Disclaimer: I still don't own the Legend of Zelda. I'd think of something acerbic or witty to add to this disclaimer, but it's been a long week.

Chapter Seven - - The Price of Solitude


Nayru didn't bother to descend. It was much easier to watch the developments on the surface of their world from her vantage point in the heavens, and at this point, with so much happening at once, it was certainly easier to ignore specific details than to become totally involved in only one scenario of this epic conflict.

The battle was one of incredible magnitude, leaving no part of the nations on their world untouched. The three had become engaged and the full force of the triforce had once again been united, and even if that unity was wielded with the intent to cause pain rather than build life, the force that followed their union had been elating.

It had left her with a sense of hope that was not altogether understandable to her - true, the black king had been sealed away, but that meant little. He would break free, or else the hero would come to him in time and they would struggle anew, until only one of them still lived. And the hatred of the king was not at all reserved for the hero. He would do everything in his power to strike at Nayru's princess or her descendants in any way he could.

There were still so many rules that the king didn't understand; it was for that reason that he'd dare make move against both of the other holders of the triforce when they were so near one another, when it was so possible for them to draw strength from the links that existed between their souls. If the king had tried, he might have realized that he and the other two were linked as well. He could have used wisdom of the other two to his advantage, but his interest was with power rather than foresight.


On a whim, Nayru turned and drew close to the earth. Her eyes were not on her princess, or even the hero this time. Her desire for wisdom and clarity would draw her to the one that she understood the least, as much as she hated to approach him. He was altogether foreign, having no place within him for wisdom or love, but she needed to decipher him. He was a mystery that she was bound to solve - it seemed that, in the pursuit of knowledge, she would find him interesting after all.

There was no noticeable response from the earth as she approached it. She could not feel life, and it made no attempt to draw near to her. This wasn't the world she was used to. It pained her to think that this place, fractured and broken with hatred and fear, had once been the miraculous golden land that so many longed to see. All the life that still remained was so weakened that it could barely acknowledge her as its progenitor and its keeper, as the benevolent creator whose thoughts had given it freedom.

But then, the life here no longer had freedom. It was bound tightly by the will of one who was also bound, kept away from the world by the powers of light that still protected the innocent. For a time, the black king could be contained.

The parched earth followed her as she drew close to its surface, lingering in small clouds and dispersing only when she drew away from it, loathe to disturb or humiliate it any more than it already had been. This was not the world that she and the others had built. It was the creation of a warped mind, generated by an ill wish and poisoned by the darkness that still poured from the tower high above on the summit of the great mountain nearby.

The king's imprisonment had been a remarkable thing to behold. Even hating pain as she did, it was rewarding for Nayru to watch the absolute quality of her princess and Farore's hero grow and spread like the boughs of a lowering tree under the bright promise of spring. They had stood before the king, both of them uncertain and afraid, but in the end, fear belonged only to the king. It was he who had fallen, he who was taken away from the world and the thoughts and the minds of its inhabitants.

Nayru swept up the side of the decaying tower on the mount's peak, caring little for it. She had to know; that was the only reason she'd come. The motives of this creature who was both terrible and pitiable in her mind was easily as intriguing as the hero had been before when she'd come across him, bleeding and exhausted in the still of the morning.

It never ceased to amaze her how much peace could actually be found in all corners of the universe, if one stopped looking for it long enough to realize that it was already there. This moment, in the breaking lands so far removed from any goodness or kind hope, held peace. The decimated fortress after the king's defeat, its foundations cracked and proud turrets ruined, had been peaceful. The copse in the forest, with the deep pool beneath reddened with the hero's blood, had been peaceful.

Quietly, she entered the highest level of the stark tower. There was a convoluted reverence here that she did not wish to disturb, though it was much more difficult for her to appreciate it than she would have believed. A dirty light filtered from the broken windows that she'd entered through, illuminating the tiles on the floor in a way that made them look burned. In their midst lay the worn figure of a man.

Another illusory peace held this room jealously, and if not for the hate that Nayru could feel everywhere around her, she would have been deceived by it. Hate and love were not opposites; it was something few knew. Hate was increased by anger, tempered by time, and birthed by fear. Fear was her enemy, her one greatest adversary that always stood inscrutably in the way of love. If anything could have turned her away now that she was so close to obtaining the knowledge she sought, it would have been the festering, oppressive aroma of fear that was even thicker here than the hate.

The black king, with all his power, was blinded by fear. In spite of all the strength he'd gained, his worst fears had still come to pass. He knew that he could still lose everything he'd fought for, and that his glorious empire of power was coming undone. Nothing could stop his fall; even she could do nothing for his pain. This pain was the sort that had spawned the first battle with the hero, the first loss, and the entrapment he now suffered in the confines of a dying earth.

The king was starting to understand now what the goddesses had known and expressed all along. In this world where nothing was free, he had absolute power. In a land filled with death, life was power. But against loneliness and fear, he was nothing. In the midst of power, he could be powerless. It was heartbreaking for

Nayru to watch him understand this at last and knew that the wisdom would do him no good. He had gained it too late, and held not enough of it to prosper from it in any way than to let it fuel his already raging bitterness. Her attribute, or Din's, or Farore's, could not save him. Eventually he would be overcome, destroyed by the very things that he had sought to gain, and she thought that very sad.

Sadness could be beautiful, in the right context, but she found that there was little of it in this latest revelation. Looking down at his still form, she felt another surge of pity. Her touch would bring him nothing, so she did not offer it. Instead she stretched forward, leaving the sorrow of the once-golden land in her wake. That pain would end soon enough.


Ollen70: Yeah, Nayru kind of reiterates some of the things that Din considers in the last chapter, but I hope that the perspective is different enough for it to still be interesting. Classes for me have been amazingly stressful lately, so I really can't say when the next chapter will be up, but I hope it's soon. Thanks again to my wonderful reviewers, who give my life purpose. =)