Brii stared down at the body at her feet, his blood still speckling her clothes and skin as her mind blanked. It couldn't register what had happened. This...there were no words to describe this.

"You can snap out of it any time, kid," Navi muttered, fluttering over and landing on Brii's head. The fairy took advantage of the young assassin's shock to adjust some of her strands of hair so as to make a more comfy resting spot. It wasn't until a few dozen hairs tickled her nose that Brii managed to snap out of her stupor and look around slowly, ignoring as Navi hissed for her to be still.

There was blood everywhere and in the distance she could hear someone screaming.

Brii twitched as she felt tiny feet stomping on her head to get her attention. While it barely even itched, Brii's eyes turned up instinctively, as though she might see the little ball of light resting in her hair. "Huh?"

"You might want to ditch the poisons while he's off killing those other guys."

Baulking, Brii hastily jerked her bag up into her arms, but paused before opening it to look around, frantically. When all she saw littering the grassy knoll were corpses, she darted over to the stream they'd been following, suddenly thanking the goddesses that her species needed to drink. If not for that, she'd probably have had to plant the damn things on one of the corpses and that might arouse his suspicions.

Dear Nayru, she had to act before he came back. Brii ignored Navi as she grumbled about why the assassin couldn't walk smoother as Brii dove toward the steam and started chucking her vials into it.

To hell with assassinations. To hell with recognitions. Her situation wasn't that bad, right? So she got a bit hungry from time to time. She could work around that. She'd sell herself on the streets before she'd try to take on that psychopath.

Worried that he might see the vials drifting down with the current—dammit, he was downstream from her, wasn't he?—she glanced around again and then dragged one of the bodies nearest her to the stream and threw open his satchel and made it look as though the contents had spilled into the water when he'd fallen.

Just as she was about to stand up, something about the dead man's face caught her attention and she paused, brushing back some of his matted hair to see his face better. While she couldn't say she knew him, she had seen him mulling about the capital, when she was on her way to meet with Ganondorf. He'd been sitting walking into a bar with a bunch of disreputable individuals. She paused to consider that those fellows were probably the others now littering the ground behind her.

Even as she tried to recall if she'd ever heard his name, she rose to her feet, turned around, and screamed.

Link stood behind her, eyebrow arched as he frowned. Her gaze flickered toward his sword hand and back to his face, not wanting him to think she was terrified to see he was still wielding the damn thing. His tunic was practically red with blood and it made the fabric stick to his skin.

"What were you doing?"

"W-what?" Brii squeaked, unable to hide the terror in her voice. Link nudged the corpse beside her with his foot, leaving a red smear on the man's pantleg. Dear Goddesses, why was there so much blood? For once, Brii didn't even try to come up with an excuse, she just let her mouth do what it did best. It had worked out so far, right? "O-oh...I was, um, checking." Link did not look amused. "To see...if he was still alive..."

"Why would you do that?" Link's frown deepened and she noticed him adjust his grip on his sword.

"I...I thought maybe we could ask him who sent him...?" Brii realized she was hugging herself as though to use her arms as shields against the hero's wrath. Like that had helped any of the others...

Link stared at her for a long, quiet moment before his gaze turned toward the man lying face down in the water. Brii had heard of cold looks before, but the hero's was downright frigid. He looked back at her. "Who other than Ganondorf would want me dead?"

Brii shrugged, rather helpless. "I...when I was a little girl, sometimes my father would take me to the capital when he went to sell his wares," she felt her fear slipping away, despite herself. This story was the first true thing she'd ever told him. "One time, I got lost. I ended up in the fancier part of town and heard some nobles talking...some of them...they'd do anything to gain political favor with whoever's in charge."

She loosened her grip on herself as she shrugged again. "I just thought...people like that are disloyal and you'd probably want to know who they are...so that they won't be there to support any other tyrants who might try to take over Hyrule."

Link blinked. Once. Twice. And then he abruptly relaxed and looked around, almost regretful, at the dozen corpses littering the countryside. "I hadn't thought of that."

However, even as he considered that he might have more enemies that he'd originally thought, a small gleam in the stream caught his eye and he stepped around Brii and over to the edge of the water. As he leaned down and reached his hand into the cool current to grip a small vial that had gotten stuck between two rocks, the blood on his skin slithered off in pale red streaks on the water's surface. He didn't seem to notice as he lifted the vial and inspected it.

"Poison?" He glanced down at the dead man again, frown returning tenfold. "I wonder why he didn't use any..."

Navi chuckled and Brii felt herself pale. Rather than try to interrogate either, Link merely clasped his hand around the poison and glanced around. "Where did I set my bags down?" Brii stood quiet and useless to one side as Navi flitted back into the air and wandered across the field to rest atop her charge's belongings. Link loped over and muttered a thank you as the fairy bitched that he should keep track of his own damn things. Rummaging through his bags carefully so as not to get blood on any of his food or supplies, he pulled out a rag and carefully wiped down his sword before finally sheathing it.

Brii sucked in a breath as Link looked her way and she realized she'd sighed in relief.

In all honesty, she'd never seen anything like what had just happened. She'd fought her share of swordsmen and guards, good and bad, but she'd never seen someone take on so many and walk away without so much as a scratch...and he'd been so efficient. There had been an eerie grace to his movements, as he'd dodged and parried and struck killing blow after killing blow...she might have appreciated it more if she hadn't been so terrified that he might turn his blade on her as well. She'd hate to see whoever had trained him, for surely they were as good, if not better than the agile young hero.

She snapped from her thoughts as she felt a hand on her chin tilting her face up and she paled another shade as her gaze rose to Link's. However, he was busy inspecting her.

"They didn't hurt you, did they?"

Even as she managed a meek shake, he sighed and let her go. "We should get going. I'd like to have a few miles between this and us by nightfall." He turned to go, but paused when he noticed Brii was still planted by the stream. He looked her over again and his face softened. Before Brii could register what was happening, Link hugged her and stroked her hair. Their clothes made a dull squiking noise as the blood in the fabric was squeezed. "I'm sorry if I scared you." He stepped back, looking almost embarrassed. "I suppose a lady like yourself isn't used to such violence."

Brii doubted anyone was used to such violence. "Um..."

A soft cackling caught Link's attention and he frowned as Navi flitted back to rest on Brii's head. "You worry about traumatizing our poor, poor traveling companion after you've slaughtered so many people? Just think...these men probably had fucking families. There are wives and children waiting for Daddy to come back with that reward money so that they can afford to keep their home and now that will never happen."

Link's mouth formed a thin line. "These men were scum. If anyone was stupid enough to love them, then they deserve whatever fate they—"

"Don't," Brii spoke before she'd realized what she was doing. Why they hell couldn't she have one of those mental filters that kept her from talking when she shouldn't, like most people? When Link turned an irritated look toward her, though it was nothing compared to his earlier mood, she found herself less frightened than she had been, possibly the entire trip. "Nothing's so black and white. Yeah, maybe some of these guys were dogs, but some of them could have been blackmailed into coming after you. Maybe their families were being held hostage." She floundered for a moment as he stared at her, his expression unreadable. "I mean, everyone has their reasons, some bad, some not so much. You can't judge people when you don't know their stories."

Link stared at her in silence for a moment before finally reaching out and grabbing her by the wrist. Without a word, he led her through the carnage and back onto the trail, where they'd first been jumped.

Even Navi remained quiet as they traveled through the field toward the next marker on the map.