Review, homeskillets! And I'm thinking about self-publishing a book, so if you have any thoughts on that, let me know. I'm a little afraid of trying, but it doesn't seem like any literary agent is going to accept it any time soon, and I have had it professionally edited already.

Anyhoo, to the story!

Kara

The grassy area behind the windmill became my haunt. I tried to live my life as normally as I could—as happily as I could: loving Link, learning how to be a wife, a homemaker, a neighbor, an adult. It was fun and exciting, for the most part. I didn't see Miyamoto, but then, I never thought about him. Sometimes I could pretend he never existed. But every so often I'd look to the sky and want to touch it.

No. I'd look at the sky and yearn to touch it all the time. I wanted to fly.

And the pain of not being able to would always be impossible to ignore.

But it wasn't the memory of what had happened that night when I gave up my will to Miyamoto that frightened me. It was the possibilities. Seeing Shadow's sword to Link's neck had awakened far more than just my awareness of his mortality.

Like today. I didn't know where Link had gone. I couldn't help but think of a pretty young woman across the way I had caught watching us enviously. What other things could Miyamoto do to screw with our lives? What other ways could he control and manipulate this world?

The anxiety twisted my gut. Made me sick.

But Link came right around the corner just as I started thinking about her, a dead cucco over one shoulder and several empty wheat bags over the other. I breathed. He had just been doing the deliveries. When he noticed me, he smiled and kept his eyes on me until he could free his arms and wrap me up in them.

"I'm making dinner tonight." He said.

That would explain the dead Hyrulian chicken knock off. "This isn't because I can't figure out how to cook on a woodfire stove, is it? I do want to have housewifely duties, you know."

"Can't I just make you dinner for once? I like you."

The broadening, warming smile he gave me disarmed me. Not that I had much to fight with anyways. Of the past few days I had always felt exhausted, and the smoke from the stove only make me nauseous.

He set to work while I swept the house like a zombie. What I really wanted to do was sleep. Why was I so tired? I went to bed early every night. Maybe it was the stress. The possibilities. The hyper-awareness of all that could go wrong.

When Link finally set the bowl of cucco soup before me and sat across from me with praises of his magnificence of cooking, I found myself staring at the soup for several minutes before picking up my spoon and dipping it in. Even then, my brain kept shutting down, turning off. When it was on I kept thinking of that beautiful girl across town, or of the fact we lived next to a volcano, or the man across the way who had been crippled by a sickness.

I blinked. Link had set his hand on my other one, which had been limp atop the table.

"Kara, I'm worried about you."

"It's just because I can't fly anymore, give me some time to get over it." I replied automatically.
"No, it's more than that. You hardly eat anything, you're exhausted all the time, and yes, I notice how you've been sneaking off at night to hide behind the windmill. Do you really think I wouldn't notice after living a lifetime of being attacked by monsters? If I wasn't so concerned for your health I'd be angry that you didn't consider telling me where you were going."

I wilted. "I didn't want to wake you up..."

"You should."

He didn't move his hand, nor did he make any attempts to continue eating dinner. Outside evening had fallen and I could hear the evening activities of Kakariko village; children wrapping up their play, women shouting for their families, dogs barking...

"You're doing it again."

I shook myself. "What?"

"Digging yourself into a hole in your mind." He tapped my head, as thought to emphasize it. "What's going on, Kara? Why won't you talk to me?"

"I'm fine."

"No, you're not. You've only eaten an apple and a piece of bread today. And yesterday? I'm not even sure you ate that much."

"I'm just a little queasy, okay?"

"Why?"

I was getting flustered now. Thinking about it all was one thing, talking about it was another. Talking about it might make it real.

But Link had settled his storm-blue eyes on me with a determination I had seen before when he faced down an opponent. I tried tugging on my hand, but he held it fast.

I sighed. I was too tired for this. Too nauseous for this.

Taking a moment to figure out just how to phrase all my building anxieties into words, I breathed deep.

"I'm afraid." I said flatly.

"Of what?"

"Of late? Everything. Just because Miyamoto said he wouldn't kill you or me doesn't mean he won't screw with us in some other way. What if you get a crippling disease? What if the volcano explodes and kills everyone around us and destroys our house? What if-" I choked a bit, embarrassed, and a bit afraid that he'd be angry, "what if you, I don't know, catch the eye of some pretty girl and get bored of me. That's not dying."

He was staring at me now. But I just started to ramble.

"I'm afraid he'll pop up any day now, I'm afraid he'll ask me to do something awful, of killing, of hurting, of getting really sick, of giving up my children-"

"Kara."

And he was at my side, wrapping his arms around my suddenly trembling body. My voice had pitched high into a yowl and I hadn't realized when I had started crying. It all happened so quick, but the time he had pulled me out of the chair and fast into his arms, I was in a full on emotional break down.

"Kara, relax, breathe."

Breathing didn't do anything. Breathing wouldn't change anything.

And now I felt sicker than ever. The smell of Link's delicious soup suddenly smelt revolting.

I pushed away from him, sweating, world whirling. He let me go just in time for me to stumble away and throw up what little was in my stomach onto the floor.

When I finally managed to come back to my senses, I was lying in bed, shaking like a bough in a storm, but otherwise feeling oddly empty, as though a poison had been extracted from my blood system. I blinked at the door, watching the shapes shifting in the firelight.

I don't know how long I laid there, just staring, my mind as blank as a slate, my stomach dimly aching, when Link reappeared in the doorway accompanied by a woman on the downside of middle age. Her dark hair was bundled in a knot on her head and she wore simple, plain clothes that somehow reminded me of freshly baked bread.

"Kara, this is Tonia, she's just going to take a look at you, okay?"

"Look?"

Link put his hand to my forehead, gentle as a kiss. A lamp was lit and I could see his tired, worried eyes and the premature lines I had never noticed. The woman came up besides him, bringing with her the smell of yeast and quilts. She gave me a kind smile.

"I hear you're not feeling well, little miss."

"I'm not sick." I said instantly, because panic was starting to rise in me. Sick? What would it be like to be sick here? Where there was no hospital, no medicine, no modern convenience at all—the crippled man in the village—the beautiful girl who had looked on at Link with such lust-

Link had me in his arms, shhing in my ear. I took great gulpfulls of air scented with the soft woman and his scent. Quilts, bread, trees, rain...

I steadied myself enough to bury my face into Link's neck. I felt Tonia patting my leg through the blankets.

"That's right, dearie, cuddle up into that boy of yours. He loves you an awful lot. He's going to make sure nothing happens to you."

His arms held me even closer.

"Kara, can I call you that?" she said.

My face was so muffled in Link's shoulder he had to translate my 'yes' for her. She coaxed my face away from him just enough so she could hear me as I answered her questions. They were very pointed questions. When was the last time I had my monthly, when did I start having these anxieties, when I started to find it was hard to eat, if my sense of smell was stronger than normal, if I was having any pains, etc. She also did a bit of prodding around my stomach and breasts as well as felt my temperature. When that seemed satisfactory enough, she brought out a little pouch from within her apron and took out an herb which she told me to suck on for a minute before taking it out and examining the weird little colorful dots that had prickled out on it.

I didn't know what the point to all this was. It wasn't like I could tell her that the storyteller who controlled her world and everything in it had threatened me and now haunted my every waking thought. If I wasn't so terrified all the freaking time, I'd be fine. I just had to go behind the windmill and feel the grass, breathe the dew, and remind myself that everything was going to be okay. Miyamoto, while annoying, wasn't necessarily evil, and it wouldn't set up his next game to screw in the little things of my stupid little life anyways. He had, as he just said, just needed to keep an eye on me so I didn't do what Amanda did.

"Well, guess that's good to know."

I came out of my thoughts with a confused frown. Link was several steps ahead of me, though.

"What? What is it?" he asked.

The woman gave him a sweet smile as she put the herb back into her pocket and straightened her apron.

"Everything she's going through is quite normal for the beginning."

"The beginning of what?" Now he was sounding like the panicked one.

"Of pregnancy, of course. I'm sorry, I suppose congratulations are in order. You're going to be a father."

There was a long, stunned, and very unnerving silence. She seemed to find the looks on our faces funny, for she started giggling a bit as she got up and started listing off herbs she was going to bring over for the morning sickness and other symptoms, as well as things I needed to be aware of to take care of myself that I didn't even hear.

"Woa woa, hang on," Link had started to let go of me, and I let him. "Are you saying all this fear of hers is normal too?"

"For some women, yes. A woman's body, when with child, can often go on the hyper alert to anything that could threaten the well being of herself and her child. Pregnancy is one of her most vulnerable times of life, after all. I'll bring over some sedative teas for that as well, but as long as you make sure to ensure that she feels safe and comfortable, that shouldn't prove too much of a problem."

My ears were ringing. A baby. Why did that sound so horrible?

"Let's see, it's the end of Spring now, so you should probably expect the baby after midwinter. Tricky time for a first baby, we'll have to be sure to keep an eye on that. The cold can be beastly."

She was still chattering as though giving us advice on how to save money buying groceries, and Link and I were just staring at her as though she had just told us a baby dragon would visit us in the morning with a goose and a Volkswagon Beatle that ran off of dead fish.

"No lifting heavy things, and whatever you crave, you better eat. That's the body's way of telling you what it needs. Take it easy, make sure to get plenty of sleep, drink lots of water, and I'll drop by every week or so to check in on you."

This lady's name was Tonia, right? Why did it sound like she was moving in?

I was starting to feel dizzy again. Little black dots popped up in my vision.

"And best you avoid chamomile, at least until you start showing-"

I felt myself tipping over. Link gave a shout. The black was coming in quicker.

I fainted.