As promised, chap 3 in a week. Review is welcome. Oh, and let me know whatcha think of the twists. Especially Cipher! (I don't own Zelda btw)
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Cipher
"Flood and crimson, each fill the night," the shadow spoke from the ether, as if the night no longer was a shroud but a being, as if a mouth had found a voice between all that darkness. "Blood and tears, each bring sorrow," another being, another creature of the night had spoken this time, yet oddly, they both sounded the same, "What comes from the mixture of blood and tears, brothers?"
They knew the answer to such a question, so Link and his shadow jumped simultaneously and grabbed their swords, which were suspended lifelessly above them. They just noticed how much the shadows had increased around them as they fought. The shadows were like a dark soup of blue and black, a misty void without contemplation. They peered into the darkness, back to back, and moved slowly as the circled around, trying to find some hint of movement in the vast expanse of the night. All that could be seen was an oval rock with hieroglyphs, ciphers and symbols across it body, and a giant eye atop that. Normally, when hit it would tell the time. However, when hit with two charges of magical power, it might explode into the heavens above and since their intuition was simultaneous and their action exact, they both attacked the stone. The rock glistened red as if angry and violently rose to the sky only to explode in the air, as if a the top of a dome had been reached. For a few instances all was visible in the shower of lights that remained from the explosion; in the darkness, sitting on the handrails leading to the Temple of Time, were two men, each dressed in typical Gerudo garments. They leaned casually, as if waiting for coffee, the tri-force on their hands glowing ominously.
"What comes from the mixture of blood and tears, brothers?" He asked again. The other answered even as he lunged towards them, "War."
IIIIIII
The grassy plains of Hyrule; trees growing in families of ten or less, their leaves stretching majestically across the green rolls of weed and grass. Wind constantly blows through such boroughs, playing tunes that could tease any soul into the abyss of sleep, yet such air is never positive. It's a precursor of deviant times, dark times, and such wind blew from across the desert, pass the old Gerudo fortress and into the vast emerald fields of Hyrule. From there it would scatter across the races, each received its own share of phantom whispers, ill omens of fate. Such winds surrounded Malon.
The water had long lost its heat, and she swam alone in the cold. Though raised on a farm, far from the reach of any ocean scent, she felt most at ease not in the grime of manure and seeds, but in the sinuous cloth of water. Rebirth, something that appealed to all religions and sects, is attributed to this. She felt renewed after each swim, as if each stroke propelled her along the surface but also along the stream of life. However, no amount of strokes brought peace to her troubled mind and no amount of swimming seemed to ease her. Yet she carried on, just as priests continue to pray even when they've lost their beliefs: tradition. Traditions are a way to remember the past by adhering to certain rituals and/or symbols that remind us of, or convey, the event that is noteworthy in all times. The rituals are strictly pro forma; the symbols are of different nature entirely. She now swam in a water dark and cold, but the ritualistic nature of such a swim refreshed her no matter the temperature. The water had aspects of beauty though; a reflection of the grand moon was to be seen.
"A sullen sky isn't it?"
Across the pool, leaning against an old tree, stood a child, with hair like fire and eyes like ghosts. He wasn't looking at her; his eyes followed the sparse clouds casting their fingers across the moon's face. His skin was stone white, like unrefined marble, and had cracks running through it. His eyes seemed endless; they had no color and were devoid of shine or glisten. His hair was filled with beautiful tints of red: autumn red, crimson red, molten ash, and sunset red. His hair was beautiful and alluring, just like his eyes, but mostly ominous. He moved away from the tree. Zephyrs ran through his hair as he walked and the stark difference between the dark night and his odd complexion of stone white a beauty to behold. His eyes still did not meet hers and he held his gaze upon the moon. The moon had risen late this night, but it had blossomed, large and ethereal. As he looked on, the clouds moved and no clouds touched the moon's face anymore; no stars were sister to her sky: it was alone in black.
He moved closer still, until his feet touched the edge of the pool. His gaze was still cast upwards, his hands behind his back and his hair ablaze. He stepped forward. His feet touched the water but did not sink, he walked across the surface as if it was glass and no ripple betrayed the water. The reflection of the moon was great: each crater could be seen on the water's surface. He moved forward, slowly progressing towards her with his hands behind his back until he got to the part of water where the moon's reflection lay motionlessly. He stabbed the water with his left hand. The water rippled violently as if a rock had been plunged to its depths. He painted a pentagram on the mirror, and as he carefully did so, the pentagram appeared on the moon's face in the sky just as it did on the water.
"Do you think the moon is scared of me?"
IIIIIIIIII
It is said that a person who is deceased put pass trial. His actions and reactions must be checked, to see if one is worthy of the afterlife in heaven or hell. Normality does not apply here; we must investigate the ethereal and unreal. We must believe in an undying soul, a side of the triangle that consists of the soul, the body and the mind. To each triangle three sides, to each life, three sides. We are born into this world and are given a soul and body, our mind is garnered through experience and lessons. When we perish, our body disintegrates, returning the earth its rightful ions. However, the mind and soul, what happens thus? The mind is consciousness, and the soul embodiment of divine life. Death, what does it bring?
Her father, deceased for four years now, hung before her by some unknown spell, yet the spell had not murdered him; the Gerudo lord had long ago murdered her father. A vision she had long ago erased from her mind had come to haunt her on a night of such oddity. Four years ago, her father had been parted, sliced clean with the blade of the dark lord. When all had been returned to normal by the Hero of Time, her father had been granted life anew. She never told him of his brush with death, and never told him of such happenings. She had long ago forgotten that scene, but now she saw everything anew, a torrent of emotion welling as her tears fell hot from her cheeks. They hung there even as she fell to the floor, the towel loosening from her frame, but she didn't care. She followed a sound in such silence, only to find her father, dead, again. From his throat escaped a squalid hum, thick and wet. The sound that she had been following all that time, the only sounds that stained the airwaves, was her father, calling from beyond the grave. In this world of myriad wonders, she never dared to dream this one nightmare.
She cried. Her breaths were rare and deep as she cried torrents. Her cries came in waves, as she recovered from one, another came, sorrow, anguish, each washing her body anew, relentlessly. The symbol on her hand no longer gave her any comfort, its glow seemed less. She fell to the floor, her hands on her face, her hair falling to the floor and her knees bare on the ground. The towel fell and floated beside her in the shadow air, a sinuous white snake in the darkness. She didn't care if the towel was around her or not, it didn't add comfort, and that is what she most desired. Comfort of mind, comfort of soul; comfort to be held whenever rain falls or the sun is shining beautifully. Comfort when all seemed to be swathed in darkness. However, all comfort left her soul when she felt small hands around her neck.
IIIIIIIII
The constant barrage of attacks refuted the darkness with sparks and the silence with the clang of metal on metal. They fought on the footsteps of the Temple of Time, the temple doors closed, and they progressed higher up those stairs. There were two hundred and seventy four steps leading to the temple and they were in the early hundreds. Link and his shadow attack feverishly, complementing each other with fairy charged attacks and shadow spells; their attacks were based on the same principle, a self-taught ensemble of swordplay and magic. The Gerudo had special swords: it looked like a broadsword yet its end was like a crescent moon with the edges towards the hilt. They attacked with style; one defended and the other would attack with charged globules, then they'd revert to a more crude style and they'd both attack simultaneously, their swords howling with killing intent. There were slight differences between the Gerudo though, one seemed weaker than the other did, but not much so, and one seemed older.
They waged war upon the steps of time, the stone stairs wearing as constant magic flowed from the earth and into their bodies. As cracks formed where the globules exploded and the magic flew free the stairs started to crumble. Glowing green and blue, dark spells of white, yellow and black, constant parrying and dodging; it was a fight to behold. They neared the top, the fight never ceasing, the attacks never ending. Navy and azure shadows synthesized into a thick mass, so that only their movements could be seen in such a surrounding. Only when they attacked with magic power could the opponent be seen, so they attacked with full force. Blades rang and the night howled with no wind, a war had erupted under the veil of darkness.
They reached the top. The plateau before the entrance was full of topes and stupas, shrines of various religions across Hyrule. The violent of period of war slowed and stagnated, they stood there, tired. However, their killing intent did not diminish as they rested. They studied the surroundings well, and watched as the others did the same. A few of oval stones littered the plateau. The stonework often failed the plateau and rose sharply from the floor, so that the floor was random and dangerous.
One of the Gerudo pointed towards Link's shadow with his sword and smiled, "Cipher, are you still pretending to be that young boy?"
IIIIIIIIII
"Do you think the moon is scared of me?"
His hand left the water and the pentagram he had painted on the surface followed suit. He held it in his left hand, a weapon both abnormally large and odd; the weapon was a large, human adult sized pentagon with curved swords attached where the tips of the star would be. In the pentagon was a metal handle. It was an expert weapon, one made for killing and slaughter. "I think it is." Malon had long ago started to swim away from him and his ghostly eyes. She reached the water's edge and was about to get out then she looked up; before her stood a creature to be described only as hell incarnate. The creature had a vague human shape, its body was a shifty mass of shadows, and it had no eyes but it did have a mouth. From its mouth came elephant tusks, ragged, sharp ivory teeth. Its extremities also looked vaguely human, but with giant claws where the nails were supposed to be.
"However you Malon shouldn't be scared, not of me at the least."