CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

"Remembrance"

No one talked about what happened in the fortress. The solemn grimaces of Brittany and the guys staved off any questions the girls may have had. For the next few hours, they rode without a word. Now and then, Vaati (who was sharing a horse with Zelda at the time) would look over at the Empath with a forlorn expression on his face. Brittany, however, just sat as straight and proud as Ganondorf-even going so far as to match the prince's stoic .

They didn't bother to stop that night. They saw no reason to since the death stench lingered so far over the desert. The next day was hard on them but it didn't seem to matter-they were too exhausted to even sleep. By dusk of the next day, however, the horses were so spent that they were forced to make camp.

Link dug out some biscuits and passed them around to everyone. Ganondorf and Brittany preferred to sit off alone from everyone else, and it worried him. Finally, one person out of the group couldn't take it any longer.

"I can't stand to see anyone like this," Vaati announced.

"Me neither!" Farore joined in.

"But what are we supposed to do?" asked the knight. "They've been like this ever since..."

"I know!" shouted the mage. "Don't you think I don't?"

"Calm down, Vaati," Zelda softly spoke. The lavender-haired swordsman sighed.

"I apologize, Princess. It's just..."

The noblewoman smiled. "I know. We all hate seeing anyone like that." Zelda gently clasped her hands together. "Why don't you go speak with Brittany? I'm sure it will help you both feel better. It beats sitting around here doing nothing."

Vaati nodded and, with a grunt, stood. He trudged over the moonlit sands after the young woman. It didn't take him long to find her. She sat just below the crest of a rather large sand dune, her back propped against Altair's flank and her arms draped around one knee. She was just staring off across the desert with a blank look on her face.

The mage walked up to her. "Hey, Brittany!"

No reply. Vaati wasn't deterred, though. He clambered up the dune and plopped down a short distance below her.

"I brought you a biscuit," he held out the piece of hardtack.

"No, thank you," she continued to stare out into space, "I'm not hungry."

Vaati sighed. "Brittany, you have to eat something. You've already skipped breakfast, lunch, and dinner yesterday. I know you haven't had anything on your stomach since you threw up. Please..."

It was no use. The maiden refused to even look down, but instead turned her head away. Vaati groaned.

"Look," he said, drawing his knees up to dangle his arms over, "I already told you that it wasn't your fault. Subira and Yubira chose to stay-"

"...To buy us time to escape! If it wasn't for us, then they'd still be alive..."

"And Ganondorf would be dead, too, and Farore would be in the hands of some lunatic."

"But, all of those women...and children! There were children, Vaati! Not a single little girl was spared...sniff..."

The swordsman looked up to see moonlight glinting off the fresh tears in the corners of the girl's eyes. Altair gave a small whinny and nudged her shoulder with his nose. Sniffing, the brunette turned and gave the horse a pat. She let out a sigh as she brought the sleeve of her sand-covered coat to her face.

"I think I've got...sniff...something in my eye," she said, wiping the droplets away. She gave another sniff before finally looking down at Vaati.

"You know," Vaati threw the biscuit up and caught it, "after Link defeated me, I went back to live with Ezlo. It took a long time before most of the Picori would even give me a second glance. It really wasn't until after I befriended the oracles that life started becoming stable again," he looked at the biscuit in his hand. "I used to wonder why I didn't just die in the forest as a baby, because I thought everyone would have preferred it over what I did to Hyrule. I asked Ezlo one day. And do you know what he said?"

Brittany shook her head.

"He told me that, even though I caused a lot of problems, if it had not been for me, Link would have had no reason to reforge the Picori Blade. And without the Picori Blade, he would not have been able to slay General Onox Gorgon, Veran, and the evil pig-beast Ganon. And, if he hadn't done that, the oracles wouldn't have been saved. And if the oracles hadn't been saved, then the world would have fallen into chaos."

A small grunt of acknowledgement came from the Empath.

"And do you know what else would have happened if the oracles had not come?" Vaati looked up at her. Brittany shook her head.

"No, what?"

The mage smiled. "You wouldn't have come here, Brittany. That's what."

The girl sighed and looked up at the waxing moon. "You know," she began, "my grandmother used to say that everything happened for a reason. She told me that, while the answer may not be clear at first, it would always come out when it was needed. I think I'm beginning to understand what she meant."

The Empath smiled down at Vaati. "Brittany, I know this may be a lot to ask but," he gazed up at her, "will you tell me more about your old world? I only know bits and pieces from what Link, Zelda and the oracles have told me."

"What do you want to know?"

Vaati felt a smirk toying at the corners of his lips. "Well, for starters, why not tell me about how those fits of yours started?" Suddenly, a sad expression crossed the maiden's face.

"I'm afraid it would take a long time to tell you about that," she replied. "It's too complicated..."

"Well," Vaati leaned back against the dune with and arm propped behind his head, "it's not like we're going anywhere at the moment."

Brittany giggled. "You're right. Oh, but where do I start?"

"How about at the beginning?"

She shot the youth a dirty look. "Very funny!" Vaati giggled. She sighed and pulled her other knee up to her chest. "I guess I would need to tell you about my family. I was raised on my grandparents farm in a small rural town that lay at the base of a mountain range. My mother was a factory worker and my father worked for a construction company."

Vaati nodded. She continued.

"I didn't grow up like other children. You see, my mother was a very controlling, religious woman. I was expected to work hard and basically stay out of her way. I'm glad I was a quiet child-I don't think she would have been able to handle a rambunctious one."

The Empath's grimace contorted into a frown.

"I knew I was different. From as far back as I can remember, I could attract animals. They just seemed drawn to me. But that wasn't the only thing. As I grew older, I began to sense how they felt. And not just animals, either-I could be walking down a crowded hall and feel intense sorrow coming from a total stranger, while someone I knew could be crying their eyes out and I would feel nothing. I guess that's why I found out about crocodile tears early on."

Brittany sighed.

"Mother, who believed she had this incredible foresight, said that I was a gift from God that was meant to bring the family together. What happened was I became her bargaining chip."

Vaati looked up at her. "What do you mean?"

"Any time she would get mad at my grandparents, she refused to let them see me. I had to turn on members of my own family and complete strangers-ones that had done me no harm, mind you-in order to keep the brunt of her wrath off of me. Not that I wouldn't catch it anyway, but it was just easier to be on her side in the end. She would show me off as this little doll and expected me to behave as such, but my nature prohibited it. She wouldn't let me outside without her, but she was always so tired and angry at one thing or the other that I would wind up shutting myself up in my room. If I mentioned a new friend, she would grill me on practically their whole family lineage and, if there was one person she found fault with, I wasn't allowed to see that person."

It was at this comment that a faint blush of anger crept up on Vaati's face. Luckily, Brittany did not seem to notice.

"And so, I escaped to the world of books and video games. Link and Zelda told you what a video game is, right?"

Vaati nodded.

"Anyway, that's how I learned about Hyrule. It was a game world in my old realm. Din and Nayru said something about memories from one realm traversing the barrier to another...I guess that's what happened. Anyway, I lost myself in fantasies about finding a portal to Hyrule and setting out on an adventure of my own. I even wrote stories about my imaginary quests...until Mother found out. Heh, the old fool thought they were blasphemous because I mentioned 'goddesses' in them."

Vaati looked puzzled. "But, the three Golden Goddesses created our world! How could she-"

"Lemme finish," Brittany piped up. "In our realm, there were a lot of different religions, but ours focused on one God and His Son. I'm what they called a Christian," she smiled. "Anyway, to mother, even mentioning the term 'goddess' was enough to have her bless out my work and get rid of my stories. What she didn't immediately tear up got thrown away. It liked to have killed me."

The mage opened his mouth to speak but the girl cut him off.

"But it wasn't just my stories she had a problem with. My body was her biggest problem. She did all but come out and say I was a whale. She was this scrawny little woman who had a delicate body frame while I had inherited my father's stouter build. Of course, being trapped in my room like a bird in a cage certainly didn't do anything for my figure. My body image got so bad that I wouldn't take my coat off because I didn't want her to know how horrible I looked underneath."

She clenched her hands so tightly that her knuckles went white.

"It wasn't until my father left Mother for his whore that the truth came out about my family. Everyone couldn't believe he had cheated so Mother went crazy. One night, she went off and started telling me that everyone had turned on her a second time. When I asked her when the first time was, she said...she said..."

Brittany was trembling all over now. Fearing that his friend was about to go into another fit, Vaati scrambled up the dune and stretched out a hand...but Brittany just stared off into space with a strange pallor creeping onto her face.

"...She was molested..."

Vaati's heart sank as he listened to the girl pour out the rest of her tale. About how nearly all of her mother's family had deemed the act as her fault, and how she had turned to drugs and bulimia to cope. Brittany went on to tell him about the constant arguments she had witnessed and the comments her mother made about the girl's weight. About how her father chose a whore over his own wife and how her world came crashing down around her.

"My first fit occurred a few days after Pops left," Brittany eked out. "I was staying at a friend's house in her basement when I went to sleep. Usually, I was able to push all of the thoughts from my mind by concentrating on some sort of sound-like the chatter of the night animals outside my bedroom window. But there was no sound in that room, and it was pitch black. All of the dark memories about Mother and my family rushed back to me at once and I could not tell if they were real or my imagination. I could feel a buzzing in the back of my head...like I was about to black out. I was so terrified that I would hurt one of my friends that I tried to get away. I crawled over to the wall and groped around for an exit but...I couldn't find one..."

The Empath looked up at the waxing moon and sighed.

"I panicked and thrashed about. That's when the jerking started. I was trying to keep my body conscious so I wouldn't black out," she let out an empty laugh and shook her head. "I must have made a lot of noise, because my friends came running in with a light. I wound up telling them what happened and they tried to calm me down, but I spent the next five hours jerking in half. By morning, my energy was spent."

She turned to Vaati. "But that was back then. I stopped worrying about blacking out after a month, but the fits became involuntary and unpredictable. The jerking only lasts for a few minutes now, so I don't get as drained as I used to. But the nightmares started sucking out what energy I gained from sleep," she shrugged. "I guess it's a good thing I'm naturally hyper-I have energy to spare for the few fits I still have."

Disgust washed over Vaati. How can she so nonchalantly talk about this as though it's the most normal thing in the world? My Goddesses...what have they done to her...? The imp balled his hands into fists, his glare icing over. Unfortunately, his friend had not yet spoken the worst.

"The fits started coming more and more frequently. I tried to hide them the best that I could. I would go hide in my room until they subsided, but eventually Mother figured something was wrong and threatened to take the lock off my door if I did not open it. We...we got into an argument because I didn't want to have anything to do with Pops when he came back, but she said we needed the money. I...I was so torn that...I had one in front of her...and all hell broke lose. She started screaming at me to stop acting like a baby, then shouted for Pops-who had just walked back inside. They tried to block me in the room by sitting in the doorway. I freaked out and lunged over them, then ran through the house and nearly tore the door off its hinges to get outside. Unfortunately, Mother came after me and started shouting stuff about how big of a coward I was and that I was just doing it to break them. I...was forced into the vehicle they took to the next town. For the next hour, I sat between them-crying-as Mother and Pops talked over me."

Brittany sucked in a shuddering sigh. A tiny, barely audible afterthought escaped her lips.

"You...never forget...such things," she said. "When the people who are supposed to love you turn on you, what else can you do? You try so hard to find forgiveness but you no longer...feel...enough to do so. Your emotions get suppressed because you don't want..."

The girl's words began to hitch in her throat as if she were about to cry, but nary a droplet fell from her eyes. Her pale, expressionless visage mimicked the barren face of the moon: cold, stoic, and empty. Most anyone else who saw the maiden would assume she was merely thinking-not Vaati. No, after seeing the usually spunky and energetic side of his friend torn apart by the horrors of both the massacre and her own inner demons...

...it was almost to much for him to watch.

"You do not want what, Brittany?" he asked. The brunette was silent for the longest time, now and then open her lips to speak but suddenly closing them (almost as if she could not decide what to say). Finally, she gulped in a deep breath and let out a stream of hushed words.

"I...did not want to believe that my family could be so...so evil," she said. "If I agreed with my father, it would be turning on my mother and saying that I consented to what he did. And if I went along with the majority of my family, I would be just as horrible as that wretched thing that hurt Mother. But I could not go along with her no matter how hard I tried!" Brittany reached up and wrapped her hands in her hair. "Nothing...nothing but SPITE ever came from that woman! I tried to feel love for her but...it hurt so badly..."

Suddenly, her body relaxed from its stiff, trembling form.

"I guess," she spoke, refusing to look towards Vaati, "you think I'm a freak now, don't you? An indecisive, cowardly weakling spawned from a cesspool of wickedness and hypocrisy..." a despairing sigh escaped her lips. "I understand if you cannot bare to even look at me now, let alone talk to me..."

Brittany felt the mage's eyes on her, baring down on her with a crushing glare. Was he judging her like her family had? Did he hate her for being weak? She had not feel the urge to cry when her family turned on her, but the thought of Vaati doing so brought tears bubbling up in her eyes. With each passing minute of silence the feeling of dread in her chest tightened.

After a long, tense moment, Vaati stood.