Chapter 35: The Secret of Thyphlo
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Notes: In light of some recent accusations, I wanted to make a few things clear. I'd like to begin by assuring those of you that have offered helpful, constructive criticism that I really do take your feedback seriously and appreciate you taking the time to share your concerns.
I would also like to briefly explain a bit of the writing process for this story. I started writing a little over a year ago and had Chapter 25 finished before I started posting. Chapter 34 includes the scene that inspired the whole story to begin with, and I am currently working on Chapter 45. I say this to assure you that nothing any reviewer has said or suggested has had any influence on the overarching plot; in other words, I'm not writing to "play to the crowd," so to speak. My choices for the events in this story are not, and have never been, created for the purpose of getting a reaction out of you, nor do I change my plans for the story based on how people are reacting to it. I write because it's therapeutic, and it's something I enjoy, not because I want attention or power over others. I post my stories on the off-chance that they might be therapeutic for others as well, or that someone else might enjoy them.
Please know that I appreciate each and every one of you, and I truly respect your opinions and advice. I have thoughtfully considered every piece of criticism that I have received, and if I did not end up making changes based on that criticism, I've explained why, and I am open to further discussing your thoughts if you found my response inadequate.
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"...think he's comin' to…"
"...dumb kid… think… could save anyone?"
"...much that sword would sell for…"
Link awakened to a splitting headache, his head pounding in time with his heart. He was lying on something that felt about as soft as the beds in Goron City - a poorly made cot of some sort. Groaning softly, he raised a heavy hand to his face and blinked blearily, slowly adjusting to the dim light of his… cell?
An armored soldier walked past, the butt end of his spear colliding dully with the wooden flooring with each clack of his boots. A row of iron bars reaching upwards separated him from Link, disorienting him further. What in Nayru's name…?
He fingered the side of his face that hurt the most, wincing at the warmth of the swollen, sensitive skin. Hesitantly he pushed himself into a sitting position, grimacing as his vision smeared all around him, dark muddled browns blurring into more dark muddled browns. The cot he sat on, a small pail of water, the Master Sword, and a dingy hole smelling of sulfur were the only other occupants of his cell, illuminated by a small, barred window high up the wall behind him; looking around he could see similar windows in each of the cells alongside his, as well as across the small corridor where the guard was patrolling. Through his window he caught a glimpse of bare branches clawing upwards, with the spires of Hyrule Castle piercing the sky behind them.
"I'm… in Castle Town Prison," he murmured, dread coursing coldly through his blood at the realization. Din curse it - I've really done it this time.
"Home sweet home," a low voice chuckled, and Link turned in surprise to see that the prison's other residents were pressed against the bars of their cells, straining to get a glimpse at him. They were not exactly the ragged, unkempt men he would have expected to find in prison; rather, they looked just like ordinary people. Their clothes were certainly worn and a little tattered, but not falling to pieces, and they looked relatively well-groomed.
"Watcha lookin' at, kid?" one man grunted. He wore a large coat over a simple tunic and trousers; his dark black beard didn't look as scraggly or out of control as Link would have thought.
He shrugged. "I don't know. You're just… you don't…"
A thin, reedy man laughed loudly, leaning against the side of his cell. "You expected a bunch of wild lunatics, is that it? Well, sorry. We're just as sane as you are."
"So how'd you get in here?" a third prisoner asked, rubbing his dripping bulbous nose and sniffing.
Link winced remembering it, resting his head back against the wall. "I… shouted at the King."
The thin man gave a slight cough. "Erm… I take it back. I'd say that makes us a bit more sane than you, actually."
The first man that had spoken snorted in disgust. "So they give you some special sword and it goes straight to your head, eh? Some hero."
Link felt his cheeks heat up. "That's not it - he was… I didn't… w-we had a disagreement about his daughter."
"Ooooh," the men cooed collectively, exchanging knowing looks.
"We get it now, kid," the snotty man chuckled. "Pretty ambitious - his daughter!"
"What in Nayru's name were you thinking?" the first man demanded.
"You don't understand," Link sighed, his resolve fading with every passing moment. "He believes she's a failure because she hasn't unlocked her powers. I disagree. After protecting her for months it was clear to me that she was trying harder than -"
"Pfft." The thin man waved his hand dismissively. "'Trying' doesn't save a kingdom. We're with the King on this one. Not on everything, mind, or we wouldn't be here, but on that - he's solid. That girl's gonna doom us all."
"Don't give her all the credit," the first man sneered. "You saw the sword - you all know who this kid is. If you're dumb enough to land yourself here, lad, well… I don't exactly see how you're any use to us either."
The other men murmured in agreement. "And that's just it," one of them added in a whisper that echoed loudly through the prison. "Just look at 'im - nothing but skin and bones. I'd heard people say he was small, but this…"
"And now he's in here," another added. "Talked back to the King, no less. He don't even believe in what he's fightin' for!"
"Wonder if they'll choose someone else after this. Some actual soldier, not some random urchin."
Link inhaled deeply, doing his best to shut out their voices, forcing his thoughts back to his predicament. So now what? The King put me in prison. So there's next to no chance I'll get to return as Zelda's knight, ever. In fact, I doubt I'll ever see her again. And Choice? I'll have to leave her, too. If they don't kill me for the things I said.
I shouldn't have lost my temper.
Guilt sat sourly in his stomach and he turned his gaze to the Master Sword lying in its sheath at the base of his bed. Locked in a small enclosed space, no one around to get incidentally hurt… it was the perfect place to practice.
And it's not as if I have anything else to do but brood over what'll happen to me. Might as well be productive.
He drew in a trembling breath, climbing to his feet and ignoring the pulsing of his aching head as he grabbed the Master Sword from its sheath. He closed his eyes, his mouth going dry, and entered his nightmares.
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Darkness. Darkness everywhere - surrounding him. His heart raced with terror and his mind whirled with confusion and pain.
They were gone - he was alone. He didn't even know how it happened. One moment they were there, and the next… the next he was on his own, running for his life.
An angry screech caught his attention. Link whirled around, glancing fearfully all around. He wanted nothing more than to curl up into a little ball and cry and wait for his mother and father to come and find him. They always did. Always! Monsters or no monsters!
But somehow, deep within, instinct told him that waiting would get him killed this time.
And he didn't want that.
Light pierced the darkness around him. Two golden pinpricks slowly drawing closer, along with the slither of a scaly tail sliding over grass and leaves. Link whimpered, taking a shaking step back.
More pairs of golden lights flickered into existence, and his back collided with something hard - a boulder, or the wall of an ancient, ruined building. The blackness was so deep, he couldn't tell which.
With an angry snarl, the lizalfos charged. With a flick of his wrist he brought the Master Sword up to bear, blocking its attack with enough strength to send it reeling. The distant twang of an arrow - he dropped to his knees as it whizzed over his head, inches from where his chest had been. Turning, he charged into the thick blackness, listening intently for the creak of the bowstring to recur -
There. He whirled around and spotted a pair of yellow eyes squinting at him in the darkness. On instinct he leapt to the side just as it released its next arrow at point-blank range; he slashed towards it, watching the light leave its eyes as its blood spilled free into the grass.
A sudden explosion that knocked him off of his feet, sending him crashing into a nearby tree. Flames erupted all around him and he turned in terror to see a guardian bearing down on him, its eye swirling like a whirlpool as its head swivelled around. It found him in seconds as he pushed himself back to his feet. A high-pitched beeping filled the air and his heart lurched; he knew what was coming. He broke into a fierce run, sprinting in a circle around the machine and feeling the heat of its laser singe the back of his neck as it fired.
He skidded to a stop and whirled around, hacking at its segmented legs with the Master Sword even as it skittered out of his reach. Blue sparks flew. He darted after it, leaping high into the air and stabbing the Master Sword through its eye. The faint whirring that accompanied its every move died down, and blue sparks scrambled across its surface before it collapsed, the light fading from its body.
And then his ears caught the sound of more whiring. He whirled around, only to hear the familiar skittering of guardian legs again from behind, nearer and nearer. His pulse accelerated as he held the Master Sword ready, waiting in dread for his enemies to make themselves known, but only darkness awaited him. Until, suddenly, like the striking of a match, lights flared into existence all around him.
He was surrounded. Guardians stood on every side, barring every possible escape route. They aimed all at once, red targets dancing across his chest. A flash of light; he screamed, and then -
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He opened his eyes, heaving for breath, stumbling back against the cell wall. With a trembling hand he clutched at his heaving chest, his heart racing so fast it was nearly painful. He blinked several times, shaking his head, trying to clear his mind. Not real. It's not real. The guardians fight with us, not against us. It's not real.
He sheathed the Master Sword and sank down on shaking legs to sit on his cot. The prison was strangely quiet; looking around he saw that the cells nearest to him were no longer occupied. Confused, he stared deeper into the darkening cells, realizing that the prisoners had all been moved to the same cell - the one farthest away from his. Every man was studying him with wide, fearful eyes.
"W-we promised to behave if they moved us away," one man explained with a tremoring voice, noticing his perplexed stare. With a shudder he turned away.
Link swallowed tightly. They're afraid of me. He had never stopped to consider what it must look like from the outside when he entered one of his practice sessions; he could understand that it would be disturbing. And perhaps sound terrifying, as well. Do I scream when I inevitably die? Do I shout?
No wonder they're frightened. No wonder they think I'm mad.
With a heavy sigh, he unbuckled his baldric and let the Master Sword fall to the ground; he slumped down on the cot, letting his head flop to the old, creaky mattress. Nothing to do but wait - wait for my inevitable demise. The King'll finally have my head now.
He didn't realize he had fallen asleep until he heard rapid, pounding footsteps hammering closer and closer. Instinctively he shot up, his hand flying back to his shoulder where his sword usually hung, his heart jumping a little when he found that it wasn't there.
"You won't be so quick to wake up in a couple of days, I promise."
Link's heart leapt to his throat and he gulped, facing the door to his cell. The owner of the footsteps he had heard stood there, silhouetted by a lit torch in the corridor - night had fallen while he was asleep. "Captain."
"Why'd you do it, boy?" Janin asked wearily. Link didn't know if he was relieved that he seemed disappointed instead of angry - he wasn't certain which was worse.
"Do… what?" he asked meekly, getting to his feet.
The Captain sighed. "Don't play games - you know. You've gotten much too involved in the Princess' life - you spoke out against your King, for Din's sake! This is never what I thought would come from you. I thought you were better, so much better, than this." His lip curled in disgust, and he shook his head.
Link avoided his gaze, shame simmering in his gut. "I… I wish I could honestly apologize. But… the truth is… I don't regret anything I did. I believe it was for the best." Except for losing my temper at the King.
Janin laughed humorlessly. "Which is just proof that you've failed me." He scowled, a deep furrow creasing his brow. "Do you know that feeling where you know you've done everything right, and yet you find everything falling to pieces where you stand?" He snorted. "Of course you do - just look at you. You believe you're doing the right thing, but here you are. Well, I'm feeling exactly the same."
Link stared at him, confused and… and touched. It was almost as if the Captain was trying to comfort him somehow. He's never done that before. His heart warmed; the man who raised him had never once reached out to him in this way. "...Sir?"
"My life is centered around the defense of this kingdom," Janin sighed, leaning a forearm against the cell door. "And it's soldiers who defend this kingdom. So my goal was to find a way to create the perfect warrior - obedient and highly skilled. My theory is that this can only be achieved when the subject begins training as early as possible. As soon as they can walk, ideally." He growled in frustration, one hand curling into a fist. "Goddesses, I was so close… thirteen years wasted…"
The warmth that had encased his heart fled rapidly, replaced by a tight sense of foreboding that seemed to constrict his chest. Link stepped closer. "Sir, what… what are you talking about? Is that… what you did with… me?"
"It's what I tried to do," Janin muttered. "Clearly I've failed. Or, more accurately, you've failed. You're too much like your parents - I didn't get to you soon enough."
Link's blood ran cold. "My p-parents, sir? You… you knew them?"
"I met them once or twice," the Captain admitted. "Obsessed, reckless, and much too drawn to a life of peace." He spat the word as if it were a foul taste. "I suppose I'd better explain from the beginning, eh? I didn't meet them until after I met you, believe it or not. I had been searching for months, for a child to serve my purposes. I had probably travelled to every orphanage in the kingdom - no parent would willingly hand over their young one to a life of combat so early, so those were my only options. And they were wretches - small, weak, either too nervous or too unruly to possibly listen to a word I gave.
"When I returned to Castle Town, I was just in time to witness something extraordinary. An infant, untended by its mother as she gossipped with some other women, accidentally provoked a Cucco, prompting it to attack and call its fellows. Its mother didn't even notice, but a young boy in the crowd did. He got to the babe before I could, scooped it into his arms, and ran inside the nearest building. The Cuccos soon lost interest, and the boy emerged, handing the babe back to its mother before searching the crowds for his own.
"That boy was you. Barely three years old and already strong and courageous. I knew then that you were the one who would prove my theory - you were perfect for my… experiment. I followed you across the market as you searched for your parents, eventually running into your desperate father.
"They were researchers, your parents. And hopelessly bad at what they did. They studied the Zonai tribe - a fool's errand, seeing as they disappeared so inexplicably and left so little behind. They were obsessed. But they loved you, and I knew that I could not take you with their consent."
A sharp pain rooted itself deep in Link's chest and he took a shaking step forward, hanging on the the Captain's every word in abject horror.
They loved me. They loved me. They loved me. I had two parents, and they loved me.
"So I came up with a plan - a rather ingenious one, if I do say so myself. Your parents were barely scraping by financially; they did not have a home to return to and sheltered in shacks for travellers on the side of the road. Introducing myself as a wealthy lord of the kingdom, I told them I would fund them beyond their wildest dreams if they would but survey Thyphlo Ruins. They accepted - how could they not? They spoke of their dreams for you, how they would provide you with all the comforts life could offer, how they would raise you and cherish you and lead you to become just like them - a scholar. An utter waste of potential."
Link had begun to shiver. His pulse was hammering much too fast; his jaw was slack with disbelief, and tears burned in his eyes. He could hardly process what was happening, mentally pleading that his growing fears would not prove true. Merciful Goddesses above, please, no!
Janin eyed him critically for a moment and shook his head before continuing. "There was very little I needed to do afterwards. The monsters hiding in the darkness attacked shortly after you and your parents entered the ruins; that was when I made my move. I could not allow any harm to come to you, of course, but seeing as you were with your parents I knew it would be a tricky matter.
"Their deaths were not merciful or quick," he admitted with a grimace; at his words Link couldn't stop a hoarse, anguished cry from escaping his throat. Janin ignored him. "I feared the worst, that you had died as well, but I never heard your screams. No… when I reached your parents' overturned wagon I found you, scraped and bruised and utterly shell-shocked. But you were wielding a lizalfos' boomerang, and the bodies of several monsters lay scattered around you. When I arrived you could only stare at your parents' mangled bodies, illuminated by my torch. In the moment I thought it best to let you stare, let your mind begin to grow accustomed to the notion of violence, and in the end it worked out in my favor."
Link could feel tears running down his cheeks from his wide eyes. His mouth was painfully dry; images burned through his mind - images of death, blood, bone, gut. Images that haunted him mercilessly.
"However, in the weeks that followed, I feared that I had ruined you. You didn't speak. You barely ate. You suffered from severe nightmares whenever you tried to sleep. You jumped at every shadow, every sudden noise; you spent most of every day crying instead of listening to my instruction.
"But you know the rest - eventually you came around, devoted yourself to battle." He sighed heavily, resting his head against the cell door. "I thought you had locked your heart away forever. I thought I had won - created the perfect soldier. Yet here you are. Soft. Pathetic."
"Murderer," Link whispered brokenly. He couldn't breathe - he could take only shallow, rapid, panicked breaths that did not grant him nearly enough air. He felt as if he were falling, tumbling, spiralling downwards into a dark abyss that squeezed and tugged and twisted his mind, searing him with truth like fire. Slowly he slumped forward until his hands gripped the bars of his cell, and he held them tightly in white-knuckled fists, as if they were the only things in the world keeping him from collapsing in a puddle of broken thoughts and torn heartstrings.
"I didn't murder anyone," Janin reminded him coolly. "I simply offered your parents money and a job. And then when they were gone I even ensured that their research made it out into the light of day."
Link froze, his pulse racing as he remembered the peaceful moments he'd had with the Princes just earlier that day, before everything fell to pieces. "The book," he whispered. He shut his eyes tightly, straining his mind, trying to remember. "Cleun and Rylla. Of… of Fural." His heart ached at the discovery, a pain so fierce that he had to fight to resist the urge to claw at his chest. "They were my parents. I… I am Link of Fural. Not of Thyphlo." A tremor went through him, and he stared at the Captain desperately. "You knew that - you knew! Why did you lie to me? Why did you bind me to that awful place?"
Janin's lip curled. "A mighty warrior deserves a mighty origin," he growled. "Simply hearing that you hailed from arguably the darkest place in the kingdom would strike fear into the hearts of your enemies. It would give you an aura of otherworldliness. People would fear you. They would begin to think that you are something more than human."
Link cringed. "Or less," he croaked, remembering how he was treated at the hands of the other knights. And all along, it was because of you! He shook his head slowly, wiping away a tear as it fell from his eye. His innards ached. "I trusted you," he whispered. "I looked up to you. But you're the reason my parents died. You're the reason I'm rejected by my own comrades! It - all of it - it was all because of you!"
The Captain lunged forward and grabbed a fistful of Link's shirt, sneering and yanking him closer to the bars. "It was meant to make you strong! Unbreakable! Heartless, merciless, yet loyal to me and to the kingdom! And yet here we are! Here is the proof that despite all my efforts, you failed! Here you are behind bars for talking treason about the King right to his face! And all for what? You let your emotions rule you too easily, boy, and it has proven to be your undoing! Do you truly think that she would actually return your favor? She's royalty! She hated you just like everyone else!"
Overcome by his rage, he jerked his fist forward, slamming Link's head into the bars before releasing his shirt. Link stumbled backwards with a cry, stinging hot pain burning through his nose as sparks exploded across his vision. Disoriented, he lost his balance and crashed back against the cot in the corner of his cell. Blood spurted from his nostrils, falling into his mouth, suffocating him; quickly he cupped one hand over his nose and spat the blood from his lips, gulping lungfuls of stale air as he tried to calm his whirring mind.
His eyes watered; he wished they wouldn't, but it was just… it was just too much. He had never felt anguish like this - the grief of knowing the truth of his parents' deaths coupled with the acrid sting of Janin's betrayal and the emotional hurt that came from bearing a physical blow from the man who raised him.
The Captain shook his head in despair. "Your tears prove it," he sighed. "You're weak. Pathetic. I'm beginning to believe now that you never could have been enough - I started off wrong right from the beginning, in choosing you. And now your parents have died in vain - I had them killed solely to gain access to you. And now this has happened."
Without another word he turned on his heel and marched swiftly down the corridor, vanishing into the shadows. Link heard a heavy door slam shut and realized that he was alone once more.
He didn't know what to think as he dragged himself back onto his cot, tilting his head upwards to slow the flow of blood from his broken nose; his eyes watered.
All that he knew was that he hurt, everywhere. His soul felt as if it had been trodden on by a herd of stampeding horses and then shredded. He blinked tears from his eyes and curled his arms around himself, shuddering slightly. In his mind Janin's words replayed over and over and over again; he could see the mangled bodies of his parents gory and glistening in the torchlight and he felt again the terror and agony of that terrible night.
Failure. Weak. Pathetic. How could she love you? They died in vain.
They loved you… they died in vain… they loved you…
