To Snowhead
by Wyna Hiros
Disclaimers and the ilk: I don't own Zelda 64 or the characters: no money is made off this. This story, and all original side-characters/monsters and locations, however, are my property and may not be used without my permission. If you'd like to archive it (or whatever), please see the contact information on my profile. I don't bite.
To Snowhead
"Give him over for a moment."
I felt Link's hand tighten involuntarily around my arm at the command. The silence was tense, unbearably so surrounded by the solid darkness.
Brand's voice sounded again, impatience tingeing it. "I'm not going to harm him. If what you say is true, then you don't have anything to worry about. Give him over."
Link didn't obey immediately - he was practically quivering with nervousness, uncertainty. And then; his fingers loosened for a moment before he suddenly nudged me towards the voice. I stumbled a few steps, arms going out, flailing: my descent was stopped by a set of hands that caught me by the forearms and righted me.
I tried to relax, but I couldn't help but jump as one of the hands vanished for a moment: only to reappear again, grazing my cheek as it started to undo the bandages around my eyes. I heard a small sound of clothing shifting and then Link's voice, strained, telling them that the light would make my eyes even worse. The hand stilled for a moment then kept going, ignoring him, unwinding the blindfold. Panic flooded me. This man was going to see the very obvious red eyes of the Sheikah; the eyes that were going to condemn me to die here.
But there wasn't anything I could do. If I resisted, it would give us both away.
So I did nothing. It was getting lighter and lighter with each layer removed, when the last bandage finally came off. I blinked owlishly at the flood of torch light. The sudden glare made sparks swarm across my vision.
Brand - nothing more than a large, muscular black shape amid swimming stars- leaned in close. I remembered in time to stare blankly into space, despite the fact that the murderer of my people was no more than a half foot away from my face. I heard the others surrounding us muttering, the words "Sheikah..." drifting to my ears.
Brand was clearer now: a large man with the build of a blacksmith and deadened eyes.
"How come his eyes're red?" he was glancing back at Link, suspicion heavy in his voice. Brand didn't wait for an immediate answer, only raised a large hand to trace my ear. I stifled the immediate urge to jerk away. "And these ears? Something tells me that you're not giving us the entire truth. Doesn't look Hylian to me, boy."
I held my breath and kept still.
It was the unevenness of Link's voice that surprised me, that made me tilt my head slightly back towards him: something was up. I knew he was thinking fast.
"No, he doesn't."
Silence. Brand was staring past me, eyes narrowed, his voice dangerously smooth. The menace wasn't even veiled anymore. "Care to explain this?"
No answer. My heart was thundering in my chest.
"Well?" he prompted.
We both started at the sound of metal and leather crashing to the ground: Link had suddenly thrown our gear to the ground, almost angrily.
"Look, he was captured by the Dark One years ago, alright?!" he snapped. "They captured our village and razed it to the ground. And I wasn't there to stop it!"
The crowd had suddenly gone still, startled at the outburst. Brand's shifted to my face, searchingly. I tried to ignore it, staring past him. Link continued, closer now, his voice seeming to tremble with a bitterness that was almost surprisingly convincing.
"You want the truth? Fine. It would make a great bed-time story! You want to know what they did to him in their dungeons? Or maybe what happened when the Black King spotted him out of the crowd of prisoners? He looks almost enough like a Sheikah: it was just a few changes, perhaps like a few mutilated ears, changed eyes and he'd be ready to take to the Black One's bed!"
My gasp of surprise was drowned out by the sudden cacophony of sound from the crowd. Realizing just what Link had implied, Brand suddenly released me, pushing me away as if burned: clearly, I had to be dying early from a curse from the Dark One, rather than any natural affliction.
I fell back several steps, arms shooting out to catch onto Link as he stepped forward. I feigned confusion, let myself lean against him as he bent to retrieve the bandages that Brand had dropped in his haste to rid himself of me. The group had also retreated two feet back.
Link moved, and began to rewrap the blindfold around my eyes, forcing me back into the void. I kept silent and just continued to lean against him, playing along with his story. We still hadn't gotten out of danger.
"Yes, he looks like one of those filthy Sheikah now," he said, his voice quieter now. "But I'm lucky that he was rescued before the end." The next was louder, almost challengingly to Brand. "I'm taking him to the Sea, so he can feel it before he passes on. Or are you going to stop that with your little crusade?"
The crowd was murmuring around us, but I could tell that they remained a respectable distance from us now. I silently congratulated Link for pursuing the point: he had them on the defense, and used their surprise as a weakness.
Brand finally spoke and surprisingly, there was a hint of emotion in his voice beyond calculated coolness. It was rage...and grief.
"They killed my son," his voice was soft.
"I'm sorry for that," Link sounded sincere. "But I have to do this."
Brand had gone silent, for several more long seconds.
"The way through the mountains is on the Car'ker-rae trade road. Don't go off it. We aren't accountable for what happens to you or your brother," he finally said.
There was a mass of activity suddenly as the crowd moved. Parting, I hoped.
"Thanks," was all Link had to say. There was no reply to that, from Brand or the mob around us. Link gave me a small nudge, and I moved with him. He was guiding us away from the masses. I felt the panic start to subside. They were letting us go. My heart was starting to slow its frantic beating.
I didn't say anything until I felt the cobblestones at my feet end, turning into the dirt road. We had left the north-east gate behind. I opened my mouth to speak.
"Keep acting," Link murmured.
"What's going on?" I whispered back.
"There's a squad following us. Bastard's probably still suspicious," Link muttered back.
I continued leaning my weight on him, keeping my head limp.
Twenty minutes or so later, he slowed to a stop
"Are we still being followed?" I muttered.
"No, I don't think so. Or at least, I haven't seen them since we entered the mountains," and he dropped his arms from me, letting me standing up straight. My right side was tingling from the loss of his body heat. I ignored the instinctive urge to move closer to that warmth and instead, began undoing the bandages from my eyes.
"Do you believe what they said?" I asked. Another layer came off. Light was piercing the darkness bit by bit.
"I don't know. There's two sides to every story."
I removed the final layer of bandage from my eyes, and blinked against the sudden flood of light. It was sunrise, and the cold rays were just starting to touch the snow-covered peaks and valleys of the Snowden. It wasn't very bright: there were clouds rolling in, and further into the Snowden, the sky was a deepening gray.
But yet, after being blinded, it was almost too much.
"Hey."
Link was holding out the face cover.
I took it gratefully. It settled in place, like a long lost friend. The sensation of being unprotected, naked was gone, and I was feeling more like myself again. I began rewinding the wrap over my hair. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as Link pulled out an overcoat that mirrored mine, and shrugged it on.
"That was a convincing performance back there."
"Only because your life was on the line," Link replied. He let out the nervous sigh he'd been holding in, and shook his head. "I made a lot of mistakes. I nearly got us killed. And what I said..."
He looked like he was going to be sick.
"It was necessary," was all I said. That was the very thing that made lying acceptable at times. Necessity.
Link didn't look entirely comforted by my reassurance, but just settled on hefting his bag again.
We followed the Car'ker-rae further into the mountains. The morning sun was just barely over the hills. We had about an hour of light before it vanished behind fog and clouds. The Snowden was plunged back into darkening grays.
If we followed Brand's advice, and kept on this trade road, it would lead us through the mountains and out the other side. It was exactly the opposite of what I needed right now. Brand had also mentioned that the first slaughter took place in Snowhead.
It was the only lead we had, and Snowhead was not in the same direction that the Car'ker-rae was leading. There had to be some path that the soldiers used to get there. It was just a matter of finding it. I kept my eyes open.
It was two hours later that we stumbled upon the faded post that pointed towards a half snowed-in path, that broke away from our road. It read - "Car'rehn'ten to Snowhead".
If that hadn't been an obvious sign, then the shattered barrier and Ambria-Freian corpses littered around it were.
It snowed on and off, although not as harshly as I'd initially feared it would. The Car'rehn'ten was much more treacherous than the first trade road: with workers from both sides unable to stay up here for long, it had fallen into disrepair. There were pits and craters from where boulders had hit over the months. Parts of the road would fall away the moment any weight was put on it, and go slithering down the sheer drop.
I led the way from there. I was the more experienced tracker out of the two of us and so far, I'd managed to divert us from several potential disasters. The road itself being one.
The ice that was forming on it being another. It was draining, keeping all my senses alert, and our pace was nearly crawling to a halt at times. I was starting to shiver, but kept quiet. Link seemed to be doing better than I was, and just hunched the coat closer about him.
I was starting to lose track of the time. We needed a small rest. We were going on empty stomachs, and while it would have been possible to go further with it on normal grounds, it would only increase our chances of injury due to lack of concentration here.
The snow had weakened: the closest to a lull that the Snowden would afford us. We had stopped on shelf. It took a few tries, but I managed to track down our next meal, and successfully make the kills. While I did that, Link had managed to get a small fire going, half sheltered from the wind by the boulder. At this point, it wouldn't matter too much if there was smoke.
In this weather, I doubted that it would be easily spotted.
We sat in silence, focusing on gutting and cleaning the carcasses. My mind, however, wasn't fully into the task. It was back, beneath that dark pass...
We had survived passing through the city. I had half expected otherwise.
And now, because of that, there were several complications now. All of them dealing with Link, and what he'd done back there. I couldn't deny the fact that I certainly wasn't regretting it, but...
I knew it wasn't so easy. Nothing was ever so clean cut. And as much as I wanted to believe that he'd acted out of his own feelings for me, pure and simple, I couldn't easily stomach the fact that it could be misplaced. It very well could be, and it was mostly my fault.
What I felt towards him alone wasn't contaminated with deceptions. At my suggestion years ago, Zelda had disguised herself as me when she'd left to meet Link at the Temple of Time. It had been nothing more than a last attempt at a safety measure for her. I hadn't thought of the complications that it would bring up. My only concern then had been her well-being.
This thought had been on my mind, ever since that rushed kiss. Her Highness and I knew the truth and details of how that exchange had happened, as did all the people who survived: I suspected it was even being written of in history books now.
Link, however, had not known any of this. The last thing he'd seen in the building ruins was Ganon and the Queen, who to all intents and purposes, had been at his side all those months. Never mind my presence with him now - his feelings could have been meant for Her Highness all along.
I glanced over at him. Link was concentrating on the task at hand, although I noticed that he wasn't putting his heart into it.
I finally spoke.
"Can I ask you something?"
He shifted the knife, concentrating on keeping his hand steady, but I saw his eyes flick back towards me, and he nodded. I took a breath and went on.
"...How can you be sure that it wasn't Her Highness that you were with the entire time?"
Link looked at me, startled.
"What?"
"Under that bridge, you said that you'd always wanted to do that," I clarified. 'That', however, didn't need clarifying. We both remembered that far too well. "But perhaps it was never me to begin with."
Link stopped his knife hand, letting it rest.
"You mean when Zelda met me in the Temple of Time."
I nodded.
"She did look almost exactly like you," he admitted. "I was fooled for a few seconds. So when she threw off that appearance, I was.." he hesitated, searching for the right words. "I was angry and confused, at the deception and at what I'd felt the entire time towards you - or, "her". Zelda's like a best friend, but I'd never really felt anything towards her beyond that before, so..."
I felt my heart sinking with each word he said.
Link only gave a helpless shrug. "Looking back, I can see it was necessary."
Somehow, he caught the pained look that passed unchecked across my face. He held up a hand.
"I'm not done yet," he said. "I realized almost immediately after that, that it wasn't her all along - only that once. I can't explain it, but you both feel different. I don't know if that makes any sense, but... even if she'd used all her magic to conceal herself, I think I still would have known it wasn't you."
He looked out towards the mountains in the distance. The next was more to himself than to me.
"I'd wondered what happened to you. She never got the chance to say anything before Ganondorf found us. All that time in the tower, I'd thought you were dead," The last was almost a whisper.
I didn't know what to say to that. I had been so caught up in that moment, in just the panic to find them both, that I hadn't thought of what Link had been feeling during that time.
Link resumed his work on the carcass, finishing up on it.
"I meant what I said back there," he said. "If you're thinking it was because of the whole ''we-might-die'' thing, that's not it either."
That had also crossed my mind.
"I just don't know why you would..." I started.
Link shrugged. "I don't know why I feel the way I do. I know that I do, though. Is there a need to question it, and make it more complicated than it really is?"
That didn't quite ease away my concerns. I was far too used to examining others' feelings for ulterior motives or other explanations: it was how I'd survived so far. I couldn't get used to the idea yet, that Link might just have shared the same feelings and that there was nothing else to it besides honest interest.
"It's that look again."
Link was developing that same uncanny ability that Her Majesty possessed: the talent to read my face even though it was half covered.
"Sheik, you worry too much."
"I know."
If Link was right and it was as simple as he claimed it was, then... perhaps I could learn to get used to "simple" and "honest", and stop looking for other motives. Perhaps this was the place to finally start.
After the meager meal, we set out again. We didn't speak again much after that. The temperature was dropping as we rose, and our breathing was a little more labored. We were concentrating on keeping the overcoats on, and making each step without slipping.
The snow grew heavier, the flakes settled on our hair. I didn't let Link sleep yet: out in the open here, it would amount to suicide. We had to find shelter before we could rest, and I kept any eye out for anything that would serve as such. But other than that, I didn't talk to him. We both had to conserve our energy for the climb.
Several hours passed, and we were finally approaching Snowhead. I could see it in the distance: an enormous shadow that was wreathed in fog. The peak vanished into the dark clouds.
The path was hugging the side of a cliff that overhung over it. There was a large boulder that was carved into a crumbling statue of a masked bull, like a silent guard set halfway into the cliff wall. The empty eyes stared out into the Snowden. One horn was broken off, but aside from the light covering of snow, it was in decent shape.
It was here that I halted.
"What is it?" Link stopped next to me.
"That."
I pointed towards several large, irregular lumps in the snow, with wood pieces just barely sticking up from it. One of them had a torn strip of hide fluttering from it. But other than that, nothing else broke the monotony of the snow.
Link raised an eyebrow and looked back at me, unimpressed.
"It may be a sign that they've passed this way," I explained.
I knelt next to the mound, brushed aside the snow with a hand. Just as I'd thought. There were signs of a Sheikah post here, scattered around what must have once been a ritual site. I uncovered a makeshift wall, several broken support poles, a broken blade, signs of discarded food that was still somewhat recent.
This was promising. We were going the right way.
Link had wandered away from me, looking in fascination at the bull statue. I watched out of the corner of my eye, as he gave into that still boyish urge to touch everything, and poked the bull in the empty eye socket.
Some things just didn't change.
He turned towards me, and butterflies suddenly appeared in my stomach.
...And some things did.
Link was looking at me with this expression of sudden worry, mixed in with lurking dread.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing. I just had this thought," he looked down. "It isn't just me that feels the same way, is--"
Link never got the chance to finish. The snow around us suddenly exploded. I caught flashes of figures rising up from the snow, others appearing on the cliff side, and jumping down/skidding towards us. They were dressed in white and gray fur pelts, wearing masks over the bottom of their faces to protect from the cold. And they were all armed.
I didn't even have time to yell a warning at Link. The first one had appeared almost of nowhere, a nasty hook, rope, and grapple aimed at me with the sole intent to disembowel. I barely had the chance to side-step. It happened smoothly, my body going on pure instinct: I grabbed the extended forearm and using their momentum, sent them slamming into a snowdrift several feet away.
Everything was too fast. I lost sight of Link. All I saw were more rising up out of the snow. Nothing but snow, blades, fur pelts, masks, and killing blows aimed at me. At the edge of my vision, I caught the one I'd thrown already getting to his feet. I had time to dance out of the way of the second opponent.
The third attacker came at me, wielding a curved dagger: from the slighter build, a woman. She lunged at me.
I took her by surprise. Rather than trying to dodge the stab completely, I spun on my heel. The move brought me suddenly behind her. My arm lashed out. It was over almost instantly: I had the third attacker in a stranglehold, my left arm locked over her throat, that hand latched onto her armed wrist, and my right hand holding a knife over her jugular. She gave a strangled gasp of surprise and tried to struggle out of the hold, flailing. In reply, I kicked her legs out from under her, and half-knelt with her as she lost her support.
She was completely immobilized. The chaos around us suddenly froze. I felt the blades about to pierce my back halt.
I didn't apply any more pressure to her throat yet, using the time I'd just bought to look around for Link. I hoped to the Three that he hadn't been killed: I hadn't been able to keep any eye on him during the confusion.
After several tense moments, my eyes settled on him. He was trapped against the cliff side; several of the masked attackers holding holding swords, which they'd been about to run him through with, but they'd been having difficulty getting past his defenses. They were staring at me, their gazes - shadowed by their hoods - unwavering.
I ignored the faint press of the blade tips into my spine. If they ran me through, they'd injure the girl. If they tried for any other method to take me out, I was holding her too close not to kill her before I died.
I looked around at our opponents, at Link. He was breathing hard, but other than that, seemed uninjured so far.
Nineteen or twenty attackers. There was no way we could take them out. My gaze flicked back to Link, and our eyes met for a brief moment.
My voice rang out into the chilled air.
"Let him go," and I tightened the hold slightly on the woman's throat. She gave a small yelp.
And for a moment, all I could hear was the woman's harsh breathing, and see the small clouds puffing out into the chilly air. The blade tips at my back and at Link's stomach didn't withdraw...
: To be continued...:
Completed: 5/18/06
Feedback etc is always appreciated.
-Wyna
