fleets: I must apologize again for the somewhat shorter chapter. I REALLY debated whether or not I wanted to continue on or stop here, and I decided that the pacing was much better if I stopped here for now.
Also I have a few things, kind of important, about romanticizing abuse in this story, but I'll wait until the end of the chapter for that stuff.
Chapter 9: Equals
Vaati wasn't usually bothered by people crying because of him. In fact, he usually found crying to be annoying, and his interactions with crying people were limited to shutting them up. Permanently. Like turning them into teary-eyed statues or something.
Therefore, he wasn't really sure what compelled him to keep spying on the princess who was lying face first on her bed, crying into her pillow. He was upset by what had happened at the moblin camp himself, and he didn't want anything to do with the strawberry blond girl currently sprawled on her bed in a right mess. Even so, he kept turning his attention back to the scene reported by his sentry eye to see if Zelda was still crying. He absentmindedly walked around the castle, scared off some unlucky Bubbles who had been minding their own business, and ran his fingers across the keys of the piano he couldn't play. Nothing could get his mind off of the princess who was currently crying alone in her room.
He slammed a fist onto a bunch of keys, making the piano yowl with discordant notes. Why did he even get the thing, anyway? He didn't even know how to play the damn thing, and all it was doing was taking up space.
Stupid.
With a frown stuck on his face, Vaati paced aimlessly around the castle until he was back in his own room in one of the taller towers of the Palace. He plopped himself onto his favorite couch, a luxurious velvet one with pillows as soft as clouds, and looked down at the white roofs of the other Palace structures.
It was no good. Even his favorite view from the Palace couldn't keep his mind off of the princess in tears. It bothered him because her actions didn't make sense; why was she crying now of all times? Was it because of the kiss?
It was about the kiss, wasn't it.
But she'd actually had the upper hand in that one and they both knew it, so she shouldn't have anything to cry about! Winners don't cry: it was a metaphorical slap to the face that she was currently acting like he'd had the upper hand in that exchange.
Actually he didn't really want to think about that either.
He hated it when things didn't make sense, and this whole crying thing wasn't making much sense to him. If he'd meant for her to cry, and she was crying, then that made perfect sense and he'd be feeling pretty pleased with himself for being able to manipulate the princess of one of the most influential countries in the region like that. But this? The only way he could describe it was that he was frustrated and annoyed.
The idea to take the princess of Hyrule as a trophy wife had been a spur-of-the-moment decision, and initially he thought it would be more entertaining to let the fiery, strong-willed girl to remain alive with minimal freedom in the Palace. She hadn't failed to disappoint him, always managing to surprise him with some of her bold decisions and proving to be a respectable adversary given her limited resources.
At the same time, he wondered if he'd taken on more than he'd bargained for; he was beginning to have doubts about how much control he had over Zelda and…
But wasn't that the whole point in the beginning, because you were curious about her unpredictability?
Well… yes, predictable would have been boring, certainly.
He really hadn't thought through this very well. Or at all, for that matter, except for the part about kidnapping her to be his wife in name only. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but maybe at the time he hadn't put any thought into it either.
I'm letting this bother me more than it should, Vaati thought as he tried to let his mind wander instead at the stunning view of the sky through the high arched windows.
It was no use. The image of Zelda crying alone in her room refused to leave his head, denying him peace.
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It was a full day after the incident with the moblins when Vaati showed up at Zelda's door once again. For a whole day the sorcerer had left the princess completely alone, and for a whole day Zelda had spent her time like a palace ghost, gaunt and unenergetic. Her time as a captive had taken its toll on her, and even though she had been strong-willed and ready to fight back, she'd lost a lot of her momentum after what had happened the day before. Vaati as well had an expression on his face that indicated he was fed up with the state of things, from the way he stood by her door, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest but missing that conniving sneer he always wore whenever he was still playing his game.
The game wasn't fun anymore.
After a few seconds of silence, with the princess sitting quietly at the edge of her bed and Vaati standing around waiting, the sorcerer finally gave a tired sigh. "It's morning," he stated flatly.
Zelda, dressed in her old pink royalty dress, didn't even turn her head as she stared at the mirror in front of her. Her head was slightly tilted, and her eyes were kind of dim as she looked at her reflection in somber disappointment.
"It's breakfast," Vaati tried again, stubbornly, with a hint of exasperation in his voice.
Still, Zelda refused to acknowledge him, still seemingly bothered by her reflection.
"… Are you hungry?"
The voice was somewhat hesitant, but strained as though its owner was trying his best not to sound too demanding. It finally piqued Zelda's curiosity a little, as it was a tone she would never have associated with the arrogant sorcerer. She turned her head slightly, and noticed Vaati looking at her with an expression comparable to a child trying not to throw a temper tantrum at a kitten that refused to play with him. It was a look that was so completely unfitting to his character that Zelda might have laughed if she wasn't feeling so drained from this whole situation. From her understanding of the wind mage, Vaati was the type of person who resorted to force or intimidation to bend things his way; the fact that he was attempting to at least wait for her reaction to go to breakfast was something of a curiosity. The fact that he was handling this with the awkwardness of a boy who just hit puberty was even more so.
"No," she replied leadenly, and went back to looking at her reflection. It was the truth; she couldn't find her appetite, especially not in front of him since he reminded her too much of what had happened a day before. Her face… it bothered her. Ever since she'd pulled that stunt at the moblin camp her expression had become… cold? She herself wasn't sure how to describe her emotions, but she knew she was afraid… not of Vaati, no, but herself. What she was capable of. The kind of person she had the capacity to be if she was cornered enough.
At first she'd taken pride in the fact that she wasn't going to let Vaati get the best of her. She'd been so focused on winning against him in everything imaginable that she'd lost sight of what she was becoming to reach her goal. The kiss had finally brought her back to the reality of it all, when she'd been left with her all too gleeful thoughts when the infamous sorcerer himself had recoiled at her touch. She'd won, yes, but she'd been no better than the wind mage. She couldn't believe how easy it had been to become so lost in the… in the joy of making someone uncomfortable. To beat them. To eventually destroy them from within.
And it was that crooked smile that reflected back at her from the mirror, the one that whispered to her that he deserved it, that scared her more than anything.
Sooner or later, that crooked smile was going to tell her to embrace the darkness: to use the enemy's own strengths against them. That was the route she was following, and it was a route she could not afford to lose herself in. Even if she escaped Vaati, Hyrule would still be doomed under her rule.
It scared her. It scared her because it had been so easy to become exactly like Vaati with a little bit of pressure. There was a person in her she never would have imagined she was capable of being, until now.
She felt a few droplets of tears collect along the corner of her eyes, and she immediately stiffened to attention. She did not want the sorcerer to see her in tears, where he could jeer at her. Wiping her face quickly with the back of her sleeve, she shot a defensive look to where the sorcerer stood waiting.
Or rather, where he had once been waiting.
Vaati had left the room, and he was nowhere in sight. She hadn't noticed when he'd left, and it was a little weird that the talkative mage had left unannounced. She didn't dwell on it too long, however, and she lay back on her bed. "All the better that he's gone," she said aloud to herself. The little sentry eye was still there, however, and it bobbed up and down in its usual spot near the ceiling above the bed.
The princess was left unbothered for about another half hour, which she used to briefly step outside for a walk around the balconies. The view of the endless sky was still fantastic, and it was one of the few things in the Palace that could give her a moment of peace. When she came back to her quarters feeling unmotivated and ready to nap, she found a small silver tray on top of the coffee table next to the couch. On it was an unfortunately cold stack of pancakes, sliced apples, and a glass of milk that was now lukewarm from sitting out for a little too long.
She stared at the lonely tray of breakfast food for a while with a puzzled expression. It must have been Vaati who had left it there, or if it hadn't, it was one of his servants working on his orders. Her stomach growled grudgingly.
It was a thoughtful gesture, especially since she actually was a little hungry now, but why someone selfish like him would go out of his way to do something for her was a mystery. Unless…
"Did he poison it?" she wondered aloud, directing the question to the sentry that was following her every move.
A few seconds went by. Then, the sentry flew around in a panicked circle above her and flew under the bed, cowering in fear. A few seconds more, and Vaati was back in front of her, teleporting to her room in a gust of wind that caused the wall hangings and furniture to rattle. He stomped over to the untouched food, stabbed a fork through a pancake and bit it. "You think I would poison my own wife?" he snarled, dropping the fork and the pancake back onto the plate with a clang.
"What has you so flustered?" Zelda asked softly, but with a somewhat accusatory tone, completely unperturbed by the sorcerer's sudden reappearance. "You're not exactly known for your hospitality, so finding something like this all of a sudden," she waved a hand towards the tray of food, "is wearisome."
The sorcerer did a double take, almost stepping on his own cape when he took a step backwards. "You think I'm… I wasn't trying to be… I'm not…" He stumbled over his words, and then he realized his blunder as he corrected himself with a harsh snap, "Just eat your goddess damned food, princess. And then you're accompanying me for an hour to discuss things." He stormed back out, but not before announcing that he was going to be back soon to fetch her again.
Princess Zelda blinked, and looked at the empty space where the wind mage had been. He was acting oddly ever since she'd turned the tables against him with that kiss. He'd lost his confidence, much like she had, in a sense, and now he was almost tiptoeing around her like she was a time bomb. Granted it was all very subtle, from the way he waited for her response about breakfast and not forcing her to join him, actually asking for her opinion about breakfast, leaving her alone when she said she wasn't hungry, and leaving food for her anyway when she had been out of her room.
Did he actually… feel bad about what had happened yesterday?
Probably not.
One thing was for certain, though, and it was that the rules had changed. He was no longer just her captor, and she was no longer just his captive. She could stand above him, much like he could stand above her.
She could be… exactly like him.
Her forehead crinkled in the center as her brows knitted together gravely when she remembered what she'd looked like in the mirror these past few days. It wasn't a pleasant memory.
She sighed heavily, and poked away at the food that Vaati had left in the most awkward manner possible. He really was a disaster this morning. It might have been funny if she wasn't so tired of everything. Tired of being a captive. Tired of dealing with Vaati.
Tired of dealing with herself.
fleets: So I kind of mentioned last chapter how I was having trouble with not romanticizing abuse. No matter how I spin it, at the end of the day a kidnapping is a kidnapping is a kidnapping, and even if the kidnapper happens to be a badass windmage with a lot of fans, kidnapping is often (if not always) a traumatizing experience for the captive. You will be very hard pressed to convince me that kidnapping is a morally good thing to do without any emotional scarring...
Which is where I run into this problem that this story is still a romance. Here we have a character who has done a bad thing to a completely innocent person, and I'm supposed to reconcile this with the fact that eventually we're going to have hearts.
Eventually.
I mean I wrote it in my summary that it's a VaaZel.
So as I work my way around to having abuser turn into romantic interest (I feel really awful writing that statement, by the way), pleeeease I beg you to call me out on it if I forget myself and start romanticizing abuse. I'm going to try my best not to, but because Vaati is a villain and the premise (according to FS) is that he kidnapped the princess for forced marriage... yeah I might mess up once or twice. Or a lot. YELL AT ME IF I DO BE LIKE "hey fleets you're doing it wrong."
Thanks for your awesome support everyone. Love you guys lots! :D
Lord Siravant: And you know what, you're probably right XD
LoZMadLover: One word. Karma. XD
Swamp Dragon Princess: Eh, it's really not that interesting. It was a JEP paper, but I don't want to say the title because I don't want people figuring out my real name D:
Nope, as far as I can tell it's not there. :/
What happened last chapter did take a toll on her :(. At the very least, it let them both reconsider how they defined their relationship. We'll start to see changes in their interactions :)
eureka93: Haha well I hope this chapter answered your question about why Zelda felt awful about herself!
xXAngelCrisisXx: Hi and thank you so much for your review! :D I'm always happy to read comments and I think I speak for all authors when I say this! I was totally happy overload reading your comments :3
You pretty much nailed what's going on: they're not at all that different in terms of what they can do, and that's upset however they used to define their roles. And ahhhh thank you so much! I'm glad I'm doing not-terrible with the pacing and character representation so far. The tricky part will be the actual romance part of the genre description in the story, so I'm keeping fingers crossed!
Flufux: Hmhmhmmm I am going to estimate that this story will be around 18 chapters maybe? Or less. Or more? I'll have a better idea the further into the story I go, but plot-wise I am going to venture a guess that we're almost halfway there. I didn't make as detailed an outline for this story as I did with, say, Avilux or OA or Rend, so my estimates may be kind of wonky.
Tinsel: She's kind of in shock at the moment. Or I guess it's better to say that they're both figuring out where they stand now. :O
DarkSakura2256: Yup, she did pay the price didn't she :( And now she's regretting her decision. Ah well, the only one to blame here is the master bastard himself. :P
touko: Yes yes yes yes and YES! I mean, I don't know if I can actually pull it off (might fail pretty hard by the end idk) but I don't like the idea of writing about a completely evil, sick bastard and then suddenly have Zelda fall in love with him. Ok, it doesn't even have to be sudden. It bugs the crap out of me if the love interest ends up falling for Vaati without some kind of acknowledgement from both parties involved that he's done something very wrong. It sends a very bad message if this sick guy ends up getting the girl and also gets away with abusing her, and I don't want to be that person D:
Well I guess I tend to stay away from writing Vaati as completely psycho, but abuse is still abuse and it's still inexcusable.
... I say all these big ideals about what I want this story to be, but all I can do at this point is to cross my fingers and hope I don't actually end up writing the very thing I wanted to avoid D:
