#regiphilia

This is a good one. So good that I actually starting writing a fic about it. So, look out for that. Meanwhile, let me highlight a few important notes.

• Zelda being twenty or so years older than Ganondorf. Established. Heavy with Hylian agricultural wealth. Eats very, very, very well.

• Link is roughly Ganondorf’s age and is the example of what a good boy acts like. Exceptionally good guard. Exceptionally good at other things.

• Ganondorf is a very confident, stern, beloved prince of the desert. The fact that he’s never had anyone call him a handsome little boy is irrelevant and the fact that he’s harder than he’s ever been is also irrelevant.

The Compassion trills, splayed fins heavy with pretty trinkets and golden rings that unclip easily for underwater travel. She is beautiful, tempestuous, and absolutely massive. Ornately braided hair coils beneath a veil, pinned to the crown and nape of her neck. It patterns well with her demeanor, inherent regality, a gleaming smile of four dozen teeth.

Seated across from her, the Instig8r is sharper. She’s lined with stiffer fabrics, rough seafaring hands contrasting with the tears of deepsea soil. A low ponytail contains the majority of her wild hair, thick as brambles and coarse as her voice. With a throat laden in gold, some stolen and some gifted, the cerulean hummmms in clear intrigue. And oh, she sneers down at him. Shorter than her Emporess, but no less confident in dwarfing her prey.

Then there's him. Strung between them, arrayed in ocean foam green and sea breeze blue silks, he's wearing naught a fucking stitch beneath it all. The Instigate leers down at him, aged and amused, leaning until her thick hair falls over one shoulder to tickle his hip. Claws rasp over the opposite thigh.

Eridan looks up beseeching, gleaning what little he can from a language he can barely understand. Alternian but softer and prettier, fingers prying apart his thighs. To... accommodate the Instig8r’s wide hips. Obedience comes naturally, easily, clearly delighting the Passion. She’s crooning his name, making it sound like a beautiful word.

He could fall asleep in that trill, as her talons trace whorling patterns over his chest and greet his ribs with pinprick pains. A thick bulge cups his ass, warm in stark comparison to his skin. The Emporess spies a chance to nudge her own bulgetip against his peeking tongue, between the little foreigner’s moans. Quick to oblige, both hands snap into place, milking and tugging her impossible girth into his snug throat.

So. This is a shock. Different.

Following the initial terror brought on by onions stuffed up his ass while bathing in the Broth of Guy, Dave’s concluded these Game-provided consorts are actually... kind of sweet. Eager to be close, snouts snuffling and pressing gently against his calloused palms. They like his touch, how his jagged— bitten short —nails reach all the itchy spots, and they tell him so.

That might be part of his awe. Communicating, speaking, their lips peeling back to say thank you, reaching out to their Knight. He revels in it. Easy praise. Sue him for being interested enough to take note of them now, observing LOHAC’s chipper wildlife with honest wonder.

They come in different sizes, Dave eventually realizes. The smaller ones are upright, almost bipedal, mimicking his suits and hauling briefcases like little businessmen. Hurrying behind him in droves, traveling in eager-to-please packs, nakking away. Cheerful. Almost— childlike. Regarded with the patience he imagines an older brother might express, tapping into what he can remember of Bro’s stern pride.

Meanwhile, the larger ones can be huge. Making a home in between molten gears and metalwork, shaking lava off their strong hides to mosey around. They walk on all fours, crunching imps unfortunate enough to get in their way, leaving valuable grist behind slow-dragging tails. Despite that, they’re just as eager nuzzle against Dave. Unbalancing him, snuffling against his belly until hands scrape over scales and ridges.

They speak less. Slower, almost accented. Familiar, in ways he tries not to think about too hard. But he sticks around, drawn to the presence, leaning against hulking semi-phibians that gruffly support his meager weight. Still revering him, like the smaller iterations, as a god or king.

Sometimes— larger nakkodiles urge Dave away from the hustle-bustle of LOHAC’s stock market, into secluded places with no onlookers. Here, snuffling against his body in search of intimacy. One manages to catch him in a T-shirt, nipping that shit to shreds, lapping at the sweat-salty planes of his bare chest and stomach.

He doesn't panic, even when they beseech him to open his pants. He probably should worry, but Dave’s never had anyone ask him so fucking tenderly for anything, let alone beg: “Oh Knight, please. Please, my Knight.”

I was inspired by this post about the complexities of a culture that views the act of cutting hair as a precursor to violence or war, and talked with a close friend about what this application might mean for Derse and Prospit specifically.

The conclusion is that Derse views hair as a symbol of maintenance and patience. For instance, young unmarried people are encouraged to seek a slightly older, established Dersite with hair to their shoulders or longer. Reasoning behind this is that it takes a lot of time and effort to keep long hair in a region where having a wet head for too long can kill you. Not to mention the potential for tangles and other snarls. Cutting your hair is a sign of lost temper or fury, a visual severance from patience, and the more hair cut is equal the weight of one’s anger.

In Prospit, having a lot of hair is considered a symbol of virility and fertility, as the act of growing so much is indicative of one’s bodily ability to “produce” and “maintain.” This reflects the high amounts of labor and eating one must do in the Golden Kingdom. If you have time and nutrients to grow beautiful hair, you must be able to bear very healthy children. It is traditional to cut your hair when attempting to sire or bear children for this reason, to direct all that fertile power where it belongs. Young people are cautioned against a lover that only trims an inch or two when the time comes for coupling.

In the Silver Age of the Carnivore King, his hair grew quickly and reached his back’s center by the time the great divide between Derse and Prospit occurred. In the royal fury his wife, the beautiful Renetrix, and Ambroxeus shared, the couple shore their hair to their ears and sent the resulting crate to the Matron of Prospit. Alongside this delivery was a formal declaration of war. All of Derse knows of this great sacrifice.

However, the Matron Des'rnaen was cunning. She ordered that the hair be woven into intricate ropes and strung with jewels, which she then began to wear. It was a beautiful display, and a sensual one to adorn herself with a literal piece of the Dersite’s persons. When enough public appearances spurred national outcry and confusion? Her justification was simple.

She declared, “The King of Derse, barbarian that he is, attempted to solicit my peace in matters of his nation’s trickery. He sent this hair to bribe Prospit with strong children, and he was shunned for such presumptuous perversion. I will keep his smut-gift to scorn, for he is a pitiful man.” And Prospit believed her, whispering among themselves about the barbarian, the whore, the sexual deviant of Derse and his witch of a wife.

The tallest of all royalty at this time is Trifeferi the Compassionate of Alternia, who stands at eight feet and four inches. This is relatively small for an Alternian Emporess, but she’s also exceptionally young and will grow into a more reasonable twelve or fifteen feet with time. A lot of time. Her court hopes it won’t rid her of her youthful curves like her Ancestor.

Next is Redevioux, who towers over his sister at six feet and six inches. He gets this from his father, Ambroxeus, who was over seven feet tall. He did not, however, inherit his father’s physique. Much more slender and compact, but no less dangerous. He compensates for this appearance with copious padding in his clothing, though some enjoy his severe silhouette.

Prov’njada is six feet and one inch, a bright-eyed giant among the people of Prospit. She bursts with muscle and a strong core, a hilarious juxtaposition against her much softer brother. The populace lovingly calls her the Sunflower, a tall stalk with a warm face.

Sp’rijuhn is five feet and nine inches, with a much rounder and heavier appearance. Beloved and revered, he reflects a fairly average height in Prospit. With thick hair fluttering around his face in a holy breeze and a poor temper, the common folk have nicknamed him the Stormcloud.

The Matron of Prospit, Des'rnaen, is only five feet and seven inches, at the mid range for her kingdom. As stated before, she’s a much softer and more provocative ruler than one would expect at her advanced age. Not that the people mind the shapeliness of their Matron.

Finally, a place to talk about Rose and Dave being betrothed to one another. Listen, I’ve been thinking about this shit for years. You’re telling me Game of Thrones got massively popular but there’s no widespread AUs about Dersite / Prospitian royalty refusing to let their bloodlines cross over one another? The disrespect. (This is getting its own tag. I definitely want to talk about this again.)

Anyway. Derse hails the birth of twins, a boy and girl, shortly before the death of the Martyred King Strider, who fell in assassination (some suspect Prospitian sabotage, but there’s no evidence otherwise) and later they survive the Beloved Queen Lalonde (who took ill when the gods whispered deep into her dreams and vanished into the royal temple, never to be seen again) at the tender age of six.

Young, too young to understand the weight of destiny laid on their shoulders. Not knowing what plans their parents laid, to keep the home clean. The girl is Ambrosius Lalonde, named for her father as the eldest and the one meant to take the throne by birthright. The boy is Redevioux Strider, named for his mother and his duties the tempestuous eldritch creatures that Dersites worship in obsidian temples. (In youth, they would nickname one another Rose and Dave, simplistic names they read once in a storybook.)

With time, Ambrosius becomes a capable Queen Apparent. Her brother rises through the ranks of Dersite military of his own sweat and grit, rather than station, and assumes his place as Keeper of the Blood Witches, of the Royal Libraries, of the Queen Apparent’s Advisory. All of Derse holds its breath as Ambrosius reaches a marriageable age. Word spreads when her mother’s final will is read aloud on the eve of her birthday, explaining that she is to marry her brother to ensure a Strider is King and a Lalonde is Queen.

They’re allowed to sit in their joint chambers, as they always have been, with Ambrosius never moving to her queenly suite and Redevioux never leaving for the general’s quarters. Sitting silently, hands linked together, digesting the information. He moves first, reaching out to cup her cheek. The young queen holds her breath as their lips brush, sending a thrill through her spine.

“It’s what they wanted,” he tries to justify.

There are very particular cuts of cloth and shapes associated with certain inclinations within the culture as well. Sleeves are one of the biggest indications of societal reaction in Alternia: long sleeves typically indicate a troll is open and honest, short indicate someone prone to impulse decisions or volatile reactions, a layering of short and long sleeves or no sleeves is a sign of immense danger. Alternians have a lot of small fashion-specific rules like this. Lots of nuance.

The greatest example is the current Alternian Monarch, the Compassionate Trifeferi, who wears very very little at all. Delighting in a simple one-piece slip that bares her legs to the hips as well as her arms to the shoulder, the Heiress-Queen adorns herself in transparent silks of blue and green around her waist, gold to every inch of her person, and sea shells braided into her loose hair. Despite her sweet disposition and bare feet, Alternians en masse recognize that she is nothing to be trifled with because of this attire. (Not to mention her loyal advisors.)