Morning playtime [BP/Darth]

Morning Playtime

Eri, Lonely Arsonist (1/4/5) [Blonde Panther] Reward: +50 Rupees.
Judith Vilcaron, Priestess of Nayru (1/5/2) [Darth_Slaverus] Reward: Bottomless Bottle, Detox.

One leg. A second leg. A swift shift of balance... and the Skull Kid stood on her feet in front of the haystack. She didn't really need to sleep of course, what with her mask, it was the quickest way to get the night done and over with so she could find people to play wi- Ahhh, how long had the haystack next to hers been burning?!

She took her Lantern away from it, trying in vain once more to extinguish it, but decided to just attach it to its Deku Stick, sling it over her shoulder, put on her mask and run away as quickly as she could. If the owner of the haystack came and saw this, she would get blamed even though it had been an accident!

Running in a straight line for as long as she could, Eri ended up slowing down and sitting down. She needed no food, luckily, but she did like her some water. Maybe she ought to walk down to the river and get a drink! Yeah, that was a good idea! Having forgotten the incident with the haystack, she swung took her pan flute to hand and played a cheerful (well, most people would call it melancholic) tune on it as she walked into a random direction. She didn't even know where the river was, or if there even was one at all. She just figured that if she walked for long enough she would happen upon SOME water.

And she did... but it looked like there was already someone there! A playmate, perhaps?

Stooping down to fill her flask with fresh water from the stream in front of her, Judith Vilcaron reflected on the sheer versatility of water. It could be used to quench thirst, wash oneself of filth, and even heal minor wounds in conjunction with her Rejuvenation spell. Life could not exist without it! Truly, it was an element worthy of being tied to Mother Nayru.

Speaking of which, the purpose of Judith's visit to the river had been twofold: Firstly, she intended to refill her flask, so that she had the liquid reagent required for Rejuvenation. Treating those in need of succour could drain her supply quite rapidly, so it was a good idea to stock up while she could. Secondly, Judith needed to procure a larger quantity of fresh water to be blessed and used for a ritual. She had never attempted this particular ritual before, but she'd heard through the grapevine that it would bring any priestess who completed it much closer to spiritual enlightenment. To this end, Judith had borrowed a pail of no small stature from her father's farmhands.

Once her flask had been filled to the brim, Judith slipped the cap back on and stood up to stretch. Ah, it felt nice to get out and feel the grass underneath her feet! Doing the Goddess' work didn't always mean being cooped up inside, after all. Perhaps once she was done here, she would take the opportunity to bathe herself... Besides, she had already taken care to remove her amulet and her effigy from her person, placing the valuable objects on a tree stump behind her, lest they fall into the flowing river and be swept downstream, never to be seen again. It was a sensible precaution. Nayru would approve.

As she returned the flask to her sash and scooped up her bucket, Judith heard a strange, sorrowful melody in the distance. Leaning over the river and submerging her pail in the cool waters, the Priestess allowed her mind to wander, pondering what the source of the haunting sound could be. The song of a yet-undiscovered species of bird, perhaps? The world never ceased to amaze, in spite of how much wisdom one possessed...

Eri stopped playing her flute when she got closer to the lake. There was already someone there. So there WAS a playmate! The Skull Kid hid behind a tree, already thinking up ways to draw the pretty lady's attention and games to play.

However, within seconds, her attention was drawn to something else. A pretty shiny thing was lying on the tree stump slightly in front of the tree she was hiding behind! She looked at the lady, then to the shiny, then back to the lady, and back to the shiny... Carefully coming out from behind the tree, Eri tiptoed over to the stump, where she reached for the shiny thingy and grabbed it with her grubby little hands.

It was pretty... Eri spent a good few seconds putting it around her neck and holding the shiny part up to the sun, letting it sparkle. In doing so, however, she forgot about the lady behind her.

Satisfied that she had gotten what she had came for, Judith hoisted the bucket out of the river and set it down next to herself. This motion was not accomplished without some strain; now that the pail was laden with water, the priestess found that it was a bit heavier than she'd bargained for. She supposed she should have known better... Her previous experiences with farming implements during her childhood had aptly demonstrated her lack of upper body strength. Bracing herself for what promised to be an arduous trek home, Judith turned around to collect her precious belongings from the tree stump, so that she might sanctify the water straight away.

From there, things went drastically awry for the young priestess.

Upon being confronted with the sight of a Skull Kid helping itself to her amulet, Judith reacted in the same manner an average person might were a particularly bloated and unpleasant spider to be dangled in front of their face. Emitting a startled cry, she stumbled backwards only to feel an icy chill envelop her left foot, her ankle, heel, and toes all gripped by a sudden coldness. Managing a quick glance downward, Judith saw that she had accidentally stepped inside her bucket in her haste to retreat. Desperate to avoid two crisises at once, the priestess flailed her leg around wildly, hopping on her free foot while trying to kick the pail loose.

The bucket came off with the third kick, but at the cost of her equilibrium. Losing her balance, Judith slipped and fell into the river behind her, creating a cacophonous splash. Luckily, the current was not strong enough to sweep her away as it would her amulet and effigy, nor did she dash her head against a rock or other hard surface that might cause serious injury. However, the comedic spectacle had bought the undead thief all the time it needed to escape, and with Judith disoriented from her plunge into the stream, it seemed that it would enjoy quite a head start before she could give pursuit...

Eri gave a high-pitched scream as she heard the lady's cry, and she started running in the direction she had come from in the first place, taking the amulet around her neck with her. She ran back to the tree behind which she'd left her lantern, stopped to pick it up and dropped her leaf on the ground.

She warped to one of the branches of the tree and sat down on it, hing in relief and looking down at the lady trying to get out of the water. She was pretty funny! Eri giggled at the lady's stepping into the bucket and falling into the river, and started to slowly sway back and forth.

Would the pretty lady follow her? Eri kind of hoped so. She'd been scared by the sudden sound behind her, but she would really love to play with the funny lady. Instead of swaying back and forth Eri now gently kicked her feet repeatedly. Tag was fun to play! And the funny lady would be it!

Thoroughly drenched and miserable by the time she crawled out of the river, Judith reconsidered her plans to bathe today. Her soggy robes clung tightly to her body, and she shivered uncontrollably as she made her way over to the tree stump where she had left her religious artifacts. Sure enough, she realized with a sinking feeling that her amulet had been stolen, though miraculously her effigy had gone untouched. Its wooden countenance seemed to be gazing directly at Judith, as if silently admonishing her. Dropping to her knees in reverence, Judith began to pray. Nayru had punished her for her hubris, and now she would seek atonement.

An optimist at heart, the Priestess did not take long to decide on a course of action. She understood well that wallowing in self-pity would not accomplish anything. She had erred, yes, but learning from one's mistakes was an aspect of Wisdom, too. Nayru had set this obstacle in her path to test her faith... She would conquer this trial using the power of her mind and emerge from it a better person. The first step would be to consider the nature of the being that had purloined her amulet.

Judith had read about creatures that matched the description of her thief... Skull Kids, if she wasn't mistaken. These undead children were created through unnatural means, yet they were not inherently malicious entities. Mischevious, yes, but automatically wicked, no. With that in mind, Judith recognized that it might be possible to entreat the Skull Kid to return the amulet peacefully. Indeed, doing so would likely be the most pleasing solution to Nayru...

Teeth chattering, the young Priestess retrieved her effigy and set off in search of clues as to the child's whereabouts. However, the thief had not gone far, and Judith almost immediately caught sight of a pair of feet dangling from a nearby tree.

"E-Excuse me," Judith called to the mysterious girl above, "You borrowed my amulet... It's very precious to me, and I need it back. C-Could you please return it?" She had to remember she was dealing with the mind of a child, here... A simple vocabulary would suffice in getting her point across.

Eri laughed, dropping her leaf in front of the lady. Even before it hit the ground, she wraped over to where it was, popping up right in front of the lady's face and giggling. She then poked her finger into the lady's belly, gave a little scream and ran off. She was it!

She wouldn't use her Leaf Warp to get away from the lady, that would be cheating. But the lady had much longer legs and could walk much faster than Eri! Wasn't that technically cheating, as well? As she ran, she decided to drop her leaf again.

This time, shortly after she had passed that place, her Leaf Puppet showed up, just hanging there and turning towards the priestess approaching her.

Unprepared for the Skull Kid's teleportation, Judith flinched as Eri materialized before her, drove a finger into her midsection, and ran off, shrieking all the while. The violation of her personal space didn't bother Judith overmuch, she had long since gotten used to intimate situations during her travels with her senior priestesses. What concerned her was the incredible mobility of the undead child. Already fleet of foot, the Skull Kid's warping abilities would make catching her nigh impossible through conventional means... This would be a formidable trial, indeed.

Still, Judith was determined to recover her amulet. Children were no great mystery to her- She'd been a good elder sister to her brothers, hadn't she? Of course, her siblings weren't Skull Kids, but that wasn't the point!

For now, she elected to chase Eri on foot and wait for an opportunity to present itself. Sprinting after her quarry, Judith was almost immediately confronted with her first obstacle: The Skull Kid had left a leaf in her wake, which grew to become a strange wooden creature that resembled an oversized marionette. The knowledgeable priestess recognized it as a Leaf Puppet, mindless constructs that Skull Kids could conjure and employ as minions. Practically skidding to a halt, the young woman considered her options.

She couldn't afford to be delayed by the Puppet for long, or the Skull Kid would vanish entirely, Judith's amulet in tow. The thief had likely summoned the Puppet to fulfill that very purpose. Conversely, attempting to blindly rush past or otherwise ignore it would almost certainly invite disasterous consequences. She would have to rely on her aptitude for magic to carry the day...

Fighting to remain calm, Judith drew as near as she dared to the motionless Puppet and cast her Blue Fire spell upon it. While the properties of the arcane flame were different than a natural one, it would still burn and the wooden construct was very flammable. It wasn't the most effective spell given the circumstances, due to the slow rate at which Blue Fire burned, but it was all she had. She hoped it would trigger an adverse reaction that would allow her to pass...

The Leaf Puppet responded to the Blue Fire with an ear-piercing shriek next to which Eri's screams sounded like the cooing of a newborn baby. While it shrieked, it started flailing around, not really trying to hit anything or to put itself out. It just.. flailed. Eri turned around upon this, giggling as she saw the spectacle, and raised her lantern. Swinging it down, she cast a fireball out of it that collided with the Puppet, setting it outright on quick-burning fire.

Her amusement faded quickly when her puppet collided with a bush, spreading the fire to it. She screamed, this time in terror; that was not supposed to happen! She added another fireball to the mix, the puppet finally exploding, and ran back to the stream, cupping her bony hands to gather water and running back to the bush to drop the water on it.

Of course, it was no use, the bush already burning far too brightly for whatever amount of water Eri's hands could hold to douse it. Still, Eri only flailed her arms and stomped her feet in anger, hurrying back to the stream to try again.

She was so worried about the fire spreading and her getting blamed for it that she forgot about playing tag with the priestess.

Ironically, Judith's goals became aligned with those of the undead trickster upon the bushfire's sudden outbreak. As she watched the Leaf Puppet's rather animated response to being set alight by her spell, the priestess' dismay transformed into horror as the Skull Kid's servant was, without warning, consumed by a genuine flame that spilled over onto the nearby foliage as the burning construct thrashed about. Instantly, the young woman turned and retreated back to the river, prioritizing containing and extinguishing the blaze over the retrieval of her amulet.

While she felt a great personal attachment to her amulet, Judith recognized that it was ultimately just a trinket. If the fire got out of control, not only could the potential damage to the local ecology be severe, but someone's life could be placed in danger. The possibility for harm far outweighed her petty sentimentality. The needs of the many took precedence over the needs of the one. And besides, she was partially responsible for the wildfire's presence. If she hadn't been so careless with her amulet, it wouldn't have been stolen and the Leaf Puppet never would have been there to intercept her. It fell to her to make things right. Certain that this was part of Nayru's test, Judith doubled her pace. She would not fail...

Fortunately, she was better equipped than Eri to deal with this fiery crisis. Reaching the riverbank faster than she'd left it, Judith located her pail, still lying on its side after being violently ejected from her foot. Snatching it up, she rushed to the flowing stream and thrust the pail into the water. In her haste, she failed to notice that the Skull Kid was essentially trying to do the same thing only a few meters to her right.

The split-second it took to fill the bucket seemed like an eternity to the priestess, and when she hauled it back out, the familiar weight took its toll on her arms. By now Judith was out of breath, not used to moving so quickly in such a short span of time, and the additional encumbrance of the bucket was doing no favours for her speed. Lamenting her frail physique, she forced herself onwards, trying to move as fast as possible without losing any water from the bucket. The journey back to the site of the fire felt agonizingly long, despite the relatively short distance she had traveled.

When Judith arrived at her destination, she saw that the fire had increased in size, though it had yet to engulf the trees and shrubberies around it. Steadying herself, Judith approached the inferno, her breathing ragged and her heart pounding, and swung the bucket toward it, unleashing a torrent of Nayru's favoured element. With Her blessing, it would be enough to quell the dreadful blaze...

When Eri came back with the second load of water, she saw that the bush was already doused. The lady had had a much bigger thing to carry water in, and she'd put the bush out. Feeling silly with the water in her cupped hands, she looked at it and threw it into her own face so she'd be rid of it.

She grinned at the pretty lady for a few seconds before remembering they were still playing. Before she could be tagged, she turned around and ran away, laughing loudly and forgetting that she had just almost caused a forest fire.

What was more troublesome was that she had to think of new ways to make the game entertaining and to keep the lead that her head start gave her. Games were no fun when she lost! If she could get to the safe spot, she could get away from the lady and win the game, but the lady was much faster, so she had to think of other ways to stay ahead...

Taking solace in watching Din's element be vanquished by Nayru's, Judith found herself on her knees once again, half in grateful prayer, half out of utter exhaustion. All this frantic dashing about the forest had left her desperate for a second wind that just didn't seem to be coming.

As she gasped for breath, the priestess realized, with a twinge of sorrow, that her amulet was long gone, but she was confident that she had performed her duties as a clergywoman. All things aquatic were within Nayru's domain, and Judith interpreted her use of water to quell the fire as a sign from her Goddess. Perhaps Mother Nayru had intended to teach her that Her priestesses were defined not by their material possessions, but by healing and protecting the mortal realm and its denizens. Judith was hesitant to jump to conclusions after what had happened, but it appeared to be the logical answer...

At the very least, the excercise had helped dry her off. Hair and clothes saturated with water were not particularly comfortable, so that was one burden on its way to being alleviated. And she supposed that in the absence of her amulet, her effigy would make a suitable substitute as an object of worship.

Lacking the energy to keep pace with Eri, it seemed Judith would deny the Skull Kid her amusement as she continued to kneel before the charred brush...

Eri had gotten quite far when she realized the lady wasn't following her anymore. That wasn't fun! She decided to go back and to remind the pretty lady of the rules of the game. Skipping along happily, she found her sitting in front of the bush from before. Uttering a cry, Eri jumped into the lady's vision...

or at least, she had planned to.

When she jumped, however, something grabbed her by the collar. In the sudden motion stop, her hat fell forward over her eyes. Adjusting it, she looked at the owner of the hand that held her collar. She didn't know the stern face of the scarred, brown-haired man that was holding her, but as soon as she saw it, she burst into screaming and struggling in hopes of breaking free.

She didn't know why, but this man scared her to the point where all she wanted to do was cry.

Any plans Judith might have had to rest and recuperate were immediately disrupted when she heard the Skull Kid's piercing screams emanating from the bushes behind her, a noise that had become quite familiar to the priestess over the past half-hour. Truly, this trial was testing the limits of her endurance, both physical and spiritual. Yet these screams were so close by... Judith had expected the undead child to flee the forest with her ill-gotten prize. Was Nayru rewarding her for her pious pursuit of atonement by providing her with a chance to regain her amulet? If so, there was no time to waste!

Drawing her staff, Judith rose and hurried toward the source of the high-pitched cries. What she was not prepared for, however, was the sight of a burly man violently restraining Eri. Her single-minded determination had not accounted for the possibility of a third party being introduced into the trial, and she struggled to find words that would form an appropriate response. After a few moments of silence on her part, Judith managed to conquer her natural shyness.

"Pray, perhaps you should not hold her so tightly. It is rather cruel to do so, and it will only make her scream louder..." Judith suggested, somewhat lamely. Not the best way to enter conversation with a complete stranger, but even if the Skull Kid had stolen from her, the child's obvious pain was enough to evoke sympathy in the young priestess' heart.

The man turned to look at the priestess, shaking his head. "You had best press on, Sister." Using his free hand, he yanked Judith's pendant from Eri's neck and threw it towards its owner. Eri shrieked when the trinket's string snapped against her neck, but that didn't seem to bother her capturer. "I have business with this imp. I have sought it for many years and now I have found it."

When he looked at Eri, she resumed her crying and struggling. Eventually she thought she managed to force his grip on her to slip ever so slightly, but the second he realized this, he grabbed her with BOTH hands. Poo! Something told her struggling twice as hard wouldn't help, either. If only she could reach her lantern...

"Be that as it may, I cannot condone vigilantism. It is rarely Wise to pursue justice of one's own accord." Judith replied, frowning as she caught her amulet in midair. While she was glad to have it returned to her at last, this new development presented a troubling dilemma. It didn't take a genius to surmise just what sort of business the man had in mind, judging from his body language and tone, which bothered the young priestess. Compassion and forgiveness were always a preferable solution to violent retribution. But at the same time, it was quite possible that the Skull Kid had committed some grave crime, whether by accident, escalation, or design. The forest fire had been proof enough of that... It would be folly to let such an act, even one intended as a prank, go completely unpunished.

Assuming a neutral stance, Judith tried to seem as impartial as possible as she probed the man for further details.

"May I ask why you have sought this child?" Best to start simply. Taking up the mantle of a mediator could be a difficult task, but it was a key part of her duties. Hopefully, she would be able to adjudicate on the matters surrounding this dispute...

The man stared down at the priestess. He couldn't go about his business with the Skull Kid as long as she was down there, and he wanted to be done with this as soon as humanly possible. "My decisions are my own, Sister. I would ask that you do not interfere." When the priestess did not leave and instead asked what his beef was with the imp, he hesitated, but finally answered her.

"Are you familiar with the town of Raitin? I didn't imagine you were. It was a very small town near the Lost Woods, not marked on any map of Hyrule. Even when it existed, few had ever heard of it." He squeezed Eri's collar a little harder, the child crying out in surprise. "A number of years ago, however, it has ceased to exist. Burnt to the ground by a fire, lit by human hands. Or should I say..." He lifted Eri a little higher. "Skull Kid hands- GAH!"

KLUNK!

"GAH!" Eri cried out along with the man as she landed her lantern in his face. While he had spoken, he had slowly and subconsciously lowered the hand in which he had held her, allowing her to eventually grab her lantern. Now that he was within reach, Eri had been able to reach up and swing the instrument. The impact and surprise forced him to let go of her, and Eri landed on the ground, picked up the Deku Stick that her lantern normally sat on, and turned to face the man. "Meanie!" she screamed, after which she stuck her tongue out at him and turned back around to run away a lot faster than before.

"Accursed little imp!" the man shouted, a nasty burn on his face from the active lantern, "You'll pay for that!"