@Flight Of The Fledgling@
Ch. 2-Dreams Are Never What They Seem
by:GoldenSilence
disclaimer: Miyamoto dude owns all. Obviously.
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A/N=Acck, almost two and a half weeks between updates! My apologies, but when you are writing five fanfics at once, it makes it a tad bit difficult to update often. Especially over christmas break. And especially when you are currently suffering from a cold *honks on tissues. Please review and tell me what you think! Comments are so very appreciated, and thanks to those that keep reviewing again and again; you guys all know who you are- and you seriously rock!;) Also, Malon and Link aren't in this chapter-well, not really. Of course they get mentioned. But they will be back with a vengeance in the next chapter. Can't stay away from those two for too long, but I thought it would be nice to show more on Zelda's perspective (and, I am hoping, some of the original characters I created for the Zelda universe) in this fanfic in addition to Malon's and Link's. Oh yes, all looking for a sappy chapter-hold up for chapter 3. This is not sappy happy. More angst abounds-or action/adventures abounds..or whatever, something like that.:)
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Cold, bleak night gave way to an equally cold and bleak day, only waning slivers of sunlight warming the thick layer of frost that covered everything in a world of snowy white. Pale yellow sunlight the same color as Zelda's hair that cascaded in waves and chaos over the bench she had foolishly fall asleep on the night before.
Of course, last night, snow hadn't been falling as if to cover the whole land up to the sky in its magnificence. And last night, Zelda, her emotions in a state of turmoil, hadn't exactly been in a clear state of mind. Neither was she now. Even as she dreamed, she achieved no true rest.
The land of Hyrule was the epitome of calm and peace, no liveliness in the form of vegetation, flowers, or glimpses of green among the trees; even their sturdy brown trunks seemed to have turned to stone gray.
Inside Zelda's slumbering mind, however, the world was as different from this one as something solid was from air. Yet it was also invariably linked to Hyrule, because it was Hyrule. Hyrule as perhaps it would one day be. Hyrule as Zelda prayed it never would be. Hyrule more desolate than winter could ever hope to make it, fire outlined against the storm strewn sky.
Zelda saw everything that happened, her view the same as one watching through a crystal ball or from the clouds. Everything seemed far off and far away from her; distant.
At first, for all of two seconds, Zelda was an impassive watcher, as impassive as the snow covered Hyrule she had left behind when she fell asleep was. But soon she was whisked away upon the wind, drawn by some unexplicable force right into the heart of the destruction. As the undefined figures and shapes; at first only faint images in the night, and the fire that seemed to loom everywhere obscuring them all became clearer, Zelda felt the bile rise to her throat.
The strangely shaped objects consumed by the fire that she had from a distance off thought were only burning lumps of hay or perhaps, smoldering various brush gathered from the forest, were nothing of the sort. They were, in fact, houses. Houses and people. People screaming, their terror only seeming to fuel the energy and panic that charged the very atmosphere.
Burning. Burning everywhere. Zelda looked down at the ground, simply for a change of sight from the gruesomeness of it all, and was surprised to see her own two feet amid the charred cinders of wood on the ground. So not only was she there in the sense that she could see everything that happened; there in spirit, but her body was there, as well.
"Is this a dream?" Zelda thought aloud and was horrified when a woman answered her, a woman running by with her child wrapped within the remains of a shawl (running from what, Zelda wondered.)
"This a dream? That's a good one. Nay, miss. This is as close to reality as you're ever going to get."
She had been called lass. No one called a princess that. Majesty, or milady perhaps, but never lass. It was as if the lady didn't know who she was. Preposterous. Everyone in Hyrule knew who Zelda was. All bowed, abandoning whatever business or pursuits they had at the moment to pay her respects when she came through town. Not that she expected such in the middle of an event like this, but...not recognizing her?
Something was wrong. Very wrong. "Where's the king, then?" she demanded of the woman, running to keep up with her as she fled. "Where are all the king's guards and knights?"
"Huh." The women spat over her shoulder, the spittle flying over Zelda's shoulder. A sign of disrespect for the king, or perhaps contempt, even. What had happened to turn the people against her father so? Or had the always been and he was too blind to see it?
No. The Hyrulians had always been loyal.
"They're all dead," continued the woman, hurrying up her pace now so that Zelda had to struggled to keep up with her, dodging this way and that away from the fire's raging path. She laughed bitterly. "A lot of good they'll do us, unless corpses make good shields."
Zelda ceased trying to keep up with the woman, watching as she continued to run, becoming merely an abstract figure as she got further and further away.
This was reality? It couldn't be. It just couldn't be, thought Zelda desperately as she surveyed people dying right and left. The smell accompanying all of this pandemonium was putrid, comprised of soot and something Zelda wished she couldn't identify. Something that she unfortunately could. Blood and burning flesh, both humans' and animals'.
Who would do such a thing? This wasn't Hyrule, was it?
Then, seemingly without even having to think it or command herself to do so, Zelda's feet moved against her will, as a robot's would, the only feet not hurriedly running away or completely stilled forever in death. She came to stop at a sign, or more accurately, what had once been a sign. Only half of it remained while the rest lay in the dirt.
Zelda remembered Link had done such destroying of signs for fun sometimes, but he had always rebuilt them by playing her lullaby on his ocarina...
But inspecting what was left of the sign more closely, Zelda realized its ruined state was not Link's doing. She also realized that for better or for worse, this was indeed Hyrule. Some kind of twisted Hyrule, but still Hyrule, all the same, for Zelda could just make out upon the sign the words "Kakariko Village."
Instead of being chopped clean in half as a sword such as Link's would have done if applied, the sign (and even the wooden post, itself) bore deep groove marks, marks that were the work of an axe. An axe? But none of father's knights or guards used an axe. Why, no one in Hyrule used an axe as a weapon except for the--
Zelda's thoughts were torn from her (if it was even possible to think in such a place of terror and unrest) as suddenly the scene faded before her very eyes. Her temporary relief at being gone from the place vanished as that previous scene was replaced with a far more horrible one. Far more horrible because she was now in a town full of people she knew and recognized more numerously than in Kakariko. The town spread out before her and her father's very own castle.
The relief returned as Zelda noted that, differing from Kakariko Village, everything here was going according to its usual, bustling schedule, not as much as a trace of destruction unless you counted the chickens squabbling and pecking anything within their beaks' reach.
A man in his late fifties carried a little girl piggyback through the crowd, bringing a smile to Zelda's face when she saw who he was. The oldest of her father's knights; the only one that had shown her kindness aside from Impa, her nanny. Everyone else kept their distance from a princess, only staying long enough to give a curteous "good day, milady" or "good evening, milady" , making it a point to stay out of her path for all hours in between.
"Arogas! Arogas!" she called, but even though he was only a mere foot away, within hearing distance, Arogas appeared not to hear her, continuing as if he couldn't see her either.
Zelda went right up to his face. "What's wrong with you? Don't you know me?"
No response. He walked right through her and right on past. It was the same with a peddler and a little boy chasing a butterfly. Unlike Kakariko, no one noticed her or saw her. She was invisible to them, inaudible and invisible. But then, so was the noise that broke over that happy chattering of the multitude of voices wthin Hyrule Market. They couldn't hear it, but Zelda could.
Zelda, who had just wished to be out of the destroyed Kakariko Village now wished herself back there as she saw what accompanied the noise. The ground shook and tremored (this too went unnoticed by the people.) An earthquake was what it seemed to Zelda-but then as it got nearer to the town, louder, and more distinct, she discovered it was actually composed of thousands upon thousands of hoof beats pounding upon the turf.
Zelda was screaming now, shouting as loud as any of those in Kakariko Village had, trying to warn the villagers-the main focus those she knew; the baker, shoe maker, old beggar that begged in precisely the same corner every day-all of them.
But it was to no avail. She could have yelled herself hoarse and they still would not have heard a thing.
Then, they came. On war horses, with torches covered in pitch pine and lit with fire, axes and scimitars at their sides, clad in black and led by a man in a billowing cape, they came. And Zelda could do nothing but watch, a bystander in spite of her efforts to prevent being so.
The city went from tranquil to a mirror image of Kakariko's debasement within but a few minutes of the mysterious riders' arrival. The first torch was thrown at the first house and with it, the people realizing too late what Zelda had been trying to warn them of, became all of a sudden one quivering, horrified, panicking mass. This mass quickly dispersed as it was every man or woman for him or herself, fleeing every possible route.
Only one refused to run-stood his ground in front of the riders as they entered, refusing to let them pass.
"Arogas, no! Don't!"
Zelda rushed forward to help him. Didn't he see he was going to get killed? That man, the riders' leader, would cleave him in two without so much as trimming a fingernail..that was if his giant steed didn't stomp him over first. Zelda had moved to stand beside Arogas, but somehow she had not ended up so, but instead was standing in front of him. She could hear her voice, strong and stubborn, adressing the riders.
"I don't know what you think you are doing, but this is a peaceful country. We have no quarrel with you, so begone! Or if you have reason for disatisfaction pertaining to Hyrule, speak to my father, the king."
The woman in Kakariko had said her father was dead, but Zelda refused to believe it and besides, it just might save these people's lives, her saying that there was still someone in charge of the country, someone who could send out knights and guards for the protection of his people and defend his country himself, if need be.
It was quite a speech if Zelda did say so herself, but its effects went entirely wasted. Neither the riders nor anyone else heard her, and the leader pretended not to hear her, though she knew he could. She knew from the smile he gave her-a wicked smile that said all too clearly that the person would have been scowling if he didn't think smiling was the more effortless of the two. The smile made Zelda very glad she could not see the rest of his covered face.
He unsheathed his scimitar from his side, swinging it over his head in an arc and readying to bring it down upon Arogas' neck. Immediately, Zelda jumped in front of Arogas, meaning to die in his place if need be, but it did not come to pass. She truly was invisible to everyone else but herself, for the scimitar went clear through her and clear through Arogas' neck, droplets of his blood raining down upon her shoulders.
She turned her head so not to have to see her friend in such immense pain, on his deathbed. With his last breath of life left, Arogas at last recognized and saw her, looking at her turned head and muttering his last word, the word that would haunt Zelda for some time, both in her dreams and when she was awake. "Traitor."
Blink.
The scene faded yet again and Zelda was now in a place even more familiar than Hyrule Market; inside the castle, in her father's throne room. And they were there too, the riders that reaped havoc with ease. The leader advanced towards her father's vulnerable form sitting upon the throne, and Zelda closed her eyes, sure she was only a helpless spectator, sure this was all a dream and she would wake up soon, sure her father would die.
Die he did, but a helpless spectator to this, Zelda was certainly not. Instead, she now had a role to play-she was a helpless actress, guided as if a puppet by a master puppeter. Taking the dagger that one of the riders offered her, she walked behind her father's chair, raised it, and stabbed him in the back; the most shaming and unloyal death for any king.
It was not her fault. She had no control. Indeed, it felt like it wasn't even her doing..
Until afterward, when the absoluteness of what she had done soaked in and the tears that had been threatening to pour rained down at last.
Even as she blinked, the world faltered and the scenery changed once more. Now, she was standing before him; the leader of the horsemen. Where (besides that it was before a fire) she did not know and privately reflected that that was partly because he did not wish her to.
For he was controlling her. Controlling her as she stepped towards him, her mind wanting to run away but her feet not letting her.
He smiled, the same evil smile, upon seeing her beside him. One deformed hand went up and pulled the hood of his cloak back to reveal his face to her-a face that may have been handsome once, but was now as deformed as his hands, twisted by the power consuming his very soul.
Ganondorf. But Link had killed him. How could he still be alive? Was it possible?
"Anything is possible-," Ganondorf answered her, and if Zelda could have jumped ten feet in the air, she would have, so shocked was she to hear him respond to her thoughts, things she had not even said aloud. His accent was not uncouth or rough, as some the peasants' were, but cultured; strange when put in conjuction with the wild, tattooed face that the words spilled forth from. "-But surely you knew that from your dreams?" he questioned.
My prophetic dreams. But why do you speak of them? Am I-is this a dream?
"That is one way of looking at it, perhaps," acknowledged Ganondorf.
Then I wish to wake up. In the names of all the godesses, please let me wake up from this nightmare!
Ganondorf's voice cut across her silent pleading. "Don't think that just because it is a dream, it willl not happen. Remember, this is not anyone else's dream but yours. And your dreams have a way of coming true." He laughed, an eerie sound among the still and quiet of wherever they were, only the crackling noise the fire made daring to join him in his mirth. "All this happens whether you want it to or not. You see what will happen, not what can happen."
No. You are a liar. My father won't die. This is all just some king of a trap to-to-to
"I think the words you are looking for are, get you to join me. And on that, I quite agree. You are sensible, think on it. Refuse to help my cause-"
Cause? What cause?
"-I do not reveal that so hastily. As I was saying, refuse to help and your loved ones will die." Ganondorf spoke of this in the same way most people would speak of the weather or their catch of fish for the day.
No sooner had he finished speaking than Zelda saw flashes of pictures in her mind's eye.
Blink.
Malon and Link at their wedding, with him about to kiss her. As he moved to slide the ring on to her finger, both froze and turned to stare-Malon with loathing, he with pity- at the girl in the pews, that girl that was--Zelda?
Blink.
Link, being stabbed by her, a pool of blood fanning around him and splattering her as well with the evidence. His face stared unseeingly up at her own, pain written across its features, stretched tight in agony.
Blink.
*************
Zelda turned her eyes dizzily on the bonfire in front of her, refusing to look at Ganondorf. She felt tears starting to form in the corner of her eyes, all the while furious at herself for crying. Crying was showing a weakness-and princesses, princes, queens, and kings never did that. To be ruler of a country was to allow yourself no weakness for the sake of that same country. Weaknesses lead to destruction and exploitation.
Hurriedly brushing way her tears with the edge of her sleeves, Zelda thought bravely (there was no need to speak since Ganondorf could hear her thoughts, anyway.)
If either way, they die, isn't the whole thing kind of pointless? What does it matter one way or the other? I think your little speech needs some editing there, sorry. Should have written down another version of it first, you know, something along the lines of join or die. Much more simple and effective.
Ganondorf turned his face towards hers, the firelight reflecting off it as it had Malon's and Link's when they had been dancing with the Gorons only the day before...but with Ganondorf, it did not shine merrily, acccenting the happiness written across his face in a similiar way to the couple's. No, its light only served to reflect the hidden motives that hid within Ganondorf's calm face.
A lethal sort of calm that made you only all the more sure he was a man of violence and action, one that was steeped in treachery, murder, and deceit, but thought nothing of it, these things now as natural to him as sleeping, eating, or breathing.
"Do not avoid answering. What is your choice?"
It isn't my choice.
Ganondorf's eyes turned the color of the dancing flames themselves and Zelda heard his voice, louder and more terrible than before. It seemed to summon her, echoing from the grounds, the heavens, even the fire itself-all this without Ganondorf's lips so much as moving.
"I GROW TIRED OF THIS. CHOOSE OR I WILL DO SO FOR YOU!"
Zelda could not be frightened, she could afford to be (too many people's fates rested on her decision, though either way would do no good.)
Then I choose no.
"For him?" Ganondorf's voice issued forth from his own mouth again, sounding like the soft whisper of a steel blade as it sliced through the air-nearly silent and twice as deadly. Zelda did not have to ask who he spoke of. She knew. Link. Could she not escape him even in her dreams?
"Heroes come and go, but we would be forever."
Spending eternity with you? I'd rather you killed me then die of boredom, thanks all the same. But if you could sew me a new silk gown everyday and play the lute while dancing a jig, I might reconsider the-
"SILENCE!"
Ganondorf's voice boomed forth again and Zelda, needless to say, silenced herself in a hurry, fighting back the strange urge to laugh at Ganondorf's choice of words, seeing as it was more than a bit strange that he was telling her to be quiet when she had not spoken out loud so much as a syllable. Perhaps humoring Ganondorf had not been a good idea, but it was all that was keeping what was happening from seeping in. Just as Zelda could not afford to be frightened, she couldn't afford to take this all seriously. That would come later.
It was awhile before Zelda ventured to speak-or rather, to think-again. How? she asked, knowing Ganondorf would understand what statement she was referring to. How could anyone live forever? I will not see my life lengthened by other's being shortened.
"You mean you do not wish the hero of time to die. But would you care so for the girl; Malon, if such was her fate? Admit it, you would not."
Blink.
Zelda had another sudden image of her in the hills sloping up to the castle, laughing at Link as they shared a picnic. From her past, she realized.
"Why, with all this time we spend together, people will think we are betrothed."
"And what, pray, is so wrong with that?"
"Link, if you mean to ask me, you are going to have to do a better job of a proposal," Zelda watched herself tease. It was an uncanny thing to watch yourself as you had been only a few weeks hence, as an unlooker would.
"Precisely why I can't ask you yet. I still have to practice getting down on one knee without falling over."
"Perhaps you should take ballet. I hear Master Johnas in Kakariko is an excellent leader of men in tights."
Out of the blue, the words Zelda had been waitng for among the friendly banter.
"I love you." Link ducked his head as if emberassed of the words. The Zelda of the past was even more emberassed.
"I-I-I"
And Zelda, unable to bear the words, to bear the fact that she could not love him partly because of her place in society and partly because of herself, ran off.
"You can't catch me!"
***********
Blink.
Back at the fire with Ganondorf again, Zelda defeated the urge to cry or better, to get up and give him a good punch alongside the jaw. He was the one showing her those images, she was sure of it. He wanted her to see them, trying to convince her to join him.
Zelda's white, resolute, facial expression went for naught. "Upset?" asked Ganondorf. "You shouldn't be, for another loves you as much as he loves Malon."
Blink.
Yet another image, (did they never cease? thought Zelda tiredly) this one of Prince John, whom she had danced with what seemed so long ago. Only he seemed--different-- somehow. Though he looked as she had remembered last, even if he was sitting on a bed in what Zelda assumed was his own castle.
His black hair untied, chunks of strands carried by the wind, his eyes a mirthful green. His eyes, there was the difference. They had been a mirthful green, now they seemed cold; lost and sad-so very sad. But why?
Then, the eyes changed. They flickered, and Zelda thought she glimpsed something within them; some sort of spark, before Prince Johnathan fell out of bed and crumpled to the floor.
Blink.
The image was gone and she was staring at Ganondorf's ugly visage across the fireside.
"What are you doing with him?!" Zelda demanded angrily, speaking out loud for the first time. Her indignant yell seemed to lessen upon the air, the last words coming out in almost a whisper.
"Child, child." Ganondorf spoke her name as he would a favorite niece or nephew and it made Zelda seethe to her him talk so."It isn't what I am doing to him, it it was he is doing for me."
Just a dream. Just a dream. This is all just a dream. Zelda clung to the thought and phrase tenaciously.
"Nothing is ever just a dream. You may not choose to help me and join my cause now, but you will sooner or later, no matter. I am a patient man."
That explains the twenty years before attempting to get the triforce, then. Or was that just because you were lazy?
"That is enough." Ganondorf sounded faintly amused, as a cat would be with a mouse.
And that was it. Zelda was going to go and punch him, she didn't care if she died. If everyone she loved died, she might as well die too. At least it would get her out of this awful dream that seemed to have no end.
But just as she thought that, the dream did end, the things she had seen staying within her even as she tumbled through darkness, awakening to one of her father's guards shaking her shoulder. Zelda stood up from the stone bench, the snow shaking from her feet but not her hair, where it remained settled like a magical sprinkling of fairy dust. She took in her surroundings, pinching herself and wanting to make sure she was truly awake.
She was. This was Hyrule as she knew it. Hyrule in the beginnings of winter with barren trees and landscape alike-even in the castle gardens, it was so. The world was calm, dreamlike, even. Strange that reality should seem like a dream while the dream had seemed like reality, but when Zelda first awoke from her visions, it was always so.
Not that anyone besides Link and Impa knew she had them. Her visions were a strength, yes, but also a weakness. And weaknesses were not shown to anyone- who knew who was foe and who was friend?
Zelda turned to the guard, the light briefly showing on a face that was so pale it made the sun almost look dark by comparison. "Yes?"
"Your father requests an audience with you."
"Very well. You may go and tell him I shall be there shortly."
Zelda said nothing of her dream, showed nothing of how she had been effected by it. By all accordance, she had taken a foolish nap and dreamed of being rescued by a prince on a white horse, jewels, and dresses of velvet, as her tutor insisted princesses should. Should, but didn't.
Of course, her tutor was also the one insisted on giving her regular "fainting" lessons-fat lot of good that would do her in life, thought Zelda disgustedly. What, was she just supposed to simply keel over into the enemy and hope it knocked him unconscious? Pretty stupid, but personal opinions were of no matter when you were training to be ruler-everything seemed to be dictated by someone else.
The snow and ice reflected in Zelda's face as she walked through the gardens to the castle; cold expressionless, and hard-as easy as the warmth of the fire reflected in Malon's or..his.
Ganondorf's face came to mind, far too accurate in clarity for Zelda's liking. Just a dream, she told herself again, the brief hint of emotion passing from her face like light into the shadows. Just a dream.
The voice resounded, startling a sparrow nearby from a tree. And it startled Zelda even more.
Do not be so quick to underestimate dreams, child. It was a faint voice, so faint that afterwards she was not entirely sure if it had not just been her imagination, a faint voice that seemed to whistle through the swooshing of the trees, with the howling and swirling of the snow itself.
Zelda did a quick about face and found herself looking at a rose hedge, the roses' stems brown with age, their petals scattered on the icy ground before them. No Ganondorf. His voice was gone as speedily as it had come, a reminder of the nightmare.
As if I could ever forget, thought Zelda bitterly. I never do. Always remember every one.
She had a feeling this was definitely one she would be remembering more than any of the others-the images would remain branded within her mind forever. Was the outcome of everything to be as he had said?
She would talk to Impa as soon as she could, but first, the conversation with her father had to be gotten out of the way-that was how Zelda always referred to talking to her father; getting it out of the way.
Throughout the mazelike path of the garden, Zelda's thoughts were on the dream. And she felt cold to the very bone, shivering for a reason that had nothing to do with the snow or her silk slippers becoming soaked with ice.
*********
Ch. 2-Dreams Are Never What They Seem
by:GoldenSilence
disclaimer: Miyamoto dude owns all. Obviously.
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A/N=Acck, almost two and a half weeks between updates! My apologies, but when you are writing five fanfics at once, it makes it a tad bit difficult to update often. Especially over christmas break. And especially when you are currently suffering from a cold *honks on tissues. Please review and tell me what you think! Comments are so very appreciated, and thanks to those that keep reviewing again and again; you guys all know who you are- and you seriously rock!;) Also, Malon and Link aren't in this chapter-well, not really. Of course they get mentioned. But they will be back with a vengeance in the next chapter. Can't stay away from those two for too long, but I thought it would be nice to show more on Zelda's perspective (and, I am hoping, some of the original characters I created for the Zelda universe) in this fanfic in addition to Malon's and Link's. Oh yes, all looking for a sappy chapter-hold up for chapter 3. This is not sappy happy. More angst abounds-or action/adventures abounds..or whatever, something like that.:)
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Cold, bleak night gave way to an equally cold and bleak day, only waning slivers of sunlight warming the thick layer of frost that covered everything in a world of snowy white. Pale yellow sunlight the same color as Zelda's hair that cascaded in waves and chaos over the bench she had foolishly fall asleep on the night before.
Of course, last night, snow hadn't been falling as if to cover the whole land up to the sky in its magnificence. And last night, Zelda, her emotions in a state of turmoil, hadn't exactly been in a clear state of mind. Neither was she now. Even as she dreamed, she achieved no true rest.
The land of Hyrule was the epitome of calm and peace, no liveliness in the form of vegetation, flowers, or glimpses of green among the trees; even their sturdy brown trunks seemed to have turned to stone gray.
Inside Zelda's slumbering mind, however, the world was as different from this one as something solid was from air. Yet it was also invariably linked to Hyrule, because it was Hyrule. Hyrule as perhaps it would one day be. Hyrule as Zelda prayed it never would be. Hyrule more desolate than winter could ever hope to make it, fire outlined against the storm strewn sky.
Zelda saw everything that happened, her view the same as one watching through a crystal ball or from the clouds. Everything seemed far off and far away from her; distant.
At first, for all of two seconds, Zelda was an impassive watcher, as impassive as the snow covered Hyrule she had left behind when she fell asleep was. But soon she was whisked away upon the wind, drawn by some unexplicable force right into the heart of the destruction. As the undefined figures and shapes; at first only faint images in the night, and the fire that seemed to loom everywhere obscuring them all became clearer, Zelda felt the bile rise to her throat.
The strangely shaped objects consumed by the fire that she had from a distance off thought were only burning lumps of hay or perhaps, smoldering various brush gathered from the forest, were nothing of the sort. They were, in fact, houses. Houses and people. People screaming, their terror only seeming to fuel the energy and panic that charged the very atmosphere.
Burning. Burning everywhere. Zelda looked down at the ground, simply for a change of sight from the gruesomeness of it all, and was surprised to see her own two feet amid the charred cinders of wood on the ground. So not only was she there in the sense that she could see everything that happened; there in spirit, but her body was there, as well.
"Is this a dream?" Zelda thought aloud and was horrified when a woman answered her, a woman running by with her child wrapped within the remains of a shawl (running from what, Zelda wondered.)
"This a dream? That's a good one. Nay, miss. This is as close to reality as you're ever going to get."
She had been called lass. No one called a princess that. Majesty, or milady perhaps, but never lass. It was as if the lady didn't know who she was. Preposterous. Everyone in Hyrule knew who Zelda was. All bowed, abandoning whatever business or pursuits they had at the moment to pay her respects when she came through town. Not that she expected such in the middle of an event like this, but...not recognizing her?
Something was wrong. Very wrong. "Where's the king, then?" she demanded of the woman, running to keep up with her as she fled. "Where are all the king's guards and knights?"
"Huh." The women spat over her shoulder, the spittle flying over Zelda's shoulder. A sign of disrespect for the king, or perhaps contempt, even. What had happened to turn the people against her father so? Or had the always been and he was too blind to see it?
No. The Hyrulians had always been loyal.
"They're all dead," continued the woman, hurrying up her pace now so that Zelda had to struggled to keep up with her, dodging this way and that away from the fire's raging path. She laughed bitterly. "A lot of good they'll do us, unless corpses make good shields."
Zelda ceased trying to keep up with the woman, watching as she continued to run, becoming merely an abstract figure as she got further and further away.
This was reality? It couldn't be. It just couldn't be, thought Zelda desperately as she surveyed people dying right and left. The smell accompanying all of this pandemonium was putrid, comprised of soot and something Zelda wished she couldn't identify. Something that she unfortunately could. Blood and burning flesh, both humans' and animals'.
Who would do such a thing? This wasn't Hyrule, was it?
Then, seemingly without even having to think it or command herself to do so, Zelda's feet moved against her will, as a robot's would, the only feet not hurriedly running away or completely stilled forever in death. She came to stop at a sign, or more accurately, what had once been a sign. Only half of it remained while the rest lay in the dirt.
Zelda remembered Link had done such destroying of signs for fun sometimes, but he had always rebuilt them by playing her lullaby on his ocarina...
But inspecting what was left of the sign more closely, Zelda realized its ruined state was not Link's doing. She also realized that for better or for worse, this was indeed Hyrule. Some kind of twisted Hyrule, but still Hyrule, all the same, for Zelda could just make out upon the sign the words "Kakariko Village."
Instead of being chopped clean in half as a sword such as Link's would have done if applied, the sign (and even the wooden post, itself) bore deep groove marks, marks that were the work of an axe. An axe? But none of father's knights or guards used an axe. Why, no one in Hyrule used an axe as a weapon except for the--
Zelda's thoughts were torn from her (if it was even possible to think in such a place of terror and unrest) as suddenly the scene faded before her very eyes. Her temporary relief at being gone from the place vanished as that previous scene was replaced with a far more horrible one. Far more horrible because she was now in a town full of people she knew and recognized more numerously than in Kakariko. The town spread out before her and her father's very own castle.
The relief returned as Zelda noted that, differing from Kakariko Village, everything here was going according to its usual, bustling schedule, not as much as a trace of destruction unless you counted the chickens squabbling and pecking anything within their beaks' reach.
A man in his late fifties carried a little girl piggyback through the crowd, bringing a smile to Zelda's face when she saw who he was. The oldest of her father's knights; the only one that had shown her kindness aside from Impa, her nanny. Everyone else kept their distance from a princess, only staying long enough to give a curteous "good day, milady" or "good evening, milady" , making it a point to stay out of her path for all hours in between.
"Arogas! Arogas!" she called, but even though he was only a mere foot away, within hearing distance, Arogas appeared not to hear her, continuing as if he couldn't see her either.
Zelda went right up to his face. "What's wrong with you? Don't you know me?"
No response. He walked right through her and right on past. It was the same with a peddler and a little boy chasing a butterfly. Unlike Kakariko, no one noticed her or saw her. She was invisible to them, inaudible and invisible. But then, so was the noise that broke over that happy chattering of the multitude of voices wthin Hyrule Market. They couldn't hear it, but Zelda could.
Zelda, who had just wished to be out of the destroyed Kakariko Village now wished herself back there as she saw what accompanied the noise. The ground shook and tremored (this too went unnoticed by the people.) An earthquake was what it seemed to Zelda-but then as it got nearer to the town, louder, and more distinct, she discovered it was actually composed of thousands upon thousands of hoof beats pounding upon the turf.
Zelda was screaming now, shouting as loud as any of those in Kakariko Village had, trying to warn the villagers-the main focus those she knew; the baker, shoe maker, old beggar that begged in precisely the same corner every day-all of them.
But it was to no avail. She could have yelled herself hoarse and they still would not have heard a thing.
Then, they came. On war horses, with torches covered in pitch pine and lit with fire, axes and scimitars at their sides, clad in black and led by a man in a billowing cape, they came. And Zelda could do nothing but watch, a bystander in spite of her efforts to prevent being so.
The city went from tranquil to a mirror image of Kakariko's debasement within but a few minutes of the mysterious riders' arrival. The first torch was thrown at the first house and with it, the people realizing too late what Zelda had been trying to warn them of, became all of a sudden one quivering, horrified, panicking mass. This mass quickly dispersed as it was every man or woman for him or herself, fleeing every possible route.
Only one refused to run-stood his ground in front of the riders as they entered, refusing to let them pass.
"Arogas, no! Don't!"
Zelda rushed forward to help him. Didn't he see he was going to get killed? That man, the riders' leader, would cleave him in two without so much as trimming a fingernail..that was if his giant steed didn't stomp him over first. Zelda had moved to stand beside Arogas, but somehow she had not ended up so, but instead was standing in front of him. She could hear her voice, strong and stubborn, adressing the riders.
"I don't know what you think you are doing, but this is a peaceful country. We have no quarrel with you, so begone! Or if you have reason for disatisfaction pertaining to Hyrule, speak to my father, the king."
The woman in Kakariko had said her father was dead, but Zelda refused to believe it and besides, it just might save these people's lives, her saying that there was still someone in charge of the country, someone who could send out knights and guards for the protection of his people and defend his country himself, if need be.
It was quite a speech if Zelda did say so herself, but its effects went entirely wasted. Neither the riders nor anyone else heard her, and the leader pretended not to hear her, though she knew he could. She knew from the smile he gave her-a wicked smile that said all too clearly that the person would have been scowling if he didn't think smiling was the more effortless of the two. The smile made Zelda very glad she could not see the rest of his covered face.
He unsheathed his scimitar from his side, swinging it over his head in an arc and readying to bring it down upon Arogas' neck. Immediately, Zelda jumped in front of Arogas, meaning to die in his place if need be, but it did not come to pass. She truly was invisible to everyone else but herself, for the scimitar went clear through her and clear through Arogas' neck, droplets of his blood raining down upon her shoulders.
She turned her head so not to have to see her friend in such immense pain, on his deathbed. With his last breath of life left, Arogas at last recognized and saw her, looking at her turned head and muttering his last word, the word that would haunt Zelda for some time, both in her dreams and when she was awake. "Traitor."
Blink.
The scene faded yet again and Zelda was now in a place even more familiar than Hyrule Market; inside the castle, in her father's throne room. And they were there too, the riders that reaped havoc with ease. The leader advanced towards her father's vulnerable form sitting upon the throne, and Zelda closed her eyes, sure she was only a helpless spectator, sure this was all a dream and she would wake up soon, sure her father would die.
Die he did, but a helpless spectator to this, Zelda was certainly not. Instead, she now had a role to play-she was a helpless actress, guided as if a puppet by a master puppeter. Taking the dagger that one of the riders offered her, she walked behind her father's chair, raised it, and stabbed him in the back; the most shaming and unloyal death for any king.
It was not her fault. She had no control. Indeed, it felt like it wasn't even her doing..
Until afterward, when the absoluteness of what she had done soaked in and the tears that had been threatening to pour rained down at last.
Even as she blinked, the world faltered and the scenery changed once more. Now, she was standing before him; the leader of the horsemen. Where (besides that it was before a fire) she did not know and privately reflected that that was partly because he did not wish her to.
For he was controlling her. Controlling her as she stepped towards him, her mind wanting to run away but her feet not letting her.
He smiled, the same evil smile, upon seeing her beside him. One deformed hand went up and pulled the hood of his cloak back to reveal his face to her-a face that may have been handsome once, but was now as deformed as his hands, twisted by the power consuming his very soul.
Ganondorf. But Link had killed him. How could he still be alive? Was it possible?
"Anything is possible-," Ganondorf answered her, and if Zelda could have jumped ten feet in the air, she would have, so shocked was she to hear him respond to her thoughts, things she had not even said aloud. His accent was not uncouth or rough, as some the peasants' were, but cultured; strange when put in conjuction with the wild, tattooed face that the words spilled forth from. "-But surely you knew that from your dreams?" he questioned.
My prophetic dreams. But why do you speak of them? Am I-is this a dream?
"That is one way of looking at it, perhaps," acknowledged Ganondorf.
Then I wish to wake up. In the names of all the godesses, please let me wake up from this nightmare!
Ganondorf's voice cut across her silent pleading. "Don't think that just because it is a dream, it willl not happen. Remember, this is not anyone else's dream but yours. And your dreams have a way of coming true." He laughed, an eerie sound among the still and quiet of wherever they were, only the crackling noise the fire made daring to join him in his mirth. "All this happens whether you want it to or not. You see what will happen, not what can happen."
No. You are a liar. My father won't die. This is all just some king of a trap to-to-to
"I think the words you are looking for are, get you to join me. And on that, I quite agree. You are sensible, think on it. Refuse to help my cause-"
Cause? What cause?
"-I do not reveal that so hastily. As I was saying, refuse to help and your loved ones will die." Ganondorf spoke of this in the same way most people would speak of the weather or their catch of fish for the day.
No sooner had he finished speaking than Zelda saw flashes of pictures in her mind's eye.
Blink.
Malon and Link at their wedding, with him about to kiss her. As he moved to slide the ring on to her finger, both froze and turned to stare-Malon with loathing, he with pity- at the girl in the pews, that girl that was--Zelda?
Blink.
Link, being stabbed by her, a pool of blood fanning around him and splattering her as well with the evidence. His face stared unseeingly up at her own, pain written across its features, stretched tight in agony.
Blink.
*************
Zelda turned her eyes dizzily on the bonfire in front of her, refusing to look at Ganondorf. She felt tears starting to form in the corner of her eyes, all the while furious at herself for crying. Crying was showing a weakness-and princesses, princes, queens, and kings never did that. To be ruler of a country was to allow yourself no weakness for the sake of that same country. Weaknesses lead to destruction and exploitation.
Hurriedly brushing way her tears with the edge of her sleeves, Zelda thought bravely (there was no need to speak since Ganondorf could hear her thoughts, anyway.)
If either way, they die, isn't the whole thing kind of pointless? What does it matter one way or the other? I think your little speech needs some editing there, sorry. Should have written down another version of it first, you know, something along the lines of join or die. Much more simple and effective.
Ganondorf turned his face towards hers, the firelight reflecting off it as it had Malon's and Link's when they had been dancing with the Gorons only the day before...but with Ganondorf, it did not shine merrily, acccenting the happiness written across his face in a similiar way to the couple's. No, its light only served to reflect the hidden motives that hid within Ganondorf's calm face.
A lethal sort of calm that made you only all the more sure he was a man of violence and action, one that was steeped in treachery, murder, and deceit, but thought nothing of it, these things now as natural to him as sleeping, eating, or breathing.
"Do not avoid answering. What is your choice?"
It isn't my choice.
Ganondorf's eyes turned the color of the dancing flames themselves and Zelda heard his voice, louder and more terrible than before. It seemed to summon her, echoing from the grounds, the heavens, even the fire itself-all this without Ganondorf's lips so much as moving.
"I GROW TIRED OF THIS. CHOOSE OR I WILL DO SO FOR YOU!"
Zelda could not be frightened, she could afford to be (too many people's fates rested on her decision, though either way would do no good.)
Then I choose no.
"For him?" Ganondorf's voice issued forth from his own mouth again, sounding like the soft whisper of a steel blade as it sliced through the air-nearly silent and twice as deadly. Zelda did not have to ask who he spoke of. She knew. Link. Could she not escape him even in her dreams?
"Heroes come and go, but we would be forever."
Spending eternity with you? I'd rather you killed me then die of boredom, thanks all the same. But if you could sew me a new silk gown everyday and play the lute while dancing a jig, I might reconsider the-
"SILENCE!"
Ganondorf's voice boomed forth again and Zelda, needless to say, silenced herself in a hurry, fighting back the strange urge to laugh at Ganondorf's choice of words, seeing as it was more than a bit strange that he was telling her to be quiet when she had not spoken out loud so much as a syllable. Perhaps humoring Ganondorf had not been a good idea, but it was all that was keeping what was happening from seeping in. Just as Zelda could not afford to be frightened, she couldn't afford to take this all seriously. That would come later.
It was awhile before Zelda ventured to speak-or rather, to think-again. How? she asked, knowing Ganondorf would understand what statement she was referring to. How could anyone live forever? I will not see my life lengthened by other's being shortened.
"You mean you do not wish the hero of time to die. But would you care so for the girl; Malon, if such was her fate? Admit it, you would not."
Blink.
Zelda had another sudden image of her in the hills sloping up to the castle, laughing at Link as they shared a picnic. From her past, she realized.
"Why, with all this time we spend together, people will think we are betrothed."
"And what, pray, is so wrong with that?"
"Link, if you mean to ask me, you are going to have to do a better job of a proposal," Zelda watched herself tease. It was an uncanny thing to watch yourself as you had been only a few weeks hence, as an unlooker would.
"Precisely why I can't ask you yet. I still have to practice getting down on one knee without falling over."
"Perhaps you should take ballet. I hear Master Johnas in Kakariko is an excellent leader of men in tights."
Out of the blue, the words Zelda had been waitng for among the friendly banter.
"I love you." Link ducked his head as if emberassed of the words. The Zelda of the past was even more emberassed.
"I-I-I"
And Zelda, unable to bear the words, to bear the fact that she could not love him partly because of her place in society and partly because of herself, ran off.
"You can't catch me!"
***********
Blink.
Back at the fire with Ganondorf again, Zelda defeated the urge to cry or better, to get up and give him a good punch alongside the jaw. He was the one showing her those images, she was sure of it. He wanted her to see them, trying to convince her to join him.
Zelda's white, resolute, facial expression went for naught. "Upset?" asked Ganondorf. "You shouldn't be, for another loves you as much as he loves Malon."
Blink.
Yet another image, (did they never cease? thought Zelda tiredly) this one of Prince John, whom she had danced with what seemed so long ago. Only he seemed--different-- somehow. Though he looked as she had remembered last, even if he was sitting on a bed in what Zelda assumed was his own castle.
His black hair untied, chunks of strands carried by the wind, his eyes a mirthful green. His eyes, there was the difference. They had been a mirthful green, now they seemed cold; lost and sad-so very sad. But why?
Then, the eyes changed. They flickered, and Zelda thought she glimpsed something within them; some sort of spark, before Prince Johnathan fell out of bed and crumpled to the floor.
Blink.
The image was gone and she was staring at Ganondorf's ugly visage across the fireside.
"What are you doing with him?!" Zelda demanded angrily, speaking out loud for the first time. Her indignant yell seemed to lessen upon the air, the last words coming out in almost a whisper.
"Child, child." Ganondorf spoke her name as he would a favorite niece or nephew and it made Zelda seethe to her him talk so."It isn't what I am doing to him, it it was he is doing for me."
Just a dream. Just a dream. This is all just a dream. Zelda clung to the thought and phrase tenaciously.
"Nothing is ever just a dream. You may not choose to help me and join my cause now, but you will sooner or later, no matter. I am a patient man."
That explains the twenty years before attempting to get the triforce, then. Or was that just because you were lazy?
"That is enough." Ganondorf sounded faintly amused, as a cat would be with a mouse.
And that was it. Zelda was going to go and punch him, she didn't care if she died. If everyone she loved died, she might as well die too. At least it would get her out of this awful dream that seemed to have no end.
But just as she thought that, the dream did end, the things she had seen staying within her even as she tumbled through darkness, awakening to one of her father's guards shaking her shoulder. Zelda stood up from the stone bench, the snow shaking from her feet but not her hair, where it remained settled like a magical sprinkling of fairy dust. She took in her surroundings, pinching herself and wanting to make sure she was truly awake.
She was. This was Hyrule as she knew it. Hyrule in the beginnings of winter with barren trees and landscape alike-even in the castle gardens, it was so. The world was calm, dreamlike, even. Strange that reality should seem like a dream while the dream had seemed like reality, but when Zelda first awoke from her visions, it was always so.
Not that anyone besides Link and Impa knew she had them. Her visions were a strength, yes, but also a weakness. And weaknesses were not shown to anyone- who knew who was foe and who was friend?
Zelda turned to the guard, the light briefly showing on a face that was so pale it made the sun almost look dark by comparison. "Yes?"
"Your father requests an audience with you."
"Very well. You may go and tell him I shall be there shortly."
Zelda said nothing of her dream, showed nothing of how she had been effected by it. By all accordance, she had taken a foolish nap and dreamed of being rescued by a prince on a white horse, jewels, and dresses of velvet, as her tutor insisted princesses should. Should, but didn't.
Of course, her tutor was also the one insisted on giving her regular "fainting" lessons-fat lot of good that would do her in life, thought Zelda disgustedly. What, was she just supposed to simply keel over into the enemy and hope it knocked him unconscious? Pretty stupid, but personal opinions were of no matter when you were training to be ruler-everything seemed to be dictated by someone else.
The snow and ice reflected in Zelda's face as she walked through the gardens to the castle; cold expressionless, and hard-as easy as the warmth of the fire reflected in Malon's or..his.
Ganondorf's face came to mind, far too accurate in clarity for Zelda's liking. Just a dream, she told herself again, the brief hint of emotion passing from her face like light into the shadows. Just a dream.
The voice resounded, startling a sparrow nearby from a tree. And it startled Zelda even more.
Do not be so quick to underestimate dreams, child. It was a faint voice, so faint that afterwards she was not entirely sure if it had not just been her imagination, a faint voice that seemed to whistle through the swooshing of the trees, with the howling and swirling of the snow itself.
Zelda did a quick about face and found herself looking at a rose hedge, the roses' stems brown with age, their petals scattered on the icy ground before them. No Ganondorf. His voice was gone as speedily as it had come, a reminder of the nightmare.
As if I could ever forget, thought Zelda bitterly. I never do. Always remember every one.
She had a feeling this was definitely one she would be remembering more than any of the others-the images would remain branded within her mind forever. Was the outcome of everything to be as he had said?
She would talk to Impa as soon as she could, but first, the conversation with her father had to be gotten out of the way-that was how Zelda always referred to talking to her father; getting it out of the way.
Throughout the mazelike path of the garden, Zelda's thoughts were on the dream. And she felt cold to the very bone, shivering for a reason that had nothing to do with the snow or her silk slippers becoming soaked with ice.
*********