Harsh Reality

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By Zel the Stampede

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Disclaimer: (*pokes disclaimer* I still hate you!!) If I owned Zelda, I couldn't write this.

First and foremost, I hate you, Writer's block. beats her writer's block with a large jackhammer. (Sorry, I'm pissed, and feeling intense urges to attack my writer's block.) (Totally normal behavior for fanfiction writers, ne?)

SECOND this chapter could actually give me a rating booster! (O.O!!! EEP! An R! But I toned it down a little…) But anyway, for your own safety.

WARNING: This chapter contains material that might make some readers uncomfortable

Kudos to Chapter 9's reviewers: AngeredFairy, Chibi fairy, ^_^ and Genichiro Tsukiomi

R&R!

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Chapter 10: Soara's Undertaking

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The storm had cleared and some titan's child seemed to have broken a glass over the indigo vault of the sky, the glittery bits strew across the heavens. Malon sighed; folding her umbrella as the remnants of the storm vanished. The parking lot was strangely tranquil under the milky streetlights and littered with rainwater pools shimmering with gasoline rainbows.

Malon tossed her dry coat and folded umbrella in the back then slid into the polyester cushions of the driver's seat. Life rumbled in the engine as she pulled out and swerved about to the exit. Shifting gears before heading out to the Interstate highway that would guide her home.

***

Soara relaxed into her chair, frowning as she rested a curled finger beneath the curve of her jaw, "Hmmm…that's quite a business proposition."

"We'll pay you," Navi said earnestly, "Anything you want, money, services-"

"Blood," Sheik added and Navi looked at daggers at the Sheikiah, stretched out like a cat on the cushioned bench by the hearthstone. Soara smiled, a little grin that curved her rosy lips.

"I don't need money," Soara said, "But a service, yes, I will require a service from you."

Services were very easily the very worse kind of debt, especially when the debt wasn't in Sheik's favor. He sighed, swinging his legs over the side of the bench and sitting up. His red eyes were weary, "What do you want?"

Soara's smile faded and her eyes floated to the smooth adobe floor, "For the past two and half years I've been running a business trade with the Bombchu merchant. In exchange for the necessary materials for manufacturing his wares, he carries fugitive slaves I 'supposedly' have 'killed' away from the valley to a refugee camp on the far side of Death Mountain. From there they are moved to Sheikiah's village and given jobs following the arrangement I've kept with Impa up until she disappeared several weeks ago when the Shadow beast reappeared. Anyway, Ganondorf's officers are beginning to suspect and according to my 'eyes and ears' about the fortress, I'm to be taken in and interrogated. If they discover my activities I will be hanged for treason against the King, secret communication with enemy forces, and disobeying my commanding officer's orders. Sheik, I need you to help me escape the Gerudo and in return, I will awaken your hero friend," Soara swallowed, stretching out her cinnamon-colored hand to Sheik, "Do we have a deal?"

Navi let out her breath as Sheik's fingers closed around the Gerudo sorceress's hand, "We do."

"Good," Soara said, vanishing into the backroom, only to reappear with a dusty, shabby leather-bound volume in the crook of her arm, "I have a week at the most, I think, until the soldiers come for me. But once I figure out the spell it should only be a few hours 'til we have your friend up and walking again." Soara leafed through the yellowed pages, dragging her finger down over the worn inscriptions.

Candles came at her call, settling gently on the table after it had generously moved over to the side of the room. Navi gulped, cupboards opening to free little bottles of rainbow-colored solutions as Soara traced each rune with the tip of her finger. Sheik acknowledged the flying objects with passive indifference while Navi dodged a crystal orb landing gracelessly on the table.

"Watch it," she hissed.

"Sorry," Soara said, placing her book on the table when the last of the summoned objects were no longer airborne, "Sheik, come, help me bring your friend out here." The Sheikiah man and the Gerudo witch ducked behind the burlap curtain, emerging moments later with Link suspended on the pallet between them. Gingerly they lowered the unconscious boy on the floor, sleeping ever peacefully like a babe in his mother's lap.

Soara called a bottle from the table and Navi made a small sound, still terribly unsettled by flying glassware. Other vessels assembled themselves as Soara opened the little bottle, dumping a mass of moss-colored-stuff into an emptied bowl.

"I'll need the two of you to be very quiet," Soara lectured, grinding herbs to powder.

"A quick question?" Navi piped.

"Yes?" Soara mumbled, spilling the chunky, green blend into a flask and corking it tightly.

"Is Aife all right?" she asked, "and where is she?"

"Her sisters came to collect her," Soara answered, caching her brew away in her pocket, "Don't worry, I put in a good word for her, the fountain's very proud." Navi smiled, satisfied, as Soara lit her few candles, the scent of crushed cinnamon drifting on a waft, and put out the lamps. Sheik never minded Gerudo magic, though he wondered briefly why casting was so often done in the dark.

Soara drank a breath of oxygen, then splayed out her fingers in the hazy, perfumed air. Runes came as she sketched them, her fingertip a quill drawing magic on an airy parchment. The stronger runes left stamps, golden-hued shadows, while their inferiors dissolved with nothing more but a faint whisper. Soara frowned, her eyes closed, as her brow knitted.

"The spell's intricate," she said, mildly impressed, "it has layers, rings. Those witches had some impressive magic after all."

"Can you lift it?" Sheik questioned, watching Soara from his bench.

"I think, I think I can," Soara said, "you see, the spell has levels, complex barriers, but once I've purged them it won't be much longer."

* * *

Home was an apartment. A vanilla-plaster block with chocolate roofing tiles and dark rectangle windows; surrounded by identical buildings on all sides. Malon pulled into the usual spot, five spaces from the door, and stepped out of her car. Thunder rumbled in the drab sky, lightening forked the horizon but it wouldn't rain.

The entryway was surprisingly quiet, no music floating from the college student dwelling upstairs or laundry happily spinning in the cluster of washing machines in the basement, no nothing…but Malon's footfalls. Resonating as she trudged up the stairwell, to apartment 22, third floor.

"Aydin? Aydin, I'm home!" Malon said cheerfully, hanging up her coat and eagerly awaiting Aydin's welcome-home kiss that soothed the day's strains. But there was no Aydin! Malon moved through the foyer, into the modest parlor jointed with the lemon-and-caramel schemed kitchen. She'd been meaning to paint it, prime it, anything to cover up the tacky decorating of the previous owners.

The couple before them had managed to muddle every room in the apartment, minus the bathroom, newly renovated and done in peach and the closets. The last few months had been spent tearing down wallpaper splashed in gaudy flowers, ripping up fifties-carpets, speckled ceiling tiles, and all the other 'gifts' the elderly couple had left behind. The two-bedroom apartment had been a fixer-upper from the beginning and the lack of old-lady trinkets and baubles made it look significantly worse.

"Aydin?" Malon passed into the dining room, searching the apartment for her absent husband who was usually home at this time. The baby-blue corridor was empty of his presence, the lavender bedroom as well. Thoroughly puzzled, Malon gingerly opened the bathroom door.

Birds alighted into the colorless sky as a desperate scream of shock and grief tore the stillness.

Cherry rivers stained the salmon ceramics; the bathroom air was perfumed with the scent of blood gone sour.

"A-A-Aydin?" dry sobs garbled her voice as Malon sunk against the doorframe, watching the corpse slumped over the toilet bowl, white as cold wax. Ruby streaks ran from his wrists, slashed with a kitchen knife. A bit of paper, dappled with beads of red, was crumpled in his cold fist.

'I'm lonely.'

Malon fled, grief-stricken. Her hand cupped over her mouth, holding in a cataract of pain. She slipped and crashed on the moss-green runner, crying bitterly. The landlady, Mrs. Flint, emerged from her den, her hair up in rollers, "Mrs. Kit!" she cried, kneeing down beside the wailing young woman, "what happened? What's wrong?"

Malon rose unsteadily, resting on her knees, as Mrs. Flint gripped her shoulder. She recoiled, building a dyke against her sorrow; "Aydin's dead." The landlady was struck dumb, "W-what happened?"

Malon pinched her eyes shut; "Aydin's dead! He was lonely…oh god, oh god, why didn't you tell me? I'd have given it all up…I'd have come home just for you…Oh god, oh god…"

"Mrs. Kit," Mrs. Flint said sternly, "come inside, we'll call the police-"

"No, please let me go!" Malon gasped, "please! I-I need to think!" Malon broke away, running down the empty hallway, tenants murmuring as the distraught woman dashed out into the lusterless outside.

"Mrs. Kit! Mrs. Kit, come back!" the landlady watched, powerless, as Malon urged her car alive and disappeared down the street. The woman swallowed and turned, "Somebody call the police! A suicide! Mr. Kit's committed suicide!"

Malon bit her lip, squinting through watery eyes, wanting very much to pull over to the side of the road and have good cry.

"Oh god, oh god," she mumbled, "it's all my fault! Oh god, Aydin, why didn't you ever tell me?" Traffic ebbed away as she turned down a byway lined in 1960s houses. Trees spread their leafy canopies overhead as the car traveled over the cracked pavement at a comfortable speed. Malon swallowed, her lip trembled, a watery curtain draped across her eyesight and she cried. Fat tears that rolled silently down her cheeks, lost as her jacket absorbed them, "Why, Aydin? Why?"

Her cell phone rang, murmuring a digitized ballad about horses that she'd loved when she was a kid from the bottom of her purse. Malon fished the tiny phone from her bag and flipped it open.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Mrs. Kit."

* * *

Soara sighed, breezing past wispy rings of mystic barriers in her mind's eye. This was irritating, why were there so many of them? 'Open to me,' she forced, pressing her might against the collection of cloudy rings, 'Open to me, what are those witches hiding?'

The barrier shattered, particles of glittery stuffs flinging themselves into nothing. Leaving only a vast unexplored darkness, devoid of light apart from the faint aura enveloping Soara's conscious.

"That's it," Soara whispered, "it's all an illusion."

"You figured it out?" Navi asked quickly.

"Shut up," Soara snapped, "don't talk, not yet." Navi frowned and fell quiet, sinking down on the floor, to glare at the Gerudo witch.

"Yes, I was right," Soara went on, "it's a mind trap." A solitary beacon of starlight burned in the heart of the universal blackness, "If I can break the spell, he'll wake up."

"Are you talking to us or yourself?" Navi asked, fed-up with being told to shut up over and over.

"Both," Soara replied smoothly, opening her eyes.

"So, what's cursing Link now?" Sheik questioned.

"It's a mind trap," Soara said, "a very difficult spell that weaves an intricate and very authentic dream-world within the victim's conscious. The spell is powered by a central nerve, when that nerve is broken, the dream-world comes to pieces."

"Can you break it and save Link?" Navi looked up hopefully at the Gerudo sorceress.

"I can try," Soara answered, "but it won't be as easy as it sounds. You see, the nerve is hidden somewhere within Link's dream. To find it I have to build a 'ghost' of myself to find it and destroy it. That might take a while."

"We don't care," Navi said strongly, "just please, wake up Link." Soara winked, "Everything will be fine, but we'll have to wait a day, building a ghost takes more energy than I have left in my reserve."

* * *

"Can I help you?" Malon asked, shifting on the cruise control.

"Yes, Mrs. Kit, I must discuss a matter of great importance with you," the voice at the end of the other line said. Malon frowned, the voice sounded very familiar.

"Oh?"

"You see, Mrs. Kit, it's about your husband."

Malon stiffened, her car jerking suddenly as her foot slipped on the brake.

"M-m-my husband? Whatever for?"

"He's a very good man, Mrs. Kit. He loves you very much."

Malon felt her heart prick, a sting that bit deeply.

"I-I know."

"But something happened to him," the voice went on, "something that didn't need to happen."

Malon's eyes grew wide and she pulled loosely on the gears, "Who are you?"

"Yes, Mrs. Kit, I am very aware that your husband is dead. He was a very good man. He loved you more than anything-"

"Stop it! Is this some kind of sick joke!-"

"He kept it all penned up inside. He knew how important work, the apartment, and etc. was to you. He didn't want to worry you or cause you pain," the voice chuckled, "Irony, isn't it?"

"How did you get this number?" Malon demanded, pressing slightly on the gas pedal.

"I've always had this number," the voice cooed. Malon shivered, the voice at the end of the line was suddenly millions of voices. Countless tones, women, men, and children, like ribbons in a braid, all threaded into a shivering mesh, speaking directly to her through her cell phone.

"What do you want?"

"Our world follows a distinct order," the voice said, "that you are threatening."

"I-I don't understand-"

"Link must die, Mrs. Kit," the voice said icily, "he must die."

"What the hell's going on here?" Malon barked.

"You see, Mrs. Kit, our world aches for his blood. Longs for its taste, its scent as it spoils. We exist only to kill him. And your husband gave his life for our divine cause."

"You're crazy."

"Now, now, Mrs. Kit, don't you see? It's tainted souls like yours that keep our divine cause from its long last completion. If you were pure, pure like Aydin, you would have killed Link."

Malon grimaced, slitting her eyes, "Who are you?"

"My name is Nimbus," the many voices said, "and you need to watch where you're going." The line fell dead as Malon's car rolled into traffic. Malon gave a cry, her tires skidding across the asphalt with a terrible screech, trailing dark lines. She swerved sharply, a red minivan slamming into the passager's side. Blinding pain and warm blood dissolved Malon's conscious as her forehead struck the wheel.

End of Chapter Ten

Much apologies for the cliffhanger!

Please review!

- Zel