Special Delivery (Finished)

[ruma]

Ruma wanted to get this delivery to Merik as soon as she could. The tech would be coming in soon, and while she knew she was going to end up with the bulk of it anyway, she wanted to be there for its arrival.

She wasn't sure where Merik was at this moment. Depending on the situation, he could be in the throne room, or he could be in his room. She decided to try his own room first. Typically that's where he was during his downtime, at least to the best of her knowledge. He was probably downing a few fireball drinks and planning out his next conquest.

When she reached the door, it was closed. Not wanting to intrude in case he was busy negotiating, she knocked on the door a few times. "Merik! Special Delivery!" she called out, hoping he heard some of it from inside, or from the throne room.

[Merik Dragmire]

"The door is open Ruma but if it's another of those damned bottles that keep cropping up everywhere I go, I don't want to see it...unless you also happen to have the bastard that keeps bringing them with you in chains." Merik growled in irritation as he pored over various scrolls and maps on his desk.

He had been like this the last few days plotting and planning for phantom attacks that may never come in his lifetime but he knew that the minute he truly let his guard down was the minute he was dead. So he liked to be prepared and now it just happened that there was a lot to prepare for.

[ruma]

Ruma opened the door shaking her head, finding her elder cousin looking over some scrolls and maps. "Sheesh, if I wanted to speak to Mr. Grumpypants I'd go across the desert and see him." Her lack of social courtesy was always obvious by her flippant comments.

She walked up to him and held the bottle up to him. "You have a message from Kotone. The fact that it comes in a bottle is an unrelated occurrence, I assure you." She wasn't aware of anything involving bottles. Sure she had a few but those bottles were for projects. She didn't recall sending any to Merik. She also hoped his grumpy mood would change soon. When he was grumpy he was scary, since he was about twice the size of a typical Gerudo and three times her size.

[Merik Dragmire]

Merik turned to look at Ruma as she entered, clearly puzzled by the fact that she was delivering letters from their cousin who lived a few hallways away.

"I knew she was mad about Titania but I didn't realize she'd reached the point where she wasn't going to speak to me." he said as he took the bottle from his cousin and opened it up, quickly reading the letter to himself before sitting it on the desk. "Or possibly beyond that...how mad was she Ruma? If this came from anyone else I'd be thinking that I was about to walk into a trap...which I suppose I still could be..."

[ruma]

Ruma made a point of not reading the letter. She didn't want to be nosy about Merik and Kotone's relationship. It was a matter simply for the two of them.

"You could tell she clearly wasn't happy about it, but she wasn't particularly angry. She was upset, but she seemed more sad than mad. As for a trap, I think you need to calm down a little. You make it sound like everyone wants you dead. I know you're not in a position of sunshine and puppies, but you have plenty of support, and a family that loves you." She stood behind him and gave him a hug. She wanted him to know that he wasn't going to be betrayed or assassinated, not on her watch.

[Merik Dragmire]

"Plenty of support HA! Half the pirates on the seas are as eager for me to be gone as the Knights are, and if they didn't fear the Defiant's power they'd have probably made it a bit more open some time ago.

Even without most of Hyrule knowing I'm actually alive I'm demonized by being the Gerudo King because of the lies about Ganondorf...Goddess knows what they'd try if they found out I'm descended from him..." Merik trailed off, rubbing at his eyes as she hugged him from behind.

"You, Kotone, and Mara are the only one's I've really got supporting me...I'm not sure what I'd do if I lost any of you, much less if something were to take you all..."

[ruma]

Ruma couldn't help but feel bad for him. He had power on land and on the seas, and that painted a huge target on his back. She wasn't about to betray him, he meant the world to her, both as a cousin and as a leader. She kept her arms around him, hoping he wouldn't stand, since he had a foot and a half on her and she would easily be lifted off the ground.

"We've got your back Merik. But please, please don't do anything foolish. We need you on the throne and on the captain's seat. I can't lose you. None of us can." She hugged him tighter, beginning to sob softly. Whenever she thought of losing any of her closest relatives, she couldn't help herself. She thought about what happened with her mother, being unable to save her. She couldn't bear that sort of pain again.

[Merik Dragmire]

Merik broke out of his paranoid funk the second he heard Ruma crying behind him. He gently broke her grip around him so he could turn in his seat and return her hug.

"Hey...c'mon Ruma, none of that. I've got no plans to die anytime soon and plenty of plans to counter any unexpected encounters with death." he said quietly trying to calm her down as best as he could, even though he knew from past experiences that he might just have to let her cry it out. "Although, while we're on the subject of doing foolish things: another of your experiments blew up, again. I believe I told you to be much more careful Miss 'There's only a 5% chance it'll explode'."

[ruma]

Merik knew that talk of her work would calm her down. Even with a solitary tear dramatically streaming down her face, she frowned at him and stuck her tongue out.

"It didn't explode, it malfunctioned. It wasn't my fault the primary ignition was receiving sporadic power supplies. If I could stabilize the power transfer with a resistor array I can easily get the power transfer at a constant rate." At this point she had almost forgotten about her sadness over the thought of her mother, and possibly others dying. No, she was stronger now, she had to block it out. She wasn't making that mistake again.

[Merik Dragmire]

"All your science talk and all I hear is explosions." Merik retorted with a smirk as he brushed away Ruma's last tear, laughing as he continued on, determined to fully ensure her sadness was forced far to the back of her mind. "One of these days you're going to blow us all back to the Goddess and do you know what the rest of us are going to get out of it? You explaining for all eternity the thousands of ways that your machine didn't really explode."

It was only partially a worry of his that something of her's would explode and kill her, honestly her machines had been a great help to the Gerudo and the pirates in the past but he couldn't shake the feeling that something bad would come from them one day.

[ruma]

Ruma didn't want to laugh. On one hand, the machines weren't a real threat. The power wasn't sufficient to blow up the whole fortress. On the other hand, there were so many projects that ended in explosions it was still funny. So in the end, she ended up laughing it off, still not breaking the hug.

"Oh Merik, you know I don't work with enough power to blow up the fortress. At least nothing in the fortress. Although I had to move the beam cannon to the private quarters. I know better than that. I know the threshold I can work with before I have to move to the lab. And I recently reinforced the lab as well so it can withstand even larger explosions. The airship's gonna need more juice to fly." The airship was her pride and joy. Once she gets it off the ground, things would rapidly improve for their people.

[Merik Dragmire]

"The reinforcements to your lab are not going to do you a damn bit of good inside it genius; solve that problem and I'll be pleased enough." Merik said with a much kinder smile than most ever got to see. "And I'm still not sure if I'm completely on board with this 'airship' of yours. If we were meant to fly we'd all be Oocca and last time I checked I wasn't half bird."

He held Ruma for a few more seconds to make sure she was completely past her sadness before releasing the hug.

[ruma]

"Nuh uh, reinforcing the inner lab will prevent anything outside the lab from being hit by any explosions. Sheesh, after all this tim you should have at least figured that out." She returned the kind smile. She was one of the few who got to see his soft side. She always secretly knew he was a big softy at heart.

"Yeah, but with our own set of wings we can compete in the air. Think about it, the oocca, the fairies, they can always just take to the air. They won't be expecting King Merik, lord of all Gerudo to be right up there with them. And you can go conquer the city in the sky without having to take that stupid cannon." She knew it could fly, it just had to. She had it all working, as soon as that power core was stable. More power, more power, there were always more possibilities.

[Merik Dragmire]

"While I appreciate the enthusiasm for conquering new places, I don't think we're strong enough yet to claim a new territory by force...at least not without emptying out the desert and oceans first." Merik replied as he watched Ruma, easily able to see the wheels turning in her mind. "Get a test ship flying and then we'll starting drawing up war plans, how about that?"

It was difficult to say how long it might take her to actually get one of the ships flying but they would certainly give the Gerudo a nice boost to military strength even for attacking land-based targets.

It'll definitely make things the warfronts a lot more unpredictable...

[ruma]

Ruma nodded eagerly. "You got it! I'll have her in the air before you know it. Then I can work on the teleconverter, the beam cannon, the new armor designs I have, oh I'm so excited. But I have stayed too long, I have to get back to work." She hugged him once again, this time kissing him on the cheek as well. She wiped the tear from her eye and smiled.

"I love you, Merik. You know that, but I have to say it again." And before long, she exited his room, returning to her own to work on models and designs. She had to finish her big projects, for the sake of her people, and herself.

EXIT[/i][/u]

[Merik Dragmire]

Merik chuckled lightly as Ruma dashed out of the room after a final hug.

"Well if there was no other proof that she was family she is certainly crazy enough to be a Dragmire."

He still wasn't sure what to make of Kotone's letter but he'd sort it out with time. For now it was back to work for him as well.

[exit and finished]

[Nightmare Darklight]

Rupees given. Thread locked and moved.