CHAPTER TWO

"Aeli, it's late!" her mother called exasperatedly to the seventeen-year-old girl in the branches high above their own treehouse. "Dinner's ready!"

Aeli deftly dropped from branch to branch, landing on her feet on their wooden deck, jutting out from the porch. She was dressed in a tunic and leggings, with knee-high brown boots and a belt the color of sand around her waist. Her tunic was dark midnight blue, with a V neck and a belt the color of sand around her waist, but her tunic was long enough so that it reached about mid-thigh. Her leggings were black.

She more resembled her father, who had the red hair of a Twili and the light blue skin. His eyes were damask as well. Aeli had the eyes of her ancestor, the Hero. Cerulean. Her mother was not descended from a Twili or anyone important. Kaia was a pretty woman, with soft brown eyes and blonde-auburn hair.

Even so, Aeli was a direct descendant of the Hero and the Twilight Princess, who married nearly six hundred years previously.

She plopped herself down at the table between her father, Djali, and her mother, brushing back her shoulder-length, fiery red-orange hair. Her bangs were always getting in the way, she'd decided to grow them out.

"Aeli! Just look at you!" her father sounded disappointed, but she could see his eyes were laughing. He plucked a twig and an oak leaf from his daughter's head, causing her light indigo skin to blush a deeper blue. "I wonder why you don't use that hairbrush!"

"It's a hassle, and it makes my head itch," Aeli complained. Her ancestress, Midna, had passed her headstrong, insulting attitude onto Aeli, which irritated her parents somewhat.

"Oh, quit it, you two." Kaia scolded, laying out their meal. "And Aeli, I want to see you using that hairbrush in the morning, alright?"

Aeli sighed in exasperation. "Yes, Mother."

"Oh, Kaia, this looks delicious!" Djali's mouth was practically watering as he eyed the roast chicken, salad, and soup his wife had laid out for them.

"Why, thank you," Kaia smiled beautifully. "But if you touch that bird before we're ready, I'll cut your hands off."

Laughter surrounded them, and they dug in.

"Mother?" Aeli asked as Kaia adjusted the blankets on her. "Will you get Father to take me hunting tomorrow? It's been a week since my last lesson."

Kaia chuckled. "If you agree to catch us lunch and dinner, then it's a deal. Get some sleep, Aeli. I love you."

"I love you, Momma."

That hunting trip would never take place.

Aeli stirred in her bed, her fiery red-orange hair strewn around her, and her light blue-indigo skin was beaded with sweat.

Gasping, Aeli woke.

"Mother?" she called. "Father!"

All she smelled was smoke.

Bright flames danced in front of her, and she coughed, eyes watering, searching the area desperately for her parents. She saw nothing.

Aeli had no choice. If she stayed, she'd burn to death. Pulling her collar over her nose and mouth, she yanked her bow and some clothes from a trunk at the end of her bed and threw herself down the outside ladder.

Halfway down, she lost her footing and slipped, falling to the soft green grass.

Tears blurring her vision, she stared long and hard at her burning home. Several black arrows were buried in the ground and the treetrunk, with burned shafts.

Her home had been shot from a distance with flaming arrows.

Aeli took a single arrow from the tree and inspected it for any crest or sign of whom it belonged to.

A triforce was carved on the side, by the feathers.

"Whoever shot this arrow and murdered my family," she whispered, grasping the shaft so hard it nearly snapped. "I will make them pay."

Stowing the arrow in her quiver, she forced back her tears and slept on the ground by her destroyed treehouse.

When dawn broke, Aeli climbed the ladder back into the charred remains. Her mother's jewelry box, a present from her father, was almost untouched, save for a few burns.

Digging through the trinkets, Aeli found something.

A pendant, shaped like a crescent moon, engraved with three words; Love, courage, and destiny. Unthinkingly, Aeli clasped the pendant around her neck and continued to salvage.

Her parents' bodies were peppered with arrows, then burned to blackened skeletons. It disgusted Aeli, but even more so fed her desire for revenge.

How had she not heard them scream? Why hadn't she been able to save them?

Aeli left without anything else. She needed nothing but blood on her hands now. It was nearly impossible, she knew, to sneak into Hyrule Castle and kill every soldier, captain, general, sergeant, anyone. But she knew she had to try.

Djali and Kaia were dead. She was an orphan.

Aeli thirsted for revenge. For the blood of her parents' murderers on her hands.

Without looking back, she left the burnt remains of her family's ancestral home. She left to kill, to rip apart, to avenge. She left, for Fate sent her.


just who shot that arrow, i wonder? and why? mwa ha ha i'm SO evil.