Hey hey, readers. New chapter, yadda yadda. Sorry if I'm kind of unenthusiastic. I just lost my job over something that was not my fault at all and I'm not feeling too glad about anything right now. But no self-pity trips, promise. Chapter 17 is in the works, but I don't know when it'll be done.
Oh, I made a Zelda discussion forum. Anyone's welcome to join. Here's the URL, hope to see you there:
http://darksheik.suddenlaunch2.com
Enjoy the chapter.
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Chapter 16
Balance
My amnesia was very temporary. Barely a few moments had passed before I remembered that I, of course, was Zelda, princess of Hyrule, prisoner -sanctuary seeker-within the Temple of Time. Exhausted by a day full of Rauru's harsh lessons, I had fallen asleep next to Link, whom of course slept on. I looked at him,wondering about the man I had seen in my dream. Was he really the man that Link would become? Would Link be that man, when he woke from his enchanted sleep?
Logically, I thought that might be so. Link was growing, as was I. His feet looked too big for his boots. I removed the boots and wondered, in a motherly sort of way, how long it would be until he needed a change of clothes.
Link's fairy slept by his head, looking no different than she always did. Link's chest rose and fell gently with each slow breath he took. His lashes, I noticed, were long and full. His mouth was curved into an almost-smile, as if he dreamt of something peaceful. I hoped that he did.
Slowly, carefully, barely daring to breathe, I leaned close to Link and kissed him reverently on the forehead.
"Wake soon, Link," I whispered to him.
His mouth smiled. I sat back on my heels and smiled back.
* * *
Two weeks later I found myself on the great wall surrounding the castle in the dead of night- my first real excursion outside of the temple since my seclusion within.
The wall was an enormous square enclosing the entire castle on all sides, including the town and the Temple of Time, with a lookout tower at each of the four corners. Rauru and I stood at the open window in the southwest tower, facing the expanse of wall that shut the castle off from Hyrule Field. I gulped as I leaned out the window, looking over the edges of the wall. On the right side were rooftops, just a foot or so below the wall. On the left side was the moat, falling away so swiftly from the top of the wall at it made me dizzy.
I leaned away from the window, shaking my head to clear it as much as to say no."I can't do this."
"You can and you will," Rauru replied calmly. "Or have you forgotten how patient I am?"
"I'll surely fall!"
"And what if you do? You've got the rooftops on one side -not much of a distance to fall there- and the moat on the other. Land in the water and you'll be fine."
"I can't do this," I repeated emphatically.
Rauru sat on the stone floor of the lookout tower with the air of one prepared for a long wait. "We can stay up here as long as you like, princess. Maybe Ganondorf'll pay us a visit, hm?"
I closed my eyes, fighting tears. What I didn't want to admit was that I was afraid to be out here. Months in the temple -was it a year already? two years?- keeping myself safe had caused me to develop a nice, unhealthy fear of the outside world. How humiliating it was to think of the timid creature I had become.
I turned away from Rauru and faced the wall squarely. It started here. To be bold, to be fearless- I had to walk across this wall. That was it.
I swallowed hard, fighting down my dizzying panic, and put a hand on either side of the window to heave my thin frame through. I remained for several minutes on my hands and knees on the wall, which was barely half a foot wide, my eyes squeezed shut as I fought down the urge to throw up. I had never liked heights very much.
Rauru, thankfully, was silent. At least he was letting me go at my own pace. I tried to catch my breath, failed, and rose very slowly to my feet, trembling everywhere. Standing was one thing. Taking the first step was another.
"Arms out." Rauru's voice, gentle and quiet, was comforting for once. "You'll balance easier that way. Take it a step at a time- just one foot in front of the other, okay? That's all you think about."
One foot infront of the other. All right. I took the first step, tentatively spreading my arms as though I were unfurling wings.
"Good.Keep going. Don't stop, now- you won't be able to start again."
One foot in front of the other. One foot in front of the other. I followed my mind's incessant chanting with my actions. To simply obey was easy. That was all it took.
Halfway across the wall, I came to an abrupt halt. There was nowhere left to go- I had reached the drawbridge, which was much too narrow to walk across, at this time anyway. Now all that remained was to turn around and walk back across the wall to the safety of the tower. It was easy. I could do it. I could do it.
I couldn't.
I was frozen on the spot. A wind picked up, plucking at my hair and chilling me to the marrow. A mindless, unreasonable terror rose within me as I stared blankly, rigidly, into the space before me. Someone was speaking- a voice that came from within me, from far away, from everywhere at once. It was singing a nonsensical, horrid little rhyme. A hymn. An oath. An exaltation to shadow.
I heard a sobbing. It was me. I was sobbing, terrified, in a muffled voice from far away. I was detached from my own body, sinking, drowning, losing myself. Falling away.
Falling...
I felt the shock of cold water and I was myself again, in my own body, immersed in the dark, murky moat. I swallowed a lungfull of the icy water and clawed my way to the surface. Choking, gasping and sputtering, I dragged myself ashore.
Rauru was there within moments. He'd exited a door from the tower and apparently swam across the moat- his clothes were as wet as mine. He knelt beside me and placed a hand on my wet hair.
"I didn't really expect you to keep your balance this first time," he said kindly. "You'll get better."
The tears came again. I curled into a rigid ball and cried like a little girl who'd just woken from a horrible nightmare.
"Princess?" I heard Rauru say, alarmed.
"It spoke to me," I sobbed, over and over. "It spoke to me."
Rauru put a firm hand under my chin and lifted it so that I was forced to meet his pale eyes. "Who?" he demanded. "Who spoke to you?"
But by then, I didn't know. "I want to go home," I whispered, swallowing my tears. "Please. I just want to go home."
Rauru was a wise man. He didn't question me further, didn't try to get an answer. Instead he merely wrapped his arms around me, lifted me as though he were as strong as someone half his age, and carried me all the way back to the temple.
* * *
I was allowed to bask in the sun outside the temple all the next day, with Rauru keeping a sharp eye on me from inside. His concern these days were not the monsters that served Ganondorf, but the possibility of human assasins- which Rauru's enchantment would not keep off the grounds. There was also every chance that Ganondorf himself might appear. The magic of the goddesses would keep him from ever crossing the temple's threshold again; Rauru's magic could not do the same for the grounds.
"Keep your eyes and your ears open," Rauru had instructed me before he let me outside. "You hear so much as a footstep, you come bolting back inside, understand? And don't you dare even think of sneaking away, or you'll sorely regret it."
I dared to ask a question that had been bothering me for ages. "Why am I so important? Why does Ganondorf want to kill me?"
Rauru only shrugged. "Don't ask me. I'm just an ignorant priest. But Ganondorf, you know- with the Triforce of Power in his hands he's directly linked to the goddesses. Maybe the goddesses have their hands on you, and that's why he wants you dead."
Lying on the steps of the temple in the high afternoon sun, I thought that sounded utterly ridiculous. The goddesses had their hands on me? For what purpose? Princess or not, I was just a little girl. A little girl imprisoned in a temple, helpless, scared silly. Jumping at every rustle of leaves in this bright afternoon.
It was then that I realized that I was doing exactly what I had never wanted- I was living in fear. In fear of an attack, in fear of the jeopardy of my own safety, and yes, why not? In fear of the demons that seemed to be inside my own mind. For I had no doubts as to where those voices -those horrible, terrifying, and so oddly familiar voices- came from. They were buried somewhere inside my own self, in the depths of my heart, my soul.
I thought back to those brief moments on the wall, walking across it with a feeling of weightlessness, of detachment. Once I had gotten my feet moving there was nothing to think of except a step, another step. There had been a fearlessness in that mindless state. Until the voices. Until I thought again.
I went back into the temple and sought out Rauru.
"Tired of the sun, princess?"
"I want to walk across it again."
"Across what?" Then he understood. "The wall?"
"Yes."
He stared at me with an expression I could not read. "You sure you aren't afraid?"
"Positive."
He needed nothing more. "We'll go back tomorrow night, then."
And so we did. The next night, and the next, and the next after that. Time went on, an unbroken road, leading to a future I could not foresee, did not speculate. In the Temple of Time I was a withering flower, but under Rauru's no-nonsense care I grew, and by the time I passed my fourteenth year, I could walk across the inch-wide rafters crisscrossing just below the temple's ceiling without a care. Sometimes I felt that I was two Zeldas- one was the Zelda I knew, the fussy, prim little princess with whom I had grown up. The other was a stranger, an odd, silent young girl who walked like a ghost and moved like shadow. She was different. But she was still me. And for a time, my world was normal.
Then I met him.
But before I met him, I became someone new.
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Continued in Chapter 17.