Just a little bit of world.

Ignam took one final deep breath and opened his eyes, taking in the grand, coal-black tree before him; as a sapling, all those years ago, it had been easy to bring in and plant on the small, artificial hill; now, removing it from the globe of transparisteel would be nearly impossible. Its purple and blue leaves swayed gently in the breeze, ocassionally dropping off and falling to the blue grass, or into the light pink water; autumn was coming, as it had been for the past six-hundred years. It was always nearly autumn, thanks to the climate control system of his ship.

Ignam stood, his joints aching from prolonged sitting, three distinct cracks letting him know he wasn't getting any younger as he unfurled his legs and stood at full height. He bowed to the tree, lowering himself with his forehead nearly to the floor, then stood straight and turned. He took the short path to the rest of his ship, walking down a smooth, stone-studded tunnel and into the ship proper, where the remnants of his dead homeworld gave way to tubular hallways with off-white walls and dark-colored tapestries draped at irregular intervals. He came to his office, a modest library of antique paper and modern plastic books and tablets, with its desk of the same wood as the tree in the atrium, the chair padded in deep red; on the table sat a modern interpretation of an ancient writing device, the keys designed to embed plastic sheets with letters.

He sat at his desk, leaned back, and sighed. Back to work, he thought, his fingers dancing over the keys.

"A little before dawn, just as the sun was beginning to peek over the horizon, the two lovers dozed beneath the tree they had stumbled upon in the night..."

CYBABERDS

“Sika; aloft!”

The falcon surged upward, propelled by the sudden thrust of my arm, and climbed rapidly on her own strength for the first time since the surgery; I watched her rise, my optics keeping track of her trajectory and speed. At the rate she was going she would lose strength long before she got back to me.

“Sika! Return!”

The bird turned to look at me, but did not change course; she continued to climb, wings beating faster and faster. Stubborn thing. But... she did have to learn. Her new wings were only a few grams heavier than her original ones, but still, for a hollow-boned creature out of shape and soaring with brand-new prosthesis she had to discover on her own that things would not be the same. Not at first, anyway.

So I followed her. She couldn't get too far, at least; based on the projections she probably didn't have more than five more minutes of flight before she wouldn't be able to keep herself airborne and would have to come down to land, assuming she didn't ignore all of her body's warnings and...

Oh, hell. The thought only just occurred to me, that something might have been wrong. The wings could be beating on their own, stuck in an endless loop, or their feedback systems could be sending confusing signals, like she didn't realize her body was wearing out. “Bijay?” I said, breaking into a jog. “Are you getting anything weird from Sika's metrics?”

“No, nothing out of the ordinary; she's a little tired, but the wings are performing well.” Bijay responded from the lab.

“What about their feedback reports? Everything look good?”

“Give me a moment... yes, everything's fine. Is something wrong?”

“I don't know, yet,” I replied. “She's not responding to commands and she's continuing to climb. I'm going after her.”

“Lauren,” Bijay said, chiding me. “She's been grounded for two months, sedated several times in the past week alone, and suddenly given total freedom. Did you honestly expect her to come back to you when called?”

I slowed, watching Sika gently descend to a tree near the edge of the wood, and land heavily in the branches. I zoomed in on her, watching her chest rise and fall rapidly; she was very tired, but otherwise looked fine. “Fair point, Beej. She's landed.”

“I'm pulling the telemetry data from her wings, I'll take a look at it and run it by Arjun. We can look it over when you two get back.”

“If I can get her to come down.”

“Offer her a squirrel, she loves squirrels.”

I sat in the grass and watched the sun fall on the horizon while Sika, long talons stamped down on a red squirrel I had tagged, side-eyed me and took delicate nibbles.

“You're right to want to roam,” I said, watching her eat. “But you should've realized you weren't up to the task.”

Sika swallowed her bite, cocked her head to the side, and squaked at me.

“I'm not blaming you for trying, mind,” I replied. “But you really should have known better.”

Sika took another bite, and together we sat, girl and her bird, as the sun set.


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The above was based on a writing prompt provided by @artofmatk.

Pigfucker...

Zelda pitch

•  So far into the future that the other games/timelines are meaningless
• Zelda is the lead character; Link does not exist in this timeline yet
• Ganondorf Dragmire-Mandrag is the head of a multi-planetary corporation which specializes in xenoarchaeology.

 Zelda is a head archaeologist with the company that Ganondorf owns. He is not a villain, as such, but becomes the antagonist through Zelda's actions, aided by one of her aids, Tingle Kokiri, attempting to take credit for the team's find. Zelda, along with Tingle then have to travel the galaxy to find a cure for the xenophage that is released by the rise of the creature that takes over her boss, and attempt to find the 'Tri-Force' that it's looking for before it does. She eventually creates a replica of the canister that was housing the creature that took over her boss, and with both she manages to separate the alien from Ganondorf and contain it; however, the surge of energy from the encounter kills her, Ganondorf, and Tingle.

However, if she has also found the three pieces of the Tri-Force and dunked them in the water of their respective shrines, then when the creature is contained she, Tingle, and Ganondorf are resurrected by it and imbued with their respective powers as per tradition. They seal away the creature and are visited by a vision of the goddess Hylia, who asks that they come see her at the 'end of the universe' so she can guide them.

• Zelda's ship, planet-side craft, and ship's AI are all called Epona. Zelda's Ship, the Hyrule, is her home; it is the 'hub' world of the game, where she goes to change equipment, eat, sleep, keep track of her goals, and buy/sell/trade artifacts. She also has a planet-side craft, called Epona, which docks with the Hyrule. The ship's AI, Navi, is her constant companion.
• Tingle is an obnoxious little shit who over the course of the game gets some serious character development, nearly dies, comes back thanks to the Triforce of Wisdom, and is resurrected as Link when the Triforce of Courage joins with him in the ending.
• Zelda is a former soldier, a survivor of the Ten Year War with the Invaders. She is well versed in blade and rifle combat. When she finds the Triforce of Wisdom it bonds with her, giving her a direct link to Nayru, who then guides her to the other pieces of the Triforce as well as her shrine.
• Ganondorf was her commanding officer, and she got the job with him only slightly nepotistically. He is a large, large man; larger than life. He loves being alive, loves everyone who works for him, loves the universe. He is the closest thing to an actual 100% perfect human being the universe has ever seen.
  
  And then he gets possessed by a malevolant alien force that wants to find the Triforce so it can destroy the universe.
• A lot of the gameplay would be traditional Zelda fare, but the gimmicks would involve space travel, archeological exploration (Sort of like adventure segments inside the open-world), and antique dealing/restoration (you sell and trade artifacts that you find in the ruins on each planet)
• Money is spent on upgrades, expendable items like ammo/health, and to fund expeditions. There should be no money sinks, and money will always have a purpose of some kind up to the end-game. There is no wallet, you never have to worry about wasting money drops
• Equipment is broken up into Modern and Ancient; Modern equipment can be bought or fabricated, Ancient equipment has to be found in ruins and can be fabricated after it's been scanned by Epona.
• None of the goddesses, the Triforce, or the creature that possesses Ganondorf are mystical beings; the goddesses are ancient AIs, the creature is a parasytic alien, the TriForce is an incredibly advanced storage/data transfer system that operates on an organic level. These are not the same things from the other games, they just use the same names for thematic appropriateness.
• Zelda and Tingle HAVE TO SLEEP AND EAT. Your tiredness/fullness tie into your abilities, and collapsing from hunger/sleep deprivation causes Epona to show up to rescue you (even from within a dungeon). If Tingle passes out you have to drag his ass around, or summon Epona to take him back to Hyrule, at which point you don't get the benefits of having him around (if any).
• Tattoos. Zelda can get tats from numerous artists which provide permanent benefits; you don't have to pick and choose your tats, you can put them wherever you want and if you want them all you're just covered in tats. If you combine certain ones you get more elaborate 'combo tats' which provide extra bonuses.
•  99% of drops are vendor trash, since you're killing creatures/robots for their sweet innards, finding ancient treasures that are valueless to the modern economy, and dealing in knowledge. You can sell items directly from the Hyrule, turning them into rupees (₹) (the actual Indian currency in this world, the only surviving economic marker from the pre-history) 
• You can sell your maps and can demand high or low prices from them, basing your decision on how much treasure you've taken from the dungeon. The more you've taken, the less you should sell your map for, and visa-versa.
• Your reputation as an explorer/conservationist is tracked as you make deals, dungeon delve, and present yourself to the world. At the beginning of the game you have an excellent record/reputation, but as the game progresses this can easily change. This will determine the types of contracts you can take, how easy you find it to sell your finds, and so on.
• You can counterfit finds with the maker system. This is only a good idea if you're 100% certain you won't be caught; selling counterfit finds will guarantee your rating plummet, maybe not the first time, but certainly after that: you're either gullible or making them yourself.

One Day Your Time Will Come, Platform 17

Xenogregnasus, the dark wizard of Umptunshire, waited for the train. He checked his watch. 11:43.

The train was late. Again. Xenogregasnus sighed. The train was always late. He looked up at the arrivals board; there it was, the 1745 to Blombard, arriving at Platform 17 at 11:40.

Platform 17. It was always Platform 17.

Greg to his friends closed his eyes and sighed. He was a 43^rd level Dark Wizard, privy to the secrets of the Tome of Answers, knower of the Knowledge of Yn-Malsoom, practitioner of the Magic of the Nine-Million Souls. And the train arriving to Platform 17 was always late.|

Time slowed around Greg, the world took on a dark, hazy hue; glowing phone screens became incredibly vibrant lights in the darkness, but faces refused to be visible in the gloom. Greg's eyes glowed with an unholy inner light, and as his back arched and his toes curled he slowly raised off the ground, hovering in place. The inner light began to leak from his eyes and ears, his mouth opened to emit the light in horrible rivulets, accompanied by the sound of the eternally wailing souls of the nine underworlds known to mankind and one only known to marmots.

With a sudden burst of energy the light exploded within him, without him, around him, everywhere was the sickly purple light. As Greg slowly lowered to the ground his eyes returned to their normal black-red tint, and he wiped the remains of the purple sludge from his lips. He looked around him, time still moving at a bare crawl; everything was tinged in the purple glow of the 53^rd Cantrip of the Dread Lord Jungunmir. Junnie had taught it to him the summer previous, he used it mostly to find the remote control on movie nights.

Slowly details began to emerge from the purple, hints of other colors, each signifying a different magical influence; blues were regular human magic, the kind everyone could do and usually did without even realizing it. A woman's entire face was blue, her real face only barely visible beneath the facade she had created for herself. Another man's left foot was blue. A small child held a blue ball.

The reds were what he was looking for, the influence of negative feelings and emotions, the demonic influences. They were plentiful but most were small, bench seats that were uncomfortable, a clock that ran slow, a ticket-taker who just didn't like people. Nothing like the kind of directed malice that would be necessary to delay a train on a daily basis just to inconvenience a single person.

The colors began to fade; the spell was powerful but necessarily brief, and has time resumed its normal speed and the usual colors came back into prominence Greg sighed again. Same result every day, nothing new coming out to reveal itself, nothing to hint at the source of his misery.

He was a 43^rd level Dark Wizard.

And one day he would have his revenge.

Ubem

One of the odder planetoids of the Hetoo cluster, Ubem is less a planet and more a rough conglomeration of free-floating islands that orbit around a dense 'core' of metallic ash. Due to the rather odd gravitational pull of the whole affair the islands are roughly circular and covered almost entirely in a fine black sand which gets coarser and denser the deeper you go.

Though there is no native flora or fauna, there are several colonies, so to speak, of synthetic life; massive worm-like robots travel beneath the surface, occasionally surfacing to recharge their batteries with the radiation from the nearest star, smaller wheeled robots perpetually travel the surfaces of the islands collecting samples and occasionally directing the worms to certain areas where particularly rich veins of mineral deposits can be found and collected.

The Mimetic Concordia maintains a sales floor nearby, on the artificial satellite Free Trade 26; they deal primarily in brain-wiped slave labor, cloning having only recently been outlawed galaxy-wide by Pharaoh. The slaves, when not in stasis or on the sales floor, exist primarily as janitors, leading to an incredibly clean station despite the MC's ban on robotic labor.

The MC, understandably, wishes to somehow cleanse Ubem of synthetic life and take advantage of the vast mineral wealth therein; their efforts so far have proven futile, throwing endless slaves into the literal grinder of the worms' maws.