Ashen Children (Geoff, Happy) -MISSION-

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An ink blot of a man trolled across the fields, underneath the Hyrulian skyline and outlined by the blinking stars. The pale moonlight seemed to dig into his figure instead of reveal it to any onlookers - an ever-shifting black hole. His footsteps were feathers among the ground, moving dirt with the force of a gust and no more. The off-white mask that made up Happy's face shone with starry light, like a floating head lit up on the horizon. A spirit draped in shadows and sentiment, he slunk on and carried his smile like a Christian would stigmata.

Od had remembered playing in a village long ago, though he was sure it was the experience of another - he had only known the Kokiri Woods in his age. It was the accumulation of all of the voices the Will had collected over the years that fed him these memories, implications, instincts. The memory that Od had experienced was of a young girl playing with dolls her mother made, for they couldn't afford a more expensive toy. How they had such exaggerated smiles, though, ear to ear. The sentiment made Happy feel a sense of longing, and the amalgam of shadows had begun his trek. The body was tireless, and the Will unwavering.

Soon, he would arrive at his destination.

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Vitriol. That's what Brimstone tasted every morning when he opened his eyes and awoke from his slumber. With heavy lids and somber eyes, Jensen looked into the dirty bathroom mirror. Every morning he doused his mouth and teeth with a minty, herbal concoction of his and stared at an aged and scarred face. Little scars dotted his face from his slavery days, and he could still recall those grim times. That's why he did this. The adventuring. The sacrifice. The dive into the maw of danger with his trusty ol' Vitriol. Every time he saw his own mug, disgust made him ache all over. Eventually, he would move from the mirror and bathe with buckets of water a young friend would bring him every morning. The water would brush along his skin, the cold biting at him as he continued mourning the past.

Once that ritual ended, he would see whatever chore he'd have to take care of for the day. Usually it was measly Moblins or Chus that plagued the citizens on a day-by-day basis. This time, there was a much more interesting and potentially dangerous proposition. Disappearances somewhere far away. "Oi, adventure it 'tis! Finally, Otis! Finally something more interesting than busting the same skulls!" the man posting on the board where these requests rest had simply chuckled, knowing that Brimstone loved a challenge. "Aye, I know you like a lil' bit of fight in your meals!" Brimstone laughed back, slugging Otis' arm playfully. "Ay, ay, ay, I'm not a bag-grabber like ol' Dirty Dumpty over yonder!" Otis shook his head, walking away with a fading snicker.

The hunter took the request and rented out a horse, traveling for almost the entire day until near dusk. When he finally neared the village, he noticed that the woods were not far, merely an hour's ride on horseback. Clip-clopping all the way to the gates, spear-toting guards had stopped him at the gate. "Oi, what gives!? I'm here from 'Riko to respond to the distress message!" he spoke, making the guards gander at each other with a fearful and cautious dart of the eyes. "Hm...did you bring the request with you?" Removing it from his person, Brimstone shifted his hammer as it was strapped to his waist and slid off his horse gracefully. Handing it to one of the guards, they read it and replaced it into the hunter's hand.

Both nodded, allowing Brimstone to bring his horse in and having an inner-village guard lead him to the mayor. As soon as he entered the Mayor's office, Brimstone took a seat casually and acting rather relaxed. "Aye, Jarl of this dear town?" The mayor didn't understand exactly what the hunter meant for a moment, but quickly wised up. "Oh, yes. I am the mayor. I am assuming you are here for the...problem." "Indeed, mate." "Well, then let's get to business. I need you to travel to the nearby forest and search it for any suspicious signs of activity."

"What kind of activity are we archin' for? I mean, I'm not one to complain when a sack of jeweled tear drops falls in me lap, but..." The mayor leaned in with his hands interlocking fingers. "I think...a very old enemy is making a return. I don't know much, but my historian knows more. Unfortunately, you'll have to visit tomorrow. She's currently on her way back from a nearby village she frequents. I would not want to make her do any work without any rest. The inn should grant you a room for free along with a few meals." Brimstone stood up, brushing his dusty clothes off and nodding. Saluting the mayor, he made his exit. "Wait."

Turning around with a perched brow, the hunter looked over his shoulder towards the mayor. "Please. Children are involved." "Oi, mate...Don't worry. Someone's head is askin' for a crack...I'll give them exactly that. On me mum's grave." Exiting the mayor's headquarters, he transported all of his things from the horse to the room he was offered. A decent suite, though not much better than his own box of shambles he lived in. After relaxing into more casual clothes, he ventured out without his hammer and a few rupees. First, he'd survey the outer border. Exiting the village, he nodded towards the guards and look onto the plateau ahead of the village. "Hm. An interesting attitude, methinks. An interesting detail as well..."

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Jensen would be met with a darkness that was an abyss amongst the sky. Happy had encountered an obstacle in the form of the gate and it's guardians, who denied his passage moments before the Heroes' arrival.

"This is where I play. Please let me in." His voice was childish and soft, but had an unnerving reverb clinging to its underbelly. If they were closer, the gatesman would have also heard the waves of whispers that came with each breath, different voices that escaped in sounds of desperation and loneliness. Alas, this perception was as lost the hopes for entering. Before anger could take over Od, though, Brimstone had arrived.

The masked figure cocked his head to the left, inspecting the broken man. Every divot, scar, wrinkle - things that Happy hated. Signs of age, despair. But Od still had the fascination and wonder of the Kokiri he once was, and that slaked his wild temperament.. for now. 

However, this intrigue met no vocalization or somatic reaction aside from the shade. Happy simply stood, waiting, like a Stalfos with no command or necromancer to guide it. The empty, black eyes would burrow into Jensen in complete observation.

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Jensen was met with a figure awkwardly standing in view of his gaze, intriguing the hunter simply because of the odd aesthetic. He eyed the stranger and its whole figure from top to bottom and back again. An oddity that spoke omen and clandestine status. It made him feel uneasy, but Jensen knew that this world held so many oddities that generalizing was dangerous and poisonous. He couldn't refuse the existence of urges commanding him to unveil his hammer, but he could resist their pries. Doing exactly that, Jensen simply took a sturdy stance before the masked wanderer. Crossing his arms and arching a brow, he smirked warmly. "Oi, an odd one we have mates! A bit grim in stance and suspicious in convenience. So, you play here aye? Care to peruse the idea of explainin' ye'self?"

Jensen adjusted his stance, taking a bit more of a disarmed one to show that he meant no hostility. He wasn't sure of the stability of the person before him and he wasn't going to test it by instantly firing off hostility. He'd encountered situations like this before, and he trusted himself for the most part when it came to handling strangers. Of course, had the figure given him reason...I'd sure knock him off his rocker a wee bit, once or twice methinks. "Excuse the these gents and their blades and what-not. They are just a tad bit....alarmed. Their job and all that, mhm, indeed. Give them a reason to let you in, and we could chat over a pint or two. I'll even put it on me tab! Errr...the city's tab really." The guards looked at Jensen with distraught faces, but he really just wanted to loosen up the foe.

Had the stranger decided to prove to be a sort of antagonist, Jensen wouldn't shy away from acting on his hunter impulses. However, he'd rather unravel the mystery placed on his path all itemized and packaged for his mission full of enigma. Waxing his attempted charisma, Jensen gave a comforting, fuzzy smile towards the aegis-clad sentries. "Oi, ease up a bit. Need to comfort the wanderers, hmph. Speaking of which, I didn't catch ye name! Name's Brimstone me-self." He introduced himself, tipping his hat towards Happy, happily accentuating his own introduction.

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"I'm a bit Od, but mostly Happy."

The masked figure was being partially sarcastic and partially ignorant. He was naturally naive and bratty.

"We played all kinds of stuff. Kicked ball. Jumped rope. Things like that."

He shifted from side to side with anxious energy. 

"I'm not old enough to drink, I don't think..."

Happy was a confused as to why the grown man would try to get him in trouble. Asking him to drink right in front of the town guards! This is why he disliked adults; they were condescending, steadfast in their self-conceived superiority to the lesser aged. If the Happy Mask could produce a frown, it would have.

"So can I come inside?"

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Jensen kept a bright smirk, but the underlying view he had was a bit more suspicious. However, he was still conflicted as to how he felt about Happy. The entity was certainly awkward and wonky in all aspects, and the guards clearly were too frozen in fear of the kidnapping maniac to give Happy a straight answer. Signalling the masked being with his hand, he attempted to persuade the guards. "Oi, methinks it won't hurt to let the lad in. Just be wary, ye threads might draw the eyes of others." Jensen spoke with a jolly tune, walking towards the gate. As he furthered his step back into the village, he looked forward to witness a thickening fog. His head tilted with intrigue, his hand groping the handle of his hammer as he slowly removed it from his waist.

In the mist, he could see a few sets of glowing eyes and small shadows. In the instance that these details formed, the mist cleared and nothing was there. In the middle of the area before him, there was a worn sheet of parchment. The corners were damp but blackened by an apparently extinguished flame. Slowly waltzing over, he drew the paper and read it. Looking around, he saw various retreating eyes, aside from a house further into the village and on his right. A few sets of glowing eyes beamed through the grimy panels of glass, with an elderly lady slowly retreating back into her house. "Oi! Oi!" Dashing over to the house, he banged on the door to no avail.

"Oi! Open up! Open the bloody door!" With no answer, he took his hammer and clanged it against the door, a shockwave of flame bursting from the impact. The door blew open and the debris shot forward. The doorway was severely damaged, and Jensen stumbled back one step. Spinning his hammer, he wondered if Happy was following him, looking over his shoulder. "Well, what a right-crocky way to introduce myself..." He referred to both the village, whomever dwell within the home and Happy himself. 'Tis a spook I'm huntin', methinks...Let's hope Happy isn't another one.

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"Is this like tag?"

The words were lost in the soft winds as the masked child followed suit. Happy was unimpressed by Jensen's footwork; probably his old bones weighing him down. He watched the wizened figure preform a rather unfunny knock-knock joke. When nobody laughed, Jensen raged and smashed the door down with a hammer. The light show accompanying it bewildered Happy for a moment, but he focused on the shattered doorway. What if Jensen had harmed people inside? That would be sad. But what if he was saving them from, like, a fire? That would be good. Conflicted, Happy spoke aloud.

"That door really didn't do anything to you, ya know."

Happy stood idle, feet behind Jensen, observing for malice or miracle like a mad arbiter of fate. How would these events unfold?

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Hearing the odd boy comment on how he treated the house, he turned slightly towards him with a worried and grim face. Brimstone knew that something was amiss and if the lives of children were at stake, the omen he had come across had weighed on his heart heavily. The eyes in the mist were at the height of adolescence and the body in the middle was that of a child's. Whoever crept back into the house had something to hide, or something to show. Either way, he needed to venture into its depths. The visitor seemed confused by his intentions, in a way that only made sense with a child's mind. "Oi, 'tis not my intention at all. There have been reports of kidnappings and I'm tasked with finding the poor children who've been whisked away. The door can be rebuilt, but the kids? Not quite in the same way."

Jensen dived further into the house. Decrepit as it was, he didn't expect much and found little just as those expectations guessed. He came across a rather empty room compared to the hoarder-type mess he had seen before. It was straight down the hallway, directly in the back. The lack of content made him feel obliged to scour it, looking for any hidden doors. Dust. Dust everywhere. But the dust had a...burnt smell to it. As if it was ash. Casing the room quickly and across every possible location he deemed fit for a false wall or trap door, he came across a button hidden in the right wall. Upon pressing it, the back wall had opened up to reveal stairs leading downward in a spiral. Hurrying with disregard for the visitor, he found the basement.

A basement full of horror.

"By Din's Fire...what kind of monster..."

And there it stood, lifeless. A child-like Stalfos with dead eyes; it was as if the resurrection was incomplete. Grime and flesh had littered its dirty frame, the mask of skin and armor of flesh flayed from it. The room was littered with clean, hollow skins that hung neatly from clothes hangers attached to chains. It was horrifying, but the more cryptic clue of what was going on was what lay before him. A massive, runic symbol that was circular in nature, with several incomplete that orbited a dark pupil. The outer ring arced two-thirds of the way to a full circle before sharply turning and stabbing straight-out. Accents aligned this outer ring, detached but still shaping along the distorted circle. It burned with dark energy, an omen that made Brimstone want to run away.

Walking towards the child-like Stalfos, he took it into his hands and tears welled up within his eyes. The bones crumbled within his arms as he embraced it, prompting him to hug the remnants to his body. As he turned to make a solemn exit, he saw a peculiar note on a desk; off to the side. Picking it up, he read it back to himself.

I welcome the lost living, and rebirth them into their true form...a task given by Father as he whispers in my ear.

Exiting the home, he ignored Happy with a grim face as he marched towards the mayor's home with blurry eyes. Knocking on the locked door, his butler answered and allowed him in. When the two finally met, there had been silence for what seemed like centuries. The mayor would have pried, but he knew exactly what kind of expression Brimstone had. "The kids...They're...They're killing them..." As the mayor tried to interject after a gasp, Brimstone shook his head. "And reviving them as Stalfos." Both just stared at each other, shock paralyzing them both. This was going to be a long mission.