We're trying so hard to get it all right

[shadowcourage]

Who: Shadow Link, Clef, selected individuals
Where: Training Gym Carriage
When: Merriment 21
What: Emotional Drama
Warnings: Very emotional arguments that involve family.

Shadow knew himself. He had to know himself. If he wanted to be more than a shadow, he had to be aware of his own shortcomings and compensate for them so he could stay on the track that was important to him.

He had known for years Clef didn't understand that. Its why he had kept him at a distance on purpose. He couldn't risk someone being close who didn't understand that.

But he supposed the danger of trying to be a person is person things happened, like emotions sneaking up on you. It was unfortunate. It just meant he had to be more aware of his own feelings. He had to keep the hurt away from his heart.

But Link and Clef have never been able to talk and....

He couldn't stand Link being hurt more.

So he had to try something.

Which is why when he finds Clef during his exploration, he decides its time to try.

"Come with me," he said flatly, in a tone that isn't likely to listen to argument.

Comments

[guru_clef]

"Sh...Shadow?" he asked, eyes focusing on him as the lights came on. He pushed himself up as he realized he was in his bed in his cabin - a place he saw little of most of the time - with no memory of how he got there.

No memory but quite the nascent headache.

"I... do not understand the question. Confusion is a natural part of learning that drives us to try to understand more, that drives research and experimentation. Why wouldn't I be able to handle confusion?" he asked. He was utterly lost as to where that question came from.

But... shadow was talking to him, and he didn't want to lose that. Desperately didn't want to lose that.

[shadowcourage]

"I don't know, why don't YA tell me why yer soul almost left yer body!" Shadow snapped because that was a sign of there being SOMETHING in there and if Clef has health issues, that needs to be known. "Because that certainly wasn't any of my magic!"

[guru_clef]

"My... soul?" He really was confused. But no sign of the pain he had been in. "I am not sure what you mean," he said, giving it serious thought, trying to figure out what could have happened, wondering why he didn't recall it. "Was I... returning to Sleep?" It was all he could think of unless, "or was it some sort of attack? Is everyone else okay?" Concern now pushed away more theorizing. "Are you alright? What do you mean your magic? What happened?"

[shadowcourage]

"No! No, no, no," Shadow said, pointing a finger in Clef's face. "It wasn't an attack, it wasn't going to Sleep, it wasn't any of that. It was something about YA. Ya broke down and then ya were fading entirely and it wasn't any Bending stuff because I can't break Ascended stuff like that."

He gets in Clef's face. "So I want ya to think of YER world and yer world only. What could happen to a person to make their soul disappear."

[guru_clef]

He frowned in thought as he shifted to sit back against the wall, using it for support. "Something about... me?" He was relieved that no one else was in danger. If it was only his own life, he could afford to be more objective. And realistically, objectivity was probably what was needed. Reason and logic were more generally reliable than emotion. At least... for him. Whenever he tried to follow his emotions...

He just made a hash of it. At least that was the case now. Now that it mattered.

Right, Shadow asked him to think about this issue, he could puzzle out objectivity and how to be better with emotions later. Maybe he could order a book on the topic...

His world and his world only... something about Ceiphro...

He closed his eyes, considering. Almost seven and a half centuries there, most of that time spent in study. Teaching counted as studying, because he learned as much from his students as they learned from him. Perhaps more in some cases...

No, not the time to think about... He shoved those thoughts and the pain that came with them back away where they belonged.

The crisis was of course near the forefront of his thoughts when he thought of home. But that didn't seem applicable, and the pain threatened to distract him, so he pushed that aside. The legend of the Magic Knights? No, that... wait, could it?

Were the Knights physically in his world? He had presumed they were, but... had he physically been in Naut? Was he physically here? He felt as though he was and had been, but what if his body was back in Ceiphro and their bodies back on their world? That was a nasty little thought and one he had hardly considered in the past.

He considered it now. Could that sort of calling be what happened that Shadow was talking about? Could he have been summoned? No. That didn't track because then he would be there, wherever there would be. Unless it failed...? But could it start to succeed and then fail? Would whoever it was try again?

No, that question should be broached later if needed. He needed to focus on the other part. Could this have been a failed summoning? But the Magic Knights heard the princess. And he has heard Naut. He didn't recall hearing anyone this time.

So possible, but not likely.

Could a failed summon have split his soul? Would he know if it had? Would Shadow, since he had somehow sensed what was going on, even though Clef had been the target and was clueless?

Maybe. After all, shadow would know more about souls than he would since he had never even heard of them until...

"I am unsure. I never understood the concept of soul before I began speaking to Zelda and Link," he said. "I have never heard of anything like reincarnation or the like on Ceiphro," he said, eyes still closed as he thought. "But..."

Oh.

He paused and followed the vague memory that floated to the surface. Being called in to try to help someone who seemed ill but no illness could be found. Wounded by no signs of wounds.

It had been hundreds of years ago, and he struggled to remember.

Easier if he could see....

His hands lifted and between them a small golden orb formed and expanded until it was about the size of his head. The gold light shuddered then drifted off like smoke or steam, revealing a pastel orb of magic between his palms and in it, a scene. He was using his magic to bring it to life as he recalled so it was patchy at first, details filling in as he remembered them.

The girl looked to be in her teens. From what he had been told, that was accurate. She was of middling power. She was laying out on blankets on the ground of her home, hair spread in an artful fan around her head like the rays of the sun. Her dress was nice, good quality, well made, but not fresh and clean. Why that detail stuck with him he didn't know, but he added the smudges to her dress in the orb as best he could recall them. Her face was fuzzy. He had recalled her hair, but her face was still lost to memory. The dress he recalled because he had inspected it, to figure out if she had crafted it herself, to see if it had been ensorcelled.

He had books floating around him. He had been at it for hours, her parents standing back, watching. Or was one of them sitting? He couldn't recall and they were vague in the orb. They had answered his questions and other from that he had mostly tuned them out. There was someone else with him...

As he thought it, she appeared in the orb, right at his shoulder, between two of the books. She had been working as hard as he. Zagato at the door, guarding them, but Clef didn't bother adding him to the scene. He didn't matter to the memory and Clef's current emotions would just cloud his memory...

the image wavered as thinking about Zagato shook his focus, but he pushed thoughts of the priest forcefully aside and focused again on the memory. Something here. Not about souls, he didn't know what they were then but...

"It's like she's here but not here," the princess said softly near his ear, her words for him and him alone. Though if the priest had missed them he'd eat his staff. The parents wouldn't have heard, though they were theoretically closer. He knew that.

Clef nodded. "I see what you mean," he replied equally quiet, grave. Grave... the word in his own thoughts had made him shudder at the time. Or was he shuddering now and his mind was telling him it was part of the memory? What was real?

The orb shimmered again, his head pounded, the image fuzzed.

NO! Focus, Clef! Focus!

The orb solidified again as he pushed himself to remember that conversation.

"I could try a calling, but... how could she be here but not be here, Guru?" she asked softly.

"I am uncertain." He lifted a hand and held it over the girl's face, focusing. He had done so many times over the hour, searching. Unsure what for.

The princess' hand joined his once more, but then frowning slightly, seeming to follow some instinct - or perhaps she had an unvoiced thought - she moved her hand further along the body, deftly ducking the floating books as she did until her hand was over the girl's torso. "guru..." she whispered, hiding her alarm from those who could not hear the tension in her voice.

He moved, the books moving with him, though he was careful that none should strike the princess or the sleeping girl. His hand lay over the princess' hand and...

He remembered now. No way to capture it in the orb, but it was in his thoughts clearly now. There had been something, a faint flickering, not quite a light but it had been the best word he had at the time. It was more like... like a candle flame made of smoke... no... steam. No actual flame, but steam or smoke moving as a candle flame would.

He shifted his hand, aiming the palm at the princess. If the girl they were examining was a flickering wisp of smoke, the princess - looked at the same way - was steam so thick he could see the water in the air. A flood. He turned to the girl again, pale. The princess was as pale as he was, but neither was so pale as the still form before her.

"Tell me again what happened just before," the princess ordered, her voice sounding sharp with the effort it took to control her emotions so the parents would not pick up on what she ad Clef now could tell.

Clef vanished the sphere. He no longer needed to see it, he remembered. Remembered the princess having to be taken away after. Remembered how hard it had been to bring the girl back, remembered wondering if he had made the right choice.

He pushed the thoughts and doubts aside and lifted his face to look to Shadow. "She had lost her Will. We saw it a few other times once we knew what to look for. Sometimes the person could be called back, sometimes they could not..."

He rubbed at his face. He presumed that Shadow had seen the same, but like they had back then, had not recognized it for what it was. "I don't know how often you've seen it, but it isn't a choice it is more like..." He tried to think of how best to explain it. "It is like... One of the storms I learned of an illness called pneumonia. Where, if I am recalling correctly, the lungs are so full of fluid that the air is pushed out, that the patient cannot breathe. If Will were air, it would be like that, as near as I can tell. I've seen maybe a half dozen cases in that many centuries. Is that what you think happened to me?" he asked.

And if it was, what in all the worlds had caused it???

[shadowcourage]

Shadow looked to the illusion as it appeared, watching to see as to any hint of what happened.

"...what had happened just before? To the sleeping girl."

Because Will....will can mean a lot of things. "'cause pneumonia is a physical thing, and also has a cause in a disease."

[guru_clef]

"A terrible emotional shock. Her sister and boyfriend had been trying to plan a surprise for her. They had gone into the Forest of Silence looking for the legendary metal Escudo. She hadn't known they had gone, let alone why. She found out when their remains were found and brought out of the woods. She collapsed over them, and... did not get up again."

[shadowcourage]

"....so she died by heartbreak. Is what it comes down to," Shadow said, giving Clef a hard look.

[guru_clef]

"Her will itself suffered a tremendous shock," he said softly.

[shadowcourage]

"....Clef. For future reference. Ya need to tell off worlders about how heart break can literally kill people from yer world. Or any kind of major shock. Also we need to get ya....what's the word...therapy?" Shadow said, rubbing at his temple.

[guru_clef]

He was... very very confused again. "But... that is hardly unique to Ceiphro, as well as being rare. I have read about it in books in Naut as well as in the Storm memories I have. Will is life. I.. I am sorry but I do not follow why you think that is someone I need to tell people, unless I am trying to treat them for that exactly thing. And even were I to, I am sure I am not the most qualified person to administer medical help. There are certainly others on the train with more experience..."

[shadowcourage]

"Nautilus also had stuff be about dreams and willpower and basically being a deity. Other places ain't like that. I'm as close as a 'alive via willpower' being in Hyrule and even I don't die from heartbreak. I know. My heart was broken," Shadow said, rubbing at his forehead. "This is yet problem, Clef. Ya never understand ANYTHING is different from yet worldview."

[guru_clef]

He was listening, right up until Shadow said his heart had been broken. He reached out to the boy without thinking for once, without wondering if he'd be rejected. "to you need to talk about it?" he asked softly.

And yes, that does mean he missed the end of what Shadow said. But now all his thoughts were on how to help Shadow and everything else was pushed aside for later.

[shadowcourage]

"Absolutely not," Shadow said flatly, brushing his hand away. "I've made my peace with Vio. YER the one who almost died because ya can't deal with actually difficult emotional problems."

He pokes his chest hard. "Yer inability to understand others is a literal fatal problem!"

[guru_clef]

"What do you mean I almost died...? Ad I am trying to understand you, but you always push back when I try!" Which was why he tried to keep his distance, because Shadow wanted it...

[shadowcourage]

"That has NOTHING to do with what I said!" Shadow said, throwing up his hands in frustration. "This! This is yer problem! This is why ya almost died! Ya have no adaptability, no ability to actually CHANGE yer mind due to someone else! That's why yer easy to mind control!"

[guru_clef]

"What... what do you mean! I am constantly changing how I think, that is what happens with research!"

[shadowcourage]

"That. Is not. What I said," Shadow ground out. "Ya can only change when ya make these weird loops in yer own brain to make it make sense. Never because yer ACTUALLY considering what others are telling ya. It was pathetically easy to put thoughts into yer brain because ya never actually think yer wrong!"

[guru_clef]

"What do you mean putting.... you mean the Storms?"

[shadowcourage]

"No! I mean I used mind control on ya to make a point! I worked for the King of Darkness, one of my primary jobs was to maintain the thrall on people to make more servants. I have been in a lot of heads," Shadow said. "And I was just in yers and it was stupidly easy to manipulate. Because ya don't question yerself. At all. And if things are bad in yer head, apparently, ya decide to just lay down and die."

[guru_clef]

"What do you mean you... used... mind control on me? To make what point...?" So. confused. So very very confused.

[shadowcourage]

"To show ya it was yer own fault that Link couldn't help ya on Diagad," Shadow hissed.

[guru_clef]

"I think I need you to stop and start from the beginning, you've lost me."

[shadowcourage]

"Oh, what a surprise. I've lost ya," Shadow said dryly. "I approached ya and started using mind control on ya to force ya to actually respond to it. Either decide I'm an impostor or reject it. Instead, ya chose to die and I had to drag your mind out of a void state. Because apparently yer ability to adapt is lethally bad."

[guru_clef]

"You used mind control on me to.... try to make me think you weren't real...?" That... didn't make any sense. "I didn't chose to die, I wouldn't chose to die..." Right...?