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Majora's War - Part 5

-Ganondorf Dragmire-

-Outside Majora-

Ganondorf Dragmire sniffed the air. Malon had learned to cook well, and his mouth salivated in expectation. A fresh kill with herbs was tasty. It wasn't as good as what he found in Qin, with its exotic spices from far and wide placed in markets, but it was an old favorite. Looking around, he momentarily thought to be greedy and taste it before it was done, but thought better of it and contented himself to waiting. Just as much as receiving it was an exploration of the senses, so also was the anticipation. Hunting is not about the kill, but the hunt and tracking and anticipation. He knew well what it was to wait.

He poured some hot water into a wooden cup with chopped leaves, sat down, and sighed contently. He was away from the hustle and bustle and noise of cities. Politics didn't enter his hut. War was not waged on his front door. It was quiet. It was still. The flame of the fireplace danced erotically before his eyes and its crackling and popping loosened his pent-up nerves. The fiery core in his heart fell to embers and its smoke blew out his nostrils. For a moment, a solitary moment, he found peace. He closed his eyes and raised the cup to-

A loud piercing scream punctured his ears like icepicks. The boiling water splashed up into his face. He stomped his feet, yelling in surprise and pain, broke a chair leg, and knocked the chair out from under him so that he fell on his face under the table.

He breathed in aggravation and blew out anger. In a single breath the burning core of his heart lit into flame. The yelling continued again briefly.

"MALON!" Ganondorf barked. He rose quickly, knocking chairs and the table off from ontop of him. He stomped towards the door, threw the door open, and marched out. "DIN DAMNIT GIRL! What the ****!?"

Nothing. No response. Instantly that set his nerves on edge. He was expecting to get a 'thats not me you dolt!' back, or something equally insulting. All he got was empty yelling and screaming. Had she been kidnapped? Was she hurt? He had sent her out to the creek to give some of her clothes to the Dragmire woman, so he headed that way.

"MALON!" Ganondorf barked. "Where are you!"

"Over here, you dunce!" Malon yelled back from nearby.

That was more like it. He exited the tree line and stopped. On one hand was Malon in the creek up to her waist looking at once angry and upset for a whole other reason at once. The clothes were left forgotten on the ground at Ganondorf's feet. On the other hand was the Dragmire woman on the other side of the creek staring at Malon like she was a living nightmare. On the other-other hand was Ganon, having no idea what the actual hell was going on. Malon wasn't being kidnapped so...

"Okay, what's happening?!" Ganondorf demanded. He looked squarely at Malon. "What's with all the yelling!?"

"You're the one yelling!"

"So are you!"

"Because of you!"

"Then who was screaming before us?!" Ganondorf asked, expasperated. Malon pointed at the frightened woman. Ganondorf looked between the two, still confused. He addressed the woman. "What the ****? Why you yelling?! Something bite you!?"

The woman didn't respond, but just stared at them like a frightened rabbit.

Malon yelled, "She took one look at me and started yelling!"

"What? You- Then why are you in the river?!"

"Because she looks like my mother!" Malon yelled. Ganondorf blinked in surprise. "So I approached her to get a better look at her and she fled!"

"Malon..." Ganondorf lowered his voice to normal. He descended the hill towards the creek. "You're mother was taken by a mask..."

"I know that. Doesn't mean I don't recognize her." Malon argued. "I know what you're thinking. She isn't just any Dragmire."

Ganondorf raised an eyebrow and look at the Dragmire woman. To a degree... he could see it. He didn't remember Malon's mother that well. He had only met her a few times. Yet the woman did look familiar now that she was cleaner. He entered the creek. It only reached up to his thighs. "Get out of the blasted creek, girl. You are going to get wet."

Slowly he made his way towards the Dragmire woman. Malon rebutted, "I'm already wet!"

"Well you will make yourself more wet! ("Thats not how it works!") Get out of the creek!" Ganon barked over his shoulder. He slowly approached the Dragmire woman. She flinched and cowered as his hand reached out, but he didn't do anything. He brushed her hair out of the way and got a good look at her.

"Well, I'll be damned..." Ganondorf murmured. "It's her..."

"You said it, not me!" Malon yelled.

"Get out of the damn creek!" Ganondorf barked over his shoulder.

Without warning he he grabbed the woman and suddenly threw her over his shoulder. The woman started thrashing about and yelling without words. He turned and started to walk back through the creek.

Malon yelled, "Stop handling the woman that looks like my mother!"

"I'll do what I damn-well please!" Ganondorf replied. He pushed Malon forward with his free hand as he walked. "And get out of the creek!"

Malon stuck her tongue out at him and bolted away before he could flick her ear. Ganondorf rolled his eyes. The girl was exasperatingly stubborn. He had to lower himself to get into the doorway with the woman on his shoulder, but once he was inside, he dropped the woman onto Malon's bedding, grabbed the broken chair he had fallen with, and threw it out the door hard enough to shatter it, before slamming the door shut hard enough to splinter it.

He breathed in, aggravated. Of course, the door had to splinter and crack.

"Okay..." He breathed out. "Now. Can we stop with the yelling and panicking and being loud?" He eyed the woman and Malon. Malon returned to the cooking pot as if nothing had happened and the Dragmire woman curled up in the corner staring at them. "Good. Now. Malon. What the ****?!"

"What?!"

"What is your mother doing outside of her mask?!"

"How am I supposed to know!? I lost that mask long time ago!"

Kuroko Dragmire stared and watched as the two bickered all through dinner.

-Link / Impa-

-Western Qin-

Several days passed in which they rode through Qin. From corner to corner the journey across Qin takes about two weeks on horseback without rest. Taking in the consideration that the capital of Qin is nearly in its middle, and adding in a few days for rough terrain, detours, questioning passerby as to whether or not a certain girl on horseback passed through the road, and the inevitable need for sleep, then one can guess by the time they reached their destination Link was tired of horses and annoyed by Impa's endless silence.

They stopped on the edge of a forest descending down from the plains. In the distance was the mountain border wrapped around the forest almost lovingly. The nearest village was miles away. They passed destroyed road-signs and their horses trampled dirt roads overtaken by thorns and weeds. An area of ground was once churned up for farmland was now overtaken by the same thorns and weeds, and trees took root in its midst. Blocks of erected stone provided evidence of a village, but the lack of any wooden buildings spoke otherwise. An arrowhead glistened in the sunlight from the ground. Link didn't need to see more weapons to know a conflict had transpired here. The victors had looted everything and burned what remained to the ground.

"What happened here?" Link wondered.

"War. Betrayel." Impa answered. She briefly eyed him, "It is complicated."

"Mhmm, war tends to be with you."

Link stopped the horse by a pile of stone of what might have once been a loose wall. He tied the horse and looked around. The ruins had an ominous feel to it, as ruins will have.

"What is that supposed to mean?!" Impa snapped.

Link shrugged and commented offhandedly, "You're a politician. You complicate things. I'm a soldier. To me it is as simple as 'protect the innocent', and 'try not to die'."

"There is so much more to it than that."

"Only because you want there to be." Link replied. He motioned to the ruins. "Whatever happened here, if Soli has come all this way, its important to her. You can tell me, you can not tell me, either way I am going to snap her back to reality."

"How can you hope to do that if you don't know what troubles her?" Impa scoffed.

"Everyone is troubled by something. That's life."

"For a friend, you are very dismissive."

"Her troubles are real. But at the same time, it is not a contest. We are all a team. Soli and I, even you. All men are born on the same team to just live. It is only when people force their input on it that they put up these little boundaries and split up the team that they sit like wise men and justify it all by calling it-" He used air-quotes with his fingers, "'complicated'."

They searched the ruins. A third horse trotted in the field, untetthered to any post. On the horses back was a saddle Link recognized as having been used by Soli. In a side pocket it still had her spare burn ointments unopened. A mass graveyard was in another field.

"King Shorlin was very accepting... but his son was not," Impa started. Link didn't respond or offer a smartass comment, but simply listened. "Everyone was pressured to strengthen the war efforts all over again to the same extent, if not greater, than it had been for his father. However Shorlins war had lasted decades and was bloody as he doubled Qin's borders, and the people were tired. Only the Mitagi succeeded in standing up to his rediculas standards. Others went to extreme lengths to keep up, like the Dragmire. Others failed and split under the pressure, like the Ki... and the Sheikah. Once we were a clan like any other, but we were small. We changed our methods to recruit criminals outside our bloodlines and offer them a chance for freedom through servitude, but it still wasn't enough. So we offered everyone a second chance. Allow yourself to become a shadow, and escape what your life was. A surprising number took the oppurtunity. People forgot who they were to remake themselves and be reborn, and when they came to remember their past lives, when they remembered their names, they were returned back to it if they wished. Still it wasn't enough for the king and the threat of displeasing him became more real after the Dragmire rebellion. So some... split off from the Sheikah and introctronaded children."

They came to the edge of the forest. The ruins had shown nothing. Impa continued, "War had produced many orphans." She breathed in and out heavily, "They were taken by the numbers to a far away place to be trained. I was a new Shadowmaster at the time, but I came to learn of it and tracked them down. When I found the first 'school' I found one teen had slaughtered all the rest of his peers on the orders of the elders. The officials ordered we take him instead of execution, so we did so and named him Zant."

Impa continued again after a moment, "We found the second 'school' here. The slaughter had not started yet. We killed the elders and rogue Sheikah and a number of the older children who had already been too far gone, but managed to secure a number of the younger ones. The rogue Sheikah were bathing them in Twilight to create something... worse."

"Like Zant." Link concluded. "He was extremely powerful."

"That's right."

"And Soli was among the children you 'rescued'?"

"Yes."

Link blew his hair out of his face and tied it behind his head as best he could. He considered her words briefly, but his conclusions hadn't really changed. "You're reasons for the war is your own. Everyone has a reason. Some go to war for glory, some for riches, some for the thrill. I am thankful that I have met so many who fight solely to protect their home. Yet despite the ideal we have killed a lot of people no more or less than you. I can't judge you. You don't have to justify yourself to me, Chancellor. Whatever the reasons, whatever the excuses, it all comes down to the fact that Soli is here."

Link entered the forest. Impa hesitated briefly, surprised by his lack of judgement and simple way of looking at this. Unsure what to make of it, she entered the forest behind him.

Towards the center of the forest they came to the remains of a village. Link peered through windows and gaped at what he found. Besides the bodies left out in the open, inside one hut in particular was a stash of bottles. Inside the bottles were the dimming lights of Fae. How long had they been here? Link wondered. If the dimmed lights were any clue, it had been a long time. Link looked around carefully. No one was in sight. He quietly climbed through the window into the hut. His feet crunched on broken glass and rotten wood. Bugs crawled across every surface to scavange the meat and sinew from bones. The planks of plywood that made up the door swung noisily on the wind from a single hinge. A dark mist rolled across the wooden floor from outside.

Link grabbed the first bottle at his arm level, pried open the top, and left it on the ground. He didnt want to shake it and perhaps injure the Fae who had been trapped for so long. They would find the opening on their own soon. Already they stirred slowly from within their cages, awoken by his movement. If they were not leaving on their own before he left he would do more.

With all of the bottles opened, Link smiled to himself and returned to the more immediate task. Impa stayed outside of the hut in the shadows, watching carefully. Link moved towards the door and peered out. He could see all kinds of buildings and the equipment for them of this small village. A hunters lodge, a smokehouse, a tannery, a couple living huts, and a grainery. Judging from the bottles and equipment around him, he was most likely hiding from a medical hut. In the center of the village was a well. The dark mist poured up from it onto the ground all around.

"Creepy..." Link whispered to himself.

A faint light in the corner of his eye drew his attention back, and he saw a few Fae in the air frolicking about. He smiled warmly. They seemed happy. One drew in front of him and moved around frantically.

"What you trying to tell me little guy? You hungry? Not sure if you guys eat or not but-" Something squeezed his leg. He looked down and saw the mist had tightened around his ankle. "Ah shiIIIIIT!"

The mist pulled him up into the air, crashing through the hut's roof, and then swung him back crashing into the same building. Its walls and furniture collapsed as the mist tentacle swung him down. Glass shards punctured his skin all over, but he pushed through the pain and managed to grab hold of a nailed down flooring. "Let me go you bastard!" Link yelled.

The mist pulled him across the floor and out onto the ground. Link dug his fingers in, but couldn't get enough of a grip to stop. As soon as the mist drew him up to the well, he pressed his feet against it and managed to hold. "I already dealt with this mist shit once with Zant, I ain't dealin with it no more!" Link grabbed hold of the mist tentacle. As soon as his hand grasped it, the triangle on his hand flared and the mist disappeared with a shriek. Link fell onto the ground.

Immediately, he rolled away. The stone wall around the well exploded and dozens of tentacles reached into the air. Link stepped back. He was uncertain how many he could deal with. He pulled his spear from its holster on his back and prepared himself.

A ball landed just in front of him and light exploded. He squeezed his eyes against the blinding light. The tentacles shrieked in pain before descending back into the well. When he was able to open his eyes again, there was Impa, looking down at him in judgement.

"You have no idea how stealth works, do you?" Impa asked.

"What did you think I was doing, playing with it?!" Link snapped. He raised his spear and looked down over the edge of the well. He couldn't see its bottom. "What even was that thing?"

"I... don't know. I have never seen anything like it."

"Are you sure? It was similar to the stuff Zant was using."

"Yes, but did you see anyone controlling it?" Impa wondered. Link shook his head. "So either the one it is bonded with is capable of controlling the twilight mist from a distance, or it could move of its own will. Neither prospect bodes well."

"We can figure it out if it comes back. For now we need to find Soli."

Link turned to investigate the village further, but Impa stopped him. "While you were playing, I checked the other huts. There is nothing but dry bones and dust, although I did find this..." Impa pulled out a blank mask and dropped it on the ground at their feet. Link stared at it. It looked... familiar.

"Is that a Majora mask?" He wondered.

Impa nodded grimly. "Whatever that thing is, it escaped its prison."

Link grit his teeth in aggravation. That was just great. As if they didn't have enough to deal with. They needed to find Soli! If she wasn't in the huts then...

"What are you doing?!" Impa exclaimed.

Link peered down into the wall, adjusted his grip on his spear, and threw his feet over the wall. He couldn't see the bottom, but there had to be one. Otherwise... well... he'd rather not think about it. "Going after it! If there is room for that thing down here, Soli might be down here as well. You go investigate the forest and see if we missed anything!"

Impa opened her mouth to tell him he doesn't give her orders, but before she could voice it, he dropped down into the darkness.

-Shi Ketsu-

-Kanyou, Capital of Qin-

Shi Ketsu, so far as ministers went, was an unusual one. He did not have much land to govern after his father's rebellion had it all taken away. He had no place among the relations between cities nor any responsibility in any large projects. He had no family to raise or house to lead, not since his siblings had commited suicide in the shame of their father's failure. Anyone who knows his name would scratch their head and wonder why the palace would ever give a Ketsu a chance, rather than execute him and one might question it further were they to know what he did in his regular days.

Shi rose in the morning, took a deep breath, salivated on the smell of fresh bread, and left his measly home to go to market. He was a minister, but he was also a Ketsu. No one would from the royal district would offer him room for lodging. His clothes were common and his cleanliness had become dirty, except when he enters the palace grounds. He always makes sure to wash thuroughly before entering. His neighbors eyed him with distrust. One kind of thief watched from the shadows holding a knife while the other kind watched from the daylight holding a balance scale. Guards watched him warily and the children mocked him in song singing, 'The Ketsu! The Ketsu! Watch out! He'll get you!'

Still, it was all something he accepted. The looks were nothing new and the mocking was immature. He had endured the ridicule and ever-ready fists of his father. He had accepting his brothers scoffing. Family has a way of getting under one's skin, so if the masses thought they could do worse, they would learn differently. It was something Shi had in mind this bright morning as he walked the streets. Family.

Princess Zelda had told him her tale of being rescued and what she endured, and he couldn't help but marvel at it. To a degree, he could empathize. He knew what it was like to be at odds with family. Family is the greatest shadow.

He entered the market and went about his day. Much of his time was spent simply listening. People talked and gave their opinions openly when they thought it had no weight or consequence. The market of Kanyou was the largest in all of Qin, as being at the center of the nation and the only pass from east to west going through here. Here he could hear the words of men from all corners of Qin.

"I'll take five hundred logs of wood! The Qin-Gerudo wall is in need of repair since the conflict between them desert rats and the Dragon Knight! I'm good for it. I have a note from Chancellor Ryu!"

"This smells nice! We have nothing like this in the north, not since Zhao burned the farms. The crops won't grow for another season. You know-"

"Yeah, but the princess's Fae folk have been helping restore farms in the west. If you can't feed your family there, why don't you try heading west with the rest of the farmers?"

"Fae? Bah! They just a myth. Its just statues. Its all illusions and crafts done by that Ice Witch."

"I don't know. She isn't half bad. Things have gone better than expected of late."

"I don't like the sound of the melon... are you sure it's ripe?"

"Seventy rupees?! Are you serious!"

"I lost half my caravan to monsters in the west! Gotta make up for the losses!"

"You think the princess will like it?"

Shi Ketsu blinked in surprise. Why would anyone be interested in the princess' opinion? What's more, the voice sounded familiar. He stepped out of the alcove on the edge of the crowd and entered into its flow toward the voice. He came upon a girl peering at an array of art pieces. The art mostly depcted things like mountains, valleys, distant oceans, and even cityscape, but a few depicted people and crowds. Next to the girl was a man in robes of nobility with a sword on his waist.

"I don't know, you would know her better than me." The man replied to her.

"Yeah, but its just... I don't know. She has never taken me as the type to appreciate beauty."

Ah, now he recognized her. Sarah, the princess's favored concubine. "There are many kinds of beauty as much as there many kinds of art, though." Shi cut in.

Sarah turned on the spot and regarded him. "Like what?"

"There is poetry, for instance." Shi offered. "The High Princess is an avid reader and would undoubtedly have an appreciation for it. Or perhaps an amusing tale?"

She gaped briefly and her eyes lit up, "You sound like you know her too!"

"I should hope I know her at least enough to know she has read everything put before her." Shi chuckled. "I work for the palace, after all."

Sarah stared at him. After a long pause, she just continued to stare. Shi's smile fell. "You don't remember?"

Is it good or bad she doesn't remember him? On one hand she didn't stand in hostility against him, but at the same time, she didn't remember him...

"I'm sorry, shit..."

Shi breathed in. Okay, this was new. "No, it's Shi."

Her eyes widened in surprise. "No! I mean-... You're Shi!? I'm sorry I don't mean you're shit! Or you're named shit! Just shit! I mean..." Sarah recoiled in on herself a bit. She had messed up.

The man with her shook his head shamefully. "Blasted brat..." He regarded the other man. "You are Shi? Shi Ketsu?"

"That's right."

"What are you doing outside the palace at this hour?"

It was a fair question, but was one filled with disgusted judgement. Clearly he knew who Ketsu was. Shi belonged either here listening to rumors or at the palace working. This was not a day to be at the palace. Zelda was in negotiation with the Goron ambassadors and the last thing the palace needed was a shameful family present.

"The princess is not in need of my services at this hour," Shi chose. "Who are you? Her father?"

"I am her handler. Sarah is in the service of the Royal Harem, and so is under its protection. You may know me as Tuoniao Ki."

Tuoniao put a hand on his sword and eyed Shi threateningly. Shi had done nothing to warrant his hostility, but stepped back all the same. Unfortunately it was not the first, nor would it be the last time, he would be threatened. Sarah watched the two worriedly, grew defiant, and smacked Tuoniao on the shoulder.

"Tuoniao! Behave! He's a friend!"

"He's a Ketsu." "You didn't even remember me." The two men said at once.

"And that don't matter!" She insisted. She stepped forward, grabbed Shi's arm, and guided him down the market. Her voice brooked no argument. "Let's go shopping!"

The men sighed in resignation for similar annoyance but different reasons.

They went on for the market hours browsing the shops. Sarah found things she liked and things Zelda might like, and bought a lot of things other people might like. The men bought nothing and did their best to pretend the other wasn't there. When shopping was over, the men found themselves becoming mules carrying it all through the city towards a lower district.

As soon as their feet entered the lesser district, Tuoniao became visibly tenser. Shi wondered, "What has gotten into you?"

"Wait for it..."

Sarah stopped at one house. The house was run down and large, but most of all, noisy. It sounded like a circus was inside. Sarah knocked on the door once, opened it, yelled, "I'm here!" Sarah and Tuoniao immediately stepped to the side and Shi found himself thrown to the ground as nothing short of a stampede of children and dogs plowed into him. Hands took hold of his arms and legs, picked him up, and half-carried-half-dragged him into the house. Before he knew what was happening, he was tied to a chair with a two-year-old standing in his lap pointing a ladle very threateningly at his nose.

His eyes drifted around the house briefly. More kids than he knew imaginable filled every visible space, or ran through it. Young adults nimbly navigated the insanity from one place to another, conversing with each other, greeting Sarah, and leaving. Sarah was being hugged by an older woman until her eyes seemed they would pop out. An exhausted woman, who could ONLY be the mother to this rabid insanity, moved through it all picking up brats and placing them elsewhere out of danger without having to look. The father plowed through it all, knocking anyone down in his way, as he left declaring he was late for work. A team of the brats tried to team up on Tuoniao and steal his sword. One succeeded in prying Shi's knife from his waist and throwing it into the ceiling. Dogs and cats ran amidst the legs and jumped up on furtniture to escape the grasping hands of the children. One unfortunate cat got caught by its tail and was hugged and squeezed until it, oddly enough, had the same eye-popping expression as Sarah.

Shi's attention returned to the ladle-bearing two-year-old and all he could mutter was, "What. The. Hell?"

Sarah picked up the two-year-old and set him (her?) off to wander. She winced apologetically. "Sorry, its a bit crazy when you have twenty-something siblings."

"How?"

"Long story short?" Sarah asked. Shi nodded furiously. "Father had a couple and is a widower. Mother had some from an adulterer she left. They had a few more... Yeah."

"You live here?"

"Nah, not since I entered the harem. I just come by to visit and bring food to help out."

Shi nodded. He could figure out the story easily enough. The harem paid well. Very well if you gained favor from the royal family against the competition. This many mouths to feed? People do what they can to survive.

"Where do you live?" Sarah asked. "You don't look like the others from the palace."

"You mean I look dirty?"

"Well... no. Just like you have more humble means."

Shi nodded. He shouldn't assume she was trying to insult him like everyone does. "I actually live a block from where you found me. I live in the market district."

"Much as I love... family reunions." Tuoniao said with dripping sarcasm as he pried a child off his shoulder who had climbed up his back. "We really must leave. We are on schedule to drop you off at the palace with Chancellor Impa."

"The Chancellor is currently out." Shi inserted himself.

"Oh. Well then, Chancellor Ryu-"

"Also out. He is at his estate for the week resting."

"The lesser Chancellors?"

"Sick. They had a feast of some fish with ice and got food poisoning. A few managed without the food poisoning, but good luck getting them out of the very official meeting High Princess Zelda is having with the Gorons for the rest of the day."

"Then who would I bring Sarah to?"

"Me. With the Chancellors absent, I am the next ranking minister."

Tuoniao stared at Shi. A long pause passed between them. Clearly Tuoniao didn't like him and liked having to deal with him even less. It would have been tense were it not for the atmosphere and Shi being tied up by toddlers.

Tuoniao looked at Sarah, "Sarah, Shi KETSU will be taking you to the palace with him."

"Okay!"

He then looked at Shi. "She's all yours." Shi narrowed his eyes at him. He was much higher rank than him, and the guy acted like he could treat him disrespectfully just because he was a Ketsu. Technically he could.

"That was easy..." Tuoniao whispered to himself. He turned to leave, but stopped short. "Ah, yes. Sarah, the Harem wishes for you to pass this on to the Chancellors."

He pulled a scroll from his clothes and handed it to Sarah. A number of the kids leaped to grab it, but he held it high. Sarah took the scroll and saluted him. It was haphazard as far as salutes go.

Tuoniao left. Sarah and Shi stared at the door briefly. Sarah, merely by rotating her arm, passed the scroll to Shi and dropped it onto his lap.

"That was easy." Sarah whispered.

Shi looked down at the scroll, then up at her. He counted down in his head, and just as he predicted, the children got to the scroll before he did. Sarah gaped at him. "You do realize my hands are tied behind the chair, right?!"