A/N: A quick thanks to anyone who reviewed, read, or enjoyed the two new (sort of) chapters. I don't plan any really major revisions, except for this chapter and the next (and I'd like to give it more of a plot), so I should be able to pump this out pretty quickly. It's summer, after all, AND I DON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT MY CHEMISTRY FINAL ANYMORE! Yeah!
Responses to reviews from the previous chapter are at the end of this chapter.
. . .
Chapter Two: The Audience Chamber
Zelda walked quickly through what was widely considered 'the greatest castle in all the world.' When Harkinian the Bloodthirsty built Hyrule Castle on the bones of his fallen enemies a thousand years ago, it was primarily a defensive structure. With the ascent of less belligerent kings to Hyrule's highest throne, the castle underwent renovations that made it more designed for aesthetic pleasure than comfort, and these renovations gave the castle its reputation. Its stone rooms and corridors, which froze in winter and sweltered in summer as a result, had large windows; its rooms were filled with tapestries and ornate furniture from distant lands, which took the mind off the thought of the castle's foundation of bones.
At the end of a hallway with a window that looked down on the soft blue darkness of the castle grounds was a small wooden door guarded by a single Royal Bodyguard. The princess felt her body tense slightly as she approached the elite guard. "Sir," she breathed, her voice cool but polite.
The Bodyguard smiled at her and bowed slightly. "Your Grace." This Bodyguard was Sir Arn Vermot. Arn was thirty-five, rather young for a Bodyguard, but talented with a sword. It must have been this talent that attracted his lady wife to him; despite his Hylian features, he had a pox-scarred face that was not much to look upon. "I assume you're here to meet with the consul?"
"You assumed correctly," Zelda said briskly, unable to find anything redeemable about the young Bodyguard that deserved her gentle acknowledgement of him. "Stand aside."
Sir Arn saluted his monarch and stepped to one side of the hallway, allowing the princess access to the room beyond.
Zelda stared at the small unassuming wooden door for a while, hesitating to enter, ignoring Arn's curious blue stare. How I dread this. Eventually, however, she hauled in a breath, pulled open the door, and entered Hyrule Castle's Audience Chamber.
The Audience Chamber was one of Hyrule Castle's more comfortable rooms, but not by much. Windowless and cheerless it was, lit only by torches from which oily smoke billowed. Warmth could only be gained by standing near vents that led down to the central heating furnace in the dungeons; many found it hard to suffer the sooty filth that puffed from them, however. As she entered, Zelda could even smell the reek of mildew that hung perpetually in the chamber. The greatest castle in all the world, she thought bitterly.
Zelda stood in the threshold and dismissed her thoughts, her eyes moving about the smoky room swiftly. She was not pleased by what she saw.
Lady Medilia Vermot, Koholint's Imperial Advisor, was standing near one of the Audience Chamber's vents, hugging herself and seemingly unaware of the dirt collecting on the full skirt of her faded blue gown. Zelda found herself both staring in hatred at the Imperial Advisor and smiling with grim satisfaction as she noticed that the woman's sloe eyes were red from smoke. The princess hated hated hated Medilia, who had been some nothing lady from some nothing house till poxy Sir Arn had become fit to ask for her hand. Now, despite the fact that her household enjoyed a standard of living barely above that of the common folk, she thought to act a proper lady: she spoke demurely, moved gracefully, and remembered her courtesies more often than the Princess of Hyrule herself. She thinks to take my place...
Her eyes strayed so she wouldn't have to look at simpering Medilia anymore, and she was instantly sorry. Just catching sight of the Castle Doctor -- veiled, robed, and turbaned Agahnim -- standing to the right side of the High King's throne was enough to make her grimace. Agahnim was a Calatian (a Rito, he liked to call himself) sent to Hyrule by the king of the Calatian Islands in the terrible period of famine and plague following the death of High Queen Isa twelve years ago. Upon his arrival, it was discovered he was merely a hedge wizard, and the grieving High King took his appearance as a slight...at least, until Agahnim singlehandedly healed Hyrule's wounded core. From there, his rise had been arrow-swift: by the time Zelda had become Dragmire's mistress, Agahnim was on the High King's small council, traveling to lands east of even the Calatian Islands, and earning himself a positive reputation.
All these things made Agahnim a noble man in the eyes of many. Still, Zelda grimaced when she saw him because theirs was a hard relationship to define. She did not rely on him as her father had come to, but of late, it had become hard to tell which one of them was Her Grace and which one was Doctor.
"Zelda," High King Harkinian said, his voice riving through both the Audience Chamber's haze of smoke and the haze of his daughter's thoughts, "how good of you to join us."
Zelda frowned up at her father, stepped reluctantly into the Audience Chamber, and glanced at the man prostrated at her father's feet. It was the consul, as promised; even with his back to her she could see his frank handsome features, and could picture his childishly big brown eyes. He was still a young man, and comely. She had considered, briefly, taking him as her lover...then laughed at the folly of sleeping with a man beneath her station.
It also must have been one of her father's good days; he did not tremble as he rose to greet the regent, and his gray eyes were as clear as ever (and she loved, she thought fondly, the thick honey-blond hair now shot with white that had been her inheritance). The king was sixty-six, and usually well enough to give audience at court...but he was still sixty-six. There were some days when he could barely support himself on his legs, certain days when he was senile to the point of idiocy -- but, strangest of all, was how his mysterious illness waxed and waned, and how on a day after a particularly bad spell, he might be completely normal. The insipid Castle Doctor feigned ignorance, but Zelda made no attempt at hiding her fury. On his good days, Harkinian found it endearing that his daughter (now with immense political power and many new responsibilities) was incensed that his illness refused to disappear. If only he knew.
Her father was staring down at her in such a way that she rather thought he suspected something; it was a stare that bewildered her, especially considering Harkinian had been sick in bed just yesterday. In the face of such a stare, Zelda was contrite. "I delayed you, Papa. I'm dreadfully sorry for my womanish stupidity. Good evening, my lady. Your Honor. Doctor."
She did not want to acknowledge the two sycophants, not even the pretty consul, but found she had little choice; the Princess Regent always remembered her courtesies. Medilia beamed at her monarch and curtsied; the consul shifted slightly, as though in pleasure; and even Agahnim seemed to smile behind the veils which concealed all but his bright, beady eyes. Not knowing how long her father's silence would hold, the regent made her way slowly to her own throne. Smaller, and to the left of his, as though he still gives commands. Even he knows that he rules in name only... Fear not, Papa. You won't be doing that for much longer.
"You interrupted what was a promising evening, Consul," Zelda forced herself to say in a rushed, purposeful voice as she sank gratefully onto her throne, too small and too far to the left. "I hope, for your sake, you have good reason."
"Her Grace is often busy with noble maidenly pursuits," Agahnim piped up helpfully.
"Of course, Your Grace," the consul said humbly...but Zelda had the impression that his polite, cultured voice was secretly mocking her, just as the good doctor's comment had been designed to mock her. He didn't dare to rise; courtiers were executed for such audacity. "I am here as Governor Quillan Agah's representative. He has gathered...rather interesting information about our campaign, Your Highnesses."
"Indeed?" the king queried with mild interest before his daughter could open her mouth. His eyes, weighted with cool intelligence, slid to his daughter in a sidelong glance. "I'll trust, since we can't read your mind, you'll humor us and share this...information with us." He said it in such a flat tone that it was rather obvious he didn't give much credence to his governor's 'findings,' whatever they might be.
"Of course, Your Grace," the consul said quickly, eagerly. "May I--"
"You may rise," Zelda said lazily, as if he had said something distasteful. As he rose to his feet, she was struck, suddenly, by the naive, childish aura about him, and by a beauty that was almost Nayru-like in its intensity. She had to grip one of her throne's armrests tightly to stave off a mad desire to laugh.
Once to his feet, the consul looked round at the two remaining members of the Royal Family and their meager court with bright, smoke-strained eyes.
"We have," he began, "once again tightened restrictions on noncitizens in the province. Although this tactic has prove unsuccessful in the past, this new move has already shown a success rate of eighty percent. We have stopped raids on several of our supply posts using such methods. On a related note, the fresh influxes of troops Your Highnesses sent us were very effective in keeping our losses to a minimum in the Battle of the Animal Village, and helped us put a stop to the most serious noncitizen threat in that district; I and Governor Agah thank Your Highnesses for your genero--"
"You blundering fool!" the king hissed presently, making Zelda, the two courtiers, and the consul (and even the stoic Royal Bodyguards situated strategically about the room) stare at him curiously. His face had turned an unlovely brick-red color, flushed with angry blood. "Battle of the Animal Village indeed! This is a campaign, need I remind you, Consul! We want to discourage the noncitizens from rebelling and win the battles against them, not waste time giving these battles cute names! You have told us nothing new, and I suggest you get on with it, Consul!"
There was an awkward pause. Lady Medilia looked fairly shocked, and Agahnim was coughing politely behind his veils.
"I beg pardon," the consul responded after a moment, in a surprisingly icy voice. "We have also managed to gain several...informants willing to betray their fellows for a few of the kingdom's rupees. Those who might prove pleasing to Your Highnesses will be brought to Hyrule Castle to hold audience with you as they are shipped to the mainland. I have brought one from the province with me on my journey. I found her particularly, ah, useful. I would like to introduce Your Highnesses to her. Her name is Marin. She has no other."
Almost as if summoned, the door of the Audience Chamber opened, and the girl Marin stumbled forth -- so it seemed to Zelda, she could not be much more than a girl, barely past her first bleed. She stumbled for she was led along by two nondescript Royal Bodyguards, and heavily manacled and chained besides. She watched as the girl lifted her head for a moment, looking around in the dismal smoke. The princess could guess what she was thinking: had she dropped off the cliff of the world to the first of the three hells? Was she on the caldera of Death Mountain and about to be pushed into the mouth of Din, the most merciless of the Three?
As she got closer, Zelda could see more of this Marin, more than she wanted to: her rough but colorful homespun clothing, the darkest auburn hair she had ever seen, a tan that was almost gold, and...and her ears, Din shield her, her disgustingly rounded ears, the distinguishing feature of a Koholint, a genetic freak of nature, as much a part of a body as the pallid blondness of a Hylian--
Zelda fought against the prejudices of the lower classes mightily. She watched, feigning the true disinterest of her father, until the girl was dumped unceremoniously in front of their thrones, next to the consul; he sidestepped away from her, looking very nervous indeed. She rose to a kneeling position, but kept her gaze and her face trained to the floor, so that the monarchs could see not much more than her darkly shining head. "Make one move," one of the Bodyguards warned her, "and I'll slit you open like a--"
"Like a sacrificial goat, I know," the girl finished in a dull, quiet voice; it seemed to Zelda that the life had been sucked out of her, and she supposed that was what captivity did to some. Of course, when the captive was a member of a race barely evolved over the cattle it tended -- but her Hylian was perfect!
The Bodyguard's face tightened, and he brandished his shortsword.
"Greet the Royal Family. They're the last thing you'll look at before you die!"
"Good evening, Your Highnesses," the barbarian said in the very same flat voice. "My name is Marin. I am honored to meet the monarchs who sent my father, Tarin, to the mines."
"Ah..." There was amusement in Agahnim's voice.
"Oh, my!" Medilia gasped dramatically, a distant figure in the thickening smoke.
"Watch your temper!" the consul pleaded.
Zelda leaned forward, the expression plastered on her face: the pitying, concerned expression she wore whenever she sentenced, whenever she asked questions of a prisoner. It was an expression that melted a man's heart like ice in the sun, and turned his will to water. She doubted it would have anything close to this effect on a female, but she was fully willing to try. They would all be surprised, she thought with a smug smile behind her mask, at how many times she had worn this expression...and with how many men. "Enough of that," she snapped, businesslike. "We need you to give us information, Marin. Can you handle that?"
"I'm hearing you."
"Good." She leaned back in her throne, pleased with her performance, as usual, although Marin hadn't even been looking at her. "Where is the ringleader?"
She waited, and waited, but there was naught but silence from the maid.
The consul swatted the back of the islander's neck, but she made no sign of feeling it. "Her Grace speaks to you! Idiot!" he bellowed. "You should be honored at such privilege! Answer her question!"
Marin lifted her head, and Zelda was alarmed to see that one of her eyes was black and almost swollen shut; the other, however, was not dull as Zelda expected. It was filled with anger, and bitterness...and sadness, she could see sadness there as well. "The princess is a conniving, wretched whore!" she hissed acidically.
"Stop that!" the consul whined pathetically. "How dare you talk to the princess that way! You should be honored that the royalty took time out of their schedules to agree to hearing you!"
Zelda whipped her head round to look at her father, seeking guidance...but her father was gone. In his place was a drooling, grinning idiot whose crown was lopsided on a head still thick with hair. Sighing inwardly, she realized perhaps this wasn't a good day for him after all. "I think that's quite enough for His Grace today," she said. "Doctor, you ought to take your king back to his bedchamber now; he needs his rest. I shall be along presently."
Agahnim bowed. "As Her Grace wishes." Urging with his soft purplish hands and a soft insistent voice, the old wizard got Harkinian out of his throne and shuffled him out of the Audience Chamber. That takes care of two problems.
Once certain that the pair of them wouldn't be returning, the weary regent fixed her attention back on Marin. "...And you!"
"Perhaps we should ask an...easier question, Your Grace."
"Excellent idea, Consul," Zelda deadpanned. "This is your last chance, Marin. Don't make them have to kill you. Who does this man talk to? Not who he sleeps with, who he talks to."
"I will not betray Mutoh!" Marin said in a weepy voice; Zelda saw with mingled horror and embarrassment that she had started to cry. "H...he's a good man! He doesn't deserve to die at the hands of the Hylians! I shall divulge nothing, you selfish, worldly woman! I only...I only wanted to see the capital of the great kingdom, but it's cold. Awfully cold."
She has force of will, this one. Zelda considered a moment...then politely turned her face away. "Kill her," she said. "Kill the useless maid. May the Wind Fish save her, if it can."
The consul looked at the princess curiously. "What is a Wind Fi--?"
He never finished his question. At the princess' instruction, the Royal Bodyguard with the unsheathed shortsword swung the said sword forward and put a premature end to the young maid's life by slitting her throat.
"Look what you've done!" Zelda heard the consul say, though she was strangely blind. "This tunic was new...oh, good goddesses, look at this mess! I'll have you know that this is coming out of your salary!"
The princess turned round to look at him, and he seemed struck mute at the expression on her face. "It's their deity," she said. "You don't know that? You're the consul of the Koholint province, and you don't know that?"
"Erm...never mind that. We've a problem to discuss, it would seem. This was the most promising Koholint I could find down in the island's gaols; I had hoped to make a good impression with her. I'd like to think that most of the other rebels we've taken captive wouldn't be so blindly loyal when brought before their rulers...but in my heart I know that most I bring before you will end up like this sorry case."
I'd like to think you were a competent consul, Zelda thought as the consul stared darkly down at the mess that had been Marin.
"A problem I've taken into consideration, Consul," the regent said, shifting in her uncomfortable seat. "It's why I made Lady Vermot Koholint's Imperial Advisor. We mean to win hearts and minds -- and information -- when we send her to the province...when, my lady? In the morning?"
Zelda was silent as Lady Medilia made some simpering affirmative response and bobbed a curtsy. Why did I make her my Imperial Advisor? she wondered vaguely, barely aware that she had supplanted the king in her own shrewd mind. It certainly hadn't been to win hearts and minds and information, as she'd curtly told the consul; it had not even been to remove responsibilities from the very male Governor Quillan Agah, as her father suspected on his good days.
No...she'd made Medilia Koholint's Imperial Advisor so she could kill her. You sail to your death tomorrow, my lady. I hope you are prepared.
"Your Grace? Are you well?"
Torn from her lonely thoughts by the consul's voice, Zelda's pale glance jumped down to the man -- suddenly desirable with the blood that gave his clothing color -- and contemplated his question. Oh, she was well, and calm, save for the promising pleasure of hearing of Medilia's death; that pleasure grew taut in her belly. All the same, a vague disquiet seemed to tear at her...but she dismissed it quickly.
"Oh, I'm quite well," she assured him, looking round at her paltry court. "You don't look so well, though, Consul...and Lady Medilia surely needs rest before setting off on her arduous journey. You two are dismissed...and please, clean yourselves up."
. . .
The corridor was awash with a pale moonlight that made all objects illuminated by it seem cold and Hylian. Shunning the moonlight, Zelda hid around the corner, glancing occasionally around it at a handsome wooden door bearing the Seal of the Golden Power. She pulled at a loose thread in her white gown as she thought, The door is not even fronted by Royal Bodyguards...he is far too trusting.
Thinking about the faults of the door helped take the princess's mind off the fact that she was skulking in the shadows and looking down a corridor warily like a common servant. It was a blow to her pride to have to hide as she was, but she'd arrived in this secluded wing of Hyrule Castle far too late to surprise her ally as she wanted. Despite her curt dismissal, she had not left the turbid Audience Chamber till moonrise. It had been Lady Medilia who delayed the princess, attacking her subtly with her worries about her upcoming trip which she explained in a querulous voice.
It irked Zelda -- then as she listened, and later in retrospect -- that the noblewoman refused to care or was too oblivious to care about others' important work. At least I managed to assure her that my order to have her sail to her death wasn't ill done... A pity she has to be disposed of, though. Important as she is, she's a hair too clever to really be used as a pawn, and she's far too unaware to be made an ally. A pity she's useless.
She heard the squeal of hinges as the door opened. Zelda snapped to attention and looked down the corridor once more. Closing the handsome door was a crimson-cloaked figure who walked swiftly down the hallway in Zelda's opposite direction once its simple task was completed. So now you decide to emerge. Moving, she started to follow the figure as she wiped her expression clean. "I need to talk to you," she said.
The figure didn't seem to hear her, but its pace increased all the same; its crimson robes billowed out behind it as it half-ran. Annoyance pricked at the regent, and she picked up her skirts as she increased her own pace.
"I need to talk to you."
There was a glint of ice in Zelda's tone as she said the words, and the figure seemed to hear it this time. It stopped, its robes stilling around it, and as Zelda approached it turned around to face her.
Zelda eventually stopped too, her hands balled into fists at her sides. "Are you losing your hearing, old man?" she asked in a deadly quiet voice. "Or did you think to escape me...are you that much a fool?"
"Not so loud, Your Grace. Your father sleeps yet." Agahnim's eyes gleamed with amusement in the moonlight.
"What a funny little man you must think you are. Nevertheless, you're right. We shouldn't be talking here." Grinding her teeth and wondering why she put herself through this, Zelda took hold of a handful of the wizard's robes and dragged him close before leading him forward. The princess wasn't particularly strong, but Hylians were built tall, and the two of them were of a height; and it helped, Zelda admitted to herself, that Agahnim let himself be pulled unresistingly along.
"I noticed a rather, ah...interesting absence in the Audience Chamber, Your Grace," the doctor commented as they walked.
"Lord Dragmire?" Zelda asked with uncharacteristic politeness, her voice devoid of tone. "He wasn't in the Audience Chamber, you told it true...but what of it?"
"Oh, nothing. I thought Her Grace might know where he went off to, but I see I was mistaken."
She wasn't fooled by his innocent tone for a minute. He means to mock me. But she allowed it, just as she'd allowed him to persuade her to slide demurely into Dragmire's bed at fifteen when she'd finally visited him for guidance -- for guidance on how she might go about taking her fate into her own hands.
"You think I mean to waste time speaking with you about dull intimate matters? You think that's why I evaded Impa when she came to 'protect' me after I left the Audience Chamber? Well, you're--"
"I'm right," the hedge wizard said comfortably. "You are exceptionally beautiful today, Your Grace...and exceptionally irritable too, it would seem. It seems both these rare occurrences are linked to that bothersome man...who wiped some of your powder off your cheeks, by the way."
One of Zelda's hands flew up to examine her reddening cheeks while Agahnim laughed at her behind his veils. He knows me too well; he knows what Ganondorf does to me too well...there are no ways to deceive Agah, no matter what Papa says about hedge wizards.
Agahnim knew why she continued to allow Dragmire to bed her, perhaps better than she did. This...bedding was something she'd agreed reluctantly to participate in on her fifteenth birthday, despite the good she knew what she was doing for her kingdom; and what the ambassador had taught her ignorant body that night had been disgusting. This...bedding had upset her so much that she stubbornly refused to ever engage in the activity with the Gerudo again when she met smug Agahnim the next day.
And yet she'd met him again, white and scared and secretly eager, just as the Calatian had wanted. She met him again, and the time after that, along with the time after that, because of the way he'd treated her during their first night together and all the nights since. Dragmire's treatment of her was something difficult to articulate in words. It was difficult to articulate in words how he seemed to be as engaged in whatever they did together as much as she was, even though he seemed merely to tolerate her presence. How he liked to use terms of respect to address her, yet debased her in ways cheeky Agahnim couldn't begin to understand. Zelda was a princess born, and all her life had been cosseted in ways a royal ought to be. It was a new, dizzying experience to be with apathetic Dragmire. And in a way, she even came to despise him for making her feel like that, the same way she came to despise him for making her perversely enjoy their brief amorous interludes, and closing her eyes to pretend it wasn't happening, and always coming back for more.
A more naive woman would have recognized what Zelda felt for Dragmire as a classic case of a woman in love with a man who treated her badly. Zelda knew she was silly at times -- silly in her devotion to her kingdom, or what she viewed as devotion -- but she wasn't silly enough to love a Gerudo...especially given that Gerudo, like Koholints, were freaks of nature. I want him because he doesn't really seem to want me, she knew.
"What did you say, Your Grace?" Agahnim prompted.
Zelda realized with slight shock that she'd been speaking without paying any attention to what was coming out of her mouth. "I said that we have a problem with Ganondorf," she repeated. "He visited me before I was summoned to that makeshift court of Papa's and before he disappeared. He seemed to think it would please me to learn that he means to turn his cloak and offer his swords to the Koholints if we don't lift Hyrule's embargo on the Gerudo province. As if there's not a very good reason for that embargo remaining in place. He'd give up all the times I've let him have me for the 'good' of his useless people, the great barbaric fool."
"Relax," the wizard said, sounding rather exasperated. "Our Lord of Gerudo Valley won't be abandoning the alliance he made with you -- with us -- quite yet. I'll make sure of it."
The regent's face fell. "You think you can do what I cannot? I kissed him, and allowed him to kiss me and thought that would sway him, though he's hard as folded steel. I don't think a kiss from you will work wonders."
They stopped short of a patch of moonlight, but even in the uncertain light Zelda saw Agahnim shake his head. "You think a woman's weapons are the only way a man can be swayed? You don't believe everything I tell you, do you?"
"Don't be ridiculous." Zelda was unsettled. "When I talked to Lady Medilia earlier, do you think I used 'a woman's weapons' to bend her to my will?"
"You know, that's your problem, Zelda: you talk too much. You're pretty needy as well, now that I'm listing your faults. You think just because Lord Dragmire isn't worshipping at your feet and kissing you tenderly that you've failed. Maybe you need that reassurance because you weren't given suck as a babe, but I can't say for sure. What I can say is that your weaknesses will be exploited if you're not careful. They already are being exploited, in case you think Lord Dragmire or your humble servant are oblivious lackwit beings."
Ignoring Agahnim's fatherly speech, Zelda whispered in anger, "You've said my name again. I have asked you not to use it. Must I have your tongue out?"
His eyes widened. "Certainly not. I beg pardon, Your Grace. May I hazard a guess at what you're going to ask next?"
"I'd sooner ask my own questions, thank you." Zelda's usually soft voice developed a hard edge that cut through the subtle protests Agahnim made with his eyes. "You haven't medicated Papa tonight, have you? And you do have the vial of milk of illusion in your robes as I requested, don't you?"
"Ah, that might be," Agahnim hedged. "However, Your Grace...there is a simple question I've been meaning to put to you for quite a while."
"Stop delaying, Agah." Zelda knew what question he meant to put to her and was hoping to delay hearing it for as long as possible. The same question he asked once a fortnight. She dreaded it. You think you're not a part of my own twisted little game, you filthy bird? You know nothing of exploitation.
"It's not a delay, Your Grace, merely a question." He twisted in her grip, so that their cold eyes met. "There was...a promise you made to me on your fifteenth birthday. A promise to reveal a secret to me in exchange for my services. A secret that was the key to a...certain great power."
"I've not forgotten," the princess said coldly. And if you think I ever mean to fulfill that promise, you're even more of a fool than I thought. "As soon as I ascend to the High Throne, what I've hidden from you shall remain a secret no longer."
"Reassuring to know." With his free hand, the wizard reached into his deeply red robes and extracted a vial from it whose volatile contents were visible even in the weak light.
The Hylian girl stared down at the half-full vial of purple milk of illusion as it was handed to her before allowing her gaze to stray to Agahnim's face. His skin matched exactly the color of the milk, marking him as one of the few men in the world immune to the brew's effects. I wish you weren't immune. Then I'd poison you with it.
"You have my thanks, Agah. I'm sure you have my father's as well, though he's not like to give you his thanks personally once he's quaffed it." The vial disappeared up one of the sleeves of Zelda's gown as slowly she smiled.
"It's rare to see a smile on the face of the beautiful regent," commented Agah. "How overjoyed I am that my humble gifts were the cause of such radiance. I must advise Her Grace, however, that the milk of illusion is a fickle thing. What you have up your sleeve is the strongest concentration of it you've received yet. I dare not increase the concentration any more, for fear of Harkinian's death...the last thing either of us wants, surely."
"Surely," said Zelda, not taking the bait. Kinslayers are cursed to dwell forever in the deepest of the three hells along with rapists and traitors, you silly pagan. "Papa surely must be suffering without his milk. I wouldn't make him wait for it any longer."
"How fearful I would be of keeping Her Grace from her royal father. For that grievous crime, I might be sentenced to death...like the sweet, if not terribly comely, Lady Medilia." Agahnim tittered.
Zelda knew her eyes were narrowing. "We've already discussed the Lady Medilia. I see no point in dwelling on how petty you think I am any longer."
"Yes, I'm sure we'll have plenty of time to dwell on that once your clever little plan to dispose of her fails and you come to me, crying."
"Rest assured, Agah, that I've placed the details of her murder in able hands." Zelda made as if to release him and turn and go...but suddenly a gelid wind seeped through Harkinian the Bloodthirsty's poorly constructed walls, and the princess found herself reluctant to release the sorcerer. How can such a cold man be warm as sunrise?
How odd that she was comparing Agahnim to sunrise...though, perhaps, that wasn't so odd. He hailed from the Calatian Islands, which were far to the northeast and far across the Little Sea -- even massive Dragon Roost Island, near as big as the whole of Hyrule. None of the Calatian Islands knew true summer...but, as far to the east as they were, they did know sunrise, in all its blazing and bright glory. And the sunrise stays with them. She let go of Agahnim abruptly.
"You make me waste too much time," she complained as she turned around and started walking briskly away from the man who reminded her too much of sunrise. "I must needs go visit Papa now...but I'm sure I'll come crying to you soon, Doctor."
"There is one more small matter, Your Grace," Agahnim called after her.
"Oh?" Zelda stopped and turned around.
The skin around Agahnim's eyes crinkled as he smiled beneath his veils. "You simply must introduce me to that...Governor Quillan. Agah."
. . .
I'd never get this awesome feedback if I was writing fluff!
Blue Taboo: I'm trying really hard to retain the darkness that the story originally had...I hope I'll do a decent job of it. And, much as it pains me to do it, I'm trying to cut down on the complexities/various storylines of the previous version. Anyway, thanks for reviewing!
ignorantly grinning: Mary Sues and Gary Stus are perfect human beings with super duper powers, unmatchable beauty, and changing eye colors. How dare you not know that! I'm kind of exaggerating their qualities there, but they ARE humans without flaws. I'm relieved that the rewrite's pleased you so far...I was really nervous about posting it, for some reason. :) BTW, I think the only way Ganondorf x Zelda really works is if one or the other is pretty OOC, but that doesn't stop me from loving it!
Midnight Starfire: Hey, a reasonable Zelinker! For me, Zelink is number two on the list of my favorite Zelda pairings, but I really like to see things that no one's done before (think anyone's written Komali x Tetra yet?). BTW, I have most of the other version saved on my computer if you really want to see it...but trust me, it's really not that different yet. I'm glad you're enjoying this, and update your own fic! NOW! ;)
Again...thanks to anyone who's read this far, and please let me know what you think of it with a review!
