Hi, Everyone!
This story was inspired by a weird dream that I had about a week ago and something about it just nagged at me until I finally decided to write it down, so here's part of it! I don't know how long it's going to be, but I do have a few things planned for it so at least a few more. My dream incorporated things from Celtic Woman's "The voice" so I will be using that to help me with inspiration, and if you've never heard it I highly recommend it!
Enjoy and let me know what you think of it in a review!
I do not own Legend of Zelda, the pic, or "The voice" song...I can dream though, can't I? ;)
Constructive Criticism and Questions are always appreciated!
-X- a later point in time
The high noon sun scorched down on the long line of men along the forest's edge, stifling their already difficult breaths as the dust from their work rose to mix with the heat. Sunburned, starved, and scraped all over from the rough blocks that had been cut at a quarry half a morning's fast march away; they breathed in the dust that was kicked up around them until the gritty taste of it reduced all liquid in their mouths to a dry paste.
Heavy rocks were moved slowly up the line till they had to be carried to their final resting position on the backs of other rocks, all held firmly in place by dark mortar that was baked hard from the shimmering waves in the air. The workers had been moved here from all over the area that had been known as Hyrule Field to construct this wall, just as their powerful King had ordered.
These village men whispered to each other as they toiled, pausing their conversations only when a Bulblin guard walked by; creaking in its leather armor while sporting a heavy wooden club or bow with deadly arrows and a short whip. The Bulblins were there to make sure that the wall was assembled by these Human and Hylian men as quickly as possible, with the lands of what had once been Hyrule on their side and the deep forest of Faron on the other.
No one was quite sure as to why King Ganondorf hated this forest at the edge of his kingdom, but ever since he had claimed the throne he had been striving to destroy it. He tried burning it, but as soon as one tree caught alight the fire would vanish without even blackening its green leaves. He ordered the trees to be cut down and their stumps pulled from the ground, but no axes or saws could cut even half way through their thick trunks and any progress made one day would be gone from the same trees the next. He attacked the forest with magical curses and spells, calling on dark sorcery from every corner of his vast land in numerous attempts to undo or overcome the magic of the forest; but to no avail.
Rumors spread of the forest being full of magical creatures: Fairies, the Deku Shrub tribe, even Kokiri, and strange spirits of the dead that worked together to oppose Ganondorf's reign. King Ganondorf decided that if he couldn't destroy the forest, he would seal it and its magic away from his lands by building a wall between them. To silence these rumors he ordered that the men of Hyrule Field build it while their families stayed at their villages under a provided guard, to protect them of course, and to insure their full cooperation.
Now men from late teens to old age all worked on the wall, fearing for their families and themselves as the Gerudo commander of the Bulblins made the situation quite clear to them the first day of the job.
"If you men can't get this wall up fast enough, then we're going to need more workers to stay on schedule and the best place to get this new supply of workers from would be the place that we got the first lot, your homes. So if you don't want to see your small children and little weak wives working on this as well, you'd better obey my orders and work harder than you think you possibly can to get this wall done."
They had been working on it for over a month so they were now working in the heat of a dying summer, and they still had a lot more work to do before the wall would be finished. The men whispered about the scant amount of rain that had fallen, how hard the workload was here for even the fittest of them, and speculations as to when the wall would be done. None of them said it aloud, but they all worried that the wall would not be done before harvest time and if it was not, would the King give them the time off that they would need to get all the crops in before the cold of winter? No one knew, and the fears of all these unknowns combined with the heat grinded away at both the young and old. They were little more than slaves, forced to work with no end in sight while being constantly reminded of what was on the line if they didn't submit to what their guards wanted.
An old man stumbled along in the heat, bent over double by the large rock that he carried and was blinking hard to try to clear the rising dust from his bleary eyes. He stumbled, falling to the ground heavily just as a lone Bulblin guard came walking up.
"Get up, work."
The Bulblin guard squealed, horribly mangling the Hylian language it attempted to speak as it marched over to the man. The old one nodded hastily and slowly started rising on his trembling limbs.
"Not fast enough."
The Bulblin squealed again, its red eyes glinting wickedly as it pulled out its whip. The thick whip flashed out across the old man's thin back, laying him out flat on the ground. A weak cry was all he could manage as Bulblin showed it was just getting started.
"Won't miss one, worthless, old man."
It said, red eyes filled with predatory hunger as the scent of the man's blood hit its nose. Work around the scene slowed as men working on the wall watched on in horror, wanting to help him, but fearing for themselves and their families safety should they try to intervene. Only one person moved.
The whip lashed out again, but instead of hitting the old man the end of it wrapped around a strong arm and was gripped tightly in the same hand before it could be pulled back. Challenging blue eyes clashed with furious red ones as the Bulblin glared at the young Hylian man who stood between him and his intended prey, this boy who dared to stop the thick heavy whip with just his green sleeve and arm. The Bulblin pulled on the whip handle, but the Hylian matched its strength with a pull of his own at the same time and didn't budge.
"Let go my whip, Boy."
The Hylian youth stared the Bulblin down silently as heat waves shimmered around and between them, his blue eyes unblinking in their intensity as they issued the Bulblin's final warning. The Bulblin blinked as beads of sweat started rolling down its face and reached for the club that it had stuck in its belt, the blue eyes followed its sudden movement.
"Let go my whip or-"
The boy pulled strongly on the whip end that he held, yanking the Bulblin off balance so that it stumbled forward towards his oncoming attack. The Bulblin squealed loudly in surprise at the unexpected pull and then squealed even louder in pain from a strong blow to its dominant arm from the boy. The Bulblin freed its club with its other hand and swung at the boy, who dodged it then delivered powerful hit to the Bulblin's rib-cage.
The Bulblin swung again and the boy managed to dodge, but the lack of food and water combined with the heat were taking their toll on him. The next swing hit his shoulder and sent him crashing into part of the in progress stone wall, with the men scrabbling to get out of the way. He turned quickly to face the Bulblin, breathing heavily and trying to ignore the small trickle of blood coming down from above his eye.
As the Bulblin readied itself to swing again the boy lunged forward and tackled it, bringing both crashing heavily to the ground. By now other guards had seen or heard of the fight and alarm horns were being blown as summoned guards moved to cease the grappling match. The struggling Bulblin saw another guard out of the corner of its eye and called out in its own raspy language, exposing its neck. The boy's head was down in a flash, teeth latching on and sinking into the throat of Bulblin.
The other Bulblin guards rushed over and had to forcefully pry him off the Bulblin, before trying to staunch the blood flow from the bite. The Bulblins pinned the boy to the ground and had just finished tying him up with their whips and some rope when a horse baring a Gerudo commander came up the path. The horse came to a stop before the clump of guards and the commander surveyed the scene before looking at the leader of the clump.
"What happened here?"
"He attacked guard."
"Who did?"
The Bulblins haled the Hylian youth upright and the leader grabbed a fist full of the boy's light brown hair to jerk his head back so that the commander could see his face. Her yellow eyes showed surprise that flicked to amusement, and then was replaced by annoyance.
"You again, Wild Boy? Don't you have something better to do than attack your guards, like finish building this wall, for example? Why did you attack that guard there?"
He looked back at her with a neutral expression on his blood and dirt smeared face and remained silent; the only thing of him that was moving was the rise and fall of his chest as he took in air that wasn't saturated with dust like what he had been trying to breath by the ground a few seconds ago.
"Answer me, boy!"
He stayed silent, blue eyes never changing their impassive stare.
"Why you impertinent little-"
She drew back her hand and hit him across the face to break free from that steady gaze.
"Commander."
The hesitant voice of an old man interrupted her, and she glared at the old Human being supported by two others.
"That guard attacked me to eat me, and this young man was only trying to stop it."
"What makes you think that the guard wanted to eat you?"
She snapped.
"He said "won't miss one, worthless, old man" and there were no other guards nearby, Commander."
Her eyes looked over to the attacked Bulblin who was still laying on the ground -glaring murderously at the Hylian boy held before her- and then back at the bleeding old man. She blinked thoughtfully then looked back at the Bulblin leader standing by the boy.
"Take that guard away and deal with him; we can't have him trying to eat the people he's supposed to be guarding. Get that old man cleaned up or we'll end up losing another worker, and chain this wild one to the posts back at camp. It looks like it will rain tonight, so that will be an excellent punishment for his actions."
She looked back at the boy and raised an eyebrow.
"Unless of course, you care to beg for my forgiveness?"
An unreadable expression appeared in his eyes and without breaking their staring match, he leaned forward and spat out some of the Bulblin's blood on the ground before her. Amusement reappeared in her eyes and she turned her horse back towards camp while the Bulblins dragged the boy after her.
-X-
The Bulblins chained him between two thick wooden posts at the center of the large camp, and left him standing there in the blazing sun. The metal manacles felt like they were searing hot when they had first been put it on him, but now the rest of his body joined his wrists and ankles in the pain of burning and a quick glance at the sun showed that he was in for another few hours before it would set beneath the horizon. The few huge clouds in the sky promised rain, but rarely did any of them drift over the sun, so he was left to wait till night time for any relief.
Sweat trickled down through his hair making him have to shake his head to be rid of the itch of it, and nothing he did could cleanse his mouth of the Bulblin's foul tasting blood. He hadn't drank any water for two days because he had given it away to an old man the two days ago and a younger boy who had nearly fainted in the heat yesterday.
His head rang, his heart pounded dully in his ears and painfully against his breastbone as he trying to keep strain off his injured shoulder. Which was almost enough to block out the buzzing sounds, tickles, and bites of insects that landed on him, but not quite. The cool darkness of Faron woods seemed to beckon to him as sweat rolled down his face and body, like it was calling out to him to come back and after awhile he lowered his head so that he couldn't see it anymore.
-X-
He lifted his head as he heard the workers coming back after sunset, watching with half closed eyes as they got their food ration for the evening and their water ration for the day. Many of them glanced his way, but he knew that they were too afraid to do anything to help because unlike him they had families to worry about should they do something.
Dark clouds rolled in from over the forest during their meal and a strong wind began buffeting the tents, causing everyone who could to retreat into them. He lowered his head, closing his eyes to the pushing wind and pinned his ears to his head as he felt the first light droplets of rain.
"Link..."
He gasped, eyes snapped open and his head shooting up as he wildly looked around for the speaker. There was no one around that he could see or hear, but he knew that he had heard his name.
"Link..."
His real name, not "Wild Boy", "Poor Child", or "Young Man". The men and monsters here didn't know his name because he had never spoke to them, so who was calling him?
"Link..."
The rain started falling harder, and he couldn't hear anyone no matter what direction he swiveled his ears in.
"Listen my child, I am the voice of a Time gone by."
He started slightly as he realised that the voice he was hearing was not coming from somewhere around him, but from somewhere within. He pinned his ears to the sides of his head again, the water that flicked off them was lost as the heavens opened up and forced him to lower his head slightly to stop the water from running into his nose.
"Be not afraid, for I will not hurt you."
He felt a pressure from the air in front of him, a warm and kind force and he lifted his head to look despite the rain. There was a strange shimmer to the space before him and he felt like he was standing in the presence of someone that he should be kneeling to.
"Answer my call and I will set you free."
He stared at the form for a few long seconds, then slowly lowered his head in reverence and submission. There was a spark of blue from his right wrist manacle and it fell away from him with a soft thunk against the post it was still connected to. He shook his arm to get the blood back in it and watched another spark of blue unlock his right foot.
The manacle thudded to the muddy ground, but as it did he thought he heard a loud squelch come from near the Commander's tent. He looked up through the shimmering air and saw the Commander staring open-mouthed at him as another blue spark unlocked his left foot.
"Blistering Winds, I knew I felt it!"
She raised a bow that he hadn't seen before and aimed at him.
"Die, Sorcerous Dog!"
She shot the arrow straight at him and given the short distance between them he knew that she wasn't going to miss. He closed his eyes and twisting behind the post that he was still chained to, but heard the ringing of metal striking metal and felt none the searing pain he expected. He heard a shriek of rage and opened his eyes to find that the arrow had not hit him, but that it had broken one of the links of the chain attaching him to the post instead.
"Come follow me."
He took off running to his left through the camp, he could hear the Commander rousing the guards and trying to alert the ones that were on sentry over the storm.
"Stop!"
He froze beside a tent just in time to see two Bulblins come running around the corner of a tent next to him before going straight past and towards the yelling.
"Once you are free of these tents, face and enter the forest from there."
He reached the edge of the camp and turned to face the woods, then frowned at what he saw. The forest was partially blocked by the wall which was taller then him now at even its lowest point, so he turned to run farther up the path to climb over somewhere lower.
"Enter the forest straight from where you stand, Link."
A shock went through him again as the voice said his name and he turned back to face the wall, if the voice wanted him to climb it here then here it would be. He dashed at the wall and hearing the startled squeals of two Bulblins to his right only made him move faster.
He charged the wall, planting a foot on its smooth and rain slicked surface to give him the extra bit of push off he needed to get his hands on the top. Muscles straining, he managed to get the whole of both of his arms on top and now was struggling to swing a leg up with his shoulder afire with pain. An arrow tinked against the wall next to him, just missing his side and he knew that it was only the first of many.
He snarled and with a brief burst of adrenalin, he hiked his leg up so that his foot was on the top as well. Using his leg and core, he pushed himself up and sideways until he rolled onto the top of the wall and could drop down on the other side. There was a flash of something dark and he felt a sharp pain from his right upper arm before he fell to the other side of the wall. He landed heavily and heard a few close sounding shouts from the other side before he felt that shimmering force next to him again.
"Follow the golden light."
There was a sparkle of gold from the edge of the black forest and after a few quick tests of his trembling legs to be sure that they were fine, he took off after that light. The forest floor was littered with holes, dips, rocks, and large branches, he half ran and half stumbled after the darting golden light as it led him deeper into the forest. He kept his arms in front of his face to protect it from the slap of wet leaves and branches as he ran, but water, leaves, and the bit of chain from the manacle still whisked close by his eyes.
He could hardly see anything but the golden light which was always far ahead of him, so when his foot sank into some animal's hole and he fell; he was up and running again in an instant to keep the light in sight. The longer he ran for the harder it was to breath and the more his legs trembled with exhaustion, and as soon as the light stopped he almost collapsed to the ground.
He staggered forward and it stayed there as if waiting for him. As he approached he saw that the light he had been following was a large golden wolf, but it wasn't like any wolf he had ever been around before because it seemed warm and kind like the voice had been. The wolf wasn't looking at him but was looking forward at something else, so he looked as well.
It was a bridge suspended over a deep ravine with a closed gate on the other end, he blinked and looked back at the wolf in puzzlement. The wolf started walking across the bridge, after a second he followed until they got to the other side and stood before the clearly locked gate. There was a click of a lock and the gate opened just enough for the two of them to pass and the wolf padded through.
He heard the gate close and re-lock itself behind them as the wolf led him to another locked gate a few paces away that opened for them in the same way. Beyond this gate was a large clearing enclosed with high rising natural banks, the clearing was mostly filled with a spring of water and even though it was still raining, not a single drop disturbed the pool's smooth surface.
He staggered to the pool's edge and with the wolf busy investigating something on one side of the clearing, he bent his head down and took a long drink from the clean and cool water. He would have fallen down to slept right there if he hadn't felt the wolf looking at him, he looked over and then forced himself up when the wolf looked at something, then back at him pointedly.
The wolf had found some kind of cave in the right entrance side bank that was just large enough for him to crawl into, after a look to the wolf he did enter it and was surprised to find that it was completely dry on the inside. That was all the he needed to know, he crawled in a bit deeper so the wolf would have enough space if it wanted to sleep in here as well before collapsing onto the dry sandy ground and into sleep.
Review to let me know what you thought?
Best wishes till next time!