(A Heart that Fears)
"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you." Maya Angelou
She's sore when her eyes flare open and her fingers grip the silken sheets in a vice. Her muscles burn with each movement as she takes in the signature blue of Zora architecture. They throb as she swings her legs over the bed and they scream as she pushes herself out of the infirmary room. Her ears can barely hear the sound of the Zora nurses over the pounding of her blood in her own ears. She slides back into her room when one turns into the hallway that included her room.
Azaria brings a hand to her mouth to ease the queasiness in her stomach as it lurches with nothing inside. She fears the sounds it creates, worried about the Zoras advanced hearing and smell. Her chest stutters a silent breath in and out. She hears the curtain of a room neighboring hers get pulled to the side and allows herself the sigh of relief. Deciding the hallway a risk, her green eyes settle on the window. The dress she wears is foreign, it's of a lightweight material and shimmers blue as it swirls at her feet. The flowing top seeps over the window ledge that Azaria peeks over, sighing in relief that she could slip over the ledge. The stone of the wall is frigid against her burning skin and the floor of the Zora building freezing against her bare feet.
The area is miraculously empty as Azaria wastes a moment to look around. There is little walking space, the infirmary set on the edge of the structure that created the Domain. She could hear the bustle of the market area to her right and the shouts of the training recruits. The ladder that is bound to the railing seems her only option. Shaking hands grip the slick material, the sheen of nervous sweat causing her to tighten her hold as trembling legs descend her down. She two-thirds of the way down, heart in her throat as she hears the sound of footsteps approaching and passing. She shakily drops another bar and muffles her cry as her foot slips and catches on a lower peg, ankle twisting and loosening from the bar with a pop as her body plummets.
Her breath heaves as she steadies herself, body sprawled across the rocky ground. The pain subsides, flaring only as she returns to a sitting position and curls into a ball. Her hands tremble before her, the strain in her muscles causing them to twitch as she clenches them into fists. The memory of sparking energy coats her mouth with a bad taste and her black strands are tugged at harshly. A strained hiccup escapes her mouth in a strangled squeak and Azaria curls in on her lurching stomach. Tears flood her eyes, trailing their salt and residue down her cheeks as another hiccup silently bumbles out of her mouth. Small fingers dig into the skin around the face, slapping the sides of the head in ridicule. Her lip is pulled at by ruthless teeth that pull her mouth back into a dreaded frown. The water lapping around her, isolating her from moving forward, mocks her as it roars at her pitiful form. It crashes, ebbing closer to her body and threatening to drag her in, to drown her lungs, and roaringly laughs at her plight as she huddles herself tighter. The crystalline drops slide over her arms, dropping to the rock as the breaking water provides the sound for her cries.
…
The yawn breaks across Zelda's face, shifting her golden locks as she rubs at her face in exhaustion. There's a clink as a plate is placed before her. She smiles in thanks at the Zora despite the fact he had already made his way across the room. The blonde priestess slumps against her arm and exhales a sigh, her spare picking at the fish served to her. Link nudges her side, causing the ornate fork to clatter cacophonously against the silence.
"Princess Zelda, are you alright?" Dorephan asks gently from his throne, low timbre resonating through the room.
"F-fine. Yes, I'm fine…" The blonde mutters to herself with a frantic mumbling of the tongue as she pushes her hand through her golden strands.
The Zora royalty glance at each other with side eyes. King Dorephan smothers his smile with a failed pursing of his mouth as a rattled breath escapes the woman's mouth. Sidon tries to catch Link's eye and notices his own furrowed brow. He clears his throat loudly drawing the attention of those around him.
"May I ask who the young one is? I've never seen her before," Sidon starts in an attempt to soothe the accumulating stiffness pooling from the priestess.
"It's fair to say that none of us have met anyone like her son," Dorephan rumbles as he moves one large arm to accentuate. "A witch! I haven't heard rumors of one since I was a guppy!"
"Witch…" Sidon murmurs, voice lagging around the word. "Aren't witches just folklore? You only ever hear of them when the little ones misbehave. They'll curse them to turn colors. Why my nanny warned me that I'd turn bright yellow!"
Link guffaws at the image of a yellow Sidon and his perked up lips falter when Zelda flinched upward. His eyes shift to the side, blue orbs settling on her twitching form. His head jerks back when Zelda's clasped hands slam into the crystalline table.
"That's not possible…" The princess claims. "Witches were hunted to extinction centuries ago when the return of Calamity Ganon first started. Even the royal family couldn't curb the death. It was a genocide…"
"Aye, my father spoke of it. If a witch was caught using magic, or if anyone was suspected magic, they'd be burned at the stake, thrown into the rivers to see if they would sink or swim. It was a horrid time for Hyrule. Bodies would wash up on the shores of the Domain and the Rito would speak of mass hangings. Such a dark age for Hyrule…"
Zelda ignores the distant grumbles of "barbaric Hylians". Her face goes white, color paling with her accumulating horror. Her hands raised to hide her face, the linked shame of her kin knotting in her stomach and writhing around like a venomous snake, biting down and spreading a burning shame with each pulse of her heart.
"Someone tried to kill her."
Link downcasts his eyes at her statement, his own chest heaving with restrained anger as his hands fist around his long hair.
"Princess…" Sidon edges on and settles beside the distraught blonde.
"We found her in the river with weights tied to her limbs."
The silence afterward permeates the air, even the councilmen of the Council of Elders taking a sudden breath and releasing it through a flare of their guilds. The heavy sound of breathing settles into the emptiness, only the occasional stutter of Zelda's voice breaks the rhythm set.
"And then she gets pushed into a tide pool," Sidon groans.
King Dorephan shakes his head solemnly, "It is quite unfortunate. That poor child."
The suffocating air is splintered with the sound of rushing feet as a flustered green Zora rushed into the room with another at her side of a darker hue. The duo's gloved hands and the protective wrappings around their torsos, a mask to prevent contamination through the gills, label them as nurse sharks, Zora nurses who care for those in the infirmary.
"Pardon us, Y-your Majesty, but-"
"The Hylian child's missing from her room," The darker of the two blurts out and shrinks back when Zelda lurches from her seat. The Zora's gills flare beneath her coverings and she swallows, "We tried to follow a scent trail, but it's old and stale."
"Sidon, get the Bazz and the guards looking. She couldn't have gone far, all the exits are guarded." The king of the Zora meets the priestess' eyes as she hastily stands. "It'll be alright Zelda."
He's not graced with a reply as the woman grabs her knight by the arm, forcing him from his seat and dragging him from the throne room. The large Zora resettles into his throne as his remaining child races towards the guard's barracks and lets his gaze focus on the statue at the heart of his domain. His large chest falls with his grief as he lets his eyes close for a moment to let the memory of his daughter wash through him.
…
She could hear them above her, barely since the rushing blood pulsating through her veins had yet to cease and the roar of the water still bombarded her ears. Yet the clash of the Zora Guard's spear against the flooring steadily added another instrument to the cacophony. Azaria's chest stutters as she releases another breath, letting the noise fade into a gnat buzz in the back of her mind.
A sudden splash forces her eyes open, large gemstone pupils blinking as she registers the form before her. Her body surges backward as her brain notices the Zora pup before her. A cry of pain pries itself from her lips as her twisted ankle is jostled and her mouth screws into a twisted line as she waits for the pain to subside.
"Wah!" The dark green Zora from before, the one who wielded a wooden sword and now sports a waterproof bandage wrapped around the upper arm that can be seen when the water aligns, skirts backward through the water. His head pops over the crest of the wave he created, the pointed head ornament dripping rivulets of water down his face. "You know your Ma is looking for you right? You're gonna be in trouble, she's running around like those crabs near the glowing building."
Azaria's head is shaking before he even finishes his first sentence and the Zora's brow furrows in confusion. His head tail smacks against the water as he bubbles the water around him as he lets out a frustrated sigh.
"What d'ya mean no? She's your Ma ain't she?" The guppy grumbles when Azaria denies the statement. "Well she acts like it. You know you're being a brat, I wish I still had a Ma!"
Gemstone eyes raise and connect to the black ones before her. The Zora's eyes are stone hard, an unforgiving granite that glare at her.
"Yeah well, you can't hide here much longer. You obviously can't swim and there's no way out, witch."
Azaria's breath catches in her throat as the Zora looks up at the foundation of the Domain central hub. His fins crest through the water as he approaches cautiously, eyes barely held above the water level as he edges closer to the Hylian's small mass of land.
"So can what are we doing? 'Cuz we have only half an hour at most before they find you and my Pa skins my fins."
"Lander!"
The young Zora groans, body sinking into the shallow water surrounding Azaria's island. His granite eyes slide to the corners oh his eyes, his sharp teeth flashing in his grimace as he forced his body into an upright posture, torso sluggishly straightening and flopping with a jerk into position.
The female Zora is lean and tall. Her scales shine azure in the darker water as her ray shaped head ornament flop against the side of her face akin to the way the ears of a Hylian Retriever dog does. The muted turquoise of her inner scales, those of her face and stomach, contrast the fire red hue of her eyes and mesmerizes the Hylian's attention. She blinks back into focus when the Zora guppy, Lander, creates a loud splash as he pulls himself up onto the piece of land.
"Lander, you had us so worried!" The beautiful Zora exclaimed. "The nurse sharks never cleared you to leave your room. You shouldn't go running off like that-"
"Yeah, whatever," Lander mutters and catches his tongue between his teeth. "I'm fine anyway; 's not like it was a shock arrow. It doesn't even hurt."
Azaria notices how the young Zora's eyes land on her with the statement before retreating back to the adult. He flicks the water collecting on his webbed hands to the ground and fists his hands around the belt decoration at his waist.
"Did you really have to come find me Nefeli?" Lander grumbles as he toes the gravel at his feet.
"Well, I- I was concerned when you weren't in your room. I didn't mean-" Nefeli stutters out as her throat constricts, gills pulling closed under the water.
"Yeah, whatever. The Hylian's hurt," The green guppy states as he edges back into the water, facing away from Nefeli. "Good luck getting her up. Her ankle's hurt and she's scared of water of all things."
With his final words, his body dips below the water line, dark scales camouflaging in the dark water and only the crest of his head broke the surface. Azaria's eyes widen as he climbs the waterfall roaring beside her, body cresting through the white froth like the salmon in the fall as he cleared the obstacle and disappeared over the edge of the domain's railing. The pointed ears twitch at the lengthy sigh and the fire eyes dull to a low smolder.
"Excuse Lander. I'm afraid my step-son is not very fond of me…" Nefeli raises her head further from the water, a small, strained smile pinches across her fair features. "I'll go get you some help."
…
Zelda's eyes drop a few tears that trail their tracks down her cheeks and converge into droplets at her chin before finally kneeling to gravity and plummeting to the floor in uneven circles. Yet her mouth shakily pulls into a smile as she descends the ladder and her hands curl around each other as she meets the ground, uncertain what to do with the energy throbbing through her arms. Her hands unfurl and fall to her sides, stretching for the child as she scrambles to her feet and promptly squeaks as her lame ankle is bent.
The princess recoils when the child reels back, frigid water clawing the back of her legs with languid fingers, brushing her muscle through the fabric of Azaria's dress and seeping its cold into the skin with its slithering touch. Azaria's heart mouth presses into a firm line, throat pulsating as her heart attempted to launch out of her mouth and ears swollen with the crash of the water and the rush of blood through her veins. Energy crawls through her flesh, pooling at her hands as her fingers curl uncertainly.
"Come now, Carissime, it's okay. You're okay," Zelda soothes and tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear. "You're going to hurt that ankle of yours-"
"Why?"
The priestess startles at the word, stares blankly at the girl as her mouth stitches back up as quickly as it unwound. Azaria's entire jaw quivers, lips bruising themselves with the force keeping them together. The pupils in her gemstone eyes quiver, the blackness dilating with every rapid breath. Small lips unlatch, shaking as they fall and part like a gasping fish.
"Why? Why are you faking?" Azaria's voice pitches in its crescendo. "Just do it already!" The girl hiccups as tears blur the green of her eyes, the diffraction causing the colors to leak out of the iris. "Just do it! Do something! I hate it! I hate this! I hate being- I hate being sc-scared! I'm ti- tired of being scared..."
Tears spill over, running rivulets down her cheeks and dripping onto the front of her dress and darkening the fabric. Her teeth chatter as she bites down onto her lip, cheeks flushed red as the heels of her palms rise to rid the tears from her blurring eyes. Her muscles ache in fatigue, burning her arms, her legs, her chest, her eyes. The hiccuped sobs choke in her throat, a harsh cough forcing its way out. Her green eyes widen as a sudden weight falls around her, enveloping her body in an unfamiliar softness and drawing her toward a foreign warmth.
Zelda cradles the child to her bosom, her own tears trailing into the dark strands of hair as she tucks the girl's head under her chin. She feels Azaria loosen her rigid stance and feels the hot breath expel across her collarbone as the boneless girl falls into her, face buried in her neck as wet tears drenched the collar of her shirt.
"I'm sorry Carissime. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry," The princess mumbles over and over into the child's locks. A broken echo against the roaring water and muffled cries.
