I figured it out! The reason that no one seemed to notice I'd put up a thirteenth chapter is because I wasn't actually posting a new chapter, just replacing the "gomen" notice, and so my story didn't move to the top of the list in the Zelda section. *nod nod* That's gotta be it.
Well, now you all have two chapters! Oh happy day! And you all owe me two reviews, mwa ha ha ha! ^_^ Actually, that's alright. You don't have to review twice if you don't want to (though it would make me so very happy… *puppy dog eyes*).
The Hime Note's continued at the bottom. Oh my God, I think this thing's going to be serial! NOOO!
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Chapter 14
Lesson
Five more of Ganondorf's creatures appeared before Rauru remembered to put an enchantment on the grounds to keep them away. This time they varied in species- two more lizards, two skeleton warriors, and a strange pig-man. Rauru taught me their names- Lizalfo, Stalfo, and Moblin, respectively.
Rauru secured an enchantment on the grounds of the temple two days after my eleventh birthday. I'd let my birthday pass quietly -it seemed so unimportant to make a big fuss over it- though I admit I was a little hurt when Rauru seemed to know nothing of it. But I swallowed my pride and considered safety from Ganondorf's monsters my birthday gift.
Rauru, concerned with my low weight and constantly pale visage, let me eat more at mealtimes. Only now did I realize how like a disease the Sheikah book had been. Rauru kept the temple's windows open every day in hopes that sunlight might banish my listlessness, but the sky was swirling with dark clouds. Monsoon season had come and gone, with eerily clear skies. I watched the backwards weather with growing apprehension.
I also began to seriously consider learning some talent with which I could defend myself, if only because the walls of the temple were driving me crazy.
"Look, you don't have to learn a weapon if you don't want to," Rauru told me impatiently when I talked to him. "There are other ways- evasion techniques, you know?"
"Avoiding the enemy, you mean?" I said, frowning.
"Exactly. Here, watch this." Rauru walked the length of the temple's main hall and back as I surveyed him closely.
"Well?" he said, stopping before me.
I shook my head, confused. "What was I supposed to see?"
"Not see," he said. "Hear. Did you hear anything when I walked?"
"Your robe swished."
Rauru grimaced. "Right. I'm not wearing the right clothes for this. Did my footsteps make any noise?"
"No."
"Well, there you go," he said with immense satisfaction.
I didn't quite get it. It must've shown in my face because Rauru exhaled loudly, as if he thought I was being dense.
"If I walked like that -wearing the right clothes, of course- would an enemy hear me sneaking around him?" he asked pointedly.
I got the hint. "Oh! But…sneaking around your enemy…isn't that kind of cowardly?"
Rauru shrugged. "If it is, I suppose that means I spent eleven months in a foot camp learning to be a coward," he said lightly. "But I told you that my band did stealth missions."
"So you had to learn to walk like that."
"Exactly. Sometimes you're outnumbered, or outweaponed, or you need to retrieve someone or something without making a big fuss about it- that's the sort of thing that stealth is for. It's not cowardice."
"And will you teach me this?" I asked, intrigued.
"If you want. It's a good enough alternative to learning a weapon, I suppose."
Learning to walk without sound. It seemed agreeable enough. Yet little did I know just how much I was agreeing for. What I didn't realize was that this was the first step- the first step to fulfilling the promise I had by this time forgotten. The first step into shadow.
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A week or two had passed before I realized that I must have been out of my mind when I agreed to let Rauru teach me something.
The corner in which I stood was to the left of the door. I had been there since sundown, watching as the moonlight streaming through the temple's gilded windows glided slowly across the floor, marking the hours. It must've been almost midnight now. Rauru promised me that I would not eat if I moved even a muscle between dusk and dawn.
My eyes left the floor to meet Rauru's. He was seated cross-legged in front of the altar, his sharp eyes fixed on me, watching for even a twitch of a finger on my part. The hateful glare I gave him was surely cold enough to freeze water, but it didn't bother him. "I used to teach new boys in the squad exactly what I'm teaching you," he told me when the lessons first began. "Their manners were much worse than yours- they would scream and curse and throw things. After molding those animalistic boys into the same kind of soldier I was, there's not much that can faze me."
My legs were so stiff, I feared that if I even twitched I'd simply fall flat on my face. It had started exactly like this, only a bit easier- discipline, Rauru told me, was the first thing I had to learn.
"Picture this, princess," he would say, giving me a scenario. "In the dead of night you're separated from your squad, and a group of the enemy's warriors, say, twenty goes marching by. Your only hope is a clump of bushes you can hide in. You go and crouch down so they can't see you and you think you're fine, but their sergeant picks that moment to do a roll call and make sure nobody's missing. They're an unruly bunch, so it takes them an hour to get into formation. Then there's one missing, so that's several hours to send out a few to go find the straggler. Your only hope of survival is to stay silent and still in those bushes until they're gone- so tell me, if you can't keep quiet and still here in the safety of the temple, how are you going to survive out there?"
And he would make me stand silently, without movement, for as long as he designated. At first it was just an hour, two hours…and now I was waiting all night long. Three nights I had tried this test, and three nights I had failed- thus, I had not eaten in seventy-two hours.
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I opened my eyes. The sun was shining through the gilded windows and Rauru was seated before me, cutting a wedge of cheese into bite-sized pieces, a shameless grin on his face. I tried to move and couldn't.
"You fell asleep on your feet," Rauru said lazily without looking up. "That's all right, though. If you'd shifted in your sleep, or cried out, you would've failed." He lifted my right hand for me and placed four pieces of cheese in my palm.
I suddenly realized that I was starving. It was an effort to lift my hand so I could clumsily deposit the cheese in my mouth, but it was worth the struggle. I chewed fast, swallowed, and held out my hand for more.
"I take it I stayed still, then?" I asked in a raspy voice.
"That's right." Rauru gave me the rest of the cheese and waited until I'd wolfed it down. "Try moving your legs."
I took a tentative step and teetered dangerously, but did not fall. I cringed as feeling suddenly came back to my legs and crumpled to the floor.
"Cramps?" Rauru asked, slicing an apple.
"Pins and needles."
Rauru ate a piece of the apple and gave the rest to me. I polished the slices off in record time, still ravenously hungry. "Stretch a lot. Stretch every day, anytime you can. Your muscles will get used to this. They have to. Otherwise, what's the good of learning how to stand silently if you can't move when the danger's passed?"
"I thought I was going to learn how to walk silently," I said resentfully through a mouthful of apple.
"All in time, princess. Try to stand again."
I sighed and carefully stood. Balancing precariously on my own two feet, I took a few experimental steps.
"Better?" Rauru asked.
"I guess so."
"Good." Rauru smiled. "You get today to recover and tonight to sleep. Tomorrow, you stand in that corner an entire day- twenty-four hours."
"You must be joking!" I cried, almost in tears. "I can't do that!"
"You'll do it or you won't eat," Rauru reminded me patiently. "You think this is the worst of it? Wait until I teach you balance."
I broke down in tears right then, but it made no difference. True to his word, Rauru made me stand all day long after only a night's sleep and little food- I did this twice a week for two months until he was satisfied. From then, we progressed.
As I said, I must have been out of my mind. It was the only logical explanation.
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Continued in Chapter 15.
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Hime Note Continued-
Hello, dear readers. Feel free to skip this section at any point. It's just my inane babbling, no reason to read on if you don't want to.
Today, I'd like to talk about the Sheikah, or my opinions on the Sheikah, anyway. Now as you can see, Sheikah obviously play a big role in this story. There's one thing I'd like to make clear regarding them- I am not, have never been, and probably never will be, the authority on Sheikah. What I know about them totals to almost zilch. So basically anything in this story (or my other stories) has been made up based on the very, very, very limited info regarding Sheikah that can be found in OoT.
I have a thing with Sheikah. I like them, and I like writing about them. They're interesting, you know? As Zelda puts it, they are "a people so immersed in shadow that to them, death is more important than life." Keep in mind that I made that up based not on a random idea, but the fact that shadow and death are indicated to be a big part of Sheikah life. Impa being the Sage of Shadow, and also the fact that the Shadow Temple is beneath the grounds that the Hyrulean Sheikah used to inhabit, is what clued me in to this idea. The Shadow Temple reeks of blood and death and wandering souls. Who put it there? Why is a Sheikah chosen to guard it?
A "shadow people" are a necessary addition to a Zelda world. This is a world where people are chosen to be the very epitome of light and warmth and that sort of thing- and of course, wherever there's light, there must be shadow. Well, why didn't the creators of Zelda simply make Ganondorf the epitome of darkness and shadow and leave it at that? Possibly because, as I believe, there is no "evil" in shadow, darkness, and death. These things are a natural part of life. If you create a people who embody shadow, are these people evil?
In my opinion, no. In Zelda's opinion, yes. In telling this story from Zelda's perspective, I have to get her point of view across. So why is it that the more Zelda learns about the Sheikah, the more she despises them? Simply put- Zelda, like Link, is an epitome of light. Shadow is her natural enemy.
-Hime