Hello again and welcome to the story I am calling my not so delightful change of pace. I am looking forward to writing this as it will be a much more mature and original story than my other story "The Seventh Seal". Here is the prologue.
Disclaimer!: This story is rated 'M' for: Action Violence, Descriptive Blood and Gore, Dark/Scary Imagery, Language, Sexual Reference and maybe Sexual Situations. You have been warned.
Story Suggestions: 'How Zelda Got Her Groove Back' by Zelda Rubix; 'Wolfbane AU' by Slade1987.
Two Years Ago
The strange man's dark eyes were smirking. He wore a tight fitting hood, the outline of his rounded ears pushing through the brown fabric. The King took note of the man's eyes because that is really all he could see of the man's face. Everything from the nose down was covered by a black mask made out of some foreign coarse fabric. The headgear undoubtedly was there to protect the man from the harshness of his homeland. He was a Goroshen, a swarthy man from the Wastes of Gorosh, a reigion of deserts and wasteland populated by giant beasts and untold danger. Somehow, this man's entire race survived in the unsavory environment. Living as nomads, they wandered the far reaches of the barren dunes.
This was some of the sparse information King Daphnes Harkinan III knew of his visitor. He was armed, a simple spear, which stood a full head taller than the man, made of wood and bone. His armor matched the colors of his garb, all yellows and browns and everything in between. Sharp plates of bone stuck out of his shoulders and arms, while most of the rest of him was protected by leather. He was an intimidating presence to say the least.
The last thing the King knew for sure, was that the man was a messenger. He came speaking on behalf of his Master, the Lord and Ruler of a union that the man before the King kept calling 'The Golden Alliance'. However, the name did not strike Daphnes as familiar. He assumed this union was small and only just growing. Yet the man standing before the King spoke as if the might of this body was to be feared and not to be taken lightly.
"You will heed my warning, Hylian King!" The Goroshen spoke in a voice that sounded like it had been blasted with sand for twenty years. Although considering the man's heritage, the grating sound may have been caused by just that. "The flood that is our might will sweep over these lands and claim many lives. You would be wise to respect this power and yield before your people… and their families… suffer for your pride."
The King was still trying to understand just what this man was trying to say. Certainly this alliance was not solely interested in a conflict. And even if they were, how do they expect to stand against the entire Royal Hylian Army? They would be swept aside like hay in a strong wind.
"I am not threatened by your idle threats. If your 'Golden Alliance' is as powerful as you say it is, then why have you not attacked yet? No! I think you and your force are as afraid of our might as you are trying to make us feel of yours. Begon! I will hear no more of your bantering. You do not know the forces with which you meddle. Hyrule is protected by our Goddesses and they shall see to our safety. What have we to fear from you?"
The man never moved. He never even blinked at the King. He made no indication that he even heard the King for several moments. Daphnes was beginning to question the man's mental state. He would have demanded an explanation had it not been for the response that eminated from the man's mouth. Or at least, it seamed to come from his mouth.
"You are a fool, Daphnes!" The voice did not belong to the desert man. It boomed out of him, louder than should have been possible. Everyone in the room seemed to shake with it's sound. The King made out a soft gasp from behind and to his left. His daughter had lost her composure for a moment. At the time, Daphnes did not fault her for it. If he were not occupied, he would have told Zelda that he nearly lost it as well.
"I give you the chance to join me willingly and you spit in my Voice's face." There was a pause as the voice seemed to take a breath. "But what you do not realize is that I do have something for you to fear… The Gerudo Regime, lead by the High Priestess of Din, has just sworn themselves to the Alliance."
Daphnes' breath caught and he visibly paled. Relations with the nearby Gerudo had never been good, but the two nations shared a settled peace for the last thirty years and Daphnes never had any reason to fear a threat from the desert in that time. Perhaps he should have. The Gerudo had lost or ceased every war they had ever faught with Hyrule, But that was due in no small part to their smaller size. The nearly all woman race was made up of fierce warriors and they knew Hylian battle plans by heart. Hyrule had always won by strength and size, but if the Gerudo were to ally themselves with a larger force that used their knowledge…
The King paused as the repercusions of an outright refusal settled on his mind.
"Lord Hestous!"
"Yes your Majesty."
"Prepare an envoy." The room seemed to freeze at these words. All the nobles present shared the same expression: Wide eyed and jaws dropped. "You will assign an ambassador to return to this Golden Alliance and begin negotiating a peace."
The instructions reached their target, but the Minister of Foreign Relations took a moment to process the details. Slowly, he responded.
"Of course… Your Majesty."
The King addressed the desert visitor again.
"Hyrule will not surrender her sovereignty, but we are willing to come to terms for peaceful coexistance. I hope that this course of action is best for all of us."
The Goroshen was blinking as the King finished, shaking his head as if to regain his bearings. After steadying himself, he locked eyes with the King and Daphnes shuddered at what he found there. Darkness. Perfect, flawless…darkness.
"It will be, Hylian King."
One Year Ago
Zelda often wondered if there was something not quite right about herself. At sixteen years old and Princess of Hyrule, she was now sharing in the responsibilities her Father, the King, was usually able to handle himself. And Zelda relished it. While others her age would have been exhausted and overwhelmed at the mere thought of such responsibility, Zelda took it and ran. She found that the day to day decisions to be made in the castle were sometimes to simple for her to solve and she would often go to her Father and help with his problems. Yes, there was definitely something wrong with her.
But she did not have time to focus on such trivial things at the moment. War was fast approaching and all the preparations had to me made. Despite the effort her Father had made to find a peaceful resolution to the demands of the Golden Alliance, their Ruler had never once backed away. He, or they were quite certain that it was a he, had simply accepted their offers and then demanded more and more and more. And now, he was marching his Army right into the heart of Hyrule. Which is why the Princess was at the Royal Academy.
"Your Grace, it is a pleasure to see you." The man speaking was Colonel Jek Ryker, Commandant of the Royal Academy. It was his responsibility to train all the new recruits that would all too soon be joining the Royal Hylian Army on the battlefield. "I trust the King is well?"
Zelda sighed irritably, a sound that did not sound right coming from a teenager rather then an old Lord with silver flecked hair.
"As well as can be expected with an invasion force breathing down our throats." The Princess' voice was not harsh, but it did have a hard edge as she maintained her stern visage. "I'm afraid I have no time for small talk, Colonol, so let us get right to the point. Are ther any issues to report?"
The Colonol seemed to take the rebuff without a second thought as he fell into step on the Princess' left.
"None that we can find. The new training program, while rigorous, is producing some of the finest soldiers we have ever seen straight out of the Academy. In fact, one of our rising stars is right over there." He pointed as they passed the sparring grounds. "Would you like to take a look?"
Zelda nodded as the pair shifted course toward the sound of steel meeting steel. When they reached the grounds, the main attraction was a pair of young men surrounded by a swarm of other young men. The two were shirtless, save for some bandages that seemed to be covering sparring wounds. They each wore leather gauntlets and bore Gladious', short swords with wide blades and no cross guards. They didn't seem to be an even matched for a practice duel. One was a full head taller then the other, with lots of red hair, golden eyes and a wide build. The shorter man, if he could be called that at roughly six feet, was still very well built. His blue eyes also seemed sharper and more focused then the redhead and there was not as much of his sandy hair as his opponent had.
Zelda found herself appreciating the 'smaller' man's physique and let a mischevious smirk grace her smile.
The two men had been sparring as she appraised them, the redhead clearly used to using his size to his advantage. He constantly pressed his attack. The sandy man was almost always on the defensive and Zelda wondered what was so incredible about him.
"He has made the top mark in every subject." The Colonol started, answering Zelda's unasked question. "He has proven to be a masterful tactician, archer, horseman… All his Academic studies are flawless. And he is a born leader. Most of the recruits follow him without a second thought. The exception being Groose there." He pointed to the redhead with to much hair. "All in all, I expect young Link to make an outstanding officer one day."
Link. That was the name of the sandy haired man. She still was not all that impressed by him- She spoke too soon.
With a great amount of force, Link swatted Groose's sword, pushing the blade toward the hand it was held in; Groose's right. Then, with speed that defied reason, Link swung his sword in a full, verticle circle, hitting Groose's sword in the back of the blade. The vibrations from the two attacks loosened the redhead's grip on his Gladious and the sword flew out of his hand, spinning. Link then used the momentum from his disarming strike to spin completely around, gently bearing his blade across Groose's neck. Groose could only raise his hands in surrender.
'Clink'
Groose's sword finally hit the ground, the tip sticking into the dirt not two feet infront of Zelda. Looking up from the sword, she let her shock and awe show on her face. She was impressed. The recruits had began to disperse, most going back to their own sparring practice. Link sheathed his blade and reached out to shake the hand that Groose had offered.
"Your Grace, we should continue with the inspection."
Zelda silently nodded to the Colonol as she began to move away. Just before she turned away though, the young warrior named Link looked directly at her. They stayed that way until Zelda turned a courner and they could no longer see one another.
"What a fascinating young man…" She said to herself. Zelda had to snicker at her chioce of words. She was analytical even with men. There was deffinately something wrong with her…
Present
Red… Orange… Black… These were the colors that assaulted Link's senses as he once again had to sidestep or be impaled by one of his foes bone-bladed weapons. The Red was everywhere. Pooling on the ground. Running through the divots that marked the battlefield. It colored his sword. It even covered his armor. He swung his sword, the blade cutting thru what had to be it's thousanth warrior. That warrior was now also red, the deep gash in his chest growing as the color escaped his wound. He fell then, joining the dozens of others Link had sent to the Goddesses today. He prayed that he would not join them.
The Orange was everywhere too, but not as much. It bit and tore at the houses in the town Link had just left, the one his unit had been defending. The one that would be only ash and chared skeletons before dawn. The Orange was everywhere. It jumped and flew and crept around. It was reaching higher now, it's movements a macabre dance of death and destruction. The Orange had even found a home on some of his fellow soldiers. As the whistling darts thrown at them from across the field buried deep into their flesh, the color would consume them, consume his friends, his brothers, those that he had grown so close to over the last year.
But the worst color, that was the Black. For the Black covered the very heavens above him as Link stabbed another man and moved to intercept his partner. The Black was the storm that was now pelting the with ice cold liquid. But it could not have been water falling from the sky. No, it was just more Black. Black was the day that had finally come. Dark and twisted, a mockery to the light that was once Hyrule. Black surrounded them now, was in their very minds. For it was also the color of their thoughts. Were they not dwelling on the knowlegde that the King had been captured? Was it not true that thousands of Hylians, Humans, Gorons, Zora and perhaps even Kokiri were now never going to see another dawn? Had he not heard the words? The words that told him the Princess was dead, killed trying to escape the massacre that was Castle City. All was Black. Until the Red overtook it.
Link watched helplessly as one of the few men who were still fighting by his side was run through with a Gerudo Halberd. His commander, Captain Arick Kellow fell back from the mortal wound, his armor and the Halberd stained dark red with his own blood. Link acted on instinct. He ran as fast as he could, hell bent on killing the woman who had wounded his Captain. The olive-skinned warrior withdrew her bloodied weapon from the soldier and readied it to do the same to Link. But as the woman thrust the shaft forward, it met nothing but air as Link threw his legs forward and let his body drop, sliding along the slick earth as the halberd pushed over his head. The Gerudo couldn't recover. As Link's foot met a rock, his force carried him up and forward. He attacked then, driving his Gladious into the woman's throat. He flinched at the wet squish that accompanied the motion. With a flick of his wrist, the blade twisted, severing the head completely and sending it rolling across the battlefield.
Link dropped his sword and knelt by the Captain, lifting him up and shaking him lightly.
"Sir! Sir!" He yelled. "Captain, wake up! We have to retreat!"
The soldier stirred, caughing up blood as he gasped and weezed. He openned his eyes, the green orbs looking hollow and dim in his curent state.
"You fool… Boy…" He sputtered and coughed again. "There is nothing more to be had from this battle. Run!"
Link fervently shook his head.
"Not without you, Sir. I'm getting you out of here! You have a wife and daughter waiting for you and I am not going to let you disappoint them!"
The Captain laughed at his subordinate, an empty gesture considering the circumstances.
"Don't worry about them… They knew this could happen..." He weezed, trying to steady himslf. "Link, kid, you listen to me now. This battle is over… But it is not going to be the end of Hyrule. Hyrule will never die as long as good men like you are willing to fight for it. That is why…" He coughed, a steady stream of red following it. "…You have to go. Hyrule is in your hands now. You have to fight for her… This is not the end… This will not be her fate… and don't you let anyone tell you otherwise! Hyrule will rise again and even in times like these we have to believe that the darkness will fade." He was struggling now, every word was labored. "… The future is yours now… Change it for Hyrule… and remember… there is…no…fate…but what…we make…"
With a long sigh, the Captain slumped back and did not move again. With the ever louder sounds of battle closing in, Link spared no time. He grabbed his sword and a nearby shield, gently closed his commander's eyes and ran. He ran and ran until all he could hear was his own heartbeat. He knew it would be a long time before he saw the Hyrule he knew return. He knew that it might never happen in his lifetime. But he also knew that he would not rest, he would not stop until he saw it or the Goddesses. He would fight and he would win.
"This is not the end! The future is not written! There is no fate but what we make!"
Well, what do you think? I've never written darkish before and I don't know if it came across the way I wanted. This story is going to deviate from the classic Zelda Mythos, which is why I am classing it as AU.
And before everyone asks, Yes, I did steal the last sentence from the Terminator movies, but it also has a really good reason to be there.
Please review. I love feedback!
Stay Frosty!