"Not enough..."
In that otherwise still darkness, Zephyrus was lost in a heavy, heady thought. Not so much startled into action by this new presence as he was shocked into contemplation.
This was not so difficult a puzzle. If anything- he heard Archer’s voice remark dryly within his head- it was a junior word jumble at best.
And yet it caused him pause. How simple it would be to defeat the fool who offers oneself. It was obvious, blood was the key to this room’s test: but would offering it only make them weaker, when the temple inevitably betrayed them?
And the thought worried him. Not because of its potential, but because he’d thought it. In an instant, he had made this small puzzle into a sizable trap.
Perhaps it was true, then. Perhaps his people were not solely the people of shadow, perhaps they were also the people of blood.
He threw another glance into the blade as it swung by them. His own red-soaked image stared back at him, but did not reflect the sorrow which hovered just behind his eyes. It was hard to gauge in just an image, whether a man was weighed down by the guilt in his heart.
He waxed introspective for a few moments more, before this brief respite of personal meditation was broken by a sharp stinging in his forearm.
"Whoops."
Zephyrus suddenly drew air through his teeth, and tightened his jaw – but made no other sound. Best not to show weakness to total strangers, just yet.
He winced as he glanced down. An arrow already tainted with blood – he would need to see an apothecary as soon as they returned to town.
He opened his mouth, with the visible intent of reprimanding Jillian, before he caught his own blood slinking off into the darkness, just as that of the Gerudo had done.
"Not enough...", another rattle came, like the chittering of old bone.
Zephyrus narrowed his eyes about the place. Would they get nowhere, if not for the shedding of blood? How little Hyrule had changed. He exhaled, and threw one last cursory glance towards his own sanguineous form, before turning and taking a few steps towards that shuddering voice that dared them from the dark.
He unbound the fabric tethered about his guandao – It was useless indoors, anyway. He used it only to gauge the passage of the wind, to better practice his own magic. Zephyrus took a deep breath, and then stood with his pole’s bottom to the ground, and wordlessly he used the blade to carefully lengthen the cut Jillian had left him with. He raised the new wound to the dark, and watched as his blood drifted into the fade.
"”Sheikah blood for the Sheikah temple."
--
Archer heard Alyce’s story, but that didn’t quite mean he had _listened_ to it. The words had certainly gone in, but the few Sheikah Archer knew painted a picture of the race so drastically different that he, with his small-world, big-city sensibilities couldn’t quite picture it.
So when she was done, he did little more than smile, and flash her a tonally discordant thumbs up.
"Spooky story, but I know Sheikah – on a personal level, ya feel? – and they all seem like right honourable people. Boring, can’t hold a conversation for their lives – but they’re good. You’re good.”
He nodded sagely, arms crossed, as though this was the end of the matter.
"'sides, I can't imagine Zephyrus doin' anything that metal. Just the idea of that is crazy!”
Archer laughed at the thought, which he supposed was rather dark of him. Zephyrus would laugh too, when he heard what this one was selling. Imagine him, part of a lynch mob! Zephyrus wouldn’t so much as hurt an innocent spider – in fact he’d chastised Archer for doing just that.
Just as he began laughing, however, Magus somehow managed to ruin the entire moment in a way that certainly wouldn’t have happened if he had been in charge.
The blades, twirling scythes of almost certain doom, slowed to a stop.
"Oh hey, great work!", Archer offered with a smile – credit where credit is due.
Then things started descending from the ceiling, and there were fireballs flying everywhere.
"Oh hey, great work!", he repeated with decidedly less good will, because this was somehow Magus’ fault. Then he shoved Alyce out of the way of a Wallmaster before leaping to the side himself.
On some level he knew as a Sheikah she was probably more than capable, but on another, she looked like a bookish nerd, and book learnin’ wasn’t… fight… learnin’…
Archer didn’t have time to think of clever wordplay, but did make a note to shriek in abject horror the next chance he got – because these big, gross hand things looked like spiders, and there were few things he loathed more.
A blue fireball sailed by his head, and somewhere above a Poe was cackling in that disgusting way only Poes can.
Was that racist? He would ask Lev later. In fact, he would just cut out the middle man and apologise. Archer was no racist – not like those Zora.
In an instant, he’d wreathed both hands in fire, and began hucking crackling balls of flame back the way the Poe’s volley had come: "If you wanna pull it out and measure ‘em, I’m over here!”
ButtsnBalls