UNITING THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH

Chapter 13: More than Conquerors

Magical torches lit the throne room of Hyrule Castle. They were low-level and the light was dim, casting everything in a red-orange glow. Link, clad in his night-clothes, stood before a suit of armor mounted on a mannequin. Golden light shimmered off the breastplate, embossed with the image of a wolf's head. It had been custom-made for him, even though he preferred his tunic and mail. His old clothes were getting a bit worn and weren't as loose-fitting as they used to be. It wasn't because of weight, as with most men as they aged - with Link it was more a matter of muscle and the many repairs that Skyloft Knight's set had gone through over the years.

He traced the breastplate with his finger. The wolf… that was decided on a whim. Zelda had said something about him having "eyes like a wolf" and some people in the court as well the designer of this armor had said that he was "wolf-like," and so he sort of had an animal symbol assigned to him. The Hylian Royal Family would always be represented by the wings of a Loftwing and the Triforce as their crest. The wolf was just a personal symbol. He'd observed them and had learned about them. They'd once been the subject of myths, but like their Surface-home, they'd proven to be quite existent. People saw them as brave animals, loyal to their families. Link thought that described him pretty well.

Link's sensitive ears caught the soft fall of footsteps behind him – small, bare feet – and then a small, quiet yawn. He turned around to see a certain thirteen-year-old who should have been peacefully asleep at this hour. His blond hair was an unruly mess dripping down to his shoulders – he kept it tied up during the day and refused to have it cut. His eyes were tired and his ears were slightly droopy.

"Pipit…what are you doing up?" Link asked very softly.

"I could ask the same of you," the boy answered, rubbing his eyes.

"I didn't wake you, did I?"

"No… I just couldn't get to sleep. Again."

Link put an arm around him. "Maybe some warm milk would help. You can stay up with me if you need to."

"I hate this insomnia," Pipit complained. "It's, like… something just comes alive in me at night sometimes... It's almost like a hangover from another life or somethin'…"

Link froze for a moment at the last line. "Nah. You must be worried about something," he said. "You sleep alright when things are going well. You only seem to have this problem when something's the matter."

"Yeah," the prince sighed, "The last time I was up and down patrolling the halls every night was when you were sick. I was worried you were going to die and there was nothing I could do about it… I couldn't even see you because the doctors were so afraid I'd get sick, too."

Link rubbed his back. "It was tough on all of us, but I'm alive… all healed up. So, if you're worried about me getting sick again…"

Pipit shook his head. "It's not that."

"Then what is it, son? You've got me worried."

"I know what you're doing up, Dad," the boy said. "Eldin Province is a mess right now and you're here looking at your armor and swords because you're thinking of being the Hero again."

"H-how did you know that?"

"I am observant."

"I am the king and the people on the borders aren't listening to your mother or to me. I think we've reached the limit of what edicts and politics can do. You don't need to worry about me, Pipit. I am the Hero. I've gone through many things. You're a kid. The only things you should worry about now are your studies and not having enough fun. You should be giving me worries, kiddo, not the other way around."

Pipit hugged his father. "I said I'd find a way to watch over you," he whispered.

Link, puzzled, held his son in an embrace as he sat with him on the larger of the thrones until the boy started softly snoring. The father then carried the son up to his bedroom and put him to bed. He smiled and carefully stepped out of the room and closed the door, intent on going back to his own bed, hoping not to disturb Zelda with his climbing back in.

His eldest son was like his namesake in many ways, but one way in which he differed starkly was in being such a worrywart. He remembered Pipit the First as being laid back about everything – even when Zelda had vanished from their island, he was sure things would work out and would tell Link to be upbeat about it (totally unaware of the hardship Link was going through, or even the existence of the Surface at the time). As he was growing up, it seemed like Pipit the Second had made his parents' welfare his personal sworn duty. The kid was putting too much upon himself.

All Link wanted for each of his children was to be happy.

The weather was partly cloudy over a sizeable mining-town called Jerome. Prince Pipit bade his Loftwing to land on its outskirts. He stood in a trench and patted the other half of his soul on the beak. He saw the dust of a horse from his hidden vantage-point. He'd tailed his father, who opted for horse-travel this time into Eldin. A Loftwing skimming just above and below the clouds was faster. The Crimson Loftwing had been suffering stress of late, something that the heat and the dust of Eldin would only exacerbate. The king's choosing to travel by horse had given his son the perfect opportunity – for he wouldn't be seen from high in the air, certainly with the presence of wild Loftwings being a common sight in the skies above all the provinces.

Pipit's gray bird chirped. He gently asked him to quiet himself. "You need to lay low and stay here until I whistle for you. I'm going to tail Dad and see what's up, and if any trouble breaks out…"

The boy patted the sword on his him. It had been hanging up on one of throne room walls and he'd felt strangely drawn to it. He'd grabbed it and girded it onto himself quickly, certain he'd need protection. He looked down at the sheath…

"Oh, no! No! No, no, no!" he yelped. "This is the wrong sword! I thought it was… oh, shi-!"

He'd inadvertently taken a "sacred" blade. It wasn't a truly holy sword like the Master Sword was – he'd have had to have gone to Hylia's Temple for that and he knew he could never use the thing or even budge it out of its pedestal because it was a sword bound to his father's spirit and only accessible in the direst of times. Only the soul in the sword could decide when she was needed. Even Link couldn't use her right now. There was some darkness left in the world, but the world was not dark enough.

The sword presently on Pipit's hip was the one that had belonged to his namesake – a piece kept as a memorial that, while maintained for aesthetics and general preservation, had not been sharpened or maintained for actual use since before he was born. If he broke it or damaged it in any way, he didn't want to think about the consequences. Link and Zelda were by no means abusive parents, but they had some creative punishments involving the taking away of privileges, chores and, for budding young swordsmen – unpleasant character-building training techniques. The last time he was made to hold a pair of full water buckets for a set period of time, young Pipit felt like his arms were going to fall off at the shoulders! He was sure that losing or wrecking this important sword would earn him some far more interesting and creative ways to pay off the debt…

It was the disappointment in his parents' eyes that the boy dreaded the most. This object was one of the last things they had as physical reminder of their friend, something that the man had used and touched. Pipit kept a ceramic bowl belonging to his first pet remlit in his bedroom. He knew that the sentiment was kind of like that, but even deeper.

Beyond that, there was the fact that he was now carrying a weapon that hadn't been used or been readied for use in over a decade. A blade with dull edges would serve him for naught if he actually had to use it to defend himself or his father. A heavy steel stick was better than nothing, Pipit supposed, but he still scolded himself for not paying attention when he was grabbing a piece for his journey. There were plenty of swords around the castle – his father kept at least three for practicing different fighting styles. Why did he grab this one?

Pipit snuck around to the back of the town center – just an open space among a circle of shacks – and wove his way into the back of the large crowd that had gathered there.

"Oof! Sorry, little girl, I didn't' see you there," a large man said as Pipit accidentally ran into him. Pipit just nodded and tried to push his way to the front. People sometimes mistook him for a girl due to the way he tied his hair and the soft facial features he'd inherited from both his parents.

"It's the king!" someone said. "The king has arrived!"

The people started chanting. "Link!" they shouted as one, "Link! Link! Link!"

Pipit peered out from between people's waists and rear ends. His father rode his horse back and forth, a big black beast. "Easy, Agro," he said. He was decked out in his heavy armor with the golden wolf's-head breastplate to which was attached a green cloak.

"Our king has come to lead us into glorious battle!" someone said. The people all around Pipit were mostly adults, though there were a few people his age. Young children huddled around women and elders in the doorways of the houses. The central crowd was made up of rough-looking men and women. Those without weapons had improvised weaponry – farming and mining implements and things commonly seen in kitchens. One person held a pole with a homespun battle-flag bearing Din's symbol, topped with a crude wood-carving of the winged Hyrule Crest. One man, as large and muscular as a Goron (but he was a human), was wearing a shaggy pelt. Once Pipit got a glimpse of the pelt's face-skin, horror shot through his young bones. The man was wearing a Mogma-skin.

Link rode calmly back and forth. He calmed the crowd by holding up a palm. Pipit could not believe what he was seeing. These people expected his father to lead them to conquer? Dad had been talking up and down in the castle and in the square about pursuing peace with the Mogmas. Pipit had met some of his father's friends among the race before and he knew that both Mom and Dad practically sided with them, despite the species-difference. Dad even said once that he feared the wrath of the Fire Dragon upon the Hylians if they kept digging too far into the mountains in violation of various treaties.

Jerome was the furthest "inland" of the mining towns and, despite royal orders, construction of new structures (processing structures, not homes) was going on even further in and this "construction" came with a lot of destruction that paid no heed to the landscape, or to its inhabitants. Everyone obeyed the forest-laws, for Water Dragon Faron did not mess around, but the Dragon Eldin was rarely seen.

"People of Jerome!" Link shouted, "People of Eldin! I have come to set things right! One of you has just informed me that you've captured some criminals. Show me the trespassers you have captured and I'll show you what is to be done with them!"

Pipit shivered. His father's voice was rough. It was a tone of voice similar to the one he used in the center of Hyrule City when making addresses, but it had a decidedly dark quality to it now that his son found disturbing.

The crowd moved and Pipit followed with it, trying to avoid being crushed by bodies. By the sword he wore, people must have assumed that he was there to fight. He worried that he might just be caught up in a battle. He was willing to fight alongside his father, but not if he thought the cause was wrong. Maybe there was something about the situation he did not know? Maybe some Mogma warriors or terrorists had been attacking this little town? The boy found himself behind the man in the Mogma-skin shirt and had to suppress a feeling of sickness.

Link slid off his horse and let one of the townspeople take the animal by the reins. The town leaders had led him to a pair of stakes in the ground upon which were tried two Mogmas. Their arms were bound behind their stakes and their tails were firmly tethered. They kicked their small hind-paws helplessly in the air.

"Link! Link, buddy!" one of them yelped, "Can you help us out here?"

"Yeah! Talk some sense into these hotheads!" the other one insisted.

"Heh," Link laughed, "Ledd and Cobal… I'd expect you two to get into a situation like this."

"Yeah, we were just digging for roots around this here village and the next thing we knew these guys were stringing us up! They're as bad as the red guys!" Ledd explained.

"Lies!" the guy in the skin roared. "They were destroying our potato crop! They were sent by their rat's nest to mess up our plantings to starve us out!"

"It's not like that at all, I swear!" Ledd pleaded.

"Yeah, we two were just hungry! We didn't know it was yours!" Cobal chipped in.

Link looked to them, then to the crowd of villagers, his eyes betraying no passion. He calmly unsheathed his sword. "I will show you what needs to be done," he said.

"What?" Ledd exclaimed, "Link! What are you doing?"

"He's gonna kill us, man!" Cobal cried.

"Kill the moles!" the crowd started chanting.

Pipit's jaw hung. He watched his father take a determined stance. In an instant, Link wheeled around in a spin-attack. The stakes toppled and the ropes were cut. Ledd and Cobal picked themselves up off the ground. They where unhurt and free.

"I knew you were still a stand-up guy, Link!" Ledd exclaimed.

The crowd, however, was angry. "Our own king has betrayed us!" one woman with a big kitchen knife wailed. "The Hero of Hylia is a traitor to his own people!" someone else shouted. Link, for his part, stood, his sword still out. The pair of Mogmas hid behind him.

"This has got to end," Link said, his eyes fierce. "I have not betrayed our people by standing up for the rights of theirs. I have been your Hero, but I know a simple truth – in the end, we all save each other."

"Traitor!"

That was when Pipit ran out from the crowd, unsheathing his sword along the way. He stood in front of his father, ready to protect him and to fight with him. The crowd outnumbered them, but maybe this evened up the odds a little.

"Pipit?" Link asked, "What are you doing here?"

"I followed you," the boy confessed. "In the end, I'd rather fight with you."

"We'd better run!" Ledd said, digging into the earth. "This crowd's gonna slaughter us!"

"The Hero of Hylia has turned his back on Hylia's children!" the crowd roared. They edged closer, as if unsure that they wanted to harm their king or the young prince. Link stood his ground and wished that Pipit wasn't standing his. He'd find a way to get out of this while protecting his boy from harm.

"Oh, Pip," he sighed, "You should have stayed home."

"If I can dig out of here and get my bomb bag…" Cobal suggested.

"No!" Link barked. "It'll make things worse."

"We can flee," Ledd said, "but what is going to happen to you?"

"We'll take care of it," Pipit said.

Just then, everyone looked skyward as a loud screech sounded. A great blue Loftwing alighted on the top of a sizeable rock formation. A feminine-looking figure stepped out upon the flat top of the red rock, backlit by the sun. Her golden hair flowed freely in the wind. She drove the tip of a long straight sword into the stone. The sound of it echoed across the valleys.

"Step back from my son and my husband!" the figure commanded. The crowd drew back, gazing at the Goddess, for surely, Zelda appeared in that strong sunlight, with her Loftwing behind her as the very image of what she'd been in a former life. Her sword was sharp and her eyes were sharper. Some of the gathered crowd could have sworn they were glowing, too, though it may have been an optical illusion.

"Mom?" Pipit asked, looking up.

Link laughed in relief. "What are you doing here, dear?"

"I knew there would be trouble and I followed you both. I was going to let you handle this, Link, but Pipit went missing and I knew just what he'd be up to. Karane is keeping things safe back home."

Zelda turned to the gathered crowd and spoke to them in a cold voice. "I am going to take my men home. I expect the freed captives to go quietly back to their homes. I expect the rest of you to do the same. What is to be done with both trespassers and people who would turn upon their king will be discussed in court. Rest assured; your Hero has not betrayed you – or me."

Tubert balanced on his tail in the garden of Hyrule Castle. Taurin giggled and gently poked the pads of his hind-paws. Tubert wiggled his toes for him. "As always, my best feature," he said.

"I'm going to miss you, Uncle Tubert," Araucana lamented. "Do you really have to go far-far away?"

"I'm afraid so, little miss," the Mogma elder answered.

"Is there any other way?" Link asked, seated on a garden bench with Zelda.

"I do not think so," Tubert said with a sad shake of his head. "My people have discussed it extensively. There are lands where we can move to and places where we can live underground. Some of us are calling it the 'sub-rosa' region. The Mogmas will be safe there. Your people can have the lands in Eldin. We've mined most of the treasures we really want out of it, anyway."

"That's a lie and you know it," Link said.

"Yes, there are many glittering things we would like to have… as well as our villages and tunnels… but we really feel like we have no choice. Your people are like the stars – and they do not want to share space with us. Gorons have been moving into the area, too. New lands will be a new adventure for us."

"If you say so," Pipit added. He paced about the garden in the grass.

"We wish you well," Zelda said. "I feel… I feel like I have failed you."

"Not at all, Lady Zelda. This is a decision my people have all reached together. We move around to new territory from time to time."

He looked to Link. "Before we go, I do have a present for you, King Link."

"Oh?" Link asked as Tubert passed something into his hand. He felt a tingling in his wallet, and then held up the small black diamond.

"A rupoor," he said with a sour face.

Tubert passed another piece into his hand with his other paw. It was a rupee in the amount the rupoor took. "Just a joke, for old time's sake."

Link chuckled. "I wish you many more suckers like me wherever you go, for what it's worth."

"Looking at your children, I have a lot of hope for the people of Hylia," Tubert said. He waddled back to the hole he'd dug into the garden and disappeared down it.

That was the last the Hylian Royal Family saw of their friend, Tubert, or of any of the Mogmas.

END CHAPTER 13