Howdy. As usual, it's been a real humdinger. Sick kid, sick husband, too much to do at work. At least I've got my health at the moment.
How are y'all? How is everyone doing? How is everyone feeling? Drop me a line and let me know how you are. We're all in this together.
I'd like to toss a few shout-outs today. One, let's all give high fives and cheers to LateToTheParty, whose grad student defense is tomorrow. Good luck, Late! Let us know in the comments how it goes!
Also, shout out to my forever-soulmate-bestie CM, who deserves lots of hugs for being a general badass. Once you're done reading my trash, go read her trash, and drop her sweet reviews. She deserves them.
And now, for TiraChan 31, who ordered allllll the way from majestic South Korea, the land of the morning calm: a tale about two souls, one confused boy, and one particularly lucky princess.
Order up!
Drabble XI: Of Two Minds
There were several problems with being a Legendary Hero.
One: You started off as Nobody, and then something (inevitably) went awry with your friends, and in the course of trying to save their sorry butts, you got sucked into a bigger mess, and when you came out the other side you were bogged down with all sorts of titles and legends when, really, you'd just been trying to get your goat (or whatever) back. To go from being Nobody to being Somebody was disorienting. There were suddenly rules, and expectations, and public appearances, and parades and feasts (granted, the feasts weren't all bad, once you took out the boring toasts) and a dizzying number of pretty women throwing themselves at you.
And that was another thing. Once you were Somebody, all your interactions became a lot more complicated. Was flirting still flirting, or was flirting something other than flirting? And if it was something other than flirting but it was disguised as flirting, what was the thing that was being disguised as flirting and why and what was he supposed to do about it? It was enough to make a fellow go cross-eyed, really.
But the worst part— hands down, without a doubt, the most annoying, exhausting, headache-inducing thing, was the Voice. The damned whisper that started the second you pulled that stupid sword out of its stupid rock and never, ever shut up, even after you stashed the damn thing away.
'Don't disrespect the blade,' the Voice lectured, sounding weary. 'We forged it.'
"We did no such thing," Link growled under his breath. "We need to get our head checked."
'I've told you, it's perfectly normal,' the Voice responded, still sounding put-upon. 'Our blade unlocks that which was within us all along. Each Hero gains access to the collective memories and knowledge of all his predecessors. We are many minds in one, many memories in one, many souls in one soul.'
"And why should I trust a made-up voice in my head, anyway?" Link kicked a clod of dirt. He was ambling around the gardens— the very cold, very empty gardens, where hopefully nobody would overhear him talking to himself.
'You listen to Us when it suits you,' the Voice said, sounding a little surly, a little smug. 'Remember the moblins?'
"Well—"
'And the bokoblins?'
"But—"
'And that sticky situation with the giant spider—'
"Yes, but—"
'There you have it.' The Voice sounded satisfied.
Link scowled. "You're too good at arguing."
'We've had many lifetimes of practice.' When Link didn't respond, the Voice gave him the equivalent of a gentle mental nudge. 'At least We're on your side. We can help you out-argue anyone you like.'
Link perked up at that. "What about the princess?"
'Ah.' The Voice went suspiciously silent, as it always did whenever the topic of the princess (and bane of Link's existence) came up.
"What's this, then?" Link gleefully shoved his hands in his pocket. "You always seem to clam up when she comes up. What's the matter? Cat's got your tongue?"
"Cat's got whose tongue?"
Link spun so quickly he nearly slipped in the graveled garden pathway. Behind him stood a pretty, petite figure with a rose-colored cowl over her head of sunlight-blonde hair. Wide, dewy emerald green eyes regarded him trustingly from beneath that cowl. The tip of her pert little nose was pink with the cold, and she was smiling expectantly, as though waiting for Link to let her in on the joke.
The princess. Her.
'Good luck. You're on your own,' the Voice said in Link's skull. 'We can't help you with this one.'
"I was just— uh, Princess, hello—" he dropped a sloppy, awkward bow, all graceless fumbling. "I was quoting a play, um, that I saw, uh, once. It was, um, funny."
She'd raised one delicate, gloved hand to cover her smile, and Link wondered how un-Heroic it would be of him to turn and bolt.
"What play?" She tilted her head to the side, regarding him with pure delight.
"Dunno, it was just some traveling players, not important, anyway, hi, how are, um, what are, um… hi?"
That was the problem with princesses. Their proximity seemed to give Link verbal diarrhea. Well, this princess did. Was the condition unique to her, or…?
'Not unique to her,' the Voice said glumly. 'They're all like that.'
"I'd hoped you might accompany me on a ride," the princess said. "It's a bit brisk, but we haven't had a sunny day in some time. My father insists I need an escort, but I told him I'd be perfectly safe with you." She cocked her head to the side, shooting him a look that was absolutely irresistible. "What say you? Please, Link?"
"Uh, sure," his stupid mouth said before his brain could tell it to shut up. Mentally, he began to curse. Stupid, idiot, dummy…
'Behold, Our sole weakness.' The Voice sounded even gloomier now. 'Blonde princesses.'
That one bore more examination, but Link didn't have the time to have the mental conversation, and he didn't want to risk lapsing into using his mouth-words instead of his head-words anyway, so he decided to try to ignore the Voice… well, ignore it as best as he could, anyway.
The princess was staring at him expectantly, and Link realized she was waiting for him to offer her his arm. Blushing and vaguely stammering, he did so, and she looped her fingers through his elbow. Even though Link knew it was a physical impossible, he was still absolutely certain he could feel the heat of her touch through the layers of her gloves, his thick coat, and his undershirt.
"Have you given much thought to my father's offer?" Zelda asked as they walked in the direction of the stable. Link, who was distracted by the simultaneous sensations of her hand on his arm and her skirts brushing against his leg as they walk, did the mental-equivalent of a multi-cart pileup while he frantically scrambled to remember which offer, specifically, the king had made.
"Um, uh," he stuttered. "The thing with the oranges, or the thing about the goats, or—"
"No, silly." She laughed— was she laughing with him or at him, he thought in a panicked flush— but a squeeze of his arm made that laughter come off more affectionate than disdainful. "Generalship of the military. It's the traditional reward, you know."
The Voice gave something that sounded suspiciously like a snort.
"I— uh— I mean, I'm not sure that I'm, um, qualified." At that delicately arched brow, Link babbled on, ever-determined to shame himself, apparently. "I mean, that is, I'm mightily good at walloping nasties with a sword all on my lonesome, but I don't know how to, you know, do the troops thing, or the battle formations thing, or the, um, supply whatchems."
'Eloquently spoken as always,' the Voice said sardonically. 'Truly, you may be the most articulate of us yet.'
"Oh, shut up," Link hissed. Then he immediately quailed. The princess was regarding him with alarm.
Well, his foot was already in his mouth. Might as well stick it down even further. Maybe if he was lucky it'd come all the way out the other end.
"I'm talking to myself," Link said. He ducked his head. "I'm not good with the manners, y'know."
"I know. It's part of your charm." Her voice was warm, and was it his imagination or had she taken a step towards him?
'It's not your imagination.' The Voice sounded very, very resigned now. 'Princesses. They're unstoppable. Ganon could learn a thing or two from them.'
Link cleared his throat in an attempt to not retort aloud to that particularly idiotic comment.
"What d'you think I should do, highness? Should I do it?"
"Well, Link, I think if you were to say yes, Hyrule would be lucky to have you," she said. As they rounded the corner towards the stable, she looked down demurely. "But you've already sacrificed quite a lot, and I would hate to ask more of you than you're willing to give."
As usual, Link's mouth spoke before his brain could catch up. "Whaddaya mean, princess?"
She laughed. It was a sweet, musical sound, and it made Link temporarily stupid, just as it always did. Just as everything about her did. Really, he wasn't particularly vain, but objectively speaking he was clever— it had been brains, not brawn, after all, that led to the freeing of Hyrule— but around her, he felt and acted every inch the simple country bumpkin that (by all rights) he ought to have been.
'Don't be too hard on yourself,' the Voice told him. 'One of us was so overwhelmed by her that he didn't speak a word for six months. It took her force-feeding him every nice meal she could think of to get him to unlock his jaw and admit he was intimidated.' The Voice snorted. 'Some brave champion We were.'
"Oh, Link," the princess said, and now she sounded both tired and amused, "after all we've been through, can't you at least call me by my name?"
"I—" he started, but then the hair on the back of his neck stood up. Every instinct and reflex kicked in, even as the Voice roared in his head, 'DUCK!'
Link grabbed the princess and lunged to the side, towing her out of the way just in the nick of time. The door they'd been standing before exploded open, wood splintering, as a runaway horse pelted across where they'd just been standing.
"Are you alright?" Link asked urgently as the stablehands went rushing after the horse. Zelda's green eyes were wide, her cheeks flushed, her lips parted with surprise. Her cowl had fallen back, and her incredible golden hair was splayed across the ground.
The ground. He'd tackled her.
As though he'd been burned, Link scrambled up, then held a hand out to Zelda. She took it, mystified, and allowed him to pull her to her feet. As always, it felt too, too good touching her. Those same instincts that had guided Link to pull Zelda out of harm's way were screeching again, clamoring that he was going to get in Really Really Big Trouble if he kept this up.
"I'm fine," Zelda said. She sounded a little breathless. "You've saved me. Yet again." A little of that intelligence came back into her eyes and she smiled, amused at her own expense, and Link felt his heart flip-flop over in his chest.
'They're all like that,' the Voice reminded him, sounding both weary and delighted. 'Damned irresistible, our princess.'
"Good, um," Link said. "Good," he said again. "I think I'll just, uh, go catch that horse before it can knock someone else down."
The horse in question had managed to trap itself in the courtyard they'd just crossed, and was now rearing and screeching at its handlers. Without a thought for his own safety, Link strode forward. He felt that knowledge, that instinct, take over him as it so often had through his journey, and a moment later he was leaping onto the horse's bare back, clinging with his knees, waiting it out as it bucked and thrashed. He didn't know how he knew how to do this, he just… did.
'One of us thought it was fun to tame wild horses,' the Voice supplied helpfully. 'Made a hobby of it.'
But Link ignored the voice. Finally, the horse settled down beneath him. Link soothed it, rubbing its neck, reminding it that it was safe, that he wasn't a monster that had leapt onto its back. Steering the creature with his knees, he turned to look at the stablehands.
"What happened?" He sounded much more official, much more intelligent, than he did every time he tried to talk to the princess. It was annoying that the only times he came across as competent was when he wasn't thinking about it.
"Horse spooked," said one of the stablehands, looking ashen. "I'm so sorry, Sir."
"Keep a better guard on your wilder horses," Link instructed. "The princess could have been harmed."
He sat on the horse, which stood, heaving but otherwise placid, while the stablehands bridled and hobbled it. Once Link was sure the beast wouldn't go charging off to put Zelda in danger again, he leapt off, then strode back over to the woman in question. She was looking thoughtful now.
"I do believe I'm no longer in the mood for riding, Link," she said. Her face was still bloodless, save for two rosy splotches on her cheeks. "Do sit with me in the garden for a minute, instead?"
"Of course," Link said, not thinking about her or his words or anything other than her health and welfare. "You're sure you're alright?"
She hummed something. As they retraced their steps back to the garden where she'd first stumbled on Link talking to himself, Link's thoughts whirled. For once, though, the Voice was mercifully— unmercifully?— silent.
At last, they'd reached the royal family's private garden, and the princess indicated that they should sit down together on a bench surrounded by holly shrubs.
"Link, do tell me," she said, folding her hands in her lap and looking down. "Do you dislike me?"
"Unf?"
"It's only that you seem so uncomfortable around me. After everything, I thought… I'd hoped…" She was fidgeting now, and when she spoke, her voice was very, very small. "Do you dislike me?"
Link exhaled slowly.
"Not at all," he said. "It's just, pardon me for saying so, but you're scary."
"Scary?" That was surprising enough that her head popped right up and she regarded him with dismay. "Scary? You, the bearer of the Triforce of Courage, find me scary?!"
"Yep." He nodded emphatically. "You're all, y'know, royal, 'n princessy, 'n before I stumbled outta my village in the woods, I never even dreamt I'd so much as see you, 'cept maybe as part of a parade or somethin'." Oh, he was nervous, and his rural accent was worse now. "I'm just another bumpkin. A bumpkin with a mighty nice sword, but a bumpkin still."
"Link." She laid a hand on his arm, and again, Link would've sworn her touch seared him straight to the bone, leaving nothing but char and longing in its wake. "You're no more 'just another bumpkin' than I am 'just another princess.' We are each of us far more than what we ought to be." She tilted her hand, and Link could see it, the faint mark of the triforce shining through her glove. "We're united by this, after all. You are my only equal, as I am yours."
Link considered her words for a moment, then shook his head.
"You're too smart for me, princess," he said ruefully. "You've got a point, as always."
"I told you," she said. "Call me Zelda, please. After all, we're equals."
"Your royal father will lop my heroic little bumpkin head off," Link observed. "And then who'll save you from runaway horses?"
"Nonsense," Zelda said, patting his arm fondly. "Father likes you plenty. And— oh, dear, speaking of whom."
An attendant had bustled out— a courier, Link hazily identified— which meant that the king had likely sent for the princess. Zelda acknowledged the courier with a nod, then turned to give Link a last, soulful look.
"Won't you join me for dinner, at least, since we were deprived of our outing?"
Well, in the face of those soulful green eyes, Link could hardly say no, could he?
"I'd be delighted, highness," he said. She smiled, satisfied, then stood.
"Very well, then," she said to the courier. "What is it that my father wants this time?"
"Highness, it's about your recent appointment as head of the Temple—" the courier started babbling. Link didn't really listen as they wandered off. He was too preoccupied with watching her entrancing form glide away, and puzzling.
What was it about her?
'Do you want the answer, or should we let you figure it out for yourself?' the Voice asked.
"I'm sure you'll tell me, whether I ask you to or not," Link muttered. "You're not very good at keeping your thoughts to yourself."
'No need to be insulting.' The Voice sounded vaguely offended. 'There are three constants throughout time. The first is the evil with the power. The second is a brave boy with the sword. The third is a wise princess who brims with the blood and power of a Goddess.'
"Right," Link agreed. "We're tied together by fate, all three of us." It was a glum thought: Spending lifetime after lifetime after lifetime fighting against that. But when he'd said as much to the Voice in the past, the Voice had sounded, if anything, delighted by the opportunity to 'kick some pig butt again.'
'Strong ties bind us,' the Voice said. 'Evil hates and desires to divide and consume. In the face of hatred, only one power can stand up.'
Link felt his stomach sinking.
"I don't think I need you to name it," he said. "This isn't some sort of… soulmate thing, is it?"
'To call it a "soulmate thing" is a vast reduction.' The Voice sounded wearily resigned. 'We are her heart. She is our soul. In every era of calamity, there is a princess, and she always gets her hero.'
"What do you mean, 'gets?'" Link asked, not sure he wanted to know the answer.
The Voice was quiet for a moment, as though it was turning over its words.
'Let Us put it this way,' it said. 'Generalship is only the first traditional reward. If you hang around long enough, she'll try to plonk a crown on your head. And you'll let her.'
Alarm trilled up and down Link's spine, accompanied by a delighted sort of awe.
"Crown? Like… like… like a king?"
'Very determined, our princess,' the Voice said with a weary, resigned sort of delight. 'She chases us to the ends of the earth. One of Us tried to run off to a land where the moon was falling, but she managed to get her hooks into Us even there. And don't even get us started about the princess who disguised herself as a pirate to chase us down.'
Link palmed his face. Somehow, none of this surprised him.
"Well. That's not terrifying at all," Link said. "Have we tried becoming a mountaintop hermit?"
'Yep.'
"Unknown goatherd?"
'That, too.'
And then, because he just had to ask the question: "Is it really that awful?"
That startled the Voice. He could tell.
'Is what awful?' the Voice asked. 'Loving her? Being loved by her?' It warmed in his mind, fond and delighted and now Link could tell just how old that Voice was, just how many times it— they— he had lived, with a Zelda chasing him through each. 'No. It's the greatest thing in the world.'
"Then why…?"
'Why do we run?' The Voice gave the mental equivalent of a shrug. 'Not all of us do. Each of us decides on our own how we want to woo our princess.'
Link chewed on that one for a minute.
"Is that why you won't help me with her?"
'Partially.' The Voice sounded like it was near laughter now. 'We know all her buttons. We could give you the edge you want, but we won't.'
Link pouted at that. "Why not?"
'Because, oh daft one,' the Voice said. 'You know it as well as We do: That's not how this game is played.' The Voice was definitely laughing now. 'We won't let you cheat in the pursuit of the woman We love. This is one quest you'll have to complete on your own.'
"Great," Link muttered. "Just great."
The Voice retreated, leaving Link to his ruminations. Fall in love with Zelda? Well, he was probably halfway there already— after all, she was terrifying because she was so easy to like, to lose his wits around. What would it be like to open up to her, to have her open up to him…?
Link pursed his lips, thinking. Zelda— his Zelda, this Zelda, the one in this life— seemed to be enjoying pursuing him. So he'd let her chase. He'd run her a gauntlet. And then, when she least expected it, he'd pounce.
Yes, Link thought, and he could feel the Voice nodding along inside of him as he formulated his plan. In this, they were in unison: the princess would lay her little siege, and once she declared victory, he would kindly inform her that, in fact, he'd been the one wooing her all along.
With that, Link stood up, satisfied. He needed to go find some flowers, and he knew just the hothouse where he could get some, though he was certain he'd have to fetch some ridiculous object or other in exchange. Well, it didn't matter. It was all part of the game, and it would be worth it in the end.
He was sure of it.
Within him, he felt the Voice give a little nod of satisfaction, as he had occasionally throughout Link's journey, whenever he'd done something particularly clever or upstanding or kind. And Link was certain, absolutely certain, that— at least in this one thing— at last, he and the Voice were of one mind.
It was time to woo one terrifying, adorable, astonishingly clever princess.
Link couldn't wait.
And we're done! That came out quite a bit longer than I'd intended, and it wasn't what I originally had planned, but whatever. IT'S ABOUT THE JOURNEY, NOT THE DESTINATION.
Right. So. Coming up tomorrow: for Katia0203, I will write a short little piece of fluff around the idea of "spring cleaning." Hang on to your undies, kids. It's gonna be adorable. Until then, as always: Stay safe, stay inside, and WASH YOUR HANDS! Air smoochies to all, and to all a good night.
