vatheon | I can't go back to yesterday because I was a different person then

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I can't go back to yesterday because I was a different person then

Who: Sola and Vatheon
When: The wee hours of the morning
Where: Plaza
Style: Brackets
Status: Open to all CR great and small!

[At first the Hylian doesn't recognize where he is.

There's a heavy and wild intake of breath as if he doesn't expect for his lungs to expand. He scrambles for the nearest cover, nearly bowling over a hapless towel vendor in the process. He merges into the shadow of a building, nothing visible aside from piercing red eyes as he finally pauses to take in his surroundings, tense and suspicious.

What had Link done? He'd thought he'd been done for, that Ganon's resurrection was a failure purely because again he hadn't been able to spill the hero's blood. And he'd had so much time to plan, to send minions and monsters after him all along, to observe and prepare. But maybe that had been the problem, he'd waited too long. He should have attacked at the beginning when he'd been- well, not weak, he'd still defeated the Demon King, but when Link had his guard down during the reconstruction...

Dark Link's train of thought grinds to a halt as he finally connects where he is, as the jumble of memories he'd ignored suddenly appearing in his mind in favor of adrenaline still surging from his life or death battle start to sort themselves out slowly. They're hardly finished, but he knows this place now. He recognizes it.

Still standing in the shadows but no longer a part of them, Dark Link just stares.

Vatheon.

Home.]

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[The wee hours of the morning are, well, around when Laharl tends to go to sleep anyway. He's on his way home to hit the ~~sack~~ coffin when he passes through the plaza and something familiar tugs at his senses. He doesn't usually pay attention to newcomers, because he's been here long enough not to expect any of the few people he gives a damn about to show up. In fact, lately he's just been losing people, so making more acquaintances who'll just leave again isn't exactly a priority.

He stops now though. Of course he's not going to call out, because that would be stupid and make it seem like he missed the kid or something. But he's nevertheless hoping--just a little bit!--that the familiar presence will reveal itself to be his missing vassal.]

[Dark Link peers from the shadows at the passerby... or not passerby, as the small demon stops. He can feel his power from here, enough that it's a wonder it all fits in that small frame. He knows that face too, pushing through his unsorted memory as if through a veil. Laharl, the name comes to mind finally. Demon lord, tried to enslave him when he'd first been here.

No, not enslave. He tries to sift through nearly two years of memory from decades ago, trying to place his interactions. They'd been... friends, after a fashion. He recalls thinking Laharl wasn't very good at it, but now he wonders if he hadn't had the right idea. Vassals are useful and you know where you stand with them. Friends are confusing and there's no clear hierarchy.

Not that he has any intention of becoming a vassal when he already has a Master, but at the least he believes he understands now.

He's not sure what possesses him to do it - it would be easier just to meld back into the shadows and let the demon pass - but Dark Link steps into the light of the plaza and nods by way of greeting.]

Laharl.

[Laharl's eyes come to rest on Sola as he steps out of the shadows, and he feels something strange, sort of like relief. Whatever it is, he has no intention of letting it show. He masks the expression with a smirk, folding his arms.]

Hmph. So it is you.

[All Dark Link responds with is a nod, his posture straight and alert. But there's something he needs to know.]

How long has it been here?

Since you left?

I dunno, a couple weeks? It's not like I've been counting the days. [That much is true. He really isn't sure how long it's been.]

Weeks.

[Weeks. It's been years for Dark Link. Several hundred, if not thousands while dead and those, thankfully, he doesn't remember but it's been nineteen with him conscious and that's long enough to feel somewhat disconnected.]

It's been years for me.

Years? Go figure.

[Laharl shrugs it off. Seeing things from someone else's perspective has never been one of his strong points, so he doesn't even attempt imagining how disorienting that must be.]

You do anything interesting?

[Subjugate an entire kingdom through the command of a vast army of monster minions to try and resurrect his lord and master the Demon King Ganon using the blood of the man he was originally created to emulate and defeat having failed to do so once before.]

No.

[Interesting is not the word he'd use.]

What, nothing? What's the big deal over it being a few years if nothing happened?

I didn't say nothing happened. I just said it wasn't interesting.

[He steps past Laharl, going to grab a towel from a nearby cart to dry himself off. There's a change in the way he carries himself. This is no longer the same heat-headed yet timid Hylian that left the bubble a month ago. He's not a little boy anymore on the inside.]

There's no reason to talk about it.

What's the difference?

[A lot of boring things happening is pretty much the same as nothing happening. But Laharl watches Sola for a moment. He had an inkling when he first sensed the kid, but he definitely seems different somehow. Colder might be the way to put it. Maybe he's had time enough to realize the two of them aren't actually friends.]

I guess something happened you don't want to admit. You suffer some embarrassing defeats?

[Had a subordinate said something like that to him in years past he would have killed them where they stood, but as he recalls Laharl far surpasses him in strength. Yes he could probably at least hold his own for a time, but the diminutive demon is closer to Ganon's level than his own.

He's in no real rush to die yet again. Three is enough.

Even so Dark Link throws the sopping towel at Laharl, still quick to anger even if he can keep it in check now.]

Don't talk about things you have no idea about.

[Oh, good, the temper's still there. Laharl catches the towel and promptly tosses it aside.]

I'll take that as a yes.

I'm glad I failed!

[He rounds on Laharl, not quite looming - he's too short to loom - but there's no fear of the little demon there, nothing left of wariness he'd displayed after getting roasted by Laharl in that no contest fight. He's had far worse now and Laharl doesn't scare him.]

I didn't want to kill people, much less Link!

[Laharl wouldn't view the action as looming no matter how tall Sola was. Fortunately for someone of his height, he's just not intimidated by size. He keeps on smirking right back at Sola.]

Really. What were you trying for if you didn't want to?

The resurrection of my Master, if you have to know.

[He looks down at his hands.]

It was my sole purpose then, but now... I'm glad I failed. I don't want to be that and I don't have to.

[Laharl arches an eyebrow.]

If your master was dead, who said you had to before?

It's a spell. He summoned me into being again and charged me with his resummoning if he was defeated. He was, so I had to follow his order.

[He's not even sure why he's explaining. It sounds like excuses, but there's some small part of him that wants to scream it wasn't his fault, that if he'd only remembered...]

A binding contract then.

[At least that's the conclusion Laharl comes to. It's something that can happen in the worlds he knows, summoning and making a pact with a demon. Someone like Sola, who isn't nearly as powerful as him, would probably be a lot easier to bind.]

Something like that.

[Ganon had created Dark Link in the first place so it felt more like controlling a marionette, even if Ganon hadn't actually been there.]

I did a lot of things I wish I hadn't.

Not like anyone here knows about it. You can go right back to being a goody two-shoes if you really want.

I'll know.

[He's quiet again, not expecting Laharl to understand but saying it anyway.]

I'm still going to try to be a good person again, but I'll still know what I did.

[As old as he is and as many things as he lives in denial of... no, he doesn't really understand why this is a problem.]

So deal with it. It couldn't've been that terrible by some standards anyway.

It's still terrible, no matter the standards. Like I said, I don't really want to talk about it. I'm not going to be like that anymore.

[So don't get any ideas about trying to make him your vassal again or whatever.]

Fine. I can find plenty of boring work for you that doesn't involve killing anyone.

[Sola, did you really think that wasn't going to happen?]

I can't go back to yesterday because I was a different person then

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