Well, you guys know how bad I am at uploading. Now you know how bad I am at uploading when I've got a bunch of huge school projects hanging over my head, not to mention a nice gloomy cloud of depression...but that's another story.
Thanks for reading, please review. Zelda does not belong to me.
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Sanctuary
Kaepora banked past the mountains and into open air above Hyrule Field as I clung to his feathers for dear life, my eyes squeezed tightly shut. I felt sick; my head was swimming, and all I could think about was Ganondorf and the murderous gleam in his eyes that had been present even on that day in the throne room. What did he want with me? Why did Impa and the others think it so necessary to protect me from him?
A great thunderclap sounded suddenly all around us, eliciting a shriek from me that neither of us could hear. The heavens opened and rain began to pour down in icy sheets.
Kaepora quickly began to lose altitude, flapping his wings hard to keep us aloft. He muttered something that was lost over the howl of the wind.
"What?" I yelled, struggling to raise my voice.
"I don't like this!" Kaepora shouted back- I could barely hear him. "This is probably an omen, you know!"
I had nothing to say to that. I buried my face in Kaepora's feathers and refused to look up again until I felt us descending.
We had reached the castle town in record time. Squinting through the rain, I saw the gloomy outline of the Temple of Time below us. Kaepora spiraled downward, and I clung as hard as possible to his neck to keep from falling off. My head was swimming again. Blackness was creeping into the edges of my vision. I felt dizzy and sick, as though I were about to faint.
Then a dark figure loomed into my mind's eye, and I screamed.
"We can't go down there!"
We hit the ground with a thump. Kaepora's reply was lost on me. I rolled off his back, landing on my hands and knees in a puddle of mud, and climbed shakily to my feet.
And met the gleaming eyes of a madman.
"Princess," he said.
Kaepora shrieked, a mindless, terrified sound that expressed my emotions perfectly. He took wing immediately, flapping away through the stormy sky, leaving me alone and defenseless.
I took a step back, then another, and another. I moved slowly and silently, with the utmost care, as if he were a wild animal that would snap at any sudden movement. I felt my back press against a hard wooden surface- the doors of the temple. My hand groped for a handle and gave it a hard jerk.
The door didn't budge. I could not open it. A smile spread slowly across Ganondorf's lips as we both arrived at this conclusion. My scalp prickled with horror.
"I wonder," said he, "why the power of the goddesses alerts me to you." His voice was deep, thick, and quite hypnotic in its mad softness. I wanted to run -how desperately I wanted to run- but I was rooted to the spot, unable to even twitch.
"It's strange, isn't it?" he continued, his eyes fixed on me with a predatorial hunger. "You, just a little girl...separated from your family, your home...why, forsaken by your very kingdom."
I wanted to deny it, say it wasn't so, but my throat had died.
"Not a bit of power. Not a bit..." he murmered. "So why? Unless-" His eyes widened slightly. "The ocarina...that boy..."
The eyes were calculating, the mouth set. "So he's the one. And you- his guide."
I shook my head wordlessly at him. I could not for the life of me understand what he was talking about.
"Very well." His hand moved to his back- I saw it wrap around the handle of a sword, and he slid the great, black weapon from its sheathe. My throat tightened as I looked at it. Barely able to breathe, I attempted to flatten myself into the doors of the temple.
"Come here, princess." He moved fluidly toward me like a cat stalking its prey, hunger and ferocity dominating his features. "Be a good little girl and bear your throat. It won't hurt- much." A smile lit his face.
"Help." It came out as a choked whisper. "Please...help."
"There's no one to save you, princess," he replied, his voice soft and oddly gentle.
"Stay away," I whispered.
He kept walking. Each step brought him closer, too close. Any moment he'd swing that terrible sword and...
"Stay away!" I screamed. "Stay away! Goddesses, Impa, shadows, help me! HELP ME!"
Ganondorf raised his sword, his terrifying grin freezing the very blood in my veins.
"Somebody h-" I was cut off as the doors behind me abruptly and dramatically flew open- I lost my balance and stumbled back through the threshold of the temple and into a strong, solid pair of hands.
Ganondorf halted, his eyes dwelling uncertainly on my rescuer. I craned my neck to look behind and up at a wildly fierce old man wearing a ceremonial red robe, his tan, weathered face partially concealed behind a snow white moustache and beard- Rauru, the caretaker of the Temple of Time.
The anger in his flashing eyes as he glared at the Dark King made me shiver. "Get out of this place!" he roared, fierce as a lion. "How dare you step on sacred ground?!"
Ganondorf's eyes widened. "Sacred!" he snarled, and spat in the dirt. "Then it is the boy- that damned boy your goddesses are trying to protect!"
Rauru shoved me back further into the temple and planted himself solidly between Ganondorf and I. "You will never cross this threshold," he said, voice icy cold. "The children of destiny are protected here. Go back to your dark dwelling, and never show your face here again."
I saw Ganondorf hesitate, and was astounded that this short, rather thickset old man could command him. Yet the power radiating from him was difficult to ignore- it spoke of warmth and light and everything the Dark King stood against. In its presence, I was comforted, and I looked on my nemesis with only a slight quiver of fear.
But when his eyes met mine, dark and shadowed in his murderous intentions, I knew terror once more. "Enjoy your prison, princess," he spat. "I'd not dare step out of it, were I you, lest your blood be spilled by my hands."
He turned and swept majestically away, shadows enveloping him until he was no longer in sight. Rauru slammed the doors shut and turned the heavy bolt.
"There," he said calmly, turning toward me. "You're perfectly safe here, Your Highness."
"A-am I?" I squeaked, feeling the blood return to my pallid face and icy fingers.
"Of course. The goddesses have blessed the temple. No creature of darkness may cross its threshold."
"I know," I said softly, examining my surroundings. I had been in here before, of course-most services to the goddesses were performed within these walls. Yet it seemed different, somehow. It was colder, harsher, like the hall of sculpted art in the palace where I was allowed to touch nothing- the polished walls were glaring, the bit of moonlight that filtered in from the pristine windows barely touching the gloom. It was the same temple that I had visited countless times in my life, and it wasn't.
There was another change. The Door of Time was opened.
"How did-" The words died in my throat as my eyes fell on the altar before the Door. The three Spiritual Stones rested upon- the great emerald, ruby, and sapphire. A vision of a golden-haired boy appeared in my mind.
I swallowed hard and walked toward the Door, the tapping of my feet on the marble floor quite audible in the silent temple. I could feel Rauru's eyes on me, but he made neither sound nor move to stop me. I halted before Door of Time, afraid to go further, afraid to see what was beyond a threshold I had never crossed. But my curiosity got the better of me, and I peeked inside.
My first impression was that of height. The room was hexagonal, fairly wide, and tall. The arched ceiling stretched so high up that I could barely see the top. In the middle of the room was a tiered hexagonal platform- not a Triforce hexagon, but something else. Six circles were imprinted around the edge of it, and etched within the circles were strange designs. I looked closely at the hexagon, at the flash of gold that caught my eye.
Link, the boy whom I had met in the courtyard that day, whom I'd entrusted the ocarina to, lay sprawled across the platform, a great sword clutched in his hand. His eyes were tightly closed, his form as still as death.
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Continued in Chapter 11.