Felt like giving a peek of a handful of the many faces that can be found in the Necluda Megapod and how diverse each individual can be! Specifically, some of the members of Zalfe's communal sub-pod!
Zalfe has a relatively small sub-pod by Necluda pod standards consisting of only 45 members. Some members are related to her by blood, but a majority are not!
The members of her pod that are related to her by blood in the image are her mother Loqua, her father Kohv, her grandmother Hurna, her nephew Derle.
While the rest of her family can be found in the Necluda Megapod many of them have divided up into their own personal sub-pods. The pod majority consists of Common Zorphin's (short faced common dolphin zora) but there are several "adopted" members of other subspecies of zora.
Kohv swims up to the other Zora with a smile on his face and 50 Rupee in hand. "Ah you're looking to sell some left over items? Well our pod has little use for the Rupees we find along the sea floor. Perhaps you'd find more use of these than we would!"
False Killer Whales and Pilot Whales are very closely related, and yet neither are whales. They're dolphins. What a hilarious world we live in.
Anyways!
There's no written explanation for what this is-- it's obviously a cloak-- but it is definitely enchanted. When worn, a strong wind appears at the wearer's back. Perhaps it would be useful to you or one of yours.
A partner piece to @songofnewlife's beautiful second part of the Necluda Tour!
Cironus did his best not to show it, but it unnerved him when the landmasses of Hyrule vanished over the horizon. When his clan migrated from place to place, Hyrule was always in sight. Every so often he ventured out into the vast ocean where sky and water were the only things touching, but when a telltale landmark came into view when he returned homeward it always brought him comfort.
Knowing he wouldn’t see Hyrule in view, even if for a season or two, felt like a testament to the changes he was making in his life. No more Hyrule meant no more trips inland; such as his visits to Lurelin or even Hateno. He would have to say goodbye to the cache of rusted weapons he kept stashed on Aris Beach he used to play with during lightning storms. It also meant he didn’t have to hide away when his clan and pod passed by Eventide during the autumn and winter seasons, but it also meant he wouldn’t see his family. No more Kaso, Kaska, Sardon, or his mother.
Maybe the distance would finally help him let go of Yona and Sidon.
I was never popular at the Turning the Wheel, he thought. Maybe one year I might do— what did Zalfe call it? — a Darling’s Dance with someone. Maybe one day someone might exchange a pearl with me.
As optimistic as he tried to be, the idea made him sad. So to distract himself before his thoughts got the better of him, Cironus joined in the Zorphin pod’s singing. Without the aid of his guitar he didn’t have to worry about getting carried away when it came to his magic.
As he sang, glancing back at Danmalaak, he felt a disconcerting stab of jealousy watching the goron's frank curiosity on regular display. His friend certainly didn't show any concern regarding the open seas. Indeed, when the Kingdom's southeastern foothills receded into the horizon, Danmalaak merely grabbed a blocky-looking sextant from his raft and set to jotting notes by candlelight on his blocky little raft. His pen’s scratchings paused only when for brief squints through his outsized hands as he measured the stars, or to lick from the dried bowl of seawater he kept balanced on a ball-shaped sconce over his candlelight.
"It's not quite the same as the sun-dried stuff," he'd confided to Cironus at one point, adjusting the sconce over its round wire rack, "but it makes for a nice aperitif. Want some?"
Cironus had politely declined.
Danmalaak had not been shy about his records, sharing them with his friend at a moment’s notice. During the voyage, the little goron sailor been scribbling down notes on everything that came to mind - meticulously drawn maps of their sea route, freehand (and…less skillful) sketches of swimming zorphin, names and quantities of fish the pod brought to the surface, even a few hasty notes on some of the songs. Cironus couldn’t help but notice that, while Danmalaak was astonishingly good at catching actual lyrics in his cramped shorthand, several of the zorphin had politely asked him to “just…watch for a bit” the last time he’d tried to recite them.
Cironus just couldn’t understand how a goron who’d spent so long traveling with him couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket.
As the pod’s singing faded into quiet, Danmalaak finally closed his journal, put his writing materials away in the raft, and waved over to Cironus.
“Mind me hitching a ride?” he asked. “I need to stretch my legs.”
“Sure,” Cironus said, turning his head to bump up against the raft. Danmalaak stepped aboard, grabbing the zorca’s dorsal, and the two of them drifted amongst the pod for a time.
“Can’t sleep?” asked Danmalaak after a few minutes.
“I don’t sleep.”
“Okay, edgelord.”
Cironus chuckled. “No, I mean I can’t sleep. Gotta keep one eye open, you know? We’re voluntary breathers.”
With one hand, he reached up and tapped his blowhole.
“If I fell asleep, I’d sink and drown.”
Cironus could just barely see Danmalaak’s raised eye ridge above him.
“Cir, please. I’ve heard you sing about your feelings on Eventide. It’s solid, trust me.”
“Thank Nayru.”
“But yeah, you look like you’ve got something on your mind…y’know, besides me. So, what’s the bokoblin in your bonnet?”
“Oh you know, major life changes, no big deal.”
“Uh huh.” Cironus felt a foot brushing up ever so gently on the base of his fin. “You realize I know exactly where you’re most ticklish, don’t you?”
Cironus’ head turned ever so slightly that one eye was glaring back at Danmalaak as if to say "Don't you dare.”
“Come onnnnnnnn….” he could feel Danmalaak beginning to brush that spot. “You’re all about your feelings, Cir, remember? Let ‘em out!”
“I dunno,” he hesitated still. “I worry that people will get tired of me bringing it up all the time. Singing about them doesn’t help, what good will talking do?”
“I dunno. Give you something to do when your fingers are too callused to play along?” Danmalaak crouched, putting a knee on Cironus’ head. The size difference between the two truly was incredible. “Besides, it helps to have someone listen every once in a while. ‘A burden shared’s a burden halved,’ after all.”
“Okay, dad.” Cironus said halfheartedly. Thankfully the shrimp were asleep, so Wee couldn’t interject with another joke about her and Danmalaak’s nuptials.
Cironus let out a nervous sigh and opened up tentatively.
“I’m scared. I’m scared about leaving the place that’s been Home to me my whole life, and the fact I’ll never see my family again. It’s been two years since the Matriarchs kicked me out but it still hurts.”
In his mind, Cironus always reasoned out a justification for the Matriarchs’ decision. It was forbidden for a Zorca to take the life of another, and it was not lightly when the clans chose exile. But it was a better option than death. If they saw him as a danger, it was only because they were thinking of the clans’ safety as a whole.
Even so, there were days when he wanted to die. The loneliness was too much at times. Cironus recalled how his own father, Fat Fin, was once exiled. For reasons he never explained, he was pardoned centuries later. Did he feel the same anguish his son did in the time before then? If he did, his father hid it remarkably well.
“Zorca stay with their families their whole lives; we grow up, we have babies of our own and the pod grows. Ideally, I would have grown old with my family, maybe become an uncle or have kids of my own down the line. And that future is gone now. I’m trying to see the brighter side of things but…”
The floodgates were opened. There was a lilt in Cironus’ voice that indicated he was holding back a sob.
“I miss everyone. Kaska, Kaso, Sardon, my aunts and cousins, even my grandmother.”
Large tears began to well up in his eyes.
“I miss my mom.”
The sob escaped, a wretched keen rippling through the waters around him, made all the more terrible by his failed attempt to clamp down on it. He couldn’t help it; it hurt too much to hold it in, and once free, others poured out of him as a merciless tide, betraying that misery to the pod the more he tried to rein them in. Cironus’ choking sobs would not be restrained; they echoed through the pod, a wail of misery marking him as a beacon for everyone to notice.
As his cries echoed, however, it was met with another: smaller, reedier, but no less miserable, the squall of a child lost in a vast, dark, unfamiliar expanse.
"I'M LOST!"
And the sea lit up.
Pinks. Greens. Yellows and oranges. Faint clouds of light, a watery aurora of warmth and beauty that washed over the pod as zorphin after zorphin began to glow. Stardust and seawater were as one, coruscating through the ocean expanse, and Cironus and Danmalaak found themselves swimming through a river of light.
“I—whoa…” Cironus was caught off guard that his own cries stopped immediately. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand so he could take in the scene more clearly. “Are you seeing this, Dan?”
“I…yeah,” whispered back Danmalaak. “Wow…that’s…that’s incredible…”
“Something about it feels soothing.”
“Yeah. Like…like…night lights.”
Like the distressed calf, Cironus felt calmer now. His gaze moved from zorphin to zorphin, taking a moment to admire each hue, following the curve of each pattern, watching how the ripples around them reflected the gentle light. He noticed there were more beneath them, everyone moving at a steady pace. The longer he watched, the more he began to feel drowsy from staring at their mellow light.
"Pretty, isn't it? I remember the first time I saw the Rainbow River myself."
Despite the fact Kohv swam up beside Cironus unnoticed, it didn't surprise him in the least. During the initial introduction to the members of the Cackling Coral Pod he noticed there were other zora who were not Zorphin. Which explained why the older gentleman wasn’t glowing like the rest.
“It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before,” Cironus breathed.
"You know they can turn it on and off at will? Pretty neat adaptation, huh? Hard to get lost when they make it so easy to be found."
“No kidding…” said Danmalaak, still shaking his head at the incredible display before them. “I…Cironus, when you get the chance, could you stop by my raft? I’d like to get my notebook…”
Cironus pulled his gaze away from the lights and turned so he was close against the raft for Danmalaak to step onto. The goron did so, gingerly grabbing the tow rope for balance, then opened the raft’s upper hatch so he could reach into his storage. As he did so, he looked back to the waters, to his dear friend of two years.
“...Cironus?”
The Zorca looked back.
"...I can't speak for your family," said Danmalaak, "and...I certainly can't speak for your clan. Probably overstepping my bounds here, since, well...I'm a rock."
He hesitated.
"...But I've met your brother, and your father. I've seen the looks they give you when they know you're not looking. The misery they're experiencing, knowing that your visits can only be just that. Visits."
He reached down, brushing the palm of his hand on the white patch of his friend’s forehead.
“But it’s not one-way. They miss you too, and…not even all that deep down, really, they hope that this, too, will pass. That your exile will end…just as soon as your matriarchs pull their heads out of their rears and realize what they’ve done to one of their own.”
He patted Cironus again.
“They miss you, bud. Don’t ever think they won’t.”
“Thanks, Dan…”
Cironus meant it. He turned and straightened out as he swam forward again. He had a lot to think about, and short as it was, being able to let out his feelings really did help. His thoughts didn’t weigh as heavy, at least for now, and he took that moment to press onward while enjoying the zorphins’ otherworldly, bioluminescent light.
I am really craving for that one particular cream cheese bagel and giant coffee from Espresso House. I have not planned any trips for this year. All this together makes me a bit nostalgic today. . However I did just have oatmeal with tiger chai latte spice so Sunday is kinda awesome regarding it still. . #espressohouse #bagel #creamcheese #coffee #food #foodstagram #breakfast #delicious #hommikusöök #kohv #tasty #vegetarian #norway #throwback #vsco #bread #vscocam
For the OC prompts!
Not exactly OC specific, but maybe a scene of a few zorphin and zorca children causing trouble much to the chagrin of the adults?
One thing the Zorphins LOVE to use is bioluminescent paint made from coral, fungus, and other marine flora/fauna. And they are happy to share it with their visiting neighbors!
It's a good thing Kohv has the patience of a saint, but even he is a bit annoyed at being a canvas.
Based on convos with friends I was thinking of how many kiddos each of my goons would want to have if they did have children or how many they wanted before having children even if they have them now.
Loqua & Kohv: originally they wanted 6 children. HOWEVER, due to how troublesome Zalfe was as a calf especially with her baby brother as her minion of chaos they decided 4 was more than plenty. Couldn't increase Zalfe's one evil minion to 2 or 3 after all.
Zalfe: she always wanted 5 even since she was young. She wanted her children to have lots of siblings to both play with and pester. Like how she had her brother and sisters to play with and pester. She's had 1 and even though there was that tragic loss and she fears going through it again. She still honestly desires a big family.
Fjord: When he was younger he wanted 2 or 3 kids as him being a twin he enjoyed having a sibling growing up. However due to the deep deep scar tissue he has from being electrocuted by the great eel causing his fertility to crash he'd be over the moon if he even has one.
Vrelu: he currently has 3 children from previous courtships and is fully open to the idea of more he just can't decide if he'd keep it low at like 4-5 total kids or if he'd have 10-12 like Scylla wants to.
Scylla: wants as many children as she can physically have as she was an only child and found it rather lonely. She also wants to hold the pod record of the largest family. She has 8 children currently and would happily have at least another 3-4.
Tyevi: the idea of children is a scary thought to Tyevi after everything that happened with Zalfe. She wouldn't mind 1-2 but...she thinks she's also content not having any.
Lyrova: her goal is 3 kiddos max. She has her 2 daughters and is hoping if she and Sahbi have a third that they have a lil boy but they'd also be happy if it was a third girl as well.
Dealu: he's got his little boy and he's perfectly content with that! But if Olka wanted a second he also wouldn't be against that. But he's more than pleased with his one.
Caspia: she'd rather do a triple axel into a volcano then ever have a child. She hates kids 🤣
