Ch. 10:
"You told me think about it, well I did.
Now I don't want to feel a thing anymore...
I'm tired of begging for the things that I WANT! I'm over sleeping like a dog on the floor.
Imagine living like a king some day, a single night without a ghost in the walls.
We are the shadows screaming TAKE US NOW!
We'd rather die then live to rest on the GROUND!"
- Pierce the Veil - "King for a day"
While going farther up the temple the air around them started to become more frigid. They arrived in a strange room, there was a fire lighted on one post and, what appeared to be, a frozen ice like flame flickering beside it.
Aife walked up to the two flames, frowning. There were other posts surrounding them obviously meant to be lit in a certain way but they did not know which ones needed to be fire or ice.
Byrne stopped and looked at the many posts in front of them, then back to Aife.
"Are these important to us?" He asked.
"I... Don't think so... They might help us find the door to the secret levels of the temple but, other than that, I don't know." She told him.
She began to inspect each post, trying to figure out what the hell to do with them.
One of them looked as though it had some sort of writing on the edge of it.
"Hey, Byrne, can you read this?" She asked, he came over and squinted at the post.
"Read what?" He asked, trying to figure out what she was talking about.
"This writing here." She squinted at the writing as well.
"That isn't going to hel-." Byrne started but the floor beneath then disappeared as Aife poked the strange letters on the post, which made the floor beneath them disappear.
She yelled a curse as they both fell. Well, she yelled a few curses actually. They fell against something hard and cold and began to slid downwards.
The ice they were sliding on was very steep, making them slid even faster down the strange pass way. Aife screamed and after a few minutes of trying to grab onto something to stop their fall, after a while they finally slid onto level ground. They skidded forward until their feet bumped into a wall, finally stoping their movement.
Aife blinked a few times before glanced over at Byrne, who did not look very impressed.
"Stop. Poking. Strange. Objects." He told her through clenched teeth. "Every time you poke things, something bad happens!" He stood up, and almost slipped from the ice they were on.
She also got up and pressed her hands against the wall for support.
"Admit it, that was pretty cool." She told him as she looked around the strange room.
He snorted. "Says the one who was screaming and swearing the entire way down."
She turned to him. "I was just... Surprised. That's all. Now let's try and figure out where we are, alright?"
The room they were in was made completely out of ice and snow. Except for a few of the walls, which appeared to be made of jagged stones. The room was lit by frozen flames, flickering a strange light blue around the room.
She noticed a doorway to her right, and was about to point it out when a gate snapped closed in front of it.
"Oh, lovely..." She muttered.
Through the pile of snow came a few of the creatures that they had encountered earlier. They moved towards them slowly, their red eyes watching them intently.
"Hey, Byrne... Your favorite monsters have come back to play with you..." She teased, seeing how the last one had made him furious, he started towards one of them. "So, um, don't hit them like a psycho or else they'll fly around and kill us in a second." She added lightly.
"Then how are we suppose to kill them?" He asked angrily.
She shrugged "I dunno... Maybe you could ask them to leave peacefully?"
He snorted. "Yes because brainless monsters will just walk away if we asked nicely. They're nothing but stupid beasts that need to die." He told her.
She gasped dramatically. "Don't say that! It's okay ice creature thing, he didn't mean it." She told the slow ice thing that approached her. "You're not dumb..." She pulled her sword out, and moved backwards from the ice creatures. "You're just really slow..."
There were probably about seven of them cornering Aife and Byrne. Aife knew that if they hit one, it would bump into the others and make them all fly about the room. Even a single shot from Byrnes claw would cause chaos.
"Byrne, I'm going to hold them all in place, and when I do that, fire your own magic at them."
He nodded and Aife got to work.
She tried to picture invisible hands grabbing them all and holding them in place, stopping their movements, or a wall blocking them. She felt something warm course through her veins and sure enough, after a moment, they stopped moving. Aife concentrated at keeping them at bay with her invisible wall but it felt as through something was putting pressure on her own body as she continued to hold them back.
"Now!" She commanded Byrne.
His claw started to build up a dark blue orb like shape and he slashed it towards the creatures, hitting three directly in the eye, making them explode into tiny shards of ice.
Aife felt the pressure of that hit on her own magic holding the creatures back. She gasped and grunted, and for that split second, when she wasn't paying attention, the other four flew away from the force of Byrnes magic and from Aifes force field bursting from lack of concentration.
The force of the two spells shot Aife and Byrne against the wall, also causing the ice creatures to explode sharp shards of jagged ice towards them. Aife felt them make tiny cuts along her arms and legs and something burned passed her hip, she looked down to see her tunic was ripped open and a streak of red ran along her right hip.
Once the creatures finished exploding ice shards at them, the door to the next room re-opened.
Aife hissed. "Dammit." She carefully pulled up her tunic to get a better view of the cut, she carefully applied pressure from her hand on it. She bit her lip to keep from cursing.
It wasn't that it was very deep, or hurt a lot, it was just a wide cut that kind of burned.
Byrne moved toward her, cuts along his arms and legs as well. He bent down and reached to move her hand away.
"Don't touch it." She told him.
"Don't be such a child and let me see." He told her and moved her hand away from her hip. His fingers grazed over the wound and she hissed again.
"It's fine, I'll just wrap it up, then we can continue. My magic will heal it after that." She told him as he carefully examined it.
He nodded and moved away.
She ripped the bottom part of her tunic, that had gone down to her mid thigh, and wrapped it around her hips like a belt, she tied it up then looked back to Byrne.
She sighed. "Damn... And I liked this tunic too, now it's just a shirt... Oh well... Let's keep moving, shall we?" She started towards the door, while trying to ignore the burning she felt from her hip, and he followed behind.
As they walked down the twisted ice hallways, the bleeding stopped and she could slowly feel her wound being knitted back together by her magic.
The halls they went down were cold, even breathing to quickly made it feel like her lungs were frozen. They cautiously walked over the ice floor, being careful not to slip.
"Where are we?" Byrne asked.
She pulled out her map.
"Well we obviously made it to the lower levels, um, now we need to find the tear... Which should be on the floor below us."
"And how are we suppose to get there?"
'Walk down some stairs...' She thought, in a deep mumbled man voice/tone.
"Well we need to find some stairs that will lead us down. Or we could break this ice and jump." She told him.
He said nothing and they continued walking, and found a strange looking monster.
It looked similar to the red bobble headed ones from the Forest Temple, but now it looked like it was covered in ice, a light mist coming off its frozen body.
Aife walked up to it and whipped her sword out at it, but instead of shattering, like she thought it would, her sword became covered with ice.
She let out a yelp of surprise and yelled at the creature.
"Ugh! Bastard!" She swung again, but now her sword was covered with an even bigger chunk of ice.
She felt her eye twitch as she heard Byrne chuckle behind her.
"Having trouble?" He asked, mocking her.
She turned to him and glared, then swung her ice sword at the creature with all of her strength, and it smashed against the wall into shards of ice.
"You were saying?" She asked and smirked, as she turned to him, he only snorted. "Hey, at least I didn't get angry and have a tantrum by making it explode with dark magic." She told him and they continued down the icy hall.
"Oh really? So swearing at it wasn't from anger? Hm." She rolled her eyes and muttered something about him being a smart ass as they continued walking.
They found a some more ice creatures, a few bats, bobble headed things, and then some more 'friendly' wolves that were easily disposed of.
Eventually the came across a room with no other doors. Instead it had a wooden post in the center of it, with a bright orange flame flickering on it. They walked in and Aife frowned.
She sighed. "It's a dead end, let's turn back and see what we missed." She huffed, and as they turned around the door they had come from snapped shut with a large stone slate falling downward in front of it. "... You'd think that by now we'd learn to not walk into suspicious looking rooms..." She pulled her sword out, preparing herself for a fight.
"Hm." Byrne walked ahead of her.
She walked up to the fire.
"How much do you wanna bet that if I poke this, monsters will come out and try to kill us?" She smiled and turned to him.
He shook his head.
She placed her sword over the flame, causing it to become covered in fire, instead of the flame heating it up.
"Wicked..." She pulled her sword out of the fire, and the flames continued to stay on it.
She heard a clanging noise, and saw Byrne already fighting some of the approaching creatures. She saw their 'favorite' ice monster that slowly moved towards Aife. She whipped her fire sword at it, making the ice around its body to melt on contact, revealing a weird creature with a long snout. The long nosed creature shot out a small boulder at Aife, and she blocked it with her sword.
She advanced towards it, then brought her sword down on the creature, making it turn into purple/black smoke.
"Cool..." She turned and advanced at the other creatures that were moving towards Byrne.
Aife melted all the slow moving ice monsters, then killed them easily, while Byrne got rid of the bobble headed creatures.
As soon as the smaller monsters were cleared away, the door remained shut. She walked up to it.
"Um, shouldn't it open now? We did kill off the monsters." She turned back to Byrne who was staring intently at the white twister that appeared in one of the corners of the room.
The twister turned slightly black and then grey when out of it came a large wolf, who was standing on its hind legs. The wolf had blood red eyes, black fur, and was snarling angrily at them.
Aife raised an eyebrow at it, then charged towards it, holding her sword back to swing at it once she got within range. When she was close enough she slashed her blade, hoping to cut his side, but alas, she had no such luck.
The wolf whipped out its sharp claw, stopping her sword from tearing into its side. She yanked her sword away, and tried to hit it again, it blocked it, whipping out it's other claw to catch her sword.
"Ugh, bloody bugger!" She yelled at it as she continued to try an break through its defense. "A little help would be nice here!" She called back to Byrne.
"I'm a little preoccupied now!" He called back, she turned and saw Byrne slashing his claw at a white wolf, who also stood on its hind legs.
She jumped away from the wolf as it moved towards her. She quickly turned and thrusted her sword into the flame, causing it to become engulfed in fire.
She whipped around to face her opponent, the same time he slashed his claws at her side, making her cry out. She brought her flaming sword down at the wolf, and as it reached her sword to block, it shrieked at the fire that burned its paws.
While it howled in pain of the burns, she did not hesitate to slice open it's center. Making black fog pour out of it. It snarled at her and swiped its claw at her. Cutting her along her throat. Her hand flew up to her neck, abd she gasped, but not from any sudden pain, just from the shock of it.
She swung her blade with all of her strength, bashing it into the wolfs side, and cutting through half of it while causing it to hit the wall.
It howled as it withered into black smoke. She turned to see Byrne finishing off the other one.
Her hand flew up to her neck, it felt sticky, and when she pulled her hand away red stained her palm. She swallowed hard, unsure why it wasn't painful, 'It will probably start to burn soon...' She accidentally poked it in a more sensitive area, causing a sharp jabbing pain to run up her neck. 'There it is...'
The cut was deep enough that she would deffinetly be getting a scar there, but not wide enough for it to be an extremely large scar. She removed her bloodied glove and held it over her wounded neck.
The door re-opened, the block moving back upwards, and a set off stairs appeared in front of the fire post, descending into darkness once Byrne finally killed the last of the wolves.
Byrne had started moving towards the new set of stairs when he saw Aife clutching her neck. She could see that he had a few cuts here and there, but nothing his magic couldn't heal.
He moved quickly towards her in a second and grabbed her wrist that was up against her bleeding neck. His movements were to quick for her to move away from him, though she did flinch at his touch. His eyes were intense, and guarded, so she could not decipher what he was thinking about.
He gently pulled her hand away from her neck, and examined the wound. His thumb gingerly traced over it, rubbing away some blood while causing shivers to run along her skin. 'Stop that!' She yelled at herself. Though his hands were rough from years of training, they were careful and gentle, while holding her wrist and examining her wound.
She took a quick intake of breath, at the sting of the wound and at how close he was. Her hearts beat picked up speed.
"You know I'm not going to bleed to death from this." She told him, only being half sarcastic. 'Well unless it hit that vein...' But even so, her magic would be able to heal that too, and it would have hurt a lot more had it had been deeper. Though it was starting to burn more.
His eyes flickered to her own then back down, he let go of her wrist.
"You should be more careful." He told her in a soft voice, as he moved away.
She wasn't sure what to say to that so she bit her lip and nodded. He turned away to hide his expression and they both walked down the new stair case.
...
The stairs were not covered in thick ice (thank goddess) but instead, a light mist hung around their feet as they walked down the steps.
Aife felt the sudden change in the coolness of the air, instead of it being familiar and comforting, it seemed as though it was becoming darker, and more frigid with every step.
Her neck had stopped bleeding, and she smudged away some of the crusted blood, as her magic tried to heal the majority of her wound.
"Don't pick at your wound. You'll make it worse." Byrne told her, not even glancing back at her.
"I wasn't!" She told him in a defensive tone. "And it's almost finished healing for your information."
He rolled his eyes. "Are we close to the tear?"
She pulled out her maps and searched for where they were, when she found the stairs they were on, her eyes moved to the right of the map, remembering where Steem had told her, years before, where the tear was.
"Yep, it'll be on our next right." She told him, he nodded in response.
She began to think, or rather, over think about what they were doing again. Malladus would destroy this world, and everyone in it. Whether they helped resurrect him or not, even Cole might not survive... The thoughts of that troubled her, not the thought of Cole being destroyed but of everything and everyone she's ever known would be gone. The thought saddened her. She then remembered a verse she had heard in a song once. She had to ask Steem to translate for her.
"Omne reme a di re na." She muttered.
Byrne turned to her, his eyes seemed confused. "What?"
She repeated it.
"It means, 'In the end, you return to the gods as nothing.'" She told him, looking deeply into his intense golden eyes.
She saw something flash across them but it was gone as he frowned at that.
"Not unless you are more powerful then they are." He half whispered, looking away from her.
She shook her head.
"Not even then."
He began to glare into the empty space.
"Let's move on." He half growled and stomped down the stairs.
She hadn't meant to make him angry, she only wanted to tell him that, no matter what he did he would never gain power over the Goddess and The Spirits. But in a nicer way, or at least, nicer than that.
She sighed and continued down the spiral stair case.
(A/N:... Byrnes POV... (oh no!))
'Omne reme a di re na...' Those words echoed in his mind, taunting him.
His hands began to shake in anger, 'How- Ugh! She doesn't understand a thing about power! She has no idea how hard I have worked for all this to turn out perfectly...' He knew he shouldn't let her words effect him like that but something about them stung, and he couldn't stop thinking about them.
'In the end, we return to the gods as nothing...' Doubt began to swirl inside his mind, thoughts of what if their entire plan does not work out, or what if he is not strong enough to gain power from Malladus?... 'No. I will not let my mind be twisted by a girl, and a half human at that!' But even so, he could not help the thoughts of doubt that whispered in his mind.
He tried to force them out, to try and focus on the task at hand but... Her words would not stop haunting his mind.
'Stop it! This doubt is a sign of weakness... She is only trying to bring me down, to distract me from my goal! I've been working for this for over a century, I will not allow it to be washed away from a single girl, one, who I have only known for little over a week!' The thoughts continued to make his blood boil in rage.
He was angry because for the first time in over a century, the thought occurred to him that, what if everything he has ever believed and worked for... Was for nothing? All of it, gone to waste. 'No! I will not allow that to be true! I will not allow it to make me weak...'
They reached the bottom of the stairs and turned through the doorway on their right. They continued down the hallway, no longer having to walk over an ice covered floor.
He saw a large black wolf make it's way towards them. Byrne slashed his claw at mercilessly and the thing hit the wall, letting out a yelp.
Before it could move again and attack, he was on it in a second, whipping his claw back and forth on it, even when it was finally dead, he continued to fight it. Releasing his anger through force. He thought he heard someone yelling but his mind could not process what, all his attention was focused on the dead wolf in front of him.
"Byrne!" He heard a girls voice scream at him, though he did not stop until something grabbed his arm.
He whipped his body towards where the person that had touched him, raising his gauntlet towards them, it hit something metal with a loud crash, waking him up from his blind rage.
He saw Aife in front of him with her sword pressed against his claw, body positioned to defend herself if he were to continue his attack. Her eyes looked wide and almost fearful, but there was a hardness to them that made her look fierce as well. For some reason all he could see were the cuts on her. A large gash along her hip, a few trailing down her neck, one on her side, while many small ones covered her arm, and something about the sight of her wounds made something in him angry at those who had hurt her. Which he had almost done as well.
Shame started to flood through him. 'Say something! Anything!' His mind commanded.
But he could only stare wildly back, thinking of how he had almost hit her. He felt the anger, that had burned through his blood like fire, turn into ice cold shame.
"Byrne?..." She slowly lowered her sword, showing that she was no threat but she still held it firmly in her hand, incase he were to try and attack her again. Her voice seemed so calm, and he started to hate himself for being so careless with his anger.
He lowered his gauntlet as well, and swallowed hard.
"I-..." He started.
"I know." She interrupted him, her eyes looked sad, and she looked away. "Let's just... Move on." Her voice turned cold, and she moved past him, down the hall. 'No! Let me apologize, let me...' He saw that her knuckles around her sword were turning white from her hardening grip.
He closed his eye hard. 'Fool.' He thought, he let his anger get the best of him, and had almost hurt her.
He punched the wall in front of him before following Aife.
... Aife POV...
A/N: ... (-_-)
She knew it was her own fault that she was almost attacked by Byrne. She shouldn't have angered him, 'But... He needs to understand, what he's doing is completely wrong... Ugh...' She knew she would never be able to convince him. So she decided to never bring such subjects up again.
She knew that what he was going through was difficult, she knew that he had worked hard to gain power, and every time he tried, he gained nothing. Then to have someone point out that no matter what you do in your currant life for power, in the end it will mean nothing, did not help at all.
She let out a shaky breath, and stretched her fingers out and back in to allow blood to flow through them.
She heard something hit the wall behind her, making jump slightly, and footsteps trailed behind her.
She pointed up to the large doorway ahead.
"That's where the tear will be, and some sort of guardian. So be ready." She told him.
"Aife..." His voice was a bit strained. She turned to smile at him, and something like a flash of pain flickered over his eyes.
"Don't worry, I'm sure it'll just be a giant one of those frozen red eyed creature things, your favorite." She told him pleasantly, she turned away so that she didn't see his hurt expression, and so he didn't see hers.
"That's not what I meant." He told her firmly as they entered the new room.
The room was enormous, like a giant ice dome, covered in diamond patterns and stained glass decorated the walls. Large shards of ice hung on the roof. Wooden stands held up orange and blue flames that danced on their posts. There was an enormous silver spiral going along the ice covered floor, and in the center of it laid another pedestal. On top of the pedestal was the tear, a dark silver aura surrounding the black floating orb.
She frowned at it the empty room.
"This doesn't make sense, it should be guarded... Why is it out in the open? Why aren't there any guardians here?..." The question was more to herself than anyone.
"Because they all died." Answered a cold female voice.
Aife and Byrne turned to see a... Well it looked like a snow man, rising from the icy floor.
The snow man thing had beady black eyes, a white mouth that grinned at them, exposing a million tiny jagged teeth. Its body was an oval like shape, looking like it was made of snow. And its head also looked like a snowball.
Aife gave it a strange look, then walked past it towards the tear.
Ice bars snapped closed around the tear, blocking it from Aife, she turned to glare at the creature that let out a high pitched giggle.
"How rude! You don't even tell me your name, and are already trying to steal what does not belong to you! Perhaps your friend here is more polite... Tell me, Lokomo, what is your name." The snow creature (who seemed very feminine) looked towards Byrne with amused eyes.
"Byrne." He replied with zero interest, as though this was all boring to him.
"Mmm, from the brook..." She murmured. "I am the ice queen, but you can call me Maura." It made sure to add a little extra to the 'you' when she spoke to Byrne.
Aife snorted.
"Holy hell, ice queen? Really?" She rolled her eyes at the demon. "You people really need to think of better names for yourselves, Demon." She spat the last part.
The demon looked over at Aife, its eyes black pits of amusement. Anjean had taught her about how to tell the difference between spirits and demons, at least now it wouldn't go to waste. 'Why the hell is a demon guarding the tear?'
"You are a very rude human." Aife muttered something about being half human. "Oh? Is that so... Hmm, well then, child of two worlds, what is it that you seek?"
'Child?' The demon was starting to piss Aife off.
"You know damn well what I'm here for." She growled.
The demon laughed again and spun in a lazy, slow circle.
"Hmmm, I'm not sure I do... Please elaborate on that." The demon cooed, taunting her.
Aife muttered a curse before pulling out her sword, Byrne let out a sigh.
"This has gone on long enough." He snapped.
They took a step towards the snow demon just as it giggled and started to spin again.
Aide was about to slice open it's side when shards of ice shot out from the demons body. Aife eyes widened as she dove to the side, avoiding the shards from ripping her apart.
Byrne created a purple energy shield, blocking the ice shards.
'He can make shields? With his magic? ... Then why the hell haven't we used that before?!' She rolled up from off the floor, popping up near the snow demon, to smack her sword into its side.
It let out a screech, then spun around a few times before disappearing, replaced by a few wolves.
Aide charged towards them, swinging sword back and forth, she heard Byrne give out a loud yell before cutting open one of the other wolves. Aide ducked under one, that had originally planned on diving at her throat, and thrusted her sword up and into its underbelly. It squealed then disappeared.
Another one launched itself at her, she swung around on her heel, bending her knees to get lower to its level, and she hit its side.
After the wolves were disposed of, the ice demon returned, twirling around them while laughing.
Byrne shot dark magic at it, it growled and gave him a death glare as the magic teared through its body. Aife launched herself at it, only to be blocked by another wolf, one that stood on its hind legs and sneered at her.
Byrne continued fighting the ice demon as Aife dealt with the approaching wolves.
The wolves were not going down as quickly as she wanted to, so she whipped her sword through the frozen blue fire, making it light up in an ice flame thing. She slashed it at the wolf, making it freeze up, and also making it easier for her to hit it.
When Aife finished slicing through the last of the wolves, she was about to turn around and help Byrne get rid of the snow demon, when she heard a terrible yell.
The ice demons body shook with rage as dark magic ran through it's body. Aife moved towards them but an enormous shard of ice fell in front of her, she looked up to see the ice shards above were trembling. Some others fell and stabbed into the ground. 'We're running out of time...'
Byrne continued trying to defeat the ice demon but with no luck. Every time he sliced it open with his claw, it knitted itself back together with the surrounding ice.
The entire dome began to shake, warning them to hurry up and get the tear, or else they would be crushed.
Aife saw the flickering flame to her left, and she rushed towards it. She jabbed her sword into the flame, watching as it became engulfed in an orange light.
She raced towards the spinning ice demon and did not hesitate to slice open its side as it spun. It screeched and through the cut revealed a purple heart like thing, beating at a quick pace.
Byrne saw the opening and fired dark magic at the purple heart. The creature screamed and shot out ice at them again, and the wound re-closed. It spun around the room, banging against the walls, and making the ice shards above them fall.
They charged after it while dodging jagged knife like ice that fell from above. Twisting and diving away from the jagged knife like ice that threatened to crush them.
Aife, with her sword still burning, cut into the demon once again while Byrne waited for the opening to fire his dark magic at the sensitive heart. Once it was open he fired an even stronger orb of dark magic at it.
Being sick of the fight, Aife charged foreword, bringing her sword to hit the purple heart, the same time Byrnes claw (which was completely covered with dark electricity) also stabbed into the creature.
And for a moment everything froze. Both Aifes and Byrnes sword and claw stabbed into the heart of the demon as it froze there. Her sword engulfed in orange fire, as his claw was covered with dark blue magic.
It shrieked and spun too fast for them to move, causing them to fly backwards as the demon started spinning wildly around the room.
Finally, as the ice demon hit one of the rounded walls, an ice shard wobbled and fell onto the screaming demon, making it explode into dark shards of energy, which froze a moment before moving towards the tear.
The bars around the tear were gone, and the entire dome began to shake even more. Byrne and Aife raced towards the tear, Byrne grabbed it with his claw then grabbed Aifes arm. She was about to yell/ask what the hell he was doing but he pulled her into his chest and everything around them spun and turned into a light blue as the dome around them crumbled to the ground.
A/N: ... Finally! I friggen hate temples... Well, 2-3 left... -_- I was finally able to get over my writers block too... ;)
Woot cut off! I'm not sure what to say here...
Hmm... Well I guess I could say thank you to everyone who has reviewed and the like... Being able to see that some people are enjoying this really does inspire me to post up more and edit the following chapters right away... ;)
Oh and 'Omne reme a di re na' is from the song: Inon Zur- 'Mages Pride' You can check that out here: watch?v=nxUrz7ZLCp8
It's such a good song... ^^
Hey! Through out ALL of the Zelda games... Who or what was your favorite boss?