White Eyes

By Perfect Soldier 01

Chapter 10: Betrayal

We didn't speak again until we reached the foot of the mountain, where the hills began to roll down into the grassy plains of Hyrule Field.

"Well, this is Castle Town. It's not much to look at," I said nervously, "but here it is."

The castle ruins lay before us and I looked out across the plain to see what progress had been made. Cradled securely in the weathered arms of the stone walls and the winding bend of the river, the town still appeared to be in a state of chaotic disrepair. The great white towers of the castle were still crumpled in a broken heap behind the remaining foundations, and they lay toppled over one another like huge, fallen trees from the Ancient Forests, cracked and splintered, broken and irreparable.

The spires, too, were still plagued by patchwork of dark holes where whole swathes of blue roof tiles had been lost or spoiled. I almost couldn't believe that I had been trapped within those very walls which had once been so strong and indestructible, and even from this great distance I could see into the empty carcass of the royal hallway, the walls ripped apart as if by monstrous, clawed talons. That grand entrance to the inner wings of the castle, where all those chandeliers used to twinkle and shine in the candlelight, lay torn and ravaged by the castle's collapse, and my throat tightened as its painful absence became almost too overwhelming.

Taking the deepest breath I could manage, I tore my eyes away from the colossal graveyard of my home and averted my attention to the small, wooden houses below. A much more reassuring sight greeted me as I surveyed the vast network of scaffolding platforms that had been scattered all over the town, and I could see quite clearly that a lot of the buildings were well on their way to completion. Some even had tiny plumes of smoke rising up from the newly built chimneys on the newly fitted roofs, and it was almost as if nothing had changed.

Biting back a small sting of jealousy, I tried to smile as I waited for the Fierce Deity to say something in return, but he merely grunted and nodded discreetly in acknowledgment.

"Well, I think I shall ride on ahead and rally the troops," the colonel perked up with a chuckle. "After all, your majesty needs a proper and satisfactory welcome."

"Thank you, colonel," I said. "That would be most kind of you. We'll follow on behind at a reasonable pace."

"Excellent," he replied, but just before he spurred his horse onward, he added, "I must add, your majesty, this really is a great honour. Thank you so much for being here today. The troops will be so pleased."

"It's my pleasure, colonel."

He smiled and bowed reverently in his saddle, and with a crack of his whip he was gone, cantering off down the hillside toward the gate. We walked on slowly in his tracks, Impa bringing up the rear, but the thought suddenly occurred to me that the Fierce Deity still hadn't given me a description of his musician.

"What did you say that drummer looked like again? If I'm going to announce a nationwide search, I need to make sure I'm describing the right man," I said tentatively.

"I never told you what he looked like, princess," the Fierce Deity said bluntly, "so I'm not quite sure why you're pretending I have."

"Well, I can't issue a search if I don't know the man I'm meant to be looking for," I replied, waiting for an answer, but he merely sighed and shifted uncomfortably on his feet. "Are you going to tell me or not? I can just as easily take you back up that mountain again if - "

"I think you'll find that I brought you down that mountain, princess," he interrupted.

I bit my tongue in slight embarrassment, but continued to wait as patiently as I could.

Finally, with another grumbling sigh, he spoke. "He wore a feather in his hair, and he had a long, light coloured cloak," the Fierce Deity muttered reluctantly.

A long silence followed. I expected him to say more, but when I realised that that was going to be the extent of his search criteria, I had to stop myself from laughing. After all this time, all this anticipation and commotion surrounding this man's identity and apparent crime, I simply couldn't believe that this was all he had to say. I let out a breath in astonishment, but his quick eyes snapped round and caught the incredulous and disbelieving smile that had just curved round my mouth.

"Don't you dare laugh at me, princess," he hissed with a raspy growl lurking in his throat.

"You don't expect me to make an announcement with just that to say, do you?"

"Yes, I do. That's all you're getting, and unless you make that damn announcement you'll be going back to that cold, draughty hovel of yours alone!"

"You can't even remember him, can you?" I cried, not listening to his threats. "You're so wrapped up in your own feelings of revenge that you can't even remember that poor man's face!"

"Zelda!" Impa thundered from behind. "Both of you stop this immediately! What would people think seeing the two of you bickering like children?"

I pursed my lips instantly and fixed my gaze on the right, flickering ear of my horse, unable to look at the man beside me. I knew he deserved what I said. He had dodged the question so many times since he had accepted my help; I had even suspected that he couldn't quite remember this man with as much clarity as he would have liked... so why had I been so surprised? Why had I insulted him like that, in front of Impa no less?

Maybe I wanted him to stop deluding himself with this grand plan of revenge... maybe I wanted him to realise that this war he had spoken of had obviously ended hundreds, possibly thousands, of years ago, and that this musician was probably long since dead by now. From what Link had taught me about Majora's Mask, he had made it clear that it possessed an ancient, virtually extinct power unknown even by the sages themselves. This man could not possibly have survived through the ages unless he himself had sacrificed his own soul to a mask, and even then I couldn't believe that he would pursue these gods and continue their feud into the afterlife at his own expense.

He must have known he couldn't remember, but I wondered whether the Fierce Deity had really confronted the harsh truth of his own timeline. He was a man out of his age, far, far away from his home, and I couldn't understand how he had kept believing in both himself and his motives. Surely he must have known...

But just then I realised I had severed the connection tying us both together. Our deal had been broken, our mutual interests shattered. He now had no reason to be here with me and remain tied to my services. I had failed, utterly, utterly failed, and I cursed myself silently over and over again, dreading and expecting that he would let go of my reins with every passing moment, disappearing behind me into obscurity never to be seen again. A terrible fear crawled through the very fabric of my body, and I almost didn't dare to breathe in case I missed him slipping away from me.

But after a few painful moments I could still hear his footsteps crush the grass below his boots. I could still hear his sharp but heavy breath exhale through his nose, the metallic, chinking clockwork of his armour moving across his broad shoulders, and the subtle whistle of his tunic as his sleeves brushed against his side. The tip of my boot then swept across his upper arm and I felt him right there beside me.

My heart leapt.

"I'm sorry," I said, eventually finding my voice. "I didn't mean - "

"Leave it, princess."

"But I shouldn't have - "

"Just stop," he barked. "Please."

By this time Impa had trotted up beside me, her stern expression undoubtedly acting as a warning for a later reprimand, and as I conceded another apology, the three of us walked on side-by-side in silence. But even under Impa's stalwart gaze and surveillance, I couldn't help but wonder what was going through the Fierce Deity's mind. Was it Link who was keeping him here? Or was this his decision? Was he going to carry on deluding himself and go ahead with his plan? Or was he at a complete loss as to what he should do now?

I wished I could hear his thoughts, because I myself wasn't sure what I should do either. What was the point of announcing a search for a man that didn't exist? I couldn't waste any more valuable man-power – the rebuilding of Castle Town was my highest priority and the soldiers' workforce had already been stretched to its limit. I only hoped he would tell me what he wanted me to do before we reached the central plaza.

Crossing over the northern moat, we proceeded through the streets, our destination edging ever closer. I tried to busy my thoughts by looking at the houses either side of me, attempting to smile at the lack of dust and rubble littering the cobbled stones and admire how much work had gone into the construction, but my mind always turned back to what words I should choose, what to leave in and leave out, what to say to all those soldiers who had been working so hard in my name.

Just then we turned into one of the main roads and I saw the central plaza open out before us. The great circular expanse glistened in the sun, and the fountain in the middle seemed to catch the light at just the right angle to make it an almost blinding sight. I shielded my eyes, but as my sight adjusted I realised that the glistening shine was coming from something else. As we came closer, I saw that it was coming from the new statue of Link just beyond the fountain, raised high on a marble plinth, triumphantly raising a sword towards the sky.

His new royal robes billowed out behind him in a dramatic stance of defiant victory, and the shimmering water in the fountain reflected across the surface, lacing around the curves and contours of his Kokiri tunic in ethereal ripples as if it had clothed in rings of dancing fairies. A wolf stalked about his legs, enclosed safely within the arc of his cloak, looking up at Link's face which was in turn drawn upwards to the tip of his sword. I couldn't make out any more detail from this distance, but it was nevertheless a truly magnificent sight, and my heart swelled with pride as we approached.

Suddenly I heard the sound of Hyrule's national anthem fill the air, and I saw the colonel appear in front of us with a group of soldiers standing to attention behind him. As the introduction came to a close, they all opened their mouths and a chorus of deep voices flourished in merry unison, soaring through the empty streets and empty houses, filling the deserted town with words of hope and courage, telling a tale of determined survival against the mightiest of adversaries.

I pulled back my hood and held my breath, not wanting to miss even the smallest note, and the full volume of their song flew into my ears. One voice then became several as they separated into different layers of harmony, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up on end. I caught every intonation of sorrow and strife in their melody, and I almost had to stop myself from shedding my own tears of remorse as memories of Zant's invasion stirred in the back of my mind.

Their voices then grew stronger and stronger as the song grew towards its climatic finish, and I wished that all the townspeople could have been here to hear them sing. I hoped that the wind would carry their song up over the plains to the rocky sanctuary of Kakariko Village, and that somewhere the people would be able to hear this triumphant testimony to their strength and perseverance in times of suffering. They deserved at least this much, and I decided there and then that I would make a journey to Kakariko and honour their enduring resilience once I had Link back by my side.

But while I was entranced by their singing, I didn't notice that the Fierce Deity had left my side until he was out of my reach. He advanced forward quickly, his neck craned and stretched towards Link's statue, and his hands tore through the crowd of confused soldiers like he was wading through a river, their song trickling to a halt as his imposing figure loomed over them. Instead, the sound of unsheathed metal rang through the plaza as the Fierce Deity splashed into the fountain. He finally stopped dead in his tracks, every eye and every sword and spear trained on his back.

An age seemed to pass before he turned slowly to reveal his face again. I felt as though I should have done something to stop this absurd behaviour, but when I saw the storm of unfathomable darkness rage inside the Fierce Deity's icy glare I felt like every ounce of life had been knocked out of me. Each one of his muscles was taut and clenched in an angry fury, his teeth gritted and his lips snarling like a mad beast, and that one look rooted me to the base of my saddle.

But when his shoulders started to rise around his neck, I was overcome by a horrible feeling of déjà-vu. There he was, standing in my study again, framed all in white and silhouetted inside that dark aura swirling at his feet. His dark, cruel hands had almost ended my life yesterday, but now an even greater sense of despair started to flood into my lungs, choking every last gasp of air left in my body. Never before had I felt death so close to my skin, and every single hope drained away, disappearing on the very same tailwind which had swept away the soldiers' haunting melody only moments before.

Clanging footsteps then pulled me back to the attention of reality. The colonel's men had scattered away from the fountain, their weapons cowering as their arms trembled, and they had huddled together to form a futile barrier between the Fierce Deity and myself. I admired their protective instinct, but not even the sharpest blade or the greatest courage was going to stop him now, not when he was like this.

"You lied to me!" he roared

I opened my mouth to reply, knowing full well I had no words to answer him, but a noise belonging to neither of us suddenly shrieked loudly in my ears, and I lurched forward and round to the side with both sounds revolving round my head in a dizzying assault. My horse had bolted, galloping away from the plaza as fast as her legs could carry her. With my mind still recoiling from the Fierce Deity, I had no time to think and I lost all control. Pulling the reins did nothing to tame her wild and frenzied escape, and I felt like I was about to be thrown to the floor. I grabbed her neck in desperation as I felt my whole body fly out of the saddle, shutting my eyes as tightly as I could, and cried again and again in vain for her to stop and slow down.

Nothing would break her frantic rhythm, and the clatter of cobblestones cracked through my ears with an almost deafening rattle. I lost all sense of time and direction, but the hard clips of my horse's hooves suddenly morphed into a soft, deep knocking of wooden beams and then finally into the rustling brush of the grass. I opened my eyes and found her clambering up a hill outside the castle walls, but her staggering movements finally broke my slipping hold.

I fell to the ground, tumbling across the earth in a rough heap until I hit the hard, gnarled roots of a tree. I cried out in pain, unable to even bring myself to move as I tried to process exactly what had just happened. Every bone felt bruised and battered, every muscle torn and tender, and my mind was completely numb and empty. Nothing that passed through my head could even begin to explain how I had ended up here on my back at the foot of a tree, but just then I heard a cacophony of shouts and screams in the distance and I scrambled to my knees.

A hundred arrowheads immediately shot through my body as I forced myself up, and I cursed my own fright as I turned my head and assessed the land around me. My horse's galloping hooves were still drumming against the inside of my skull, and in the time it took me to wince at the terrible, ghostly echo, something else had completely eclipsed the reverberating racket in my head.

Racing out of the castle's gate on Impa's horse, the Fierce Deity mounted the hill and yelled my name loudly. Within seconds he had jumped down and hauled me to my feet, his thick fingers silencing my cries as his large hand clasped my throat.

"You lied to me, you wretched woman! You lied!" he spat, shoving me against the tree. "How dare you deceive me like this?"

"Stop!" I whispered desperately, but his grip tightened.

"Why should I?" he shouted, leaning even closer. "Why should I not kill you this very second? You betrayed me, and I'll never forgive you for what you've hidden from me!"

His breath was heavy and oppressive, suffocating what little air I was able to steal from the atmosphere around me in a warm, angry cloud. My hands flew to his wrists as I tugged and struggled against him weakly, all the while shying away from him as I waited for the first blow to strike.

But when nothing came I allowed my eyes to dart up to his face, and I saw the edges of his lips quivering as tears swelled in his eyes.

"All this time you've been pretending you didn't know, but you've been worshipping him like a damn god all along! I may not have been able to describe him in exact terms, but I've never, even for a moment, forgotten his face. Do you think I would forget the man who sentenced me to this living hell? I trusted you!" he cried, having shouted himself hoarse. "Do I mean nothing to you?" he resumed thinly. "You've treated me like a stupid fool and I'll never, ever forgive you."

"It's not -" I started.

"Don't lie to me again!" he barked. "If he isn't the same man, I'm a damned -" He paused as if he had spoken accidently.

"The man in the statue," I gasped, "is Link."

"That's not true!"

"It was built in his honour," I said more forcefully as his grip faulted ever so slightly. "And you know it was too."

"No!" he bellowed. "You're wrong!" His eyebrows knotted as he tried to re-focus his glare, but his quivering lips eventually pulled his mouth down and broke his strained composure. "You're -"

But he couldn't finish. With a laboured swallow he broke away, his gaze averted, and roared an almighty cry. All his frustrated sorrow erupted from his body in an agonising, mournful howl, and I shivered as I listened to his choked sobs rupture the surrounding silence. Shouting loud curses to the heavens, he then sank to his knees and thrashed the ground with his fist, damning his very existence.

I watched him in dumb shock, my entire body trembling with an increasingly strange mixture of dread and compassion. I knew he had just threatened my life, and had done so for the second time in two days, but everything that had passed between us seemed insignificant now in the raw face of his utter desolation. His broken sobs struck the very core of my heart and once I caught my breath, I stepped forward slowly and unafraid. Approaching him from behind, I seized hold of his hand with surprising ease before he slammed it down once more into the earth.

He looked up at me almost as soon as I touched him, his white eyes heaving with unshed tears. Lowering his hand, I held it tightly in both of mine before shuffling forward and embracing him gently. Overcome by my own sorrow, I whispered into his ear,

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

He remained still, content to be held.

"I can't go on like this, Zelda," he said eventually.

"Don't talk like that."

"Everything I knew is long since dead. I'm the only one left. What purpose do I have now? All those years of suffering, all that time spent waiting; it's all been for nothing. There's nothing worth living for now."

"Am I not worth living for?" I murmured without thinking.

He stiffened in my arms, paralysed by my question, and I suddenly realised what I had just said. Feeling very uncomfortable being so close, I pulled away and left my words hanging awkwardly in the space between us. We looked long and hard at each other, both of us realising that the answer to this seemingly simple question would either bind or break us, and that afterwards there would be no going back. Everything ridded on his answer.

"No," he said in a soft sigh.

I blinked in surprise and looked away, refusing to believe his reply. I wasn't sure why I felt so hurt and confused, but I was ever conscious of a sharp and increasing twist in my heart which was becoming more painful than all of his threats put together.

But then he caught my cheek and tilted my back to look at him again.

"You're worth dying for," he finished, and he leant towards me and pressed his lips against mine.

His touch was only brief, but somehow he seemed to convey an entire spectrum of emotion. No longer hungry for the taste of my flesh, I suddenly felt like he was kissing me for the very last time, and I moved forward to pull him into another embrace, hoping he would realise that I wouldn't give up on him so easily. But he held my arms fast against my side and buried his face in my neck, restricting every one of my movements. He breathed in deeply.

"Take off my mask," he said.

I froze at his request, almost certain that my ears had deceived me. "What?"

"I want you to take off my mask," he said again.

All of a sudden I heard running footsteps behind me and the Fierce Deity's eyes lifted above me.

"Do it now, Zelda, before they come."

I shook my head, dumbfounded by what he was asking me to do. "I-I can't."

"Yes, you can. Do it now, quickly!"

But I couldn't obey his command, and before I knew it the soldiers come round and grabbed the Fierce Deity by the arms and dragged him out of my sight. I heard the snap of an iron collar, but there was little resistance. Everywhere there were shouts and orders, but I heard none of them. It was only when Impa touched my shoulder that the world came back into focus and I realised I had been crying. She lifted me to my feet and enclosed me in an embrace without a single word, and when I finally looked over her shoulder the Fierce Deity was nowhere to be seen.

AN: Once again, apologies for being so late with this update. I'm also going to have you make you wait a while for the next chapter too, which I'm really sorry about. As I'm sure you'll understand, I'm currently getting very near the end of my final year of university, and my work is getting increasingly important. My timetable is also unhelpful this term, because the week's break I usually have in about a month's time has been moved right until the end of term, which is two months away. I will try to write the next chapter during this time, but this is a forewarning for another long gap between updates (which I'm sure you're all used to now anyway!).

But with all that aside, thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far! :) You have no idea how much your words mean to me. I know that a lot of things happened in this chapter, so I would be grateful for your feedback again. I've been wanting to write this one ever since I first planned the story, so I hope you enjoyed it and that the pace wasn't too hectic. As for the Fierce Deity mistaking Link to be his mysterious drumming assassin, the manga portrays the drummer in quite a similar fashion to Link, so hopefully that clears up any confusion that may have been caused by that section of the chapter. If you haven't seen/read the manga already, I would recommend doing so as it's quite central to this story.

Until next time, Perfect Soldier 01