Ollen70: This was up much faster than I'd expected it to be. I'm kind of going into a writing free-for-all before classes start up again in a few days. So if I've managed to overlook anything in my posting frenzy (grammar, spelling, plot...) just let me know, okay?
Yeah, so I borrowed the title of this chapter from another story I've been working on, but it just fits so well. I'll be more original next time, I promise.
Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine. Oh well.
Chapter Six - - Never Leave Me
The first ending had indeed come, with every catharsis that Din could have presupposed. It was not a clean ending by any stretch of the mind, given that there would have to be other confrontations before her fallen champion would be stricken forever, but he had lost this battle and that would prove to be an unpleasant trend. Nevertheless, it made things easier for her, in a way.
The king was alone, surrounded by the broken forms of his once-vicious monsters in the ruins of what had been the golden land, trapped within magical bonds that even the strength of the triforce of power could not break. She could come to him without worry, for there was nothing else in the barren waste to see her. The other two had come together, as had been expected, and sealed away the third with their own considerable strength. Now, the king of power was weak, without ally or identity, left to fade away like a nightmare until he finally found the means of manifesting himself again.
Sooner or later that day would come - Din had seen it. And when it did, little would change in the actions or the fates of the three, because the principles of the situation would be the same. One cannot triumph over two, when the two are stronger in concert that the one. The black king had not learned this. Din almost wanted to weep at the sight of him now, so removed from every attribute that she valued, but he was still hers and she would watch him until he was forever gone. That was all that she could do for him.
How sad, that these three could not be united the way the three goddesses were. Din often wondered at how different their world would be if a person of a more balanced nature had gripped the triforce before the king. She supposed she could look into that eventuality if she really felt like it, but it wouldn't change anything. The truth was here before her, here in the broken halls of a skeletal tower in a dead world that few would ever remember. Her king, the one she loved and cared for most of all, was doomed to the most horrible fate that a mortal can face. Not only would he eventually die, it was his fate to be forgotten as well, and hated desperately if he was remembered at all.
If only Nayru could have given unto the king more of her attribute. Wisdom would have given him something more than this. If he'd wielded it along with his power, maybe his fate would have been very different. Again, this was pointless speculation, so she didn't bother dwelling on it for long. Her king would fall, but he would not always be powerless before that fall came. The very last confrontation would be just as heartbreaking for all three as the first had been, because when it came right down to it, those three mortals only had each other. Even once the king was gone, the hero would search for him, unwilling -or unable - to believe he'd truly been destroyed. Those three lives needed each other, as much any of them hated to admit it.
The princess and the hero could cope with their dependency on one another, except that they were from different worlds and existing together would be more difficult than either of them might initially assume. Neither cared to admit that the only other person who understood the burden of the triforce was the banished king, just as he would never admit that in all of their warring, the only two that could come closest to ever understanding him or his motives were the two he was determined to kill.
All that motivated him was power. That's why he was enthralling, and it was also why he was flawed. Nayru, Farore, and Din were individuals in their traits but they were also one. Trinity, unity through individuality... the king could not be wholly separate, or he would fall. He did not let the other traits pass into him from time to time, as the goddesses did, and as the other two mortals did. He was the embodiment of one idea, and that was all that drove him.
Looking around, Din's eyes left the shattered form of her king and caught for a moment on a soft tendril of brown-green, wrapped around the column stones of the window ledge. She knew from the red berries and tiny blue flowers that it was a deadly poisonous plant, sinister yet enticing, but even it's treacherous beauty was a very welcome sight in her eyes. There was little here that held any beauty at all.
It was a shame that the beauty of the golden land they had created would rot away as the king's fury poisoned it, but then that was fate as well. All these things would come to pass because they had to, as unfortunate as that may be. None of the three would deviate from the plans they had laid upon the forming of their world. They did not interfere because if they did, everything that happened would be predictable. They would never know what kind of heights their creations could reach on their own if the goddesses continually shaped their reality for them.
They loved and cared for each of the lives that blossomed on the surface of the earth (Nayru was not alone in her appreciation of life) but it would be uninteresting for all of them if the lives that they saw were only shallow imitations, things they could predict without effort. Mortals were irrational and fragile by their very nature, and that was one of the many things that made them so very beautiful. Creatures of chaos that could still achieve some tincture of the wisdom Nayru held, some small touch of the courage Farore was made of, some fragmented understanding of the power that flowed through Din herself...
These creatures were made of potential, plain and simple, and her king would have bent them all to his control. He would have made them uninteresting pawns in his bid to forever gain more power, and she at least could have appreciated his endeavors, but it would be a shame to lose all other sorts of beauty. The others would be distressed, understandably enough, so in many ways it was best that the fate of this breaking man had to be so cold. He could never learn - that was not his purpose.
Others would learn from him. The darkness he held would vanish in time, but until that day came, she would stay with him as she had promised. Once more she realized that after all of his faults were laid clear, he was hers and she loved him.
Ollen70: I'm on a roll. This wasn't what I was really expecting it to be either, but I sort of like it. Now that I've gotten to what was supposed to be the end again, I'm not really sure that I want to end it yet... =) If I do any more, it'll probably be about A Link to the Past, so just bear with me and there might be more chapters coming sooner or later.
