Coin-Operated
10.0
Who is the Lamb, and Who is the Knife
The dragonfly whizzes past me the next morning. Then it makes another lap around me as it darts through the air. There's a childish instinct in me the bursts forth, demanding, and I reach out and try to catch the bug in the cup of my hands without success when it zooms by again. As my eyes roll around, following the active insect, my brow needles. This doesn't seem like the right environment to find such an insect. I have a hunch that if I asked Agitha, that girl could tell me everything and more about dragonflies that I would ever care to know. But aren't they usually found near water?
"Link!" I call out into the woods. I try to see through the bush for any hint of him. I shout his name into the wilderness again.
Our pack sits open next to me. Slowly sinking, my stomach gives a churn, and I crack the knuckles of my fingers. The thought that he might have left me stranded in the middle of ever changing territory creeps into my thoughts. I have to shake my head of that ever lurking doubt as I try to rattle it out. There's no way he'd just dump me in the woods.
I curl up around the pack and clutch it to me. My swims a little with the movement, and I feel the need to vomit.
If Link ever were to leave me, which he very well could and very easily, I'd be done for. I'm not a survivalist in the least. But he's had opportunities to leave me hanging dry before. He could have left me the night the carnival burned.
The dragonfly settles itself on a nearby rock. I pull out some of the food Link had brought along for me. My hands shake. The flapping of wings buzzes in my ears as I watch the dragonfly take flight again. I absently chew the dried meat as it darts through the air, camouflaged by the canopy.
The swirling in my head doesn't ease up, so I turn away from what's above me and dig my face down into the fabric of our pack.
...
Screeching fills my ears and bounces of the hard stone and plaster walls. Filled with pain, they turn to desperate wails. There's a break before it goes into the refrain, and a gentle voice wedges in. "It'll be alright, milady," a haggard woman says. She dabs a cloth to the other lady's forehead as she begins to whimper. "He's coming as you requested," she assures. "I've sent Sheik to get him. He'll come."
"Does Sheik know?" the blonde croaks.
"He does now.
"Off with your shift now; it's been ruined," the elder woman says. Gnarled hands help the younger blonde sit up, and despite her somewhat frail appearance, she has much strength in her bones. The elder wiggles the shift off of the blonde. All the drapes have been pulled tight and shut, blocking any sunlight – it's there even daylight – out. The room is sweltering and stuffy with heat as the main source of light in the room is the fire raging away in the hearth. Candles burn in a couple of the darker corners of the room, but the light is minimal. Despite the darkness, the red splotched on the blonde's clothing shows against the pale fabric. The blonde grunts in pain as she lowers herself back into her bed.
She lets loose a moan as she swipes her hair from her sweaty face. Even in the dim, I can see how horrible the Princess Zelda looks. Dark bags line both of her eyes. Her skin looks pasty and ghostly pale, much unlike the delicate porcelain of her younger self or the sun-kissed hue evidence of the time spent training for knighthood. Her eyes and cheekbones appear more sunken than what I've seen of her before, but I'm not sure whether or not this is simply a trick of the dark. Her face scrunches up, and she wails again as she clutches her bare stomach.
The elder woman feeds the nightshift into the hearth, turning it over in the flames until the garment ignites, and then returns to the lady's side. She drapes a thin sheet around the princess to cover her, causing the blonde more pain as she's lifted up once more. "Stay strong," the elder says. "It shouldn't be long now."
Bangs resound from the flooring. The elder hurries across the room and pulls back one of the thick rugs. The hatch breaks open, and Link's pale face bursts up from the floor with wide eyes. "Impa! How is she?" he asks immediately. The elder woman already has her back to him, shuffling back over to the princess as he clambers up from the underground passage. Link bends down and closes the door and throws the rug back in place.
"It is lost," the woman says. "We disguised her and took her down to the servants' quarters earlier this morning-"
"Why didn't you tell me then?" Link demands. The venom in his voice does not even cause the elder to blink.
"You were not needed then," Impa snaps. When Link opens his mouth to fight her more, she verbally slaps him again. "What's done is done, do not question it. Sheik has already paid the midwife and the physician off; there was nothing that could be done. You would have been as useless as the rest of us.
"Get her some wine."
Link rubs a thumb over one of the princess' clammy hands as the elder wrings another cloth in a washbasin and lays it over the blonde's head. Lucid eyes roll over from the woman, Impa and then to Link, but no recognition sparks in them. "The wine, Link." He lets the lady go with some reluctance and does as the elder asks. "She's lost a lot of blood," Impa says as she takes the wine bottle from Link's hand.
"How bad?" he whispers.
The elder pulls back the covers on the bed, and Link pales a little more at the sight. The sheets are soaked in the ruby liquid. It's smeared across the princess' thighs and even the blankets folded under her have been covered. Her expression grim, Impa lays the covers back.
"It shouldn't be long."
"She'll die."
"She's stronger than that," Impa says, lovingly tracing a finger down the young woman's jaw. "Just wait, and have faith."
She uncorks the wine and produces a large vial and then a spoon from her pocket. She pours out a few spoonfuls of the vial's mixture, dumping it into the wine. She corks and shakes the bottle and then puts it to Princess Zelda's cracked lips. "Come on, milady, drink," she says gently.
Link drags a chair over to the princess' bedside and plops himself into it. "Does your family know you're here?" Impa asks as he runs his fingers through his hair.
"No. I don't think so at least."
Impa nods and seats herself in another chair across the bed from Link, and the waiting game begins. On and off, Impa attempts to get the princess to drink more wine. No one speaks, save for the princess' screams whenever a new bout of pain washes over her.
Eventually, the flooring beings to thump again, and Impa rises. With silent feet, she goes to answer the trapdoor in the floor. A thin, almost frail, looking man comes up from the passageway, carrying with him a small wash basin sloshing with a little water. His muscles are taught as he brings the basin up, struggling some to fit through the passage. Impa helps him drag it over by the fire. There's a large kettle sitting by the hearth that he dumps the water into before putting it over the fire while Impa closes off the passageway.
"Anything yet?" he asks, and Impa shakes her head. She retakes her seat, and the man stands at the elder's side.
Hours seem to drag on, the man occasionally moving the check the fire and pot, until the princess beings to screech more forcibly than ever before. The man takes the pot off the fire and dumps it in a larger basin. The princess seizes on the bed, but no one dares to move to touch her until the small fit passes and a new one takes its place. Impa reaches over and tries to soothe her to no avail. They wait and wait and wait until finally her screaming stops and her head lolls to the side with weary, glassy eyes.
"Sheik," is all Impa says, and the thin man throws back the sheets. He lifts the bloodied, naked girl in his arms and carries her over to the basin. The elder sticks her hand in the basin to test the water. "It's fine." The man lays the princess in the basin and begins to scrub the blood from her legs.
Link looks on, his face stoic. His hands are braced against the seat of the chair as his eyes slide over to the mess on the bed. The sheets all glint with fresh blood. Impa strides over with quick, silent steps, movements that betray her old age. She tosses the pillows from the bed and begins to rip the bedding away. She pauses, and says sternly, "Link," but he does not respond. His eyes are glued to the glittering mass among the red. "Link!" she snaps, and he breaks from his reverie. "The sheets."
"But-"
"The sheets."
His breath hitches and rattles. "I can't."
"The sheets, Link."
He sucks in a swell of air and starts to gather the bedding up with shaking hands. Impa has him take the bottom sheet and the folded blankets first. He moves over to the hearth, and with only a single moment of hesitation, he tosses the bundle into the flames.
Impa strides over to the rug concealing the trapdoor. "I'll be back shortly," she tells the men before disappearing down under the floor.
Sheik nods his head, but Link only stares into the fire as the sheets begin to burn. Flames lick the cream and ruby fabric. The thin man pauses in his scrubbing and casts Link brief look. Muddled red water dribbles off of the blonde's leg as he lifts it to wash the back of it. "For what it's worth," he says, not even looking up, "I'm sorry, but… it had to be done."
At this Link nods and bends to pick up the poker. "Yes, it did," he whispers to himself and then prods the burning bundle.
…
"Zelda? Zelda, wake up." I blink. The world seems so bright until Link's head blocks out the sun. His face is more angled, more rugged than the boyish face I'd seen in my dream. This is the machine, not a man that tossed the princess' sheets into a fire. "I got more water for you," he tells me as I rub my eyes.
"Thank you."
"Are you hungry?"
Hungry? I put a hand to my belly and try to think. When had I eaten last? I ate… Wait. That's not right. "I don't know," I say. When had I eaten?
Link frowns a little. "Are you sure you're alright?" he asks. "I wouldn't want you continuing on otherwise."
"I don't know."
"Zelda?"
No.
No. I was eating right before… did I?
I run my hands over my eyes. "I think I fainted."
The rapid clicks softly sound as Link blinks a few times. "You… fainted?" he repeats as if he didn't hear me right.
"I think so," I say. "I don't… I don't feel well."
Link looks around. "Lie back down and get some more sleep. I'll see if I can catch anything in here." He uncorks the canteen. "Here drink a little at least."
I do as he asks while he trots off into the thicket again. The water is cool and welcoming to my dry throat and mouth. Wanting to conserve what I have, I hold back my want to drain the canteen. I cap it and lie back down, using our pack as my pillow, and fall back to sleep.
When Link shakes me awake next, the whole world is muddled and foggy. He says something to me, and I nod, feeling like my brain is a dead weight in my head. I don't process what he says, and I see how he cocks his head to one side. He helps me sit up and hands me a fish struck through on a stick. "It's all I could find," he says. "I caught and cooked a couple more, but… I can't say what the quality is." His laugh is dry and crackled.
My stomach could care less, however, and I rip into the food he's given me. "Don't eat too fast now; you'll get sick," he chides with a small smile.
"Shut up."
When the time comes to leave, Link takes the duffel from me and leads me through the maze of the woods. I follow along in a haze, completely lost in my thoughts and complete lack of energy, when I swear something clicks. I stop and my eyes try to see through the dark, dense woods, but I can't see anything and nothing comes to my ears.
"Link!" I hiss out at him. He keeps on walking. "I think I heard something."
"Hm?"
I hear it again.
The goose flesh shivers up my arms.
"That rattle, do you hear it?"
"Ignore it."
I clamp my mouth and then press on.
Up ahead of us is a dank tunnel shrouded in inky darkness. A portal to another world, and Link waltzes right into it, confident in his mechanical steps, while I skitter behind him like a startled rabbit. Link digs into our pack as the tunnel begins to swallow us whole.
The rattling starts up again. It clicks and clacks, a blocky buzz through the tunnels Link has led me into. I huddle into my sweater a little more when the gooseflesh begins to prickle up again. The sound fades away, but my heart still drums. I make a quick check into my core and see that the golden vines are up in arms, protecting me and that alone is comfort enough. Within my chest, the wings stretch their leathery feathers and give a short flutter to keep me alert.
The flashlight in Link's hand lights the dark tunnel, and the scene of him dressed in green and traversing the late Princess Zelda's secret tunnels surfaces in my mind. I have to blink away the hurt that bubbles up in my chest and the image of the blood covered mass in the sheets swims through my vision.
Nothing has come to meet us yet.
But the rattle shakes through my bones.
"Link-"
"Shh!"
The trickling of water reaches my ears as we come out from the tunnel. Little flecks of light float through the forest, comforting in their glow. For a second, I have to wonder if this is another spring, but the lights are different. They don't shine with glittering gold. While the lights are certainly an anomaly, they don't have the same ethereal quality that the springs of Lanayru and Ordon had. Link clicks the flashlight off, and he motions for me to stop. The trees hang lower here, branches and leaves reaching down to try and ruffle our hair. The only light is what manages to break through the thick canopy and the floating lights as water slowly flows into the pool.
Suddenly, my breath hitches when the wings take flight. The click sounds out a steady drum. The alarms ring through and through up my bones. "Link!" I hiss with panic.
His glassy eyes flick every which way, and he utters a curse on his breath. "Shit, he wants to play."
"What?" I balk.
"Just keep moving."
He tightens our bag on his back. With the flashlight in one hand, the other darts out and grabs me roughly into his vice grip. "Too tight!" The pressure lessens, but Link starts to drag me through the woods as fast as my feet will carry. Like a ghost almost, my feet skin the ground's surface as I fly along behind Link.
Hollow and low, the rattling drops right in Link's path. In a flash, Link has our direction thrown off, and the wooden creature cocks its head at us. "Don't stop," Link reminds me, and I can hear the way the creature clacks away behind us. His grip tightens a little more when a horn sounds in the distance, and I wince, but I'm sure he's not aware of his strength. Brassy and whiny, the horn blares again. Another of the wooden things drops from the trees right in our way, and this time I get a look at the humanoid creature. Its limbs jerk and twitch, and the head cocks one way and then the other as it looks down on us with a painted face.
"Is that thing a puppet?"
Before Link even responds, the wooden thing flies at us. With one quick swipe of his hand, Link throws it out of our way. The puppet smashes against the ground, clattering on. The xylophone sounds create a clustered beat as it skids across the forest floor. "What a pain the ass," Link growls. He lets me go to ram his foot down on the puppet.
"What now?"
"We move. Come on."
I feel my aching body crying out with each step I take, but I follow on despite my desperate muscles. The foliage reaches out as if to grab us, and we simply break through the greenery. With little care, our feet thunder on the packed dirt and crunching leaves as a steady drum in the eerie woods. Twigs snap and crack as we push them aside, but the rattling is always at bay. It's a symphony of queer percussion accompanied by the leathery wings, their alarm ringing through in a vicious flutter.
Link suddenly brings us to a stop. My breath coming in heaving waves at this point, the machine standing next to me looks as though he is only a spectator while I run a marathon. The soft clicking of his eyelids reaches my ears, and he takes my arm to keep me steady. The fork in the road comes in the form of two more tunnels. "Din dammit," Link spits. "We take the wrong one and we could be wandering around this hell forever."
I sputter out through my gasping breaths, "W-what?"
"This is the magic of these woods, love."
"I thought you knew where you were going."
"Somewhat, yes. I did. Not now." The horn calls to us from a distance, and Link's ears twitch. "We have to decide. Quickly."
I look between the two tunnels with uncertainty welling in my chest. "Well, let's just go!" I blurt.
"Fine," Link says. "Left." He takes my hand to lead me to the left fork, when suddenly I feel the pulsing of leather. Smooth and glaring, the warning swells up.
I shake my head. "Wait, wait!" Glancing at the other tunnel, the beating of wings in my ears drowning out the hollow xylophone in the woods, I say, "We should go right."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
Our feet pound through the tunnel, Link's flashlight jerking the light with each stride. At one point, I shriek and then am blinded by the flashlight. Sticky, I swipe away at the skin of my cheeks and neck when I run into a spider web. The small, disgusting arachnid skitters away from us, and softly, Link chuckles. "Zelda," he pushes.
Still pulling at invisible webbing on my body, I grumble back, "I'm coming."
A large natural bridge erupts from the tunnel's end. It curls up like half a pipe, and I lean over one mossy side to see below. A trickling creek flows underneath along a dirt path, or at least an area where no grass can grow. Link peers over the side as well, and he wrinkles his nose. "Well, we have yet to go in a circle," he comments lightly in the quiet.
And that's when I realize it.
I look around, but see no wooden creature stalking us or hear the rattling anymore. "Link, what were those things?"
He sighs, and pulls away from the stone bridge's edge. He crouches down, letting the duffel drop to his feet, and then he pats the spot next to him. "Sit, you're tired." Nodding, I plop myself down, my muscles eager for relief from supporting me. He rubs the back of his neck as he stashes away the flashlight. "They're just as you called them before, puppets."
"So how are they moving?" I inject. "Are they like you in some way?"
Link laughs at this. "Hardly, no.
"See, legend has it that when people get lost in these woods, they turn into vicious creatures. I've heard a lot of different things, usually like how adults get turned into these skeletal warriors we called Stalfos, but that's just it. It's usually the adults that are physically changed by the magic of this place, so what happens when children get lost?
"I wouldn't call them Stalfos, but something fundamental changes in them. They don't stay human in this place." His hand falls from his neck and the other pulls Mido's tweed cap from his head. "I met one of these kids while I was trying to map the woods. To him, play time is attacking adults."
"So those things were like his cronies?"
Chortling, Link says, "Something of the sort."
We fall into silence, listening for anything unusual lurking in the foliage. Nothing reaches our ears though but the rustlings of the wind. Somewhere in this ungodly still, I can hear the faint screaming of the lady knight racketing to my inner ears. My eyes flicker around at the moss, the stone, the trees and leaves, trying hard not to even blink in fear that even in that brief moment, I'll see the bloody mass again. The rip of the duffel's zipper cracks through the air. I blink, and Link scrounges around. When I turn to look at him, for a second, I feel like I'm seeing that boyish Link, the one with real blue eyes and not some glass balls. The machine Link sits next me though, and he holds out some of the dried meat for me. "Here, love, eat a little something. You need it."
"Thanks," I say, taking the food. "There's not much left, is there?"
"No, but…" Link shrugs.
He laughs a little, light and limp. I flinch some when he reaches out. "Don't move, silly." With surprising delicate care that I didn't know he even had, he brushes the hair from my face and tries to comb through the matted mess. "Can't take you anywhere," he chuckles and pulls away.
"Link?"
"Hm?"
My lips quiver, and my mouth hangs loosely open as if I were a dim fish. I push through my initial hesitation. "The princess… the one that was a knight," I start, trying hard to keep that quiver out of my voice and refusing to look at him, "was her name Zelda too?"
A patter of clicks. "Yes. Where did you find the time to read up on your history?" he asks, and I see out of the corner of my eye as an amused smile drifts onto his face. It falls just as quickly though as he studies me. "Does it bother you?" The sudden gentle tone catches me off guard for a second. "Having the same name, I mean."
I shake my head. "Not really, no. It's a popular name," I say with a shrug. "When I was in grade school, there were at least three other Zeldas in my year."
"If not that then what?"
Truth be told, deep down I think it does bother me. Does he see her in me? Is that why he was interested in me from the beginning? Though I'm wearing my sweater, it does nothing to ward the chill growing across my skin. The idea that I'm somehow a replacement worms itself way to the forefront of my mind, but that little seed of doubt that was planted so long ago feels a little assuaged. If I am such a reminder to him of the last Zelda of the House of Harkinian, at the very least I'll be less likely to be abandoned and left to die out in magicked woods.
I speak nothing of these festering doubts though, and instead I say to him, "I don't know. Do I remind you of her at all?"
His brow needles slightly at this, but he answers all the same. "I suppose you do look like her. She was one of a kind though. Mischievous and conniving. You certainly match her in smarts if anything else."
"What happened to her?"
"We went to war eventually with Calatia after she assumed power as a sole monarch. She was killed after taking an arrow in her collar," he says as somber inflection try to work their way into his synthetic voice. "She's not that big of a historical figure apart from reaching knighthood. Her reign as queen was short-lived."
So she lived. That is, if what I saw earlier of the screams and bloody bundle is a real event and not a figment of imagination run wild in a dream world. Link had said before that she never married, leaving behind no legitimate heirs. Legitimate children.
"I don't feel well, Link."
"I know, dear. Take a breather," he says. "We can move on again in a little while."
I don't think this was too bad, but if it was a little squeamish, I'm sorry. I feel a little bad though, because I think out of every character in this story, the Princess Zelda is probably my favorite. I love her personality, but I find her pretty amazing as well for the simple fact that she could make such a lasting impression on a person. The parts of the story that include her as a living character have also so far been the easiest to write, although I just want to say that this may be because I like her. Haha.
Also, I can't really believe no one has caught on to the trend in the chapter titles. I planned to post a complete list where it all comes from at the end as they are not my own and so they're all in one spot. I wanted to sneak in little Easter eggs of some of my favorites, so give it a shout if you think you've figured it out.
My classmate, the one that was run over by a train this past summer, finally got his new prosthetic leg recently. My boy was disappointed that he did not get a bird talon or whatever. I'm not too sure how he could walk properly on something like that.
Frohe Ostern!
:p