Okay, I actually really enjoyed writing this chapter. Like, a lot. Actually, for these last six-ish chapters, I had an absolute blast. Yup, only six chapters left! ALMOST DONE.

(finally)

Enjoy :)


Chapter Twenty-Eight: Driving Nia Crazy

"Where is Master Link?"

"It has been five days!"

"If he is truly as sick as you say, he needs medical attention immediately!"

The council was even more restless than usual today, Shad noticed. His nerves were becoming more jittery than usual as well. He, along with Auru and Ashei, stood at the head of the table, trying to calm down the council members as much as they could. But after five days without seeing—or even truly hearing from—their future ruler, it was only natural that they become angry. It just was not something Shad was ready or willing to deal with. He could only stand, words fumbling across his lips, while Ashei banged her fists on the table and Auru tried to calm them down with his famous fatherly charm. But it seemed today, that nothing was working. They were truly angry this time.

"The knighting was supposed to be today!"

"We told you already," Ashei cried. "The knighting has been postponed. Link's orders."

"Master Link," one council member said.

Ashei looked over at him with her most charming smile, batted her eyelashes a couple of times, and then stuck up her middle finger. Now, in the midst of trying to find any words at all, Shad was forced to hold back his laughter.

"Get that stick out of your arse," she sneered. "As for the rest of you, hold onto your loyalty, yeah? Trust in your ruler."

"He's not our ruler yet," a woman cried. "And at this rate, he never will be!"

"We're trying our best to nurse him back to health," Auru said. "He's come down with a rare sickness with no known cure, and—"

"We've had our fair share of incurable sicknesses, Auru," the woman scoffed. "Let us speak to him. At least to know that he is alive."

At that point, Shad was ready to break down and tell them. Tell them everything—in a sense, he felt like a bit of a traitor. He had joined the Royal Council in the hopes that he would be able to better serve his country. But here he was, doing what in his eyes was a favor for a friend, while the country he swore to serve quickly descended into chaos. After all, there was no ruler. No one but the chaotic council for the people of Hyrule to look up to. It made him terribly nervous. So nervous that when he put his palms on the table, he left sweaty marks on the wood.

Disgusting...

"Specific orders," Ashei shrugged. "We're the only ones to see him."

"This hardly seems sensible," another member said. "Or logical, for that matter. Why would Master Link even—?"

"Don't question it!" Ashei cried.

She lifted up her hands to silence them, raised her chin, spoke with the authority of a queen herself. This time, it was even more difficult for Shad to hold in his laughter. She looked ridiculous, and she knew.

"Well, it's our job to question it, Ashei," the man said, pursing his lips. "Of course we trust Master Link. But you're asking us to trust you."

"Master Link trusts us. That should be enough, yeah?"

"Yeah, no."

"You know what," Shad laughed nervously. He wanted any excuse to leave that tense atmosphere. "I'm going to check on him right now. If you'll excuse me."

"Let us come with you! Please, just to make sure he's okay."

A few members began standing up, and with that, Shad began to panic. He felt the sweat gathering on his forehead, the notebook in his hands shaking, his glasses fogging up. Everything was hot. Desperately, he looked over at Ashei, who widened her eyes at him. Then he looked to Auru, who was smiling a coy, mischievous smile. Shad could see that he was thinking of something.

"Very well," he said, almost giving Shad a heart attack. "We shall go ahead and let him know you're coming."

With a curt smile, he grabbed both Ashei and Shad by the arm and dragged them out of the council room, leaving the flabbergasted members rather satisfied behind him. Auru walked furiously down the hall, dragging the two behind him, straight toward Link's bedroom.

"What're ya doing, old man?! They can't know Link's gone!" Ashei cried.

"No, you're right, they can't."

"W-well then, pray tell, why did you invite them to his room?!" Shad stuttered.

"Because he's there," Auru shrugged, "waiting to speak to them."

"Maybe you've forgotten already, but he's all the way across Hyrule!" Ashei exclaimed.

"No he's not," Auru smiled.

They had arrived at the door to Link's room, Auru standing as calm and collected as ever, while Ashei and Shad stared at him through their heavy breathing. Nothing, absolutely nothing, was making sense in Shad's head. And that was truly a rare occasion.

"Really? Then tell us, old man." Ashei crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. "Where's he at?"

Then, Auru did exactly what Shad was afraid he would do. He lifted his hand and pointed a single gloved finger straight at Shad's forehead. Gave a lovely little smile. And all Shad could do was pout, slouch, and think, Wonderful. Just wonderful. As if I can even handle being me.

"He's right here."


"Were her dreams exactly the same as mine?" Link asked. He had become pale, his eyes wide and quivering. Tara was having trouble composing herself, as well.

"I guess I can't say for sure. All I know is what she told me."

"What did she tell you?"

"We shared a room. On the night of her sixteenth birthday, she woke up at midnight, screaming as if someone were murdering her right then and there. I woke up and ran to her bed, to comfort her. I knew she was accustomed to nightmares, but...this was different. She was shaking so hard," Tara said. "She told me that she had been floating in a lake of fire that wasn't hot. And then, while she was floating there, she saw a shadow holding a pocket watch. The shadow began swinging the pocket watch, and said the phrases. Time, time is alive, time is like a tempest."

"That's exactly what my dreams were like," Link shivered. "Exactly."

"She said the worst part was the ticking. A very, very loud ticking."

Tara watched wordlessly as he buried his face in his hands. And she wondered why, out of everybody, she had had the good luck of being spared the nightmare. Even though she was the one who needed it most, it seemed.

"Did you hear me speak of the dream that night?" he murmured. "In Renado's house. When you were pretending to be asleep."

"Yes. When I heard you talk about your dream, I knew exactly what was happening. Nia suffered with the dreams all the time—so long as throughout the day, she let herself be consumed with the desire to turn back time, as my mother always said. At first, she hated them. Always woke up in a terrible sweat. Then, just as it happened to you, she started feeling as if somebody were following her."

"Warm. A hand with dark fingernails."

"Exactly."

"Tempest."

"Tempest."

"You've seen this entire process before," Link said, confused. "It's like a fatal pattern. It happened to me exactly as it happened to your sister."

Tara downed her second cup of tea and decided that it just wasn't doing it, so she ordered a mug of rum. The server glared at her, utterly confused. For it was only one in the afternoon, and for someone like Tara to order a mug of rum must have been strange. Not that it mattered to her. She would be gone in half an hour.

"So that's how you knew about the dream. About the phrases," he continued. "But you still haven't explained how you know everything about the temple. I mean, it's understandable for you to know about the concept of time itself, because it's a subject that can be studied. But about the Master Sword, the Pedestal, the Door...how did you know the information about all of that? Things that nobody but myself knows?"

"I haven't even gotten to the best part of the story," Tara scoffed. "You're right about it being a pattern. I realized, once I heard about your plan and the fact that you were having the dream, that the dream itself is a defense mechanism."

"Like Renado said. A warning."

"Exactly! A warning. Once you have an idea in your head, the idea that you can somehow turn back time with the mechanisms of a temple that once did so, it's like a giant red alarm. In a way, the dreams are like psychological torture to deter the aggressor from even attempting."

"How gracious of the gods," he spat.

"You're tough," Tara admitted. "You've been through a lot. You were able to deal with the dreams and Tempest's ghostly presence somehow. In fact, you used it as your motivation. But Nia was not as strong. Although, I have to give her credit. She put up with those dreams for a while before she really, truly cracked."

"How long?"

"One year. And I lived in pure hell for that one year when I was nine going on ten. The only people in my life, my only family, were going insane. Believe it or not, I was the only sane one. And I'm pretty crazy myself. My mother slipped further and further into her own mind, and my sister was being driven mad by the dreams. She would always tell me about the shadow in her dreams. Nia believed it to be a man. She said he was driving her crazy. That she hated him more than anything, that she didn't know why he was there every single night. That, if she knew his name or who he was, she would kill him herself."

Tara paused to take a sip of rum and let herself smile. Even if it was only for a moment.

"And all while I was burying my stupid head in my stupid books, learning more and more about the world around me while learning less and less about the people around me. I was still young. I didn't know what the dream meant. I had my theories, of course. But I was no dream-reader. I'm no dream-reader now. It's just that now I can understand how the gods work a lot better."

"Nobody can understand how the gods work," Link argued, raising his eyebrows.

"Oh please, don't get all religious on me now, chosen hero," she laughed. "Gods are just like anything else. You study their patterns long enough and you can predict how they work just fine. I just hadn't studied their patterns long enough when I was ten. I really did think my sister was going crazy. We would be walking through the market, picking up food, and she would begin screaming and flailing around as if somebody had tried to grab her. And there would be nobody there."

"I know the feeling."

"No matter where we were, no matter what we were doing, she would always be looking over her shoulder, at someone who I couldn't see. It almost drove me mad."

"Maybe it did," he sighed.

Tara couldn't help but laugh, because it was the only thing to do instead of cry.

"You're right," she said. "Maybe it did."

With a soft, almost sympathetic smile, Link mimicked her and ordered a mug of rum himself. So they sat, the two of them in their little café, talking about the past and drinking hard liquor in the middle of the afternoon.

"So I suppose that answers some of your questions," she continued. "How I knew what your dream was like, how I knew that someone was following you."

"You look like you have more to tell me."

"On the night of my sister's seventeenth birthday, the anniversary of her first dream, she made a decision. She said before she went to bed that night that she wanted the dreams to go away, and that she was going to make that man with the pocket watch leave her alone. Of course, being used to her saying relatively odd things, I brushed it off."

"But she actually meant it."

"Yes. She did." Tara paused here to take a nice big gulp of her alcohol, feel it burn as it slithered down her throat. "The next morning, she woke up feeling more refreshed than she ever had before."

"Why?"

"During her dream, she had 'taken control,' as she put it. While she was in the lake of fire, she did something strange. When the shadowy figure approached her, began chanting and swinging his pocket watch as usual...she reached up and she grabbed it."

"But it's just a dream," he argued. "How could that have affected anything?"

"I'm not sure. But once she grabbed it, she said, the man came out from the shadows and she saw his face. Told me that he looked like a boy with fiery red hair and green eyes."

"Tempest."

"Yes. And then, the fire disappeared and she was standing in the middle of the Sacred Grove. Of course, she didn't know it was the Sacred Grove at the time. But that's where she was. Tempest stood and bowed to her, without saying a word. Then she woke up."

"How strange. What happened?"

"For a few weeks, she seemed normal for once. She started taking photographs again, didn't say anything about my father or about time. She would help me take care of our mother, who was beyond any curable illness. Left me to do my studies. By that time, of course, time had begun to interest me. I was studying it very closely. Trying to understand what exactly it meant. That was actually the time when I first started collecting clocks. But, after those few weeks, she...well, she started having dreams again."

"The same one?"

"Oh, no," Tara smirked. Then she finished the last of her rum and basked in the warmth throughout her body for a few moments, thought about what it was she was going to say to Link, this pure, virtuous, genuine man sitting before her, begging her for the truth. "No, she started having different dreams."

"What kinds of dreams?"

"Prophetic dreams. That's when our lives went even deeper into hell," she said. "It's just that this time, Nia didn't even realize it."


"All right, take your clothes off."

"Wh-what?"

Ashei shoved Shad into the room and slammed the door behind her, and Shad realized that she had jumped, without hesitation, onto Auru's side.

"Come on, come on, take 'em off! We don't have much time," she pressed. Auru stood behind her, his arms crossed and a friendly smile on his lips.

"She's right, you know," he said. "If this is going to work, we have to hurry."

"This is not going to work!" Shad cried. He was sweating bullets and clinging to his clothes for dear life. "What makes you think I can pass as Link? We're like night and day!"

"You don't have to do that much, babe," Ashei sighed. She was walking toward him, slowly and deliberately, with her hands reaching out. As if to grab his heart right from out his chest. "All you have to do is take your clothes off, get in bed, and pull up the covers. Then you just act sick, yeah? Make your voice all gruff sounding."

"I don't know if you've heard my voice lately," he spat sarcastically, "but it is not gruff in the slightest. There's no way I could ever sound like Link."

"You'd know what to say. You're his best friend, after all," Auru pointed out. "Honestly, if I could do it myself, I would. But I can't."

"It's not going to work..."

"We at least have to try!" Ashei exclaimed. He wondered if she even realized how large her smile was. It made him nervous, and he hugged himself a little bit more tightly as she lay her hands on his shoulders. "Come on, Shadsie, please? Please? Please?"

Her tricks were working, as much as he tried not to let them. Her eyes were boring into his soul, big and bright, while her hands sat almost pleadingly against his neck.

"Fine."

"Fabulous!"

With a heavy, reluctant sigh, Shad spread his arms out. Auru stood watching the door while Ashei hastily took his clothes off, article by article, until he was left in his underwear. Which was awkward for him. By the time she was done, he was cold, his cheeks were as red as tomatoes, his glasses were crooked, and he couldn't remember why he had agreed to do this.

"Well, I'm certainly not as toned as Link."

Why, why, indeed.

"You're fine. Now give me your glasses and get in bed," she commanded.

The tone of her voice, mixed into the whole situation, was almost enough to make him laugh. But he was too nervous and too panicky to laugh.

"All right, all right, no need to be pushy," he sighed.

As she whisked his glasses off his face (and everything became accordingly blurry), he stumbled across the room toward what looked to be the bed. He really couldn't see much without his glasses. Jittery and fidgety and strangely self-conscious, he curled up in the bed and turned to look at the blurry figures of Ashei and Auru.

"This isn't going to work," he said.

"Don't worry. We'll keep them at bay. You just act as much like Link as possible, yeah?"

Then Ashei threw his clothes under the bed and put his glasses into a random drawer of Link's cabinet.

"Hey!" he cried. "Th-there might be bugs under there. Or rats. Or—"

"Your clothes will be fine, honey," she sighed. "And if not, I will personally buy you a new petticoat."

"Whatever."

Suddenly, they heard footsteps approaching. Quickly, with a desperation that was evident simply from the sounds. Before Shad knew what was happening, Ashei slapped his shoulder and began shushing them incessantly.

"Turn around, Shad! Before they see your face!"

"A-all right, all right!"

"OH! Wait! Your hair!"

"My wha—HEY!"

Despite his protests, Ashei grabbed the scarf that was around her neck and wrapped it haphazardly around Shad's head. Apparently, to cover the color of his hair. Since, as everyone knew, it was not blond like Link's, but an orange color. Then, with hands just as strong as he would expect, she pushed him over so that he was facing the window instead of the door.

Almost as soon as he had turned around, Auru opened the door for the angst-ridden council members. At that point, Shad was completely desperate and completely hopeless. He had resigned. He was just waiting for the moment to be found out and for Link's secret to become public knowledge. And fuel public anger. Perhaps more than they could control.

"Try to be quiet," Auru murmured. "He's still recovering, as you know. He's a bit sensitive."

"Of course, of course," they responded. They sounded rather surprised to have actually found someone (who they apparently believed to be Link) in Link's bed. "How are you doing, Master Link?"

Shad swallowed and lowered his voice as much as possible.

"Terrible," he grumbled. "Absolutely horrible. Like I'm going to die."

As inconspicuously as possible, Ashei smacked his bare shoulder.

Don't overdo it, he thought.

How hard can it be to be Link?


A kind of creepy story like this needs some humor, wouldn't you agree?