Babble - Beyond Dimensions

Chapter 8: The one where they break more than just your privacy

The morning sun was bright, and it was able to rise even the heaviest of sleeper, which was if one were to look at Sky and his sleeping behavior no small feat. The Links were slow to start their morning, slowly collecting their stuff while Wild prepared breakfast.

After their little conference in the evening before about their newest tag-along, which had lasted long into the night, it was understandable that most of them were tired. But now, after a full night’s sleep (except for those three with look-out shifts, but even they had gotten more than enough sleep at this point), everyone was ready to get moving directly after breakfast.

The only exception seemed to be once more Babble, who had apparently not gotten the note to wake up yet, and because even the smell of the freshly made breakfast wouldn’t rise them Wild took it upon himself to investigate the cause behind this strange occurrence.

What he saw, when he neared the spot Babble had picked to spent their night – which was a little aside from where the rest of their group had slept, was a Babble that used Wild’s cloak as a blanket and who looked like they had just fallen asleep on the spot randomly, their limbs were spread out randomly and they hung half over a log they had used in the evening as a seating possibility. To sum it up, it looked horribly uncomfortable and Wild inwardly wondered how the kid had managed to fall asleep in that way.

Warriors, who had been watching from where the others had been seated to eat breakfast, had been watching and when he saw that Wild hadn’t yet moved to wake the kid, and he carefully stood up and approached. He then, too, winced when he saw the kid’s position. “Either they’ve got insane flexibility or they’re going to have an absolutely horrible day” he muttered dryly. Wild only nodded wordlessly.

Then Warriors suddenly spotted something lying on the ground next to one of the kid’s hands. Carefully he picked the strange black square up to inspect it. “Hey, look” he said, then showing it to Wild, who’s eyes widened upon seeing the devise. “It looks like that slate of yours.”

Wild pulled out said slate to compare with the other devise. The slate dwarfed the plain black thing in both size and state of ornament.

Face blank, Warriors corrected himself: “Well, at least somewhat. Maybe it is some kind of proto slate?”

“Then why isn’t it working? It’s just…black” Wild wondered. Warriors frowned and took a closer look at Babble’s device. “Here, on the side, there are some buttons” he stated. “Maybe they are for getting this thing to work?”

Wild nodded, thoughtful. Warriors moved to press the buttons, but Wild stopped him: “Are you sure? This is kind of breaking Babble’s privacy. This is not something good.”

“It’s also not good to hit people” Warriors argued against his friend, shrugging. And then he pressed one of the buttons…

…and nearly dropped the device when it suddenly vibrated and gave a happy little melody while lighting up, showing a little green figure.

“Careful, it seems fragile” Wild warned. Warriors gave him an unimpressed look: “Then you shouldn’t even dream about touching it.”

And then the little green figure disappeared, and a picture popped up, showing four happily grinning persons. One was a slightly familiar looking young man with clear sky-blue eyes and messy blonde hair wearing a simple white shirt with light blue accents. He had his left arm around a redheaded woman with golden-brown eyes, wearing a purple shirt with a horse printed on it. On the right side of the picture was another young woman, she had darker blonde long hair, a golden hairband on her head and blue and pink outfit. Her emerald colored eyes seemed to lock right into the boy’s faces as if she knew that they were looking at her and she almost seemed amused by that. The last person, who was placed between the man and the blonde woman, clearly was Babble, though clothed slightly differently than they were now.

But the strangest about the picture was that all of them were human, which with Babble right now was not the case (as a quick look to check proved: Babble was clearly Hylian at the moment).

This only added another mystery to the long list of mysteries that surrounded their newest travel companion and both men knew that surely more would be added.

On top of that neither Link could recognize the letters that were written over the picture, which while not really surprising, seeing as most of their writings had changed over time, was really unhelpful at the moment. Helpless, Wild quickly stood up to get the most traveled of them to take a look. Chances were the highest that he would know the letters.

Legend was the definition of not happy, when he was interrupted in his breakfast. Annoyed he followed Wild, complaining about his eggs going cold.

Then - suddenly - Warriors shoved a strange black, glowing something under his nose. Legend stared cross-eyed at the thing, before quickly snatching it out of his companion’s hands.

“Can you recognize these writings, hoarder?” Warriors asked, slightly put off of Legend’s rude taking of the device.

Scanning the familiar letters, Legend tried to decipher what was written there, before he answered: “Well, I recognize these letters. But read what’s written there I cannot. Guess the language changed again until whenever the kid is from.”

“And we can’t ask Hyrule if he knows what’s written there cause he still can’t read” sighed Warriors. Wild shrugged and Legend took another good look at the screen with the picture on it. His eyes fell upon the small lock placed on the picture. Frowning he watched it move. Then he carefully touched it and swiped it randomly to a side.

Next to him Wild and Warriors “ohhed” as they saw a new picture popping up, accompanied by a block with numbers on it. Legend felt a smirk forming: “Someone got a suggestion for a code?”

But then, before they could break into Babble’s privacy any further, a sign popped up on Babble’s strange slate. Then, the strange devise started vibrating within Legend’s hands and he would have almost dropped it.

“Careful with that” Warriors warned. “I am careful” snapped Legend.

And then suddenly a soft melody started to play from the device.

And a beautiful voice sang a song in the same strange language Babble talked, but Legend knew what she sung nether the less.

The first note played shook Legend to the core. The second had him outwardly shaking. And the third kidnapped his mind to places forever gone.

And while Wild and Warriors listened awed to that beautiful ballad, starting to dream of who could have sung that, Legend, who knew the one whom belonged the original melody, was sent down spiraling into memory lane.

His body was present, but his mind wasn’t.

…

Dreamlike beaches, endless sea.

A redheaded girl singing a soft melody.

A glance, a smile, an euphory,

A dream that is now nothing more than a memory.

…

And Babble’s device slipped out of his numb fingers.

A loud “Crack” and the music stopped, startling the boys out of their thoughts and back into reality. Legend used that moment to flee.

From whom was unsure, was it from his memories or was it from the owner of the device who had just now awoken and looked at them with blood-shot eyes?

Either way, Wild and Warriors came face to face with a tired, hurting and very angry Babble.