fandomhighdorms | Fourth Floor Common Room; Sunday, March 25th.

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Fourth Floor Common Room; Sunday, March 25th.

Being without electricity didn't bother Sidon too much; there wasn't much of it in Hyrule, and what there was (usually in the raw form of lightning) was practically lethal to the Zora. But there was one aspect of it that he'd grown rather used to and found extremely important, especially now that he was without it: heating his sleeping tank. Oh, how he'd taken that small luxury for granted! So now he was sleeping on dry ground, still chilled to the bone, honestly surprised that he didn't have to break a film of ice off the top of the tank with how frigid the water had become.

Thus the reason he'd migrated to the common room, blankets thrown over his shoulders, huddled in front of the TV-turned-fireplace for warmth, eating still-frozen fishsticks out of a bad.

He knew it wasn't likely to be a treat for many people here, but for him, the little delicacy made his current misery somewhat more tolerable.

[[open common room is open!]]

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Uma was surprisingly unfazed by this weather. Oh, she hated it, absolutely, but the Isle wasn't exactly known for its robust infrastructure or mild winters. She'd just bundled herself into as many layers as possible, wrapped herself in a couple of blankets and waddled around looking for a common room that had food in it.

And lo, here was a common room with both a person and food. "Hey," she said, from the depths of her blankets. "You sharing?"

[Will be slow!]

Edited 2018-03-25 19:57 (UTC)

Sidon looked up with surprise at the request, blinking a little at Uma before regarding his bag of cold fishsticks and then looking back at her as he extended it out. "But of course!" he said brightly, though with his usual smile a bit guarded. "Though I must warn you, they are uncooked. I have come to understand that they are rather indended to be eaten cooked, though I personally prefer them better this way. You're free to judge for yourself, so long as you don't judge me too harshly if it's not exactly your taste."

[[no worries at aaaaalll!]]

Edited 2018-03-25 20:30 (UTC)

Uma shrugged. "There's a fire," she pointed out, all pragmatism. "I can probably cook them right there."

And if she couldn't, well, she'd eaten worse. These fish sticks were still fresh!

"Smart choice though," she added. "Staking out a fireplace before other people show up."

"So you could!" Sidon said, laughing a little, seeming as surprised by the presence of a fire as he had that Uma might be interested in his fish sticks. "What a clever thought! You can tell how little I consume cooked food, I would have never thought of using the fire except anything but warmth. And warmth is a very important need right now, too."

He shivered just then, as if talking of how cold he was suddenly made it worse, and he pulled his blankets tighter. "Still, I imagine there's plenty of room for others."

Clearly, he was also forgetting how much space he took up. But he did scoot over to make more room for Uma. "Plenty of space for at least one more, anyway. Come join me. Warm up and eat fish in convenient little bite-sized," well, for him, at least, "pieces! Have as much as you'd like, there are plenty more bags."

Uma liked being thought of as clever and so Sidon got one of her fleeting but genuine smiles as she sat. She warmed up the sticks, probably not as well as they should have been, but at least enough that they weren't frozen, and then nibbled on one.

"Not bad. Way better than the fish we used to serve back in my mother's restaurant," she said. "Are these yours?"

"Indeed, they are," Sidon said with a smile, almost feeling proud that Uma liked them even if the most he had done was purchase them. It wasn't as though he'd made them himself, but he had at least provided them. "I like to keep a few bags on hand for when I am in a rush, or perhaps if the weather is not good for catching something fresher in the ocean, like today. And also, I sometimes finding myself craving them; something about them is quite comforting..."

He looked thoughtfully at another fishstick before popping it into his mouth, and practically swallowing it whole, rubbing his stomach a little with happiness.

He tilted his head at Uma, though, once the morsel was devoured. "But your mother had a restaurant? That must have been quite interesting!"

"Yeah, a fish and chips place," Uma said, expression turning flat and stoic. "I worked there after school." And on weekends. Multiple shifts. Sometimes during school when her mother didn't feel like it. "Usually waiting tables."

She'd been a great waitress, always perky and friendly and making sure to get the orders right. Except not.

Sometimes, it was difficult for Sidon to read human expressions, but he felt he understood that shift in Uma's demeanor fairly well.

"It seems," he rubbed his chin a little as he considered her, "that perhaps you did not care for it much? Am I correct in that assumption?"

Uma shrugged. "Nope," she said, still trying to sound disinterested. None of this was a big deal. Obviously. "Since Ursual owned it, she figured she didn't really need to consult with me about when I worked. If I worked. How long I worked. Whether or not I should get paid. That kind of stuff."

Super-casual Uma. You just stay super-casual.

"What about your folks? They're royalty? What's that like?"

And now Sidon was rather confused, because, despite him fully believing Uma's attempts at super-casual, her words certainly did not sound like anything pleasant at all. Then again, he didn't really know anything about restaurants...or businesses, for that matter, beyond what he was learning at the animal shelter...but that didn't sound right to him.

He gave her a wary look for a moment, as if to warn her that she might not be able to escape talking about it by deflecting questions to him for long, but he'll happily put it aside for the time being.

"Well, it's just my father, King Dorephan, at the moment," he said. "My mother died when I was just a hatchling. And...I suppose I don't really know exactly how to describe what it's like, because it's all I've really known for most of my life. I don't imagine it's a very big deal, though. There is some pressure, to be sure, but I likely have a good, long time before I replace my father on the throne. I certainly hope so! In the meantime, despite my title, I am just like any other Zora. I participate in fishing, I fight along side my future subjects in battle, I even sleep in the same pond. My father, however, is too big for all that, and I have a long ways to go before I make that size as well, so I plan to enjoy it while I can!"

But like what if they didn't though! Deflection was a time-honored pastime in this school!

"I'm sorry bout your mom," Uma offered. Her own mother was such a huge influence over her life--for good and ill--that she couldn't imagine a life without her. Of course, Sidon probably felt the same way about his father and, "I never knew my dad, either. I dunno if he died or not. I could have passed him a hundred times in the street and not known."

"No need to be sorry," Sidon said with a faint smile. "I was so young I barely even knew her, and my sister filled in role nurturing and caring for and teaching me."

Of course, his sister was dead, too, and that was something to be sorry for, but he felt one dead relative was more than enough for a conversation.

"Besides," he chuckled lightly, "we're very communal, us Zora. If Mipha hadn't taken up the task, I'm sure I'd have a whole swarm of the Domain's females flocking around me to take care of me."

And now he had a whole swarm of them flocking around him for a very different reason, but that was another story.

"Do you ever wonder, though?" Sidon asked, tilting his head. "About who he might be? Your mother never spoke of him?"

Uma seesawed her hand. "I used to wish he'd come and take me away," she said, staring into the fire. "But that wasn't the same as wishing I knew more about him. He was always this...I'unno, father-shaped cutout? Like I just wanted to get away and he was a convenient way to do it. I never really wondered about him. Mo--Ursula was always too big and too present and too much to wonder about anyone else."

"I can understand how that feels," Sidon smiled softly again, nodding, thinking of his father in pure size and his sister in pure spirit. "Do you sometimes feel the need to have to live up to being so big and present and...much? Or are you really not interested in anything like that at all?"

Again, that little hand seesaw. Sidon had hit upon a topic that filled Uma only with uncertainty and confusion.

"She's one of the meanest, more terrifying villains on the Isle," Uma said softly. "Her name commands instant fear. I command instant fear because I'm her daughter. Hard not to want to step out of her shadow and prove that I can be twice as terrifying and ten times more wicked. But at the same time...that frustrates the hell out of me because even when I'm trying to strike out on my own, I'm still doing it for her, kinda. And I don't want to owe her anything."

Sidon had to chuckle a little bit; he hoped Uma didn't take it the wrong way, of course, but it just slipped out of him as he thought about what she said.

"It's a little funny," he explained softly, "that's how I feel about my sister, only she was the exact oppsite of mean and terrifying. I don't think there will ever be a soul as sweet and gentle as Mipha's. Everyone had such high hopes for her, and I fear I may never quite live up to them. But what I do know I can do is try my best, be bold and be confident that I will do right by my people and Hyrule!"

He pumped his fist a little, careful not to dislodge his blanket, and gave Uma a broad smile. "You can do it, too! I have faith in you! Though it does feel a bit strange encouraging villainous behavior out of you...but perhaps that is the way in which you might distinguish yourself from your mother! By being as great and powerful as she was....only good! Twice as terrific and and ten times more kind!"

Hey, he couldn't be blamed for at least trying, right?

Besides, hopeful delusion still seemed a better option than admitting to Uma that he had yet to find her even remotely terrifying or wicked. Because he had absolutely no desire to prove that notion wrong.

Probably for the best. Because that was exactly the kind of thing Uma would do.

"Nah," she said. "I'm a VK--a Villain kid. My parents are villains, I was raised among villains--and, c'mon, what's good ever done for me?"

Besides imprison her before she was ever born?

"Good is fine if you're a pretty little princess or a handsome prince--" she gave him a wry glance "--where stuff is easy and everyone bends over backwards to make sure you're okay. The rest of us--well, some of us don't get a choice. And the rest of us just aren't chumps."

If there was one thing that Uma had learned, it was that Good and Evil were a things you were, not things you did.

"...Sorry 'bout your sister, though," she said, a little softer, both in tone and volume. Because, yeah. She'd heard that past tense, Sidon.

Did...did Uma just call him handsome? Though he knew it was the last thing about what she said he should be focusing on, Sidon couldn't help be caught a little off-guard about it, and maybe a little pleased. Sure, all the Zora females couldn't stop talking about how handsome he was, but no one ever said it to his face before...not even in a subtle, by-association sort of way.

But then Mipha always softened a little, and he gave her a slight nod at her own softness. "Thank you," he said, giving her a faint, very distant smile. "But, you see, sometimes we princes and princesses don't have such an easy time, either. My sister was supposed to be one of the Champions that brought defeat to the great evil plaguing our land. The Hylian princess Zelda was destined to gain the powerful to end Calamity Ganon. And now the Champions are dead and the only reason Calamity Ganon hasn't complete destroyed Hyrule is because Princess Zelda has been trapped in the castle, keeping him at bay in an endless struggle for the past fifty years. The storybooks aren't always true. At least, they haven't been in my world..."

And he frowned, because he rather wished it could be that simple. Even if it meant she'd be a villain, he couldn't help being a little envious of Uma if that truly was how it worked in her world.

Yup. She'd absolutely called him handsome. And made no bones about it.

"I mean, it works that way for some people," Uma said. "If you're a poor but honorable thief or a princess with a mean stepmother or a rebellious teenage girl who just wants to be free, then...yeah. You get cute animal friends to help you out or the talking furniture fights your enemies for you or, hell, you can take a nap and everything gets tidied up so that you get your happily ever after delivered on a platter when you wake up. The rest of us have to actually work to try to do anything and even then, the game is rigged."

But it was the only one it town.

Sidon looked as though he was about to say something, finger poised, shoulders squared, but then stopped as soon as he opened his mouth, seemed to think better of it, then curled back into his blanket, head tilted. He thought to approach a different thought, then, going through a similar process, retracting it again, with a small thoughtful hum this time.

"Your world," he finally decided on, "sounds very...interesting."

That felt...diplomatic enough.

Uma laughed at him. "Just say it," she said. "You don't have to worry about bein' all polite. I'm not."

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Fourth Floor Common Room; Sunday, March 25th.

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