Ike knew that something was wrong with Zelda before she had even spoken a word to him. Even in the afterglow of their lustful endeavor, his mind was less addled then it was previously, he noted by the way her face contorted as they placed their clothes back on. The way she bit her bottom lip, which was already bruised from their moment of passion, and the way she balled her hand as if to take her mind off something. He had seen it before, having done it himself as well to take his mind off of pain by focusing his nerves somewhere else. He touched her shoulder, still relished the feel of her skin, "Zelda, are you in pain?"
She gave Ike a weary look, a look that told the truth better than any series of words could. She sat down on thin single mattress that made up the cot they overlooked. Ike sat down next to her, his every instinct sharpened. "Y...ye…yes." She reluctantly said the words, as if doing so would seal her death. Though Ike could tell that it was not the pain itself that held her back from saying those words, rather it was the stigma she felt in asking for help. "I am indeed in pain. The sensations our mortal bodies experience are different for one attuned to the ways of the arcane. Every sensation, every desire, every emotion is greater because of my connection to the Arcane Plains. Everything we do must be controlled, lest we lose our grasp on ourselves. Many of our magi and sorceresses have become nothing more than shells to things that lurk beyond."
Zelda twitched, her eyebrows winced as if she had been struck by something. "But the thing many fear is that once we have drank deep from the well of power, other things share that power."
Ike raised his own eyebrow. "Not sure I am following. I know the principals of the magic my world has, but your own world is clearly different. Is this a typical Hylian thing?"
Zelda sucked in a deep lungful of air sharply, another clear sign of pain. "Yes. Though this is not some malicious entity seeking my soul light or to use my body as a twisted flesh marionette. I fear… I am fighting myself over the control of my own body."
"Zelda, I may still have a slight buzz going on but I know how bad that sentence sounded."
Zelda shook her head. "Let me explain. Through discipline and training does a sorceress such as myself attain full control of magic. However, we must also control ourselves with an iron will. If we give in to selfishness, desires, and anger it would destroy the very foundations upon which our nation is constructed. And as the Lady Regent, this is double true for me as the ruler of a kingdom. As such I must wear this mask of a dainty, cold ruler. But I fear the emotions I have locked away for so long have been waiting for this moment."
She seemed as if she was about to burst into tears. "When my insomnia began almost two weeks, the nightmares were what I would expect of a normal monarch. Failure, miscalculations… each one of them were based on cold, hard logical facts that can happen. But after the second night they took a much darker turn, as if they were fueled by some black will. Much more personal, as if they were specifically directed at me as far as my personality goes."
"Around the same time my nightmares came into existence, of troubles I have long since put in my past. Perhaps the two are connected somehow? Maybe a specter used my nightmares as energy to use against you?" Ike asked, holding Zelda's arm to control and calm her. He almost recoiled at the unexpected heat that permeated from her skin. It felt as if she was on fire.
"A sound hypothesis, one likely true in the worse case scenario, but I pray to the goddesses that it is not. Last night I conducted a dark ritual from a black tome to see the true face of my tormenter who hounded me. What I saw when the dark smoke cleared away was none other than my own face." Zelda explained quickly, her spare hand shooting up to her forehead and massaging it as if it were a pounding headache. "It is not unheard of that when a magic user like myself attain so much power that other parts of our body and soul become enchanted. I fear the emotions I hold at bay have attained a considerable amount of power and seek to no longer be restrained in my mind."
Both of her hands flew up and a squeak of pain. Her voice became much more hurried, in fear that she had not much longer before she lost herself to the negative. "It… it has been scratching… growing since then. It has only just begun to taunt me and like a fool I listened to it. It told me if I caved to things such as anger… and lust it would stay away. But I fear such things have only encouraged its growth. My mind is wearing thin and the leash I have on my powers is frayed."
As if in answer to that last statement, witch fire erupted along Zelda's left arm, causing her to violently swat the flames out. Given the heat Ike felt, he was for sure that Zelda's arm would be suffering second and third degree burns. But to his surprise the skin was burned a lobster red, much like as if someone spent a whole day sun bathing only to be burned. "This… this is nothing compared to what can happen if I lose all control of my powers."
Ike looked to Zelda. He knew that she was telling the truth and somewhere in her will there raged a battle where her darkest desires were besting the control Zelda had mustered to stand against such an invasion. Zelda was too weak in the mind to continue, and even now Ike could tell that the beast inside her head was gloating with victory. There was no way that Zelda could hold it back for much longer. Unless…
"Zelda, you said something along the lines that something can enter your mind's walls if you are unguarded or unprepared?"
Zelda nodded slowly, massaging her temples with quivering hands and an equally quivering voice. "Y… yes. An open mind is like a castle with the gates unbarred and unguarded."
Ike turned his body so that he was facing Zelda directly. "Is it possible that you can lower your defenses and allow my will power in? I may not be attuned to the ways of the arcane realms, but I have seen and done some things that would break lesser men. I may be worn down, but I am in far better mental condition than you."
Zelda stopped her ministrations on her temples. True, Ike may have still has a slight haze of intoxication in his eyes but he was still sharp enough to think critically and rationally. While it would have been better if he had some magic in his blood that would not require the use of a tome, it was still very possible. But it was wrong, every dictation of Hylian proper manners and civility demanded that this didn't go forward.
The pain flared up again, worse then Zelda had imagined. To the nine hells with civility and one's social appearance, rules were made to be broken. "Your own mind may snap or destroyed if you fail against whatever awaits you there."
"A price I will willingly gamble on." Ike responded and Zelda took a few more deep breaths of air. Calmed, she turned to face Ike, raising her hands.
"Then relax, open yourself up to the infinite futures, the strands of fate and the twisting river of time…" Zelda calmed Ike and placed her hands on the side of Ike's head. "Embrace eternity."
Zelda lowered her mental barriers for a second, and Ike slipped in like a needle.
The sensation of entering Zelda's head was a very unnerving thing for Ike. It was searing and blinding, like looking at the noon sun with your eyes screwed shut. Colors of every kind, those named and those that he could not even begin to comprehend flew by his vision as he came into the shattered fortress of Zelda's mind.
Whatever was attacking her mind was doing a very through and complete job. Ike looked around and saw himself in some sort of castle. Probably mimicked after Castle Hyrule given the descriptions he had overheard from Link the Peacock. Though like her mind, this fortress was beaten down. Pristine marble and granite were shattered to pieces. Fine oak was burned and falling to the ground in clumps of ruined charcoal. But something else bled out of the ruination, something much more...archaic for the lack of a better term. Where as Zelda's mind fortress was designed to be distinguished yet practical, the designs coming out from the ruinations were much more ostentatious, though very menacing. The destroyed walls spoke of control, just thinking, and rationality. The new decorations yelled spur of the moment, dark desires and chaos.
Ike looked down on himself and noticed that he was dressed much like his younger self. Where there should have been armor there was nothing but light cloth. Actually, upon looking himself over, he was his younger self. While he still had a considerable amount of muscle and strength, he was clearly not at his prime.
"Hello dearest Ike." The voice, it was her tone for sure… but there was something off about it. It seemed to echo, as if impossibly it continued to echo inside his head. "Glad you could join me."
He turned around and had to clench his jaw shut in an attempt to keep it gaping open. Zelda, or rather the other and much more debased side of her, was seated upon a throne like a mage queen of old. She wore a very revealing red silken dress cut along the legs and stomach with a mixture of battle plate covering her forearms, shoulders and chest. Not very practical, but it served its purpose in distraction. As Ike looked this doppelganger up and down, he noticed that the interloper's skin was shining like cut diamonds in the sunlight. He would not need to be a sorcerer to tell that it was magic that flowed through her veins and reflected through her skin. "I have been waiting to meet the object of my lust for quite some time now."
Ike grunted, reaching for Ragnell but he found nothing. Blast, it looks like he would have to use words instead of his sword. "Save your honeyed words. Where is the real Zelda? I may not be a witch, but I know you are not her."
Other Zelda laughed. "Silly man, you would make a fine court jester if you were not serious. I am the real Zelda, the true Zelda. But if you wish to see the mask she wears to deny herself her ultimate power, I'll get her." She revealed a small violet circle tied around her finger with a strand leading out to somewhere not seen. She beckoned it forward, yanking on the strand when whatever was on the other end did not come immediately.
A small Hylian child, dressed in the rags of Zelda's usual attire stumbled forward. The child looked very much like a young Zelda, thorough her hair and skin was bruised, battered, burned, and bloody. "Here she is. The 'Zelda Harkinian, First of the Chosen, the Lady Regent' la dee da dee fucking la!" Other Zelda violently backhanded the child, sending it sprawling back onto the ground. "For as long as she was practicing magics, I was placed aside, locked away in the deepest parts of her subconscious like a prison who had done nothing wrong. Treated worse than what I am doing to her now, so take that into consideration when you decide to act. She is now reduced to what she always was, a scared child with no mommy's gown to hold on to."
"She needed to rule wisely, that is why she locked you away. She couldn't let dangerous emotions damn not only her but also her kingdom!" Ike couldn't believe that he, who enjoyed a bit of chaos with his order, was saying those words.
"Maybe, but she was stupid enough to trust me. To believe that if she gave into what I wanted, I would leave her alone. Sadly, she was stupid enough to let me control her senses, and I manipulated her like a puppet with strings." Other Zelda explained.
"So did Link truly try to kill Zelda or was that all an illusion?" Ike asked, to slate his own curiosity.
"Deep within his heart, he desires the role of Lord Regent. He would prefer to rule by Zelda's side, but she will never accept his advances and he knows it. He will not kill her or put her in the way of harm, his code of honor would not allow him. But if something were to happen to her, he would take advantage and move to ascend the throne. I simply manipulated Zelda's sight and smell to make it seem as if she was being poisoned. Though I wish I could have done more than that, to right all the wrongs she had done to me."
"She may have wronged you and very rarely indulged in your debased desires but she-"
"She is a weak, frail woman. Barely worthy of life, much less respect." The interloper interupted. "A frail, wealthy, dying woman who is ready to be killed and torn apart by a far worthier children."
"You are still a snot-nosed, bratty child. Always have been. Too arrogant to listen, too spiteful to prosper." Ike countered.
"Really, what do you call your nightmares then? I would consider that prospering." Ike was taken aback, just for a moment, but the Other Zelda saw the moment of doubt in his heart. Her voice became nothing more than a whisper. "You are a monster, Ike. You are so alike to me, the 'lesser emotions' permeate from you… it is indulgent to taste it on your soul. Guilt… lust… anger… regret. Every one of these emotions, even from deep within my confines I could feel as if they were right in front of me."
She reached down and pulled free a wavy dagger… no not just any dagger. It was the dirk, covered in the blood of all of those he had killed with it. Both upon the field of battle and away from it. She tossed it before Ike's feet. Not a drop of blood was split on the ever changing tiles, it was as if the blood was kept moving but always on the blade. "I used those emotions and forbidden memories of your past as energy to use against this wreck of an individual. All I needed was time, and when you were worn down, the nightmares became worse. More energy I drank from to bring Zelda to her knees. When she is finally broken, I will assume my rightful place as the guiding force to this unexploited sorceress. With a nation at my back, I will bring about a great renaissance to the Kingdom of Hyrule, one carved in my image."
"You are insane!" Ike proclaimed as he scooped up the dirk and held it in a fighting position. He could hear an insect noise in the back of his head as he gripped it, but he shook it away.
"Really? Because given that we are the same, you should find me quite charming." The grown Zelda walked down the stairs with a satisfied smirk on her lips. Ike cracked his own dry smile and with a blur, he charged at her. Other Zelda seemed unfazed and stepped aside with impossible speeds, as if she was in another current of time than Ike. She delivered a bone snapping punch, knocking the wind out of Ike. The blow was so powerful that Ike felt his mortal body react with the pain. Before Ike had even hit the ground, Hylian runes flowed off of the interlopers arms and colided with Ike's will, sending his avatar sprawling back thirteen paces.
She was on top of him in an instant, picking him off the ground with little effort, such was the augmentation of her strength. She threw Ike down into the ground, the shifting tiles shattered with rib shattering force. "Come on, stop holding the monster back, luscious mercenary! Give me a challenge at least."
Ike rose to his hands and knees, his dirk still clutched firmly in his hands. "What happened to you? What caused you to become a monster?"
"I didn't choose anything. I am, after all, a mortal creature." She grabbed Ike by the back of his neck and with great force threw him against her decaying throne. The metal and wood shattered under the pressure from Ike, sending him sprawling to the ground as a much more anarchic throne rose to take the place where the former one was.
He rolled over, his willpower damaged but still there. He looked up and saw the tattered Zelda, who was now a prisoner in her body look into his eyes. She didn't speak a word, but that look alone gave him a fire to carry. He came back to his feet, and saw the interloper coming for him with maliciously slow pace.
Ike ran at her again, recalling every spar he had fought with Zelda and trying to apply it to his current fight. However, it was still a grossly outmatched contest. Every attempt to strike with his dirk was countered, which taunted him in his head with the faces of those he had killed with it. He was exhausted, his willpower being all but spent. On the other hand, Other Zelda seemed to be invigorated by the fight, gifted by the well of power she dunk from. Ike thrusted with the dirk, aimed for her heart but the interloper caught the blade in the hook of her and tugged Ike forward, meeting his face with a powerful open hand blow.
Ike went down on the ground again, and this Zelda stamped a foot down on his chest, eliciting a cry of pain. The interloper began to laugh and reached down to the hand the held the dirk. She picked that arm up and strained against Ike's muscle to force it down, blade first into his chest. "Enough of these games. I will slay you here and now. Your mind will be shattered and soon after, hers as well. A shame, for two similar individuals, two monsters who have done horrible things, I am clearly the stronger one."
Ike knew he had one chance, one last desperate chance before the end. He called upon every last iota of willpower he could muster into his arm, fighting against the strain the fallen emotions. "There… there is a difference between you and I." He threw his strength into his arms and wrists, slowly twisting the blade upwards. The doppelganger was shocked and tried to react but even with all of her augmented abilities, she couldn't best the willpower of one determined such as Ike. "We have both taken a look into the abyss. But when the abyss looked back at us..."
The dagger was upwards and aimed at Zelda's chest. "You blinked." He thrusted upwards, rupturing diamond cut flesh and piercing the very essence of the damned creature. She screamed, a painful yet satisfying sound to hear. Ike pulled the dagger free and grabbed the extended leash that connected the real Zelda to this imposter. He cut the bondage free, emancipating the real Zelda from the last of the influences of her misguided emotions.
With a jolt, Ike came back into his body breaking what ever trance he was under. Zelda was covered in sweat, and he likewise. Zelda felt her head, and Ike saw that whatever pain and dreariness she felt was had started to bleed away. "It… I can feel my mind again! My thoughts are my own!" She sounded happier than Ike had ever seen her and she instantly embraced him, taking him aback for a moment as she began to cry into his clothed shoulder.
Likewise, Ike also felt his dreariness slip away from him, and he felt slightly more energized then he had before. He knew that the memories were still there and in his sleepless nights they may come back to haunt him, but they would be natural. He would not have the reoccurring night terrors, he would not need sake to drown it out or …
Cold realization finally began to settle in on Ike, as did it moments later for Zelda. They had solved their night terrors and had halted the damned thing that was causing them. But at what cost? How many more problems were created in their quest to solve this one.
Bridges had been burned. Her senses and mind her own once again, Zelda saw the true colors and smelled the real smell of the liquid Link had offered to her. It was arrowsprout, not hemlock after all. She was a fool and listened to the tormenter inside of her head. Not only that, but she attacked her defender for no reason based in reality. Tears swelled up as she knew she would have to make amends and penitence to the goddesses for the use of black magics.
Ike had to repair his friendship with Marth, and swear off the sake, lest he lost control again. The clonidine would be found or noticed missing eventually. And when that time came, Ike had many things to answer for. How would they explain it? The truth would be unbelievable at best, insulting at worst.
Ike looked over to Zelda. "You realized what you had to do to achieve this, as well?" With Zelda nodding, Ike leaned in and kissed her forehead. "If it is any comfort, I probably have more to answer for than attacking Link."
She smiled, but it was humorless. "We still have demons to face in this. But it does make me feel better that I have a mercenary at my side with the same baggage."
Ike cracked his own dry smile. There would be dark days ahead for them both. They may have stopped one problem of their plagued sleep made manifest, but they would have to deal with the fallout of many other problems. But as they had done before, they would endure.
They would endure it together.
