Another chapter done. I'm about at the halfway point so far, but much drama remains to be done. I anticipate this Fanfict will have over 100,000 words by the time Zelda wraps up her adventures. Please leave a review or two, it just takes a few seconds.
Ultimatum
Leanne and Skye finished up their training session with the younger classes of the Knight Academy and were just leaving when an image appeared in front of them.
"Impa?" both said in shock.
The image of the Old Woman in the Sealed Grounds stood before them, flickering in and out, but still visible.
"Where is Zelda?" the Old Woman asked, not acknowledging what they had just called her.
"She's at the festivities, the Hylia Festival," Leanne said, her cheeks still rather pink. She was getting better at controlling how flustered she was around Skye, but it was still very difficult. "How are you projecting this far? It's nearly impossible to master."
"Never mind you," the Old Woman snapped, causing both to flinch. "The seal is weakening again. I fear it will break again within three days time, perhaps sooner. Only Zelda possesses the prowess and the power to push him back down again. She must train the Goddess Sword up as soon as possible and meet the Imprisoned in battle again."
She slowly faded from view, leaving both Shiekah in a panicked state. Skye began to pace back and forth, his mind racing.
"Will you stop it!" Leanne shouted.
"What?"
"You're making me nervous!" she retorted. "Now calm down and let's find Zelda. We have no choice."
The festivities were one I'll never forget. Now I knew who I harbored, I appreciated it in a different light. For years, I'd imagined Hylia looking down on us, gazing at the festival every year, proud of what her people had become. Now, she or the one who harbored her soul, walked among them. Even though we'd bonded (for a lack of a better term), it seemed like Hylia lived on dormant inside of me, an extra pack of emotions I could feel from time to time. I swore she felt pride at her people celebrating her, her sacrifice, everyone that I'd sacrificed, for Skyloft.
Never will I let a demon touch you, I solemnly promised the people of Skyloft. Something told me that I would need to uphold that promise one day.
"Zelda, Karane, finally," Leanne said, finding us as we were heading back to Mallara's for the night. "I have really bad news."
"That 'ould baa...be?," Karane asked, rubbing her eyelids. She slurred a few of her words, causing me to look at her with concern. W
"I'll tell you tomorrow," Leanne huffed, clearly frustrated.
"Hey wait," I said. But she was gone, vanished into the night. "What's up with her?"
"What's a 'eally 'ad 'ews?" Karane said, me having to clutch her shoulder from falling over. I thought I was the clumsy one. Clearly she'd had too much Pumpkin juice to drink.
"I'm not sUREEEE!" I screeched as my toe touched rock.
I my feet tied themselves up in knots and my knees buckled.
CRASH. My knees locked together, I spun around, the stars appearing above me, and I went down.
"Uh," I moaned, the world going in and out of focus. "Not again."
I glanced to my side to see Karane next to me, fast asleep. I wondered if some drinks she'd consumed contained something more potent than just pumpkin.
"Zelda, what the," Mallara said, helping me to my feet. I was woozy and nearly fell over again.
"I think it was the drink," I managed to get out as the results of everything that happened hit me all at once. For me, I'd abstained from drinking too much, but Karane had overdosed. I wondered if Luv had spiked it with one of her more dark 'potions'.
"Off to bed with you," Mallara said, leading me along. My head started pounding and I clutched at it. "This is going to be a long night."
Next day I finally learned what a hangover felt like. Problem was I never drank any alcohol there, or did I? In all honesty, I wasn't sure, until I looked outside. Everywhere, people were suffering the same symptoms I was. Mallara's neighbor, gathering herbs stopped now and then to pat her head, meaning she probably was having the same throbbing problem I was.
"Well, time to get up," Mallara said, coming over with two bottlefuls of what looked like to be heart potion. "We've got a big day ahead of us, if the young lady outside means anything."
"Young lady," I said, something in my brain connected to another. "Leanne?"
"You know her, she's says she must see you."
"I probably should. Does this cure hangover?"
"It should."
I shoved it down in one gulp, my eyes rolled back in their sockets and I was gone.
(Out of Zelda POV)
"Seriously!" Leanne shouted, turning the bottle upside down and watching a purple drop out of it. "This isn't Love Potion, it's Sleeping Potion."
"I'm sorry, it'll wear off."
"I don't have that type of time!" Leanne screeched, before clamping her hands over her mouth. She said way too much.
"Who are you?!" Mallara demanded, hands on her hips. "What's going on the Surface?"
Not seeing anyway out of this, Leanne resigned herself to the worse.
"Sit down, this might take a while."
"Zelda's what?" Mallara shouted, twenty minutes later.
"I know it's sounds crazy, but ask her yourself when she wakes up. Like I said, she must get down to the Surface as soon as possible. I'll wait until they wake up."
(Zelda's POV)
Now with a splitting headache, and a little dazed, I bounded into the kitchen with a haggard Karane in tow. I had managed to dress in my Knight Uniform, or so I thought. Skye looked away and Leanne gave me a disapproving look.
"You do realize you've got it a bit low and on backwards," Leanne pointed out to both of us. She moved up to us and began to help us dress properly. "Thankfully I'm a girl."
Once she had finished, she beckoned Skye back into the room.
"Come on girls, we've got a lot of work to do," Skye warned us very solemnly.
"So, what's the message?" I finally asked Leanne.
"Well, the Imprisoned is about to escape again and the Old Woman had estimated three days. Now it's two and a half due to your sleepover," Leanne said, trying to bury her frustration.
Panic engulfed me; we were in serious trouble.
"But, it's impossible, we've got to go to Eldin and Lanayru."
"Then make it possible," Leanne said, no sympathy in her voice at all.
We made it to the Surface as quickly as possible, but due to hangover and head splitting headaches we ended up not getting down there until the afternoon.
"It's exactly as Leanne said," the Old Woman said. "See for yourself."
Karane and I had checked where the Imprisoned had been forced into so many years ago. Black tendrils of smoke oozed from the pit, sending shivers down my spine. It looked exactly what it had when the Imprisoned had escaped the first time.
"We have no choice," I said to Karane. I groaned inwardly; this would mean going it alone would have to wait a bit longer. "We can't go back to Skyloft like we normally do."
"That's more like it," the Old Woman said. "Use your heads and figure it out. Only you Zelda can beat that thing back into the ground again, when not if, it breaks out again."
"So, we've got 48 hours to get two flames and get back here before homicidal maniac breaks out again," Karane summed up. "Let's get..."
"Karane we need..."
"Supplies."
We turned around to find Leanne and Skye behind us.
"Bedrolls, dried food from the Bazaar for two days, and some other things you forgot," Leanne bed tempered. I could feel it literally peeling off of her.
"What's up Leanne? You've been grumpy as of late," I said, taking the supplies from her, trying to cheer her up, but the look she gave us spoke volumes about how disappointed she was in us.
"Oh, nothing," she said in a tone that made it clear it was far from nothing. I made a mental note to get to the bottom of it.
"So, get to the Goddess Statue, travel to Lanaryu first, then to Eldin," Karane said. She pulled out something I had never seen before.
"What's this?"
"A map Fi helped me create," Karane said. "I hope to have a full map of the Surface soon."
"Good, don't get yourselves in trouble," Leanne said to us before leaving. Skye gave us a 'sorry' look before following her off.
"What's her problem?" I asked.
"That's Skye's problem," she said. "Now get going both of you, you've already lost enough time."
I HATE LANAYRU. Need I say it again. Hot, we drained our water like no other. Strangely all the Timestones we'd activated the last time we'd visited had somehow turned 'off', leaving little but the ruins of a once proud civilization to gawk at. It was a relief to hit the central Timestone to reactivate all the Ancient Robots, but I didn't count on what was happened next.
"Her Grace is back!" one of them shouted as soon as it came to life. "And Knight Rosalina as well."
I tried to hit the stone with my sword again, but we were stampeded by a swarm of them, all shouting things like 'Her Grace', 'Knight Rosalina', 'She's returned', and more stuff.
"Run!" I shouted.
"Hey, where are you going your Grace!" one of them shouted as Karane and I bolted towards the Temple of Time.
"There," Karane said, pointing towards a small opening in the wall. We ducked into the temple, with a mob of Ancient Robots behind us. I slipped through the gap and pulled Karane through behind me.
The terrain collapsed from under me and Karane and I tumbled down a massive sand dune and into an area that hadn't been effected by the Timestone. My knees, burning with pain quite familiar, when I arose, I clapped my hands to my mouth in surprise.
"What is this?" I said, stunned. Even this was something beyond anything either of us had seen before.
A massive facility, as big as Skyloft itself, rose from the desert sands. Full of machinery, frozen carts, and dead robots. It had docks like those Skyloftians had built in our lake, but these were easily a hundred times larger, extending out in a vast sand desert that stretched over the horizon. What looked like to be the remains of boats were laying preserved in the sand, the ropes that probably had once
"What do you reckon?" Karane asked, as awed as I was.
"Is there a stone around here?"
"Do you really want to activate it?"
"Do we have a choice? We need to find that flame soon, or else we're sunk.
Fi popped out of the sword; by now both of us were so used to it that it didn't surprise us anymore.
"This is the Ancient Port of Lanayru. At one point it exported ore to Hylia's Domain. I sense that hitting that Timeshift Stone next to you will reactivate the port."
She turned and directed our attention to the remains of an Ancient Robot laying on the end of one of the piers.
"My Mistress, you entrusted the Flame to one of your most closest allies. His name, according to my memory banks, was Skipper. Reactivate the Timestone to talk to him."
She vanished back into the sword. I hit a nearby stone with a groan and several nearby Robots and the entire port sprang to life.
"Her Grace," they all shouted.
I sent out a golden wave of energy meant just as a shield to protect us from being mobbed, but to my surprise I stunned all of them. At the end of the dock however, the one Fi called Skipper sprang to life. Larger than the rest, he wore a unique hat that clearly marked him (or it) out as one clearly with some authority. To our surprise, he began shivering the moment he saw us.
"Her Grace," he said bowing. "I'm so sorry. Nayru's Flame is gone."
"What?" I said, causing him to flinch. Sympathetic, Karane and I knelt by him and I gently pulled him towards me as he covered his eyes in fear. "Look, I'm not angry. Please tell us where it is. We need it."
"I was out sailing on the sea when pirates took it."
"Pirates," I said, remembering from Hylia's Memory certain images of Hylia cursing at and blasting some Ancient Robots that looked quite scary into smithereens. "Where are they?"
"Out on the giant sea," he said, pointing out towards what we saw as massive sand desert extending beyond the horizon.
"Where?"
"I don't know. The ship's invisible."
I groaned; could this day get any worse?
"What's going on Leanne?" Skye demanded, blocking her way. Both were now just outside the Ancient Temple with the tendrils of the Imprisoned's smoke rising behind them. Leanne looked away, when she finally met his eyes, they were full of sorrow and shame.
"I spilled too much to Mallara, I'm sorry," she said, refusing to meet his eyes. "I didn't find Zelda in time, I failed Nayru, I..I told Mallara everything. I've...screwed up so bad...I..."
She turned away from him as tears threatened to come out of her eyes. Skye took her into a hug; she gasped for breath and let herself just be held as she got her emotions under control. Once Skye let her go, she looked away to hide the blush on her cheeks.
"Hey, look, it'll be al..."
He turned to find a woman in blue standing in front of them. She was furious and by the way the plants and rocks around here were trembling of their own accord, Nayru looked ready to lash out. A wall of flames trapped the two Shiekah and Skye was sure the Blue Goddess had lost it.
"I think you aren't the only one in trouble."
"What's the worse you think she'll do," Leanne asked, cutting off circulation in his arm. She was gripping it so tightly, but Skye wasn't aware of it.
Naryu raised her hands, and they began to glow.
"Looks like we're going to be here a while."
"As long I'm here with you," Leanne flirted, before clamping her hand over her mouth. "Me and my big mouth."
Nayru lost it.
