Coin-Operated

21.0

Muscle to Muscle and Toe to Toe

Every step echoes in the dark passageways. The candle in his hand is almost burnt out, and the wick is close to being smothered by the hot wax pooling around it. Little dribbles of the wax slips down the side of the candle when he tips ever slightly off balance.

Link curses to himself, straining to see in the inky blackness. Which way goes where again? He's been lost in the interior passages of the castle for some time now. He's not sure how long it's been, but it's been a few hours at least. More often than not, when he's gone missing for such stretches of times, Her Majesty's Sheikah will seek him out and save him from the darkness. Silently, he prays that Sheik will find him sooner rather than later and lead him out of the twisting tunnels of the castle.

His breath catches in his throat. Footsteps from beyond reach his ears – most definitely not from Sheik searching him out. Hastily, the knight smothers the small flame and presses himself up against the wall of the passage. The soft taps of feet suddenly cease, and Link holds his breath, praying he hasn't been caught. Nayru knows there's enough snakes at court as it is, so he waits and his ears believe that the footsteps fade away – heading in another direction.

Minutes drag by. The silence buzzes in his ears, but Link remains patient. When he thinks at least a quarter of an hour has gone by, Link breathes easy. He fumbles around, blind in the dark, feeling for the wick of the candle in his hand. The charred piece accidentally breaks off when his finger finds it, and the knight silently curses at himself.

Fire magic is not his strong suit by far.

The knight is more adept with light, but he does not by far have Her Majesty's skill. He's seen her on several occasions now cast small spheres of light from just her hands.

He sighs to himself.

He might be better off trying to conjure up flames from nothing. The candle sits at his feet, forgotten, and Link begins trying to create some sort of light source to see from. Heat gathers in his fingertips. It tingles the pads of his fingers as he tries to snap it to life. Every now and again he gets a spark of a flame to ignite, but nothing sticks. The knight quickly grows frustrated with each failed attempt.

A giggle sounds in the dark.

Despite the heavy linen shirt, leather gloves and tunic he wears, gooseflesh runs across his covered arms. The hairs on the back of his neck spring up, and he waits, knowing he'd been seen.

He feels the tingling in his skin of his sixth sense telling him that the other presence in the passage is standing right next to. Link hardly dares to breathe, the air filling his lungs in desperate shallow gasps.

A flame bursts to life from petite hands, and the woman giggles again. Laughing at him. Before he can say anything, before he can exhale, before he can even feel the flood of relief at seeing that his night stalker in the passage is none other than the queen, the flame is extinguished, and she is on him like an animal.

Her lips mesh seamlessly to his, and he folds under her like crumpling paper. His boots scrape at the worn stone. The blood pounds in his ears, setting all his senses buzzing, when she crawls onto his lap, her legs straddling his hips. Her lips leave his, and he gasps for the air that she stole from him. Her teeth catch the sensitive skin of his neck. Painful pleasure shoots through him. His hands fumble in the dark with her heavy skirts to find the smooth skin of her thighs. Her hot breath in the crook of his neck is both welcoming and aggravating.

She pulls away suddenly, hands on his collar to keep the distance, just as soon as his fingers find her slick folds, bringing their heated passion to an abrupt end. He groans at whatever has her distracted, and she shushes him. His head smacks back against the wall. She shushes him again more forcibly when he half-moans-half-whines her name. Trying to quiet her heavy breaths, the air comes out of her shallow and ragged. Link leans forward and rests his forehead against her breast with one hand rubbing small circles on her thigh.

Shivers work their way up his arms and back when her fingers twist themselves in his hair.

A few minutes pass, and their breathing settles. She hisses to Link, "Someone's here," as she staggers to her feet, the heel of her slipper catching the hem of one of her skirts. Dimly, it registers that others at court really do know about the passageways. A light smack to his skull is delivered when he pouts that she could live a little more dangerously. A ball of light blooms in one hand, illuminating her flushed cheeks. She whips around, and not waiting for him, takes off down the way he came. The knight drags himself up and after the queen in the dark, lustful eyes never leaving the chiaroscuro hourglass shape.

…

She jumps a little when his eyes click open and he looks around. Hand on her chest, Zelda gives a sigh of relief. "Din, you scared me," she laughs nervously. "I thought you'd turned off."

Link doesn't say anything as his false eyes swivel over to her. Moonlight gives her milky skin a strange blue glow to it. They're jostled a little in the bed of a pickup they'd hitched a ride from when it hits a pot hole in the dirt road. She looks at him funny, and Link knows for sure she's not playing him for a fool. He drags his eyes away from her, desperate to look at anything but her. She hadn't done anything to him, he had turned off – he's sure of that.

There's not much to look at, however. The landscape is sparse with little vegetation, befitting of the desert. In the dark of night, the horizon is muddled, no clear indication of where the land ends and the sky starts. His eyes roll over the sky, but he can't focus enough to pick out any constellations or notable stars.

"Link?"

He doesn't answer. Instead, he pulls himself up and scoots back until his back is straight with the cab of the truck.

She stutters a bit when she speaks, tripping over her words in disbelief. "Did you just turn on…? By yourself?"

He looks at her once more, more grateful than he has ever been for this mechanical body. With glass spheres for eyes, the lust that surely would gloss them if they were real is very, very thankfully concealed.

"Start me up when we're close to stopping, love," he says, closing his eyes.

Oh, he turned on alright.

Here's a shortie for today; it's another one of the flashback I had written. Next chapter is very Malladus-centric so far, and Ghirahim will probably make another appearance (he needs some face time, for reals though). I had originally started on that chapter last fall at the very latest. It was marked as chapter 16. Quite a bit's been added in, but I'm happy with that.

I found out when I had like eight packages show up on my doorstep that my family's coming to visit. Haha. So I guess we're going to have another holiday filled with my siblings and me killing each other on Smash Bros. and playing our Mario Kart drinking game. You can't drink and drive, so you have to pull over, and you must finish the drink before the race ends. There are no winners. My brother claims he'll own us on Smash Bros. - "It'd be like putting Tyson in the ring with an infant."

We'll see, we'll see.

=:P