THE KINGDOM OF HYRULE ― A KINGDOM THAT NO LONGER EXISTS.
an exploration of characters caught in an unending cycle, in all their grief & glory. independent, selective, low - activity multi - muse blog dedicated to the legend of zelda franchise. beloved by blue.
#hyruin, formerly #hylianremnants. independent, private & selective multi – muse blog centered around nintendo’s the legend of zelda franchise. generally low & sporadic activity. crossover & au friendly. currently dash – only, use of icons varies. uses the beta editor by default. established 4th december, 2020. beloved by blue ( she / they, irish, born in 1994. ) this blog contains extensive spoilers for the legend of zelda: tears of the kingdom.
primary muses ― the goddess hylia, the hero of skyloft, the spirit maiden, the hero of twilight, the princess of ruins, the hero of the wild.
other high activity muses ― the hero's shadow, the sleeping princess, the first of the yiga, the princess of legend.
the best way to get started ― send memes ! mutuals are welcome to send me memes at any time, regardless of whether we’ve interacted before, as none of the memes i reblog have an expiration date, & all may be spun off into threads of their own.
#WIINDFUL : every failure weighing on him - clinging on to every wound . when death was near , he mustn't forget . . . my brave warrior , it was not your fault .
she still swears like a sheikah. it was a small detail to note, and surely an inconsequential one to boot. even so, it made riju wonder how much of the kohga she’d known remained in this revenge-driven woman, who seemed to have severed all the ties that once bound her to those she’d left behind much more easily than they had let go of her.
what would have happened, if she’d succeeded in cutting edric’s throat open ? it felt like treason to think of it, though she did believe not a soul with sense doubted that hyrule would better off if its king were to suddenly drop dead. she, like many among her people, had hoped for a gentler resolution, perhaps for princess zelda to grow into her own and for her father’s influence to wane as a result. she could not willfully blind herself forever, though, and whether she liked it or not, lady impa had made an example of herself to showcase the consequences of too much complacency. perhaps the death of hyrule’s ruler would have rid them of a parasite too far gone to be disposed of any other way.
she did not want to see kohga die ; this much she knew. she did not want to witness the sham of a trial they’d no doubt put on for her, with select witnesses and carefully chosen speakers. the court had held off on the start of the proceedings until now, as their king lay suspended between life and death, but with the beginning of edric’s recovery, it would not be very long now. but did it even matter, when they could all predict the outcome already ? be it sword or rope or pyre, it would all come to the same bitter end.
❛ i don’t doubt you will, ❜ riju said quietly, lacing her fingers together. ❛ i’ll be sitting in for my mother, when the council reconvenes. i’ll plead for mercy then. ❜ even as she spoke, she knew her argument would all but go unheard. she was young, the stand-in for a more experienced chief, a gerudo and a known friend to kohga besides. she’d be lucky to be allowed to speak at all. the most she could hope to wrestle out of her co-councillors, as well as the tribunal, was a quick and painless death rather than a slow agony, and even that much she could not guarantee. the highest reaches of the court were full of edric’s creatures, and all of them would scramble to please the king by putting on a show of his would-be assassin’s death.
she thought of lady impa, more a shell of herself than she had ever seen her before, and of young suri, who had been all but locked into her rooms to keep her from doing something rash. ❛ i checked in on suri before i came here. she’s… ❜ not well. ❛ safe. i won’t let her see anything that’ll hurt her, i promise. ❜ but they both knew how this would go, didn’t they ? everybody knew, and there was nothing they could do save to⎯
❛ kohga, ❜ there she straightened, coming as close to the bars as she dared, without quite touching them. ❛ i need to know. if you’d killed edric, would zelda have been next ? ❜
❛ oh, mercy, ❜ another laugh, as hollow as the cavern of her chest, spilled out from her at the thought. ❛ no, i’m sorry. i should be thanking you. this is exactly what i need ― the daughter of a suspected traitor speaking up on my behalf. that will go down wonderfully, don’t you think ? ❜ her demented march had come to a halt, & she had approached the bars of the cell once more, fingers curling around cool & filthy iron as she pressed her face as close as she dared, as if she could slip her head between them, & whisper her cruelty directly into riju’s ear. it was a despicable comment to make, one she regretted the moment it slipped off of her tongue, but the mask did not falter ; the remorse did not make itself known. riju had the rest of her life to get over it. it would be far longer than kohga had to regret it.
❛ the fact that you’d even say that shows me you don’t know a thing about me, ❜ the end of the sentence, the not anymore, hung thick in the air for a moment, before kohga pressed on. ❛ i don’t want their clemency, their forgiveness. even if we lived in a world where they were willing to give it, i’d throw it back in their face. these people don’t do anything for free, riju. they’d want names. places. they’d want me to betray the people who trust me, & who see through their lies. i know you don’t care for me now, or what i do, but surely you can understand that, at the very least, ❜
but she must have cared, still, to have risked herself by slipping into the cells ; she must have cared to have called in on what was left of the himura family, & to see what the news had done to them. she should have thanked her, for looking out for the sister kohga had been forced to leave behind, for promising to keep her eyes averted when the end came out to meet her, but it seemed that she choked as the words struggled up from her throat, aware of how hollow her gratitude would be in the face of her earlier denigration of riju’s own family. it was incredible, how many things she was coming to regret in such a short space of time, words she never should have said, actions she should have been quicker to take. as it was, all she could do was nod, an acknowledgement of riju’s goodwill, & try to pull her thoughts away from suri, & how much she must have changed in the years since her defection.
the question put to her helped in that regard, at least. quiet descended on the cell once more, & through the bars of the cell, kohga met riju’s eyes, red & gold each burning back at the other, & wondered if it had all been a trap. were there others further back, shielded by the darkness, listening to all that had passed between them ? was their conversation recorded, to be read out at her trial, & used to demonize her further ? for a heartbeat, her mind raced with conspiracy, but in rju’s gaze, she saw no trepidation, & her voice had been too earnest, the question asked too quickly, for it to have been rehearsed. she was going to die anyway, for her failure, for her sins ; honesty could hardly damn her any more than she had damned herself.
❛ of course she would have, ❜ she spoke softly, then, & noted that, were the bars not in her way, she & riju would have stood close enough that she could have reached out & stroked her cheek as they talked. the desire to do so burned wildly within her, as if the touch of skin to skin could ease the sting in her words. ❛ riju, don’t do this. i know you’re not this stupid. please, don’t pretend, not with me. you think this ends with edric ? so long as the, what do they call it, the bloodline of the goddess ? so long as that endures, none of us will ever be free. they’ll use it to justify everything they do, just like they did when they destroyed everything we held dear. they’re tyrants, riju. that’s her legacy. that’s what you enable when you stand by her side, ❜
❛ if it helps, ❜ she added, as if anything could, ❛ i would have given her peace. it would have been quick, & painless. she was a good kid. she’s not the one i wanted to see suffer. i might not have killed him, but at least i managed that, & don’t you dare judge me for it, riju. you would have done exactly the same, if only you’d had the will, ❜
the exhalation was slow, steady & measured as daregon glanced over the offerings, & felt disappointment wash over him.
he must have been assured half a hundred times by varying attendants, flesh & stone & everything in between, that the weapons provided by the court of hyrule were the finest in the kingdom, & he might have only needed telling the once, had his skepticism not been writ large upon his face every time. it was true, that the furrowing of strong brow & the twist of tusked mouth was involuntary, but after the first half – dozen assurances, he had to concede, an attempt at stilling his face could well have been made, if only to spare him the repetition of what he was now convinced was a spiel that all who dwelled at the court were forced to learn.
a spiel, he was displeased to see, that had no bearing in reality. a mammoth hand reached out, & for a moment, took up a spear ( the shaft of which was half the width of his index figure ), & tested the weight of it ( which was none. ) he let it clatter back down onto the weapon’s rack, & moved on to examine the rest, eyes raking over the swords, the spears, the bows, all exquisitely crafted, for sure, but exquisitely crafted for a hand much smaller & much weaker than his own.
❛ if i'd known that this is all we had to work with, ❜ he rumbled at his fellow delegate, ❛ i'd've have brought something from home, ❜ it had been deemed wise that he arrive at the court unarmed, as a show of trust & loyalty to the king & queen within, & he had dutifully complied, knowing that, should the world fall upon its head & take a turn for the worse, he was quite capable of protecting himself with feet & fists alone. to spar in such a state, however, & to spar with one so small & so slight as @flockrest beside him ?
his fist closed around the hilt of a sword that most hylians required two hands to heft, the largest weapon on the rack, & he turned away to give it a test swing, listening as the very air parted beneath the blade’s edge. much lighter than what he was used to, for sure, thinner & sharper, & another sigh escaped him, one of begrudging acceptance. he might as well have been fighting with a toothpick, but it was the best that he could do under the circumstances, he supposed, & it was only for a spar. when all was over, he’d find a way to get a message to gorondia, & have his greatsword sent to the court. then he would truly be able to show what he was capable of.
❛ whenever you’re ready, then. pretty weapons they have here, sure, but … disappointing, don’t ya think ? ❜
a small primer on the various links featured on this blog, & my takes on how they all communicate. if you think you’ve seen this headcanon before, you have, last spring ! & with some of the lads, not much has changed since i first posted it, but with the release of a new game, changes in my muse roster, & the solidification of some headcanons between then & now, i thought it was time to give it an update. as always, this post is subject to editing depending on further character development & line – up changes !
link of skyloft / sky. capable of communicating verbally, but prefers to exclusively use sign language.
quiet by both nature & nurture, verbal conversations with sky are a rarity, unless you’re someone he considers himself especially close to. part of this stems from his lifelong friendship with sun, who was always much more outgoing than he ever was, & naturally dominated any conversations they had, something he never had a problem with, but mostly ? it’s just a disinterest in the art of conversation on his behalf. actions truly do speak louder than words for sky, & signing helps in that regard. he was entirely verbal up until the age of seven, at which point he learned sign language, & began to rely heavily on it to make conversation with others, with a few notable exceptions, such as his mother, sun, & his tutors, & after his mother’s death, he communicated solely in sign language to everyone for close to a year, before slowly beginning to speak again during his time at the academy. this isn’t to say he’s of a reserved disposition, as he absolutely is not, being easy – going & almost always cheerful, but it’s a quiet sort of cheer, one which gently radiates from him at almost all times.
over the course of his adventure, sky begins to withdraw again, using words only when absolutely necessary, such as when they don’t understand sign language ― those who do understand it, but attempt to make him speak anyway, are resolutely ignored until they accept his way of communication. fi is, of course, the exception to this ― sky speaks, & sings, to her rather frequently on their journey, but lapses into sign language with her during periods of emotional intensity, which, honestly, could describe the entirety of his journey. the most notable cases of this are in the immediate aftermath of zelda’s fall, the period after impa’s chastisement of him, & the days following zelda’s sealing in the temple.
during his travels, sky suffers a pretty bad head wound during his battle with koloktos, leaving him with a perforated eardrum that, unbeknownst to him, heals incorrectly. ascending to the sky shortly after is a pretty bad time for him, as the resulting barotrauma results in him losing the hearing in his left ear entirely, & leaves him with mild tinnitus in the right, which persists for the rest of his life. knowing sign language at that point is a huge help to him, & in the end, after the sealing of demise & the settling on the surface, he defaults to sign language entirely, saving verbal communication for those close to him, such as sun & groose, & the odd inanimate object.
link odílon / twilight. capable of communicating with sign language, but prefers to communicate verbally.
calling it a preference is a little misleading, if only because twilight is a man of very few words, happy to nod & smile & listen, but even happier if he doesn’t have to respond. it’s not because he’s a solitary creature, as his adopted horde of younger siblings shows, or because he was ignored in his youth, given that he essentially grew up in ordon with two sets of parents, it’s just how he is, no reason necessary for it. he is, of course, a good country boy who minds his manners, & does his best to speak nicely to everyone he comes across, but he’s still noted for just how direct he is in conversation, with little time for beating around the bush no matter what the topic is. he’s far from callous, & is genuinely remorseful for any offence he causes with his ways, but he is fairly blunt in his manner of speaking, softening himself around the children of ordon, & the children of ordon only.
with that said, there are levels to it, & it’s very easy to read twilight’s thoughts on someone based on how he speaks to them. yes, he’s got a way of getting straight to the heart of the matter, & yes, he’s not big on using metaphors, but aside from that, he’s a very good listener, one who makes eye contact, & doesn’t fidget, & does put some thought into his responses before answering, short as they may be. if he dislikes you, however, his eyes wander, his leg bounces with agitation, & his answers are clipped, even as he keeps his tone as neutral as possible. those he forges a strong bond with see a very rare side to him, one who comes alive & can talk for days ( even if it is about tending horses, or baby goats, or some other such interest ) but when i say rare, i mean it ― before the twili invasion, he can count on one hand those who get to see that side of him, & even after, when he adds more to the list, he still has a finger left over on that one hand.
his sign language, too, is somewhat lacking compared to other heroes across the timeline, if only because he didn’t begin to learn it until immediately prior to the invasion, after rusl asked him to take his place in going to hyrule castle. getting out of ordon gives him a chance to practice, once he regains opposable thumbs, but it’s the incident with prince ralis & doctor borville, & the latter’s persistent claim of ignorance, which leads him to dedicate himself to it. the situations aren’t a one to one match, of course, with the good doctor’s lack of expertise in biology being entirely separate from twilight’s sign language struggles, but the thought of someone refusing to learn anything in order to help others annoys him to no end, & drives him continue his studies ― in the end, it comes in quite handy for communication during his travels after the end of the invasion, as he ventures out from hyrule in search of information on the twili.
link ordonson / wild. communicates both verbally & through sign language, with no strong preference.
wild’s preferred method of communication has fluctuated wildly over his lifetimes. he was entirely verbal up until six or seven, when it became apparent that his younger sister had been born deaf, at which point he began to learn sign language in order to communicate with her as she aged, & up until the day he pulled the master sword, he alternated quite happily between the two. he was at his most effusive when he was still in single digits, as most children are, before beginning the long process of retreating into himself at around ten, when his father really began to push the idea of link becoming his squire, & later going on to become a knight. it was easy to fall into a yes sir, no sir, speak only when spoken to dynamic with éoin at that time, with few seeing little amiss with it, but once he was brought to the castle, his silent periods were immediately clocked, & immediately intensified. he stopped speaking almost entirely, no words, no sign language, unless absolutely necessary, or unless he was released to hateno village on leave ― aryll was the only one who could break through the walls he was putting up, & he would spend the vast majority of his time with her, signing away, until duty called him back to the castle.
even after being made champion, & coming together with the others, little changed. mipha was able to pull a few words out of him every now & then, given their history together, as was daruk, thanks to his affable nature, but with urbosa & revali, it was silence, or sign. with urbosa, a lot of it came down to intimidation, both from her status as the greatest warrior the gerudo had to offer, & her close relationship with ruins, who wild was convinced absolutely despised him at the time, & revali, too, intimidated him, but there was an element of self – defence in there, too. he was already scorned for simply existing around the other champion, it seemed, & tripping over clumsy words in front of him would do absolutely nothing to help, he was sure, & so, silence. in general, due to the pressure upon him, & his fear of doing anything wrong, in both word & deed, wild’s communication was always short & to the point, so that nothing could be misinterpreted & held against him. his words were concise, clipped, & often monosyllabic, his signing swift & entirely to the point, & coupled with his persistent lack of expression, it was very easy to read him as haughty, or rude, or indifferent if you didn’t know his reasons for his silence. given that very few did, it’s easy to see how the silent knight came to be a derogatory nickname for him.
by the time of the coming of the calamity, though, & the development of his relationship with the princess & champions both, wild’s walls were coming down, & he was growing comfortable enough in all of their company to actually speak to them, alternating between words & sign depending on his mood, rather than his fear. he was still predominantly non – verbal, but he was getting there. & then he died.
in the immediate aftermath of his awakening, with his past life & the pressure that came with it forgotten, wild was verbose. the revelation on the roof of the temple of time of who he was, who he had been, did little to change that, because wild simply couldn’t visualize it. he could accept what had been presented to him, he could accept what was asked of him, but given he couldn’t, at that point, remember any of the people involved, or anything about hyrule as a whole, he was largely unaffected by it, & those who met him during the early weeks of his journey would have found him a very inquisitive & chatty young man. as he crosses the kingdom & regains more of his memories, he does grow a little more reserved, &, as a hero who lived long before him did, he tends to become non – verbal again in moments of emotional distress ― he didn’t speak for almost a week after remembering he’d had a little sister, & that was why sign language came so easily to him, but although he has periods of quiet, & periods where he finds it easier to sign than to speak, it’s nowhere near as extreme as it was before his death. he’s cheerful, he’s chatty, he’s got a fondness for absolutely terrible puns, & something of a quick & sharp tongue, & above all else, he’s happy to talk, & to talk freely. the wild who lives in the ruins of hyrule has only the faintest concept of being self – conscious, & it shows.
with no preference between speaking & signing, he follows the lead of whoever he’s speaking to, & is comfortable with either, though signing has come in very useful in a number of tactical situations. during the upheaval, he works to teach it to the monster squads roaming the kingdom, that they can communicate without alerting those that they’re trying to sneak up on. it also comes in handy during his time with some of the new champions. wind too fierce & too loud to be fully heard over ? the heat at the heart of a volcano making it impossible to speak due to absolutely perilous levels of dry mouth ? sign language, baby. works every time.
link galliard / cadenza. communicates verbally.
a rarity among those who bear his name, cadenza communicates entirely through speech, & can’t understand sign language at all. in his defence, as he would say, he doesn’t need to ― aria, with whom he’s perpetually joined at the hip, uses it & understands it, & is always happy to translate for him, so he has no need for it. he’s picked up a few phrases in it over the years, of course, but he’s nowhere near fluent, & so, if he speaks to you, it will be entirely through talking, & good god, can cadenza talk.
any impression that he gives that leads one to believe he’s in any way quiet or stoic is a lie. cadenza is a vortex of conversation, eager to strike one up with anyone who crosses his path, happy to talk about anything & everything which crosses his or his conversational partner’s mind, & it can be somewhat difficult for one to extricate themselves from a conversation with him politely, as he doesn’t always notice when things come to their natural end, & will press on in a conversation well beyond its death. heartbreakingly earnest in all that he does & says, cadenza is plain – spoken, especially compared to aria, but good natured & almost always cheerful. he understands sarcasm, but rarely indulges in it himself, & doesn’t believe in passive aggressiveness, or veiling his sentiments. if he’s enjoying his time with you, he’ll tell you. if he thinks you’re being an asshole, he’ll tell you that too. & given that he’ll talk to rocks if you let him, if cadenza is actively avoiding a conversation with someone, it’s an indicator of just how much he absolutely despises that person, as rare a thing as it is.
though he doesn’t use sign language, he does still very much talk with his hands. he’s big on gesturing & gesticulating, emphasizing his words with all sorts of hand & body movements, prone to exaggerating & imitating with his voice, & it’s almost a hazard to be in a prolonged conversation with him, given his somewhat careless demeanour ― more than one person has been accidentally whapped by him as he comes to the climax of a story, & lets his excitement get the better of him. but that’s if he gets to the climax of a story at all. cadenza is very prone to tangents, & chases down loose conversational ends like a hunting hound, bouncing from subject to subject at the speed of light. conversations with him are rarely short but they are interesting at the very least, or so he likes to think.
dark link. can communicate both verbally & through sign language, but prefers to do neither.
dark’s speech patterns, as with everything else about it, are a mirror. if it claws its way back into existence during a period where a hero speaks entirely in sign language, it will use only its hands to communicate, if ever it does. if the hero is verbal, so, too, will they be, their words garbled, & almost waterlogged, running backwards out of a mouth that is not willing to open. if the hero alternates, so do they. it’s never had a choice in the matter, & wouldn’t know which to opt for if it did, but it hates the lack of it all the same, almost as much as it hates the act of communication itself. speech is unnecessary, entirely too human for its liking, & words can only be drawn out of it by those which either created it, or wield more power than it, & even then, it begrudges it endlessly. if it could live entirely in silence, it would. as it’s forced to endure speech & sound, it has no choice but to try & silence it where it can.
please note this headcanon discusses the appearance of a character introduced in tears of the kingdom, & so may contain spoilers !
standard goron teeth are, understandably, a little different from those of a standard hylian, having developed over the years to accommodate their entirely rock – based diet. an adult goron is possessed of eight molars, fourteen premolars, & four canines, evenly distributed between the top & bottom of their jaw, giving them twenty – six teeth where a more humanoid being would have somewhere between twenty – eight & thirty – two, but part of it is because their teeth are much larger than many of the other species of hyrule ― where a lost hylian tooth would be miniscule in the palm of a human hand, a lost goron tooth would sit comfortably within it, being half the size of said palm.
like hylians, gorons have two sets of teeth, with the primary set beginning to give way to the secondary at around eight years of age, but as an upsetting little aside, there’s no growth period for the primary set ― a freshly hatched goron, no matter how little or how large, will have a full set of teeth. i know the goron elder’s son in majora’s mask specifically does not but. skill issue. or malnutrition. also, termina’s a parallel world which may or may not be a dream, so !
daregon’s teeth, though, are not quite the standard goron teeth. evolution kicks out, sometimes, & tries some new things, & he got hit with the experimental stick. the vast majority of his teeth are as blunt as expected, upturned tombstones within his maw, & while they’re clean, & in good health, they’re far from pearly white, bearing a slight yellow tinge as a result of several decades of use. his incisors, however, are overgrown compared to most other gorons, thick & sharp shards of bone ; whilst the top pair are stronger & wider than usual, they seem to generally be in proportion with the rest of his teeth, if perhaps a little longer than all the others. the bottom pair, however, protrude outwards in an approximation of tusks, extending almost an inch & a half up & outwards from his lower lip, with only the slightest of curves to prevent them from driving into his skin.
it gives him a wilder & somewhat more animalistic appearance compared to his brothers, & he freely acknowledges that it makes him look off in some way, but daregon has never been predisposed to vanity, & frankly, doesn’t care. they are what they are. the only downside to them that he can actively see is the fact that they’ve made eating more difficult as he’s aged & they’ve grown out, necessitating he smash his meals to bits into smaller pieces before he can get into them, but that’s not uncommon with any race as they age, so he doesn’t grumble too much about it.
despite his helm protecting him during the fight with the demon king, the fact that his lower canines protrude left them more vulnerable than the teeth which actually rested inside his mouth, & after a particular nasty skirmish, in which he was thrown headfirst into the floor, his right canine was damaged, snapping in half as a result of how he landed. after the battle, he was treated by having the jagged remains sanded down to an approximate point, & later, capped in gold, though he greatly disliked it, & tore the cap off after leaving central hyrule & retiring to gorondia. capping it, decorating it, was a custom which came from either the hylians or the zonai ― he disdained it too much to learn, only submitting to it whilst he operated as a guest in their region. a wound is a wound, to be shown so that others can learn from it, & to add insult to injury, it was gained during a battle they lost. decorating it in any way felt too much like glorifying his failure.
They did not expect you to fight. They expected you to cower down, bow before them, accept the fate that they had thought out for you. All the more satisfying, then, to smirk up at them through the blood, saying i'm not done yet. You have no idea of the extent of my defiance.
02. hair, for sonia from @flockrest & @sentinaels, & 20. elbows, 21. forearms, 22. wrists, 32. thighs, for sonia, from sentinaels, who is fishing for tattoo information 🥰
please note this headcanon discusses the appearance of a character introduced in tears of the kingdom, & so may contain spoilers !
sonia & hair.
sonia isn’t too much of a prideful individual, or so she likes to think, but when it comes to her hair, she’s immensely invested in it, & in it’s upkeep, considering it’s been praised as one of her great & most beautiful features from a very young age. it’s pale, ashen blonde colour is a beautiful contrast to the dark of her skin, though as of the events of tears of the kingdom, she’s started to find the odd grey hair or two hiding in there, though they’re camouflaged well with how light her hair already is. it flows down her back in naturally loose curls & waves, & falls to just beneath the back of her knees in length, & she parts it in the centre, with lengthy bangs framing each side of her face ― bangs that she deliberately curls just a little tighter than the rest of her hair, binding them with linen wrappings once she’s retired for the evening so that they keep their shape through the next day.
her hair is naturally incredibly thick, & has been for her whole life, though she didn’t begin to grow it out to its current length until she was a teenager ― as a child, for the sake of ease, her parents kept it cut to just above her shoulders, & the look was maintained when she was given over to her religious order out of habit, until shortly after her fifteenth birthday, where she decided she was sick of cutting it endlessly. although it took quite a bit of time to reach the length she wears it at as an adult, it did grow much quicker than expected for her, & within the year, it had grown out to beneath her shoulders.
although she’s known for wearing it long & loose, & has had a preference for wearing it in such a manner for her entire life, she didn’t really get the chance to do so until she became queen, as it was usually tied up & out of her way when she was younger, either to make it manageable in the faron climate, or as part of the uniform of her religious order, where it was mostly kept in a long, thick braid, with even her bangs pinned back. there are still occasions where she’ll wear it up as queen, but they’re much rarer than they used to be, formal occasions only, really, & even then, her hair is so long, & so heavy, that it’s hard to keep in place without excessive ties & pins.
caring for it isn’t exactly an ordeal, but it certainly is a process, & she spends a not insignificant chunk of her time during the day brushing it, determined to keep it smooth & silky, & free from knots & tangles. washing it, too, is a time – consuming process due to how much of it there is, & for the most part, she doesn’t like anyone to help her, unless she knows them well & trusts them completely. if you’re allowed to help her with her hair in any way, even just brushing loose strands back into place, it’s a sign of a deep trust on her behalf, an acknowledgement of a profound & intimate connection with her, & honestly, her hair is just so nice to touch, so consider yourself lucky.
although zonai tech means it’s quite possible they’ve rigged up showers, or something quite like them, in their domain, sonia is very much a woman who enjoys a long soak in the bath, & it’s during these soaks that she’ll wash it, lathering it with hair soap that’s been scented with flowers, with many jugs of water on standby to fully rinse it. letting it air dry is an agonizingly slow process, & again, zonai tech probably speeds it up, but if she’s not in a rush & doesn’t have to avail of that technology, sonia will settle herself before the fire in her rooms, drape her hair over the back of the chair, & let it do its work, using the opportunity to catch up on reading, usually, sometimes in the name of pleasure, but more often than not, it’s business she’s catching up on, & her portable writing desk gets quite a workout.
( &, as a spicy little addendum, sonia’s hair is in fact long enough that, when arranged properly, it covers her breasts, her ass, & her other intimate areas, meaning she can stage quite a tableaux with it if the mood ever strikes her, & it has struck her at least a few times. it’s far from a regular occurrence, but there have been occasions where her lover of the moment has let themselves into their rooms, & found sonia waiting for them on the bed, covered by her hair, & only her hair, for her lover to play with as they wish. )
sonia & elbows, forearms, wrists & thighs.
blessed with limbs that she never needed to grow into as a child, sonia’s possessed of quite elegant appendages, sleek & slim in her younger years, before growing slightly muscled as she aged, her strength visible at a glance, but not so much that you would spot the definition upon her arms & legs without first looking for it. after all, it wasn’t all hymns & prayers & bowed heads & clasped hands in her religious order, & many of her duties involved menial tasks & a fair amount of labour in order to keep things running, both at the home of the order in faron, & at the priory of the owl on the great plateau ― even becoming prioresse of the latter did not exempt her from the harder work it took to keep the place running, & so she maintained her physique until she retired from the order in the name of becoming queen, after which her physical activity didn’t lessen, so much as change in execution, at which point it began to soften a little.
joined by elbows which are thankfully quite blunted compared to others upon the great plateau, strong forearms taper off into sensible wrists, neither slim nor delicate, but instead decorated, as much of the rest of sonia’s skin is. she received her first tattoos at twelve years old, after firmly pledging herself as an acolyte of the sky in faron, with those being the eight teardrops upon her face, four beneath each eye, but after that, it seemed that she added another to her collection every year. a few of them hold significance in regards to the religion she was brought up in, where the zonai are worshipped as gods, where others were chosen simply because of how nice they look, but when it comes to something to note about them, sonia is known for the near – perfect symmetry of the tattoos across her body, with only a few standing alone.
( before i start throwing out meanings of some of the tattoos here, i do want to say that they are subject to change pending further thought, & further characterization of sonia as i write her ! but for now, it’s all a bit of fun ! also i know you specified what you specified but. i got carried away. whoops. )
a necklace of white ink, dotted at regular intervals, gives the impression of a choker on the tender flesh of her neck, & on each shoulder, she bears a stylized eye with three lashes, a reference to the third eye possessed by those such as rauru & mineru, & presumably, by extension, many other zonai, though she received these tattoos long before she met either of the siblings. beneath each eye, a further stylized pattern, though it has no significant meaning, & is instead based upon the shapes featured in zonai jewellery, given that they compliment the design of the eye.
the flesh which sits an inch above & below the join of her arm at the elbow is unmarked by tattoos currently, but the majority of her forearms are covered, with the tattoo beginning on the back of her palms, repeating the motif of the eyes upon her shoulders, albeit with five lashes instead of three, before tapering down to frame three triangles joined at each edge, an ancient holy symbol that is assumed to have come from the gods, though some argue that, as the zonai are gods, or their equivalent, it must have come from them. the triforce sits atop three evenly spaced, angled strokes, which then flare out to create a shape reminiscent of the wings of the crest of hylia, the design wrapping around to the underside of her arm, though the sides don’t meet, leaving a clear strip of flesh to run up the middle. her fingers & thumbs, too, bear small teardrop tattoos on each of the phalanges, identical in shape to the ones beneath her eyes, two to a finger, though their undersides, & her palms, currently lie bare.
although a glimpse at her back is a rare thing, between her choice of clothing & her hair, it, too, is marked, with the vast majority of the space on her back being taken up by a symbol which pertains to guiding light, with the stylized lightroot taking pride of place in the middle of her spine, the eye – like markings flaring out across the back of her hips, & the framing wings reaching up to taper off at the tip of her shoulder blades. it was one of the more painful pieces she had done, if only because of the section which ran the length of her spine, but she’s happy with it all the same, & believes it to be a symbol of good luck, as well as one which symbolizes finding a path through darker times.
tattoos run from the length of her thighs to her ankles, & once again, the most visible are entirely symmetrical, though they’re entirely cosmetic, chosen because of their appearance rather than any significant meaning, once again based on the symbols used in zonai jewellery, though they do look a little like protective shin guards, if of an abstract sort. on the back of her right thigh, from just below her ass to just below her knee, is a lone outline tattoo of a flowering sundelion, petals in an open bloom, with the stem tapering away beneath them. if asked, sonia claims it’s a tattoo of her favourite flower that she got for the love of it, & she’s not entirely lying, but a keen eye will notice the fork in the stem of the flower, & how, if you look at it just right, it seems to take on the shape of a lightning bolt.
she’s talked for quite a while about how she wishes to add to her collection, with tattoos to honour each of her children, but with precious little space left on her body, & a general sense of indecision of how best to do it, unable to decide between script of their names, or something more symbolic of each of their personalities, she’s put the idea on hold, though it’s one she brings up every now & then out of the blue in the hopes that inspiration will strike, & she can finally scratch the itch.
