Chapter 3: The Ghostmate


Author's Note: This chapter is long and the first half is more character development than anything else. I do feel though that it is one of the better chapters I wrote recently, given the context. References include LOTR: The Two Towers, Bram Stoker, many chess references and China Men by Maxine Hong Kingston. This is actually a very rough draft and I uploaded it pretty late at night, so it may be riddled with errors/plot holes. Please let me know if that is the case.

"Not enough," Link whispered to himself. "We need more time."

He purveyed the field through slit eyes: scanning, analyzing, hoping upon hope that he could find the tactical lapse in his enemy's offensive. All around him arrows were hissing by, metals clashing and the air burnt with the taste of magical energy and hellfire. And yet all he could focus on was the screaming of heroes fallen and sons who knew too few years of life and husbands who had not yet returned home to see their families fully grown. It was not enough and it was too much.

Link reared up Epona and slashed his way across the scrimmage line as he surveyed the damage left to be done. In the distance, he saw Prelate Vespermarc rampaging and carving a swath of remains through the eastern front. Our hero shook his head at the sight: how a man like that ended up an apostle of the church was ever beyond him. Even so, the Prelate's efforts were wasted, as his unit had dwindled down to only a handful of paladins fending off the onslaught of the never ending horde in front of them.

A voice shook Link out of his thoughts, piercing strongly through the confusion and maelstrom:

"Hold the line, gods-damn you! Knights form up on me, you jackanapes. Dragoons and lancers to the scrimmage right the hell now!"

Mathias Helsinger was barking out orders as he shuffled through the crowd to Link, quickly lining up his troops. The baron was a recently promoted brigadier commander with the Knights of the Peace and a rising young talent with a nearly peerless tactical mind. He grew up a childhood friend of Zelda's in the Hylian court and developed quite a rivalry with her on the battlefield. The two often quarreled in the war room over stratagems and historic battalion movements. Mathias had yet to win any of these arguments. It was always the pride of his Lordship Harkinian that his daughter could outmatch all his generals and field commanders in the art of war.

"My prince," the baron hailed with a nod, "we cannot hold that ridge much longer. They have already fielded their mobile armor and we still have no defense against their mages. If we stay here another minute, I will be sending home more letters than men."

"She'll be here," Link said adamantly, "We just need to give Zelda a little more time. Even turning back now would do no good. The men will be too exhausted to make it to the outpost and we have no sufficient means of reinforcement once we reach there anyway."

"The princess is already on her way," Mathias objected, "We will not need to cover our retreat all the way back to the outpost. I daresay Lady Zelda with two or three armored units and a handful of knights will be more than enough to hold back this army until we reach mobile command."

Link smirked at that. "I don't doubt your assessment, Mathias. But she'll be arriving to this battlefield with more than that. We can back them all the way out of Three Miles and send them home with more than just a sore ego."

"And how do you suggest we do this, milord?"

Mathias then mockingly joined in with the prince's reply, in perfect synchronization: "I have a plan."

Link looked at him pointedly, "My plans almost always work, Mathias. I don't know why you take such offense to them."

"Do you remember the fiasco at Tempus?"

"Now, wait a minute, Deacon assured me that disguise would work."

Mathias half-rolled his eyes. "Yes, of course, it's not as if he ever got you into any trouble before. What about the time Zelda had to pull the both of you out of that mess at Mycephen?"

"She just arrived at the right time to look the hero, else we might have made out like bandits - a few more scratches, yes, but alive nonetheless."

"Concordi River."

Link raised his hands in objection. "I was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"Remorrah."

"That was just an unfortunate example of a peace talk gone wrong."

"Stromguarde."

Link gave him a sour expression. "Alright, I'll admit fault for the first and second occasion, but after that third episode there was only one other skirmish at Stromguarde where I was in over my head."

Mathias sighed as he pinched the bridge between his eyes: "And of course, I will never live down Jejuka Minor, you rogue. The very thought of Zelda saving us from that piss poor excuse of an army will never be forgotten."

Our hero smiled toothily, "Oh, Mathias, I'll never forget the look on your face as we were being chased out. You almost look it now."

The young baron could not help but chuckle at that. "Well, milord, what is your brilliant plan?"

Link gestured to the skirmish in front of them. "Your lancers have just enough to attempt a king's gambit with the open right flank. Our enemy has sacrificed much to gain control of the center of that ridge and we should be well advised to continue letting him live under that illusion."

"I know what a king's gambit is, you rancorous shag-haired lay-about!" Mathias yelled, flinging his arms for emphasis, "Don't you think they held back those reinforcements for a reason? If I so much as sneeze loud enough, they would respond with more men to push us out of the middle."

"Shag-haired?" Link scratched his head, "Zelda cuts my hair, you loose-legged poxy whore!"

"Make light of my promiscuous nightly ventures, will you?" Mathias asked pointedly, "Would that I had the time to exchange barbs with you, you animated offal."

Link spread his arms in invitation. "I encourage all attempts on my life and ego, you spongy ill-bred lewdster. In the meanwhile, Deacon and I will hold the left flank until such time that you can divert enough of their vanguard to your feint. I need but one clear shot towards the middle ground and their field marshal, Mathias."

"The two knights maneuver is blind arrogance when used offensively, milord. Once you move behind that vanguard, you and Lord Vespermarc will be alone and open to attack by both their reinforcements and the central infantry structure. I cannot agree with this."

"Brave men making brave choices often have little recourse."

"I fail to see how speaking of brave men has anything to do with you," Mathias quipped, giving a mirthless chuckle before leaning forwards to grip Link by the gauntlet, "Sacrifice is not the only course of valor today, my lord. We can still retreat and become victors another time."

Link smiled as he reared Epona up and started moving towards Deacon Vespermarc. "She will be here, Lord Helsinger."


Link had just started to push his flanking maneuver when Zelda arrived to the battlefield and was far ahead of the pack by the time the princess joined forces with Mathias.

"Lord Helsinger," she addressed the baron, slightly annoyed, "Why does my husband think he can assault the enemy by his lonesome? And why in the name of the Goddesses did you let him?"

"Milady," he bowed his head quickly, "As his keeper, I was hoping you would arrive sooner to prevent that from happening. You married less a man of reason and more a force of nature."

She laughed amicably. "A soul as his cannot be tempered, Mathias. It is forged by the fires of Farore and, bless Her, the woman didn't know where to stop when She created his stubborn streak. I wonder at times that it should ever be anything less. It is odd and strange that such recklessness explains why his baiting maneuver worked here."

"How did you know the formation was his?"

Zelda signaled her archers into place. "You are too defensive minded for the king's gambit this late into the fray, commander. The wiser move would have been to either withdraw completely or fianchetto your archers closer to Deacon and pull the scrimmage line back."

Mathias grimaced slightly at her evaluation. "I will admit I did not think to use the archers in that fashion. I opted to retreat though Link was against it. What I don't understand is why the move worked for him. The enemy has the reinforcements to cut off the prince, yet they reserve them."

"It is likely my husband did not think of that alternative either, but the Goddesses will always keep and bless him. Meanwhile, the opposing army reserves too much of its forces to protect their field marshal and instead depend entirely on the central infantry structure to do all the work. That school of thought is antiquated and will likely be their downfall this day."

Mathias nodded in understanding as he pointed to the troops heading out to meet Link's assault. "With your consent, milady, I will advance the dragoons on this flank to cut off their retreat vector."

The princess unsheathed her blade in response and pointed it towards the Hylian mobile armor marching across the horizon.

"I have already taken care of it, Lord Helsinger – it's the reason I'm late to this soirée. You will pull the scrimmage line back and break flank to join Link. I will take care of the central infantry."

Just as he was about to question how she would do it with the small force she brought with her, Mathias could see her eyes clouding over with magical fire and the air suddenly became dense around him with dread. Quietly at first and exponentially fiercer with each passing second, the wind picked up around the princess as she gathered what he could only imagine were ungodly amounts of energy. Presently the current of air shrieking and coiling around Zelda became so loud as to frighten Mathias' steed a few paces back. Without warning, a sonic wave boomed across the battlefield as the princess discharged the mounting energy towards the skies in a defiant scream against the heavens.

Lord Helsinger looked up in time to see the clouds darken and large comets start raining down in front of him with the force of a thousand suns. In all he counted five boulders that slammed into the ground, shaking the very core of all combatants on the field and dispersing so much debris into the air that it was difficult for him to see his own hands. With a slow groan and the rumble of rock sliding upon rock, the boulders started to unravel until they became giant hulking behemoths with brimstone eyes and gloriously murderous auras.

By the time, Mathias had recovered from his awe, Zelda had already charged past him and was leading her colossuses into battle.


It was the waning moments of the battle and the Hylian forces had all but routed the enemy behind the masterful directions of Zelda and Mathias. Link had been unable to reach the field marshal, who had pulled further back behind his defenses after seeing the princess finish her summoning. Watching his units mop up the remaining stragglers, Link had all but let out a sigh of relief when he heard Zelda's cry piercing through the commotion:

"Verus incendia!"

She was pointing to the general direction behind him and as Link turned his head, he could see a circle of battle mages with one focal master in the middle. They had begun casting what seemed to be a powerful spell judging by the inordinate amount of time and hand flailing they were devoting to it.

"Rally on me!" Zelda cried, already beginning her own counterspell.

Whatever it was, Link thought, if it worried a mage as powerful as his wife, that spell was definitely going to cover a lot of ground. As he saw his own troops scrambling back to Zelda, he could see that a fair amount of them were far too close in proximity to the enemy wizards and would surely be caught up in its wake. Spurring Epona on, he gave Zelda one last glance as he sped on to take out the focal master.

He heard Zelda call out "Aegis" as he finished closing the distance he needed. Switching to his lupara and centering the gun at the focal master, Link was about to pull the trigger when the group unleashed their spell. A blinding light sparked from the group and sent forth a powerful wave, knocking Link off Epona just as he let out both barrels from his shotgun.

The last thing he heard was Zelda crying out his name.


When he came to, Link was a hundred feet from the nearest conscious soul. In the distance, he could see that the enemy was far into their retreat and that the Hylian army was beginning to pick itself up from that last spell. It was so decidedly strange, Link thought as he pulled himself to his feet: he was not hurt in the least from any effects from the spell and even the fall from Epona did not seem to cause too much damage. Around him, several of the men were beginning to regain conscious, although they were slower to get up.

"Milord," Mathias addressed him as the baron and Deacon approached Link.

The prince definitely did not like this one bit. Mathias could not seem to look him in the eye and the Prelate did not have his usual booming personality post-battle. They both were walking too heavily to be giving him naught but ill news.

"Milord, we found Zelda," Mathias said nervously, "Link, I am truly sorry, but…the princess has fallen. The clerics tried saving her, milord, they did; they tried resuscitating her as well, though you know elven souls are difficult charges. We just…could not find her in time."

Link recoiled in disbelief, his eyes flickering between Mathias and Deacon. The latter could not speak and only when their eyes met could Link see the grief in them.

"No," the prince shook his head, bile rising in his throat, "No. Don't tell me this, Mathias."

"I-I thought she had finished casting the counterspell and was in its protective field – there should have been no reason for her fall, Link."

Link could no longer breathe though his blood raged fierce. "Where is she, you fiend? Where is my wife?"

Deacon looked to the distance behind him, where a group of knights were kneeling with their heads bowed.

"Milord, please…"

He was not given the chance to finish as Link bull-rushed the two men, nearly knocking them over as if they were not there at all. The two could only watch in pity as their prince ran to his fallen lover. It was true that both men were married but even so, they could not expect to be able to understand the sudden tumult of emotions culminating in their friend.

"Ever has his life been bereft of peace," Deacon said, kneeling down and finding his prayer beads, "Alas that his reward for victory this day should also be his curse and that a love so young should also end that way. I will pray for her soul, friend Mathias, as should you. But I will pray more for his forgiveness, because terrible will be the vengeance that his broken heart seeks and awful the price to be paid in the dark days this way come."

When Link arrived at her body, he had to take a step back and look away from the unearthly grace and pale beauty that was his wife. He shook his head in disbelief, though the burden of his eyes could not shut out what laid bare in front of him. When finally the courage was able to quell his violent illness, Link opened his eyes to see his wife: a halo of blonde tresses around her, the only heir of the now broken house of Harkinian.

"How did it come to this?" Link whispered coarsely, his eyes brimming over as he dropped to his knees and shook her arms gently, "Zelda – my love, please. This is not how it ends…"

"I am sorry, milord," Mathias said, though he knew his friend could not hear him, "My arcane magic is not as well spoken as the princess's. I can only tell you that Verus incendia was a very powerful spell with varying random effects depending on the caliber of the soul it touches. Her counterspell saved countless of lives this day, my friend. Few walk away with nothing more than hallucinations or temporary blindness."

Link said nothing, though his back trembled with great emotion. Instead, he scooped up his young wife gingerly, pausing to choke back a sob and started towards the medical camp without a word said to anyone.

"Where is the trumpet and the glory?" Mathias asked softly to himself as he watched his Lordship walk away, "Where is the horse and the banner? Lament this evil hour that the Hero should meet alone and all his companions and all the king's men were nothing but whispers in the face of sorrow."


In the days that followed, it seemed the dawn never broke for Hyrule, such was the grief for their lost princess. The king was bed-ridden from the moment he looked upon Link, who had come to deliver the news, and bed-ridden he remained afterwards, abandoning his throne with little speculation that he would ever recover. Impa retreated to her temple to contemplate the loss of a daughter she never had and on that day the citadel of darkness became rank with anger and despair. The Hylian war machine lay in ruin, their morale brought to its knees by the lost of the charismatic and undefeated champion. All the denizens of North Castle put their business aside for one week, as was customary for the grieving ceremony, yet the market place was remorse to restart its daily bustle after that, knowing the throne of Hyrule was in such disarray. Indeed, they were darker days than even the Prelate had predicted.

And, expectedly, none but the prince was more affected. For days at a time he would not eat and shut out all others to the point of having the entire east wing of the castle to himself. Only his daughter Avalon remained by his side, though she could not fully understand why her father had taken to crying himself to sleep and wondered, deep in her heart of hearts, why her mother could not walk through that door and make the hurting stop. How could he explain to her? That Zelda was no more and that his daughter would never feel her mother's hand on her cheek; that there would be no others to sing to her the lullaby of sleepless nights and that there would be no more purple eyes to await her when she woke up the next morning. These were not answers his soul could find, nor would his tongue be keen to say.

On that particular day, Link was by Zelda's casket, which had not yet been interred, still asking it those impossible questions. He did not expect to hear an answer.

"Death is not always an easy step, my love, just a necessary one on the way to a greater path."

Link nearly fell over as he turned around, the lupara already pointed towards the speaker. It was not often people were able to approach him unheard. What he saw was a young woman, pale in skin and dark in hair and entirely not Zelda. She was dressed very simply and upon looking into her green eyes, Link felt an undeniable shiver run down his spine.

"Who are you?"

She laughed a frivolous, lilting sound.

"Are you always so charming?"

"I am necessarily so to strangers who evade questions as they do castle security."

Her smile remained nonetheless. "I am Freya and you are Link and this meeting has been a long time in coming."

His eyes narrowed and his gun hand never wavered. "I do not know that your familiarity with me makes you any less a threat."

Before he could continue, she had already reached out to lower the shotgun herself. This meant to Link that she was either quite mad or so familiar with the concept of death that she did not fear it. Link sighed tiredly as he holstered the weapon, consoling himself with the possibility that this woman could at least keep his mind preoccupied from the darker notions he had of late.

"Why are you here, Freya? I knew you not before this very hour."

She did not answer immediately, instead leaning over to run a soft touch over the stubble on his face.

"You are far more beautiful than I had imagined."

Link gently, but firmly, moved her hand away and bore into her with his eyes.

"A lover's touch is sacred, milady. It is not reserved for you."

Freya did not take this discouragingly and on the contrary, seemed more amused than not.

"You have been mine since I first learned of you, Ranlink Valorious; and I have been yours long before I took my first breath. That this will be our first and only meeting should not end so abruptly."

"As I lack charm, so do you lack meaning," Link retorted caustically, "Explain who you are."

"You have traveled and adventured far, my prince. Do you know the myths in the east about how life came to be in this world?"

"We have many legends on the origin of life, milady. Truths that we cannot explain linger and become nothing more than stories we tell our children."

She smiled enchantingly. "It is not the first or the last you will hear, Link – just the most relevant to us.

"It is the story of our overgod, Ao. It's been said that when he first created his children, he wanted them to know that he would always love them though they might not always feel his divine presence. To prevent them from meandering through life alone, looking for a love that might never be reciprocated, our lord blessed his children with two souls. Each of the souls complimented each other perfectly, such that they would never walk this world without a companion close to their heart.

But such a paradise was not meant to last. When his children evolved, developing great city-states and wondrous empires and great technical marvels, they started questioning their father. They had become such great inventors and creators in their own right that never once did they doubt their own egos. They felt that it was time for them to face their own creator and ask him why they were made the way they were: weak and fragile bodies, limited strength and mortal. Ao became mad at this and that was a terrible vengeance, as he was the only god capable of being angry at his own creations.

But most of all he became enraged that his children no longer cared about each other, for they had fallen in love with their own image. Why did they need physical companionship or society? After all, in their darkest of times, they could always turn to their companion soul to find love. They had become self-sufficient, it was true, but had done so in such a way as to mock the true intention of why they were created: to find love amongst each other. Ao felt that he had betrayed his own vision and blamed himself most of all.

So it was with a heavy heart that he punished his children. From each, he ripped away the companionship soul, leaving each person born wounded and empty from their first breath. It was a decidedly fair and harsh sentence. From then on, each of his children wandered blind through life, seeking validation in the arms of each other. It was true love they sought but never once could they know which soul was the one that they had truly lost and would make them whole."

Link chewed on the inside of his cheek as he contemplated her story, a comfortable silence falling between the two figures.

"And you believe that the eternal search for your life mate has led you to me?"

Freya smiled once more. "Do you realize, milord, how impossible such a search would be given one's lifespan? Many people who know and believe this myth forget that gods exist in a dimension we cannot even fathom. The only aspect between us and them that we are allowed to understand is time. When Ao created his children, he had already seen who they were and who they would be. He knew their flaws, but decided to dream of them anyway. And when he separated the souls, he separated them in time as well as proximity. What a torturous existence: that two souls could be separated by only an arm's length but also by 1,000 years' time."

"You still have not answered my question," Link snorted, "And if you are suggesting what I think you are, then you are even more mad than I had first thought."

"I am indeed suggesting that very thing," she said with glee, "And you are every bit as clever as I had dreamt."

She smiled again and reached out to grasp his hand. "Do not deny what you feel, milord. It is familiarity, it is completeness, it is not being alone, it is the feeling that everything is right and it is what you had with Zelda."

Link wrenched away his hand at her mention. "Do not speak lightly of the dead and tread softly while you are on such hallowed grounds."

Nevertheless, she closed the little distance between the two of them and returned his smoldering gaze with her own.

"Freya died over 1200 years ago, Link. Her body was buried in that forgotten stretch of land known as Three Miles – where you battled and knew lost. She was born alone and died that way, heartbroken with no legacy. Do not lecture her about the dead."

It was strange that such an admission finally put Link at rest and for the first time he relaxed at the sight of Freya.

"Why are you not at peace, milady?"

"When I passed into the elven Sanctuary, I was given a choice: to continue my journey into the beyond or to wait for my loved ones so we could take the journey together. As I never knew such a love, I decided to wait and wander these lands in search of my life mate. I just wanted so desperately to know that such a soul existed and was created for me.

All my life did I search, in vain did I wander from the arms of men who were too young or too old to know the difference between love and lust. I knew many suitors in my day and was too convinced that I knew absolutely what I was missing. But for all my worldliness, I was a dreamer who had lost sight of where my life was to be and as a pragmatic woman I could lose sight of where my dreams would lie.

When I was younger, I knew a writer – a bookkeeper who was very poor and sold all sorts of odds and ends to survive to write the next day. It was his passion. He too was a suitor though I spurned him often. One day I offered to buy all his books if he would stop pursuing me. I saw that it hurt him to have such a definitive answer, but finally he relented. I never thought of him again, nor read any of his books until it was too late.

When finally I married, it was to a very selfish man and abusive a husband as a lover. He lived a rotten life, of such hedonism and idle sins and lost ambition that it crushed me to know how wrong I had been in loving him. By that time I had acknowledged that I was simply too much in love with being in love, but by then my life was but a shell of what it should have been. All I had left was the pursuit of a love that could complete me. It was a quest that would ultimately consume everything I had left.

A man came to me one day; he was a very poor and was selling books to find enough money for food. He told me that he had once been a writer but an unsuccessful one and he had lost much of his family and fortune pursuing this selfish endeavor. Because my husband gave me very little money, I could not afford to do more for this beggar than to buy his books from him – for he would not accept donations. I was so afraid to read his work, Link, because I knew he was the very same man I had turned away in my youth. This man, whose life was spent pursuing the very thing that became his doom reminded me too much of myself. I feared to see my soul reflected in his writing.

Oh, but he wrote so beautifully, Link; everything he had written down were truths I had been searching for. All my life did I carry those books with me and never once did I know a dormant love laid waiting in those dusty tomes. The last book he wrote was the myth of Ao and when I read it I nearly broke."

She looked down at her feet just then, as if somehow a 1200 year old ghost could be embarrassed at her next words.

"You are right, Link. 'Truths that we cannot explain, linger.' That is why I am here: just a spirit with wanderlust, waiting for the truth all this time. I had been waiting for you long ago, thinking that it would not be out of the question for you to step into the beyond with me. But when you found Zelda, I finally understood why Ao punished us the way he did. To find love in his creations is the reason we are alive. The depths of your heart when you look upon your wife are proof enough that Ao did not curse us at all. That was what I had so long ago but failed to see. Chasing a dream is an admirable quality, but chasing one blindfolded to the exclusion of all else is foolishness."

Freya took both his hands and brought them up to her cheeks, where Link could see tears starting to collect. She kissed them softly, savoring their warmth – a wondrous heat she had not known for over a millennium.

"I know why they call you the Hero of Courage. I have seen you near death's door so many times and seen your soul fight and claw its way back. It had been your love for life that allowed you to persist when you were younger and just fighting for the blade and thrill of the unknown. Now it is for a family that your unconquered spirit yearns for and wishes to return to. Would that I had that same truth awaiting me at the gates of the elven Sanctuary, but my time has lingered much. This is the end, my love, and it too has been a long time coming."

Link held her hands tenderly, though a confused look crossed his face.

"My spirit returning to whom, Freya? I don't understand."

She was already starting to fade away and before she did so she wrapped her arms around him, the feathery wisps barely registering as a touch at all.

"Link…"


"Link…"

"…milady, are you…"

"…he's breathing…"

"Link!"

The prince sat up with a start, the blinding light of day harsh in his eyes. Before he had acclimated, a soft touch ran down his cheek and turned his attention to the heart-rending familiar purple eyes he had known for so long.

"I know you," he finally said, though his voice rasped from the dry heat.

Zelda choked back a sob as she enveloped her husband tightly, almost forcing the breath out of him.

"You fool of a knight. Must you always be so proud to fall in battle?"

He returned her embrace as fierce he could, though he was still too weak to understand what had fully happened.

"I have fallen in many battles, milady. I take pride in my form when I do so."

As she helped him stand up, Link could see that he was still on the same battlefield at Three Miles. Standing vigil around him and Zelda were the colossuses his wife had summoned, and farther back some of the Hylian forces had set up a medical tent for triage. In the distance, he could see Mathias and Deacon chasing off the retreating enemy force.

Link rubbed his temple in an effort to assuage the pounding headache. "What happened?"

"You killed the focal master," Zelda said, gesturing to the body a few yards in front of him, sans head from the gunshot, "but the battle group had already finished casting their spell. You were not under my counterspell at the time."

As she finished, she hit him none too softly in his side. Link feigned the injury so he could bend down and kiss his wife, though it was likely she was not convinced at his efforts to appease her. It did not take long before the princess finished helping her husband towards one of the medical tents, where a soft cot invited him with its embrace. He was about to lie down when a mild breeze picked up and wandered through the tent, brushing pass Link with a soothing comfort.

"Farore must have been watching over you," Zelda said, wiping the moisture from her eyes, "That spell might have easily taken you from me."

Link stopped just then, remembering his conversation with Freya.

"Somebody was watching over me," he said, caressing her lips with his own, "But nothing takes me away from you unless I give it permission."

She sighed against him, her breath mingling and hot with his own. "Your charm will not always save you from me, Link. I wonder sometimes why the goddesses choose to save you if they must send you back to my wrath."

He laughed despite himself and pulled Zelda onto the cot with him, shifting so they could both lie comfortably.

"Let me tell you about the myth of Ao, my love."