheerow looked even more reproving, but kept silent. Ravio tried pantomiming that maybe Sheerow should go out there and do something distracting himself, if he was so keen on the idea. But of course this was the one time, the one time in all their lives, that Sheerow didn't pick up his meaning from gesture alone. And so they were both there at the end.
"You'd get shredded," Ravio remembered saying to Link, not long ago at all. And now he had the pleasure of hearing his prophecy fulfilled. At first it seemed to be going okay: swords ringing on metal. The chunk of something sharp meeting a wooden shield. But then things got... squishier. And through it all, to the very last, he could hear a faint muttering. He couldn't make out the words, but he thought he knew. Keep going. Save Hyrule. Save her. He sagged against the rock at his back, pulled his knees up to his chest and his hood as low as it would go, clamped his hands to his ears, and wished it would stop. And then didn't notice when it did, because he could barely hear anything over the chattering of his teeth.
He did notice this: a sword being sheathed. Someone pulling arrows out of something. Heavy footsteps, leaving the place where he'd seen them.
Off to the side, Sheerow fluttered his wings and cocked his head. Ravio knew what he meant. So, was the question, shall I go swoop in and collect your stuff?
He couldn't answer. It suddenly seemed like a moral issue. He realized: this is the business I've been in all along. Sheerow flew off without waiting any longer. In a moment he flew by in the other direction, ferrying goods back into the shop. Ravio swallowed hard and closed his eyes. His knees had gone all weak and the sounds of Link's last fight kept playing back in his head, a grisly little symphony he'd never meant to attend.
But it couldn't be safe, staying here. Not with Yuga's painted knights out on the prowl. So he levered himself up to a stand. Just gonna run right back to the house, he thought. Not even gonna look.
He looked.
The fact that there wasn't a lot to see almost made it worse. It was just a heap of Link, kinda bloody, not moving.
He imagined himself that way. Then he wished he hadn't. Then he thought, realistically, this was the only way it would have ended if he had tried to do anything himself, and unlike Link, he wasn't guaranteed a return ticket. "The land needs its heroes," as it said in that book of Link's, and that was why, until the work was done, a hero would always keep coming back. But even if he'd been up to the mental gymnastics it'd take to put himself and the word "hero" in the same sentence, that was this land. He didn't come from such a happy place. Lorule - dear sweet Mother Lorule, may the sun never set on her (because worse things came out after dark) - tended to eat her own.
And yet. If he'd done something, this wouldn't have had to happen. If he'd just stood up to Hilda in the first place, told her Yuga was conning her - and he knew cons, probably better than someone on the royal payroll was supposed to -
Then yeah, he'd be paint on the wall. No, wait. Yuga had never liked the look of him. He wouldn't even get to be a painting, probably just a weird greasy spot on the floor and a faint smell of smoke.
But maybe she would have seen sense. Maybe it could've all been stopped. Maybe this poor guy wouldn't be lying all perforated in the road instead.
Only he wasn't going to keep lying there long, was he?
And then it was happening. Link's sword hand, flung out to the side when he fell, started twitching. Something in the air changed, something that made Ravio's hair stand on end when it hit him and left a sharp metal taste on his tongue. Half curiosity and half dread, he leaned out a little farther from the shade of the boulder to get a better angle. He was never, he swore to himself, going to be in this position again. He'd either intervene or run away - okay, no, he'd definitely run away - before it got to this point. But he was here now, and he owed the guy this much at least, and on some level, he had to know.
It happened in pieces, and the sword arm came first. Link's left hand kept twitching, opening and closing like it was trying to grab onto something. The motion spread gradually up to his elbow, then his shoulder, until finally his hand was groping along the ground for a weapon while the rest of him lay motionless. It found the Master Sword, got a good grip, and made a clumsy upward slash, halted by the dead weight of... Link's literal dead weight.
Ravio had a thought that started with I know you're supposed to come up swinging, but and then stopped himself because it was in really poor taste. How could you even try to crack wise at a time like this? But the more he tried to tell himself that this was deadly serious and really happening - to someone he knew, someone who shouldn't have to go through any of it - the more his mind retreated into the irreverent and the absurd. "Deadly" serious, huh? Pfft. No kidding.
Link's right arm came alive and tried to push him up out of the dirt. The movements were clumsy, jerky, like some unseen puppeteer up in the rafters was falling asleep at the strings, and he didn't manage to stand. On the one time he got kind of close, Ravio saw something else: the bloodstain underneath him on the ground had shrunk.
And none of those armored creeps paid this any mind. In fact Ravio was starting to worry they were going to sneak up on him while he was distracted, and then he felt a weight on his shoulder and almost went out of his mind. But it was only Sheerow coming back.
Had Sheerow ever stuck around for this part, or was it all news to him too?
Link's body kept putting itself back together. Definitely "Link's body," though, and not "Link," because in all the flopping around his face had ended up turned toward Ravio's hiding place and it was totally, chillingly inanimate. There couldn't be anyone in there right now. Could there?
His legs started working again bit by bit, but it was a while before he got up. Coordination was slower in coming, and in his left hand the Master Sword kept flailing around wildly at anything that came within ten feet. Mostly, after the first few seconds, things did not come within ten feet.
But at last the hero managed to stand and then, for the first time since his last death, he blinked. He was back. And, feeling faint and grateful it was over, Ravio sank back down into the shelter of the stone. So he didn't see the look on Link's face when reason returned, but he did hear what followed, and he would keep hearing it in idle moments for the rest of that day and the next - a scream of terrible pain.
So that was it. The miracle of rebirth. The secret of immortality. He put his head in his hands. "I'm sorry, kid. I'm so sorry."
Sheerow dropped the Sand Rod into his hand. Ravio almost fumbled it, but then looked up sharply and said, "Wait, does this mean...?" But of course it did. There went any hope of dark horse candidate That Other Jerk saving the day out of nowhere. Not that there had ever been any such hope, not seriously, but Ravio had found it reassuring to think all his eggs weren't in the same rapidly deteriorating basket, and - that was enough barnyard metaphors for now. The important part was this: Sand Rod Guy had died or else gone off to some other place they couldn't reach. Ravio stared down at the rod and muttered, "It's all you now, Mr. Hero."
He shuddered at the thought, and then mentally kicked himself for it, because it wasn't charitable to freak out at the very mention of the guy. Not when he was still out there doing his best, and everything creepy about him was your fault in the first place.
(Link had found him, after coming back to life. Come up with sword and hand and looked like he didn't recognize him at all. "Hey, hey, watch where you point that. It's me, it's -" Your pal Ravio, he'd almost said, but then choked on the words. Too big of a lie. He'd been nothing like a friend. "The items guy."
After a tense few seconds, Link had walked away.)
Ravio turned to the shelf and contemplated for a while the place where the Sand Rod was supposed to go. "He's gonna take this," he said to Sheerow, "and he's not gonna know what he's doing, and he's gonna die a lot." Sheerow landed next to him and gave a noncommittal chirp. "But if I don't let him have it, then the sages...then the Triforce..."
He stopped, staring into space. Was that an option? If the Triforce was never reassembled, Hilda couldn't destroy Hyrule to take it, Yuga would keep biding his time pretending to be a good little minion, and when Lorule fell apart the threat would be gone.
And what would it cost? Oh, just dooming a handful of people to be paintings for the rest of their lives. Their short, miserable lives - because they'd go down when Lorule did. And then, of course, whatever it would do to Link. If his quest was never finished, would he just go on dying and failing to stay that way until the end of time?
The door opened.
"Mr. Hero!" he said, and tried to inject that old cheer back into his voice. Would Link even notice if he didn't? "Look what just came back. Exciting, huh?"
It was the first time in a while, on reflection, that Link had come back on his own power without dying first. He looked a little bit more with it than usual. Maybe the shock wore off with time. Maybe someday twenty years down the road he'd be a pretty normal blacksmith and not too bothered about it anymore. He said, "Can I rent that now?"
A coherent question, actually aimed in the right direction. He was looking around like he knew what was going on. Maybe it'd all work out. "Sure thing, buddy. The usual rate." Link paid up. Ravio tossed him the Sand Rod, and then said, as casually as possible, "So, how's it going? You got the hang of this hero business? Save any sages?"
"A few. Osfala was one of them."
"Who?" Link raised his eyebrows and looked significantly at the Sand Rod. "Oh, that guy. Huh. So he was a painting all this time? Who'da thunk? Better not spread that around, though. People might go getting ideas. They might think, 'oh, I can get out of giving Ravio his stuff back! I'll just get flattened and stashed away in a dying world somewhere. Worth it.'"
Link stared at him in confusion. "Who would do that? That's an awful idea."
"That was a joke. Ever heard of them? On the other hand, people get awful ideas all the time. You might be surprised." He shrugged. "But look at me, I'm babbling. Point is, a round of applause for you, Mr. Hero!" He clapped his hands. Sheerow joined in. "We're really happy things are starting to come together. But there's a little ways left to go, so take care out there, you got that? Don't let your guard down. And good luck!"
"Thanks. I'll do my best." He nodded once to Ravio. He turned to Sheerow and almost did the same, but then got this weird uneasy look on his face and stopped and let himself out.
But a minor slight to one's business partner wasn't a huge deal under the circumstances. A normal conversation! That refreshing air of complete sanity! Everything wasn't ruined. The day could still be saved. "Sheerow, be honest," he said. "How much would you judge me if I started crying right now?" Hyrule would be okay. Link would be okay. Hilda - he might get a chance to explain to Hilda - "Hypothetically, you know. Asking for a friend."
He should write a book like this, he thought. All at once he understood where those Hyrulian stories that had so baffled him came from. The ones where good guys came out on top. Things might get dark along the way, but that didn't mean the hero wouldn't win in the end. Didn't the contrast make it better when goodness and light prevailed? Maybe you had to be scared it wouldn't work for a little while. Maybe that was the only reason it worked at all.
He pulled the manuscript out of its hiding place, flipped through it, and chucked it aside, letting the pages scatter. He hadn't known what he was doing then. Now he did. He stretched out his arms, flexed his fingers, and settled in to write something new. And he propped Link's book open at his right elbow for reference, so he could copy the way they strung words together over here.
There once was a land blanketed in darkness. The fair princess loved the land despite its dangers, and hated to think it should die. She was brave and determined, but she was not always very wise, and because she loved her country so much, an evil man led her into folly...
He stopped and held the page up for Sheerow to read. "Well? I'm pretty good at this, huh? Bet you didn't know I had it in me." He filled the rest of the page with a sketch of a building almost, but not exactly, identical to Lorule Castle, and flipped to the next. And he kept going, humming as he worked. The evil man went to another world to find the power he had promised his liege, but there was someone else he hadn't counted on, someone who knew he was planning a double-cross, and...
And Ravio got to the last page and stopped. Sheerow had been watching from above for some time; Ravio looked up and smiled at him. "The big finish," he said grandly. "Don't worry, I got this. It looks like the bad guy has our hero on the ropes, doesn't it? But watch this."
He looked back down at the paper. Suddenly he felt a lot less certain. "In just a few lines, I, the author, can..." The situation really did look bad, though. "I can..." Realistically speaking, there wasn't any way out. "I can just say both worlds are saved, and that's that. It's my story. Who's gonna stop me?" He deliberately lowered his writing hand to the paper and tried to think positive thoughts. It was a lot of effort, for some reason, and even more effort to keep smiling. "It's gonna work out this time. The hero is -"
Screwed. Totally, relentlessly, irretrievably screwed. Up a creek. Toast. Tapped out. Done for. Dead.
"Dammit." The quill fell out of his hand. Ravio sighed and looked down at what he'd just written, and then at all the earlier drafts he'd tossed away. They were all variations on a theme. Somehow it kept coming down to this: he couldn't do the "happily ever after" thing. Couldn't make himself buy it. So instead he had this pile of rejects where, try though he might, the hero couldn't hack it. Flubbed the final battle, never made it to the final battle, punted all the scary parts downstream to some other poor sap, died in obscurity, died in infamy, just couldn't win no matter how the stars aligned because at the end of the day what could one person do in such a huge impersonal world -
"I didn't mean it to turn out that way," he said. "Honest. I wasn't trying to write that." He pitched backward to lie on the floor and groaned. "What am I doing?" Sheerow fluttered down to land beside him and peer into his face. "Who am I even kidding?" Ravio gestured helplessly. "With any of this."
He'd had this crazy idea. Write the story, paint some nice pictures to go with it, and then hide it somewhere in the house when he left. Tuck the pages under the cover of the book that had inspired it, why not? That way, when this all ended, there would be something left to say that Lorule had existed once. Link might read it. Link might realize, if he hadn't already figured out, exactly who'd taken over his house for a few strange weeks.
Ravio picked up the page nearest to hand and waved it at Sheerow. "You're a bird, right? You wanna tear this up for me?" Sheerow made noises indicating this was beneath his dignity. "Figures." He got up, gathered the pages, and crumpled them all up. Then he put them in a basket and, after a brief disagreement, convinced Sheerow to upend the basket into Lake Hylia.
The sound of returning equipment raining down on the shelves had become so infrequent he almost didn't recognize it. "I thought we were over this," he muttered, eyeing the Sand Rod. But it wasn't necessarily anything to worry about just yet. Link came back, talked sense to the extent he talked at all, rented more gear, and left.
It didn't become something to worry about until the fifth time it happened that day.
"Hey," said Ravio, "why don't you kick back for a bit? Rest up. Look at the problem later with fresh eyes." Because Link was backsliding, no doubt about it. His movements had gone all abrupt and jerky, he wasn't saying anything, and he was back to staring intently and almost fearfully at things that weren't there. Ravio had actually had to persuade Sheerow to hide whenever he came in, because it wasn't worth the drama.
Link only picked up the Sand Rod and held out several hundred rupees. Uneasily, Ravio took the money and counted it. "Yep, it's all here. Knock yourself - no. Don't knock yourself out. Please." He suppressed a sigh. "Y'know, sometimes I wish you weren't so good at coming up with all this scratch. Then you'd have to take a break between..." Link was frowning thoughtfully down the row of "sold out" signs to the last items left - the boomerang and the Ice Rod. "Oh, come on."
He let them be this time, but he'd be back for them, eventually. If he were a little worse with money and a little better in a fight, this might be a happier story. Then Ravio thought, Same goes for me. We have something in common after all.
He didn't know why he was laughing, since that wasn't funny at all. And there must've been a crazy learning curve on controlling the sand or something, because Link came back from the dead a lot more times before the day was done.
At first it had seemed like no big deal, this dying business. It didn't stick, so why worry? Why not turn a profit, even? But then Link had just kept on falling, and less and less of him made it back every time. He wasn't the same hero he'd been at the outset.
He was just supposed to stop Yuga. That was all this plan had been for: take out Yuga, and then Hilda could be reasoned with. But it wasn't going to go down that way now, and it was all too easy to imagine what would happen instead. He'd kill Yuga, and then he'd keep fighting whoever was standing behind Yuga, and he wouldn't stop. He never stopped anymore. He was a weapon, and he did what weapons do, and he'd keep at it until Hyrule was safe.
Hilda had been doomed in the first place. They'd all been doomed, whether they got the Triforce or not; Yuga would have seen to that. But they could have faced death proudly, and uncorrupted, and on their own terms, without sacrificing this world of light.
Ravio lay on the floor and stared up at the ceiling and thought, You should have fought Yuga yourself, idiot. But what did you do? You found a real hero and you broke him. And now it's all over. And now everything that happens to Her Grace is your fault. It might be Link dealing the finishing blow, but you're the one who's killing her.
This had become, in the last few hours, terribly clear. Link had the Triforce of Courage now, and he'd bought up the rest of the equipment, and throughout the transaction he'd been the scariest person Ravio had ever seen. He was going to go after Hilda or die in the attempt. And if he died he'd come back here and make another attempt, and another, until it worked. And Hilda... when that sword went into her, she wasn't just going to appear in the shop again asking about the price on magic rods. That was hero stuff. Lorule had no heroes, not in a long time. That was the whole problem.
He slid his hands up under his hood and covered his eyes.
Eventually he got up. "C'mon, Sheerow. We're getting out of here." Whatever state Link came back in, he wasn't going to need a welcoming party, and Ravio felt no need to be around to see it. Maybe he'd find a way back to Lorule for the end - he had a lot of apologies to make, and not a lot of time. Or maybe he'd stay in this world and live, like the coward he was. He almost didn't care anymore.
He looked around at the house that wasn't his one last time, and picked up the money bag, for all the good it would do anyone now.
And saw a piece of paper on the floor - a page of his manuscript. He must have missed it when he was cleaning up earlier - probably trapped under the weight of all these rupees. It said only, "The hero fell."
Ravio left it there. "Yep," he said, "sounds about right."
He went to the Milk Bar and paid the bards to play him a song from home. When it was over, he left.
