Coin-Operated

For Paulie - with love, as always.

1.0

Gravity Plays Favorites

The radio cackles as the president's voice bellows through the speakers, strong, unwavering and determined. It's the voice that charmed us all. It's the voice that beguiled us. It's the voice that lied to us with its smooth tone and rich quality. It's the voice that stretched ever so slyly into our minds, our hearts. It's the voice that breathed and preached to our souls. It's the voice that sang to our desires. And we bought it. We bought that voice and the fine, colorful, handsome wrapper that came with it. Tomorrow, I'm sure, we'll all be able to see a lovely picture of that sickening smile of the president as he signed off on the documents that will be plastered all over the front pages news. The pig. The president has a very pleasing, handsome and adoring face that all the public fell in love with, but inside the man is raw, ugly and utterly detestable. We were all fooled. A woman next to me bursts into tears as the president continues his announcement of the new passage of law he'd just signed, the president's cool voice barely audible over her sobs, and someone reaches over and turns up the volume. All of us were completely fooled by this ugly man's enchanting voice.

Magic is now outlawed.

I pinch my eyes shut as I hear the president's address drift through the cackling air waves. "We are entering a new era for Hyrule! For the benefit of all the peoples within this great country, we must strive to bring ourselves up! Strive for excellence!" The president pauses in his glorious speech. "We must fight for the survival of not only ourselves, but for this great nation!"

I open my eyes. Grim and grave faces look around at one another as we continue to listen to the radio announcement. Eyes flicker nervously from face to face, each of us trying to gauge another's reaction to the address. But it's clear, that many of the feelings felt by the patrons and employees of the diner are very common, and together, we are all in this. For this moment in time, we are all brothers on the front lines, hearing our own sentence and preparing ourselves for the death march ahead of us.

The president is making a mistake. A very, very grave mistake.

He does not believe that magic is what makes Hyrule so great, what gives its people life, what gives this land and us our soul. The president believes that magic is hindering our advancement within the world, and that the need for new and better technology outweighs a simple magic trick. Now that Hyrule has become an industrialized nation with many great and fantastic machines and wondrous technology at our feet, magic is obsolete. However, in my honest opinion, it's these types of thoughts that hinder our advancement as a society. It's further driving the wedge in between the many races that reside in Hyrule. Our lives are withering under diminishing standards of quality. Our social structure is crumbling. Our culture itself is dying.

It was thought that dissolving the monarchy of the Hylian people would help bring us together, but it has slowly become increasingly known that thoughts such as that were gravely mistaken. When the monarchy was in place, Hyrule was not a country, but an empire made up of several tribes, people and governments. Between the many governments of the land were tentative and shaky alliances that threatened to crumble the whole empire. In a last ditch effort to keep peace among the people, the reigning monarchs renounced their thrones to push the Hyrulean Alliance into a democracy and under the control of a sole government. It was a risky move that proved effective in helping stabilize the country and its provinces for several decades, but the second the people put the current president in power, Hyrule was doomed.

I look around the small diner where we have all gathered, sitting on stools at the counter and in the booths that line the windows. There are very few of Zora or Goron descent and even human; the majority of us, me included, are of Hylian descent. Among us though, is one common, simple trait: fear. Fear lines every face within the diner. It flashes through every person's eyes, it's present in their sobs and their deep set frowns of worry. It eats away the inner confines of our chests like manic, rabid animals. Surprisingly, indeed, that even the humans look fearful, despite the fact that they do not have magic themselves, but the message is clear. It is very clear. With magic already becoming a rare feat in Hyrule, our future is bleak. Our future is weak. Our future has been severed from us. Our future has no hope.

Magic is the soul of Hyrule. It is what we breathe.

When Hyrule was first established eons ago, it was my race that was considered to be chosen and favored by the goddesses, for our ears were made to be long so we may listen to their holy messages. Officially speaking, the Hylian race specifically constitutes us, those with long ears. Over time however, our race, as the Gerudo, the Twili, the Goron and the Zora, have diminished greatly. Humans, the Hyruleans with rounded ears, however, have flourished in recent times. With the change in the demographics in Hyrule, came new fears, new suspicions and a new, radical hatred that breathes and steals into the hearts of the people of Hyrule.

I don't even hear the rest of the president's address as I sit at the counter of the diner. My mind is totally blank with the news. Completely blank. Gone. Dead. Even the wait staff behind the counter is unmoving and deathly still, but their attention is rapt to what the president is saying. It's a wonder they even dare to breathe. The woman next to me continues to sob into her hands, completely devastated. It's almost as if the president sucked all the living hope out of her in one fell swoop. Long pointed ears poke out from under her hat.

I stare down at my meager dinner. A sub sandwich, half-eaten, but I don't have the heart to finish eating it any longer. No. Slowly, I reach into my pocket and pull out some money and leave it on the counter beside my partially eaten Po' Boy. None of the employees even make a move for it, let alone show any sign that they've seen me set the money down. Their attentions and minds are elsewhere, and their bodies and souls breaking.

Quietly, I step out of the diner and into the empty street. My heels clack in quiet submission on the concrete as I walk. Twilight is upon the city, and a certain sadness hits my heart as I set out down the street. This despair tugs desperately within my chest, and seemingly with the shame of a sheep, I hang my head and follow my feet.

President Ghirahim continues his address without my attendance.

…

My car bounces and rolls along the dirt road on the outskirts of Castleton. My friend Malon runs Lon Lon Ranch about an hour's drive from the city with her father. Being so isolated out there, electricity has yet to run out that far, never mind a telephone line. It's been in the works for a long time, but now I have to wonder. Will anybody be willing to do the work? Especially considering the ranch's owners and their hands are all Hylian. I can only worry for her as my car chugs along the road in the still night.

Behind me, lights shine bright and neon, but just as strangely, so do lights ahead of me shine. I'm not too far from Castleton, but I had no idea the power grid stretched out even this far. I push the car forward as I drive through the field towards it in curiosity.

I put the car to rest and step out at the sight in front of me.

Men and women hoot and holler at each other as they carry out of a caravan tents and furniture. They're all laughing and enjoying themselves, setting up their encampment, as I make my way forward.

"What're you doing? Who are you?" a voice demands.

I whirl my head around in the dark, not seeing who addressed me.

Impatiently, the voice says, "Down here." I look down to see a man, maybe ten years my senior, sneering at me. He's short, but not overly so to be called a dwarf. He sniffs arrogantly at me.

"I'm sorry, I was just surprised to see lights this far out," I tell him.

"We're not open yet. Come back tomorrow," he snaps.

I hesitate to respond right away due to his cold demeanor. "I'm sorry, but I don't even know what this is." I wave a hand, gesturing over to the buzzing crowd setting up camp behind him.

"The carnival," he scoffs at me like I'm an idiot. "You know, bunch of travelling weirdoes that put on a show and people pay for it."

In his mop of blond hair, I see them. His ears. "You haven't gotten to hear the president's radio announcement then, have you?"

"Look lady," he says, smacking his cane onto the ground impatiently, "I don't have a lot of time. I don't have time to listen to that pretty boy president of ours blather on about taxes and debts." He sneers at me again, flapping his hands at me as if I'm some annoying bird trying to peck at his food. "Now get going! Shoo!"

"But-!"

He scowls at me. His hands continue to flap as he waves me off. "I said, come back tomorrow!"

"He's outlawed magic!" I blurt out suddenly.

The man freezes.

"What?" he exclaims, his eyes growing as wide as saucers.

"I said that magic has now been outlawed!" I shout at him desperately again. "He just announced it at six on the radio while he signed off on the documents."

The man pauses for a minute, just staring wide-eyed at me, and I can only stare back, rooted to the spot. It was as if the second I said it out of my mouth, it really made it true. It made everything so much more final. Then the man motions for me to follow as he turns slowly around, his hand waving at me in a beckoning manner as he begins to shuffle off to one of the already set up tents, building up speed as he goes. I hurry after him as he blows through the flaps of the pinstriped tent. It's made to be sort of a makeshift mess hall at the moment, and many of the carnies have gathered here already, chatting away with each other gaily. The small man walks briskly up to a table and slams his cane down on it, commanding attention.

The whole tent goes silent.

The man clears his throat and motions for me to come forward. "This young lady here," he shouts out to the tent, his cane impaling the ground, "has just informed me of some dire news. Is the radio up?" It's funny that he says "young lady" as if I were a road killed skunk stinking up his car.

Someone shouts out, "Not yet, but it's been unpacked!"

"Well, get it turned on!" he roars through the tent, causing jolts and flinches among some of the carnies with his bossy voice. There's a scramble of men in the back of the tent as they hurry to retrieve the radio. Hopefully the radio waves will reach this far. But if there's electricity this far out, it should pick up the radio waves from Castleton.

The small man turns to me. "Well, go on!" he says, his head nodding to the crowd within the tent.

"Excuse me?"

"Tell them what you heard!" he yells at me, and I back away a little, startled by him.

I regain my balance and look around at all the faces in the tent. They all peer at me, their interest piqued by my arrival. A stranger. An outsider. "Um…" I sputter out, and see out of the corner of my eye, the short man glaring at me. He urges me to press on. "President Ghirahim announced at six o'clock this evening that he'd signed a document outlawing all forms of magic from Hyrule."

The room stills to a dead stop as if for one second, all the heart beats in the room simultaneously skip a beat. And then time resumes. Forks clatter, jaws drops, exclamations of profanity sound out through the tent, chairs are upturned as their occupants hurl themselves to a stand; the whole tent is chaos among the carnies.

The short man screams and shouts at everybody to calm down as a couple of men return to the tent, lugging the large radio in. They exchange confused glances with each other over the scene, having not heard my announcement. A man dressed to be half-man-half-woman scurries over to them and whispers to them. The men holding the radio almost drop it, and they hastily set it up. The short man standing with the cane stomps over to them, yelling.

"Does anybody have a coin?" a feminine voice rings desperately out above the clamor in the tent.

I whirl my head around, searching.

"I need a coin!" she calls out again. "Does anybody got one?"

One man sitting down at the table next to me gruffly responds, slamming his drink down. "Dammit Ilia! Every time we give you a coin, it just goes poof!" he rages, and I spy the young blonde woman, Ilia, across the table from where I stand. She stares daggers into the sitting man beside me.

"Hey!" I holler out to her. I catch her attention, and I wave her over. The woman comes up to me, and I'm honestly a little surprised to see that she's wearing denim overalls instead of a dress. "How much do you need?" I ask her as roars shout from the other side of the tent where the radio has finally come to life. Many of the carnies, upon hearing that the radio is working, push past us to clamber around it. I hear the short man with the cane commanding the carnies to quit their noise so they can all hear properly.

"Any will do, it just has to be a coin," Ilia tells me, gratitude washing over her features. Her green eyes shimmer at me under the dim lights that line the tent ceiling.

"Don't give it to her," the man next to me sneers.

I huff at him, immediately deciding not to take his advice purely on his sour demeanor. "Why not? We're all on hard times now; the least anybody can do is show a little kindness, especially with this mess going on."

He snorts into his drink. "It'll just disappear; that freak eats coins."

Ilia looks horrified, and she screeches at him. "Link has to know!" she snaps fiercely.

"He can find out tomorrow," the man says, waving her off. He turns to me, saying, "Don't waste your money, lass." He sips his beer and turns his attentions to the commotion down by the radio.

"Please, just ignore him," Ilia says to me as she leads me out of the tent by my arm.

I jog a little to catch up to her quick pace as she leads me through the tents and wagons of the carnies. She comes up to a small wagon and unlocks the door. Before she opens it, she turns to me and says with a small, slender hand out, "The coin."

"Oh!" I dig into the pocket of my dress and pull out a coin for her from my coin purse. I press it into her palm, and she gives me a quiet "Thank you," and pushes the door open. She beckons me inside to a dimly lit room within the wagon. There's a small bed to one side with a nightstand next to it. Two trunks sit across from the bed, one open to reveal clothing, and a tattered rug lines the floor of the wagon. Ilia steps lightly to the corner of the wagon to a man sitting in the chair as I shut the door behind me. She pushes her dirty blond locks from her face. Round ears.

Ilia looks back at me as I stand awkwardly. "Since you gave me a coin and told us all the news, I think you should at least meet Link," she says with a sad smile, nodding to the man in the chair. Despite all the troubles in the country, the man looks incredibly serene as he sleeps upright in the chair in a very refined suit. The shirt is perfectly white and the black jacket and pants look pressed and clean, the only thing that could even hint at hard times for him is the way his shaggy hair sprawls out from his head with slender ears poking out.

"Maybe we shouldn't wake him," I say softly, backing up slowly to leave the wagon. My hand flails behind me, feeling for the door knob.

Ilia laughs. The smile on her face stretches wide and she says, "Oh, he's not sleeping." She gestures at a small silver box protruding from the man's chest under his white shirt. I move my mouth to ask her what it is, when I see her place my coin into the slot at the top of the box. She backs away a little.

The coin clicks and clacks within the box, and then the sudden spur of gears sounds. The man's eyes flutter open, wide and a dark, steely blue. I yelp and jump back as I watch the man shake his limbs stiffly and mechanically. "Morning already?" he asks Ilia, and she shakes her head, gesturing at me. His head swivels over towards me, and he offers a small smile. I stiffen up against the door. What in blazes is this?

Ilia waves a hand at the mechanical man, saying, "This is Link." Her face falls slightly, but Link doesn't take his fierce gaze off of me. "Oh," she sighs. "I'm sorry; I never got your name." She laughs softly in embarrassment.

My jaw bobs. My heart pumps. My hand clutches onto the door knob for dear life.

"Don't be afraid," Ilia laughs, tickling the air around her with her voice. "He won't hurt you.

"What's your name?" Ilia asks me again, smiling encouragingly at me.

Link continues to stare me down, calculating and precise. I feel my lips smack against each other as if I was a fish out of water a few more times before I stutter out, "Zelda."

Ilia giggles. "There we go!" she exclaims happily, her smile returning once more. "Link, this is Zelda. She gave me a coin."

"Did she?" the man asks, his head swiveling to give Ilia a quick glance before moving back into my direction with that ever present soft smile. His glassy eyes bear into me as if he was reading me. Two spears striking my heart. "Zelda," he says, trying the name out on his tongue. There's just a moment, however slight, that I believe I see what I can only recall recognition flash across his face. I glance at Ilia, but if she saw anything different in him, she betrays nothing. "Thank you, Zelda."

"You're welcome," I manage to sputter out, but I'm not totally sure if it even sounds like that. I'm not even sure if I made any legible sound at all.

I glance between the coin-operated man and Ilia and realize the unnerving quality, or lack thereof, between the two. Link's glassy, fake eyes move and shift as if they were human eyes, but there's one missing trait in them that I can see in Ilia, the diner waiters and patrons, the city people and the other carnies: life. The mechanical man is just that, a machine. He moves, smiles and speaks as if he were human, but lacks the luster of life.

Link rises from the chair, his limbs moving in a slightly jerking manner as gears shift and swirl within him, and begins to button up his shirt, covering up the coin slot on his chest. He looks over at Ilia. "Where did you put my bowtie?" he asks, tugging at his jacket's lapels in an attempt to straighten them out and reshape them.

Ilia hurries over to the closed trunk and opens it to reveal men's clothing inside. She pulls out a slip of red and hands it to Link. "Here," she says, handing it to him, and Link slides it around his neck and quickly ties it.

"Is everything set up?"

At this Ilia straightens up, biting her lip. She glances between Link and me worriedly, peridot irises flickering between the corners of her eyes. "Well," she starts slowly, "something came up."

"What're you talking about?" Link asks, his brow knitting in confusion as he adjusts the cuffs of his jacket and shirt. How human is this thing?

Ilia steps back to get completely out of Link's line of vision of me. She waves at hand at me, and then her arm falls flat to her side. She bites her lip again, thinking briefly before saying quietly, "It's night, Link."

"What!" he exclaims. His face contorts into complete shock, and he turns and rips open the ratted curtains to a window above the trunks. He looks frantically out through the glass and sees nothing but the night engulfing the fields in certain darkness. "Why did you start me up then? What's wrong?" he babbles frantically.

"Um!" I sputter weakly to catch his attention.

Link whips around to face me.

"I was sitting in a diner earlier this evening when the president came on with an address," I tell him meekly as he begins to straighten up. His eyes roll over to me, piercing me once more as I give him an explanation. What in the hell have I gotten myself into? "Magic has been outlawed. He signed the document earlier this evening."

Link freezes in his movements and stares blankly at me. His glassy eyes dull over to a matte finish as he tries to soak in my words. Then his eyelids flutter to life, the glassiness returning to his cobalt eyes, and he leans towards me a little. "I'm sorry, what?" he breathes.

"Magic has been outlawed," I repeat.

The mechanical man looks at me and Ilia in pure panic. "What's that mean?" he roars. "Ilia! What am I going to do?" he cries desperately, his glassy eyes flitting wildly about.

"I'm sorry, Link, but I had to make sure you knew," she says, her voice suddenly tiny and weak. "Please calm down." She backs away slightly, folding into herself.

"Ilia!" voices shout from outside the wagon, and we all go rigid for a moment in surprise. Ilia's name rackets through the air again, and we relax, realizing that it's just the other carnies calling out into the night for her. The immediate snap of tension slackens with our realization. The carnies call again and again into the night. "Ilia!"

"I'll be back," she promises us, her voice just barely above a whisper. She gently places a comforting hand on Link's shoulder, but he doesn't even notice as he stares me down again with feral fierceness. I step aside shakily as Ilia jerks the door to the wagon open and flies out. It shuts with a resounding slam.

Link breaks his unnerving gaze and runs his fingers through his hair nervously, muttering curses to himself as he settles down on the bed. I stay rooted to the spot when he suddenly flashes a stern look in my direction. I stiffen under his gaze as he says huskily, "Your ears."

"What about them?"

"Hylian."

"Yes."

"You can do magic," he states blandly.

I bite my lip.

"You can," he breathes, ignoring my refusal to comment and my uneasiness at his accusation. "Did you know that it just falls off of you like a waterfall? There's so much."

Then with more force behind his voice, Link asks me, "What are you doing here?"

"I was on my way to Lon Lon Ranch to tell my friends of the news. It's about a forty-five minute or so drive from here," I tell him, nervously squirming a little under his stare. "Power lines don't run that far out. They probably wouldn't know for about a week what's happened otherwise."

He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. Link doesn't move for some time, and when he finally does, he lets his hand flop down between his knees. Hoots screech through the dark outside from the carnies. The mechanical man pats the bed next to him, and I hesitantly move to follow, giving a quick and nervous glance around the room as if some unseen eyes are judging the inappropriateness of this.

Meekly, I say in reminder (for him or for me, I don't know), smoothing the skirt of my dress, "I should be heading out to the ranch."

Link ignores my comment and says, "Ilia doesn't have any magic." His head bows as he studies his hands. He rubs his palms together, and a little voice in the back of my mind has to wonder what his faux skin must feel like. Is it like rubber? Soft and smooth? Rough like sand paper? Or does it actually resemble real skin? And what of his dirty blond hair? Was it cut from another's head? Or is it fake like his glass eyes?

"May I ask what exactly it is you are?"

Link raises his head and looks out the window across from us. Idly, he tells me, "I used to be able to do magic. Not anymore. I've been cursed for a long time now, my soul having been separated from my body."

"How have you survived?"

"Through dolls," he says simply. "My soul would be fine without a vessel of its own, but it's really a hassle. What with the floating and everything." He chuckles slightly at that thought before continuing. "Of course, I have to say, this is by far the best body I've had and one that best resembles what I originally looked like, but it only works for a certain amount of time before a new coin has to be put in."

"So… you're a coin-operated doll?" I ask him uncertainly.

He smiles, and his glass eyes slide over in their sockets to me. "I am.

"You know," he says, leaning a bit closer to me, "I used to be a rag doll. That was a real pain. It takes a lot of energy to move one of those things."

I frown slightly. "So this body's easier to move in?"

"Much!" he says with much enthusiasm. "I think it's all the gears and hydraulics."

"What are hydraulics?" I ask, confused. I'd never heard of the term before.

Link waves it off though. "It's a new thing this researcher out by Lake Hylia has been working on. He's the one that actually made this body for me." He speaks with a slight hint of admiration, but then in the same strike, it's gone. He dismisses the whole notion. "I'll tell you more about it and Professor Mizuumi another time."

"But what does all that have to do with me having magic?"

"You're a quick one," he chuckles softly. Then he lets out a sigh, rubbing his palms together again as he quickly mulls over his words. "I've been travelling with this carnival for a very long time," he says pointedly and carefully. "I've come across many, many people. Some have magic, others don't. The only person that I've come across that has any competency with magic has been the fortune teller travelling with us, and even then it's not a lot.

"You make everybody pale in comparison. Magic just seeps out from you."

Amazed, I ask, "You can really see my magic?" I didn't think it was possible for magic to flow off of a person like that. Anybody that can do magic has a core in which the magic is contained. Depending on the individual, the capacity of a person's magical core will vary. The thought that magic is seeping from me, as Link put it, is a bit alarming to me.

He nods. "I'm essentially almost in the purest form anybody can take," he chuckles, trying to make a point to me, but it's over my head.

"I don't understand."

He laughs at me. "You're in a bit of shock, aren't you?"

My eyes dart around the room, just so I don't have to meet his gaze. But I can feel it. By the goddesses! I can feel his eyes bearing into me. "I think so," I say with uncertainty. I mean, I am talking to a coin-operated doll after all. What nonsense is this? What screwed up anachronism is he?

"Zelda, right?"

"Yes."

The corners of Link's mouth quirks. "Do you have another coin?"

"Um, yes?"

"When you wake up tomorrow, come back here," Link instructs me, taking my hands and pulling me up from the bed. His blue eyes penetrate me. He whispers to me, "Don't forget that coin."

"What if I don't want to come back?" I blurt.

"Well, that's a shame," he replies with a mischievous smile. "Then you'll never have your curiosity quenched."

When I try to stutter out a response, the mechanical man only laughs at my current inability to form speech. A new glint in his glassy eyes, he tells me, "Have courage, love, and you'll see the light."

With that, I flee the wagon and the carnival.

…

"I must be going mad, Malon!" I cry out to her.

Malon shushes me, and takes my arm. She pulls me down to sit on the bed with her, and the mattress squeaks in protest. "Calm down, calm down," she coos, rubbing my bare arm. "Just think about it for a moment," she says softly, but sternly as she gently tries to beat rational thought into me. "A lot of troupes use magic to enhance their acts, but most of them are fake, right?" I nod.

Then I sputter out, throwing myself up from the bed in a frenzy, "But this has to be big magic!" My hands grapple aimlessly at the air. My heels clack on the wooden floors as I pace about. "Big and old and ancient magic!"

Malon shushes me again. "Quiet, quiet," she chides. "My father and Ingo are sleeping.

"And 'old' and 'ancient' is kind of the same thing, Zelda."

"Sorry," I quickly apologize, my arms falling to my side as I swirl to face her again. The fabric of my dress swishes at my knees as it settles down. I plop myself down next to Malon on the bed, the springs groaning under my weight.

"I really should oil this old thing," Malon chuckles.

"Thank you for letting me stay here for the night," I tell her.

Malon flashes me a smile as she rises from the bed. "It's no problem. You'll always have a place here at the ranch," she assures me as she takes one of the oil lamps from the bedside table. She moves to leave me in the bedroom, but then she pauses at the door. Her head whips around to face me, the flame of the lamp glowing in her blue eyes. "Are you going to go back tomorrow?" she asks me. Light flickers on her face.

I wring my hands nervously in my lap as I mull it over. I frown. "I don't know," I admit. "I kind of feel like I should, but at the same time… this is trouble. I'm not sure if I want to get into that sort of thing, you know?" I can hear Link in the back of my mind telling me of how my magic flows off of me. I shift a little uncomfortably at the thought, and decide against saying anything to Malon about that, as disturbing as it is. Did he tell me that to bait me into coming back to him? I bite my lip, pondering the mechanical boy's ulterior motives.

Her eyes flit down towards the flame of the oil lamp in her hand before Malon looks back at me. "Maybe," Malon says wistfully. "But then again, it seems with the president, everything is trouble." She swallows and scrunches her eyes shut for a moment before putting on a soft smile for me. "Goodnight Zelda," the redhead whispers.

"Night Malon." The door hesitantly clacks shut, and I'm left alone.

I sigh, burying my face into my hands. What am I going to do? I can ignore the whole thing, but the overwhelming feeling of wrongness skitters across my skin like little skulltula. The sense of doom that I feel moves with my pulse. I'm sure that I'm not the only one feeling these types of things after seeing the horrified faces of the employees and patrons of the diner I ate at for dinner. What the coin-operated doll said to me is just as unsettling. He can see my magic. Does that mean others can too? Will that mark me? Am I in some kind of danger now? A target threat to my society and culture?

But then I worry about the fact that Link used the word "seep" to describe the way he could see my magic. I close my eyes and look within. My magic appears to be perfectly contained, but that's just it. It appears as though it is contained. But Link could still see it. Does that mean that it's leaking somehow? Can magic even do that? I wonder if this is what it means to become a rogue.

I pull my face from my hands and kick off my heels. Not even bothering to get out of my dress I pull back the covers of the bed and put out the remaining oil lamp on the bedside table. In the cover of darkness, I slide into the bed and huddle in the covers, feeling slightly childish. I feel as if the further I cower into the sheets and blankets of the bed, the more protected I'll be from the waking world outside. From the people. From the president. From magical coin-operated boys.

And so it begins. This was actually a bit of a challenge to write, because while it is Zelda, this is a completely different Zelda from the one narrating Zombie Cake. They both have similar qualities, but their personalities are just so vastly different at the same time. It's a little weird to think they're both Zelda. Haha. But I'm really excited to write this. This Zelda is a lot more observant, perceptive and aware of her surroundings compared to the Zombie Cake Zelda. ZC Zelda mentions a lot of things, as she's observant as well, but lacks the perception at this point in time in ZC to really comprehend the meanings behind what she sees. It's a little refreshing to write this as well as frustrating. I went back and back to make sure this Zelda had her own voice and to set a definite tone to this. I hope I achieved it.

Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed it so far. Let me know whatever thoughts you guys have, I'd love to hear them. I'll see you all in the next installment. Until then, peace out!

:3