trans_9 | What dreams may come [Open, bendytimed to before GTFO plot]

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What dreams may come [Open, bendytimed to before GTFO plot]

In her sealed, silent, sensory-deprived meditation room, Roxie is sleeping. It's a special sleep: for all dreams are connected, she knows, and by spinning her mind out along the web of thought, she might step into others...

[Roxie is dream-hopping, getting a look at the subconsciousnesses of the other people on the ship. So, how it works - if you're interested, go ahead and post with a dream your character is having, and Roxie will slip into it, subtle at first but more obvious as she tries to satisfy her curiosity. Just her being around will make the dreamer more lucid and more likely to remember the whole thing when they wake up.

Also, feel free to ask any OOC questions in a thread here, or poke me on AIM at 'anagramarye'.]

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"Of course not," Roxie says lightly, and though her face is still chill, her tone suggests she might well appreciate the joke.

"...does everyone in Hyrule have ears like yours?" she asks, curiosity finally getting the better of her.

"Most," Zelda shrugs, "The Hylians - we are the dominant race, here - do, as do the Sheikah -" A nod in Sheik's direction - "And the Kokiri. The Gerudo have round ears, like yours, and the Zora and Gorons do not have any that are visible."

There are many aspects of Zoran and Goron anatomy of which Zelda is ignorant, and which she is quite happy to remain so about.

Roxie runs that around in her head. She doesn't recognize any of the names... the ears, they look elflike, but Zelda is certainly not of the same breed with the fae lords she knows of.

"... what are your thoughts on cold iron?" she asks anyway, just in case.

Zelda gives her a puzzled look. "What about it?" she asks, faintly confused, "A useful metal, albeit one with a habit of rusting."

((OOC: Ffff this is like the fifth time in two days I've tried to comment to something with the wrong account.))

"The beings I'm used to with ears like yours are harmed by the presence of iron, particularly iron smelted by natural process." Meteoric iron? That would explain the 'cold iron' moniker, a little—only heated just enough by human hands to shape it into a weapon, never actually completely forged..

[Heeheehee.]

"Oh," Zelda says, a little amused. "Then no, we are not these particular beings."

Even though he looks like he hasn't been paying attention, Sheik holds one hand out - in the palm of his hand are three long iron needles - a gesture slides them into place between his fingers before he curls his hand into a fist and they disappear into thin air. "We have no such problem with iron, clearly."

"You didn't seem nearly capricious enough to really fit," Roxie says, eyes deftly following as the needles appear and then vanish again. "The fae are extremely good at twisting one's words."

"I will not deny that there are those amongst us good at twisting their words," Zelda smiles, and there may be a swift glance towards Sheik. "But no, on the whole, we are quite an honest people."

Below, the scene is brightening - the ReDeads are gaining colour, life, muscle tone. The shattered buildings are stitching themselves together. A few musicians are playing a jaunty tune. And before long, there's a bustling marketplace beneath them.

In the bright sunlight, Sheik seems almost faded, washed out, whereas Zelda seems even more vibrant.

"... It's kind of nice," Roxie says, and she has a little bit of a smile. "Small, but..."

She is, after all, used to the gleaming towers of modern cities.

Zelda chuckles softly and settles back to, quite literally, survey her kingdom. "It's Hyrule's largest population centre," she smiles, "But yes, I imagine it would be quite quaint compared to other places."

She's seen a glimpse of the places others come from in some of those places in the ship - Hyrule simply cannot compare.

Roxie nods slightly. "Preindustrial, and I'm going to guess that you don't have any really high-yield crops like rice... It only makes sense. You wouldn't have the farming capacity to support a large population."

She reaches up to adjust her glasses a little.

"Rice tends not to grow well here," she agrees, "We do get some, shipped up from the south where it's warmer, but it is not common. It's rare even in the castle."

She pauses thoughtfully, gazing out at the distant field. "We have wheat and oats," she murmurs, "Cattle, a great variety of fruits and vegetables. But no, nothing like rice."

"Do you rotate your crops?" Roxie asks.

There's something a bit cold and analytical in her eyes, Zelda might realize. She doesn't care about the implications as much trying to 'solve' it. Like looking at a puzzle.

Oops - there's a faintly embarrassed expression on her face. "I could not tell you," she says apologetically, "I... have not had much need to study agriculture."

After all, as a child, the food had always simply been there on the table, and as she grew, it was always Sheik who had gathered their daily sustenance. When food has no flavour, why pay attention to where it comes from?

Roxie's head tilts a little bit. "If you're going to be a ruler, it would probably be good to know how things like that work in the kingdom..." Her heart really isn't in the chide, though. She's lost in thoughts of electrical experiments and industrial revolutions.

"... with modern knowledge, you might even be able to mostly skip the coal phase and start getting in some basic electrics with water and windwheels ..."

Zelda nods, her expression sad and distant. "I know I should. But I have not had the opportunity yet. My father died when I was ten, when he took over... Impa, my guardian, performed the spell for my protection. The next I was aware of was beginning to awaken perhaps four years ago in Sheik's body."

She smiles tightly, and Sheik reaches over to squeeze her fingers reassuringly. "I have had little chance over the last several years to study ruling a kingdom."

But it's that second part that catches her attention. She's seen modern technology - how could she not, on the ship? - and the idea of a Hyrule like that is... intriguing. "Oh?"

"Well, it wouldn't be very efficient, but if you've got pure-enough copper supplies or something the wire would be easy. Rotate a magnet in a loop of conducting wire, natural lodestone would work if it's strong enough, and you get electricity... Even without any other advances, you could get, uh, arc lamps and some industrial motors going, great stuff for any manufacturing..."

Roxie's gaze is, if anything, even a little blanker than normal. Now you've gotten her really engaged with the idea.

"We have copper," she nods, "The Gorons mine it. And magnets. What are arc lamps?"

She's gazing out at the bustling town square. What would it look like with that sort of power? Zelda has a great imagination, but this is so far out of her realm of knowledge that it's hard to visualise.

"Put two carbon rods together as part of an electrical circuit—" —she mimes it vaguely— "—and pull them apart slowly, and the current connects them through the air, burning the carbon to produce an extremely bright light. It's primitive, and the rods have to be replaced as they're used up, but it doesn't need vacuum pumps or special materials like a filament lamp does."

As if to demonstrate, she puts two of her fingers together and pulls them apart slowly—and a softly-smoldering electrical current waggles across the air between them.

Zelda watches closely, storing away the information in her head. "And it is for bright lighting?" she asks softly, still gazing at the electricity between Roxie's fingers.

It's almost enough to make everything around it look dark - oh, wait, it is, a night's sky spread above them, gently twinkling stars overhead. The constellations there would be unlike any Roxie has seen before.

"Very bright." Roxie's gaze slides up, looking at the stars, and the buzz of electricity between her fingers goes out. "Before we had filament lamps sturdy enough, arc lamps with a mechanism to adjust the rods—" (she gestures vaguely) "—as they burned down were the best street lights. Easy to set up, it's just a thing on top of a pole with wires up it..."

Her voice is soft and a bit more monotone than usual, though. The stars have really drawn her attention.

The moon, although only a slim crescent, is many times larger than the one Roxie is used to. The stars are in new configurations, although, here and there and with a decent-enough telescope, distant galaxies and clusters and even nebulae can be recognised. A bright arc of stars stretches overhead.

Zelda is silent, musing about the lamps Roxie described. Sheik watches them both.

"Your world must be very bright," he says softly, breaking the silence.

((OOC: Purely headcanon - I'm sticking the planet Hyrule is on in another part of the Milky Way, so the constellations are completely different, but larger structures like galaxies and star clusters (and, closer to home, nebulae) are recognisable if Roxie knows anything about astronomy.))

Roxie holds up a hand, and a dark globe spins into existence over it, covered in webs of light (http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0011/earthlights_dmsp.jpg). "In some places it can be as bright during the night as during the day," she says, voice just a little wistful. "But that's been the inevitable path, ever since man tamed fire."

They are both silent, for now, watching the world in Roxie's hand. A world where night is day...

"The light - that is where the people are?" Zelda asks, peering at the globe in fascination.

"Some of them." She circles China with a finger— "The People's Republic of China." She puts a rather sarcastic bent into 'Republic'. "Twenty percent of Earth's population lives there." Her finger drifts west a little. "India, sixteen percent." West again. "Europe—a lot of small and medium countries—eleven percent." West again, across the ocean. "North America, with Canada, the United States, and Mexico, eight percent. Total population of the world right now's about seven billion."

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