The Fierce Deity | God-Warrior of Termina (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fierce_deity) wrote2008-07-13 09:00 pm
fierce_deity) wrote2008-07-13 09:00 pm
◊ Character Information/Bio
Character Name: the Fierce Deity
Game Canon: Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
Age: appears as an adult male in his mid-twenties; actual age is several millennia
Gender: male
Species: god; appears Terminian/Hylian
Height: 7'6" / 230 cm [this is smaller than an estimation based on extrapolation from screenshots and done deliberately with the intent of making him able to physically fit inside a room/building with a standard 8-foot ceiling]
Weight: the mun has tried to figure this out, but as his height is unrealistic (on purpose), it has been difficult to come up with a number for his weight. Suffice it to say the number would be proportional to both his height and body type.
Build: heavily muscled
Skintone: fair, perhaps unnaturally so; he will not take on color under the sun's influence
Hair: silvery-white
Eyes: completely, blankly white
Appearance:
The most striking thing about the Fierce Deity is his eyes: white on white on white, he appears to have no pupil or iris, though his sight is not in any way impaired. He is fair-skinned, with silvery-white hair, though he does not appear old. His hair parts in the middle, bangs falling around either side of his face. The rest of his hair sweeps behind pointed ears to hide in the confines of his hat; were he to remove the hat his hair would fall just below the line of his shoulders, long enough to be tied back in a ponytail if he chose. His face is marked by red and blue tattoos above his eyes and on his cheeks and forehead. His body is free of scars, save one: it is left of center on his chest, with a complementary scar on his back; it appears to be from a blade that was thrust straight through his body. Despite his number of battles, and wounds obtained, this scar is the only one marring his body; if questioned, he will refuse to talk about it. He stands tall, easily head and shoulders -- if not more -- above others. He is heavily muscled, able to wield his large sword one-handed when necessary.
He is clothed in ancient armor: his ornate breastplate and gauntlets are heavy, and have seen much use. The gauntlets cover from forearm to fingers; the fingers themselves are exposed from the second joint to the tips. His other clothing consists of a close-fitting dark blue shirt and pants, over which he wears a light blue-grey tunic. The tunic falls to his mid-thigh. His hat, matched in color to his tunic, is triangular in shape, almost reminiscent of a stocking-cap; he wears it on the crown of his head such that his bangs are exposed while the rest of his hair is confined. The body of the hat hangs down his back, the point resting just below his waist. His boots are heavy, and made of brown leather; they cover most of his calves but do not quite reach his knees. The tops of the boots are turned over as cuffs; a gold buckle at the upper edge fastens each one.1
He is armed with the Helix Blade. The sword is easily as long as he is tall. Its metal is strange: one side of the helix shimmers green, the other blue. The hilt is simple, bearing no decoration; there is no cross-guard.
Reference image can be viewed here.
Personality:
Initially, upon his freedom of the confinement of the mask, the Fierce Deity lived to sate his bloodlust: battle is an intrinsic part of who he is, and to fight -- to answer the blood's call, or hear the blood's song, as he would say -- is something he not only enjoys, but must do. He cannot deny what he is: the God-Warrior. Blood is both necessary and pleasing to him: there is an aspect of hunger to the blood's song; it is a desire he must periodically sate. That being said, he is not a senseless killing machine: he will not engage a weaker opponent merely for the sake of slaughter, though he will slaughter hordes of monsters or other foul beasts to sate his hunger. He is very much aware of the distinction between human (or Terminian, or Hylian, or what have you) and monster; he is aware, too, that foul beasts may sometimes wear fair skin.
Though his initial bloodlust on being freed from the mask has cooled, he can still be considered a chaotic force, but he is not truly "evil." Likewise, he is not "good" either. He has his own motivations, which he seldom -- if ever -- shares with others, but are mostly centered on gathering as much information of the world about him -- a world which is greatly changed from what he remembers from his time before his imprisonment.
His social graces are poor: he has no need for, or desire to engage in, small talk or polite, idle conversation. His voice is often as steady as his expression, and he does not waste words where he feels they are unnecessary. His speech patterns are formal. He often comes across as rude, cold or distant; most often it is that he is simply uncaring, as that which concerns mortals is of little consequence to a god. It takes a long time for him to want to talk, willingly, to others -- unless he has taken a particular interest in the person to whom he is talking, in which case he has near-inexhaustible patience. The pursuit and obtaining of knowledge is, for now, his primary goal in Hyrule; he will willingly interact with those who might have something to offer him in this area, and will often brush off those who do not.
There are a few people with whom he has what could almost be called a friendship. Most notably they are those with whom he has fought, either alongside or against. He feels that in battle, one proves more than one's fighting prowess. At the same time, it is to be noted that he believes not all battles are fought with the sword.
He interacts much better with younger people (children) than he does with adults. This is heavily related to the fact that his mask was last used by Link: the Hero was neither child nor adult, but the latter trapped in the body of the former, his innocence stolen away and the weight of saving two worlds on his shoulders. There is also the inherent innocence that a child possesses, which is something he will never have. As such, he is sometimes willing to talk and spend time with children, where he would shun similar company from adults.
Biography2:
I. The Beginning
In the time before time, the gods came together, formed from the chaos of the universe. It was simultaneously sudden and gradual, quiet and loud, soft and harsh, opposites coexisting before order reigned. Yet order did come out of the mess, pieces falling into place, and the eldest gods awoke.
It is they who brought order to the rest of the chaos; they crafted the worlds, the playthings of the gods, placing them in the heavens, making for them sun and moon and stars. They gave life unto the worlds, land and water and green growing things. They created a rhythm, a flow of night and day, a changing of seasons. And, after all their work, they were tired. So they breathed life into their children, the elder gods, and gave to them the keeping of their creations. Then the eldest gods faded back into the Void, into the chaos from which they had taken form.
For a while, the elder gods were content to play with the creations of their parents. But they eventually grew bored; they desired their own playthings, their own creations: things that they could nurture, and watch grow; things with which they could amuse themselves. So they, like the eldest gods before them, dabbled in the chaos, drawing it together, crafting from it things both beautiful and terrible. They did not know to give their creations boundaries; those creations rose, larger and greater, until they could threaten the gods themselves. Thus ensued a great struggle, immortal fighting against immortal creation. Battles raged, and the tide of their war flowed back and forth. Finally, the elder gods did triumph, but the cost was high: the will of their creations was as great as their own. Destruction was the only solution, but the immortal creation of an immortal hand cannot be fully destroyed, and the pieces could not be left, lest they reassemble themselves. The elder Gods thought and argued and debated, until a solution was reached: each god took into himself the core of his creation, and made it a part of his divine self; their creations could never be made whole again without these critical pieces. Then each god sought to craft what he could from the remainder of his creation. Some chose to scatter the pieces among the myriad worlds, others were used to create the foundations of the Sacred Realm. Some were cast into the heavens, to reside among the stars. The last of the pieces were cast into the Void, to fall where they may.
II. The Creation
As their parents before them, the elder gods were also craftsmen, creating for themselves that which they desired. Those who loved music crafted heavenly instruments, those who loved words created whole languages, those who preferred the work of their hands shaped the very earth. And those who preferred the art of battle created weapons most fearsome; it is said that the clash from their sparring was as thunder, the sparks from their blades the lightning that rent the sky.
And of those particular warriors, there was one who proved himself fiercer than all the rest. He loved battle and the thrill of the fight; his blood sang with every clash of blades. He rose above all other warriors as a fearsome opponent, the mightiest warrior of the elder gods; some even thought him powerful enough to challenge the eldest gods, the ones who had created everything out of the Void. He did not challenge them, but he wished for an opponent worthy of his blade, one that could provide him the sort of battle for which his blood sang.
He searched far and wide, both in the realms of the gods and those of the mortals, learning and observing. He was challenged by some, and others he challenged, taking from each encounter knowledge and fitting it into his vision of a whole. Then, when he finally felt he had learned what he could, he returned to the place where he had forged his great twisted blade.
He worked for a long time -- long even by immortal standards -- crafting and shaping, molding individual elements into the whole that he desired. When finally he was finished, he breathed life into his creation, and the armored figure opened its eyes. The god called it Warrior and pressed a blade into its hands; it sprung from its table and challenged him. He laughed and met its attack with his own sword; the god was pleased to have created an opponent worthy of his blade.
The two were near inseparable; the god took his creation with him when he wandered the realms, showing him all the varied lands. And always they fought, steel for steel; the sight of the two great warriors sparring was said to be both wonderful and terrible. The god was pleased: in his creation, he found his desire for battle filled most satisfactorily.
But when the creations of the other gods rose up to challenge their creators, the Warrior sided with them and challenged its maker as well. The god was both enraged and saddened that his creation had so turned against him; their clash was fierce. The battle raged on a long time; the creation had learned many of its creator's skills. But the god was still the master; his knowledge of battle was old and deep. His creation ultimately fell by his hand.
He unmade it, as all the gods did with their own creations; unmade it and cast its great blade deep into the earth, where it would forever be beyond the reach of others. Then the god removed its core, taking that vital piece and placing it deep within himself. The remaining shell he cast to the heavens, to rest among the stars; the constellation named for the Warrior still glimmers brightly in the cold night sky.
III. The Land of Clocks
Termina was a land of balance and rhythm: for every up a down, for every tick a tock. The ocean depths countered the mountains' height; the swamp teemed with noisy life where the canyon sought to quiet it.
But maintaining balance necessitated conflict; the land and its people were too dynamic for it to be otherwise. Mortals waged their wars back and forth, calling upon divine influence to aid them in their struggles. Such cries eventually garnered the particular attention of a warrior god, and he descended into the mortal realm.
There, the people prostrated themselves before his fierce countenance, begging his aid. They beseeched him to slaughter their enemies such that they might emerge victorious from their conflicts. The god was angered by their cowardice; he instead turned his great blade on them, tearing apart their arms and their armies. From generals to foot soldiers he was near indiscriminate; he spared only those who faced him squarely, unafraid to die: those who possessed a true warrior's soul.
And when he was done with the armies he turned his back on them, leaving the survivors to their fates in favor of walking the land in which he found himself. Far and wide he traveled, searching out the homelands of those armies, determined to see if their people were as cowardly as their soldiers. In some places they were, and he razed entire towns to the ground. In other places the people were spared, their deliverance brought upon them by the young men who swallowed their fear and went out, ill-armed and inexperienced, to face the wandering god. He judged not strength of body, not keenness of skill, but rather that which could not be measured in physical quantities.
His journey took him several years, for even in that time Termina was large and his search was thorough. When finally it ended he returned to the land's center, to the great battlefield on which he had first descended. But that battlefield was no more: in its place stood a fledgling town, a crossroads built up by the survivors of the god's judgment, a place where the many peoples of the land came together, bonded by that which they had experienced. As the god approached the gates a legion of soldiers poured out of it: ones who remembered that first devastating battle, and how they had been spared his wrath. They clutched their weapons now, their hearts filled with the same determination they felt those years ago. Stories of the god's wanderings, of his seemingly fickle judgments against their homelands had reached their ears, and they were prepared to do what they could to protect the town they were starting to grow. They issued him a challenge as he neared the gates, united in their purpose and firm in their conviction.
The god laughed and gave his blessing to them and to their town, and bade them construct a large clock with which to mark the time; he would walk the land once more and return when a year had passed. On his return, as long as the town's residents retained their warrior souls, he would spare them as he had during that first great battle. The townspeople saw this as more than acceptable; they held a large celebration in honor of the event, one that grew into a festival that was repeated every year. The town itself grew as well, becoming large and diverse; of particular note was its corps of soldiers, men who held high standards of duty and honor and courage in the face of overwhelming odds.
The god's visits eventually slowed, becoming fewer and farther between as his duties elsewhere kept him away from the bustling town. On one day he came, going to each gate in turn and waiting for the soldiers to meet his challenge. He bade the four fiercest to come with him on his journey of the lands; they departed with the setting sun, and were not seen for nearly a decade.
When the god returned to the Town of the Clock, it was not with the four warriors; instead, he was accompanied by four Giants, mortals-made-demi-gods. He had changed those who had accompanied him, making them over into guardians of the four lands, training them and refining their skills, crafting for them new bodies, ones that would withstand the elements and the passage of time. He bade them to walk the four lands every year in his place, and to return to the town as he once had done, such that the people of all the lands would not forget the scouring he had once visited upon them. He gave to them an Oath, one by which the people of his town could call upon their strength.
The visits of the god and his demi-gods eventually fell into legend, and the legend fell into the dark mists of antiquity, the details fading from the minds of the people. What remained only was a half-forgotten promise in an Oath and the memory of a festival celebrating the hopes of the land for the year ahead.
IV. Time
In a time long since forgotten, the elder gods still walked the earth alongside the younger gods and the demi-gods. But the elder gods gradually grew tired, and their visits to realms outside their own became less frequent. Some of them began eventually to act strangely: the weight of their age or their responsibility -- or perhaps both -- wore on their souls.
The god Time was one so affected. From his room on high the ancient god kept watch on the ethereal river that is Time, which passes over and through the great Clock that he constructed to keep the river's course in the mortal realm. But Time, too, felt the unavoidable press of time. Whether he became bored with his duty or whether his mind became unbalanced, none could say. What is known is that days began to run backwards, or to speed up or slow down inappropriately. Entire weeks were skipped, months misplaced. Though the gods were unaffected by the occurrences, the mortals of the realm suffered. They cried out to the immortals, seeking salvation.
But many of the immortals did not heed the call, or chose to ignore it. Because they did not mark time as mortals do, they paid little heed to the small discrepancies of time. Their attention lay elsewhere: so embroiled were they in their own affairs, and their struggles amongst themselves -- and so powerful a god was Time -- that the cries of the mortals went largely unheeded.
In one land in particular there were two gods, a trickster and a warrior, who were friends and who loved the people of that land. It saddened them to see the people suffer, and to hear their cries. Where the other gods would not to aid the mortals, these two chose to act.
They traveled to and through the Sacred Realm, until they finally stood before the great door of Time. The door was barred: Time himself had locked the entry. Long they struggled to open the portal, using every trick and power at their disposal. Finally, under the assault of their muscle and magic, the golden doors broke asunder.
Time was livid at the invasion of his realm. He struck out at the intruders, both with his power and with his mighty glaive. A long battle was fought between the three gods and, though he was a formidable opponent, Time finally fell.
But the great Clock cannot run without its creator: none could take his place. The warrior clasped Time's hands in his own, enduring the flow of Time's power through his body as he forced the god back upon his own creation. The trickster bound him there, weaving cords of power tight about Time's body, fusing the great god until he became one with his Clock. Time's eyes and ears were bound, and his voice silenced; his mouth was left open to breathe in the flow of the ethereal river as it passed through the clock and through him.
The struggle was finally over; though victorious, the two gods were nearly at the end of their strength. They dragged themselves through the remains of the great golden doors and, knowing they could not leaven them unbound, lest someone free Time, the warrior raised up the doors once more. He fitted them into place, bending and twisting, sealing them not only with his own power but channeling too the remainder of Time's assault on his body. He collapsed soon after, his strength exhausted, fully expecting never to wake.
He did wake, however, in the land he and his friend so loved. The trickster had dragged the warrior through the Sacred Realm, back down to the mortal plane, to a glade in which they often spent their time. The warrior opened his eyes to find his wounds bound, his body cared for by his friend. But, though his friend tried, he could not reverse all of the effects of Time's power: forever after the warrior would bear Time's white hair, and the blank eyes of he who has seen through the ages.
V. The Fall
As the last of the eldest gods faded into the Void, the power of the Sacred Realm, the pantheon of the gods, began to grow unsteady without a guiding force. The elder gods, to whom the keeping of the realm and the mortal lands was given, had their own ideas of how to use the power that was their legacy; there was much disagreement, and struggles broke out.
There were two elder gods, friends, who walked the lands together. Of those lands, they loved Termina best; it is there that they spent most of their time, and its denizens came to accept the two gods. One was light-hearted; he best loved jokes and tricks and children's games. The other was his polar opposite: solemn and serious, he best loved battle, and the song of combat sang in his blood.
One friend came to the other, his normally cheerful features drawn and grim. He expressed his concern over the struggles of the other gods, saying how the clashing of such power was ultimately detrimental to the mortals who relied on said gods. Would it not be better, he argued, if someone was to take custody over the power of the Sacred Realm -- temporarily, of course -- to provide the stability the mortals so needed, until the time at which the gods could reach an agreement? The other god was unsure of the intelligence of this course of action, but as his friend spoke in ever more convincing tones, he agreed.
Together, they entered the Sacred Realm, intent on reaching the Chamber of the Gods. They slipped quietly passed battles when they could and fought when they could not. Eventually, they reached their goal. But when the warrior stepped forward to enter the chamber, his friend drew a knife and plunged it into his back.
The battle between the two was vicious, waged on the threshold of that sacred place. Around them the power of the Sacred Realm thrashed and roiled, stirred up by the conflict in its midst. Long they struggled back and forth until the warrior conquered his once-friend, holding his broken body aloft. He sought to end the other god's life; indeed, his mighty blade approached his throat. But power has a siren's song; it called to the warrior until he sought to punish the trickster instead. And what punishment could be greater than to imprison his very soul? The warrior mocked the trickster as he held him, using the power of the Sacred Realm to shape a mask of bright colors and wild designs, so reminiscent of the children for whom the trickster had once proclaimed such love. Then the warrior reached deep within the other god and snared his soul, and placed it within the mask so that he would suffer for all eternity.
That is when the Three Sisters found him.
They were dressed in their battle armor and carried their slim swords; truly, they were a fearsome sight. They sought to stop the warrior, but they were too late. Then they sought to free the trickster, but the warrior flung the mask away, using his great strength to cast it down to Termina. Without the presence of his soul, the trickster's body was quickly claimed by the whirling power around them, torn apart and scattered back into the Void.
The Sisters then sought to punish the warrior for his transgression. His strength had been great enough to seal the soul of another of the elder gods; truly they feared what he might do with the power of the Sacred Realm at his disposal. Then met him with steel and more than steel, and the battle was fierce.
In the end, the Sisters triumphed; wearied already by his battle with the trickster, wounded by the knife still in his back, the warrior was not equal to the task of meeting them head-on. There were tears in the eyes of she who is wisest, yet there was no hesitance as her blade plunged through enchanted armor; she pressed forward until the hilt lay flush against the warrior's chest. He gasped, and tried to pull the blade back out, but her sisters held it with her and, weakened, he could not fight their grip.
As punishment, they fashioned for him his own mask, as he had done to his friend, and into it they sealed his soul. But first they reached into his soul and ripped away every shred of his identity, every bit of who he was. They left nothing, not even his name -- nothing but that which was the God-Warrior.
VI. The Mask
It was a darkness nearly as deep as the Void, a thick, empty nothingness. It pressed in on all sides, suffocating, consuming, ripping and tearing at a soul set adrift. The god roared as the magic of the Sisters lanced into him, ripping apart his soul and casting fragments into the Void; fight it as he tried, he could not overcome the sealing magic of the sword in his breast. He reached out for his memories as they were ripped from him, but he was as if chained, unable to fight the intentions of his captors. They forced him to his knees, standing above him with their cruel, cold beauty; they spoke of justice and mercy and how he forced them to do what they did for the so-called good of all.
Then the blackness calmed and quieted, slipping tighter about him as the sword was drawn out agonizingly slowly, blanking out his vision and choking off his voice. His body fell -- he felt muscles give way -- but no impact with the ground followed; instead there was only pain -- great pain and the sense of falling forever.
He did not know how long he fell; there was no sense of time save the never-ending blackness of forever. Eventually the fall slowed to a state of drifting: he was neither falling nor standing, and his form, such as it was, was simultaneously incorporeal and solid. He was there and yet not there -- wherever 'there' was -- alone in the emptiness.
Then out of the darkness, a presence that was as a light: a mind, a soul, a person. The god blinked curiously -- then realized that he had, in fact, blinked. His vision was filled no longer with expansive blackness, but the interior of some sort of tent. Then his hand flexed, arm rising to bring the appendage into his line of sight, but the movement was not his own. He became aware then of a voice, one that laughed and raved euphorically about the power that was his to command. That voice was inside his head.
Or, more accurately, it was he who was inside another's head. The blackness was the imprisonment of the mask into which he had been cursed; sudden awareness came because someone had found his mask and put it on.
Someone meant to use him.
The god roared, reaching out to the mind of the host body, wresting control away form the mortal. The man sought to fight him, but none could stand to the power of the God-Warrior: his mind was crushed in the onslaught, body falling lifelessly to the floor. The mask clattered to the ground next to him, and the god's soul fell into darkness once more.
The god was more careful the next time he felt another mind brush his own and his body reawaken through the magic of the mask. He seized the mind, subduing and crushing it, but not so badly that the host body died from the shock. It was thus that he went forth, using the mortal's body as an outlet for the rage he felt for his current state. Fierce was he, fiercer than any warrior encountered by mortals in a very long time; many fell before his twisted blade. His rampage continued until the host body gave out, pushed well beyond its means by the god's will alone. When finally it collapsed his soul fell into darkness as it had the first time, and in that blackness he waited for the next host to come along.
It was thus that stories started to grow, whispers in the dark of a mask possessing a great, deadly power. As with all fireside tales it came with the doubts of the ones telling it, as none who had seen the great god-figure in action would willingly weave tales of his might. The stories themselves passed into the realm of the forgotten: too fearsome for most to think on, save in hushed whispers of strange power surfacing in a far-off corner of the land.
VII. The Child
Note: For a technical overview of the storyline, please refer to the Majora's Mask article on ZeldaWiki.org. The following account is my own personal interpretation of events, and blurs the line between game and manga canon.
The powers of masks were many and varied: from the simplest of creations to those elaborately embellished, the people of Termina treated each and every mask with reverence. They became masterful crafters of masks, imbuing them with great powers. They drew on the magic of the very land itself, for the god who had first created Termina was fond of masquerades and disguises and things that were not what they seemed. As such, masks in Termina were more than simple facial coverings, and each mask was treated with reverence for the power it might hold.
There was one mask that held the soul of a powerful trickster: the god known as Majora. He had been sealed into his prison by his greatest friend, the warrior god whom he had ultimately betrayed. His soul had been ripped from his body and bound in to the magical artifact, cast down into the land of masks and lost to the passage of time.
It resurfaced now and again, as did the mask of the warrior god, but never long enough to cause a significant amount of trouble: neither deity's host managed to live long enough for that. Eventually Majora's mask was caught up by a curious man, one who collected masks with strange powers. The Mask Man smiled, for masks brought him great happiness, and this mask was surely the crowning piece of his collection. The mask itself whispered to him, promising him great things if he would but put it on, but the man simply smiled his mysterious smile and laughed his unusual laugh and ignored its whisperings with a strength of will that should not have been possible for a normal mortal.
So Majora planned and schemed to get away from the man who he could not tempt to put on his mask; he used his magic to trick a Skull Kid into stealing his mask and putting it on. He quickly subdued the meek consciousness of the Skull Kid -- he did not crush it this time, for that would kill his host -- and set about enchanting the moon to fall upon Termina and bathe it in destruction.
By accident or fate, a young hero from another realm -- aided by one of the Skull Kid's fairy friends -- set out to stop the destruction of the land by using a magical artifact to relive the three days leading up to the moon's fall over and over again. He freed the four giants -- the demi-gods created by the warrior god, into whose hands the safeguarding of Termina had been given -- who had been trapped by the trickster Majora. On the final day those demi-gods answered the call of the hero as they had once answered the call of the warrior god, catching the sinister moon before it could crash to the ground. Their strength saved Termina, and the people rejoiced -- all save Majora who, infuriated, went into the moon, taunting the young hero to follow him.
The hero -- Link -- did follow the trickster god, entering the sinister moon itself. Therein he dispatched the four child-guardians, playing their 'games' so that he could gain passage to where Majora waited. The battle with Majora was fierce; Link, vastly outclassed and knowing he was about to die, put on one final mask, one that had been in the possession of Majora: the mask of the Fierce Deity.
The god's consciousness roared to life in Link's head, and immediately sought to wrest control from him as he had so many other hosts. Link fought him, putting up a fight much stronger than any mortal the god had ever encountered. Ultimately the hero yielded control -- not entirely of his own volition but not entirely of the god's, either -- and the magic took hold. Link's body was transformed into that of the Fierce Deity, and the god roared and met the attack of his rival.
The battle was fierce; a battle between gods could be nothing but. Though Majora used all its many tricks, he was still no match for the Fierce Deity's strength or his anger; the trickster god fell, bleeding, on the Helix Blade. The multi-tentacled form faded, leaving behind nothing but the colorful mask -- and the soft laughter of the Mask Man, come to claim his prize once more. The god, angered at the troublemaker and how his inattentiveness had almost destroyed Termina, lashed out with his blade once more, rending Majora's mask in twain -- but the Mask Man, pieces in hand, magically faded from sight before the god could move to reclaim then.
At that moment, the hand not holding his great blade raised, tracing along the side of his face for the edge of the mask. The god balked, but he was tired from the fight and Link's will was strong; darkness swirled around him as the mask was pulled off.
But he did not descend into the deep black nothing of his imprisonment, instead waking to find himself in a new place entirely.
Abilities:
The Fierce Deity is a god of war; his prowess in battle is suitably advanced. He is likewise stronger and faster than a mortal -- though his speed is hampered by the weight of his armor and blade. Said blade can be wielded in either one hand or two; when using one, he has a preference for his left. Canon shows that he can launch bands of energy from his sword; the mun interprets this as an ability to gather energy and focus it through the Helix Blade in order to aim it. Additionally, he does not scar; his body heals wounds extremely quickly, to the point that even a serious wound would be mostly, if not completely, gone within a day.
That being said, his abilities will be toned down for life in the apartments. Also please note that the mun prefers not to thread battles with this character, simply because he should, canonly-speaking, be able to crush almost anything that challenges him. As this is not fun for either party, I feel it is best if it is just avoided.
Biggest Fear:
The Fierce Deity would never admit it, but his biggest fear would be to be sealed into a mask once again.
Samples:
Third Person
First Person
IC vs OOC Knowledge:
The Fierce Deity is a god, but he does not go around broadcasting the fact. Characters are perfectly welcome to notice that there is something different about him -- his appearance, if nothing else, should give that away -- but he does keep the truth of his identity a carefully guarded secret. As such, he will flat-out deny any accusations that he is anything more than what he appears: a warrior, albeit a powerful one. He will give neither name nor title unless pressed; even then, he will usually ask that he simply be called "Warrior" (or, sometimes, "Wanderer").
His history is presented here out of a desire to share the story that the mun has created for him; it is not meant as an invitation for characters to have intimate knowledge of his entire life. In fact, the mun would ask that characters interacting with him have knowledge only of what he has told them, which may be, and probably is, less than what is presented here.
Note too that the mun will often write "the god" or "the Fierce Deity" in reference to the character in the narrative part of the tag; this is merely for variety of prose, and not because a character has magically been granted the knowledge of who and what the Fierce Deity is.
Mun Preferences:
With this character in particular my preference is for serious log-style posts and threads that are heavy on serious -- and oftentimes dark -- themes. I enjoy not having to censor the god's personality and allowing him to be the bastard he very much is. I define a sharp difference in "lighthearted" threads and "crack" threads; the former I will do while the latter I avoid with this character. I welcome questions about my characterization and preferences; they can be directed to this post.
1Clothing coloration is based off of the blues and blue-greys of the official artwork, rather than the white and blacks of the game itself.
2Headcanon is the brainchild of the mun,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sometimesamuse. While the characters belong to Nintendo, original elements belong to her.
Game Canon: Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
Age: appears as an adult male in his mid-twenties; actual age is several millennia
Gender: male
Species: god; appears Terminian/Hylian
Height: 7'6" / 230 cm [this is smaller than an estimation based on extrapolation from screenshots and done deliberately with the intent of making him able to physically fit inside a room/building with a standard 8-foot ceiling]
Weight: the mun has tried to figure this out, but as his height is unrealistic (on purpose), it has been difficult to come up with a number for his weight. Suffice it to say the number would be proportional to both his height and body type.
Build: heavily muscled
Skintone: fair, perhaps unnaturally so; he will not take on color under the sun's influence
Hair: silvery-white
Eyes: completely, blankly white
Appearance:
The most striking thing about the Fierce Deity is his eyes: white on white on white, he appears to have no pupil or iris, though his sight is not in any way impaired. He is fair-skinned, with silvery-white hair, though he does not appear old. His hair parts in the middle, bangs falling around either side of his face. The rest of his hair sweeps behind pointed ears to hide in the confines of his hat; were he to remove the hat his hair would fall just below the line of his shoulders, long enough to be tied back in a ponytail if he chose. His face is marked by red and blue tattoos above his eyes and on his cheeks and forehead. His body is free of scars, save one: it is left of center on his chest, with a complementary scar on his back; it appears to be from a blade that was thrust straight through his body. Despite his number of battles, and wounds obtained, this scar is the only one marring his body; if questioned, he will refuse to talk about it. He stands tall, easily head and shoulders -- if not more -- above others. He is heavily muscled, able to wield his large sword one-handed when necessary.
He is clothed in ancient armor: his ornate breastplate and gauntlets are heavy, and have seen much use. The gauntlets cover from forearm to fingers; the fingers themselves are exposed from the second joint to the tips. His other clothing consists of a close-fitting dark blue shirt and pants, over which he wears a light blue-grey tunic. The tunic falls to his mid-thigh. His hat, matched in color to his tunic, is triangular in shape, almost reminiscent of a stocking-cap; he wears it on the crown of his head such that his bangs are exposed while the rest of his hair is confined. The body of the hat hangs down his back, the point resting just below his waist. His boots are heavy, and made of brown leather; they cover most of his calves but do not quite reach his knees. The tops of the boots are turned over as cuffs; a gold buckle at the upper edge fastens each one.1
He is armed with the Helix Blade. The sword is easily as long as he is tall. Its metal is strange: one side of the helix shimmers green, the other blue. The hilt is simple, bearing no decoration; there is no cross-guard.
Reference image can be viewed here.
Personality:
Initially, upon his freedom of the confinement of the mask, the Fierce Deity lived to sate his bloodlust: battle is an intrinsic part of who he is, and to fight -- to answer the blood's call, or hear the blood's song, as he would say -- is something he not only enjoys, but must do. He cannot deny what he is: the God-Warrior. Blood is both necessary and pleasing to him: there is an aspect of hunger to the blood's song; it is a desire he must periodically sate. That being said, he is not a senseless killing machine: he will not engage a weaker opponent merely for the sake of slaughter, though he will slaughter hordes of monsters or other foul beasts to sate his hunger. He is very much aware of the distinction between human (or Terminian, or Hylian, or what have you) and monster; he is aware, too, that foul beasts may sometimes wear fair skin.
Though his initial bloodlust on being freed from the mask has cooled, he can still be considered a chaotic force, but he is not truly "evil." Likewise, he is not "good" either. He has his own motivations, which he seldom -- if ever -- shares with others, but are mostly centered on gathering as much information of the world about him -- a world which is greatly changed from what he remembers from his time before his imprisonment.
His social graces are poor: he has no need for, or desire to engage in, small talk or polite, idle conversation. His voice is often as steady as his expression, and he does not waste words where he feels they are unnecessary. His speech patterns are formal. He often comes across as rude, cold or distant; most often it is that he is simply uncaring, as that which concerns mortals is of little consequence to a god. It takes a long time for him to want to talk, willingly, to others -- unless he has taken a particular interest in the person to whom he is talking, in which case he has near-inexhaustible patience. The pursuit and obtaining of knowledge is, for now, his primary goal in Hyrule; he will willingly interact with those who might have something to offer him in this area, and will often brush off those who do not.
There are a few people with whom he has what could almost be called a friendship. Most notably they are those with whom he has fought, either alongside or against. He feels that in battle, one proves more than one's fighting prowess. At the same time, it is to be noted that he believes not all battles are fought with the sword.
He interacts much better with younger people (children) than he does with adults. This is heavily related to the fact that his mask was last used by Link: the Hero was neither child nor adult, but the latter trapped in the body of the former, his innocence stolen away and the weight of saving two worlds on his shoulders. There is also the inherent innocence that a child possesses, which is something he will never have. As such, he is sometimes willing to talk and spend time with children, where he would shun similar company from adults.
Biography2:
I. The Beginning
In the time before time, the gods came together, formed from the chaos of the universe. It was simultaneously sudden and gradual, quiet and loud, soft and harsh, opposites coexisting before order reigned. Yet order did come out of the mess, pieces falling into place, and the eldest gods awoke.
It is they who brought order to the rest of the chaos; they crafted the worlds, the playthings of the gods, placing them in the heavens, making for them sun and moon and stars. They gave life unto the worlds, land and water and green growing things. They created a rhythm, a flow of night and day, a changing of seasons. And, after all their work, they were tired. So they breathed life into their children, the elder gods, and gave to them the keeping of their creations. Then the eldest gods faded back into the Void, into the chaos from which they had taken form.
For a while, the elder gods were content to play with the creations of their parents. But they eventually grew bored; they desired their own playthings, their own creations: things that they could nurture, and watch grow; things with which they could amuse themselves. So they, like the eldest gods before them, dabbled in the chaos, drawing it together, crafting from it things both beautiful and terrible. They did not know to give their creations boundaries; those creations rose, larger and greater, until they could threaten the gods themselves. Thus ensued a great struggle, immortal fighting against immortal creation. Battles raged, and the tide of their war flowed back and forth. Finally, the elder gods did triumph, but the cost was high: the will of their creations was as great as their own. Destruction was the only solution, but the immortal creation of an immortal hand cannot be fully destroyed, and the pieces could not be left, lest they reassemble themselves. The elder Gods thought and argued and debated, until a solution was reached: each god took into himself the core of his creation, and made it a part of his divine self; their creations could never be made whole again without these critical pieces. Then each god sought to craft what he could from the remainder of his creation. Some chose to scatter the pieces among the myriad worlds, others were used to create the foundations of the Sacred Realm. Some were cast into the heavens, to reside among the stars. The last of the pieces were cast into the Void, to fall where they may.
II. The Creation
As their parents before them, the elder gods were also craftsmen, creating for themselves that which they desired. Those who loved music crafted heavenly instruments, those who loved words created whole languages, those who preferred the work of their hands shaped the very earth. And those who preferred the art of battle created weapons most fearsome; it is said that the clash from their sparring was as thunder, the sparks from their blades the lightning that rent the sky.
And of those particular warriors, there was one who proved himself fiercer than all the rest. He loved battle and the thrill of the fight; his blood sang with every clash of blades. He rose above all other warriors as a fearsome opponent, the mightiest warrior of the elder gods; some even thought him powerful enough to challenge the eldest gods, the ones who had created everything out of the Void. He did not challenge them, but he wished for an opponent worthy of his blade, one that could provide him the sort of battle for which his blood sang.
He searched far and wide, both in the realms of the gods and those of the mortals, learning and observing. He was challenged by some, and others he challenged, taking from each encounter knowledge and fitting it into his vision of a whole. Then, when he finally felt he had learned what he could, he returned to the place where he had forged his great twisted blade.
He worked for a long time -- long even by immortal standards -- crafting and shaping, molding individual elements into the whole that he desired. When finally he was finished, he breathed life into his creation, and the armored figure opened its eyes. The god called it Warrior and pressed a blade into its hands; it sprung from its table and challenged him. He laughed and met its attack with his own sword; the god was pleased to have created an opponent worthy of his blade.
The two were near inseparable; the god took his creation with him when he wandered the realms, showing him all the varied lands. And always they fought, steel for steel; the sight of the two great warriors sparring was said to be both wonderful and terrible. The god was pleased: in his creation, he found his desire for battle filled most satisfactorily.
But when the creations of the other gods rose up to challenge their creators, the Warrior sided with them and challenged its maker as well. The god was both enraged and saddened that his creation had so turned against him; their clash was fierce. The battle raged on a long time; the creation had learned many of its creator's skills. But the god was still the master; his knowledge of battle was old and deep. His creation ultimately fell by his hand.
He unmade it, as all the gods did with their own creations; unmade it and cast its great blade deep into the earth, where it would forever be beyond the reach of others. Then the god removed its core, taking that vital piece and placing it deep within himself. The remaining shell he cast to the heavens, to rest among the stars; the constellation named for the Warrior still glimmers brightly in the cold night sky.
III. The Land of Clocks
Termina was a land of balance and rhythm: for every up a down, for every tick a tock. The ocean depths countered the mountains' height; the swamp teemed with noisy life where the canyon sought to quiet it.
But maintaining balance necessitated conflict; the land and its people were too dynamic for it to be otherwise. Mortals waged their wars back and forth, calling upon divine influence to aid them in their struggles. Such cries eventually garnered the particular attention of a warrior god, and he descended into the mortal realm.
There, the people prostrated themselves before his fierce countenance, begging his aid. They beseeched him to slaughter their enemies such that they might emerge victorious from their conflicts. The god was angered by their cowardice; he instead turned his great blade on them, tearing apart their arms and their armies. From generals to foot soldiers he was near indiscriminate; he spared only those who faced him squarely, unafraid to die: those who possessed a true warrior's soul.
And when he was done with the armies he turned his back on them, leaving the survivors to their fates in favor of walking the land in which he found himself. Far and wide he traveled, searching out the homelands of those armies, determined to see if their people were as cowardly as their soldiers. In some places they were, and he razed entire towns to the ground. In other places the people were spared, their deliverance brought upon them by the young men who swallowed their fear and went out, ill-armed and inexperienced, to face the wandering god. He judged not strength of body, not keenness of skill, but rather that which could not be measured in physical quantities.
His journey took him several years, for even in that time Termina was large and his search was thorough. When finally it ended he returned to the land's center, to the great battlefield on which he had first descended. But that battlefield was no more: in its place stood a fledgling town, a crossroads built up by the survivors of the god's judgment, a place where the many peoples of the land came together, bonded by that which they had experienced. As the god approached the gates a legion of soldiers poured out of it: ones who remembered that first devastating battle, and how they had been spared his wrath. They clutched their weapons now, their hearts filled with the same determination they felt those years ago. Stories of the god's wanderings, of his seemingly fickle judgments against their homelands had reached their ears, and they were prepared to do what they could to protect the town they were starting to grow. They issued him a challenge as he neared the gates, united in their purpose and firm in their conviction.
The god laughed and gave his blessing to them and to their town, and bade them construct a large clock with which to mark the time; he would walk the land once more and return when a year had passed. On his return, as long as the town's residents retained their warrior souls, he would spare them as he had during that first great battle. The townspeople saw this as more than acceptable; they held a large celebration in honor of the event, one that grew into a festival that was repeated every year. The town itself grew as well, becoming large and diverse; of particular note was its corps of soldiers, men who held high standards of duty and honor and courage in the face of overwhelming odds.
The god's visits eventually slowed, becoming fewer and farther between as his duties elsewhere kept him away from the bustling town. On one day he came, going to each gate in turn and waiting for the soldiers to meet his challenge. He bade the four fiercest to come with him on his journey of the lands; they departed with the setting sun, and were not seen for nearly a decade.
When the god returned to the Town of the Clock, it was not with the four warriors; instead, he was accompanied by four Giants, mortals-made-demi-gods. He had changed those who had accompanied him, making them over into guardians of the four lands, training them and refining their skills, crafting for them new bodies, ones that would withstand the elements and the passage of time. He bade them to walk the four lands every year in his place, and to return to the town as he once had done, such that the people of all the lands would not forget the scouring he had once visited upon them. He gave to them an Oath, one by which the people of his town could call upon their strength.
The visits of the god and his demi-gods eventually fell into legend, and the legend fell into the dark mists of antiquity, the details fading from the minds of the people. What remained only was a half-forgotten promise in an Oath and the memory of a festival celebrating the hopes of the land for the year ahead.
IV. Time
In a time long since forgotten, the elder gods still walked the earth alongside the younger gods and the demi-gods. But the elder gods gradually grew tired, and their visits to realms outside their own became less frequent. Some of them began eventually to act strangely: the weight of their age or their responsibility -- or perhaps both -- wore on their souls.
The god Time was one so affected. From his room on high the ancient god kept watch on the ethereal river that is Time, which passes over and through the great Clock that he constructed to keep the river's course in the mortal realm. But Time, too, felt the unavoidable press of time. Whether he became bored with his duty or whether his mind became unbalanced, none could say. What is known is that days began to run backwards, or to speed up or slow down inappropriately. Entire weeks were skipped, months misplaced. Though the gods were unaffected by the occurrences, the mortals of the realm suffered. They cried out to the immortals, seeking salvation.
But many of the immortals did not heed the call, or chose to ignore it. Because they did not mark time as mortals do, they paid little heed to the small discrepancies of time. Their attention lay elsewhere: so embroiled were they in their own affairs, and their struggles amongst themselves -- and so powerful a god was Time -- that the cries of the mortals went largely unheeded.
In one land in particular there were two gods, a trickster and a warrior, who were friends and who loved the people of that land. It saddened them to see the people suffer, and to hear their cries. Where the other gods would not to aid the mortals, these two chose to act.
They traveled to and through the Sacred Realm, until they finally stood before the great door of Time. The door was barred: Time himself had locked the entry. Long they struggled to open the portal, using every trick and power at their disposal. Finally, under the assault of their muscle and magic, the golden doors broke asunder.
Time was livid at the invasion of his realm. He struck out at the intruders, both with his power and with his mighty glaive. A long battle was fought between the three gods and, though he was a formidable opponent, Time finally fell.
But the great Clock cannot run without its creator: none could take his place. The warrior clasped Time's hands in his own, enduring the flow of Time's power through his body as he forced the god back upon his own creation. The trickster bound him there, weaving cords of power tight about Time's body, fusing the great god until he became one with his Clock. Time's eyes and ears were bound, and his voice silenced; his mouth was left open to breathe in the flow of the ethereal river as it passed through the clock and through him.
The struggle was finally over; though victorious, the two gods were nearly at the end of their strength. They dragged themselves through the remains of the great golden doors and, knowing they could not leaven them unbound, lest someone free Time, the warrior raised up the doors once more. He fitted them into place, bending and twisting, sealing them not only with his own power but channeling too the remainder of Time's assault on his body. He collapsed soon after, his strength exhausted, fully expecting never to wake.
He did wake, however, in the land he and his friend so loved. The trickster had dragged the warrior through the Sacred Realm, back down to the mortal plane, to a glade in which they often spent their time. The warrior opened his eyes to find his wounds bound, his body cared for by his friend. But, though his friend tried, he could not reverse all of the effects of Time's power: forever after the warrior would bear Time's white hair, and the blank eyes of he who has seen through the ages.
V. The Fall
As the last of the eldest gods faded into the Void, the power of the Sacred Realm, the pantheon of the gods, began to grow unsteady without a guiding force. The elder gods, to whom the keeping of the realm and the mortal lands was given, had their own ideas of how to use the power that was their legacy; there was much disagreement, and struggles broke out.
There were two elder gods, friends, who walked the lands together. Of those lands, they loved Termina best; it is there that they spent most of their time, and its denizens came to accept the two gods. One was light-hearted; he best loved jokes and tricks and children's games. The other was his polar opposite: solemn and serious, he best loved battle, and the song of combat sang in his blood.
One friend came to the other, his normally cheerful features drawn and grim. He expressed his concern over the struggles of the other gods, saying how the clashing of such power was ultimately detrimental to the mortals who relied on said gods. Would it not be better, he argued, if someone was to take custody over the power of the Sacred Realm -- temporarily, of course -- to provide the stability the mortals so needed, until the time at which the gods could reach an agreement? The other god was unsure of the intelligence of this course of action, but as his friend spoke in ever more convincing tones, he agreed.
Together, they entered the Sacred Realm, intent on reaching the Chamber of the Gods. They slipped quietly passed battles when they could and fought when they could not. Eventually, they reached their goal. But when the warrior stepped forward to enter the chamber, his friend drew a knife and plunged it into his back.
The battle between the two was vicious, waged on the threshold of that sacred place. Around them the power of the Sacred Realm thrashed and roiled, stirred up by the conflict in its midst. Long they struggled back and forth until the warrior conquered his once-friend, holding his broken body aloft. He sought to end the other god's life; indeed, his mighty blade approached his throat. But power has a siren's song; it called to the warrior until he sought to punish the trickster instead. And what punishment could be greater than to imprison his very soul? The warrior mocked the trickster as he held him, using the power of the Sacred Realm to shape a mask of bright colors and wild designs, so reminiscent of the children for whom the trickster had once proclaimed such love. Then the warrior reached deep within the other god and snared his soul, and placed it within the mask so that he would suffer for all eternity.
That is when the Three Sisters found him.
They were dressed in their battle armor and carried their slim swords; truly, they were a fearsome sight. They sought to stop the warrior, but they were too late. Then they sought to free the trickster, but the warrior flung the mask away, using his great strength to cast it down to Termina. Without the presence of his soul, the trickster's body was quickly claimed by the whirling power around them, torn apart and scattered back into the Void.
The Sisters then sought to punish the warrior for his transgression. His strength had been great enough to seal the soul of another of the elder gods; truly they feared what he might do with the power of the Sacred Realm at his disposal. Then met him with steel and more than steel, and the battle was fierce.
In the end, the Sisters triumphed; wearied already by his battle with the trickster, wounded by the knife still in his back, the warrior was not equal to the task of meeting them head-on. There were tears in the eyes of she who is wisest, yet there was no hesitance as her blade plunged through enchanted armor; she pressed forward until the hilt lay flush against the warrior's chest. He gasped, and tried to pull the blade back out, but her sisters held it with her and, weakened, he could not fight their grip.
As punishment, they fashioned for him his own mask, as he had done to his friend, and into it they sealed his soul. But first they reached into his soul and ripped away every shred of his identity, every bit of who he was. They left nothing, not even his name -- nothing but that which was the God-Warrior.
VI. The Mask
It was a darkness nearly as deep as the Void, a thick, empty nothingness. It pressed in on all sides, suffocating, consuming, ripping and tearing at a soul set adrift. The god roared as the magic of the Sisters lanced into him, ripping apart his soul and casting fragments into the Void; fight it as he tried, he could not overcome the sealing magic of the sword in his breast. He reached out for his memories as they were ripped from him, but he was as if chained, unable to fight the intentions of his captors. They forced him to his knees, standing above him with their cruel, cold beauty; they spoke of justice and mercy and how he forced them to do what they did for the so-called good of all.
Then the blackness calmed and quieted, slipping tighter about him as the sword was drawn out agonizingly slowly, blanking out his vision and choking off his voice. His body fell -- he felt muscles give way -- but no impact with the ground followed; instead there was only pain -- great pain and the sense of falling forever.
He did not know how long he fell; there was no sense of time save the never-ending blackness of forever. Eventually the fall slowed to a state of drifting: he was neither falling nor standing, and his form, such as it was, was simultaneously incorporeal and solid. He was there and yet not there -- wherever 'there' was -- alone in the emptiness.
Then out of the darkness, a presence that was as a light: a mind, a soul, a person. The god blinked curiously -- then realized that he had, in fact, blinked. His vision was filled no longer with expansive blackness, but the interior of some sort of tent. Then his hand flexed, arm rising to bring the appendage into his line of sight, but the movement was not his own. He became aware then of a voice, one that laughed and raved euphorically about the power that was his to command. That voice was inside his head.
Or, more accurately, it was he who was inside another's head. The blackness was the imprisonment of the mask into which he had been cursed; sudden awareness came because someone had found his mask and put it on.
Someone meant to use him.
The god roared, reaching out to the mind of the host body, wresting control away form the mortal. The man sought to fight him, but none could stand to the power of the God-Warrior: his mind was crushed in the onslaught, body falling lifelessly to the floor. The mask clattered to the ground next to him, and the god's soul fell into darkness once more.
The god was more careful the next time he felt another mind brush his own and his body reawaken through the magic of the mask. He seized the mind, subduing and crushing it, but not so badly that the host body died from the shock. It was thus that he went forth, using the mortal's body as an outlet for the rage he felt for his current state. Fierce was he, fiercer than any warrior encountered by mortals in a very long time; many fell before his twisted blade. His rampage continued until the host body gave out, pushed well beyond its means by the god's will alone. When finally it collapsed his soul fell into darkness as it had the first time, and in that blackness he waited for the next host to come along.
It was thus that stories started to grow, whispers in the dark of a mask possessing a great, deadly power. As with all fireside tales it came with the doubts of the ones telling it, as none who had seen the great god-figure in action would willingly weave tales of his might. The stories themselves passed into the realm of the forgotten: too fearsome for most to think on, save in hushed whispers of strange power surfacing in a far-off corner of the land.
VII. The Child
Note: For a technical overview of the storyline, please refer to the Majora's Mask article on ZeldaWiki.org. The following account is my own personal interpretation of events, and blurs the line between game and manga canon.
The powers of masks were many and varied: from the simplest of creations to those elaborately embellished, the people of Termina treated each and every mask with reverence. They became masterful crafters of masks, imbuing them with great powers. They drew on the magic of the very land itself, for the god who had first created Termina was fond of masquerades and disguises and things that were not what they seemed. As such, masks in Termina were more than simple facial coverings, and each mask was treated with reverence for the power it might hold.
There was one mask that held the soul of a powerful trickster: the god known as Majora. He had been sealed into his prison by his greatest friend, the warrior god whom he had ultimately betrayed. His soul had been ripped from his body and bound in to the magical artifact, cast down into the land of masks and lost to the passage of time.
It resurfaced now and again, as did the mask of the warrior god, but never long enough to cause a significant amount of trouble: neither deity's host managed to live long enough for that. Eventually Majora's mask was caught up by a curious man, one who collected masks with strange powers. The Mask Man smiled, for masks brought him great happiness, and this mask was surely the crowning piece of his collection. The mask itself whispered to him, promising him great things if he would but put it on, but the man simply smiled his mysterious smile and laughed his unusual laugh and ignored its whisperings with a strength of will that should not have been possible for a normal mortal.
So Majora planned and schemed to get away from the man who he could not tempt to put on his mask; he used his magic to trick a Skull Kid into stealing his mask and putting it on. He quickly subdued the meek consciousness of the Skull Kid -- he did not crush it this time, for that would kill his host -- and set about enchanting the moon to fall upon Termina and bathe it in destruction.
By accident or fate, a young hero from another realm -- aided by one of the Skull Kid's fairy friends -- set out to stop the destruction of the land by using a magical artifact to relive the three days leading up to the moon's fall over and over again. He freed the four giants -- the demi-gods created by the warrior god, into whose hands the safeguarding of Termina had been given -- who had been trapped by the trickster Majora. On the final day those demi-gods answered the call of the hero as they had once answered the call of the warrior god, catching the sinister moon before it could crash to the ground. Their strength saved Termina, and the people rejoiced -- all save Majora who, infuriated, went into the moon, taunting the young hero to follow him.
The hero -- Link -- did follow the trickster god, entering the sinister moon itself. Therein he dispatched the four child-guardians, playing their 'games' so that he could gain passage to where Majora waited. The battle with Majora was fierce; Link, vastly outclassed and knowing he was about to die, put on one final mask, one that had been in the possession of Majora: the mask of the Fierce Deity.
The god's consciousness roared to life in Link's head, and immediately sought to wrest control from him as he had so many other hosts. Link fought him, putting up a fight much stronger than any mortal the god had ever encountered. Ultimately the hero yielded control -- not entirely of his own volition but not entirely of the god's, either -- and the magic took hold. Link's body was transformed into that of the Fierce Deity, and the god roared and met the attack of his rival.
The battle was fierce; a battle between gods could be nothing but. Though Majora used all its many tricks, he was still no match for the Fierce Deity's strength or his anger; the trickster god fell, bleeding, on the Helix Blade. The multi-tentacled form faded, leaving behind nothing but the colorful mask -- and the soft laughter of the Mask Man, come to claim his prize once more. The god, angered at the troublemaker and how his inattentiveness had almost destroyed Termina, lashed out with his blade once more, rending Majora's mask in twain -- but the Mask Man, pieces in hand, magically faded from sight before the god could move to reclaim then.
At that moment, the hand not holding his great blade raised, tracing along the side of his face for the edge of the mask. The god balked, but he was tired from the fight and Link's will was strong; darkness swirled around him as the mask was pulled off.
But he did not descend into the deep black nothing of his imprisonment, instead waking to find himself in a new place entirely.
Abilities:
The Fierce Deity is a god of war; his prowess in battle is suitably advanced. He is likewise stronger and faster than a mortal -- though his speed is hampered by the weight of his armor and blade. Said blade can be wielded in either one hand or two; when using one, he has a preference for his left. Canon shows that he can launch bands of energy from his sword; the mun interprets this as an ability to gather energy and focus it through the Helix Blade in order to aim it. Additionally, he does not scar; his body heals wounds extremely quickly, to the point that even a serious wound would be mostly, if not completely, gone within a day.
That being said, his abilities will be toned down for life in the apartments. Also please note that the mun prefers not to thread battles with this character, simply because he should, canonly-speaking, be able to crush almost anything that challenges him. As this is not fun for either party, I feel it is best if it is just avoided.
Biggest Fear:
The Fierce Deity would never admit it, but his biggest fear would be to be sealed into a mask once again.
Samples:
Third Person
The first unusual thing that the god noticed was that his eyes were closed, a strange thing indeed for a being who did not require sleep as mortals do. He opened his eyes, sitting up -- the second unusual occurrence was finding himself reclining on a bed -- and spitting out the third unusual occurrence, which was small and hard and tasted of cinnamon. He found himself in a room, one that was unknown to him.
He stood, hand wrapping around the hilt of the Helix Blade as he looked about at his surroundings. Nothing resembled Terminian tendencies in design or décor; nothing resembled much of anything with which he was familiar. Even the presences he could sense around himself -- ephemeral things, drifting and flitting about -- did not have the feel of the shades of Ikana, though the aura of malice they projected was palpable even without concentrating on it.
His free hand slid to his cheek, then back toward his ear, carefully searching. But the seam that marked the edge of the mask was not there, nor was there another consciousness within his mind. The last thing he remembered was the fall of Majora, and the removal of the mask. But the mask was not here, and he had not fallen into the deep emptiness that marked his imprisonment.
The god smiled then; the expression was fierce. A single word fell from his lips, at once great and terrible.
"Freedom."
First Person
[The communicator clicks on, picking up idle noises: the creaking of leather, the scrape of metal, the sound of steady footsteps and, eventually, a voice. The speaker does not appear to know the device is even on; the voice rises and falls in volume as its source moves into and out of the range of the microphone.]
...place does not have the feel of Clock Town. Perhaps that trickster cast one final magic.
No, his taint is not here. Something else, perhaps...
[The voice wanders out of range, and a moment later the feed clicks off.]
IC vs OOC Knowledge:
The Fierce Deity is a god, but he does not go around broadcasting the fact. Characters are perfectly welcome to notice that there is something different about him -- his appearance, if nothing else, should give that away -- but he does keep the truth of his identity a carefully guarded secret. As such, he will flat-out deny any accusations that he is anything more than what he appears: a warrior, albeit a powerful one. He will give neither name nor title unless pressed; even then, he will usually ask that he simply be called "Warrior" (or, sometimes, "Wanderer").
His history is presented here out of a desire to share the story that the mun has created for him; it is not meant as an invitation for characters to have intimate knowledge of his entire life. In fact, the mun would ask that characters interacting with him have knowledge only of what he has told them, which may be, and probably is, less than what is presented here.
Note too that the mun will often write "the god" or "the Fierce Deity" in reference to the character in the narrative part of the tag; this is merely for variety of prose, and not because a character has magically been granted the knowledge of who and what the Fierce Deity is.
Mun Preferences:
With this character in particular my preference is for serious log-style posts and threads that are heavy on serious -- and oftentimes dark -- themes. I enjoy not having to censor the god's personality and allowing him to be the bastard he very much is. I define a sharp difference in "lighthearted" threads and "crack" threads; the former I will do while the latter I avoid with this character. I welcome questions about my characterization and preferences; they can be directed to this post.
1Clothing coloration is based off of the blues and blue-greys of the official artwork, rather than the white and blacks of the game itself.
2Headcanon is the brainchild of the mun,
sometimesamuse. While the characters belong to Nintendo, original elements belong to her.