#vicious-valor

Yes I will keep using this trope - Not Accepting

"Gan?" Nabooru rubbed her eyes as if questioning what was before her. "What the hell are you doing here?" The closer she got to the bunk bed, the more she realized that something was wrong - well, more wrong than a study buddy having broken into her dorm to sleep in her bed.

Though it was constantly galloping across the desert, the inside of Vah Naboris was almost silent, save the dripping of malice and occasional creak of ancient gears forced to turn through spite. That a machine named for the Heroine of Spirit become a tomb was poetic. Light filtered through sand particles like they were glitter, dust starting to gather on the surfaces that the oily black hatred of a millennia old demon couldn't quite touch yet. If Urbosa's sense of touch had been restored along with her sight and hearing, she would have seen it banished. Unfortunately, as a spirit, she found she could only have physical influence over anything in times of great concentration. Wasting that effort on something frivelous spelled disaster - more than had already occured.

She wasn't in control anymore, never more than a few seconds at a time, but she used those short moments to their fullest. How many times had she rammed this blasted contraption into a cliff, knocking just a bit looser? She'd take down this beast and the demon that dwelled within it somehow.

He hated it when she called him that - demon. It wasn't true, strictly speaking. Not originally, at least. She knew better than most how he had started, a story she was reluctant to tell outsiders. She knew even better than many Gerudo, as her wife's family had followed him - the Eighth Heroine. It made her sick at the time, and got worse when she died. Luckily, there was little he or anyone could do to her in this state.

She rolled her neck from one shoulder to another, a habit borne of stiff joints in life, and held a hand on her hip.

"You're right, nothing changes on its own, and you can't change other people." Her hand gripped the spear more tightly than ever as she stared down at the valley. The fortress, the walls, dozens of women going about their day, and far beyond it, the ever-fierce sandstorm that trapped them all. "But you can change yourself. And through that, you can change things, Ganondorf. You can't let yourself give in." 

That she used his name was near heresy, but the two had functionally co-ruled for years now. That she disguised her frustration at all was impressive. It seemed like it was all fate with him, all predestination, gloom, despair. She couldn't blame him in a way. They'd inherited an absolute nightmare of a tribe - divided by space and weather, half starved and more dehydrated. An absolute idiot to the East on the throne, ruling in the name of his daughter who wouldn't be ready to take the reigns for a decade - it wasn't a pretty picture. And yet...

Something Something Ayn Rand - Accepting

"Mmhm. More time to run out the clock, more sand passing through the hourglass, more centuries you torture yourself like this."

If anybody had told Nabooru they would still be playing out this conflict thousands of years after their bones had turned to dust and names all but forgotten, she would first have called them a liar, then prayed for it not to be true. But time has a way of changing attitudes, doesn't it? When she passed, she took on the mantle of protector, and when his body had been discarded, Ganondorf had fully embraced the demon that took ahold of him. As far as godhood went in this realm, she was a small one, her only governance the Gerudo and their immediate vicinity. Her power was greatest in the desert, though she was able to see the world beyond through Gerudo on their aturs. As such, she seldom had access to Ganon, though she'd known the havoc he wrought throughout the different dimensions of Hyrule. He'd returned for the span it took her to blink, but that was thousands of years ago. Nabooru had held steady against the first calamity, and it seemed he, or whatever chaos managed his psyche now had decided to give it another go. Tragically, it stuck this time. 

"You can let go, you know. Or maybe you don't. It's hard to tell." 

He was significantly more powerful than she was, but they were separated by too many dimensions to do much more than antagonize each other. Her projection shimmered like the stars, a stark contrast to the dripping malice that coated the old Sheikah Tech.

"But you can. You can end it all. Join us in the stars."

She rolled her neck from one side to another - odd quality of the Gerudo afterlife, she still felt all the old aches of her body. 

Hollup - Not Accepting

"Look out!"

Just before he went careening into the trap, Nabooru was able to catch the prince by his collar, dragging him back up the wall. Luckily, despite being older than her, he was still a bit smaller than her. She was just barely able to haul him out of the chasm until he was sitting beside her.

Her chest rose and fell quickly, arms quaking from a combination of exertion and nerves as she collected herself. The temple was silent for a moment, only the echo of gravel and a few rocks finally hitting the bottom of the pit trap to keep them company. Even the flames were eerily quiet.

When tasked with accompanying Ganondorf to the Spirit Temple to complete one of his governing trials, she hadn't expected to be such a literal guide. Apparently he hadn't been subjected to the same hours of lectures so she wouldn't get caught. At least this one was early enough that she knew she couldn't let him too far out of sight.

Hollup - Not Accepting

She was seeing red so dark it could have stained the desert sands. It was bad enough that they'd been attacked, completely unprompted, on their side of the river, it was another entirely that they'd gone after the youngest member of their party. It should have been clear to anybody that Pearle was nothing more than a child, but the bandits had still tried to shoot her and her horse down first. Nabooru's immediate response had been to make sure the party was alright - luckily, nobody had sustained anything more than a scuff, as their attackers were lousy shots - and her immediate next thought was revenge.

It was for the best that Ganondorf was with them - once Nabooru's temper blew, nothing short of penance by bloodshed would appease her - but holding her by the scruff of her neck still seemed uncalled for.

Lights, Camera... - Accepting

She trained early in the morning, both so she wouldn't be disturbed and so she wouldn't disturb others. Whatever her hosts' motives, they didn't seem openly malicious, so it was rude to cause them additional strain. At least, that was her thought process.

They'd asked about her sword only once, and she'd made some vague excuse about "the open seas." One day they'd probably want more details than that, and hopefully by that time, she'd have made up an excuse.

Until then, she practiced her training every morning just at the crack of dawn. It was odd - she'd been here a few months, but the days never seemed to lengthen or shorten. She was used to biomes without much change between seasons, but the sun itself was beholden to the bizarrely predictable routine all of Termina seemed to abide by. At least it was easy to maintain a routine.

She'd just finished a few admittedly overly flourished spins when she realized she was being watched in the low, golden light. Her eyes immediately locked with Ganon's, if accidentally. He was watching from the potion shop window, still in his night-shirt, lending the moment an oddly intimate atmosphere. She quickly sheathed her sword - it always seemed to make him nervous - and folded her arms across her chest. How long had he been watching? Polite as his counterpart was obnoxious, she'd expect him to know it was rude to stare!