(no subject)

[arrogator]

Who: Mordred and anyone else in the Western Forests
What: Arrival stuff
Where: Said forests
When: Before the event
Warnings: None so far, will update if any!


Her first thought was that this was some sort of attack. But there aren't too many Servants who can do something like this (that she knows of), and since she's not actually being attacked, it's probably not something like that. But there's also the problem of not having her Master around. Or at least, if he is, she can't find him. Even if it's not an attack, that could prove fatal, but she doesn't seem to be fading away or anything like that, so maybe it's not as much of a problem as she thought? Whatever, she'll figure that one out later. Maybe.

She's more interested in figuring out what the hell is going on than trying to sort out Servant mechanics. That type of thing just gives her a headache anyways. If it works, it works, she's not going to spend more time puzzling over it than she has to. So back to the problem at hand, dealing with whatever this is and wherever it is.

Except she really has no idea how to do that at the moment, so she's just wandering through the forest in a full suit of armor (it can't hurt to keep her guard up in case she's wrong and this is some sort of strange Servant attack). Not exactly stealthy given the cracking noises that happen every time she steps on a fallen branch, but she figures it's worth trading stealth for defense in case there is some sort of enemy out there. Not that she's worried of course, nah, even in a strange place like this without her Master as backup, she's got this. Or at least that's what she's telling herself until proven otherwise.

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[forhyrule]

Zelda was confident that she had been kidnapped.

While she changed out of her nightgown and into her clothes from the pack (her clothes, not just any clothes), Zelda tried to chain together the series of events that must have occurred. It wasn't difficult. Someone must have kidnapped her from Hyrule Castle while she was sleeping, and drugged or bespelled her to keep her from waking. The kidnapper must have also packed a leather bag full of some of Zelda's possessions; the bag she found under her head upon waking was contained her clothes, her bejeweled regalia, and her heavy cloak. A thoughtful, if strange, gesture. The kidnapper had then taken Zelda deep into the Faron Woods and, for whatever reason, abandoned her.

That was what Zelda found odd, the only happening that she could not explain as she finished dressing and donned her cloak. Why would a kidnapper go through all the trouble to steal the Princess of Hyrule from her own, well guarded castle, only to abandon her?

As she stuffed her nightgown into the leather bag and picked it up, Zelda's long ears picked up an unusual sound amidst the normal forest noises. It was the heavy clanking of metal on metal, the snapping and crunching of underbrush beneath feet. So the kidnapper was still around after all.

There were two possible choices for Zelda to make. First, she could try to hide and hope the kidnapper did not notice her. With a dark cloak in a dark, heavily wooded forest, that would not be difficult. But if the kidnapper did not locate Zelda, that left the young princess abandoned deep within an unfamiliar forest. Alone, she knew she would not survive long; starvation or wild animals would take her life before she ever found her way out of the forest.

Her best hope for survival was the second choice: reveal herself to the kidnapper and hope that they had not brought her all this way just to execute her. It seemed logical enough. If they had wanted to kill her, they could have done so back at Hyrule Castle, since escaping undetected was apparently not a challenge for them. Besides, Zelda was much more valuable alive than dead. A kidnapper would likely have demands and Zelda felt confident in her ability to barter for her life.

Meanwhile, the heavy footfalls were nearly upon her. Bag in hand, Zelda pushed back her hood and tried to navigate toward the sound.

"Hello!" she called out as loudly as possible. "Hello out there!"

[arrogator]

Okay, there's somebody else out here and Mordred's not just wandering through a deserted forest. That's good. Of course it could still be someone up to something using an incredibly dumb trick, or what Mordred thinks is dumb, but she'll deal with that problem if it arises. But for now, she'll just stomping around and call back to the voice, noticing something moving around in the trees ahead.

“Yeah! Over here! Come out where I can see you!”

And don't be some sort of bandit. Then again, she wouldn't mind venting some of her frustration at finding herself in a strange forest seperated from Kairi by knocking some sense into some sort of woodland rogue. But anyways, as Zelda gets closer, she'll be able to see a knight clad in full armor, with her pack slung around her shoulder.

It might be an intimidating sight to some, but Mordred barely being over five feet tall might detract from that somewhat.

[forhyrule]

Zelda picked her way through the thick underbrush toward the source of the yelling and stomping. Thank goodness the other person was making such a ruckus that they were easy to find.

As she cleared the worst of the underbrush, she caught sight of the gleaming armor, starkly contrasted against the dark, shadowy trees. A sense of relief immediately washed over her. Regardless of the circumstances ---and even if this armored stranger turned out to be Zelda's kidnapper--- the princess was glad not to alone in the unfamiliar forest. She lifted one arm high into the air and waved toward the knight to catch their attention.

"Here I am!" Zelda called as she hurried forward.

The first thing she noticed as she approached was that she didn't recognize the armor. The style was unlike anything she had ever seen in Hyrule and the heraldry completely unfamiliar. The second, as Zelda came within speaking distance, was that the knight was ... rather short. A good head or so shorter than the princess.

But Modred could have been the size of a child for all it mattered to Zelda. She offered her kindest smile and a respectful bow to the knight. "Thank the gods. I feared for certain I was alone out here."

[arrogator]

Zelda's reaction is not really what she expected. And Mordred can't really place her either. The ears bring Assassin of Red to mind, but she's definitely different enough. And doesn't give her the same awful vibe that person does anyways.

“So you're not from here either?”

Okay, there goes her bandit theory. It might be a mistake to write it off so quickly, but a bandit's not going to worry about being the only person in the woods. That'd be dumber than what she wrote off as a dumb trick previously. And Mordred, not that she likes to admit it, knows dumb ideas pretty well.

What this means is she relaxes a little. She's not entirely letting her guard down, but she's not as wary as she was a moment ago.

"Do you know how you got here?"

Because she has no idea.

[forhyrule]

Modred's reaction was not what Zelda expected either. The female voice coming from the suit of armor caught the princess by surprise (Zelda hadn't noted the higher pitch of Mordred's voice when the knight was still further off). But it was what Mordred said that really surprised Zelda.

"This is not the Faron Woods?" she asked, brows furrowing as she looked around them. Though not exactly an answer to Mordred's question, it would be enough to confirm to the knight that Zelda was not a native of this region either.

Unfortunately for Zelda, nothing about the surrounding forest was distinctive enough to answer definitively whether this was Faron Woods, the southmost region of Zelda's kingdom. (Not that the princess was intimately familiar with the exact appearance of every corner of Hyrule, which was starting to feel like a large oversight on her part.) But it was clear enough from what Mordred said that this was not Hyrule and the knight was no Hyrulean citizen.

"No, I do not recall traveling here," Zelda admitted. "I awoke here in these woods but a short time ago." She held back mentioning that she thought she had been kidnapped. There could be a chance that Mordred was connected with that somehow.

[arrogator]

“Never been there, wouldn't know. Never even heard of the Faron Woods. All I know is I was in Romania before and now I'm not. And the same thing happened to me too. My Master suggested I take a nap, I dozed off, and next thing I know I'm waking up here.”

She'll deny it, but there's a faint note of worry in her voice. If it happened to her, did it happen to Kairi too? Is he here somewhere? Because if he is, she hasn't heard from him. And if they're separated...okay, she's not sure what she's going to do if that's the case.

“I don't think this is an attack. ...or if it is, it's not like any attack I've experienced. Even mages are usually more straightforward then just magicking people into the woods somewhere.”

Look at her sounding like an expert when she's only met a handful of mages. Sure, Merlin might do it for a laugh, but he's supposed to be off in a tower somewhere, so she can rule him out right away.

[forhyrule]

That was undeniably strange, that Mordred had also gone to sleep and then awoken in this unfamiliar place. It could be an odd coincidence, but it could also be some sort of hint as to what had happened to them.

At the mention of attack, Zelda looked around them again, this time her gaze angled upward into the trees, squinting to see any figures hiding among the branches. Despite Mordred's assertion that this probably wasn't an attack, Zelda wasn't quite so sure. 'Magicking' people into an unfamiliar location would be an effective way to throw one's enemy off guard and then ambush them.

"I know little of the tactics of mages, but whether this is an attack or not, we had best move on," Zelda ventured. Hopefully she spoke with more conviction than she felt, because the thought of an attack made her stomach do a nervous flip. The attacks on her kingdom were still recent, painful memories. "Surely there must be other people around."

[arrogator]

"Yeah, well there's nobody that way."

She points back the way she came. And then points in the direction she saw Zelda come from.

"And if you haven't seen anybody either, that doesn't leave us a ton of options, so let's try this way."

She points in another direction, not sounding too sure that they'll actually find anybody. Maybe, but this forest seems pretty deserted so far.

"And if you haven't dealt with mages much, consider yourself lucky. Most of them are a pain in the ass. Trust me on that one."

She hasn't met many, but at the same time, she's met zero who aren't a pain. Even her Master is...kind of. Just less so than the others.