I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! This took me longer to type up than I thought. I really do apologize for how long I took uploading this chapter, I've had it written for quite some time, but life's been hard. Homework and more homework.... Long hours writing a book that I can get published if I ever happen to finish it.... More homework.... Ocarina of Time Master Quest mixed with A Link to the Past on my Gameboy.... More homework.... Anyway, it's finally here: CHAPTER ONE!
Disclaimer: I'll say it again, The Legend of Zelda belongs to Nintendo and Shigeru Miyamoto (^_^). I own a lot of the cast though, and the plot belongs to me and only to me.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------"More Gorons have gone missing, haven't they?" the fretful, young Dibuja asked, nervously using her blocky hands to clump her handful of blonde, stringy hair into a crude ponytail. "How many is that now, gone to who-knows-where?"
"More'n a few." her friend replied, almost distantly, as he sat on the foot of her soft rock-mattressed bed. Kotamaton was an adolescent, same as her, yet he was much more matured. As the son of the Big Brother, the truth of the recent happenings was not hidden from him.
The calm tone he used didn't please her. "You don't seem too worried, Kotamaton." she said icily. "And the odd thing is, you should be more worried than I am. Some great Goron leader you'll make someday, when you care nothing about protecting your people."
Kotamaton pulled his half-grown form from the bed, wincing slightly at her harsh words. The truth was that he did care, a lot; and that was why he was about to set off on an important mission.
"Are we going to go today?" he asked impatiently. Dibuja nodded and the two set off down the corridor to the Great Chamber. From there, they would do as they always did, continue their ongoing exploration of the old Dodongo trails. Since the pesky lizards had been vanquished from the main village, many of the trails and caves had been forgotten. The two had dedicated much of their youth to change that.
"I just think you could be doing more to help." she said shortly as they walked. "You will someday be the leader of us all."
"Come Dibuja, I'm still young. There isn't much I'm expected to do now. When I'm older, that's when all the responsibility will be mine. Now hurry," he added, almost an afterthought, "I want to make it back to the Chambers of the Sun before dark and I can't really remember the way."
It pained him to lie to her like that. He may have been young, but a lot was expected of him. His father needed every able-bodied Goron who could be trusted to know they were in a state of emergency to help in whatever way they could.
He didn't want to go to the Chambers of the Sun for the simple reason of exploration. Since the truth was he was only a child, he was given the least dangerous of the jobs: finding food. No one knew it yet, but the food supplies were running low and they were on the verge of famine with no way down to the Dodongo Cavern above ground. Kotamaton turned his long, brown lips into a deep frown, lost in his worries about the siege.
There was no other word for it. They were being held inside their homes by some unknown enemy. Any Goron who dared venture out of the rock walls never returned. Sometimes their rotting, half-eaten corpses would be dropped right outside the main gate, like a warning of what would happen to heroic others who left.
Dibuja didn't know any of it. She, like the rest, were kept oblivious to everything by his father, who was following the advice of his most trusted advisor, Sado. Behind the back of the old Goron, the Big Brother had told Kotamaton that he didn't agree with doing it. He believed they had to work together, but didn't dare to bring it up with the more experienced advisor.
"Are you all right?" Dibuja turned her round, purple eyes to him, worry imprinted on her rocky cheeks. "You seem a little more preoccupied than usual. Are you sure nothing is wrong? It would be killing me to know anything about what's going on, if I knew all my people were going to disappear. I know nothing and I'm still dying of worry." In typical Dibuja fashion, she was speaking as though she wanted to get all of her final words out before a bomb flower went off. Along with constant rambling, it was one of her biggest habits.
Kota let out a laugh, one of a worried Goron trying to hide his feelings. Though his friend was far from convinced, she knew it meant he wanted to deal with this on his own. "If you are so worried about it," he said with the fakest grin he had ever produced, "let a day of tunnel wandering ease your mind."
The walls of the corridor spread out around them, reaching out to form the cavernous Great Chamber. The ceiling loomed high above their, sporting the paintings happy and victorious Goron warriors had put up there a couple generations before when they won the caverns from the Dodongos. The three floors housed underneath were also covered in the happy paintings.
Subconsciously, they climbed the stairs to reach the top level and went directly to the hall that would eventually take them to the Chambers of the Sun, granted they took the right turns. On their previous exploration, they had discovered the two rooms and were forced to turn back because of the moon shining through the flower petal slits in their ceilings. Now there would be no turning back until they found a tunnel down to the Dodongo Caverns, which they would hopefully find there.
They walked through the inclining corridor on the top floor, which led to Mama Ranchi's room, in peace. Kota's eyes wandered the walls, which were here painted with large female Gorons. The chamber ahead was always destined to be the home of the Goron mamas, who were obviously portrayed. The old Goron generation had had Sheikah allies while painting this hall, and were able to prophecize the future mama's.
As they walked by the picture of Mama Ranchi (which was set off from the rest because it wore a green scarf like the one the real Mama never removed), Kota was reminded of his younger days. How he missed the time when he was under the Mama's care, listening to the then-frightening stories of Dodongos and their dragon cousins. Hearing her puzzle over why she was shown on the wall protecting young ones from what appeared to be a ball of flame.
"Why do you want to go back to the Chambers of the Sun?" Dibuja asked quietly, as they passed through the doorway of the Mama's dark chamber. The rock bed and matching desk/chair set looked disused, even though Mama Ranchi had been in there only an hour before using them. Even the green and yellow crocheted rug where nightly stories were told looked like it hadn't been sat on for years in the dim light. Dibuja couldn't repress a shudder.
Kota didn't answer her right away; instead he went to the only sconce in the room. Its usual bright, blazing fire had been dimmed to a small flame that gave the room its eerie look. Wearing his permanent frown, he pulled the connecting leg that had never been nailed into place. It bent up easily, creating a small opening beneath it.
"Just come," he said softly, "I'll tell you when we get there."
The entrance had been sealed by the old Gorons (no Dodongo could have thought of such a clever way to seal it, or have pulled it off), though for whatever reasons were long lost. Kotamaton had the feeling they didn't want anyone to get in there, for the entrance was the most well-hidden and hardest to get through either of them had ever come across.
It was a tiny hole. An infant could crawl through easily, but a full-grown Goron would have gotten their head stuck. The two were in between and though they had trouble getting through, they weren't yet large enough to get too stuck. Kota grabbed his knees and huddled, rolling forward to the hole slowly.
The walls around him became tight, and Kota found his mind wondering how many more times he would be rolling down Death Mountain, or even through empty passages in the underground village early in the morning. Would he ever have the chance to take the test of manhood, rolling down the Death Mountain Trail with a bomb flower in his hands?
Unless they could find food, or the older Gorons could find and get rid of their unknown threat, the answer would be no.
On the other side, he remembered why he had planned to bring a torch. This path was unlit, and he wasn't even sure if their were any sconces between where he stood and the entrance to the Chambers of the Sun.
That is, other than the one behind him. He helped Dibuja stand up when she was through the passage, then pulled the loose leg on the sconce partnering the first to seal the opening.
"I should have thought to bring a stick." Kota said, using his left arm to find the wall.
"It's all right," Dibuja replied. "I prefer the dark anyway. It makes it so much more peaceful walking down these old tunnels." Her free hand found his and both began to walk, unafraid of losing the path or losing each other.
To describe the walls that run along under their rough fingers, grimy would be too much of an understatement. Kota had to focus all of his self-control (which, to his dismay, he found wasn't as strong as he'd thought) on not cringing back. Layers of the slimy filth parted at his touch, revealing a very thick layer of hardened slime that his nibbled fingernails could barely even scratch. Thick tongue sticking out in disgust, he forced himself with all his might to go on.
"How much farther?" From his right, Dibuja's voice was speeding up the words again. Taking a strangled breath, she continued, "This stuff is really, really gross, and I can't let go because I'll walk straight into the wall! I know how fast these old passages can turn!"
And so she went on, jabbering about her fears for a few minutes, during which the passage turned dangerously to the right twice just to prove her right. She might have gone on so for the rest of the trip if Kota didn't shush her.
"Listen, do you hear that?" he whispered.
Dibuja froze, whimpering softly. The sound of footsteps had picked up behind them, rippling the ground. Squeezing her hand comfortingly, Kota turned around to face what was coming after them.
"What is it?" Dibuja sounded like she was crying, and Kota couldn't blame her. The eyes that stared down at him from a good few feet above his head had broken his vocal cords. The mean, isosceles-triangle-shaped eyes bit into his own, holding his stare. He tried to tell her to run, to go on to the chambers, but he couldn't even speak- or breath- until it was too late and she had turned around.
Her bomb-equivalent scream was cut short when she, too, lost her voice. She groped for his hand, which had been lost in his shock, and, upon locating it, held on so tight that a single step backwards would have ripped it off.
The monster, or whatever else it could be, did not like the sound of Dibuja's shout. From the moment its eyes closed painfully in response to the ear-splitting sound, Kota knew what he was going to do next. They would be in danger of being trampled, and now his own legs had become composed of heavier rock.
"Gooooodawaaaaaaaawrrrr! Goorona! Goorona! DOOOODONGO!" They were screams that could only come from one creature created by Farore: a full-grown, vicious Dodongo.
Kota tried to run, his muscles energized by the sound. However, he was slowed by Dibuja, who managed to get her own limbs frozen tight by the guttural, heavily angered yells. Seconds later, she had snapped out of it and ran ahead of him.
Pooomfff! Pooomfff! Pooomfff!
Though it was much slower than they were, the monstrous Dodongo had many abilities that the small Gorons did not. Besides being able to cover a lot more ground with each step, it had a power it absolutely loved to show off: fire breath. It blew a single, small flame that travelled above the heads of both Gorons to light every sconce to the end of the corridor section.
"How are we going to get away?" Dibuja yelled back wildly."I haven't a single clue." her companion replied. "Let's just get to the Chambers of the Sun! Perhaps we can defeat it there!"
Ahead of him, Dibuja passed the last lit sconce and rounded a sharp corner into darkness. Kota was ready to follow when he heard a crack that nearly made him sick.
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And there you have it, chapter one. I know it wasn't that good. Either way, thank you for reading it, and with any hope I'll be motivated to type chapter two a lot sooner! (Three months is waaaaaay too long to make my poor readers wait, don't you agree?