Consume

By Wolf Mother


I looked at the guard pleadingly, but he could not see that, below my Deku Scrub exterior, inside I was like him, afraid, knowing, trembling. I wasn't the little clueless Deku Scrub whose parents were fretting searching for me.

"You have to leave town," I pleaded. "Don't you see? The Moon is going to fall, you have to escape before you die..."

He looked down at me as if he believed what I was saying, that he truly wanted to leave his post and run. "No! No, no, I must get a hold of myself!" he cried, placing his fist to his chest.

Tears of frustration were threatening to fall. I glared angrily up at the moon that was threatening to crush and wipe Clock Town out of existence.

I wasn't going to give up. "Escape," I begged, "don't make me carry this guilt, as well."

He looked shocked, as though a Deku Scrub child shouldn't say such things.

I stamped my foot in frustration. "You're going to die!" I yelled, then turned and ran toward the Clock Tower. How do I get up?! I was frantic. I was crying. I was swearing and cursing the Goddess. I started to hit the walls around me, hitting anything, just for the sake of doing something.

"Link," I heard Tatl's voice. It was quiet. Meek.

...lost.

She knew. Oh, Goddess, she knew, I had failed, she and I, we were doomed to die together, I had killed us both.

"Link," she said again, and pushed herself against my cheek. She was warm and quivering. We were both shaking.

"I've failed," I whispered, looking up at the moon. "We're going to die, Tatl."

She didn't say anything for a while, then I heard a quiet sob from her. "I never got to say goodbye to Tael..."

I reached up and cupped her glowing body in my fingerless Deku hand. She accepted the comfort and cried silently.

Each hour crawled by with agonizing slowness. Tatl and I stood motionless in front of the Clock Tower, looking up at the Moon.

"Link?"

I didn't acknowledge her, but she spoke anyway. "Link...I'm sorry."

"I am, too," I said bitterly, in the Deku voice that was not my own.

Was I to perish in the body of a Deku Scrub? In a body that wasn't even my own? It didn't seem fair.

But when I looked around at the children, the young, bouncy Bombers I had chased not twelve hours ago, happy and looking in confusion up at the moon, I felt pained. They didn't know. And, like the guard who stood so faithfully at his post, they, too, would die.

"We can't escape, can we?" Tatl said fearfully. "Like the others? Take refuge?"

"No."

Tatl flew up into the air and screamed her brother's name wildly. Even Mutoh stopped his jeers to look at the wailing fairy.

"Tatl, that's enough," I said, gently. She hid under my hat, swearing and sobbing and cursing.

--

I stood looking up at the Moon. My time was up. It loomed over Clock Town, casting a dark shadow before it began its descent.

The blistering heat felt even hotter on my Deku Scrub skin. But I didn't move. Tatl was trembling on my shoulder. Suddenly, she didn't seem so tough or repelling. She was like me, afraid and alone.

But she wasn't worrying about herself, I knew, she would mournfully moan her brother's name as the Moon dropped closer.

"Tatl," I whispered, "Tatl, you can fly out of here. Go. Go find your brother."

She didn't budge, and when I swiped my hand at her, she dove under my hat again. "We started this together," she said, her voice steady, "we sure as hell are gonna end it together."

The buildings were torn and burned in an instant as the Moon crushed them as easily as a young girl would blow the seeds from a dandelion and watch them dance across the sky.

I can hear people screaming. Probably the guards and the children. Tatl, as well.

Am I screaming? I don't know. Probably. I can't see Mutoh or Tatl anymore. But I can hear her shrieking angrily.

"Damn you!" She screams over and over, a hopeless, desperate mantra.

The flames enveloped my body, searing my flesh and burning my eyes. I could do nothing but scream in helpless pain and fury. The last things I could see were the Moon, a collapsing building, and a guard crying as he was killed by the flames. I viewed these things through a red film of my own blood.


...

Darkness...

...

Heat...

...

A voice...?

...

Tatl...

...

No...it's not her...

...

"You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?"


-end?-