Cia was having a bad day.
Well, Cia was a naturally bad person. Every day for her was a bad day. A day of badness. A day of being bad. But that wasn't the point. The point was that today, the bad things were happening to Cia. And that didn't happen a lot.
She ripped a clump of grass from the blighted earth of her private garden, and coughed out an angry sigh. The garden in question was located through a number of twists and turns and secret passageways, deep in the heart of the mansion. Cia had used magic to coax the flowers in it to bloom, as there was no way the soil could sustain life on its own. It was small and simple; walled in, with a stone bench upon which she could sit and think. There were no visible doors to it, and the only way it could be accessed was through a magical gate that Cia had hidden beneath a trapdoor in the library. One could say it was essentially sealed off from the rest of the place. The number one defining feature of the garden was that unlike most of the other parts of her dwelling, it was Link-free. No statues of Link, no portraits of Link, no Link imagery in general. The garden was for Cia and her thoughts alone. It was a space she especially needed today.
This happened sometimes, but the feeling's oftenness didn't translate to tolerability. Every time she gazed upon the noble visage of her hero, be it stone or canvas, she felt an ache deep within her chest. The ache then turned to hot rage as she thought of the irritatingly sweet Princess Zelda. The girl who Link was serving instead of her, with her long blonde hair, and clear blue eyes, and infuriatingly calm and noble disposition. She would then realize that she had no reason to hate this girl, as she had done nothing wrong. Instead, it would dawn upon her with a sharp pain, it was her own fault that Link didn't love her. There was nothing lovable about her. She couldn't even bear to be with herself, Lana was proof enough of that. Cia would then furiously banish these feelings, and she would have mere moments of respite before she inevitably saw another picture of Link and the cycle would begin anew.
At the current moment in time, Cia was at the stage of self-loathing in the destructive cycle she had trapped herself in. She squeezed her eyes shut, but hot tears still managed to force their way to the surface. She hated this feeling. She wanted to destroy something. But anything she could destroy was something that possessed a usefulness to her, so it would be nothing but folly to do so. To compensate, she ripped a flower from the flowerbed and crushed its petals between her fingers. She enjoyed the feeling of power over something, even if it was only a plant. So she picked and destroyed another flower, and another, and another, until she felt a laugh escape her lips. She moved onto the other flowerbed, falling to her knees in the soil to continue her rampage and losing herself in the destruction.
Soon, there was no shred of greenery left in the garden. Panting, Cia looked around for something else to take out her hurt upon, but there was nothing. And then the haze lifted. And Cia realized what she was; a ridiculous, lovesick, power-crazed idiot, sitting in the dirt and surrounded by torn-up flowers.
Suddenly, she felt tired. She got to her feet and staggered one step before falling back onto the bench. The garden was ravaged and bare, but it gave her no satisfaction. She waved a hand. Slowly, the petals strewn on the ground began to move and reattach themselves to the broken stems, and before long, it was if Cia had never touched it. Then, she allowed herself to cry.
Usually, private little scenes like the one she had just displayed made her feel better. But not today, apparently. She knuckled the last of her tears off of her face and gave a ragged sigh. Oh, well.
Suddenly, she felt a second presence in the garden. She instantly flew into a rage and called on her staff. Plucking it out of the void she had summoned, she whirled on the shape beginning to form, but almost relaxed when she saw it was only Volga. The second he materialized, he fell to his knees and placed an arm over his chest. When Cia said nothing, he took it as permission to speak.
"Milady," he began respectfully, "I apologize for bothering you in your private quarters, but I believe this matter is urgent."
He paused. She still said nothing, so he went on.
"A large portion of our Bulblin forces have been taken out. Apparently, there was an accident involving the mining team deployed." He paused, waiting for a reaction that she didn't give. "Apparently, the miners hit a pocket of bombflowers while digging. I come to suggest that we use a temporal gate to replace those fallen."
He said no more once he was finished. Cia looked at the top of his head. He would never meet her eyes, not since she recruited him in the Eldin caves. Before she forced him under her control, he had no problem with looking her insolently in the eye and insulting her power. Some might think it impossible to tame a dragon, but Cia had managed. She would tell those who found awe in it that it was not as glamourous as it sounded.
She sighed, and lowered herself onto the bench again. "Volga, sit down."
Confusion momentarily passed across his face, but he obediently moved to sit next to her. Her gaze burned into the side of his head, but Volga still didn't look at her. He sat stiffly. She wondered if he would sit like that if he were still a free dragon.
"Volga, have you ever been in love?" she eventually asked. She supposed idle chit-chat would have been pointless, considering what a bore he was.
"My only loves are power and my service to you," he replied, mechanically and without hesitation.
She could feel her irritation mounting. She had seen some of his true self appear during battle. The raw fury with which he fought couldn't compare to the stonily boring manner in which he addressed her. Seeing as he wouldn't grow a backbone when speaking with her, she supposed she could vent at him. Whatever she said wouldn't matter to him, anyway, because he'd have to sit there and take it, no matter what she said. Plus, he might have a bit of insight on the question that had been burning within her mind since before this whole war had even started.
"Do you believe that Link and Zelda's love could be broken?" she asked, inspecting her nails.
That seemed to confuse him. Volga's brow furrowed as he struggled to comprehend her question.
"Link and Princess... Zelda, milady?" he asked, unsure.
"Yes, yes. Who else?" Cia snapped.
"I'm... not sure what you mean, milady."
If he kept this up, Cia was sure she would snap. "Oh, come on. What is there to misunderstand? Do you think that Link and Zelda could fall out of love?"
"Love? But..." Volga's troubled expression riled her even further.
"But what?"
"I was not aware that they were in... love in the first place, milady. Might I ask which sources led you to believe this?"
Cia was thrown slightly off. "We-well, it's... Isn't it obvious? I mean, don't they always end up together? The princess and the hero?"
Volga's eyebrows knit and he shook his head. "I have lived through many incarnations of the Hero and Goddess, and not one of them were romantically involved."
This threw Cia off completely. Her head began to spin. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that they never ended up together, as you put it." Volga began to say something else, but hesitated. However, he seemed to come to a decision with himself, and went on. "Milady, might I ask... When you watched the different tales of the Hero from your perch as the Guardian of Time, did you... ever watch the stories through to the end?"
Cia's mouth had been opening and closing as he spoke, and she struggled to find her words once she realized he was expecting an answer. "W-w-well, no. I didn't need to, did I? I mean, once the Hero defeats the evil threatening the land, he always..." She trailed off, falling into thought. Did that mean...
Volga nodded, certain in his conclusions. "You see, milady. The Hero and the Goddess are roles in the divine cycle, nothing more. They have yet to show romantic interest in one another."
Cia nodded slowly, but suddenly jumped with another realization. "B-but what about the current Goddess and Hero? You never saw the way they looked at each other when Link was in training. I did, and they-"
"I hear that the Princess Zelda we fight against is in a relationship with her bodyguard," he interrupted.
That shut Cia up. She was still reeling over this sudden development. That meant Link was... well, single. Why didn't that make her feel better? His heart should be that much easier to capture. She should be jumping for joy. One of the motivators behind her campaign was suddenly no longer a problem. And yet her heart still ached for something she couldn't have. The reason, she realized with a sinking in her stomach, might have been that the fact that Link wasn't Zelda's champion didn't mean that he would suddenly become Cia's. But she wasn't certain that that was all of it.
Looking back into the impassive face of her most trusted general, she nodded curtly. "That is all. You may go."
Volga rose. "Milady, about the Bulblin troops-"
"I'll deal with it!" she snapped, turning away with a dismissive wave of her hand. A clink of metal indicated a maddeningly passive nod, and Volga turned to leave the way he had come. Seconds passed, and she could still feel his presence in the room, polite and uncertain. She rolled her eyes.
"Uh, milady, about the exit-"
She snapped her fingers and his presence disappeared.
And then Cia was all alone again.