The Or Games

Spring. It was Gae's new promise.

"They won't let me out, I won't be able to see you until spring. You shouldn't leave the western borders either. Don't write to me anymore, it's no longer safe."

I've never felt so alone in my whole life, it was as if when I got married my family had forgotten about me. I was just a solved problem, one less concern. And... I tried hard to understand, I realised that Gae had no choice, that there were more monsters and a kind of hidden threat. But I felt terrible, helpless. What if Link had been a cruel and ruthless barbarian instead of being the way he is? Did they care about abandoning me to my fate? What hurt me the most was the "don't write to me anymore." After that, I could barely keep reading, blinded by tears. I was behaving like an idiot I know; it was childish, I didn't even want to be that weak… If it wasn't for Link being so kind to me that night... I don't even know how it would have ended.

My mood varied as I mentally formulated a sentence. "You've been abandoned by them. Now you only have him," that formula brought me to tears. But... "at least you're not alone, luckily you have him." That… that formula was warm, full of uncertainty, but it gave me hope. And Link didn't mind at all taking me to Hyrule to visit my family. He repeated it to me several times, when I finally dared tell him the contents of Gae's letter. It's just that now... I didn't know if I wanted to go back there. Not until spring, as Gae had said. The mere idea of going back to Hyrule knowing that they didn't want me to be there broke my heart. If Link could take me there, why couldn't they take the same risk?

Link was waiting for me in the stable yard, in the reins of our honeymoon-wagon (he grunted and rolled his eyes every time I named the wagon like that). I was fluttering around in the kitchen for a while, saying goodbye to Frea, Mabet and Manroy. I had prepared something and wanted to take it for the trip.

"Are you ready yet?" He growled, snorting over the tardiness.

"Yes, don't be so impatient."

As soon as I got into the carriage, he clicked his tongue and we were on our way. It was cold; autumn was as cold and white as the windiest of winters in Hyrule Castle. Luckily, I had packed myself some comfortable travelling clothes, trousers, leather boots and a warm tunic. I also wore a cloak that had been Mabet's, and it suited me well enough.

"Are you sure there won't be any trouble if I go, Link?"

"There will be the occasional snag, but it's time to face them. You are my wife and that's the only reality there is, whether they like it or not."

I've never been to the Snow Plains of the Steppe before. In the past this land had belonged to Hyrule, but their people ended up rebelling and a great-great-grandfather of mine (or a great-great-great-grandfather) ended up granting them a "friendly freedom." Since then, they have been left almost in no man's land, annexing the kingdom that would grant them the most benefits.

Link and I had discussed in depth whether or not I should attend the Or Festival. It was a tradition of the peoples of the north, they celebrated the magical 'Night of Fire', in which earthly spirits could come into contact with the gods and thus offer Or the remnants of what was harvested in summer and autumn. It was the most important holiday for the barbarians in the West, as he had told me, and he warned me that I should not be shocked by anything I saw or heard. As Link was being so kind to me, I raised the possibility of staying at the Nest with Manroy and the others so as not to disturb him at the feast (even if in doing so I refused to go to this cultural celebration which I found too curious and attractive) but he refused, I don't know why he wanted me to accompany him.

So, we've been organizing this trip for days. Since there were so many people attending the festival, we would have to set up a camp to sleep and stay safe from the cold, bring enough food to stock up, warm clothes, weapons... a little bit of everything. At first I thought this festival was that banquet he had already told me about, but these were different events. The winter dinner was one more festival in Nightfall and the south and had always been held in Fort Hawk. Still, Link's parents and siblings would come to the Steppe, just like us.

"Will there be sacrifices of any kind?"

"Well, during the Night of the Fire we always sacrifice a goat or a sheep, to thank Or."

"And then you eat it?"

"No! Hell, it would be some kind of sacrilege. We keep their blood and throw the body into the fire so that the flames may consume it and thus make the offering to Or."

"What do you do with the blood?"

"It's often used to dye hunting or war paints."

Link turned to look at me and his bewilderment face made me suppress a laugh.

"What?" I asked, pretending to be clueless.

"What the hell are you doing, Zelda?"

"I write down what you tell me. I find it very interesting, and I don't think there's any book documenting all this in Hyrule's library."

"Where did you get that book of notes?"

"I got it from Manroy, he brought it to me from Nightfall. I have several of these to fill out," I smiled, waving the notebook right under his nose, "is it wrong?"

"It's not that, it's just that..."

"Are you surprised?"

"I guess so."

"Why, let's see?"

"I don't know," he growled. He was so grumpy.

"Come on, don't be so shy. We've talked about it before. I thought you'd be a furry barbarian with a long beard to the chest and bear hairs on your arms. I thought you'd drink beer in a goat's skull and spend the day... I don't know... hitting things and sharpening your teeth with a knife" I couldn't help but laugh at my own description, "It's about time you tell me what you imagined I would be like. I'm sure you've thought about it."

"What does it matter now?"

"Oh, of course it matters. It matters a lot. I'm dying of curiosity. Tell me, please..."

"For Or's sake... " he sighed. I stared at him until he had no choice but to answer, "I imagined none of this. Is that good for you?"

"What? No way. Not at all descriptive and very unimaginative. We have hours of travel ahead of us and I'm going to insist until you tell me about it."

"Here you go. I didn't imagine you'd be so stubborn," he half smiled.

"Come on, I'll help you, maybe if you visualise it again it will be easier."

"Again?"

"Did you imagine me as a brunette? You thought I would have a pale complexion and long, shiny, jet-coloured hair, adorned with flowers and precious stones."

"I didn't physically imagine you," he growled once more.

"Okay."

"I thought you'd be blonde like your brother Gae." He relented.

I knew he would have imagined all this in a thousand ways, but it was going to be impossible to get it out of him no matter how much fun I thought it was.

"Oh! Well-seen. You thought I would be... I don't know... a little pedant?"

"You're a little pedant."

"Right. I admit my flaws," I chuckled, it was too much fun to put him in those predicaments, "let's move on. Did you think I'd like to swim in gold and jewellery? And wear tight corsets full of lace that cut your breath?"

"I don't know much of that," he smiled, shyly, " but yes, I thought all this would seem too little to you. Surely it is too little for you."

"It's not!" I tried to sound as outraged as I felt inside.

"I… I was sure you were like Kahen, but you're like Gae," he said, and I felt a shiver, "I thought you'd be cold and haughty, that you'd treat me with the contempt with which you'd treat a foreign barbarian or a bandit."

"Link, don't-

"I thought you wouldn't like the Nest and you'd be horrified by our way of life, that you wouldn't want to live with my people," he let go, without letting me reply. He seemed determined to say it all at once, "And now that you ask it with that energy of yours... Yes. I thought you'd be one of those strange women in the court who look like some kind of unattainable statues, who live in terror with staining the edge of the dress, so fragile that they break just by looking. And so as not to hear you again all the way, I'll tell you that since you're nothing of the sort, what I find is that you're surprising."

"Surprising." I grinned widely, "I like it, it sounds great."

He was lovely to think that.

"Surprises can be good or bad," he said, making me laugh again.

"See? Well, you know more about me. And now you also know that I like to write down what I see to study it and that that knowledge is not lost."

"Zelda... I want you to know one thing," he said, earnestly.

"Don't scare me..."

"You have to be ready for anything at the festival. Barbarians aren't like the people you know in the castle. They won't speak well of you or your family. They can be dangerous."

"Oh. Then they'll be exactly like the people in court. Especially as far as I'm concerned."

"We must be careful. Your killer could hide in the crowd, he might want to attack again."

Is that why I was accompanying him? Was I the bait for the traitor? I really disliked the idea. Link seemed genuinely worried about me every time he... when he… those times he had been kind. But maybe it was because I was just a political burden he had to control. Maybe he just wanted to make sure there were no more problems, and why not put a bait so his enemy would sting on it?

"Everything okay?" He asked, sensing my silence and my change of mood.

"Yes."

"What were you doing with Frea in the kitchens?"

"Nothing, it's silly."

I felt a sudden urge to cry, another of those stupid moments of weakness was approaching. I wish I wasn't so sensitive lately, Zelda Bosphoramus was taught to keep her emotions at bay.

"I thought you cooked something." He insisted.

I sighed and went to the back of the wagon to get the sack I had loaded just before we departed.

"Some cookies, for the road." I offered him a few.

"Did you make them?"

"As you are such a glutton I thought you'd get hungry often. Cookies keep better than bread. I've seen that mouldy bread you eat with the boys when you go travelling. One day you will get sick if you keep eating that filth."

He blinked a couple of times and picked up a cookie. He sniffed it a little before swallowing it whole. He did the same thing with the others.

"Do you have more?" He had crumbs on his chin, among the blond bearded hairs that were starting to grow.

"There are many more, we've made a sack."

"A big or small sack?"

"Glutton..."

"They're very good," he smiled, "I like them, thank you."

"It's a recipe from Frea, I've just followed her instructions." I shrugged. He examined me in detail, as he did at times.

"I've been a fool to talk to you like that before about barbarians," he said, frowning, "but I promise you no one will hurt you unless they want to find themselves in big trouble. I don't want you to be afraid of anything, we'll be safe, you'll see. If it wasn't safe for you, I'd ask you to stay home."

"Thank you, Link."

"Then don't be sad. And... you can keep writing down your stuff without fear, alright?"

Again, he made me feel that kind of warm feeling in my chest. He was very honest, it was impossible for him to have a parallel plan, he wasn't like that. I decided to listen to him and take away my stupid negative thoughts and leave behind my mania of overthinking everything. He hadn't shown a single time that he was using me in any way, in fact, he had always treated me with respect, like an equal. Unless he proved otherwise, I had to trust him, and for now all I had received from Link was kindness and nobility. Paying him with distrust would be unfair as well as ungrateful.

For hours we ate cookies, chatted about the Or Festival and I took so many notes that my doll started to hurt. In addition to rituals, they always celebrated the "barbarian games", competitions in which the prize was a goat, a cart with the best pumpkins or a good coat made of furs. But above all, the prize was the barbarian pride. The clan's pride was so important that Link told me that "certain tribes should be let win," depending on the trial. For example, the Rhino Clan had to win yes or yes the competition of cutting a giant log in half. I asked Link if he had ever let anyone win, and he shrugged. Link was very strong, much stronger than he looked, just look at the ease with which he moved weights as if they were nothing. I was sure that for political reasons he would have let himself be beaten by other barbarians. But he claimed that he always won the archery competition, because the best archers were from Fort Hawk, so he claimed that the other participants also let him win on purpose.

At nightfall, Link searched for a sheltered spot to stop. We hadn't crossed paths with anyone (curious). He told me it was because almost everyone departed from Fort Hawk and Nightfall, using different roads. Southerners like him and I had to travel further and in anticipation of bad weather.

We covered with a canvas all the slits of the honeymoon wagon, to keep it from getting very cold inside, and he lit a bonfire outside, fixing the camp. He was very good at all that, it was a great advantage to travel with someone like him.

"When we camp on the snow plains, we won't get cold. The tent is so big we can light a fire inside," he said.

"Wouldn't it have been better to make a night in Nightfall?"

"No, it's fine like this. Anyway, we'd have had to make a stop outdoors, so I'd rather make only one and not two."

I tried to figure it out but wasn't easy, these lands were almost unknown for me. I wish I could have a map and get to know all these territories better.

"I'm so sorry for you, Zelda. All this discomfort." He said, weighing my silence.

"Oh. I think it was clear I'm not one of those crystal ladies in the court," I teased.

"Still... you're the princess of Hyrule."

"Wrong statement. I'm the invisible daughter of King Rhoam."

"We're the perfect couple then, because I'm pretty invisible too."

"We could vanish, don't you think? Travel in the honeymoon wagon wherever we want. It would be our dark revenge against them for forcing us to get married. The first destination would be Hateno."

"Sounds good.", he half smiled.

"Second destination: the sea. So that you can see it with your own eyes, because of your stubbornness you wouldn't want to see it on your own, so I'd drag you there by force,"

He laughed at my occurrences. His laugh was cute, I wish he laughed more.

"Those places are a long way off. Would anyone notice we've been missing for so long?" He grinned, as he stoked the fire a little more.

"No one."

"Your friend Impa would notice. She'd come and cut my throat with her fang-shaped dagger."

"Damn, I hadn't thought of the sheikah. But I'll figure something out, don't worry."

"I haven't travelled much." He admitted, thoughtful.

"As you said, nothing prevents us from doing it."

He just nodded. I guess he started to get worried about what was waiting for us in those Games, and how far this trip was from being free of political implications.

We dined in silence, as much as I allowed with my questions. Ever since he started opening, it was almost impossible for me to shut up. But he didn't mind, or he didn't look like I was bothering him. Gae would have told me to go to hell a hundred times by now, called me a parrot, a chatterbox, a know-it-all... but Link responded to all my nonsense. Afterwards, we were silent for a while, me looking at all my notes, him leaning against a wagon wheel.

"Link, I hope if we haven't stopped in Nightfall it wasn't my fault," I confessed. I was a little tormented by the idea and preferred to let it go.

"Are you still thinking about that? I've already explained it to you."

"Yes, you've explained it to me, but I hope it's the reason and not that you're afraid we'll meet that girl and her family."

"I'd be lying if I told you I haven't been avoiding meeting her lately," he acknowledged, and I saw again the sadness of his eyes that moved me so much, "but that's not why we camped here. The reason is I'd rather make a stop outdoors and not two."

He grunted a little and closed his eyes, relaxing.

"You know? I think I'm going to get some sleep," I announced, standing up. I was sure he'd stay in that kind of watchful sleepover all night.

"Alright, get some rest. I'll wake you up before dawn, we'll leave early."

"Fair enough, Captain."

It was a bit cold inside the wagon, but we had leather blankets and soon I warmed up.

In the stillness of the night, I felt as if there was a tremor in the ground. I felt the surface of the car, nothing. But it was still there, a vibration, like a murmur. I opened the canvas of the wagon and it was pitch dark. Not a darkness like those moonless nights, or like when I went down to the cellar with the candle out. It was darker. A dense, suffocating blackness. Link wasn't outside. I walked barefoot through the darkness, feeling the vibration underground, tickling the soles of my feet. In the distance I saw a reddish point of light and decided to get closer. What I saw there was somewhat grotesque, a half-human, half-ram creature waving flames, raising them high into the sky. It might look terrifying, but I felt no fear. I noticed that the sparks from the fire were rising in one direction, zigzagging in the darkness to the mountains of Hebra, and there, into a hollow in the rock. I looked at the creature and saw two deep hollows where there should have been eyes, like the empty sockets of a skull, but deeper, and a strange light shining in the bottom, like when I look at a distant star through a telescope. It gave me goose bumps and I froze.

I woke up suddenly, my heart pounding. I felt the floor of the car and there was no vibration. I poked my head through the canvas to the outside and the darkness was normal, in fact, there was plenty of light because the crescent moon would soon be full. I tried to go back to sleep, but I couldn't. I didn't want to have another hyper-realistic dream. I would close my eyes and see the monster's eyes, and they would pull at me, as if trying to suck me in. I covered my head with the blanket, but I knew I couldn't fall asleep.

"Zelda? What's up?" he asked when he noticed I was outside, arms folded over my chest.

"Nothing, everything's okay."

I still had goosebumps and I needed to hold myself to stop trembling. It took him a while to notice me, he must have been half asleep, his voice sounded sleep hoarse.

"Don't you sleep anymore? You said you needed a rest."

"I'm fine like this, thank you."

I walked around the bonfire, there were big incandescent embers. It felt warm, much warmer than inside the wagon. I didn't want to go back inside, I was being childish again. Maybe if I stood around the fire for a while I could forget about that horrible darkness, but Link would make questions and I didn't want to share my nightmares with him, it was too embarrassing, he would think I'm just a kid.

I avoided looking at him, but I could feel his gaze on me.

"Do you want to sit and watch from here?"

Well. Watching was another thing. We might do watch shifts.

"Okay. I'll watch with you."

He made room for me next to him, and I leaned on the wheel of the wagon, just like him. It was quite awkward, but I didn't want to go back to the darkness inside in case I got caught again.

"You're not scared, are you?"

"No way. About what?" I let out an anxious laugh, luckily he didn't notice. He was too sleepy to guess my thoughts with those looks of his.

"Animals are in the woods and so are monsters, we are safe here." he yawned.

"What about the Mountains of Hebra?"

I didn't even want to raise my look at the dark range profile of the far mountains. I just looked at our feet, close to the embers.

"W-what... about what...," he murmured, half asleep.

Damn stubborn barbarian, he was the one who needed a rest, not me!, I was much more awake than him to watch over the camp.

"I'm wondering if there's a known cave or anything like that, I don't know. Legends about a cave in the mountains."

"There're... caves... Yes."

"I think I'll investigate those legends once we are there. I can do it while you split logs with the other barbarians at the Games."

"Mmm..."

I took his "mmm" as a yes. My dream was one of my special, strange, and scary dreams. I'd look into it carefully, on my own.

Notes:

If the translation+revision of chapter 16 goes well, I will post again on Saturday.

About this chapter, nothing special to mention, just that I enjoyed it a lot when I wrote it some time ago, and I've also enjoyed the translation. Again, I'm changing some parts of the text and taking advantage of it to correct and adapt the story better, so it's like a second correction on top of the corrections.

Take care!

-Juliet