A/N: Much thanks to AFredToThePast9 for reviewing and without further ado, I present to you the next chapter. Please read and review.
Disclaimer: I do not own LOZ nor KH
Chapter 46: Fairy's tears
"All ten of us?" Impa quizzed with a raised eyebrow.
"Yes."
"You just completed the final temple two days ago…aren't you tired?" she insisted
"Not actually. I feel really energized" Sora grinned.
The two were currently in the kitchen and the leading knight was stuffing his face with breakfast. Next to him the second knight exhaled deeply. He proposed all ten Knights to traverse through a dungeon Link and Cloud discovered a few months back. The ruby eyed female had never heard of all the knights tackling a dungeon together, this must be the first.
"Apparently it is a very difficult cave, filled with strong enemies from all of Hyrule's and neighboring regions." The noble reported "think of it as an exercise to keep in shape…also we need everyone to be in top shape since I have finally decided to reclaim Hyrule Castle."
The warrior listened intently as her leader laid out background plans. Obviously the two main forces in play to bring down Ganondorf would be the princess and Link. At the mention of Zelda's name he grew quiet.
"Is it absolutely necessary for her to take part in the battle?" he asked.
Impa felt impatient. He already knew the answer yet he kept on nagging like a child.
"Is it absolutely necessary for you to take part in bringing down Xehanort?" she quipped a reply.
"I get it…stop making fun of me…"
They continued to talk about future plans but every time Sora strayed off topic and came back to his earlier suggestion of having the knights crawl through the Gerudo desert cave of ordeals.
Cave of ordeals…what a fitting name.
"Hyrule will be unprotected…Zelda won't want that" The Sheikh was trying to deter her superiors mind, alas, once Sora sets his thoughts to something, he'll stubbornly stick towards it till the end.
"I'm sure she won't mind. After all it is to make the knights stronger."
…The trump card did not work.
"…"
"Why are you so against it Impa?" the brunette tilted his head in confusion, he brought a finger up and wiped the edge of his mouth free of jam.
"…It feels like things are going to end…the false peace we are surrounded by. What will happen to the remaining triforce bearers if one of their own is put down?"
"Continue life as normal I guess?" Sora began tidying up "what do the legends say?"
"One of the princesses Zelda betrayed us…?"
Eh?
The plate Sora was eating on nearly fell from his grasp. The mere fact of Zelda betraying her people was so absurd, yet at the back of his mind, it felt entirely plausible. Why did he think it was possible for the princess to betray her people?
The answer was simple. She'd betray them if it meant their safety.
"I'm sure our Zelda won't do such a thing…believe in her." The prince mumbled, he was absentmindedly washing the dishes.
"My trust in her is unshakeable…I'm concerned about her life after she fulfilled her duty. What is going to happen to her and Link? The legends are never clear. The hero of time made three separate timelines. In two time lines he is lauded as a hero, he spent his life with content and in the third…" Sora gulped "he failed to save his people, Hyrule was sealed and flooded…and destroyed."
The plate slipped from his hand and crashed into the sink.
Luckily it was unbroken.
"You are talking about possibilities should Link and Zelda fail to put down Ganon-"
"I'm not only talking about that!" The female knight and risen from her chair, her behavior surprised the noble; he had never seen her so worked up before. "What if the goddesses decide to reclaim her after she has fulfilled her duty? You can't be sure…after all the goddesses are fickle!"
Her words caused the master of the mansion to turn around and stare at her.
Fickle.
Chess pieces.
Puppets.
They were puppets, those branded with the triforce.
Reclaim? His chest felt tight at the thought of Link and Zelda dying.
"You sound like Ganondorf…assemble the knights in the lounge and relay today's assignment to them. We need to clear our heads, it is never good to do battle with a conflicted mind." The knight made her way out "and Impa…have faith." Sora tried to smile, however his expression did not respond. Resuming his task with heavy hands he thought about the burden placed on the princess of Hyrule.
And the way she smiled.
"The entrance to the cave looks really tiny," Zack pointed out "never mind though…I can't believe I'm actually going on an expedition with Master Sora…I gotta brag to Aerith about this." Link grinned at his friend's antics and the optimism became contagious. Aqua and Sheikha had moved closer to survey the entrance. Way behind them, the members of the house of Kingdom seemed to be involved in a heated discussion.
"But you said we are all going together" Ventus whined "why are you going to Disney Castle now out of all times?"
Roxas resolutely glared at him.
"What? Can't survive without the princess pampering you?" Vanitas hissed, displeasure clearly stamped in his angry visage.
"You don't understand…I-"
"Oh…we understand loud and clear…we are a nuisance." Roxas spat and shouldered forward "Come on Ven, we'll stick with Link."
"FINE! I'll lead!" the last thing Sora wanted was his brothers and knights to ignore him. Striding forward he stood before the entrance of the cave with a confident stance.
"No…You are not leading. Link and I are. Peasant, move before I remind you how to." Body suit materializing, the dark haired noble brushed past his brother with a sheepish Link in a tow. The Hylian did a quick bow to his flabbergasted leader before he followed Vanitas inside the dank cavern. One by one the other knights filed in, some bowing and others flashing him a pitied smile.
"Impa…" the brown haired man groaned "since when did things turn out like this?" Seeing him reduced to such a sorry state made the female knight chuckle, with a comforting squeeze of his shoulder, she too entered the cave.
"Thank you…for cheering me up" her gratitude floated to her commander's ears.
The ten knights entered the cave and before Link could even assert his position as co-commander, Vanitas had leapt into the first chamber where a bird brained bunch of bokoblins were waving their prehistoric clubs around. A black distortion swept around the circular room and they all vanished. Up above, the rest of the knights watched with deadpan expressions.
"And you are no better than Master Sora!" Aqua voiced. "What is the purpose of appointing Link as a co-leader when you are doing everything for yourself?" She jumped down and the rest followed her.
"He can take care of the chus and keese" the dark key-blade wielder retorted.
Link's ears turned red as the rest of the party laughed at his expense. Throwing him a smirk, Vanitas pushed to the next room and the Hylian forlornly followed. Aqua's words probably had an impact on the black haired youth because in the next few areas he stopped fighting altogether. The rest of the team gleefully took care of the enemies and Ashei groaned, citing the enemies were too easy. The mood around the knights lightened as some of them paired off and started competing against each other, even Impa, the stoic second knight joined in the fun. The underground cave shook with exertion as it absorbed impact from nine highly skilled and extremely excited knights.
Only the first knight did not take part in the battle gala.
He slinked after everyone else, barely registering what was happening around him. Every few moments, his bright blue eyes would drift to Link; the Hylian's face was beaming with happiness, lips stretched into a wide smile showing gleaming white teeth.
And incisors.
Sora watched the green clad hero raise his sword with apparent glee and bloodlust. As his hand periodically went up, the key-blader's eyes would automatically lock on to the three triangles decorating the back of his hand. No one knew what will transpire after Ganondorf was defeated, not even the legends were clear about it. Dragging himself behind the others, he failed to notice how his twin brothers cast anxious glances at him. They had arrived in yet another area although, there was something different about this cavern. The brunette noticed a large circular spring set in the middle of the room. With obvious relief, the knights rushed forward with the intention of refreshing themselves, leading the charge was the third knight who, on sloshing to the middle of the spring abruptly stopped and petrified.
One by one, the knights froze as well.
From the center of the spring, amongst many ripples a creature rose. Link tried to take a few steps back; instead he lost his footing in the knee deep water and fell. A beautiful female stood before him, at first his mind told him she might be human or Hylian, however a closer inspection showed that she was none. Pairs of iridescent wings gently moved in an imaginary breeze, as Link continued to gape, a sudden exclamation from the back forced him back to reality.
"Avert the male gaze!" Sora shouted. "And Link…get away from her!"
The fairy in front of him was scantily dressed. Her chest was covered by her long, lustrous hair and she wore a short cloth around her waist and thighs. Eyes tightly shut thanks to his leaders bellow, he started fumbling around, hauling himself backwards.
"Hero…" her voice, soft, flowing and sounding like she carried the world's weight on her shoulders prompted him to momentarily stop. He heard water being sloshed around and before he knew what was happening, a bottle was thrust in his hand. Mentally apologizing to his leader, he cracked open his eyes to see the fairy's face was shimmering with tears.
Tears, glistening akin to quicksilver.
"If you wish to continue" her hypnotic tones enraptured him "you will need a greater power, also these tears carry healing abilities, use them when you are in a bind." Link blinked, when he was young he often heard stories saying Fairy's tears could heal any ailment, it could even cure people who had been injured beyond hope. He'd never thought the rumors would be true.
"Thank you" he clutched the bottle tightly as the magical fey drew away. She smiled a sad smile and disappeared, the unearthly glow and hum in the chamber faded out and he sat there in the water staring at the bottle of shimmering liquid and feeling very unhappy for some reason.
"Link are you okay?" Zack's question broke into his thoughts "what do you have there in your hands?"
The Hylian held up the bottle and related what had transpired between him and the fairy. He saw his leader's face light up.
"Then let's search for more!" He happily yelled, with renewed vigor the Master Knights traversed the remaining floors, his surreal experience forgotten with the prospect of more enemies, Link stowed the bottle away and joined in the fray.
The next set of floors birthed a number of stronger enemies. Throwing caution to the winds, the bearer of triforce brought out his ball and chained and spun around the room demolishing shadow creatures and part of the walls as well. It now became a competition of dodging his haphazardly moving weapon as the knights expertly weaved themselves around the silver spiked sphere, Ven who saw the ball careering dangerously close to his head, offset its course with an aerora and the ball flew to the other end and embedded itself on the wall. Dirt and rocks rained down from above.
On the twentieth floor, the group once again spied a spring similar to the one they saw earlier. Sora urged Impa to go to the middle of the spring, like a trigger, another great fairy made an entrance and this time she delivered some news:
"Fairies have released into Faron spring" her voice twinkled and she faded away.
"…Wait!" shrieked their leader "what about my bottle of fairy tears?"
Listening to his superior's apparent greed for healing items disturbed Link, he pondered why his oh so great leader wanted the tears so badly. Didn't it occur to him that these tears might have been born from sadness and pain? Feeling miffed, he took his own bottle out and thrust it reluctantly at the prince.
"Here sire…you can have mine"
The first knight's eyebrows shot up in surprise
"What am I going to do with them?" he enquired "I only wanted more because I thought one bottle won't be enough for you and the others once you fight Ganondorf…you can't use magic right?"
At his logic, the master sword wielder felt very foolish.
"Right" he muttered "sorry" thereafter he put the bottle back in his pouch again.
The third phase became quite challenging. The knights stopped playing around and began to fight in earnest. Instead of rushing to battle, they scouted the area from above. Auru and at times Link would pick off some enemies using arrows and projectiles. At one point a couple of ReDeads made an appearance and the twins, who did not have any pleasant memories of them spammed their most powerful magic in order to get rid of those zombies. The number of floors increased and Sora saw some of his knights had become fatigued, however his brother, Impa, Link and Zack were still fighting zealously.
Another fairy and another announcement:
"Fairies have been released into Eldin spring"
Unsurprisingly the last leg of the cave had become intensely taxing, spirit creatures had now made an appearance and Link was forced to turn into a wolf to put an end to them. At one point three Darknut's surfaced and the Kingdom key wielder shook his head at Vanitas' foolhardy confidence. Golden eyes glinting, the second born leapt into the middle and hissed at everyone to stay clear, worry gnawed at Sora as he observed his brother flitting about the three powerful shadow warriors. With great effort he managed to dispatch them, suffering numerous wounds in the process.
"Don't you EVER do that!" The eldest sibling admonished severely whilst force feeding him a potion. The adolescent scowled and turned away.
At last, the knights made it into the fiftieth floor where a fairy was already waiting for them. As per routine Impa went forward but the fey shook her head and pointed at Link. She beckoned him forward.
"I feel kinda jealous" his spiky haired friend whispered.
"There is nothing wrong about Link accepting what is rightfully his" Aqua countered with a somewhat fierce expression at the Great fairy. Seeing her glower Zack smirked.
The glow in the dank cave died down and everyone found themselves outside at Lanayru.
"What happened yeah?"
"The great fairy teleported us outside…also I got a jar of Great fairy tears" Link reported dutifully.
"What's the difference?" Auru probed.
"I'm not sure" the hero replied, walking towards his leader who had spaced out again Link presented him the jar.
"Keep it" the brunette uttered. "Keep it, for worst case scenarios." Without another word, he opened a dark corridor and vanished from view.
