She was running again. Through the smoke that flung itself at her with reckless abandon and blood that flowed from her dress.
The thing still chased her, slowly but as sure as the tide. Zelda dashed through the burning remains of her castle. Everything that could be burned was ablaze with heat and flame. There was no chance of respite. Her leather sandals were charred and blisters formed on her calves, bursting in the raging inferno that engulfed everything she held dear. Even the granite slabs of stone were smoldering and producing an unnatural gray unlight that was the hottest of all.
"What is the matter, little witch? Afraid to face an old friend?" The voice of her tormenter followed her as she continued to run. Fear, in all of its power, struck her with an almost physical force and lent the speed and strength that she would need to continue to evade the thing. Why was she afraid of this thing? She couldn't understand or comprehend the thing or the motives it had, but it was confined to her dreams!
It couldn't harm her in the real world beyond the mental strain it put on her. So why was she afraid as if it could shatter her soul over it's knee? Perhaps it could, but so far all it had done was hunt her down and 'kill' her in this dream.
So why was she afraid? She was Zelda Harkinian, damn it! Lady Regent of Hyrule, Appointed Princess of the Three Goddesses, Chosen of Destiny and Sorceress Supreme. She would not, nay will not allow such a trivial nightmare to control her life. Even though her body was covered with open and cooking sores that wracked her body, she would not allow herself to surrender to death.
Though her body was weak, her mind was strong and willing to stand against the darkness and whatever hid under it. Even though her sheath of flesh begged her to lie down and embrace the infinitenothingness of death, she would not.
She stopped running and spun around to face her tormenter, hands balled into fists at her side. "What is the matter, little girl? Tired of running from the inevitable?" The voice wafted to her, with the sickening sound of cracking bones. Flames ate at her clothing, burning previously untarnished skin andcharring the already damaged skin.
"I am not afraid of you, beast." The flames died down as she stood her ground looking into the ever shifting shadows of her hunter. The background faded away into pools of blackness. The dark smokey form began to take the shape of a humanoid, the same height of Zelda. "You are confided to my dreams. You cannot and will not be able to harm my physical form. You only have as much power as I give you. And I say you have no power over me. Not any more."
Zelda could sense the feeling that if her tormenter had eyes, one would be twitching. "Wrong, whore." A blur of smoking essence smacked Zelda across the face, sending bloody spittle flying from her mouth. "Everything you do is done out of fear. You studied magic because you were afraid of being a disappointment in your mother's eyes. You became the Lady Regent of Hyrule because you were afraid the nation would collapse without your bloodline."
Another metaphysical fist collided in Zelda's chest, and it sent her sprawling on all all fours. A river of blood rushed up through her stomach and it flowed unto the ground in thick puddles. "You became a smasher because you were afraid of becoming just another pretty face to admire and fuck. You reigned in your emotions because you were afraid of how you would look in other eyes. And you hid your love for the mercenary because you were afraid of surrendering all you have ever known to some brute."
"Get… Get behind me demon!" Zelda yelled with all the strength she could muster. "I am not afraid of you! You have no power-urk!" She was lifted from the floor and brought to what she assumed was the face of the beast. It lapped up the blood that fell from her chin.
"There is no 'demons' or 'goddesses'. There is us, and only us." The thing laughed, and Zelda's head felt as if it would shatterinto nothingness at the wrongness of the sound. "The only monsters are the ones we make!" She felt iron rupture her lungs and she screamed in pain and horror.
Zelda awoke screaming, sweat ran down in rivers from her forehead, covering her entire body in a thick film. There was something in her mouth and in a very un-princess like manner, she spat it out into the cold moonlight.
She recoiled in horror as she saw the deep crimson tint to the spit. She tasted the coppery-iron flavor blood had erupted from her mouth and it flowed onto her white silken sheets. Blood, bile, and other less savory fluids stained her bed spread as Zelda ran for her bathroom. She turned on the lights and tore the nightgown free from her body and looked over her body.
Her hand brushed up against her ribs and let out a sharp squeak of pain as she felt the bruised bone. No, it couldn't have happened. Dreams didn't harm her, they couldn't have harmed her. She looked into the mirror. Bloody bile had already began to cake her chin and her lips were stained from the fluid. She turned on the water with shaking hands and began to wash her face. That is when she noticed her face beginning to shake, and she realized that she was crying.
She collapsed on the floor, and began to wail like a banshee. Fresh tears fell from her face in rapid succession. She screamed out and curled up into a ball, continuing to cry. Nobody would hear or care for that matter, there was only her and the tormenter in her head to hear her. She cried until her eyes could produce no more tears, until her stomach was sick and she felt that she would throw up again.
Still sobbing, she rose to her weak feet and began to move to her nightstand. There, the black ledger lay, the pages seemingly calling to her. With numbed hands, she picked it up and opened the book to the pages needed.
This was it. She was going to commit grievous crimes against nature. She could not contact anyone to help her with this endeavor. They would be physically disgusted, uncaring, or simply not worth taking the risk. She, and she alone, would summon this beast and she alone would be the to see the true face of her tormenter.
She knew that it would not ease her, but it would give her the strength to find the proper way to destroy it. If indeed she could actually destroy it.
The regents were on hand, the moon was strong, and she had the desperation to push her mental walls to their very limit. May the Godesses forgive her.
Ike kicked in the door, his muscles ached from the battle raging above him but the adrenaline that pushed his body to new limits dulled the pain that raged in his body. Above, the rebellion battered away the well trained Daien army, though they would not maintain that edge for long if Ike did not rejoin his mercenaries. Though he had to leave them for a few moments. He felt his instincts goad him into investigate this place the Royal Guard fiercelydefended. After a fair amount of time leading an army, he knew to respect the his gut feelings.
The smell was what hit him first when he entered the large single room. He had seen m any horrors in his lifetime, but his other senses knew what evil was like. The smell that wafted to his nostrils was the sickly sweet smell of physical and spiritual decay. Of ruined flesh and blistered souls. He spat the taste that formed in his mouth out and looked around at what he saw.
This was no prison.No, it was a place for Ahsnard's bloody pleasures. The living and dead hanged from the gains that adorned the walls. Many were little more that skeletons with skins dragging in the breath to their ragged lungs. Political dissenters, captured Crimean soldiers, and others unfortunate enough to cross the vengeful anger of the bastard king.
"Please… help us." One of the living skeletons looked over to Ike, who had sheathed Ragnell once he was confident that there was no immediate threat. He was no doctor of medicine or one gifted with the healing magics, but Ike knew endurance when he saw it. He looked at each of the still living bodies. What strength they had to keep their lives tethered to the world was minimal. They would not last much longer. The food they would need to survive was great, and it would take away from the already meager supplies his army had.
Yet at the same time he could not just leave them to this fate. What he did here would remain here. He was too far away from the army for them to know what happened here unless he talked.
The ugly truth presented itself to Ike and he swallowed hard as he knew what needed to be done. He reached to his side and pulled free a small dirk he used only in an emergency. He approached the first one, a frail old man who looked as if he had not seen the light of day for ages. He looked up into Ike's eyes from his rack. The eyes were strong but those chips of amber gazed to the knife Ike had in his hand. "You… you are our executioner?" His voice was raspy, but it was strong.
Ike nodded solemnly. "Sometimes death is the only mercy we have left to give." In that sentence, the grandfather relaxed, knowing that his pain would be over soon. "You will not feel a thing."
"I already feel nothing." The man responded and Ike placed his spare hand over the old man's eyes. He gripped the dagger in a downward angle. He drove the knife into the throat of the man, who convulsed for three seconds as his life force sprayed all over Ike, who clenched his eyes shut to block the innocent blood from his eyes.
The man's body relaxed and the life was gone from him. Ike ran the hand down his face and that of his victim. He closed the man's eyes and looked to the others. They looked at Ike with cold passionless eyes of hollowed acceptance He wanted to ask for their forgiveness, but knew that they would not give him any.
Ike walked up to the next one with the same dagger. He would not sully Ragnell with this grim necessity of war. His next man was a soldier, and raised his head to expose his neck. "Thank you." He whispered as Ike repeated the process with him.
Ike bolted up in his bed, breath having long since left his lungs. Of all the dreams he would have seen, why was it that one? It was one he had locked away in the deepest part of his subconscious. A grim reality of what he had done and needed to be done. No one knew the secret burden he carried in his life, no one could pry that secret from his jaws.
He tossed the sheets aside and walked out into the cool light of the moon. Before that dream had came to him, he was with Zelda. They had continued where his sparring session had ended. She had dominated him through the majority of it, though she was crying out Ike's name more than Ike was doing for the Hylian princess. Though as she road him, her throat erupted in a shower of crimson. As her body slumped to the ground and Ike saw that damnable dirk he had tossed into the river after the dark deed fall into his lap, the image faded into the nightmare that Ike had repressed for so long.
Ike shook his head and turned back to the bottle of sake that sat on his table. He ignored it for the moment and walked over to his nightstand, where the bottle of dream repressing pills laid. Snatching them with an unusual vigor, he pulled three of the pills free and moved to the rice wine. He poured himself a glass of the intoxicating liquid and popped the pills in his mouth, following it down with the sake.
It was crazy to do that. He had read too many stories of people killing themselves, intentionally or not with the pill and alcohol mixture. But if pills worked only half the time, and the sake worked half the time, he would need to mix both.
He moved back into his bed and looked up. Why did he dream of Zelda? She was sexy and his daydream before really showed that he was aching to release the pent up sexual frustration into her. But in his dream turned nightmare, he cradled her as the blood left her veins weeping like some grandmother. Did he… care for her, more than lust? The carnal desire was very evident, but there was something else.
She was the thought on his mind as it blacked out into nothingness, into a sleep without dreams.
Zelda knelt in the center of the chamber, a circle drawn around her in the dust of ancients and another one not far from her. There her tormenter would be. Hoarfrost lined her walls, the unnaturally frozen air molecules cracked like agitated ice. "By my blood… am I made." Zelda uttered the words under great duress.
Pain she thought she could have never enured, even beyond her dreams, wracked her body. Her fingers were dug knuckle deep in to the bamboo. Blood dripped from her nose, striking the floor with a regular rhythm. Each droplet thundered in her mind like the firing of a cannon. It took all of her training, all of her focus to stay conscious. She would see the end. She would know the face of her torturer. "By my blood… am I armed."
The unseen figure revealed itself. Walking from the shadows and into the middle of the other circle. Smoke exhausted from Zelda's pores, wafting to the circle and giving the creature form. It resembled a black armored warrior, much akin to that of the Hylian Royal Guard of old. But its armor was covered in the bloody and debased symbols of the damned. "By my blood..."
The figure laughed, and Zelda noted that there was a female tone to the voice. "By my blood will I triumph!" She yelled the words, her magical gifts, lending volume to her voice. The creature removed the helmet and looked upon Zelda.
No… it couldn't be. It was HER face. The interloper laughed again, her voice reflecting Zelda's perfectly and opened her mouth full of perfect teeth to roar. "From your blood are monsters born!" A violent wind dispelled all of the dust before it disappeared into the nothingness that spawned it. The smoke forced itself down Zelda's throat.
The debased power physically picked Zelda up and threw her back against her head board to the bed. As Zelda blacked out, she tapped the last of her strength and mentally shouted for aid. "Royal protector!"