I've always loved the Zelda series, and i just decided to write this for an LA assignment, and i have this big intricate plot and all of that good stuff.... I don't really care about grammer and stuff, just whether or not i should keep writing this...
Ok, this was originally an Essay, so there are a lot of scarily big words in here... sorry, too lazy to edit.
- Code
***
(THIS STORY TAKES PLACE BEFORE TWILIGHT PRINCESS. you will find out later why i decided this if i continue writing! spoiler; the Chiwere warrior tattoes are the Ogre Diety Mask's markings from Majoras mask!)
So here's what is happening:
The Chiwere, back during the Triforce Wars, betrayed the Hylians and were only able to survive afterword in forests too dangerous for the other races to inhabit, hated and loathed by the world. Although they managed to survive up to the present time that the story takes place, they were cursed by the goddesses to have no souls, doomed to live in agony.
A'blanc, the Hero, grew up as a Chiwere and an outcast and misfit among them. He also is souless, even though he bears no apparent heiritage to the Chiwere. His powers granted to him by the goddesses are completely blocked due to the loss of his soul, and he has not the slightest inkling of who he is.
When A'blanc encounters the Spirit Guardian of the Chiwere tribes during a Chiwere ceremony, the spirit reveals to him that he is really Link, the hero chosen by the goddesses. The spirit gives Link a fragment of his soul and commands him to leave the forests because all life is in desperate danger.
Naturaly, Link leaves the forest, eager to see the rest of the world, but runs into trouble. A huge Deku Baba nearly kills him, and he only manages to survive beause a band of traveling acrobats and singers nurse him back to health, despite the tattoes that mark him as a Chiwere.
Once Link recovers, he realizes that he can understand their language and joins the troupe, as a singer and acrobat. To prevent the public and his loving fans from realizing he has no soul and is a hated Chiwere, he pretends to be Raven and wears a mask to cover his tattooes...
***
Out of habit, my hand reached up to my forehead to swipe the wisps of hair that created a thin screen over my right eye, but I quashed the action. I hated having my hair parted to the side so it fell awry into my eye. It was irritating and I didn’t like the way it looked very much, though everybody in the troupe acclaimed its attractive side effects.
With a resigned sigh I leaned forward to finish tying the laces of my boots. Really, I didn’t like the boots very much either; they were too showy and slightly too shiny, although they were perfect for movement and dancing. If I really admitted it to myself, I loathed most of my costume to some degree. It was so… overtly conspicuous and silly. I looked like a buffoon.
It was intentionally unorthodox, of course, since I worked at a traveling fair. Everyone in the troupe had to wear something denunciating, making us look like a Menagerie of odd animals. Comparatively, my costume was actually very stoic. My costume consisted of very simple parts: a comfortable black undershirt that was nearly skin tight, an onyx coat that showed off my chest more than I would have liked with a strip of gold embroidery on the shoulders to make them seem wider, creamy tan breeches that were very snug and allowed a profusion of ambulatory motion, knee high boots that hugged my calves, a pair of fingerless black gloves, and lastly -my favorite- a black bird mask that covered almost all of my face.
I rolled onto the balls of my feet and stood in one fluid motion, crossing to room to the other side of my wagon to the mask in question. I gently lifted the smooth mask off a peg on the wall and ran my fingers over the embroidery. The mask was almost perfectly crafted to fit me as if by fate’s hand, fate who’s clever weaves had made such a masterpiece.
This mask had been embellished greatly by the masterful crafter, and many weeks of work had gone into making it. It had angled and exaggerated curving eye-holes that gave it a hawk like appearance, the ridge that your nose would be ensconced in ended in a small beak (witch perfectly curled around the end of my nose) that was richly decorated with gold threads and beads, with more of the same beads lining the bottom edge of the mask and continuing in a shapely curve on either side of the wearer’s nose before ending half an inch above the ends of the eyeholes like replacement eyebrows. The sides of the mask were ornately and skillfully done with small black feathers that were weaved together tightly to make a modest backswept crown.
It was very wide and covered most of one’s face, which was why nobody had claimed the rather stuffy mask before me, leaving only a part of your cheeks, your lips, and jaw uncovered. The shape was almost too blasphemously ideal for me, as it effectively hid my face and kept my life safe.
My life was constantly in danger, just because of what race (or half of my race, at least) I was. The Hylians, a strong and powerful race, hated the Chiwere tribes who were constantly under the malign of the strong race that we had once been a part of. They had every right to loathe our cryptic misdeeds and us.
Eons ago, a large group of Hylians that would become the present-day Chiwere had lost their sanity to the lust of power just within their reach, joining the unspeakable filth of shadow creatures and monsters to gain a hold of that power, losing all that had made us Hylian, losing our souls. When the Hylians had finally sealed away that terrible power after an epic and bloody battle that had maimed the earth, the Chiwere came back to themselves, horrified by their murders and implausible deeds. They were hunted down and killed like animals, until, by the guidance of a man who was simply known as a prophet and sage, they fled and ensconced themselves in the hazardous forests that no other race wanted claim of.
I was raised as a Chiwere, practicing their traditions and beliefs, as a misfit and aberration among them. The residual sensations of nonconformity and prejudice from my childhood still was resonating inside me, a bitter salvo. I was mistrusted by both sides of the conflict because I was, for lack of a better word, a half-breed.
I glanced at a mirror on the wall, the familiar conflicting and confused emotions digging a pit in my stomach. An elfish and fully Hylian face met my eyes in the reflection, a worried expression on his face. I was the spitting image of a Hylian; My entire body seemed the very personification of ‘white’. My hair was like spun snow, and I had smooth pale creamy skin that had never appeared among the Chiwere tribes until I came along.
I frowned at the handsome face, and he copied me. My structure was also more elfin than anyone else’s among the reclusive Chiwere; perfectly balanced and smooth, like a cat.
The three earrings along the top edge of my backswept ears each signified my age in Chiwere tradition; one pair of tiny loops meant I was a newborn Chiwere baby, although I had been found in the forests, orphaned, and another pair behind them meant I was 10, and the third pair was added when I turned 16 and was considered a young adult. Everyone in the Chiwere forests had pointed ears, sure, but not nearly as long as mine. Only the Hylians had ears like that, and no other race possessed the distinct trait.
The cut of my hair was different than most boys hair, too, in all of the races I had encountered. I engendered on cutting it close to my head and only two or three inches long, and letting my bangs grow long so that they framed my face down to my chin. Sadly my bangs were parted to the side in an exacerbating arrangement.
My eyes were wide and slightly tilted, shaped perfectly to make most girls swoon, bordered by a fringe of long jet-black eyelashes, and the whites of my eyes went uninterrupted like big pearls under my eyelids. That was the only trait I possessed that alluded to my Chiwere side, however microcosmic. Pure white eyes with no pupils or irises was a genetic trait of Chiwere people, but also it was a tangible form of proof of the absence of souls.
Without a soul, you were torn away from the cycle of the lives you could potentially have in your next reincarnation, and all of your past lives you had before would be lost, like a part of yourself being denied to you. The Chiwere people were like Stillborn babies from this curse, useless and unwanted in the skein of the ages.
The Chiwere people had always tried to cope with the confusion and chronic pain from the loss of your identity, but I had witnessed countless times of people forgetting who they were, often losing themselves so completely to the point that they were no more than mindless animals that we were forced to put out of their misery.
I had participated in putting a Lost One out of its misery, feeling disgusted and horrified by the ludicrous writhing monster that had once been the great warrior who had taught me how to use swords. He had turned into a malicious and volatile beast that was screaming in his ebbing and pitching pain. I myself had often woke up in the middle of the night, wondering what I was, not recognizing anything, nor a single word recalled to speak, doubled over in lassitude and a crushingly forlorn feeling pulsing in my veins.
"Why should I have no soul, even though I’m obviously not a Chiwere?" I whispered, running a finger along my cheekbone, tracing one of the thick red lines under my eyes, feeling strangely apathetic.
The tattoos on my face were the war tattoos that Chiwere warriors wore, with the job to protect and attack. The two thick red lines that went from under my ears and curved along my cheekbones and touched the corners of my eyes in a point, with a smaller stripe under them stood for ferocity. The dark blue tapered ‘V’ tattoo that marked my brow, with the two arms disappearing into my hairline symbolized pride. Only the most perceptive boys with unmatchable skill with blades and enough grit to wield them could earn those tattoos, and I had earned those markings fully, though they made it harder for me to hide my identity, making the mask necessary.
"Link, Link, what the blazes are you doing in there? We’re starting in a few minutes!" A voice called from outside, and I flinched, skittish from my dark thoughts.
"I’m coming" I answered, my voice quivering, and tentatively pulled on my mask to become Raven, the star of the show, a singer and acrobat performing pantomime entertainment, my alter ego, so to speak. Not the soulless A’blanc of the Chiwere tribes, nor Link the unsure hero with the cumbersome weight of a specter’s clairvoyant words, Raven, the simple and dexterous circus performer who dances to the rhythm of his heart and sings his troubles to the wind.