Twenty-four

"Good morning, children," Lady Dayan of Kokiri says as she walks into the dining hall, dressed in thick black wool, her hair in a tight bun. Zelda and Lady Ina, Julius' sister, stand up to greet the older woman, then resume their breakfast.

"Farore," she says as she sits down beside her daughter in law, "how you don't freeze to death in your silk I'll never know. You're up early again. Where's my dear son?"

"Lady Ina is up earlier than I am, my lady, and your son is still in bed."

"I doubt Ina went to sleep in the first place. My daughter spends her days and nights reading."

Lady Ina blushes and plays with her scrambled egg as if reading were something to be ashamed of.

"We share a passion. If you wish, I could grant you access to my private library," Zelda says, prompting the young lady to look up to her.

She's a plain girl. Her skin and eyes are very pale, her hair like brittle hay, but that modest smile lights up her face. "I would be most grateful, my queen. Thank you."

But her satisfied expression disappears the second Lord Ike seats himself right across from her, silently glaring at everyone and frowning at the blunt knife in his hand. Zelda doesn't think there's a single sharp knife left in her castle.

"I hope you don't spend your nights reading, now that you're married, Your Grace. There's other things to do," Lady Dayan points out as her fingers peel an egg. Lady Ina's blush brightens, and she looks like she might choke on her food– Lord Ike's brow shoots up. He conceals his laughter rather poorly with an awkward cough.

"Oh, but your son is an avid reader, my lady," Zelda says, slicing a sausage into pieces. She wishes Link were here, but he probably never went to bed, either. Spent the night drinking, and, as it's the sixth day of the festivities, come the morning he dragged his wife to the traditional archery competition. He'd talk his sister right out of this mess, but the Goddesses don't seem to mean her well today. "Ina, I would be happy to show you my favorite books. Just recently I acquired an original copy of Hana Whitehill's Night Sun."

"Can I see it, too?" Lord Ike asks.

"No."

"Am I allowed to do anything these days?"

"You are allowed to drink yourself to stupor, to my understanding. Night Sun is an outstandingly enjoyable read, but very complex. You probably wouldn't understand much of it," Lady Dayan says. She does not even look up while talking, cutting up her hard-boiled egg and seasoning it. "The likes of you will not go anywhere in company of my daughter."

Perhaps Lady Ina would like to speak for herself? But Lady Ina stares at her food in silence, as if it could answer every question she's ever had. Lady Ina has less of a backbone than Lord Ike, who concentrates on his food as well, shrugging off Lady Dayan's harsh words.

"I am very pleased with the new chambers you gave me. The view of the Old Bridge is breathtaking. I'm considering extending my stay in Castle Town, Your Grace."

Delightful.

"The Old Bridge?" the lord asks. "I thought the chambers in that wing were taken."

"Only one room," Zelda corrects him.

"Still, I'm sure the lady uses the entire complex. What about my friend?"

"Ah yes, your friend the prostitute. Adequate company for a lord. She's not there anymore."

All three of her guests now look up, wide-eyed. "A prostitute?" Lady Dayan's expression is one of pure disgust, while her daughter looks even more like a scared bird than before. "Why was a prostitute lodging in my chambers?"

"Chamber, singular. We thought she was withholding information regarding the murder of several of my guards. She did not."

"So you let her go. Where is she now?" Lord Ike seems to have finished eating already, placing knife and fork on the table. On the bright side, he's gone back to using cutlery, but if he goes on a hunger strike, Zelda doesn't know what she will do. Eating is one of the things he's still allowed to do; in fact, he's strongly encouraged to eat.

"I don't know and I don't care."

Lady Dayan cuts off his answer. "Why am I not surprised to hear that you associate with such vermin? I suppose it's in your nature since whores are only slightly more worth than those laguz that populate the Commonwealth. Perhaps studying the Hylian culture would guide you onto the path of civilization. You should be thankful for having this opportunity."

He glances at Zelda, then back to the lady. "What opportunity?"

"Being here. Getting a taste of true culture. It includes shaving," she says, berating him with her eyes. Zelda gets a taste of that condescending look, too. "You understand that I must now ask for new chambers, Your Grace. Yet again."

"Of course, my lady." The smile Zelda forces is just as genuine as the ones she's worn throughout these past few days. At least she tries to look alive, unlike Lady Ina and Lord Ike.

"Furthermore, I wanted to invite you to join me in the temple this noon."

"What for?"

"Prayer."

"I'm sure the chapel in the royal gardens will serve just as well."

A heavy silence settles in the room; it seems to Zelda that even the servants seem to have stopped in their tracks, since she can't hear their bustling anymore. The sound of Lord Ike gulping down his ale is disproportionately loud.

"It will not. It is the Day of the Wolf, and I'd like my new daughter to pray with me in the White Temple today."

"Then I shall not disappoint you," Zelda says. She feels the goose bumps on her arms as the lady replies with "I know." As beautiful as the temple is, Zelda has no desire to visit it more than once every few full moons, but what's said is said. She crumbles more herbs and mixes them into the hot water in her chalice. The dried leaves have been keeping her nerves under control, and her nausea, too, which is a nice side effect. They're an expensive import from the New World, more accessible due to the facilitated trade that's developed after her plans to marry were announced. She hopes the herbs won't turn out to have any negative impact on her like the Nightingale Blood had.

Something creaks, and Zelda looks up to see Lord Ike stand up and fasten his doublet, preparing to leave. Finally.

"Well, this was pleasant," he sighs.

Was not. Just piss off, already. Zelda reaches for more leaves, but somehow her eyes wander back to the foreign lord. If he remained at the table, maybe the lady would focus her attention on him. From a scientific point of view, he's certainly more interesting than Zelda – immersed in a far superior culture but resisting assimilation. He's visually too different to ever fit in, anyway.

He doesn't seem to mind that he is left ignored by the three ladies at the table. Lady Ina, red like a tomato – which looks terrible with her bright yellow hair – seems most uncomfortable with being pressured into such impoliteness, yet she stubbornly stares at her empty plate. Less of a backbone than I thought. That woman probably wouldn't last a day at court in Castle Town. Zelda bites her smiling lip. "Lady Ina, I believe you're not married?"

"You would make a wonderful lady-in-waiting." Lord Ike says to Lady Ina, who ignores his remark with a miserable expression. He has a meek servant fill his cup, then walks towards the door. "My lady, if your son is still alive, he can't get it up. I'd suggest cutting back on the alcohol, but that might not solve the problem. Good day."

Zelda can't breathe. She stares down at her chalice, still crumbling the tiny leaves between her fingers, and concentrates on keeping her face a normal color as she feels Lady Dayan's stare burn on her skin. At least hat's what she thinks it is, but she doesn't dare look up. She has to laugh. She really shouldn't. Would a sudden hiccup be believable?

The lady clears her throat and reverts her attention back to the breakfast, judging by the soft clanking of silver on porcelain.

Very softly, Lady Ina begins to speak, peeking up from behind her chalice. "I… would… still really like to see that book?..."

The White Temple is shrouded in pleasant silence as Zelda walks in, leaving behind wet stains where her feet touch the colorful floor. Everyday when the sun is at its highest point, the poor are fed in the gardens of the temple, which is where most of the resident priestesses must be at the moment.

Some of the praying Hylians look up as the queen and her armored guards walk past. Lady Dayan is kneeling on a pillow under a magnificent painting of the Hero of Time, hidden between two pillars. "I could hear you come."

Zelda glances at the two knights behind the lady and, after a moment, kneels down herself. "I'm afraid my companions aren't all too inconspicuous. But you know that trouble."

"Oh, I know it all too well. I meant you. All those bangles and rings and whatnot…" She looks at Zelda's ear. Her ears are quite long even by Hylian standards, and there's enough space for jewelry. "One is not supposed to flaunt their riches in a temple of the Goddesses."

"Yet you come here in your silk and your leather to pray for the poor."

"I pray for no one but my children." The lady sighs. "I would not waltz in here naked. Nor do I mind that you wear what generations of royalty have worn, but I do mind that the High Priestesses seem to be wary of you. You shouldn't give the faith any reasons for displeasure."

Well, one of the reasons for displeasure the faith gives Zelda is the constant kneeling. She shifts on her pillow. "Based on what?"

"Rumors," Lady Dayan says, and does not allow Zelda to object. "Credible ones. Sometimes rumors are the spark a bonfire needs. There's talk of a physician who works with corpses. Allegedly you have granted him your support and shelter in the castle. Is there any truth to these rumors?"

A priestess walks by, the light of her candle dancing on the glass tiles in the floor. "I'm sure you can distinguish rumor from truth," Zelda whispers.

"Did your father ever tell you of the day he decided to share his studies with a High Priestess? My mother had her killed."

No blessing of the deceased king with a single word. Zelda looks up. She didn't learn of her father's scientific endeavor until after his death. Hardly legible words on yellowed scrolls were testimony to his heresy, and what questions the young queen had, Ronan had to answer. He did so diligently, in a darkened study on a loud evening during thunderstorm season.

Floradix' studies are hardly complete now; thirty years ago, when the late Lady Dayan of Kokiri was still amongst the living, they must have been at a tenth of today's progress. Zelda looks at the woman who so easily speaks of holy murder in a temple of the Goddesses. "My father was your mother's ward at Kokiri."

The lady smiles. "May the Goddesses grant them eternal peace. My mother loved him like her own child. He was still only second in line to the throne when he first dug out a foreign physician from somewhere far west and began meddling with dead bodies, so my mother thought nothing of it when he told her. She was in the know; he had his experiments conducted in her castle's morgue. The royal Summer Residence was undergoing extensive renovations at that time."

"I don't understand. Why tell a priestess?" Zelda asks, wiping her sweaty fingertips on her dress. Ronan never mentioned this.

"Why he couldn't just abandon this folly and forget all about it I'll never know. I suppose that once he became Crown Prince, his piety compelled him to share his discoveries with the faith. It was always more of a fault than a virtue. Well, the High Priestess who'd come to Kokiri did not take it well. She left for Castle Town at the break of dawn. The secrets of the morgue were never shared with me, but were apparently too delicate to be sent via bird. Two days into the journey, the entire party drowned in the bogs."

Silence settles in the temple like a dark veil. The heavy smell of flowery smoke fills Zelda's nose and lungs. Someone must've started burning herbs for the Goddesses. She doesn't dare shift on her knees again, and then the bells ring, breaking the silence, announcing noon. Zelda's ear twitches at the sound of the older woman's voice.

"My mother withdrew her silent support from the undertaking and had your father promise to never tamper with such things again." Lady Dayan extinguishes one of the candles that burn on the floor beside her knees. Zelda's eyes wander to the lady's shoes that stand neatly beneath the pillar. The shoelaces shine like molten gold, and their pointy ends are made of gemstones. "The faith has a powerful presence in the realm."

Zelda knows exactly that the lady cannot hear the tremors in her voice, still they ring through her skull and heat up her throat. "The faith should be grateful for that. Dismissing the High Priestesses from my council was one of my first acts as queen of these lands. They have no place in my politics."

"Does my son? Everything you do will affect him greatly, and yet it seems that you haven't paid him much attention since the wedding. I do know how to tell truth and rumor apart."

"You-"

"I married three times. Not for love, although I'd call the first Lord Dayan of Kokiri the love of my life. The second was a brute who drank himself to death, and the third is younger than my oldest daughter. I have children with each of them, and my next husband will give me more, though I may not love him. I have no illusions when it comes to Julius' situation. He knows how the world works, he knows he has a duty, but he's always romanticized the idea-"

"My father wanted me to marry for love."

The lady whips her head around to study the woman who married her son. The brown of her eyes looks cold. "And did you?"

Zelda's hands feel so hot that she has to press them against the marble and glass of the floor; her furiously beating heart has a most unfortunate effect on her lungs, which have tightened and make every breath taste like burning air. She thinks of Lord Ike and how she can withstand his glares, and it pushes her to endure Lady Dayan's hard regard, too. "I married for the realm."

The lady's eyes soften. She nods, almost smiling, and Zelda stands up and walks away.

Back at court Zelda climbs out of the carriage and is greeted by a page with a scroll from the king. He has joined the prince and princess at a hunting competition in the woods. He doesn't know when he'll be back, but probably after sundown.

"Good, thank you." She doesn't think she could see him right now. She could go for a hunt, too, but the woods are crowded thanks to this wedding that just won't end. Her fingers almost drop the parchment as she crumples it up and throws it back at the page. She feels sick. What have I done? I can't keep filling him up with wine until the end of our days. Wine, wine would be nice right now, but she has to stay sober.

Her delicious tea is waiting for her in her chambers, so Zelda picks up her pace. The fresh snow lays blindingly white on the untouched steps, and the world is disturbingly uniform and bland. Still, Zelda looks at her red hands and, for a brief second, feels like shoving them into the snow. Would it melt? Would it steam? Her breaths still taste like burned air. She-

"No, wait! I need to talk to you, now!"

No! No, no, no. Not now. She doesn't turn around or slow down for him. Only one person has that voice and that accent, and him turning up right now could hardly be less convenient, but if she can deal with Lady Dayan, she can deal with anyone. So Zelda motions for the guards to let him pass, and Lord Ike catches up with her on the stairs.

"You killed her," he hisses, and she feels the blood rush to her cheeks in excitement. He sounds like he's barely controlling his anger, and it's delightful. "She was innocent!"

"I do not kill innocents," Zelda corrects him, "I hand out death sentences to rapists, murderers, thieves and other kinds of breathing trash."

"And apparently to people who don't treat me like the scum of the earth. You should have a talk with your brother, then."

"That's rich, coming from the former mercenary. You took lives for a living, my lord, you shouldn't get too attached to things. Your reaction seems unhealthy."

His jaw drops. "Things? She was a person. She was my friend! It's normal to get attached to friends, but you wouldn't know."

"Nice friend you are," Zelda says, a servant taking off her coat. They're closing in on her chambers now. "She's been gone for about three weeks and you just remembered her now. Good day."

That was shorter than expected. If the lord was intent on following her, the guards at the doors to her private library thwart that plan. She doesn't wish him a good day. She hopes he runs into Lady Dayan and every single one of the visiting nobles so they can all have a pleasant time telling him exactly what he's worth.

The smell of leather and parchment is so calming that Zelda takes a deep breath and realizes that the taste of fear and adrenaline is dissipating and making way for something fresh and sweet. She should grab a book and-

"I want my rights back!" Lord Ike emerges from between two bookshelves.

You have got to be kidding me. She accelerates. The door at the far end of the hallway remains unguarded this week, and Lord Ike has freedom of the castle. Until sundown, that is. "You're not allowed in here. Fuck off."

But he does not. "I'm not allowed anywhere! I'm not your guest, I'm not even a hostage anymore. I'm your prisoner, but I'm done putting up with that shit. I want my curfew lifted," he insists.

"You don't get to decide that." There are guards at the door to her bedchamber. They'll handle it if she doesn't scare him off herself.

"I just did. You're a tyrant! I'm not allowed to ride, I can't even brush my own horse. I'm not allowed in any taverns, I can't enter a brothel, I can't participate in any wrestling, not allowed to touch a weapon, technically I'm not allowed near alcohol, and to top it off, you kill my friends. Did I forget anything?"

"I've really been lax about your prohibitions lately, but I think you're doing great. Don't forget that you're not allowed to touch any women in this castle. And no man, either. Not to speak of animals."

"Right, not only am I constantly accused of being a zoophile, I'm not allowed to contribute to your brilliant new tax. Hylia's the only region enforcing it, so I want my rights back."

What a damn fool. "I appreciate the concern, but Hylia's economy does not depend on you. I won't have you die of something nasty, you don't know half the diseases these women carry." She's sure he can see the disgust on her face as she stops and turns around. "They're not safe."

"Are you?"

Zelda's reaction is so instinctive that she can't control it. Before her brain has fully processed it, a sharp smack echoes off the walls, so shrill that she swears some of the books must be shaking on the shelves. Her hand stings, burns like fire, and she doesn't have to look at it to know it's as red as fire, too.

Instead, Lord Ike's exposed cheek is right in front of her, bright and pink. Bruises will develop where her rings made contact. The distinctive shape of the mark on his face is undeniable proof of her touch.

She can't believe he made her touch him. Her hate for him flares up, it explodes inside her like a ball of fire and tries to get her ribcage to burst.

He stares into nothing, his eyes wide and his mouth pressed into a thin like. If he clenches his jaw any tighter, it might break. He huffs, and Zelda stirs. Her voice has never been so steady. "Listen well. This is Hyrule. The only right you have here is the right to exist. Now get the fuck out of my library."

Something in her screams that she should probably threaten him, but she can't think of anything. Rage obscures her vision. All she sees is Lord Ike. Her body signals her to turn around and walk away. So she obeys.

A hard yank on her braid puts an end to that. She wonders why, but it makes no difference, because Lord Ike crashes his mouth on hers, parts her lips and pushes her into something hard. A shelf, a table, it doesn't matter, she only registers it on the side.

She feels the beast's hands tighten around her throat, the desperation of her lungs, even though she knows his fingers are nowhere near her neck. And then they are; he rips her collar from her white throat, presses his reddened mouth against it, and Zelda reaches for his belt.

A/N: If you celebrate Christmas, well, happy belated Christmas. If not, happy holidays - and a wonderful new year!