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The Children's Trident

Chapter 1

Carock sat on a poorly padded bench-like bed, grunting, yanking, and prying at the cuffs suppressing his magic, in a cell with a small empty package lying abandoned in a corner. Across from him was the cell's heavy metal door, which shared a wall with a small and downright pitiful excuse of a mirror in dire need of polishing. He had little light to work by, but it did not bother him. The thin moonbeam entering the cell from the sole sliver of a window and the very faint blue glow from the crystals affixed to the ceiling were more than enough light for a Zuna of his particular breed.

He was mostly a Karstzuna, named after their subterranean homes scattered in Doldara, the now dry cove up north. His skin was the color of the palest edges of a honeydew's flesh. It was contrasted by the vermilion clothing swimming over his slender body and the cascade of black hair framing his face. His eyes were entirely green, including most of his sclerae, and were framed by thick black eyelashes and dark periorbital circles. Rage and worry combined with the cold coastal drafts sweeping in that one tiny window kept him awake.

Carock sighed in frustration and sat back for a moment. He peered at his meager pillow and retrieved the fork he had swiped some days prior from it. He held up his wrist again and tried picking at the cuffs with the old, beat-up cutlery. He had wasted a fortnight in this Zunusyerkirian prison and that was one too many as far as he was concerned.

"Hey, you!" the guard yelled, "I can hear what you're doing in there, stop it!"

"I shouldn't even be in here!" Carock shouted, "Mister Sargsyan's accusations are completely—"

"Shut up, ghoul!"

"They're completely unsubstantiated!"

"What!"

"He's fulla shit! He's lyin'! He's—" Carock snapped.

"Oh, yes, this crap again. 'I was framed! I was framed!' You and everybody else!" the guard snapped. "And it hardly even matters anymore after all the crap you've pulled in here!"

"Yargh!" Carock screamed as he hit the cell door.

"Watch it." the guard growled.

"A buncha damned, shit-eatin' Tözlams kidnapped my ward! Why does no one care?! What the fuckin' hell?!"

"Shut up!"

"Motherfuckin' half-bred trichophile!"

"All right, that is it!" the guard shouted.

Carock flinched and felt his heart thump harshly against his ribs and his lungs shrivel. He took a deep, quivering breath to fill the sudden hollowness inside him and to soothe the queaziness birthed from his heightened anxiety. Fighting with his power suppressed never became any easier, no matter how many times he has done it before nor how many hours he had pondered over it beforehand. At least this time he had a fork.

"I'm gonna teach you a lesson you can see even in that shitty mirror, you—ouuugh!" There was a loud thump from the other side of the door, like the guard's body had just been slammed into it, along with the dull thud of punches and some clattering. Carock then heard the jingling of keys and a couple of clicks before the cell door swung open. His jaw dropped when he saw who stood on the other side.

He saw two Zuna men, both cloaked in hooded, face-covering robes that matched the color of the prisons' walls. The one standing away from the cell had Carock's bag hanging from his shoulders and looked utterly unnatural in the stoney beige clothes enveloping him. He stared motionlessly at Carock as he stood with his feet somewhat apart and his hands nestled behind his back like a soldier. The one standing and panting before him at the door uncovered his face and reached for Carock's hands.

"Ta— Tarock? Shadrock? Wh— What are you—" Carock had already recognized them despite the cloaks by their eyes and by the fact that they were only two people in all of Barida Bay who could possibly know where he was and would actually come rescue him.

"C'mon! Shadrock's got your stuff. We have to go now!" Tarock said as he unlocked Carock's shackles. Carock nodded and grabbed a piece of paper from the prison's ratty pillow before joining them. They stood in a circle, holding each others' arms, and vanished.

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A dark, fiery-haired man found himself in an enormous room where anything more than two and a half yards away seemed to fade into a black fog. His footsteps echoed as though he were in a canyon. The air was chilly and oppressive as though the atmosphere itself was bearing down on him. He moved slowly and quietly toward a presence drawing him to the center of the room.

He stopped short when a powerful odor struck him in the face: the stench of iron and decay. He looked to the floor and saw the edge of a huge pool filled nearly to the brim with an opaque green liquid. He took a step back and stared at it suspiciously until he noticed the faint light reflecting off it. He jerked his head up and saw the light shining above a strange figure standing on an island in the pool's center with no bridges, ropes, or stepping stones leading to it from his shore. In front of the figure was some sort of altar with a struggling little girl tied to it. She saw him and called out to him, screaming and crying in absolute terror, "Grampa! Grampa, help me!" He did not hesitate for even a second and entered the pool with a splash. "Grampa!"

The pool went only to his waist at first, but then the floor suddenly slanted down acutely. He was a poor swimmer, so he sank a bit after he kicked off the pool floor to give himself a speed boost. The strange, thick liquid was now on his face and had slipped into his mouth. He gagged and spat. This is blood...?! he thought. He saw bits and pieces of fleshy debris floating in it with him in the corners of his eyes. He grimaced and kept his gaze fixed into his destination.

His granddaughter continued to scream for him as the heavily cloaked figure loomed over her. It carried a black trident with a red diadem-shaped stone imbedded at the base of the prongs and wore an intricate stone mask that reminded him of an owl. The mask had one eye with a relatively normal shape that was overshadowed by its big, round eyeball bulging out. It had several lines carved into it, many ending in rectangular spirals, one of which was placed where the mask's right eye would have been. On the top looked like horns that stuck straight up and were each topped with the same type of tight spirals that covered the mask. There were a pair of snakes on the horns that had a head at each end. The heads lunging toward the spirals had their mouths open and their tongues out. The other heads were facing each other and biting opposing sides of a disc that was just a bit his right from the center of the mask's forehead. Although the figure remained silent and its face was completely obscured, he could sense that it was enjoying watching him struggle in the pool.

A chill went up his spine and he tensed as many small fingers suddenly clutched his leg. A venomous and disturbingly joyful cackle joined his grandaughter's cries. As the hands pulled him under, he held his breath and shut his eyes just in time. He dared not open them, not that it would have done him any good, and holding his breath was much harder than it usually would have been as he kept feeling chunks of something brush across his face and hands as he tried to pry and kick off the horde of small hands clutching his leg. The feel of those squishy, cold hands alone would have been enough to make him gag as their slippery skin slid and tore away at his efforts, sometimes the hands themselves would snap apart. He grunted out most of his air and accidentally gasped when a small fractured bone stabbed his hand. He felt like his body was going to cave in at his chest by the time he finally kicked them all off.

As he desperately swam to the surface, he heard blood-curtling screams and then nothing. When he broke the surface, he did not need to open his eyes to tell that the light had considerably dimmed. He finally reached the island and dragged himself out of the pool, still coughing, gasping, and sputtering. "Matilda!" he rasped as he placed his hands on the altar to pull himself up. He coughed again as he stood, brought a hand to his face to cover his mouth, and saw that his palms were red.

His shocked stare switched to the altar and fixated on the bloody little body upon it. Short despairing moans escaped his constricted throat as his stomach twisted and knotted. Her head laid tilted toward him and vitreous fluid streaked her face, which had frozen in a ghastly grimace with her mouth stretched into an unnatural, gaping frown and her brows pinched into sharp, jagged arcs. Her eyes were hollow and dark except for the bits of white lumps that laid limply inside. A juicy, red gash ran from the center of her neck down to her navel with long, bloody tubes of flesh splayed about.

"Oh, was that yours?"

Ganondorf awoke with a start, panting and glancing about wide-eyed in a cold sweat. He was fully dressed, aside from his shoes, belt, and crown. His tangled hair stuck out in all directions with some strands clinging to his damp face. He pushed his hair out of his face and back, then continued to rub his face.

Ganondorf had been sleeping poorly for months, as evidenced by the dark bags under his bloodshot eyes. Nightmares plagued him night-after-night, beginning as a vague, threatening fog that Ganondorf initially mistook as the product of stress over the war creeping toward his borders again. As the dreams took form, it quickly became clear that they had little to do with the threats from the east.

The first details to form were the figures cloaked in black— faces all hidden with bizarre stone masks and often muttering in strange tongues. The figures' language was vaguely similar to one the Gerudo had learned from Zamruht centuries ago. One figure in partcular appears most often lately, like in tonight's nightmare. It always spoke in Zamruht's dialect and it always said the same thing. Every night, it always slaughtered a different child— except during these past ten nights. Now it was always his Guldel's little Matilda.

The figure always took some perverse sense of joy in his struggle to save her, assuming it was not a part of his subconscious mocking him for always forgetting he could just levitate over the pool, and by the end of each dream he was so disgusted, horrified, and enraged that the only thing keeping him from ripping this figure apart limb from limb was the fact that he always awakened before he could even begin to lunge at it.

Even before the nightmares took on such a personal nature, his instinct still compelled him to check on his granddaughters. He might have felt like a paranoid fool if not for the fact that Guldel had been having the same nightmares. By his arrival, she would be up, holding a lit candle, and checking to see if her babies were still there.

They were both just about at their wit's end and had taken to sitting by each other for the rest of the night, her in her bed and Ganondorf in a chair, whispering. More than ever did Guldel express her desire to drag the girls' father to Gerudo Fortress, however advantageous it is for everyone that he stays at the ranch. "Perhaps we should ask Matsel to return to our chambers." Ganondorf had suggested a week ago.

"That wouldn't be too awkward?"

"No," he answered bluntly, "and it doesn't matter either way. I'd rather feel awkward and well rested than anxious and exhausted." At this point he would much rather live with Guldel's mother, his ex-wife who could crush a grown man's skull with her hands, than with— this. At least there was no animosity between them. "Besides, it would be even more awkward to have him here." he growled quietly.

"Ingo."

"Yeah... The guy who was subdued by having his trousers pulled down..." Ganondorf retorted as he rolled his eyes. Guldel buried her face into pillow so as not wake her girls with her giggling. Ingo and Guldel had met while she and a few other Gerudo were stealing milk. He entered the barn yelling and waving a pitchfork, only to trip over his pants after Guldel had pulled them down to his ankles, and then get shoved back down onto his heinie as he struggled to pull them back up. He ultimately ended up fuming in a corner, surrounded by laughing women who had just hog-tied him with the legs of his pants. He had taken to wearing sleeveless coveralls over shirts ever since. "Such agility, What strength. What a grand epitome of heroism. His presence alone would leave our mysterious assailants quivering in a vast ocean of their own urine." This was the night Ganondorf learned how hard it was to convey sarcasm in a whisper. Guldel punched her father in the shoulder and rolled over shaking with muffled laughter. "He's got guts, though. I'll give him that."

Although they ultimately slept better that evening when they finally dropped off, that bit of levity was certainly no comfort tonight... Not even Matsel's return was easing either of their nerves. Just three days before their chat, a group of people calling themselves Tözlams had appeared upon their western borders. The Tözlams seem to come in many races, most called themselves Karstzuna, but some were Zarvronian, Veldtzuna, Randzuna... The Randzuna looked the most like Zamruht did and understood her dialect best, occasionally giggling at the archaicisms.

The Tözlams spoke of a great king slain long ago by a loden-clad, red-blooded man with a shining blade— of a king whose passion will one day live on in a special mortal and rule the world. It took a lot of self-control at first for Ganondorf not to burst out laughing in their face; however, the fact that these people were cloaked completely in black and wore— or at least carried— masks quickly destroyed any sense of amusement Ganondorf had felt toward these strangers.

Ganondorf sat at the edge of his bed to don his missing clothing and grabbed a bag before he left his bedroom. The hall leading to Guldel and her daughters' bedroom seemed to get longer every night and tonight it had had the largest growth spurt of all. A new feature was how heavy and oppressive the air was... How he felt like something behind him was grasping at him, but missing just barely... A chill went up Ganondorf's spine— he was certain something was wrong tonight and broke out into a run.

Then he heard his daughter cry out, "Matilda?" Ganondorf ran. "Matilda!" If anyone had hurt her, he will find them and rip them to shreds. "Matilda!" Ganondorf arrived at the scene; Guldel was in the hall and his three other daughters, Aveil, Saffe, and Dargora, had joined her. Matsel was looking up and down the hall from the door. Guldel began to speak to him but stopped when they heard a muffled cry and some scuffling. He, Matsel, Guldel, and Aveil ran toward the source. Saffe and Dargora stayed behind to guard the remaining two children.

They heard a familiar voice fuss, "Stay still you— ow!" and then saw two humanoid shapes in the shadows who looked up at them, "Kak!" the other uttered as they turned and ran away with a violently struggling little girl in their arms. Wait... Ganondorf thought, "Kak...?" that was from the language the Tözlams spoke. The other was one of them! The four of them gave chase, jumping over the unconscious bodies of guards. "Mi ban ara!" the Tözlam yelled at the familiar one, who threw a small object at them. It broke open as it hit the ground and released a gas. They held their breaths and shut their eyes as they jumped though, unaffected.

"If you think that'll slow us down, Tuban, you're more stupid than I thought!" Ganondorf yelled.

Tuban, what a schmuck, what a shithead. "I should have been the king." he would whine, "You should have been a Tuttuk." he would whinge, "Why can't everyone see my greatness?" he would wail before Ganondorf would finally lose his patience and put the fucksmack on him. Tuban had spent so much of his time complaining about something neither of them had any control over that it was all he was good at. Ganondorf had no idea what Nabooru had seen in Tuban so many years ago and now, unlike Matsel and himself, they are not still on friendly terms... They all know what Tuban saw in her and when she realized what it was, she kicked him out before he could further leech off the respect the other Gerudo had for her.

They exited the fortress, now with a few guards that Tuban and the Tözlam had missed and Nabooru joining them in the chase, and surrounded the kidnappers. "Release her, Tuban!" Nabooru yelled, "Now!"

"Pahír nəran." the Tözlam growled at Tuban as he released Matilda's legs. She did not waste this opportunity to kick him in the face and bite Tuban, whom dropped her, allowing her to run into Guldel's arms. "Ēš!" the Tözlam scolded as he grabbed Tuban, slapped him, and shoved him down before turning his attention back to the Gerudo surrounding him and began charging a spell. Ganondorf raised his hand and threw a quick spell of his own at him, knocking him over and dispelling his charge. "Bozi təgha!" he got back to his feet and threw a weaker but fast spell at Ganondorf, whom slapped it back to him. The Tözlam mimicked the act and, during their game of Dead Man's Volley, quickly noticed that Ganondorf took a step closer with each ricochet and had a bloodthirsty glare. He ducked the spell, grabbed the panicking Tuban, and used his magic to jump away toward the gate.

"After them!" Ganondorf commanded as he followed them into the desert.

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"OK, leave the circle! Quickly!" Tarock shouted as he dashed forward and practically dragged Carock with him. Shadrock stepped over the outline and, after putting Carock's bag down and shedding the beige robe, stuck his arm into his bag. Tarock began digging through his own bag frantically and said, "We have to disable it before anyone can follow us. OK, first we—" just as Shadrock took a very large hammer and brought it down so heavily upon the graffitied stone that it cracked and disabled the magic. Tarock gaped at the broken circle and then at Shadrock.

"Or that." Carock shrugged.

"The hell did you get that?!" Tarock snapped. Shadrock slid the hammer back into the comically small and clearly enchanted bag. "Why do you even have a huge hammer?!"

"Why do you have a huge bald spot?" Shadrock retorted as he retrieved the rest of his clothing from his bag and donned a black robe, which covered his more unusual clothing: a black and blue horizontally striped shirt and somewhat close-fitting black trousers. He used a bluish-black cloth to cover his head like a hood and pinned it in place with a tagua brooch carved into the shape of a somewhat cartoonish skull.

Tarock glared at Shadrock with his mouth agape for a moment before snarling, "Relevence?"

"None whatsoever." Shadrock answered as he turned to Carock. "Gata," he said softly, "I'm certain that you are aware of the illegitimate nature of your imprisonment."

"Yeah." Carock answered as he took his bag and stashed the piece of paper in it.

"The trial would have been no different. The Tözlams have been busy fabricating evidence to convict you."

"What!" Carock shouted. He brought his palms to his face and grumbled, "For fuck's sake..." He was not particularly surprised— in fact, he assumed that he was being framed— but assuming and knowing are two entirely different things. "Know if anyone else was in on it? That seems a rather brazen thing of them to do without some Zunusyerkirian authority backing them up..."

"According to Nefeli, Prince DerT'agavorian spied the King DerT'agavorian conversing with masked, hooded men about disposing of an incarnate." Shadrock said. Carock's jaw dropped. "Furthermore," he continued, "According to Shałock, the king, the judge, and many of the jury who were to preside over your trial are all of the mask."

Carock stared wide-eyed at Shadrock as he processed what he was just told. "Bu— but—" he finally stammered, "Why?"

"You know why." Shadrock replied, pointing at Carock's verdant blood stripes. They went down his neck and over his back instead of stopping at his jaw.

"No, there's still only four of us! They shouldn't be bothering with this now! Why?!"

"It's about time for Her Third to be reborn, if he hasn't been already. They're getting antsy."

"Fuck!" Carock was close to tears, "I am so fucking sick of this bullshit!"

"Also, I think they expected the Norašxarhakans to try and kidnap you." Tarock told him, "You would not believe how many guards they had posted..."

Carock groaned and rested his head in his hands as he sat on a rock. The Norašxarhakans want to sacrifice the five incarnates of Veriza to return the Zuna to their former aquatic forms and flood the entire planet, destroying everyone else in the process so they can have it to themselves... And to think they had just started as a little sect who worried about the world running out of water, due to Veriza's spring going dry upon her death, and merely desired to resurrect her...

The Tözlams, on the other hand, "only" want to kill one of the five incarnates to foil the Norašxarhakans and gain as much power as possible so they can conquer everything in the name of their master. Between these two cults, it was no surprise that people with extended pairs of blood stripes tend to die young. "Fuck my life..." he groaned. He forlornly raised his head and asked, "What have you heard about Koryun?"

"Shałock said they took him to one of their dungeons and they intend to convince him to join them..." Tarock answered. Carock straightened his posture and stared at his hands resting in his lap. He took a bracing breath and stood. "Wait, you're not going to..."

"I have to."

"But..."

"I have to!"

"They'll kill you!"

"If I can rescue Koryun first then so be it."

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A/N: Y'all may call the Norašxarhakans the "Norasharks" for all I care... I know it's a mouthful. FYI, "š" is a voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant (i.e., /ʃ/ or "sh") and "x" is a voiceless uvular fricative (i.e. /χ/, that hacky-coughy h sound in Chanukkah).

Most Zuna have very little body hair, unlike the other people of Barida Bay. As a result, "trichophile" became a euphemism for someone who prefers to fraternize with non-Zunas. It originated in Zunusyerkir due to its government and many of its citizens being racist little shits, which is why the guard got so pissed at being called a "half-bred trichophile".

The Tuttuk (and Tutmadık, I'll explain the difference in a moment) are the rare sons of the Gerudo; however, they don't look like Gerudo. Most Tuttuk look like Hylians (since they are the Gerudo's most common partners), but are taller than average, often have rounded ears instead of pointy ones, are more likely to have red/reddish hair, and have swarthier skin (but they are still pale in comparison to Gerudo).

They are most commonly conceived during the same year the king is and were mostly given anonymously to Hylians by putting them in Hylian orphanages and or left on Hylian stoops. The sons they gave away are generally considered Hylian but can be called Tutmadık if one wished to differentiate them from Hylians. "Tuttuk" refers specifically to the sons that are kept and became gradually more common during the Hyrulean Civil War due to how dangerous leaving Gerudo Valley had become.

Tuttuk are encouraged to stay indoors as much as possible due to having less resistance to sunburn and tend to take up domestic jobs, book-keeping, smithing, and other indoor work.

If Shadrock's clothing seems unusual for a Zuna, with their light-colored tunics and baggy sharovary pants, that's because they are.

Veriza is the primary deity for the Zuna, Latoraans, et cetera. More will be revealed about her later but for now I'll tell y'all that she has a spring that went dry after she died, she's been dead for a very long time, and five "pieces" of her reincarnate into her mortal children. The incarnates tend to be related (like "Her First" is related to "Her First", "Her Second" to "Her Second", etc.) and their sexes are known to alternate.

Her other names/epithets are "Barida", "Vrysomana", "The Great Morgorga" (Morgorga coming from Moray and Gorgasia, a genus of garden eels, fyi), and "Na Vorə kar Akə" (loosely, "She Who is the Source") which is sometimes shortened to "Akə" (this is the part that means "the Source")... Incidentally, "Carock" is a very popular name among Zunas in my fanfic-canon.