Chapter 6
Somebody has stolen the Triforce of Power.
stolen... the Triforce...
The cursed words reverberated in Link's consciousness. Unbidden, his quest to save Hyrule flashed through his mind. Five months worth of memories inundated his psyche, straining Link's mental presence past the breaking point. The rich, vivid colors adorning the parlor blew out, swirling together as his vision distorted. The oncoming flashback not only possessed his state of mind, but threw him into a lucid recollection of what had been.
Link's lean body went rigid. His eyes stared forward, pupils wide and unfocused: his sense of sight was filled by memory, not input from his body.
Princess Zelda, his friend, was no longer Zelda. Solemn demeanor transformed into wickedly mischievous smile; golden brown tresses took on a fiery, ethereal glow; fine plum-purple vest, royal white dress, and golden spaulders shifted into a black mantle, covered in teal symbols of the Twili... Midna lounged in the chair opposite him. The panelled walls slid together, closing him in, and they weren't wood, but old, grimy stone - though, Link didn't mind. He only cared about the cold... the drip from the ceiling that kept patting onto his head, dripping down his fur... The bar across the door... bars, across the wall, trapping him in his cell... The clink of the chainmail as he stiffened was a chain, binding his leg to an iron peg driven into the ground...
"Ooh, aren't you scary," the imp with the flaming hair bobbed in front of Link's cell. Glaring at his presumed captor, Link automatically lowered his center of mass, preparing to fight it. Despite the chain restraining him, the infernal creature was so small... Link thought he had a chance against it.
"Eeh hee! Are you sure you want to be doing that?" the imp said, unnaturally revolving in midair outside the cell bars. "Snarling and glaring at me? Well, that's too bad... I was planning on helping you..." The monster dove forwards, pressing its wicked face against a gap in the iron bars. "If you were nice."
Ultimatum delivered, the imp settled back with a self-satisfied smirk. The creature's attempts at torment did nothing but anger Link. However, one could not count foolhardiness among his paltry list of flaws. Link understood the hopelessness of his situation. Chained to the floor, abandoned, in a prison cell - underground, judging by the ceiling drip - in an empty cell block, lacking even the faintest knowledge of how he got there... Link forced himself to relax, painfully shaking his expression into something he hoped was neutral...
"Eeh hee! That's much better! You Hylians are obedient to a fault, aren't you?" Link fought to keep his anger from becoming apparant. He wasn't normally an angry person. But this... thing... was a far cry from any kind of normal he had known before.
"Oops! But you AREN'T a Hylian anymore, are you? You're a beast!"
The imp's words confounded Link. He was beginning to wonder if the monster was just as crazy on the inside as it looked on the outside, when he moved to awkwardly scratch his neck... and all he ended up doing was losing his balance and falling on his forepaws. Baffled, he looked down...
"Eeh hee!"
"...k...ink. Link!" Midna was batting her little fist against his shoulder, urging him on, faster... Link felt a thrill, like he was falling; he felt weightless, adrenaline coursing through his body... He was running, running as fast as he could, but why didn't he have his eyes open? He cracked his eyelids...
"Link!" Princess Zelda cried, leaning over Link and shaking his shoulder. "Link!"
Finally, he opened his eyes, seeming to find himself in the parlor once more.
"Link, are you alright?" she asked for the third time that night, clear voice quivering unusually. "You... you were having some sort of fit..."
"I'm," he choked hoarsely. Taking a moment to carefully clear his throat, Link continued. "Yeah, I'm alright. I dunno what happened. I was... here, but it wasn't this room... It was like a dream... but so real..." He stared unabashedly at her, a wistful, yearning melancholy defining his sharp features.
Perturbed, Princess Zelda averted her eyes. She reclaimed her seat, perching awkwardly on its edge. Zelda found her delicate fingers unconsciously fiddling with the hem of her silken vest. Without thought, she brought her hands together, clasped in her lap. She possessed no wish to consider how badly Link worried her sometimes. "Was Midna there?" she inquired softly.
"Yeah." Link reined in his forlorn stare, struggling to force his habitually honest features into impassivity. "I'm... sorry," he murmured, turning to join the princess in gazing into the cheerful flames of an unknowing fire.
Princess Zelda shifted to face him, allowing honest kindness to spill across the graceful features she must normally constrain to cool detachment. "Link, it's okay," she tenderly affirmed. Zelda was unaccustomed to providing comfort, but for Link, she would do what she could. Of course, Link is a necessity to the kingdom, she asserted to herself. I must ensure that he is in peak condition for what might come ahead. The princess didn't want to acknowledge the growing feeling pervading her every thought of Link, the feeling of fondness...
"That which has come to pass can never repeat. Ganondorf is dead; you killed him." Zelda's assuaging words seemed completely ineffective. "It's okay, Link," she reiterated with fervor, following a single tear as it traced its way down his cheek, as he stared unseeingly into the fire.
"Yeah," he muttered. "It's not like I have anybody to lose, anyways..."
"I cannot believe that," the princess asserted sincerely, almost desperately. "Midna's departure could not make casualties of every relationship you engaged. All of Hyrule looks up to you, Link - though I know all too well how this spurs not friendship, but distance."
Zelda herself had grappled with that lonliness for her entire adult life. As a princess, she wasn't allowed to have anyone... She was meant to care for all her subjects equally, the loss of one striking as heavy a blow as the loss of another. Even to her future betrothed, the one Zelda would marry to ascend to queendom, was equal in their sociable inferiority until after the wedding. That didn't stop her from respecting Auru and Alfonzo, former mentors and veteran defenders of the kingdom. It didn't stop her from mourning Midna, Zelda's twilit counterpart and sole companion in her early days of captivity. It didn't stop her from caring for Link, a dear friend...
"Nonetheless," the princess continued, "I also know of the many Hylians - and humans - to whom you are a personal friend and savior. Have you considered the awesome volume of correspondence the castle has recieved exactly to that effect? Calls for knighthood - your abstention nonwithstanding - and other, less... refined... suggestions abound."
She paused, nervously wringing her hands in a rare bout of self-doubt. "Was there not an Ordonian girl kidnapped by bulblins that you tracked across Hyrule? What became of the one to whom you presented such devotion?" Princess Zelda pressed.
"Her name is Ilia, and I've lost her, too," Link revealed bitterly.
I've lost everyone, he mouthed - too silent to hear, but all too easy for Zelda to read on his lips.
