Stranger (II)

Teeth bared, Garo growled quietly to himself as he trailed behind the two-leggers. Zelda smelt light, like the snow. No pain, no tears, no fear. He liked that. And then she just had to go for a walk with him.

Him, the bad two-legger alpha who no longer had a beta, who smelled tainted and kept fighting with Impa. He didn't even deserve a name.

It was decisions like this that made him wonder if his female beta-omega was as observant as he'd supposed she was. She clearly knew something was wrong, she'd been searching for something. What did they call it...questioning. She'd questioned him. They'd made him nervous, the questions.

And then she stopped!

By the Great Wolf, if he didn't love her so much he'd leave her. Let her see how she did without a pack.

Then again, she did have the lone wolf, Impa...

But still, this was foolish! And now something the other alpha had said had made her nervous.

Growling softly again, he moved closer. He didn't trust the other male. Not one. Single. Bit.

[-]

Ignoring the soft growls which drifted towards them, Link listened, expressionless.

"It started last month. Actually...it started before that." Taking a ragged breath, Zelda wrapped her arms around her stomach and kept her gaze anywhere but on Link.

"You...know what happened at the wedding reception. It started then. She said there was some things she had to think about, that she was confused about. Things she needed to figure out alone. She pushed me away, blocked the bond...would barely talk to me. It hurt...a lot," she whispered, unfocused eyes pointed skyward.

"I'm not sure what made her stop. But one day the bond wasn't blocked anymore and I could feel her. Goddesses, Link, I didn't realize just how much it tore me apart to not feel her. It hurt, I was so empty and mindless without being able to feel her through the bond. Does she get the same way when I close it? Or does her end work differently? She said once it would be harder for me to hide from her than for her to hide from me...but didn't I prove that wrong? I hid from her for years, she never even knew I was hurt."

Hugging herself tighter, the Hylian woman turned her gaze to the ground. Her breath came in short bursts, her heart pounding with each wave of overwhelming emotion. It was too much, there wasn't enough room inside her to consider everything!

"We started talking and she...she told me she wanted to marry me. Marry me. We'd mentioned it before, but it's not the same as actually admitting it, you know? I don't understand it. WE haven't talked about it since but that doesn't make it any less confusing. She loves me, and I love her, but marriage? I'm...broken. Shattered, like a mirror someone tried back together and only broke more.

"I just...don't get it. And to be her lover too! She said that too you know," she confessed in hushed tones. Her shoulders rounded as her hands clutched her ribs, teeth-chattering shakes wracking her. Everything spilled free as chaos consumed her thoughts. A month's worth of worry, of obsession and agonizing silence rattled her spirit to the point of collapse.

"I-I didn't bring it up again. I mean, how could I? She didn't. It seemed like the entire conversation never happened. I'm glad she feels better about it and everything. Am I making this into something it's not?"

Startled by the question, Link blinked before shaking his head. "No, Zel, you aren't."

"Then why...why does it feel like I am?"

Biting back the angry, spiteful retort which sprung instinctively to his lips, he sighed and clenched his teeth for a moment. The sheer repetition of their conversations...sometimes he wondered how he dealt with them and stayed sane. He loved her, she was his sister, and he understood perfectly—but that didn't cool his frustrations. Like a child constantly asking "but why" without listening to the answers or thinking for themselves!

"Because that's what you know," he told her slowly, deliberately drawing the words out. "It's what you were taught from childhood—that unless it imperils, or may imperil, the country or anyone who is a prominent member of it...then it's not important. He just...made that worse."

"But it was years ago."

"And? Since when do logic and emotions get along? They hate each other. The heart doesn't work on a time-line, doesn't understand time—why would other emotions?"

"But that-"

"Doesn't make sense. I know. Again, I ask, since when do emotions and logic get along?"

"Are you mad?" she asked quietly after a moment of silence.

"No."

Even if the word hadn't been so sharp, nor his tone so terse, she would have known it was a lie. Not only because his eyes, his beautiful water/sky-blue eyes that were wasted on a man (or so she'd heard—she'd never admit to agreeing...or not) were narrowed and darkened, nor even from his stiff posture. No...it was because his hands were clenched so tightly his white knuckles shown clearly despite the snow around them.

And somehow, the denial was more frightening than the truth.

[-]

They walked a good portion of the enclosed area. Garo felt his hackles raised for the umpteenth time as a fresh wave of anger burned his nose. But he couldn't do anything because the other alpha was smart enough to not act. He hadn't even reacted to his growls.

Not even when they were loud enough for Zelda to look at him. He knew she knew. She might not know he knew, but she knew about the other alpha. Knew he was angry. What she didn't know was the other smell, the one that stunk and left a bad taste in his mouth.

"Is that the only thing that's been...'distracting' you lately?" Link asked, ignoring the mutt behind them. Honestly, the half-breed wasn't a threat.

The real threat was his own screaming thoughts.

They were Loud and then HURT because they were so loud. It had been too long since he'd had something to quiet them, something that made it possible to focus on the here and now instead of what everyone wanted and what he should be but wasn't. It was easier when they were quiet because he could understand that even if he failed, it wasn't the end of the world, that he was only a person, not perfect. But they weren't quiet, so it wasn't easy at all.

His breath caught slightly as he took a sharp inhale, trying to quiet the rambling of his mind. Zelda was saying something and he couldn't hear because he was too focused on his thoughts instead of her despite the fact that he'd asked her something.

"Yes," she whispered. "It's childish but I don't understand and I can't just leave it alone. She wants to marry me and for me to be her lover but the two aren't one...I just...don't understand it. I know she had a lover when she was younger but that's different—she was young. Who knows about love when they're young? No offense Link."

Feeling the insult despite her apology, he snorted. "Right. Because that means you know nothing of love either—since you're young too."

"I-"

"Are apparently special, exempt from your own rules."

"I didn't say that! I know there's people who fall in love as teenagers and live happily ever after. But most people don't," she stated. She barely noticed as they moved into a niche to avoid the suddenly roaring winds.

"How would you know," he asked bitterly. "How do you know what most people do or don't think or feel?"

"Link, I...I'm just working off assumptions and what I've heard from others. What did I say?" she asked quietly, worry bubbling within her as she watched him pace in the small area.

"What did I say?" he mimicked before laughing brokenly, cruelly. "What don't you say? Yak yak, all you do is talk and think you know everything because you have Wisdom and are Queen. You're not special, Zelda!"

She reeled back as if slapped, staring at the man she barely recognized. Her back hit the wall as her pounding heart mixed with the raging wind, deafening her to all but his words. She could see it...could clearly make out he agony and cold wrath, the vengeful anger in his eyes as he sneered.

Meeting her horrified gaze, Link felt something within him snap free as his confidence, so worn by his insecurity and everyone's expectations, lost its hold. Anger coiled within him, warming him despite the cold that radiated from his broken heart.

"I'm so SICK of the holier-than-thou attitude you have, Zelda! You're the leader of the Sages, one more powerful than Rauru, you're the holder of Wisdom and you're Queen—and that makes you special, because you survived some pain. You act like you were the only one who was hurt during the war, sister," he spat, "and never consider that the rest of us suffered too.

"You pull the rest of us down with you, degrade us to the level of the man we were all trying to kill because you can't cope, and it's not right! Who gave you the right, the ability, to decide you're more than the rest of us? I know you don't understand, but you refuse to listen to anyone who tries to explain something to you!"

His chest heaved as the words, so long bottled, rushed from him like a tidal wave. As she had earlier, he could do nothing to contain the thoughts who had been pushed down for longer than one cared to think. But unlike the shocked, shivering woman before he, he chose each word with care, determined to make her feel what he felt. He wouldn't let her ignore him any longer!

"'Link, I', 'Link, me', 'Link, Link, Link, fix this for me because I'm too stupid and weak to realize I can do it myself'," he mocked in a high-pitched voice. He chuckled as tears welled in her dilated eyes and felt the first stirrings of satisfaction. She would FINALLY understand what she had put him through for YEARS.

"If you don't wa-want to talk to me...I-I'm n-n-not going to mak-make you," she whispered, trembling as he stalked closer. She pressed against the wall, terror flooding her with each frantic beat of her heart.

"But you do, I've never had a choice in this because you call me brother and I'm supposed to protect you!" he screamed.

The roaring wind masked his voice. Isolated in their niche, a corner of the outer walls blocked by trees and a wall of flurried snow, none saw or heard. One felt, but blind terror masked the ability to borrow the quivering woman's senses. Even the bond, as mighty as it was, was limited by the vast amounts of primal fear which overflowed to such a degree it all but paralyzed the recipient.

I've never had a choice...

Never...

A choice...

Never...

There was absolute silence around them, despite Nature's raw power which hid them. The words, words which haunted her own soul, echoed within Zelda's mind.

And then the world became black.

[-]

[-]

AN: Now...onto part three.

BN: That's funny- thinking about it now those last lines. Link seems to be a violent version of Zelda, because apparently neither of them had a choice in the manners by which they went about their lives, him having to be her brother or her going to be with Ganondorf. They could have walked away but simultaneously neither of them could because something that someone said or did held them to that. I like understanding. It's tasty and delicious in milk.