The Intercom (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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damned_institute2012-06-30 11:47 pm
damned_intercom) wrote in damned_institute2012-06-30 11:47 pm
Night 64: X-Ray Room
As soon as the patients entered the dark room, the first thing they might have noticed were a couple of short bursts of static from the intercom. But no voices or cryptic messages greeted them.
Instead, their eyes would undoubtedly be drawn toward the strange picture of a human stomach carefully painted onto the southern wall, its paint casting an eerie green glow that cut into the darkness.
Although the artist had done their best to make the picture as clear as possible, they had apparently decided to leave a sharp kitchen knife perched on X-Ray table to compensate the patients for their troubles. Hopefully whoever picked it up would be able to make good use of it and the clue created for them.
Instead, their eyes would undoubtedly be drawn toward the strange picture of a human stomach carefully painted onto the southern wall, its paint casting an eerie green glow that cut into the darkness.
Although the artist had done their best to make the picture as clear as possible, they had apparently decided to leave a sharp kitchen knife perched on X-Ray table to compensate the patients for their troubles. Hopefully whoever picked it up would be able to make good use of it and the clue created for them.
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Link nodded. He was alright with staying here. He wasn't too keen on sitting down, though, and leaned against the wall perpendicular to the door, where he could watch both Sora and for people coming in- friend or foe.
"That's fine by me." He would keep an eye out while Sora rested. Link was fine with that.
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With both of them settled and still no sign of any monsters coming after them, Sora allowed himself to relax a little more as he laid back and stared at the ceiling and the track on it.
"So... what were you doing, before you got here?" It might be some time before any other patients made it through to this room, so Sora figured they might as well pass the time by having a conversation rather than just sitting in silence. It probably wouldn't be a big deal if they kept their voices down.
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"I was... seeing off a dear friend." It had only happened minutes ago, really- from Link's perspective, at least. It had been a horribly bittersweet goodbye, really. One minute, he had thought Midna to be dead. Now, she was alive, at least, but still gone. The Hylian couldn't be angry at her for her decision to shatter the Mirror. It was for the best. But he would still miss his travelling partner. They had come so far from the time they met, when Twilight still shrouded his home.
"...After a long journey together." Words could not do justice to the type of bond that formed between Link and Midna. The Princess was probably the only one who could understand. She had been caught in the thick of it all.
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He didn't understand why he was never able to just be together with everyone. He'd been given that brief period back at the islands, but it had been so fleeting that it was almost worse than not having it at all.
Of course, he was allowing himself to dwell more than he would normally because he already wasn't feeling well. It would be better if he just focused on Link and didn't think so much about his own experiences, at least for the moment.
"I... know how that goes," was all he said about himself. "What kind of journey was it?"
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"We saved our kingdom," Link finally said quietly, not looking at Sora. "Hyrule, is what it's called."
'Chosen Hero' they called him. The next coming of the Hero of Time. The next in line to carry the Master Sword into battle. It was finally starting to sink in, how much had been lain on his shoulders, and how much he couldn't have done without either of the Princesses.
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"Hyrule..." Sora sounded the name out, but he already knew that it wasn't something he'd ever heard of. "I've never been there! I've seen a few different worlds, but not that one." It was pretty uncommon for him to meet someone here who was from a world he'd actually been to, though. And when that did happen, they usually had no idea who he was. It was kind of a bummer...
"So after you were done fixing everything, you had to say goodbye?" He sighed and lifted his hand up above his head, staring at it as he remembered the times he'd reached out for friends who had been pulled away from him. And this whole time while he'd been sick, there had been no sign of Kairi or Riku. Were they really gone again?
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"...More or less. Her means of getting to my world opened the way for the person who threatened it in the first place. So she destroyed the portal on her way back." Link's voice was quiet. He looked up to Sora.
"Have you had a similar experience?"
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It wasn't something he'd thought about in a while, since people like Axel and Naminé hadn't been here for ages. Nonetheless, he'd had his fair share of conversations about that whole experience and he still felt like he was missing out on a lot of it. That was the price he'd had to pay, though.
"Sort of," he responded when Link asked his question. "I had to journey around to a bunch of different worlds to try and help them fight off these monsters called the Heartless, and got caught up trying to stop these people called Organization XIII." It was a lot more complicated than he was even touching on, but there probably wasn't time to explain in detail. "I'd just gotten back home before I ended up here, actually."
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He wondered if it was connected. Both he and Sora had been taken from the end of a long journey. It certainly sounded like Sora had been fighting for the sake of good. Did that affect who was taken here? Link realized he would have to meet some more patients before he could make that call.
"Were you part of an army of some sort?" Link looked curious.
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Sora wondered if he would have made any more progress here at Landel's if Goofy and Donald had been here from the start. There wasn't anything he hadn't been able to face with the two of them, after all. Still, in the end he was glad they hadn't been exposed to this place. Donald might still be brainwashed out there -- Goofy too, for that matter -- but at the moment, that was better for them than being here.
"No, nothing like that," he said after a pause. "Why do you ask?" Was that how Link had done things? He'd only mentioned one friend who he'd journeyed with, so Sora didn't think that was the case.
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"But I guess I know how that goes, too." Stopping Zant and eventually Ganondorf certainly hadn't felt like a job for two or three heroes. But that was how it had turned out, in the end.
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From the sounds of it, Link's journey had also been accomplished with just a handful of people. It was pretty crazy to think about it from an outside perspective, but to Sora it just felt natural at this point.
"Oh, by the way, I had a question..." Sora had been waiting to ask this for a while, and he hoped it didn't come off as rude. "Does everyone have ears like yours in Hyrule?" He was curious to know, especially since it wasn't something he'd seen much of here at Landel's or in any of the worlds he'd traveled to beforehand. Either way, they were pretty neat.
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His ears subconsciously perked up slightly when Sora asked about them. The movements were hardly noticeable, really, but they were there if you looked closely.
"No, not everyone. Only members of the Hylian race have pointed ears. Folk who have lived in Hyrule since it was created by the Golden Goddesses. It's a story older than the Hero of Time himself, originating from the Sky People." But... Sora probably had no idea what Link was talking about. He was just reminiscing.
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"Only Hylians...?" Sora didn't know what these goddesses and sky people were all about it, but it sounded like the sort of stuff that would have a long explanation, which meant now wasn't the best time. (On the other hand, no one else had showed up yet and they'd been talking for a while...)
"So what other kinds of people live in Hyrule, then?" Sora would have thought it would only be Hylians, but maybe others had moved in from different lands or worlds. Every place worked differently, which was why he never hesitated to ask questions like this.
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"Well, there are other humans, as well. Descendants of the Gerudo Tribe, who are from the desert, as well as people from other places altogether. And there are Gorons, people who live on Death Mountain. They're miners. Big, friendly folk with sturdier bodies than humans. And the Zora live in the West, aquatic people who can live both on land and underwater. They guard Hyrule's water supply." To him, all of these things were completely commonplace, really.
"Oh! And I met a family of yeti, once!"
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Unfortunately, Sora had been here long enough that he knew better than to say something about how he might get the chance to see it someday. At this point, he would be happy enough just to find his way home. Holding out hope that he could visit everyone in their home worlds seemed pretty unlikely. He was still going to keep it in mind, of course, but he didn't want to get Link's hopes up.
"Wow, that sounds really neat! And I guess you've been all over, huh?" They definitely had more in common than Sora would have guessed at first. "This place... probably doesn't seem like much in comparison, but there are some interesting people to meet, at least! That's the only good part. Well, that and the food." Everything else, though? Sora couldn't say a good word about it.
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"I'm assuming it's common for people from various worlds to be pulled here, then?" He was never one to shy away from meeting different kinds of people. Even across Hyrule, (as was already clear to Sora) Link had had the chance to see all sorts of different cultures and species. Perhaps once morning came, he would get a better look at the other patients.
"Good food is always a plus, though. That was always scarce on the road." He smirked at Sora, ears discreetly twitching up again.
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At Link's question, Sora looked back toward him and nodded. "Yeah! Practically everyone is from a different world, but there can also be multiple people taken from one." Plenty of people he knew from home, whether it was the islands or the large variety of worlds he'd visited before coming here, had ended up in this place at some point. "Not necessarily, though, so I wouldn't get your hopes up too much," he added with a slight frown. While it would be great if Link could be reunited with his friend here, Sora had met plenty of people who were never joined by people from home. Then again, maybe that was a good thing.
It was true about the food, too. Sora had never known when his next meal would be coming when he was out traveling, and while most people had been generous, there had definitely been times when he and his friends had been forced to get creative.
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"I would be getting my hopes up that they don't show up here... I don't want any of my friends dealing with something like this." Link glanced up at the writing on the wall. "Even if it meant seeing Midna again..." She needed to be in the Twilight Realm with her own people. She had earned that peace.
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But that was why he'd done what he could to make more friends here. People like Tsubaki -- and even Link, now. "Yeah, you're right. It's better that they're out of harm's way." If they ended up here, they'd only remain captured or get brainwashed, after all. There were worse fates on top of that, like what had happened to Renji and Daemon, but Sora was doing his best not to think too hard on that now.
Sora glanced at the door they'd come in through, wondering if anyone else was going to find this place. He let out a sigh and turned back to Link. "So, any other questions for me? You'll get a better idea of things when morning comes, but..."
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"Well... Why don't you tell me about where you come from?" He offered Sora a mild smile. Despite the fact that he needed to know more about his present situation, Link didn't feel like talking about it right now. At least, not with Sora. It certainly wasn't anything against the younger boy. He just seemed like the type who would rather focus on the good than the bad, and with the jarring reality that faced them upon entering this room, Link figured lighter conversation would do the Keyblade Master some good.
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Still, if this was what Link wanted to talk about, then Sora wasn't about to complain. It felt surreal to be hanging out in a random room chatting about their past lives, but it wasn't like he had the energy to do much else. They'd made it this far, and that had been his main goal for the night, even though he wasn't too happy with what he'd found.
"Well, where I'm originally from is a place called Destiny Islands. It's... about as relaxed as you can get!" he explained, smiling to himself as he continued to stare up at the ceiling. "It's a small group of islands, and really, people's lives there are pretty uncomplicated. For most of my life I was just living my life there, going to school and playing with my friends, but a lot's changed since then." A whole lot.
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"That certainly sounds familiar..." Link said with a smile. He had never been to school, but he had lived life as a simple ranch hand before the Twilight curtain nearly stretched into Ordon. Then, just like Sora said... a lot changed. Link liked to think that he had grown from it all, though.
"Do a lot of people go to school where you come from?"
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The question that came soon after made it clear that their situations weren't exactly the same, though. Link sounded surprised that he'd been to school, whereas for Sora that had just been expected. Of course, his studies had been cut short due to having more important things to deal with, and he really had no complaints there.
"Yeah, I guess so! Every kid is supposed to go until they're old enough to start working," he explained. "Our parents needed to make sure we had something to do while they were working during the day." Of course, that precaution hadn't always stopped Sora and his friends from getting into trouble. It wasn't his fault that most of his classes had been boring!
"Why, did you not go to school?" he asked in return, sitting up so that he could fix Link with a curious look.
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"I was taught to read and write properly, but other than that, the Ordon isn't big enough to warrant having a schoolhouse. Then we can learn a trade if we find a proper mentor, I suppose. I spent my time training in swordsmanship and working on the ranch." At least, until he had left for the rest of Hyrule.
"So I guess I didn't have a formal school like you seem to. But I learned what was necessary."
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