Whispers of a Hero
Part 13
Malon gazed up at the moon, ignoring the icy wind swirling around her. The tear tracks on her cheeks were completely numb from the chill of the air.
The young woman stood alone on top of one of the castle towers, praying to the goddesses to take away her pain in whatever way possible. Her resolution to be happy for her friend, to give up her feelings in favor of the joy of Link and Zelda, all her peace of mind and heart had vanished. Her own imagination played an echoed recording of the scene from the garden, as her memory recalled from a vision many years ago. She tilted her head back with her eyes closed, stretching her palms up from her sides, and swayed slightly in the breeze.
She whispered into the night, "Please, let me stop feeling…"
Link stepped out onto the castle roof, growing more desperate by the minute. His eyes scanned the towers, and he was ready to give up and search elsewhere when he spotted her standing just behind the parapet as high up as she could possibly have gone. Quickly firing his long shot, he landed a few paces behind her and paused; she was swaying with her arms out, clothes beating her body in the wind.
"Malon?" he called out cautiously.
She lowered her arms but remained standing, looking out over the land. There was a sigh, and Malon slowly turned towards him. Link could not find his breath when he saw the sad, wet eyes staring down, away from his own. As she stepped towards him a powerful gust of wind rushed down the mountain and blasted them. Her hair blew away from her shoulders as her body was rocked, and Link grabbed her shoulders quickly. Her eyes met his in that moment, and she was staring through him, clouded by pain.
They were locked together for the span of several heartbeats, and his gaze pierced into hers. A strange expression crossed his features, and he gently pushed her shoulders away and let go. Malon gasped as she was swept backward off the tower by the blustering wind.
Zelda paced her chambers. It had not exactly been a rejection, though Link had also not acknowledged her feelings for him. Stuck in her room, all the young woman had to occupy her was her own worry. She alternated between general concern for Hyrule, fear for the missing guest within her castle walls, and upset over the lack of response she had received from Link. His face had gone totally blank, eyes glazed over with some sight that was not bound by his body. Zelda suspected that the abilities Link possessed were much stronger than he hinted at. He was constantly exercising his magic skills in one way or another.
Confessing her feelings for him had taken all of her courage, made her vulnerable in a way that she did not normally allow. She had not gotten even a word from him. The calloused hands she had held in her own went rigid as he had his vision, just before he jerked violently aware again and almost knocked her off the seat.
A vase of fresh flowers caught her eye, and Zelda found herself moodily picking the petals off of the blossoms before guilt set in for destroying such a beautiful plant. She sighed and gracefully sank to a plush chair. Part of her feared that Link might not even remember what they had been talking about before the chaos started; the rest of her fervently wished he would forget. For a woman so widely acclaimed for her wisdom, Zelda thought she might be a bit foolish when it came to her own heart, blinded by love. Seeking a distraction, she snatched some territory request parchments off a nearby table and focused on at least getting some valuable work accomplished until she was allowed to leave her room.
The entire castle was on alert. Link was making rounds, check every corridor and room for his missing friend. All of the castle guards were searching or on watch, surveying the exits in the event that Malon had been kidnapped from inside the castle and was being held until a moment of escape presented itself. His blood was hot, simmering just below the surface of his control. Rage was not something he was accustomed to; the fury he took into battle was detached and for the sole purpose of his duty. Anything that may have happened to Malon was personal, and he had become fully aware of what a weakness his emotions might be. He would die for her in a heartbeat.
His was creeping higher into the upper levels of the castle. Many of the rooms above the ground floor were not in use; the corridors were cold and drafty without the finishing touches to make them livable. Link doubted that Malon would have come up so far on her own, but she might be held hostage in such an isolated place. His instincts were torn because of his emotions; Link was not feeling that there was any particular threat or evil lurking at the castle, but until he had Malon in his sight there would be no relaxing. He knew beyond a doubt that something had happened to her.
Malon was falling and gazing at the intensely bright stars that were racing away from her. Her body was numb and she closed her eyes, confused. A loud metallic clattering shocked her as she was about to land, and the young woman jumped, startled and frantically grasping at the piles of straw under her palms. Epona glanced back at the corner of the stall that Malon had curled up in earlier, crying and weary, and gave her with an "I won't tell" look. There were sounds of hurried soldier footsteps and banging armor passing through the stables, but it didn't seem particularly unusual to her. She was still so tired, and without much thought, Malon shifted a bit and closed her eyes again.
Link was running out of ideas. There were nooks and crannies in the castle that he did not know about, but all the places anyone could think of for a person or two people to hide had been searched. It was time to move on to the possibility that Malon was no longer on the grounds. The moon was still high in the cloudless sky, providing good visibility. He paused momentarily to take a swig of milk to keep his weary body moving; nothing tasted as sweet and reviving to him as milk from the ranch.
On the way to the stables, Link passed a group of soldiers still making rounds to search. The nervousness rolled off of them in tangible waves. It had been quiet the last week in Hyrule, but all of the guards were aware that a situation was brewing somewhere in the kingdom. Most of them were around his age and had grown up during the rule of Ganondorf; they were not anxious to see the castle and their homes destroyed yet again.
The night lamps in the stable had been relit due to the circumstances, and the horses shifted restlessly in their stalls at the anxiety of the people passing through. Link reached Epona's stall and let himself through the wooden gate to wipe the dust off her back before he saddled her. She greeted him but side stepped oddly. Link watched her curiously, and she shook her head when he reached out to stroke it. She turned slightly in the limited space and ducked her head down. Confused, Link stepped around to her other side to check her and froze when he saw Malon curled up in the corner on the dirty floor. Her face was streaked with tears; she was fast asleep and sprinkled with straw.
Link carefully crouched in front of the young woman and brushed her stained cheek. Her eyes fluttered open and looked surprised to see him. She stretch innocently, completely unaware of his desperation to find her for hours. For some reason the words were stuck in his throat, and he was unable to ask her why she had been crying.
"Did I miss supper?" she asked.
Malon was thoroughly embarrassed once she realized what a ruckus she had caused in the castle. Link had not said a word about the frantic search to her before they reached the main living areas, but he left his arm clasped lightly around her shoulders while he led her down the stairs.
The first castle guard they crossed paths with shouted when he saw them.
"Let Zelda know it is safe to leave her room," Link informed him while the anxious man scurried off.
Staring at the floor, Malon tried to hide her red face. The hall they were walking down rounded out to the guest corridor, and Malon balked when she saw where they were headed.
Link paused with her and asked, "Where to?"
She had no idea how to tell him that she needed to be away from him for a bit, that his presence only made the ache worse. The arm around her shoulder was exactly what she wanted, and it was too easy to imagine that the friendly gesture was the more intimate touch she desired. She had no doubt that Link and Zelda had become more than friends in exactly the same manner everyone in Hyrule thought they would. They were walking again, and she had not noticed that they were moving away from her room and to the kitchen.
The cooking staff had already gone home for the night, and Link had to relight the lanterns in the darkness. He left a glowing item on the table in front of her to keep her company while he was busy looking for fresh wick. He was taking a long time to light a few lamps, longer than it would normally take someone with magic, but Malon was grateful for the brief period to compose herself.
There were two voices outside the kitchen then, and Malon suspected the woman she could hear was Zelda, presumably talking to Link. It sounded like some sort of debate going on just beyond the door. The thought that she might have to face the two of them together so soon horrified her, but Link returned alone with the two lights and set them down in front of her. The young warrior shed his shield and sword, resting them against the side of the table. He rummaged through the cupboard and gave her a goofy grin before handing her two plates. Malon supposed that Link had missed his meal too.
A quick search of the pantry revealed that not much was usable without lighting the hearths, and the best Link could find was a bread loaf and a few small chunks of cheese. Malon had no complaint with the simple meal, but despite her earlier hunger, she was having a hard time making herself eat and picked at the bread. She tried drinking some of her milk, but it simply made her homesick for the ranch and her cows. Link was watching her poke at her food, and her face started to turn red in embarrassment again. So as not to seem ungrateful she quickly ate her food and forced it down with the rest of the milk. Then she rose unsteadily and collected her dishes.
"I think I will go to my room now," she told him, hoping he would just let her go alone.
Her stomach sank in disappointment when he rose to follow her; then there was a strange pause in the air. Malon blinked, completely unsure of what she had just felt, and she could barely see Link's eyes grow incredibly wide in the low light. The ground trembled under their feet, and a strange sound echoed in the distance. Dust and stone particles dropped on them from the ceiling above, and suddenly the floor shook violently, throwing Malon off her feet and tumbling backwards over the wooden bench. Her plate and cup went flying, smashing into the stone floor. The little ceramic lamps vibrated off the table and smashed as well, exploding in oil and flame that ignited the area of the spill. The wooden supports of the castle were creaking and groaning, and Malon feared the ceiling would come crashing down on top of them.
The shaking continued, for how long Malon could not guess, but time seemed to have frozen. She tried to roll to her feet and gain balance, but the room seemed to be swaying in front of her eyes, and she felt a bump on her head from the fall. The flames from the oil were creeping toward the bench and smoking heavily as the tendrils of fire licked the dry wood. She could not see Link, but her footing was too unsteady to walk, so she dropped to her hands and knees and began to crawl around the table. Pots and plates were crashing down from the cupboards and shelves, and Malon had to be careful of the broken glass and pottery pieces that were being strewn everywhere.
Link was crouched on the floor, clutching his head with face trapped in an agonized scream, though he made no sound. Malon grabbed his arm and called out to him, but he seemed to be in another place entirely, one made completely of pain. His eyes were clenched shut, and she had no idea if he could hear her over the rumbling. The fire was growing, and she started to panic.
The sky above Link crackled with electricity in a pattern of shards. He did not recognize where he was immediately, but he let his senses take over and could feel that it was Hyrule but a place he had never been before. The sand under his feet shifted in the warm breeze of the desert. To his right there was a building he had never seen up close, but he believed it was one of the strange ruins he had spotted in his dream from his perch above the temple. A fierce, ancient energy struck him from within and sent him buckling to his knees in pain. He heard a thousand voices in his head chanting, instructing and begging him to save Hyrule. He could see into the future and the past, the creation of the land he rested upon, his descendants carrying the same sword he carried on his back and the burden he carried on his soul.
The pain grew more intense, and the sky began to fracture apart above him. He felt something wet on his clenched palms, and when he opened his hands, there was blood smeared all over them, rising fresh from the tips of his fingers. Automatically he began to wipe the red in streaks on his arms in a strange pattern, and the lines soaked into his skin and vanished. Then he raised his fingertips to cheeks and drew a simple pair of stripes. He leaned forward in a motion of supplication, and the sand blew to coat his bloody palms. The grains hardened and began to take shape in the wind, and the blood from his veins was hot, hotter than his skin could stand. The pain was unbearable and continued to grow as the flesh melted from his hands.
Link stared into a mirror clutched in his bone hands, forged from his own blood and the ground he wept upon in agony. Staring back at him was the face that had haunted his own dreams for months, only it was not a mask, but his own face streaked in blood with eyes blazing white with power. Suddenly he was angry and smashed the mirror.
The sand beneath him shifted, and the rock cliffs around him rumbled fiercely. He felt power like no other; and as the sky came crashing down, the ground broke and rose to meet it. Link was torn into a million pieces by the sand, but he could still feel the pain and his own consciousness, and he screamed. From a far distance he heard an echoing scream of a woman, a power that had formed Hyrule, being ripped apart along with him.
Malon fell back when Link cried out, a piercing shriek that was louder than the whole castle's quaking. Immediately she reached out to him, calling his name, trying to wake him from whatever strange state he was in. The room was getting hard to see; even though the fire was lighting up the area, the smoking was choking her. She tried to shake him gently, then more forcefully, and in all the haze of the burning wood she was almost positive that his eyes opened up and were blank white.
Suddenly, as quickly as it had started, the earthquake stopped. The silence was deafening, and Malon realized Link was silent too. The only noise was the popping and roar of the fire. The young man had collapsed in her arms, and the weight was overwhelming. They were too close to the table; the fire was getting hot enough to burn their skin from the short distance. She frantically started to scoot and push with her feet, trying to drag the limp body across the floor. He was too heavy, and she tried to roll him off of her to drag him; but once she got him onto the stone, his body weighed even more to her, and she ended up landing on her bottom when she lost her footing. Malon cried out hoping someone would hear her, that someone was still in the castle and had not used the opportunity to evacuate once the shaking started.
Malon was about to run to the hall and look for help when she noticed that Link's sword and shield were still at the edge of the table that was slowly being consumed. She knew she could not let anything happen to the sword, and she untied the shawl wrapped around her waist and draped it over her arm to protect her face. The smoke was almost too thick to see through, but the silhouette of the shield blocked out part of the light from the flames. She dashed forward and grabbed the sword and tucked it under her arm to grab the shield while protecting her face. The pain shot up her arm from her hand where she grasped the incredibly hot metal, and she did not delay at escaping from the blaze to drop the heavy equipment next to Link. A terrible smell reached her nose, and she was scared to look down at the palm of her hand.
She clumsily slid the sword free and used the edge to cut her shawl into several strips, and she covered Link's mouth and nose then her own, and finally she tightly wrapped her wounded hand without glancing at it any more than absolutely necessary. Link was still unconscious, and she still had no idea how to move him to safety. Her frantic eyes scanned the room, looking for anything that could help her, and her eyes fell on the shield and the leather straps on the back. Her grin seemed out of place as she worked to free the buckle and slide the two belts out of their holds, but she knew she was having a moment of brilliance that Link would be proud of. She fastened a loop around each of his shoulders and crouched beyond him on the floor, grasping the leather and ignoring the incredible burning in her left hand. In a painfully arduous process she started to scoot her bottom towards the door then lean back far enough to drag Link a tiny distance with each attempt.
The muscles of her arms and back burned and cramped, but Malon would not stop dragging the man she loved until he was safe. Sweat covered her body from her efforts and the heat of the fire, and her right hand kept slipping off the leather, so she wrapped it around her wrist, ignoring the intense strain put on the bones there. It felt like she had been scooting for hours toward the kitchen door, and she almost did not realize it when she had finally reached the threshold. A few more pulls and she had Link safely resting beside the wall of the work corridor. She crawled over him back into the inferno and used the last of her strength to gather the valuable sword and shield.
The young woman collapsed against the wall above Link's head and wondered how long it would take for someone to notice the smoke rolling past them along the ceiling and out into the main area of the castle. She realized that Zelda would surely send someone to look for Link after the frightening quake to make sure he was safe; she started to tremble as the shock set in once assured that they would be saved. Her body was covered in black soot, and she could tell that the fabric wrapped around her burn would not come off easily. It was soaked and stuck to itself and her skin. Beside her, Link started to shift slightly. Unconscious tears of relief wiped tracks through the sweat and cinders covering her face. She leaned over him to brush away his bangs, waiting for him to open his eyes. Several of the salty drops fell onto his skin, and she wiped her own face, embarrassed.
His eyes fluttered open and met hers, and Malon was surprised to see his own lashes were wet with tears. He blinked rapidly and propped himself up to assess the situation, taking in the fire in the next room and the smoke rolling overhead, feeling the strip of cloth protecting his airways. Link rose unsteadily, pulling the leather belts off his shoulders, and gathered his equipment, then offered Malon his hand. She rose on her own, trying to hide her shaking and the horrific looking hand that he had tried to take. They staggered together down the hall and out into the main castle halls. People were scurrying back and forth amid the piles of broken rock and decorations that littered the floor. In all the chaos no one even noticed the two filthy survivors. Link yanked the covering off his mouth and stopped one of the guards speeding past him.
"There is a fire in the kitchen. Gather a group to put it out before it burns the whole east wing. Where is Zelda?"
Malon could not focus on anything that was going on around her. The blackness was eating at the edges of her vision, and her body felt numb. Link was talking to another young man, and she pulled the cloth away from her mouth and tried to breathe deeply. She blinked and was being ushered to sit on a bench along the wall. Link was asking her something, but the words did not make much sense, and she tried to smile and nod so he would not worry. After what had just occurred, she knew he had much more serious things to take care of. He hesitated, crouched in front of her, and she wondered if she had responded in the wrong way, but he rose after a moment and patted her hair before jogging off in another direction.
The darkness was creeping up higher into her vision. Malon tried to use her voice to call out to one of the castle staff that was darting back and forth in front of her, but the words seemed just out of her grasp. She was leaning back against the stone wall, staring out at the room; then things started to rotate around her. The brief thought that the ground was shaking again shot through her mind, but then she realized that she was the one rotating, not the room. Her body slumped against the bench and no one noticed.
tbc