Chapter 5: Alone

About 10 years ago...

The garden in the castle courtyard was a bright green paradise, tended dutifully by the castle staff. The princess loved to walk its paths in Spring, when all the plants were in bloom. The smell of the flowers was almost intoxicating. When they were younger, she and her brother often played hide and seek here with Damien, the Gerudo boy who lived in the castle with them.

The son of the Sage of Light, that was a relation the princess had given no thought to when they were younger. Damien had always been there, as far back as she could remember, but as she grew older, she felt so much sympathy for him. His mother was a Sage, whose duties meant she was rarely there. There was never a doubt that who she was when she did appear, however. She was a slender woman, with blonde hair so bright it almost seemed to glow, and always wore a floor-length deep purple robe and carried a staff of pure silver with her. Quite heavy, the princess imagined, yet the Sage seemed to handle it as if it were weightless.

And when she was at the castle, it almost inevitably was to see the Queen, not just to visit her son. And as for his father, she knew he was dead, but no one would give her a straight answer if she asked who he actually was.

So the princess looked at Damien and saw someone who was all alone, regardless of the near royal comforts of life he had. As they grew older, she always managed to find time with him as their activities shifted from the childhood adventures in the gardens to more sedate pastimes. Some evenings they'd just spend hours playing chess in her quarters, while others they'd talk about whatever festival was about to happen, or just other meaningless things.

And then there was the effect that had on him.

Finally came the day he told her he was going to be a knight. They were sitting beneath the peach tree in the garden, its fruits nearly ripe enough to pick, and she had been reading her history lesson of the Unification War, in which Hyrule grew from a small nation of just the Hylians to also include the Gorons and Zora among its people.

She had asked him what made him want to a knight, and he had taken her hand in his. Her hand nearly vanished in his, nearly three times the size of hers as he gave it just a gentle squeeze.

"Because I'm going to protect you, no matter what."

Teenagers not knowing what love was, but those words were a promise Damien never forgot, nor did he forget their first kiss that followed them.

Present Day...

Waiting for the storm to slow and the sun to rise felt like an eternity. In that dark cave, the group sat in silence. The dark elf girls evidently managed to make themselves sleep, leaning against the wall across from him, while Lance stood near the cave entrance, seemingly absorbed in thought.

Damien was frustrated, not able to take his thoughts from the princess. He'd known her ever since they were young. They'd play together in the castle garden, playing tag among the hedges, hiding among the statues and even concocted imaginary adventures they'd go on together.

He'd even been schooled with her, the same instructor taught him as the royal twins on everything from history to mathematics. And as they'd grown older, riding lessons and other subjects.

He probably knew her better than her own mother did.

It wasn't even like they had to try to find time together. And they'd been teenagers, barely more than children, when they'd shared that moment under the peach tree in the garden. He had promised he would protect her, no matter what, once he was a knight.

But even as he stewed in his thoughts about her, he realized that one other person in the cave seemed very interested in him. Areil, the Gerudo woman, seated a few feet away, had not taken her eyes from him for some time.

"Do you want something?" Damien asked, looking toward her.

She said something, but in the same language she'd used bits of before, when speaking with Link at their first meeting.

"Sorry, I don't understand your tongue," he said.

"Sa'oten, voe," Areil said, "I was speaking Gerudo. Do you know nothing of your own people?"

"I was raised by Hylians," he replied, "Everything I know of the Gerudo is second-hand at best."

"What happened to your mother that she couldn't teach you?" Areil asked.

"My mother is not Gerudo," Damien said.

"That's… impossible..." Areil said, pausing for a moment, then turned more fully toward him, "That would mean your father..."

"Only one male Gerudo is born each generation," Damien said, "I know that much."

"Who was your father then?" Areil asked.

Damien shrugged. "A myth. Never met the man, and my mother said he died a long time ago."

"There hasn't been a male born among the tribes for the past four thousand years," Areil said, turning away from him, "To think that was because they may have been being born elsewhere..."

"How does an all female race survive, anyway?" Damien asked, "You still require men, don't you?"

"We take husbands from other human races, including Hylians," Areil said, "Usually by kidnapping. Though most, once they understand the situation they are in, stay of their own free will. But all children born of a Gerudo will always be Gerudo."

"I was told the Gerudo were extinct as a species," Damien said, "History lessons I was taught."

"Well, I was taught that's what we wanted the world to think," Areil said, "Seems the ancient Gerudo were rather ashamed of the fact the legendary King of Darkness was born of our people, so hid away from the world. The tribes stayed out of sight and out of mind, at least until recently. That's what the larger group I was with were on our way to the capital about. Our chosen ambassador was to meet with the queen and discuss the possibility of our joining the larger world as a vassal of Hyrule."

"Knowing the queen, the first demand she'd set would be no more kidnappings," Damien said.

"That is part of the idea," Areil said, "It will be a different matter when a Gerudo woman can simply go into Hyrule and find herself a husband. Not to mention to have one all her own."

"What's that mean?"

"Well, with the kidnappings, we had to keep them few enough in number that the disappearances didn't draw too much attention," Areil said, "As a result, pretty much all those men have multiple wives out of the sake of necessity." She paused, and added with a smile, "Including my mother, my father has seven wives."

"That poor man," Damien said.

Areil grinning. "Well, he was allowed as many as he thought he could handle, so it's his own fault." She paused to chuckled, and added, "I have memories, when I was young and supposed to be asleep, seeing my father in our tent at night, haggardly crawling from one bed to the next."

"Does this have a point?" Damien asked.

Areil shrugged. "Just passing time," she said, "If you don't know about all this, I assume you also don't know what becomes of actual Gerudo men?"

"I don't care," Damien said, leaning his head back against the cave wall and closing his eyes, "Keep your culture and your legends. All that matters to me right now is Princess Zelda. Getting her back safe is all I care about."

Areil shook her head and looked away from him. "So be it. But how do you intend to find her?"

Damien clenched his fist at that. He had nothing. Link was right, and they just had to worry about themselves first. But he had to find her. Somehow, he would keep his promise.

"Just leave me alone," Damien said to Areil.

"Fine," Areil said, "I guess I shouldn't be surprised."

In the southern reaches of the Riastad Empire lay the city of Banathor. A modest city, with a population of about six thousand, it lay well within imperial borders, the only threats to the city typically being internal. But even those threats were above the pay grade of the man sitting next to the door of a tavern called the Sword and Star.

It was a busy room, as it typically was this time of year. The farmers came into town more frequently, all their crops planted and waiting until harvest time, they had the time to spare. As a result, most of the bars in town saw a lot more business, and a lot more trouble.

Just that kind of trouble was starting at that moment, many eyes in the bar turning to the table where one of the waitresses cried out in shock and alarm. As soon as she had set the drinks for the three men seated there down, one of them had grabbed her arm, pulling her toward himself.

He said something that the man at the door couldn't hear, but that man was already on his feet and walking toward the table. The waitress was pulling against the other man's grip, but couldn't slip out of his grip. She cried out again as the man pulled her forcefully into a sitting position on his lap, using his free arm to wrap around her waist and hold her there.

Several other patrons started to rise from their seats to intervene, but sat back as the man from the door walked past them. He was a significant figure compared to the others in the tavern, standing over six feet tall and with a chiseled physique typically only seen on the most elite of soldiers or athletes.

"Come on, babe, I'm paying," the man was saying to the waitress as the other came closer, "That means you do what I tell you."

"Get off me, you creep!" the waitress said, trying to push away from him, but his grip held her as he slipping his other hand into her top, causing her to cry out again.

"Sir," the man from the door said, coming to a stop next to him, "Let go of her. You saw the rules by the door as you came in: No touching the waitresses."

"Piss off," the man said, "Mind your own business, doorman."

"Last chance, sir," the other said, "Let her go."

The man at the table slowly released the woman, who quickly moved away as he rose to his feet, stepping up to the doorman. "And what are you going to do about it?" he growled.

And with a crack of flesh striking flesh, he went down, hitting the floor after a single punch from the doorman to his face. He wasn't out cold, groaning as his eyes rolled. It was likely he didn't even realize he was on the floor.

"That," the doorman said, "I'm going to do that."

He leaned down, grabbing the dazed man's angle, then glanced at the other two seated at the table, who both quickly put up their hands and shook their heads. "Sorry about the disturbance," the doorman said loud enough for all the patrons to hear, "Please enjoy your drinks."

Then he dragged the unconscious man across the floor and out the front door as the other customers returned to their conversations.

A moment later, he returned through the door without the other man, and returned to his seat by the door. He looked up to see the waitress where she had retreated behind the bar, and she was already placing filled mugs on her tray to deliver to another table. When she looked his direction, he nodded to let her know he was still watching, and she smiled and nodded back before turning to deliver her load of drinks.

"So this is where you ended up, huh?" said another man at the table just to his left, by the front window of the tavern, turning to face the other as he spoke.

"Matthew Godric," the doorman said, recognizing him immediately, "Have they finally sent you to take my head?"

"You think we don't have better things to do than kill you?" Matthew asked, and picked up his mug, draining what was left of his drink, then stood up, walking over to the doorman, and produced a rolled paper from his jacket, "Fact is I was sent to give you this. Wasn't exactly expecting to find the great Gaius Erron working as a bouncer, though."

"Drop the 'great,'" Gaius, the doorman, replied, "I know what they think of me back home. I'm assuming this is an order to report for court martial."

"Far from it," Matthew said as Gaius took the paper.

Gaius eyed the wax seal on the paper, stamped with the emperor's signet ring, then broke it, unrolling the paper. He scanned it quickly, and almost immediately had to stop and read more carefully, not believing what he was seeing. "This is from Princess Vivian," he said, "She wants me to return to the capital so I can be reinstated. No, not reinstated, recruited to her forces… What is this about?"

Matthew shrugged. "I'm not in her inner circle," he said, "If it's not in that letter, you'd have to ask her yourself."

Gaius looked back at the letter. This was not something he'd been expecting, and yet the thought of returning to the army…

"She's offering to wipe the record of my discharge and restore my title," he said, "What's bringing this on?"

"The civil war may be over, but things aren't good in the empire at this moment," Matthew said, "If she thinks we need you, I'm not going to argue. Besides that," Matthew walked past Gaius as he spoke, toward the door, but stopped and looked down to where Gaius was seated, "For what it's worth, sir, those of us in the rank and file never doubted you."

"Just the nobles hated me," Gaius said.

It seemed like a lifetime ago, but Gaius was a true rags to riches story. A peasant boy joining the army as soon as he was old enough, and rose through the ranks all the way to general by the time he was thirty. Under the previous emperor, he was the supreme commander of the empire's forces, but when the civil war began after the emperor's death, he had walked out. He'd been stripped of his title, his rank, and all his wealth because he could not bring himself to kill those he saw as his own countrymen.

The blue-blooded nobles were perfectly happy to see him go, especially since most of them were rebels and now did not have to face the army under his command. Though he knew that the young emperor had distinguished himself and won the war, Gaius now wondered if he could serve a man like that.

"The nobles who wanted you gone are all dead," Matthew said, "The young emperor is rather ruthless, as I'm sure you've heard. But you think the nobles hated you, you should meet your replacement. One of those birds is now the emperor's ranking general."

"A Rito?" Gaius said, looking up at him. He'd heard rumors, but never believed it. "A non-human would never have been an officer, let alone general, under his father."

"Times change," Matthew said with a shrug, "And we can either change with them, or fight what's a futile battle."

"Not all change is for the best, but if this bird is a competent officer, so be it," Gaius said, "According to this, I wouldn't be coming back as a general anyway, but something else. How is the princess putting together he own force, in any case?"

"Seems she has permission from her brother to put together an elite team for highly dangerous missions," Matthew said.

"We are talking about the blind girl, right?" Gaius said.

"She's still blind, but she's far from a girl anymore," Matthew said with a smile, "You'll see what I mean when you speak to her."

"And how do you know I'm going to see her at all?" Gaius said, "I haven't agreed to anything."

"Because you wouldn't have entertained this conversation this long if you weren't," Matthew said, then he pushed open the door, about to step out, "The empire needs its best soldiers now more than ever, General. Your other option is to stay here and bounce drunks for the rest of your days. See you back at the palace."

Gaius just grunted in response as Matthew exited out the door. He turned back to the letter. The princess wasn't just looking for a member for this team she was building. She wanted him to lead it. She also mentioned that she was aware of the reason for his discharge, but commended him for his beliefs. Others may have called him a traitor, but she believed that refusing to turn his sword on his own countrymen proved he was far from it.

But he wasn't as young as he used to be, either. It had taken years to climb the ranks, and close to a decade since he left the army. The fact they'd want him after all this time, either that spoke to foolishness or desperation.

Well, he could take a couple weeks off, go to the capital and see. That'd be the only way to know for sure. And he'd take some time on the trip to shake off the years of rust on his skills. And though he didn't realize it at the time, he was about to receive his first chance to do so.

The rest of the night in the bar passed without incident, apparently one drunk being knocked near unconscious was more than enough warning to others. After midnight, last call was made, and the final drinks were downed before customers began to make their way out the door, some more upright than others.

Gaius himself would leave after the customers, leaving the owner and waitresses to finish the last of the cleanup, and locked the door behind himself, then turned to walk in the direction of his home. He'd barely gone down the block before the sound of running feet coming up behind him caught his attention.

He could have stopped it, if he'd thought it was a threat, but fought back his own reflex to turn ready for an attack, thinking it might be one of the others from the bar bringing him something he may have forgotten.

That was proven false when he felt the impact on the back of his head, followed by the sound of breaking glass, and the shards rained down on the street around his feet.

"What the hell..." the man behind him said, holding the broken neck of the bottle as Gaius slowly turned to face him. The bouncer hadn't even flinched when it had struck him.

It was the same drunk he'd dragged out of the bar. "You again, and you just hit me with a bottle," Gaius said, "You're even dumber than I thought."

The drunk gritted his teeth and lashed out with the broken bottleneck, stabbing the sharp points toward Gaius' face. What happened next took only a few seconds. Gaius took one step to the right, the sharp edges passing harmlessly by him. With one hand, he grabbed the drunk's wrist, and with the other delivered a swift jab to the drunk's gut. The drunk grunted, the force of the blow knocking the wind from him and causing him to buckle at the waist.

Gaius dragged the drunk's wrist down, lifting one knee directly into his forearm. The drunk cried out and his grip on the broken bottle released, dropping it to the stones underfoot. Gaius brought his foot back down, the soles of his boots sliding as he turned his back to the drunk while keeping his grip on the arm, and then lifted the drunk by his arm over his own shoulder, and tossing the drunk down hard so he hit the stones on his back. The drunk looked up from his new perspective to see Gaius raise one foot high, then bring it down.

The drunk screwed his eyes shut in anticipation, only for the sound of Gaius' boot to hit the flagstone next to his ear. He slowly opened his eyes, seeing Gaius' leg less than an inch to the side of his head.

"That's your final warning," Gaius said, and stepped away from, "Go sleep it off and learn to behave yourself. Next time I'm likely to do something permanent. Clear?"

The drunk nodded, but Gaius was already walking away from him. Gaius brushed the small glass shards from his shoulders as he walked.

Matthew was right. Beating up drunks certainly wasn't how he had predicted spending his life. It wasn't why he'd learned his skills, or what he'd promised to use them for. What would Master Huang Xi say if he saw Gaius now? He also knew he was losing his edge. He hadn't faced a truly strong opponent since leaving the army.

He made his decision. He'd settle his accounts tomorrow, then leave for the capital. He'd see what the princess actually wanted from him, and possibly meet the new emperor. The last time he'd seen Maximilian, he'd been a boy that barely came up to Gaius' waist.

And also see if the rumors of the emperor's ruthless nature were true, or simply stories his enemies had spread to try to sow fear in the common man.

Hours passed, exactly how long she didn't know, the beating rain in her ears the entire time. Princess Zelda finally started to doze in the dark of the small hollow when something new made her ears tingle. The rain had stopped. She looked up to see her torch had burnt out, but sunlight was visible at the mouth of the hollow.

She slowly crawled to the light, peeking out beyond. Droplets clung to the leaves of the greenery around the entrance, and she could hear birds singing not far away. She struggled to draw out the memories. She had received basic survival lessons in her youth at her mother's insistence, but she didn't exactly take them seriously at the time.

Shelter was first, that she remembered, and it was essential to stay out of rain and other inclement weather as much as possible. If she got sick, there was no one around to help her. Second had to water, she thought, feeling the dryness of her own tongue after what had to be ten hours or so with nothing to drink. A person could survive four, maybe five days without food, though they'd grow weaker each day without. But without water, one would be lucky to last two.

Gods, why was this happening to her? What had she done? She wanted to crawl back in that hole where it was safe, but she would surely die if she did nothing. Her moment of weakness caused tears to well up in her eyes, but she gritted her teeth, wiping them away, and crawled out of the hole. She stood up, pulling the cloak tight around herself.

The jungle was thick, trees growing close together and vines hanging from their branches. Their bark was covered in green moss and an occasional flower.

What did that man say? Hyrule was northwest of here. A journey of months, and even longer on foot. To think she'd been brought so far so quickly made her head spin. Well, that was an objective, at least. To get back home. But first she had to survive.

She looked up, trying to get a fix on the sun through the branches of the trees. Believing she'd located east, she turned to what would be north, and taking a deep breath to shore up her courage, started walking.

At least the ground had been softened by the rain, but her feet were not accustomed to walking barefoot, and every stick and pebble jabbed into her feet, causing her to wince and hiss through her teeth.

Some form of clothing was something else she needed to figure out. She doubted the stories of natives dressing in grass and leaves, as they would hardly be all that protective, but she wasn't going to be able to walk all the way back to Hyrule naked. Some kind of leather would be preferable, or at least animal hide, she thought, holding the cloak tightly around herself, but she was hardly equipped for hunting, and she had no idea what kind of animals would be around here.

Zitheria was dangerous, even compared to other lands, she knew that. Poisonous animals, monsters, and even deadly plants. But what was always warned about in every book on the subject were the natives. Not to mention what Balthazar had told her. The Narak were a tribal society of humans that existed in these lands. The tribes never stayed still, they were nomadic in nature, but were also extremely hostile to outsiders, even to other tribes of their own.

Balthazar was himself a Narak, and stood out like a sore thumb in the capital. He was dark-skinned, more so than even a Gerudo like Damien, with black hair, but stood only about six feet in height, much shorter than Damien. Balthazar was not from Zitheria, however, and had told her he'd been born a slave in the lands of Riastad Empire. But he knew of his own parents, who had been brought from Zitheria to imperial lands.

While much of the savagery had been broken out of them as slaves, his parents had still borne elements of the tribes, most notably their teeth. Narak, as part of their passage to adulthood, filed their teeth to points, and in combat would bite just as viciously as they struck and stabbed. They also had scars of the numerous piercings on their faces, where they had previously put bone slivers as trophies in their lips, nose, cheeks, and eyebrows.

Balthazar had escaped life as a slave through learning the forge, and having considerable talent with a hammer and anvil. Nobles would pay small fortunes to his owner for weapons and armor forged by his hands, and he lived as comfortably as, if not a prince, then at least a very wealthy commoner.

But then he'd had to leave imperial lands in a hurry after an encounter with his owner's daughter. She had come up pregnant, and Balthazar's own words, this daughter wasn't exactly ladylike, and there were at least four others who could have been the father, but he was the only Narak, so if that baby came out a half-breed, he'd lose his head, and that was if they'd waited that long.

He'd fled, and sought shelter in Hyrule, using his talents as a smith to feed himself. Now he was the royal smith, forging the armor for the queen herself and her chosen elite.

And when he'd told her about the sharpened teeth, he'd shown her his own, which had been perfectly normal.

But what this all amounted to was that as dangerous as the animals and plants of Zitheria were, the Narak were far more so. As part of their culture, they engaged in ritual human sacrifice and cannibalism. She had a brief thought, were the people in white masks Narak? No, she immediately corrected herself. The one who had fallen next to her with an arrow through his throat, his mask had fallen off and he had most certainly been Hylian.

And then there was that woman called Six. She looked exactly the same as Zelda herself. Zelda had a twin brother, but no sister, and certainly not identical. And when she had stabbed the woman, there had been no blood on the knife when she pulled it out. She couldn't be human. Some kind of doppelganger? There were legends of such creatures, but she had never heard of anything saying they were real.

She was started from her thoughts by a distant sound. Not sudden, but becoming clearer as she walked. It was running water. A river!

Following the sound through the trees, it was only moments before she emerged in a clearing along the riverbanks. She almost cried in joy as she moved to the water, kneeling down and scooping the clear water in her palms and lifting it to her mouth. She might not have been on the cusp of dehydration, but she was thirsty enough that simple water tasted better than the finest wine she'd ever had.

The water was not running too quickly, and as she stopped drinking to catch her breath, she looked across it. It didn't look deep, and something silver under the surface caught her eye. It was a fish. More than one, in fact. Her stomach growled, as if on cue.

After water, the next vital piece of survival was food. And she had the fire kit in the pocket of the cloak. Fish was sounding like the best idea right now, but the question was how to catch it. She looked around, seeing nothing but the mossy trees to the horizon of the river's path.

Trees… She stood up and walked back to the treeline, looking up at the branches. She found one that seemed old, leafless, and grabbed on, pulling down. There was a crack, but not much movement. She jerked on it, pulling down again and again, hearing more cracking with each pull. Then it gave way, and she fell onto her back with the momentum, but with her prize.

It was straight enough, she thought as she sat up, and took her knife from the sheath on her arm, and set to work sharpening one end of the branch into a point. It only took a moment, and then she had a makeshift spear. She'd never spearfished before, but the concept seemed simple enough.

She moved back to the riverbank, looking for the fish, and spotted them swimming about. Okay, she thought, she had to wait until one came close enough. They'd just swim away if she chased them. She lifted the spear, and immediately realized another problem with her arm tangled in the cloak.

"Oh, great," she muttered, glancing around. Well, it wasn't like anyone was around.

She shed the cloak, dropping it on the ground behind herself, then stepped up to the riverbank again, lifting the spear over her head.

She waited, watching the streaks of silver in the water. Occasionally one broke the surface, eating insects that came down to the water. Zelda herself smacked at mosquitoes trying to get a meal of her, but never taking her eyes from the fish.

She wasn't as alone as she thought, however.

On the other side of the river, a set of eyes were on her. Dark hands with fingernails filed to points like claws pushed aside hanging leaves of a tree, getting a clearer view of the pale woman standing naked on the riverbank. This figure had no chance to call out for his companions, however, as an enormous hand suddenly clamped down on his mouth from behind, dragging him back into the trees. The big man's other arm wrapped around his neck. The Narak hunter struggled, clawing at the arm that held him with his fingernails, but his attacker refused to release his grip. The hunter could feel the pressure as the man tightened his arm around his neck, squeezing harder and harder.

A second later, there was an audible snap, and the hunter's body went limp. Fear shot through him, pain in his neck severe, but he was unable to even feel anything beneath that.

"You've got a few minutes before you die, but I don't have time to wait," the big man said, pulling a cloth from his belt and shoving it into the hunter's mouth to keep him from crying out, "Have to go deal with your friends before they find her too."

The hunter didn't understand his language anyway, but fear was visible in his eyes as the man sat him down against the tree, out of sight of the river, then turned and walked away without another word. The hunter would have screamed if he could. The man was heading directly for the nearest other member of his hunting party. That was no man. It was the wraith that had begun haunting this part of the jungle some years ago. It had to be.

Oblivious to what was happening, Zelda made her attempt, stabbing the spear into the water and cursing as the fish scattered with nothing to show for her effort. With a sigh, she raised the spear and resumed her wait, watching the fish and hoping they'd calm down and come within reach again.

Several minutes passed and her arm was aching from holding up the spear, but the fish did calm and some came close to her again. Taking her aim at one of the larger ones, she waited as long as she could, and when it came near the surface to eat an insect sitting on the surface of the water, she struck.

Red mist appeared in the water, the spear jerked in her grasp, and she smiled, almost not believing it as she lifted it from the water, the struggling fish impaled on the tip. She'd actually got one.

"Okay," she said, taking her eyes off the still struggling fish, "Next up is fire."

She jammed the butt of the spear into the soft earth near the river and set about her next task, gathering wood. There was plenty of fallen deadwood among the trees, though most of it was wet after the rain. But she did find dry wood under the denser foliage. She gathered as much as she could carry, returning to the riverbank. The fish had stopped struggling on the spear by now.

She dropped the wood, and knelt down by the pile. Now, how did this go? Obviously start with the smaller pieces, since they would burn easier, and she could break apart some of the larger pieces if she needed to. Also, needed to make sure the fire could breath. "Build a house and the fire lives in it," she whispered, "Build a grave pile and the fire dies."

She could hardly believe she remembered that phrase, but she did her best to set the wood like a pyramid, with an opening underneath. And this was where the kindling went, she thought, turning to where she had dropped the cloak and taking the metal box from the pocket. From inside the box, she took a helping of the wood shavings, placing them in the opening under the main pile of wood, and then the flint.

Taking her knife, she struck the flint, creating a flash of hot sparks. That was easy enough. She moved the flint over the kindling and struck it again. It took several attempts before the sparks caught on the shaving. Quickly she put the flint and knife down, leaning close to gently blow on the spark, spreading its heat and she was rewarded as visible flames rose from the shavings. A few more seconds and the small pieces of wood started to blacken and visible flames appeared on them. The fire grew in size quickly from there, and in a moment she was able to place the larger pieces onto the pile, and she soon had an open flame over a foot tall.

"Now," she said, turning to the spear with the fish, "I guess the easiest way is to leave you on that."

She pulled the spear from the earth and leaned it down until the fish was just above the flame, holding it there. In a few seconds, she was rewarded with a sizzling sound and the smell of the baking fish. In a way, she felt a sense of pride in this. She'd never cooked anything for herself before.

And she imagined the sight if someone saw her now. She was dirty, her hair a mess, and no clothing, she must be the very image of a cave-woman.

Thought the last one watching her did not happen to think so. She was still too clean, not mention slender and not nearly hairy enough to be a cave-woman. The man from the previous night had returned to his vigil over her after killing the remaining two members of the hunting group. Fortunately, the tribe they were from were unlikely to be alarmed by this. Given how dangerous Zitheria could be, their casualty rate among hunters was regularly high anyway. It was part of what kept the Narak's numbers from growing great enough to be a real threat to civilized lands.

But this girl, even with her basic skills, would not survive on her own in these lands. She had no idea how close she was to death only minutes ago. If a Narak hunting party found her, the best thing they could do would be to kill her outright, but that was unlikely.

And there was that voice he'd heard. The voice of a dead man, or at least, a man who should be dead. Look who's talking, he smiled to himself. It seemed the border between life and death was getting awfully thin these days.

There was no magic that could bring back the dead. That was one of the first laws that any would-be magician learned. But there were loopholes that could be exploited.

And if that dead man was back, it might be time to leave this jungle and settle matters once and for all.

But first, this princess was going to have to learn to stand on her own.

He watched as she took her knife to cut open the scales on the fish and get the meat inside. She had a good start. He wasn't about to carry a helpless child all the way back to Hyrule. He'd given her the warning, that out here there was nothing but to live or to die.

She had chosen to live, even if she didn't realize it. That was the first step. He'd be able to keep the Narak off her back, and if that woman, Six, or even better, the man behind the disembodied voice, came back for her, he'd deal with them.

And if they didn't, he'd give her a week, he decided, before he revealed himself again. If she kept to her northerly course, by then she might make it to the Maraz Tribe territory. They were a bit different from the other Narak, if only because Chief Hoots saw the benefits, and dangers, of dealing with outsiders. Right now, they were in Goreg Tribe lands.

Goreg Tribe weren't anything particularly special. They were as dangerous as any other tribe. But the Maraz Tribe owed favors to the right people, and weren't likely to kill strangers just for being of a pale complexion.

He sighed and rubbed his temple with two fingers. "I try to get out and this damn world is going to drag me back in," he muttered.

As for Zelda, she lay down the inedible pieces of the fish. The scales and bones, all picked clean. While she had hesitated at eating some of the other innards of the fish other than what would typically be called the meat, she realized she couldn't afford to be picky now, bland as it was with no seasoning to speak of. It had been of decent size, though, and left her feeling fed, but not stuffed. She could put out her fire, and keep walking.

"Actually," she said with an afterthought, looking at the blackened end of the spear, "I should get another one now, cook it and carry it with me in case I can't find something as easily for my next meal."

The man in the trees smiled. She was getting it. Maybe she wouldn't need a week. There were more difficult tasks he could teach her, but she should be allowed to grasp the basics on her own. She didn't need to be a master survivalist, but letting her build up her confidence would go a long way to what was eventually going to be demanded of her.

"As for the queen, she is going to owe me for this," he said to himself, "Not that she doesn't owe me plenty already."