Chapter 2
Talon sat on the marble seat of Nabooru's Citadel throne room under the carved relief of the Triforce and Hyrule's goddesses. It was not a comfortable seat, and it was a rare day when anyone would have found him sitting in it for any length of time. Today however, it served as his seat of judgment for the two figures standing before him.
The hands and feet of a seemingly young, yellow haired, green and brown clad Hylian boy, and a lithe, brown skinned woman of flowing red hair and bright green eyes in white robes had been bound in chains and brought to Nabooru on his orders. Both had peacefully tranquil expressions on their faces which unnerved the prince regent and those in his court who witnessed the proceedings. Standing to either side of the pair and behind them were blue uniformed guardsmen.
Talon said nothing to them for a long time, but just continued to stare at them long and hard. He had rarely ever seen the two Sages, though his last encounter with them had only been a short time before at the ceremony in the Temple of Forest where his younger brother had been chosen over him. The Sages of Earth and Wind were known as the most reclusive of any of Hyrule's temple guardians, remaining in their temples and playing their sacred instruments in worship and prayer to their gods.
"May I ask the reason for your request of our presence, your highness?" The younger looking one, the Sage of Earth, asked with only the faintest hint of sarcasm in his voice.
Talon had been about to answer the Sage when Grima intervened, saying "Do not do him the dignity of an answer, your highness." Grima, who stood to the right of Talon's throne, told the prince. "You are the one asking the questions."
"Indeed," Talon answered his adviser. "This is my court, Kelvin. I will speak when I am ready to speak." He turned his attention to the boy whom he knew was older than himself in front of him.
"No one questions whose court this is, your highness," the woman said, "only for what reason you have so politely asked us to join you." Her sarcasm was not so well concealed.
"You will be silent until the prince regent has given you permission to speak!" Grima told her forcefully.
After several more tense minutes, Talon finally addressed them both sternly, "Kelvin, Sage of Earth, and Narissa, Sage of Wind, I hereby charge you with treason against the royal family of Hyrule, and therefore treason against the Kingdom of Hyrule itself. You have attempted to influence the royal succession for the sake of maintaining control of the Sages over Hyrule's sovereign ruler. I will not allow the sovereign authority of the monarchy to be usurped by a group of recluses who are rarely seen."
The Sages seemed to quietly ponder this declaration, and made no answer. The faces of the guardsmen surrounding them became like stone as they heard the charges leveled against their prisoners.
"Do you have nothing to answer these charges?" Talon asked.
Narissa then spoke up, and politely addressed the prince, saying, "If it is usurpers you are searching for, your highness, you need not look so far as the sacred temples when such people can be found even in royal courts."
Kelvin then spoke up and said, "We would only warn you of those who would truly be a danger to Hyrule, your highness. And now that we have, it is time for us to return to our temples."
And with that, the two Sages disappeared in a burst of light, the chains that bound them falling empty to the marble chamber floor..
"Guards! Search the Citadel! Find the traitors!" Talon called out in anger and frustration, balling and unballing his hands.
"Was it my imagination, or did they accuse you of treason, your highness?" Grima asked his prince.
Talon said nothing, but sat pensively in silence, hands folded under his chin.
"If the two Sages of Eastern Hyrule are capable of such manipulation, is not the whole of Western Hyrule in danger from their influence, my lord?" Grima pushed him. "Is it not your duty as the Hero's son, and the rightful heir to the throne to protect Hyrule from such poisonous treason?" He then added, "What would your father, the Hero of legend do, your highness?"
After another long and painful silence, he answered, "He would save Hyrule."
"Can you do any less, my lord?" Grima asked.
"Captain!" Talon shouted out. Within seconds, a blue uniformed man with gold insignia of high rank stood before him, "Yes, your highness." He answered his prince.
Talon didn't hesitate. "I want artillery pieces moved to within range of the Earth and Wind Temples. Load them with explosive shells. Raze the Sages' temples to the ground."
"Of... Of..." The Captain couldn't believe what he had just heard, but his discipline as an officer wouldn't allow him to question it.
"Do you have a problem with my order, Captain?" Talon asked menacingly.
The Captain summoned his courage, straightened himself up, and said, "No, your highness. It will be carried out to the letter."
"Dismissed." Talon told him, and the Guard captain moved quickly to carry it out.
At Talon's side, Grima nodded approvingly.
The mood in the Nabooru soldiers' barracks was grim. Every guardsmen knew within hours what their brothers in arms had been ordered to do, and what had transpired within the citadel throne room. There were some who carried small, golden replicas of the legendary Triforce on chains around their necks as a religious devotion and remembrance of the three goddesses who created their beautiful world. Many clung to those gilded pendants in silent prayer for guidance.
No one in the royal family had ever given arrest orders for a Hylian Sage in Hyrule's ten thousand year history. Ever. It was unthinkable. It was an atrocious deed worthy of the hated Ganondorf of Hyrule's dark past. It went against everything the men knew and believed about their world and their relationship to the divine. The orders to destroy the temples... That was something not even the Demon King himself had done.
"It isn't right, what he's done, Captain!" One guardsman complained too loudly to his commanding officer. "He'll bring down the wrath of the goddesses upon us all!"
"He's the son of the Hero, and nephew to the Princess Zelda herself." His captain responded, "If anyone would speak for the divine, wouldn't it be him?"
"I'm just saying, captain. It's wrong, and I'm not the only one who thinks so." The guardsman said, looking around to his brothers in arms for support. A few nodded and murmured encouragingly.
"Now listen," The captain told him sternly, and then he turned to include all of his men, "and this goes for all of you. Prince Talon is regent of Eastern Hyrule until his Queen Mother says otherwise. That means he speaks with her authority! If he gives an order, it means she has given an order! And if she gives an order, it means the Lady Hylia herself has given that order! Is that understood?!" He yelled at them.
"Yes, sir!" They all shouted back, uneasily.
"Good! I don't want to hear any more about this. Is that understood?" He yelled.
"YES, SIR!" They responded in unison, many of them holding their golden pendants tightly.
As the captain turned to leave, he then whispered quietly under his breath, "And may the goddesses forgive us all." His hand drifted to the triangle shape under his own uniform tunic.
The journey out of and from the Great Palace was not nearly as difficult as Rodney imagined it would be. The room they had found themselves in had been an interior room, but not deep below in the labyrinthine maze. "How did Link and I not come across it before?" He had asked aloud at least twice.
Closer to the main hall, the two stumbled upon a small, forgotten chest of rupees, the standard currency of Hyrule. "These will definitely come in handy." Rodney had said upon their discovery as he counted the jewels of various colors. All in all he had counted about a couple of hundred rupees worth of jewels.
The big surprise to them had come when they had finally made their way down the mountain path, and found a small village and train station, the tracks of which stretched off in either direction. "That certainly wasn't here the last time!" Rodney had exclaimed. "Jeez, that would have been nice when Link and I had come this way."
"Okay, so we know we're here some time after that then." Daniel said. "I mean, this is obviously a pretty small, out of the way village, and it takes some time and investment to build a train system so they would have started closer to the capitol, right?" He reasoned out.
"And the capitol's on the other side of Hyrule, so this would have been one of the later stations and stretches of track." Rodney continued the train of thought.
They had gone into the village and bought passage on the evening train through the mountain passes to Nabooru Town, the provincial capitol in the central valley of Eastern Hyrule. Along the way, from the windows of their car, they observed the smaller towns and villages lit up by electric lights as the train made its stops.
"I don't see any obvious power lines, I wonder how they're generating their power?" Daniel had observed.
"They didn't have any of this. I mean, I knew I left my journals, and had gone over a few designs with my assistants, but to do all of this? It has to have been decades at least." Rodney exclaimed.
When the train finally pulled into Nabooru Town later that night, they found the nearest hotel they could find and rented a room with two beds. "Well, I've been in much worse accommodations." Daniel commented. "And the hotel's got a place to eat downstairs too. At least we won't starve."
"Yeah, I hope you like pumpkins and milk." Rodney responded. "At least they're not big on citrus."
"I'll keep that in mind." Daniel returned. "So, what's our next move?"
"The Temple of Time's in the Faron Woods in Western Hyrule south of Castle Town." Rodney replied. "We're going to have to find a way west and across the Hylian Sea, but things look like they've changed so much, I have no idea what we're up against anymore."
The next morning, the two wandered through the busy market square of Nabooru Town. It was filled with vendors hawking their wares in stalls and storefronts. There were townspeople of all kinds from very normal looking humans, to the elvish Hylians, to huge brown rock like "people" looking through the vendor's wares for deals. Around the cobblestones of the square ran carriages and horses.
The two wore traveler's cloaks and simple Hylian tunics and breaches they were able to acquire cheaply earlier in the morning from a tailor. The cowls of the cloaks were pulled over their heads. While there may have been non-Hylian humans in Nabooru, they saw no reason to draw any more attention to themselves then they had to.
"Wow, things have gotten really built up since the last time I was here." Rodney said, looking around at the large number of brick buildings. "Electric street lamps, a train system, it seems almost like Victorian London." He gestured towards the blue uniformed Hylian guardsmen on patrol, rifles at their shoulders. "Are those revolvers they're carrying on their waists?"
"Pistols as well as swords." Daniel observed. They passed by a bright red royal postal box with a pink rabbit's head emblem as they walked. "Yeah, I was expecting something a little more medieval from how you described it." Daniel said. "But it's been what? Thirty years for them since you were last here?" They had pretended to be from some country across the sea called Holodrum that Rodney knew of. The innkeeper, not seeing that as unusual the night before, after a little careful prodding and Rodney's translating, had filled them in as to when in Hyrule's history they were. "If our own history tells us anything, a lot of progress can happen in thirty years. Especially when you give them technology they didn't have before."
"Yeah, I guess so. But I wouldn't have imagined all of this before. I mean, these people were smack in the dark ages when we first got here." Rodney said. "They had to have built factories, and took my notes and ran with them."
"Well, I guess you made a difference then." Daniel said, not sure if that was such a good thing.
"Wow. Yeah, I guess I did." Rodney said, memories of his "improvement" of the people of "Geldar" years before passing through his mind. "That didn't turn out so bad." He thought out loud to himself. "We just had to stop them from killing each other." Then thinking better of it, "Okay, never mind."
"Did you say something?" Daniel asked him, looking at a newspaper printed in Hylian. On the front page was the photograph of a strange looking pair, a young Hylian boy and a dark skinned, silver haired woman bound in chains between two intimidating looking soldiers.
"No, nothing." Rodney denied. "What do you have there?"
"Well, I'm not sure as I can't read the language. It's too different from Ancient." Daniel said. "But it looks like a newspaper."
"A newspaper? Seriously? They've got the printing press now? Let me see that." Rodney took the paper from Daniel's hands. "Oh wow, that's not good. That's not good at all."
"You can read it?" Daniel asked.
"Six years here, remember? You think I didn't bother to learn to read the language?" Rodney retorted. "Of course I can read it. But no, that's all wrong. It says that two Sages escaped from the royal guard's custody yesterday when they were being tried by Prince Talon." Rodney looked at Daniel, "It says they were being tried for treason against the crown."
"Who are the Sages?" Daniel asked.
"They're like Hyrule's religious leaders. They run and guard the temples and sacred stuff, but they've always been loyal to the royal family. This doesn't make any sense." Rodney said.
"Well, times change and so do people," Daniel responded. "Even religious leaders can go bad." How well he knew that.
"In our world, maybe," Rodney said, "but the Sages are different." he then continued to read through the front page article. When he finished, he read it again and said, "Oh no. That's definitely not good."
"What's definitely not good?" Daniel asked.
"Talon's given orders to destroy the Sages' temples; both of the Sages' temples in Eastern Hyrule." Rodney said, distressed.
"Rodney, is the Temple of Time in Eastern Hyrule?" Daniel asked.
"No, but how could that happen?" Rodney asked. "We need to find out more."
The two passed by a vendor's booth filled with trinkets. Daniel stopped to look. The most prominent things for sale were different sized gold pendants shaped like the Triforce. "Huh, that's different." Rodney commented, and went over to investigate the offerings. "I've never seen Hylians wear replicas of the Triforce openly before."
"It's a devotion our dear queen began at the start of her reign, young man." An aged voice spoke out. "They serve as a reminder of where we all come from, and what we aspire to be."
Behind the booth sat three older women whom Daniel could see had been handsome in their day. Traces of their beauty remained in their easily worn smiles and bright eyes. Their heads were covered with different colored scarves. The one immediately in front of him wore a bright blue one with an ocean wave pattern. One of the other women had a green one with a forest leaf pattern. The third woman's scarf was colored red in a flame pattern. Daniel smiled in greeting, knowing he couldn't understand their speech but trying to be friendly anyway. The woman in blue motioned him over away from Rodney's hearing, behind the vendor's stall. Looking around to see who might be watching, he then followed where she led.
"I sense great balance within you, my son." The old woman addressed Daniel as Rodney was busy checking out the trinkets on display at their stall and others. He didn't seem to notice the old lady at all. She and the two other silver haired and wrinkled women turned their attention to him as if almost a single person.
Daniel turned to her, smiled and looked in her eyes beginning to say, "Thank..." And then was stopped by the old woman's gasp as she stared into him. He felt like she was probing his very soul through his eyes. He then realized something else, she spoke to him in English. "How...?" He began to ask.
"You have walked among the gods, Daniel Jackson." She announced to him in a quiet voice so as not to attract unwanted attention.
"How do you know that?" Daniel asked her slightly alarmed, but not choosing to argue or deny it. He dropped his original question. He sensed something different about her as well, though not threatening.
"I can see many things, young man. I have walked this world for many, many long ages." She said cryptically. "You and your companion have a great, and difficult journey ahead of you. Before it is done, the fate of our world may depend on the balance you have brought. I sense great untapped faith within you.."
"How?" Daniel asked.
The old woman brought out one of her pendants which had been attached to a gold chain from somewhere behind her, although Daniel couldn't see any more of them when she moved. "Please take this to protect you and your companion. You will find it may prove more valuable than you realize. Only use it when the time is right. The fate and future of all of Hyrule depends on it."
She held the chain up with both hands and gestured for him to incline his head. He did so and she slipped it over his neck, carefully hiding the pendant beneath Daniel's shirt where it couldn't be seen. She then pressed the pendant against his chest with the palm of her hand and he felt a soothing warmth radiate out from it. "Yes, I sense much faith, much goodness within you, my son. You will not fail us."
"Who are you, really?" Daniel asked.
"You know who I am, Daniel Jackson." The old woman replied. And as Daniel looked more intently at her, he did recognize her, or at least a younger version of her etched in stone in the palace they had arrived in. "Nay..." He began to say, and she stopped him with a raised palm. "No need, child. I know my own name, and so do you."
"I thought you didn't believe in interfering with the affairs of mortals." Daniel said, sceptically.
"We are not interfering, my son. The choice is yours to make, just as it is for all of our children. I have only given you the wisdom and the power to act on that choice. It is up to you to find the courage within yourself to make the right one. But I know it is within you." She said. "I have seen it."
"But I'm not one of your children, am I?" Daniel pointed out. "Why me?"
"No, you're not." She said wistfully. "You are more of a long lost brother, cast out because of your great compassion and empathy for people. It may surprise you that this is a trait we share in common, and for that reason we trust you above those who would not understand the power we have entrusted to you."
He considered this, and the responsibility she had charged him with. He then asked, "How will I know when the time is right?" He wasn't sure if he wanted to believe what he now knew was happening.
"You will know when the time is right, Daniel Jackson." The old woman said. "You must, or the sacrifices which have been made will have been for nothing."
"I understand." He told her. And in some strange way which he didn't fully comprehend, he did.
The old woman then looked at him again intently, placed her palm against his forehead and spoke several words in a language which sounded very familiar to him, but which he hadn't expected to hear offhand here. She then told him, "You may now speak openly with our people, but take care. Not everyone in our world will be pleased to see the two of you."
"We will." He said.
She then added in a whisper, "When the time comes once more, as it must for every mortal, you may choose to walk among us again if you wish. I restore to you that choice, my son. Now go, your companion is coming. He is a good man, but he is out of balance. He must not know."
Daniel nodded, "I understand." And then he stood up to greet Rodney.
"Find anything interesting?" Rodney asked.
"Nope, just chatting with these nice young ladies here." Daniel responded, gesturing to where the old women had stood.
"What young ladies?" Rodney asked, confused.
Daniel turned around to find the vendor's stall empty as though no one had been there all day. "They must have run off..." He said slowly, looking around.
"Yeah, well you have that effect on women." Rodney quipped. To which Daniel gave a dirty look. "Let's go. I think I know where we can find out more of what's going on."
As they walked away, Daniel felt a strange tingling in his left hand. Unseen and unnoticed, a set of golden triangles had been lightly traced across the back of his hand, and then disappeared.
It was mid-morning, and her majesty, Queen Malon, sat in her seat in the council chambers listening to her ministers drone on about the state of the kingdom. Her flame colored hair, flecked with silver had been done back into a thick braid, the crown of Hyrule resting comfortably above it.
The Council of Ministers meeting was a ritual that she held once every two weeks to ensure that she was kept up to date with Hyrule's daily grind. Her sister, so many years before, had only held such councils once a month, but with as fast as Hyrule seemed to be changing and progressing, Malon saw the wisdom in keeping a closer eye.
To her right, sat Supreme Commander Oliver, to represent the military. To her left sat the Prime Minister, an aging and portly man, who, despite his appearance, was very competent and had a gift for keeping the other ministers on task. The various other ministers sat in the chairs on opposite sides of the long tables. At the other end of the table sat her son, the crown prince. As he yawned for the fourth time in twenty minutes, she sympathized. She had to stifle one as well. But this was the business of rule, whether you wanted to be anywhere else at the moment was irrelevant, and she did her best to impress that on her twenty five year old son.
In front of most of the participants at the table sat delicate porcelain cups of strong tea on matching saucers. There had been three silver platters of pastries arranged on the table for the government officials at the beginning of the meeting, but these had been emptied a half hour before and not replenished. Oliver had declined his cup of tea, as she knew he would in favor of just plain water. John had as well because he preferred a fruit juice in a tall glass in the morning. The other ministers had drained their cups by that point in time, as had she.
The one minister whose presence Malon noticed the most, was the one who had been strangely absent all morning. Where is Talon? She wondered. The seat of the Prince-Regent of Eastern Hyrule, at the right hand of the crown prince, had been empty all morning, and no one had seen him enter the castle the day before, as was his usual practice, either. He had never missed her Council meetings before.
As the minister of education finished his lecture on the progress of the construction of the new Academy of the Sciences in Kakariko Town in Eldin province, Malon found that she couldn't stifle the next yawn that happened. "Oh, pardon me, minister!" She said apologetically. She then yawned again. "Oh, I'm sorry. How rude of me." She said, embarrassed.
"It is quite alright, your majesty. I'm feeling a little drowsy myself," the minister of education told her, "I move for us to recess until... until..." The minister's head then dropped to the table.
"Minister! Are you alright?" Queen Malon called out. "Minister..." She yawned again. "Are... you...?"
"My queen?" Oliver asked as her head began to move dizzily from side to side. Concern gripping him, and he said with much concern, "Your majesty, are you alright?"
The crown on her head began to feel very, very heavy, and then her head pitched forward, hitting the table.
"Malon, no!" Oliver shouted, jumping to his feet. Across the table, John jumped up as well, yelling, "Mother!"
Her crown rolled off of her head, across the table and then veered off with a "clank!" as it hit the stone floor. One by one all the ministers jumped to their feet, only to find themselves collapsing onto the floor. Only Oliver and John remained on their feet, John running to his mother's side and Oliver trying to rouse her.
"GUARDSMEN!" Oliver shouted at the top of his lungs. "GET THE HEALERS! NOW! RIGHT NOW! WATER OF LIFE IN THE COUNCIL CHAMBERS! RIGHT NOW!"
Everything after that seemed to be a blur because the next thing John knew, he was on his knees next to his mother. Oliver was at her side opposite him holding her hand and calling her name softly, "Malon? Malon, wake up!" All semblance of protocol forgotten.
Within minutes healers in white coats flooded the room carrying bottles of a viscous red liquid. They quickly paired off going from person to person beginning with the queen, gently parting their lips to administer the miraculous Hylian medicine.
John and Oliver watched as the healer dripped the special red medicine known commonly as "water of life" between the lips of the deeply sleeping queen with an eyedropper. The two men had moved her carefully out of her wooden seat to the stone floor of the council chamber, her head carefully pillowed by Oliver's balled up uniform coat. The queen reflexively swallowed the liquid, but she did not wake up. Other healers around the room moved among the fallen ministers with similar results.
"Why isn't she waking up?" Her son asked.
"I don't know yet, your highness. So far she and the ministers are just asleep. I'm working off the assumption that they were poisoned by something in what they ate or drank." The dark haired Hylian man in the white coat told him.
"Poisoned? Why? Who?" John asked. He couldn't think of anyone who would want to harm his mother. She had been dearly loved by all of their people. Across from him, Oliver's face became stone hard as he grappled with the implications and his own building rage. "Who would do this to her?" His voice felt raw and strained as he spoke the question.
"The two of you are the only ones who did not drink the tea," The healer replied, pointing to the water and juice glasses that stood in contrast to the tea cups.
"We didn't eat the pastries either." John said, remembering. "I wasn't hungry after breakfast, and Oliver doesn't like them. They're too sweet." They seemed like such insignificant details, but they meant the difference. He was still awake because of the extra helping of pancakes in the kitchen. It seemed absurd, but it was the truth.
The healer nodded. "It could be a spell of some kind too, but I've never seen one like this cast that would have missed the two of you at opposite ends of the table and hit everyone else." The healer went on. "So the logical conclusion would be a poison, or some kind of potion in the food."
Just then the sleeping minister of education began to convulse violently. The healers who had been administering the medicine to the fallen officials rushed to his side to medicate him as well. His convulsions became so violent that they couldn't get the medicine into his mouth. He then stopped moving at all and exhaled his last breath. As the healers faced the shock of his loss, checking his pulse and any signs of life they knew of. Two more officials, the ministers of agriculture and technology began to convulse as well. Within minutes, they were confirmed dead.
"Goddesses save us." Oliver said on his knees as he looked at the face of his queen with concern, his eyes beginning to water. The healers watched with dread as they knew she would be the next to convulse, followed by the other ministers. Seconds went by, and then minutes, but those afflicted all remained peacefully asleep, with no change.
"Keep the water of life going on them!" The lead healer called out. "Constant dosage! Every ten minutes! It may be the only way to keep them alive. Asleep, but alive." He then turned to Prince John, "Your highness, I don't know how long or even how often we'll need to keep dosing them. I'm going to need every bottle of red and blue water of life in the castle, and as much as we can get from the town. We need to keep administering it for as long as we can until we find a way to counteract it. If you've got a hidden cache of Fairy's Tears, now would be the time to tell me."
John looked to his mother as he knelt next to her, holding her hand. He didn't respond.
"Your highness, I need royal authority to authorize taking Castle Town's medical supplies." The healer said urgently. "Please your highness, with your mother... like this, you are now our sovereign until we can bring her out of this."
A shock of panic ran through John's body. He didn't want it. His mother was the sovereign. She would always be his sovereign. He closed his eyes and forced the panic down. This is what I was born for, he told himself. He then looked at the healer and nodded, "Do it." He managed to say. The healer immediately handed the bottle of red liquid and eyedropper to another healer to take his place, and went to make it happen.
"Oh, mother." John said, bringing his lips down to gently kiss his mother's hand. "Who could have done this to you?"
"I have received a dreadful message for you from the telegraph device, your highness." Grima approached Talon as the prince regent was inspecting the guardsmen training in the Citadel grounds.
"Oh? What now?" Talon asked.
"Your queen mother and her royal ministers have all been poisoned, your highness. Only your brother, and Supreme Commander Oliver escaped. Your brother, Prince John has requested that you return to Hyrule Castle at once." Grima's said with some urgency.
"Poisoned?! By who?!" Talon whirled around to face his silver bearded adviser. He felt as though someone had punched his stomach. "Mother... Of course, I must go."
"Of course you must, your highness. Only I would not recommend you go alone." Grima said, grave concern filling his words.
"It is my childhood home, Grima. Why wouldn't I go alone?" Talon said as he forgot his troops' inspection and began walking rapidly towards his personal residence to make his preparations. "I should have been there anyway. I might have prevented it if I had just gone to my mother's Council meeting like she requested. Instead I was here having to deal with rebel Sages!"
"The awful question occurs to me, your highness, who profits the most from your mother's illness, and goddesses forbid, her death?" Grima asked.
Talon stopped in mid-stride. "What are you saying, old man?" He asked angrily.
"Think, your highness!" Grima said, more aggressively. "I ask you, who is left to rule the kingdom with your mother and her ministers gone? Who were the only two at the Council meeting who did not fall to the poison? I don't want to be saying this, your highness, but you know the answer."
Talon couldn't believe what he was hearing. His own twin brother, and Oliver who had always been like a father to him after his own father had died... What was happening? It was unthinkable. "No... that's not possible. They would never..." He protested.
"The evidence speaks to the contrary, your highness." Grima said, his voice oozing fatherly compassion.
Talon felt dizzy, his mind couldn't reconcile it. His hands went to his head to support it, and without warning he screamed into them, "Aarrrghhh!"
All around him guardsmen rushed to his aid. "Your highness!" They shouted as they reached him. "Your highness, are you alright?"
"No." He said, straightening himself up. His eyes were red and puffy as he uncovered his face. "No, guardsman, I am not alright." He said calmly, but with steel. "Hyrule is not alright. My mother and her ministers are not alright." Anger built up within him, a rage which would not be easily contained. "Send for the captains of my legions." He told him.
"Yes, sir." The guardsman obeyed and ran to find them.
"So, my brother wants me to come home immediately, Grima?" Talon asked, menace in his voice. "Then that's exactly what I will do. I will go home and make things right."