Chapter 14

The clock on the wall read 10:24 in the morning when Zelda opened her eyes again. Her stomach had begun to rumble. How long had she been meditating? She couldn't remember when exactly she had begun again. It was some time after she had eaten dinner, and after Link had returned with his own self-revelations.

That was right, Link had returned, she remembered as she looked over to the seat where she had left him before she attempted her meditations again. Her eyes were still a little foggy, but he wasn't in the chair.

Maybe he went to get something to eat, she thought to herself as she looked around the room. On the other side of her bed was a mobile table with two trays of uneaten breakfast on them from Talon's personal chef. She knew it was Talon's personal chef who had prepared her meals, because he had told her outright that he wouldn't subject her to what passed for food from the Hospital's cafeteria. She hated the fuss, but the king wouldn't budge.

No one else was in the room with her as she looked around. Finally, she thought, they've all gotten the hint that I need quiet to concentrate on this. She loved her family, but she hated being treated as though she were somehow fragile or breakable. She had fought her share of battles against the darkness just as much as her husband, though those battles were more often fought with her mind rather than her blade. Still, she couldn't complain. She had a family that loved her in return so much that they hovered around her. That was more than many had.

"It was a good trade." She said to herself contemplatively, thinking of the crown she had given up for the rural life and family of a rancher. Goats were far and away easier to manage than ministers of parliament had ever been, she smiled wickedly at the thought.

There was a knock at her hospital room door.

"Come in." She called out.

The door opened, and a Hylian woman with dark blond hair, forest green eyes, and matching denim shirt and pants with brown leather riding boots came into the room, "Mom?" She asked into the room.

"Oh! Malona! Come in sweetheart!" Zelda called back to her daughter. "I'm so glad you could come!"

The youngest of their three children, Malona had always been something of a tomboy. There had only been once or twice that Zelda had ever seen her daughter in a dress in her life, and that was because it was required in order to be at those events. The forty year old mother had hands whose feminine appearance was betrayed by the hard callouses born from the life of constant work herding goats, raising cuccos, riding horses, and also swordplay with her brothers and father, though it was Ordonville High's archery team that benefited from her natural skills with a bow and arrow. This was a woman who could have been a powerful queen if life had gone differently for all of them, much like her namesake.

"I'm sorry I couldn't come sooner, I had to ask uncle Colin and my boys to look after both properties for a couple of days while I came up here." She said apologetically.

"You don't need to apologize, sweetheart." Zelda told her. "I'm just glad you're here now."

Malona came over to stand near the bed, her eyes fell on the I.V. drip of red water that flowed continuously into the older woman's veins. "So it's true?" She asked, her eyes beginning to water. "What they said. The red water's not going to cure you, is it? It's just barely holding off the cancer?"

"No. It's not." Zelda confirmed for her, her voice calm and peaceful. "Healer Kelli tells me I might have a couple of weeks left."

Malona raised the back of her hand to her eyes and the tears began to flow. "Mom, I..." Her voice trailed off into sobs and Zelda reached out her own arms to her daughter as she leaned over to embrace her mother. "I don't want to lose you." She managed to say. "You're my best friend." She said to the older woman as she stood back up."

"Oh, and you're mine, dear." Zelda told her. "But this happens to everyone sooner or later. If the shadow didn't take me now, it would take me later."

"But not for you, mom. Not for you or dad." Malona protested. "I remember who you are, even if my brothers don't." A quiet fierceness came into her eyes."

"That remains to be seen this time, dear. Your father and I have been trying, but... there are more complications this time." She told her.

Malona looked around the room as if for the first time realizing something. The look in her eyes said something wasn't quite right. "Mom, where's dad?" She asked.

"I think he stepped out for something to eat. I'm not exactly certain. He wasn't here when I came out of my last meditations." Zelda told her.

"The guards said they hadn't seen anyone leave this room since he came in last night." Malona told her. Then the younger woman looked down at the chair on the opposite side of the bed. "Whose clothes are those?" She asked. "They look like dad's."

"What?" Zelda asked as she turned her head to the chair and looked at the seat and back of it more carefully. "Oh." She said. "Oh, my."

There on the seat and back of the chair were laid out the denim and leather clothing of the old goat rancher. Boots, socks, pants, underwear, shirt, undershirt, and coat were all there neatly arranged as though...

"As though he just disappeared from them." Zelda said, finishing her thought out loud but in a whisper. The wheels of her mind turning slowly and methodically as she worked through the possibilities.

"Mom, what happened to dad?" Malona asked in horrified confusion. "Why would dad strip down naked and lay out his clothes on the chair like that? And where would he go?" The expression on her face said it all. She was convinced her father had finally snapped. "We need to search for him!"

Zelda's face became impassive. "Could it be?" She asked herself, not realizing she was speaking aloud. "Did he find a way? And if so, why didn't he tell me when it happened?"

"Could what be?" Malona asked, beginning to worry even more about her mother. "Mom, what are you talking about? What happened to dad?"

"I don't know for certain." Zelda finally said. She then looked up towards the ceiling of the room where there were security cameras installed. "But there's a way to find out."

The black tea from the pot in the R.H.M.G. barracks in North Sariaton was bitter and strong as Gaepora sipped it pensively. The Guard Captain of the station, and all of the guards under his command had been on pins and needles ever since their very high ranking superior had shown up on their doorstep earlier that morning. That was fine with him. It had probably been far too long since they had received a surprise inspection. In reality, while they were busy making sure they sounded official and were doing everything by a book the general could tell they didn't usually follow, Gaepora was lost in his own thoughts as he sipped his tea and waited for his brother.

They had agreed to meet back at this town's barracks to debrief each other because it was almost smack in between both the entrance to the Kokiri's forest and Lake Hylia. Gaepora's grandmother must have been aware of this, he reasoned, because when their conversation was over, she instantly transported him the distance from her temple to the outskirts of Sariaton where it was a ten minute walk to the barracks. That had been several hours before.

Of course she was aware of it, he chided himself, my grandmother's Farore, the goddess of courage. Is there much she isn't aware of?

He was still trying to wrap his mind about the unreality of his new found reality. It was all real. It was all true. And... his grandmother was just going to let his mother die. No, much worse. She was just going to let her soul, the soul which had existed for ten thousand years, be lost forever because she didn't think his mother could just leave things alone like they wanted her to. He couldn't comprehend it. Any of it. And he didn't know what to do next.

His original plan of simply telling his mother a nice comforting falsehood had been blown away by the appearance of a very real goddess explaining the score to him. And the way it sounded to him, the goddess was almost ready to blame all of his father's suffering on the woman who lay dying. What did he do for her now that it was confirmed that a goddess and possibly all Three goddesses were in fact against her? How do you fight the will of one goddess, much less all three?

His head hurt as he rubbed his forehead and took another sip of his tea. It didn't help that he hadn't gotten a wink of sleep in the last twenty four hours. He might have tried grabbing some sleep in one of the spare bunks reserved for guardsmen in transit, but his mind kept replaying the conversation with Farore, dissecting it, turning it over, trying to understand any hidden meanings, any loopholes that he could exploit. There had to be something he could use.

"General, sir!" He heard someone say down the hall. It didn't sound like they were calling for him, but were addressing someone else. He looked up from his silent contemplation anyway and paid attention.

"Has General Faroson arrived yet?" Came a voice not much different from his own, except maybe with a little more steel in it. "Yes, sir. He arrived on foot three hours ago." Came the guard captain's quick, crisp reply. Yes, he had definitely been practicing his military discipline a little more since Gaepora had arrived. Good. Maybe he should make more impromptu visits to random guard barracks, he thought to himself. "Right this way, sir." He heard, and then booted footsteps hit the floor towards the hall. "Uh, we have spare uniforms and foot gear if you need them, sir." The guard captain said to the newcomer.

In the doorway of the office space Gaepora had commandeered, the guard captain appeared and then showed in a man wearing a torn, Zora made wet combat suit. The small flipper moldings on the footwear hit the floor with a light "smack" along with the boot's main tread. The man had some minor scrapes, and deep scratches where the suit had been torn, and a pretty good cut over his head that had stopped bleeding some time before.

"You look like hell." Gaepora observed.

Daphnes stopped, and then nodded his head in agreement. "Remind me to cross the water temple off of my sightseeing list." He then pointed to the plain gray ceramic mug Gaepora was holding. "Is there any left?"

"Yeah, it's over there in the pot." Gaepora motioned towards a counter where a fresh pot of hot tea was still steaming. "Captain Fillio was kind enough to buy donuts for everyone this morning too from the bakery in town."

Daphnes found a clean mug and poured himself some tea, then grabbed a donut and a napkin and came back over to the table where Daphnes sat with his own cup.

"I felt the same way about the Lost Woods by the time I got through it." Gaepora said as Daphnes grabbed a chair and sat down opposite his brother across the table.

Daphnes looked his brother up and down, "You don't look like it, except for a couple of bruises."

"Where?" Gaepora asked.

"Right here." Daphnes pointed to a place on his own forehead near the left temple. "How'd you get away without a scratch otherwise?"

"I didn't need to actually kill anything. The guardians were just doing their jobs like any of us would. I just had to get around them. Although I took a good hit to my chest from a Deku Scrub, and I learned that skull kids have a twisted sense of humor. Looks like you ran into something worse though." Gaepora responded.

"Apparently, according to our maternal grandmother, it was nothing I didn't bring with me." Daphnes told him. "Speaking of which, did you find her?"

"Yeah. I found her." Gaepora replied, his voice quiet but tinged with anger.

"I take it she was just as helpful as Nayru." Daphnes said, taking a sip of his tea, and then breaking off a piece of pumpkin donut, dipping it into the hot beverage, and popping it into his mouth.

"Looks like it. The least Nayru could have done was clean you up. What was in there?" Gaepora asked him.

"Lizalfos having a bad day." Daphnes told him, taking another sip of tea.

"So mom's own mother won't help her?" Gaepora asked. "She won't do anything?"

"Nope. She's the one who decided this. She wants to make sure mom's learned her lesson first before they help her out." Daphnes told him.

"That's what I got from Farore too." His brother said.

"We can't just make something up to tell mom." Daphnes said. "Not now."

"I know. I've been thinking the same thing. But we also can't just leave it like this." Gaepora replied.

"What do you have in mind?" Daphnes said, finishing his donut and washing it down with the rest of his tea.

"Neither grandmother is willing to help at this point. Dad went to go find help from someone else he used to know, I still haven't heard if he's gotten back yet. I haven't communicated with his majesty yet." Gaepora ran through all of the factors he had been considering for the last several hours.

"You know he really is our brother from a different mother, isn't he?" Daphnes asked. "I don't know if I can get used to that."

"I know." Gaepora said, agreeing with Daphnes' sentiment. "But we'll have to square with mom and dad's complicated marital history later. I think we have to assume that, unless dad got a hold of the god he was trying to reach, none of the gods in our world are going to be helpful."

"Agreed." Daphnes said. "Regardless of their own history with them. So mom's options are either she does it all on her own, which they've made virtually impossible, or...?" He left the sentence open for his brother to finish.

"Or we find a way to unblock whatever it is they've blocked and send her skyward." Gaepora said. Now came the explanation as to how. He'd been thinking of it ever since he returned. "And I think I know how, but his majesty isn't going to approve."

"I'm all ears." Daphnes said.

"You up for a trip to another temple? One that's not too far away?" Gaepora asked, a mischievous grin slowly appearing on his face.

Daphnes' expression turned to confusion for a few seconds and then his eyes went wide with comprehension as he carefully considered what he thought his brother was suggesting. "We might end up goat ranchers by the end of it." He finally replied. "If his majesty doesn't shoot us for treason."

"It's for mom." Gaepora reminded him.

"Let me get changed into something more suited to the forest first. We'll need to go most of the way in on horseback, and then get around the fence on foot without being seen." Daphnes said. "And this suit smells like dead lake fish."

"I wasn't going to say anything about it." Gaepora agreed.

The hospital guards had the security footage from the room's cameras sent to the video monitor in Zelda's room. Once the set up was completed, Zelda asked the guards to wait outside while she and her daughter reviewed the footage from the night and early morning before.

Malona was convinced the video recording was going to show her father lose his mind completely and strip down to his birthday suit, but she operated the playback of the recording for her mother who still had trouble sometimes with the newer digital devices. At times she chided her for refusing to learn them better, "Really, mom, you were originally born into a civilization that was even more technologically advanced than we are, and you still can't operate a video player?" But she held her tongue this time out of concern for both her, and especially for her missing father.

The video recording started about five in the morning, and Malona progressed it at high speed from there. At that time of the morning, her father sat in that same chair next to her mother. The both of them appeared to be meditating. As it progressed, neither of them moved from where they sat, stationery, their hands relaxed, their backs straight, their eyes closed. The natural darkness in the hospital room gre lighter and lighter as the morning got later and later. An orderly brought in a tray for breakfast, though neither of her parents acknowledged the man's presence. Then, all of a sudden, there was a sudden flash of light, and her father was gone, leaving only his clothes behind.

"Wait!" Zelda cried out. "Go back to that moment."

Malona dragged the control icon with her finger back across the surface of the monitor to the time index just before the flash, and then she let it play. Once more they watched, in real time, her father sitting calmly. Then his skin began to pulse and glow with light and energy, and then his clothing collapsed empty onto the chair as his form gathered into a brilliant ball of light hovering above the chair, and then it was gone.

"He did it." Zelda said with wonder and a touch of pride. "He did it on his own without my help." Her eyes began to water, but there was a smile creeping across her face. "I'm so happy for you, my love." She whispered as she touched the screen where Link had just been.

"What was that, mom? Farore's wind?" Malona asked. She had only heard the spell described, but she had never seen it in action. "What did dad do?"

"He went home, sweetheart. Your father went home to where we both belong. And I need to join him as soon as I can." Zelda told her.

Malona looked at her mother without comprehension, and then she played the video back again watching the whole thing until what her mother said took root and understanding came. "So, dad's gone then? He's... He's with my grandmothers?"

"Yes, dear. He's with your grandmothers." Zelda confirmed for her.

Malona tried to understand all of the implications of what she was saying. "But if that's true, why are you still here? Why didn't he help you?"

Zelda smiled and said, "If he could have, he would have, sweetheart. I've known your father for a very long time. He would never leave me behind if he had the choice. Maybe there's more going on that you and I can't see than we know."