San Jacinto: Why the title?

thank you for asking!! i chose it from the Peter Gabriel song of the same name, about a Native American boy in the eponymous San Jacinto Valley and his struggle through the rites of passage to adulthood, namely the one where he must journey up a mountain and receive a rattlesnake bite before crossing back down through the wilderness to safety. along the way he passes through a town of white people who have elements of his culture displayed as trinkets and kitsch in their town. Mr. Gabriel wrote various songs that take inspiration from folk and African music (Shaking the Tree, In Your Eyes, Across the River), both in texture and tone, and this one in particular incorporates the idea of a sacred lifeline, of culture held firm, as well as a section sung in Lakotan. the summary that i chose was always the specific lyric that struck me, and as i said it was originally planned to be some quiet character/world study for Breath of the Wild, but when i sat down to write this piece and listened through again (here is my favorite recording) it struck me as very reflective for the desert region of Dannagh, and all the most crucial moments of Team Addam's development that might occur there.

Minoth has seen more of the world than Mythra, is in many ways wiser than her, but also knows so little of the youthful brilliance that she has; he is jaded, though not quite bitter after it all. it is a small conversation that they have, because they don't know each other well enough by this point to say more, but after all the childish arguments she experiences among those who are too young and distrustful (Addam, Brighid, Milton, somewhat contrasted [not here specifically] with Hugo, Aegaeon, Mikhail, and Team Lora temporarily notwithstanding), he seeks to have her look within herself and ask if she is willing to hold the line, if she is willing to see what it will mean to grow up, if she is willing to fully come into her own. he has been detached from his "heritage" that being a Blade perhaps "should" have given him, but she doesn't know how to settle into any role other than that denoted by her title, so he tries to nudge her in the right direction - without coddling, without handing over fist what Addam withheld in his ignorance. adulthood and maturity means helping those who help themselves, and sometimes being the bigger person (only slightly, because the fault did lie mainly with Addam). in the end, it's all for naught, and Torna sinks and Indol builds monuments of appropriated blandness over what used to be the firmament of Bladekind, and Mythra has to take another five hundred years to look within herself and find love for her own memories and purpose, but i still like to explore their potential relationship and parallels, and remind myself of Addam's flaws without simply hammering at the fact that He Was Afraid.

particular references include (in the order that i remembered them):

- "it was all a constant ostinato" - a Steve Reich motif incorporated at the beginning of the song introduces this idea of cyclicalness and constancy.

- "She had not appropriated Aegisdom, no. But she refused to learn the scope of their totaled mutual circumstance in some of the same pitiful kind as Addam's cowardly refusal to let her learn the scope of her own self." - slightly subverted the concept of appropriation, but still meaning that the surface-level value had been skimmed without deeper, deserved reflection.

- "she let him guide her back through the dark down to the scattered array of blankets" - the medicine man does not accompany the boy back down the mountain in the song, but all the same Minoth has shown Mythra that choosing to rise to the occasion is one half of her choice and challenge, and accepting the comedown of compromise is the other half.

- "Yellow eagle flies out from the sun. Are you watching? Are you waiting? Are you ready?" - it's "yellow eagle flies down from the sun" in the song, but comparing Mythra to the sun, with solar flares and all, is a classic choice, and Addam was indeed not ready, but Minoth was watching and waiting.

- "Complacence, for a Flesh Eater, was just accepting that life was the beginning of death." & "graying away with the gruesome tinge of that selfsame slow death" - in the song, there's a couple of lines "it feels like dying, slow letting go of life" as part of the description of the boy's decision to journey upward, so again a subversion.

- "And would Minoth tow the line?" - back to the idea of the holy line of life, and the double entendre of toeing the line, being meek and conformative, and towing the line, getting in the trenches and pulling it yourself.

(i think that's about all of them [it's certainly quite enough], if i remember any more in future i'll just tack them on to this thread)

i...hope this was the type of answer you wanted haha, i always love doing these titles even if lyric/song-based fic titles can be somewhat cringe tbh, and i do appreciate the question so much! hope you enjoyed the fic :)) <3

edited to add these two links: lyrics with a solid blurb and lyrics with fascinating comments