The Legend of Zelda: The Return
Chapter 11
I grip the hilt of the Master Sword tightly, pressing myself back against the support for the little bridge, willing myself to melt into the shadows. Navi sits tensely under my hat.
I'd been riding Epona hard since last night when I left the Gerudo Fortress. Sometime this morning, however, I realized someone was following me. So after Navi finally woke up and yelled at me for an hour and called me lots of nasty names, I'd tried a few times to catch him, but whoever he is, he's managed to avoid me so far.
I take some comfort in the knowledge that it can't possibly be Dark Link. If it was, I'd be dead by now.
Behind me is the set of stone steps that lead to Kakariko Village, my destination of choice. However, I don't want to just waltz in there with this guy on my tail. Last thing I need is to get involved with whatever's going on there only to have someone sneak up and bash me on the head when I'm not looking.
Or worse, stab me in the back.
So instead of just riding into Kakariko, I sent Epona off on her own and hid underneath the bridge you have to cross to get to the steps. The sun is starting to sink below the horizon. They should be here soon. If someone really is following me, they'll have to cross the bridge to get to where they think I am. Then, I'll jump them.
Crude, but effective.
I press myself harder against the stone when I suddenly spot someone approaching. The figure is wearing a black cloak draped over themselves with a cowl pulled up to hide their face. They dismount from their large chestnut horse and advance on foot, creeping stealthily over the bridge, pulling their horse along behind them.
I wait until they're on my side of the river before I act.
The figure hasn't taken more than two steps on the ground before I lunge at him, hitting him hard from behind and knocking him to the ground.
It strikes the ground with a very familiar, furious cry.
"Neesha?" I cry in surprise, hurriedly getting up off of her. Navi zips out from under my hat. The young Gerudo rolls over and glares up at me, her hood falling off and revealing her bright red hair. "What are you doing here?" I cry. "You're supposed to be back at the fortress!"
"So are you," Neesha and Navi respond at the same time. I glare at Neesha and ignore Navi.
"Why were you following me?" I demand. "What are you trying to pull?"
"I saw you leaving the Fortress while I was on watch last night," she says, getting to her feet. "Somehow I didn't think Nabooru had given you permission to leave. It was my duty to follow you."
"First off, I don't need Nabooru's permission to do anything," I say, crossing my arms and glaring at her. "I don't belong to her. Secondly, your duty would have been to go and tell Nabooru that I had left, not follow me. So don't try using that as an excuse. Now tell me the truth, why did you follow me?" She makes a good attempt at the infamous Gerudo I-Don't-Care-About-Anything-Least-Of-All-You look, but doesn't quite manage it. Instead she just winds up looking miffed.
"Think you're the only one who wants the chance to prove yourself?" She demands. I stare at her.
"What?" I cry. "I'm not trying to prove myself to anybody! What are you talking about?"
"Then why did you leave?" She demands. I glare at her.
"I left, Neesha, to help some of my friends who have gotten themselves in trouble," I say.
"Well then," she says, "you're going to need help." She looks at me critically. "You probably wouldn't survive the day." I roll my eyes.
"Oh no you don't," I say. "I've got enough on my plate without having to worry about an impetuous twelve-year-old."
"Oh yeah, like I haven't got better things to do than worry about an impetuous seventeen-year-old," she responds caustically. "But I'm not going back if that's what you're trying to tell me to do."
The situation immediately dissolves into a glaring contest.
I would love to be able to tell her to go home.
I'd love to be able to enforce that.
But the fact remains . . . Neesha can take care of herself. She might only be twelve-years-old, but she's not helpless. And she wouldn't be a burden, she'd be a help.
I can't fight well. I'd be surprised if Zelda could fight at all.
We might need Neesha . . .
"Fine," I say finally, sheathing my sword. "But let me do the talking. The war might be long over but I get the feeling that Gerudo's and Sheikah still aren't the best of friends."
"Ha," Neesha says with a smug grin, "I love it when I win."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," I say. "Don't rub it in. Now come on, let's go." Neesha pulls her hood back up over her hair and we continue on up the stairs.
Kakariko Village is a flurry of activity, as per usual, despite being smaller than Hyrule Castletown. I smile and wave at the people and faces I know, doing my best to avoid being pulled into conversations. There's almost always something that needs my immediate attention around here – whether it be Anju's cuckoos have gotten loose again, or the carpenter brothers need me to cover for them with their Boss – and all I really want to do right now is find a place to catch up on the sleep I'm missing and then go and find Zelda. I catch Neesha's hand before she can get distracted and drag her quickly along behind me as I head towards the graveyard.
The hookshot wasn't the only thing that Dampe left me when he died.
"What are we doing here?" Neesha asked, looking around the graveyard nervously. The Gerudo cremate their dead. The idea of being buried is not a pleasant one for them.
"We're sleeping here tonight," I say, pulling the chain I always wear around my neck out from under my tunic. It's just a simple metal chain I picked up forever ago. On it are a few trinkets given to me over the years by friends. There's the pebble the skull kid gave me as a token of our friendship, an broken arrow head Bruiser gave me back when we first met – said it was supposed to protect me or something, the little charm in the shape of a Sheikah symbol that Sheik gave me for my thirteenth birthday, not long after I met him.
A wave of homesickness and longing suddenly rolls over me.
I want to go home . . . I want to be back in my little room over the Archery Shop, with Bruiser downstairs yelling at me to hurry up and get to work. I want Malon and Sheik to walk in the door at the same time and immediately start giving each other the evil eye all the while pretending for my sake that they're best friends. I want to kiss Malon and I want to talk Sheik into pulling some kind of prank for which he'll immediately get blamed.
I want everything to go back to the way it was . . .
Shaking myself free of my wishful thinking, I pull the last charm off of my chain – the key to Dampe's shack – and slip it into the knob, twisting it and opening the door. Nothing's changed since Dampe died. His little shack is still practically bare, a tiny bed in one corner, a table in the other with an old faded book – his journal – on it. A little dustier maybe.
My chest constricts painfully. Though I lost Dampe before this whole thing with Dark Link and Ganondorf even started, somehow it makes me wonder . . .
Will no one I love survive this?
"This place used to belong to my friend," I say in answer to Neesha's raised eyebrow. "He left it to me after he died." I point to the bed. "You can sleep there. I'll crash on the floor." She frowns at me.
"I'm no weak, Hylian woman, Link," she snaps. "I can sleep perfectly fine on the floor."
"I . . . that wasn't . . ." I sigh and shake my head. "Fine," I say. "You can sleep on the floor if you prefer." I turn back to the door. "I'm going for a walk. I'll be back in a bit, all right? Don't follow me this time, hmm?" Neesha smirks at me but nods, mercifully sensing my desire to be alone right now. I leave the small shack, closing the door after me as I go, and making my way towards the back corner of the graveyard where Dampe is buried. I drop to my knees in front of the simple gravestone, nothing but a name and a couple of dates carved into it. I trace the letters and numbers and can't help but shake my head.
Not a word about the time in between those dates . . .
He deserved an epitaph.
But he passed on without anyone here noticing. I didn't even find out he'd died until a month after it had happened when I came to visit him. Dampe didn't have many friends . . .
"Were you and he close?" Navi asks, coming out from under my hat and settling herself on my shoulder.
"He was my friend," I say softly. "I used to help him out around the graveyard . . . keeping everything looking neat and orderly. This place was his life. He used to tell me stories . . . about the people buried here . . ." My voice cracks and I scowl down at the grave to keep my loneliness from overwhelming me. It's easier to be angry than lonely. "It's not fair," I whisper. "What's going to happen to him after I die? I was his only friend Navi. The people here didn't even give him an epitaph. They couldn't take the time for that . . . who will remember him when I'm gone?" Navi says nothing. There's nothing she can say. I get to my feet abruptly and jog back towards the tool shed beside Dampe's shack. I pull the door open and start rummaging through it, until I find the object of my search. A chisel and mallet. Tools in hand I make my way back to the grave, Navi staring at me curiously.
"What are you doing?" She asks. I don't answer, throwing myself into my work instead. She'll figure it out.
The chisel bites into the stone as I work, sending chips flying. One grazes my cheek and leaves a thin line of blood behind but I don't care. It doesn't take me long to lose track of time. Neesha comes out at one point and watches me for about 30 minutes before shaking her head in bewilderment and going back to the shack.
The sun's coming up by the time I'm done, but it doesn't matter.
I'm finished.
Dampe won't be forgotten.
The rising sun illuminates the words I've carved, and Navi reads them aloud . . .
"The rising sun will eventually set,
A newborn's life will fade,
All things in life, we soon forget,
All things in death, betrayed,
These words I carve here on this dawn,
Are only set in stone,
And soon they too, will all be gone,
Their meaning, lost, unknown,
The man who lies here, cannot see,
What grace, in life, he brought,
But so long as there is breath in me,
He shall not be forgot."
We stand there for a moment in the bright dawn and look at the words. I rub my eyes tiredly and sit down on the grass, leaning back against the stone.
"You did well, Link," Navi says. "I'm sure he'd appreciate it."
"I think he would," I say, rubbing my eyes again. Two nights in a row now I haven't slept . . . but tonight it was worth it. I lean my weight against the stone, but frown suddenly when I feel it shift behind me. "Oh don't tell me they didn't even bother to put his stone in ri–" Anything I'd been about to say is suddenly forgotten as the ground drops out from under me and I find myself falling down a long hole.
I close my eyes and wait for inevitable impact.
The funny thing is, I impact . . . but not with the ground.
I hit something softer, more unstable, and louder.
If I didn't know better, I'd say I've landed on a person.
"Get off!" Shouts the person in a startlingly familiar voice.
"Sheik!" I gasp, scrambling off of him. "You're alright! I thought you'd been –" My voice dies off when I realize that Sheik's not alone. I've landed in some kind of man-made underground room, filled with about a dozen, unhappy looking Sheikah.
Wow . . . these guys really know how to make you want feel about three inches high and shrinking fast . . .
Why do I get the feeling I'm not supposed to be here?
I take a step back towards Sheik, who's staring at me like I've grown two-heads. I suppose I did drop in on him unexpectedly . . .
"Uh . . . Sheik?" I ask quietly. "Wh-what's going on?" Sheik suddenly looks very frustrated.
"You know this boy, Sheik?" Demands the Sheikah man directly in front of me.
"I . . . his name is Link, Detsu," Sheik says. "He's the –"
"He's an intruder," Detsu says darkly, narrowing his crimson eyes at me. I frown darkly. I don't like this guy's eyes . . .
"Well, yes," Sheik says quickly, "but he's not . . ." Detsu interrupts him with a snap of his fingers.
"Take him." I react instantly, my hand going for my sword, but I'm not fast enough.
The Sheikah are upon me . . .
xxx
A Brief Interlude
Malon turned her gaze away from the window where the sun was just rising. They'd be coming to get them and putting them to work again soon. She looked at Bruiser.
"You think he'll be okay?" She asked. Bruiser gave her an encouraging look, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt.
"Trust me," he said gruffly. "Link can take care of himself. That kid's got a stubborn streak in him as long as my arm and twice as wide. It'll take a lot more than these guys have got to take him down." He nodded his head towards the Moblin guards posted at their cell. Darunia gave a hearty laugh from the cell next to theirs and grinned widely at them through the bars.
"You speak the truth," he said. "Link is as tough as any Goron when he has to be. His specialty is beating the odds." Saria and Ruto both nodded fiercely in agreement. The best Malon could offer was a half-hearted smile. Bruiser peered out at her from under his thick eyebrows.
"Did I ever tell you about the first time I met Link?" He asked. She shook her head wordlessly. He looked out the window. "I think we've got time enough before they come for us again." Saria smiled.
"I love this story," she said. Bruiser continued.
"Well," he said, "it was the day these guys," he jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the cell where the Sages were kept, "had told me he'd be arriving, and I was starting to get worried. It was almost sunset and there was still no sign of the kid. There was a bad storm on the horizon, and I was starting to wonder if he hadn't gotten caught in it, so I put on my cloak, grabbed my lantern, and headed out of town to look for him. I hadn't made it far before the storm hit. I tried to turn around and head back home but I couldn't see through the rain. I got turned around and was heading in the wrong direction. By the time I realized I was lost, the sun had set, and the Stalchilds had come out. There were only two of them, but they managed to catch me by surprise. One of them slashed my sword arm." He held out his right arm and lifted his sleeve to reveal several pale scars. "And the other knocked me down. I was pretty sure I was done for.
"But then I hear this shout, and this blur of green comes out of nowhere. The kid leaps onto the back of the Stalchild closest to me. He grabs it's skull and throws all his weight backwards, taking the skull with it. He hit the ground, the skull vanished, and the body starts swiping blindly. The other one goes after him, and catches him on the side with its claws. The kid doesn't even slow down. He grabs my sword, and whirls around to attack the thing with it. He sliced through that thing like he'd been using a sword his whole life. The Stalchild disappeared, and the kid staggers over to me and opens his mouth to ask if I'm alright – never mind the fact he's bleeding to death from that wound in his side – when the body of the first Stalchild comes out of nowhere and slashes him down his back too. He gasps and falls over, but somehow manages to twist around and slash the thing in half with the sword before he hits the ground! I couldn't believe it!" From the look on his face and the tone of his voice he still couldn't believe it. "Not only had the kid been willing to take on two Stalchilds, completely unarmed – he didn't know about my sword until he grabbed it – but he pulled it off! And he saved my life! So I bundled him up in my cloak, slung him over my shoulder, and took him back to Castletown. The rest is history." He looked pointedly at Malon. "And if he could do that when he was only eleven and without a friend in the world, imagine what he could do now." Malon smiled – genuinely this time.
"I suppose you're right," she said.
"Of course I'm right," Bruiser said gruffly. "I'm always right."
Any reply Malon might have made was cut off by the door to the slave quarters slamming open and a Moblin captain shuffling in.
It was time to start the day . . .