AN: Bonjourno folks, or Good day as we might say in English. I'm back, and as promised here's the next chapter, a day early! Turns out I got the date wrong and I came back yesterday evening instead of tomorrow evening. I had a really good time. Lakes are such beautiful places, especially when the weather's nice. But now I'm back and ready to finish this…almost. Here's chapter eleven, after much too long a break between that cliff-hanger :D
Chapter 11- The Ravine and the River
Link's POV:
Everything happened so fast. My feet felt as though they had been stabbed as they collided with the rough, thoroughly solid, rock face. Then my body lurched forward. Like a beating drum in the executioner's tower, my head pounded against the ground, flints flying into my eyes, scratching my face as if they were sharp claws. It beat me again and again with a quickening fist of fury as I began to imitate the Goron beside me. I thought my eyes would never open again, my lashes binding them together in a tight rope. I gritted my face and clenched my teeth, trying in vain to steel myself against the pain. But the darkness slowly amplified the rolling barrels of fear inside me, veiling what would inevitably determine my fate…and whether or not I would ever live to see the beautiful morning sunshine from Hyrule's high hill tops again.
The brief pauses of flying solace, residing after the terrible regularity of snaps and throbbing pain, soon ceased altogether, leaving me tumbling down the slopes at an uncontrollable pace. I realised nothing was going to stop me now. The rain washed anyway any possible hope of earthy or rocky footholds, making every surface slick and coated with its liquid. But what worried me more was that the sound of unmistakable cracks and twists, coming from deep within the chambers of my body, were conquering the sounds of the storm, the scuffling of dust and the snagging tear of cloth. I couldn't concentrate on anything else except how maimed I was becoming, or whether I'd even survive. Nothing could penetrate the immense agony drilling through my bones or the sweeping rushes of sound, swarming like insects around my ears. I had lost all thought of anything else…everything else. What flew and rampaged across my mind didn't seem real anymore… The rocks began to feel like needles, piercing my skin and drawing blood, probably leaving a streaming and splattered crimson river all the way down the cliffs of Death Mountain. I couldn't even hear the bouncing Goron anymore. I couldn't feel the shower of hurtling rocs that he'd unearth and make airborne either. Yet the pain seemed to grow worse. I'd lost and had been defeated…and I was rising?
With a collected speed I suddenly found myself being flung into the air, the soft caressing wind gliding over my grazed and bloodied cheeks. I finally opened my eyes, seeing a rush of blurring colour: sky - rock - black - rock - sky - rock - black - rock… It went around and around, the words chanting monotonously in my head. I could see the Goron still tumbling down, a great dust tail hazing the drizzling air behind him. But now I could hear nothing at all.
The snapping of limbs disappeared into a gentle whisper of the air; my torn and bloodied tunic flapped in the breeze like birds wings; and somewhere there was another, heavier crashing pound gradually getting louder and louder. However, the short ascent into the air quickly dwindled into nothing and I felt myself falling once again, only to find there was no ground to fall against. My eyes brought themselves forward, and I wanted to scream. I hadn't realised quite how high I was, or even my position. With a marching dread, my eyes rested against that black image that had twirled in between the browns and blues. A great ravine plunged below me into a dark abyss, and an ironic blade of lightning illuminated, for mere seconds, the true scale of the un-climbable walls, the light not even reaching the base.
Yet something stirred in my memory. Once, I knew I had walked along that base, travelling to the very top of the mountain. Once, Gorons had sat there and guided me toward their city…
But now I wished I'd never opened my eyes as I immediately found them paralysed by the sheer drop I was plummeting toward. I wasn't going to make it to the other side. My lungs seized my throat, choking on the falling wings of the air. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. I knew bones were broken, my hands and face gushing with blood, but I didn't have any sensation of pain, not over the terrifying weights of fear dragging me down, or the awaiting invisible hands of death just waiting to catch me.
"I love you, Zelda," I whimpered, trying to fight back the tears of defeat and failure.
Then out of nowhere, through the waiting and expecting silence surrounding me, a loud and fierce bellow shattered through everything. The shout made me turn my head, the raw tears blinding my vision, but a large shape soared toward me, coming nearer and nearer until the golden blur slammed into my side. A hard hand grasped my crushed fingers.
"Don't die yet."
I didn't know what was happening anymore, but noting could check the solitary tear that slid happily down my cheek as I clamped my eyes shut again. Wincing at the shooting, aching pain in my arms, I swung them around this strange saviour's neck, relieved that they had not been broken.
We fell faster, but forward, and in another slamming encounter, I heard a scratching scrape against the ravine wall. Together we skidded down, the hand and feet of my companion scrabbling to find a foothold. A low grunt snorted by my ears, and I felt the grimace in us both as we slowly ground to a halt. Rocks fell down beside us, falling silently in the storm as the dust settled.
"Are you all right, brother?" he said, but I couldn't utter a reply at all. "That would have been quite a nasty fall there. Good thing I caught you."
"Da-Darunia?" I finally stuttered.
"You holding on tight, brother?" I nodded briefly, but at once the strong safeguarding limbs that secured me to his chest vanished, and I almost slipped away from him. My body hurt all over, a settled sting cruising steadily to every corner of every muscle, but I held on as Darunia scaled the wall, all the while muttering praise to the heavens. I wouldn't die yet…
Eventually we reached the edge, and as gently as he could, Darunia lifted me back onto the slope's surface. I stood up carefully, putting pressure only on one foot at a time, glad that the damage wasn't half as bad as I first thought. I could stand on one leg. But before I even tried to move the other, that stabbing feeling came back and it cracked all the way down my leg. I cried out and fell to the floor, cursing under my breath.
Darunia heard me and hastily knelt down by my side, a worried glaze fixed over his eyes. He watched and I felt the new pillows of blood seep through my clothes, dripping onto the rock. Without saying a word, he took me again in his large hands, lying my back across his palms.
"Damn leg," I spat.
"W-What did you think you were doing, brother?" I could hear the fear in his voice. If I didn't get help, I might die right here in his arms. "Do you want to get yourself killed?" That fear turned to a concerned anger. "Tell me why!" he demanded.
"It's gone," I said, trying not to breathe heavily, as more searing pain flagged up in my ribs.
It took him a while to answer. "What's gone?"
"The Triforce - the Goron," I breathed hoarsely, trying not to let the tears fall. But despite not wanting to breathe deeply, I found I had to. "Has…Triforce." I moved my arm and pointed down the cliff. Darunia's mouth floundered open and shut, but no words were spoken. "Rock…and Triforce - Goron…eat." I couldn't say anymore.
Darunia began running, holding me tightly in his arms, without protest. My leg throbbed, as did my chest, and I didn't see anymore of where Darunia took me. Only when Darunia leaped into the air with a mighty bellow, and landed with a force equalling that of an earthquake, did I open my eyes again. The shock rattled my legs and I cried out again, rolling out of his hands as he lowered me to the ground, clutching the colossal heartbeat biting through them.
"Brother!" Darunia commanded. I turned my head in my agony and cracked open an eye, only to find him facing away from me. "Let me have that rock!" His thundering voice echoed everywhere, even in the roars behind the clouds.
I looked past him to see a shaking and trembling creature, the golden rock quivering in its hands. I felt a small smile on my face, the pain easing slightly. The silly, happy face of the Goron was no longer plastered over its features and I never thought I had seen one looking so utterly terrified. Immediately the Goron dropped the rock and shrunk away into a ball, hiding its face from Darunia as it mumbled apologies.
Something else stirred in my mind. Another memory. I remembered seeing the entire population of Gorons pleading not to be eaten, trapped in small dark cages deep in the tunnels of Death Mountain. It was the same sense of recollection as the graveyard, and the same as only moments ago. That warrior had saved these tormented creatures from Ganonndorf, from them being fed into the fiery pits of Volvagia's chamber…
Darunia retrieved the rock, and raising one fist, it came smashing down, instantly cleaving the rough exterior in two. The stone crumbled away to the ground, revealing the true golden shard trapped inside. Even in the darkness of the storm it gleamed and glinted as if light shone upon it. I smiled again and reached outward. Both the back of my hand and the Triforce glowed brighter and brighter, an overwhelming golden light pouring over the mountainside, until I had to squint to see anything at all. In the bright burst of energy, the light disappeared. Darunia smiled as I did, and he returned his attention to the trembling boulder behind him.
"Brother, you may have your rock," Darunia said.
Cautiously, the Goron sat up and while still looking at Darunia with its blank, black eyes, he gathered the remnants of his precious stones to him. Quietly he slipped away, still looking back with a confused curiosity, but he dared not utter a word.
"Thank you…Darunia," I said weakly.
He grin grew wider. "Only repaying the favour. You saved my people twice. I'm still indebted to serve you, and I will help you again."
"Forest," I gasped. "Forest - Nabooru's…hurt."
He picked me up again, and I was grateful he didn't ask any more questions. He ran down the rest of the mountainside, holding me as still as possible, until we reached the flat grasslands of the wide valley floor. The storm went on regardless, the winds becoming stronger and faster, blowing relentlessly from the north. The torrential rains hammered down on us, accompanied by irregular flashes of lightning form cloud to cloud. The sky would become alight with white, erasing all the darkness for a split second before returning to the black skies. I'd never seen such a terrible storm beset Hyrule before.
Darunia eventually slowed his pace as we came toward a gushing river blocking any further travel. As we stood there, large sections of the surrounding shoreline peeled away and was swallowed by the river, becoming lost in the surging mixture of white and pale brown. I guessed it was the same river that had ravaged Saria Town, and was probably still doing so upstream.
"Our path is blocked," Darunia said solemnly.
"There's…no time to find…a bridge," I wheezed with a great effort. "Nabooru is…clinging to her life in there. We must…find her." I breathed in again, flinching at the sharp pain. "Can you swim?"
"Hardly," he said, his eyes not looking at me. "Certainly not while helping another. The river is far too dangerous to cross. We must find a bridge."
"No time!" I insisted. But still Darunia did not move.
"I do not know these plains well enough to know where to cross safely." The Goron sage sighed. "But we have no choice." He began to step slowly toward the river's edge. "Gorons have always feared the water. We sink because we are too heavy." One foot plodded into the water and I the realised just what danger Darunia was entering into. "Many have lost their lives attempting to swim, "he continued, "but it's about time we learned how!" he said, boasting a combination of courage and fear.
I felt utterly helpless to be held while Darunia plunged into the violent waters, sinking immediately to the deep riverbed. I held my breath as Darunia held me to him, determined to not let me be pulled away by the quick liquid arms that tugged at our sides. With one careful step after another, we moved quicker finding the heavy weight of the Goron responding brilliantly against the raging currents. Like a moving anchor he trudged through the dirt clouds that plumed around his feet. But our perilous voyage was growing long and my head began to feel light and drowsy. Darunia too must have felt the same, for his pace quickening again, and suddenly my head was thrown above the water, the sweet, wet air returning to my lungs. However being so close to the surface, mouthfuls of muddy sediment in the river that carried along in the river's path rushed into my mouth, filling it with lumpy water.
No sooner had I been laid upon the ground did I start choking, spitting and spluttering on the dew-stained grass with a cracking bone piercing the air. I had never felt such horrible pain before. Each broken rib was equipped with a rock-cutting dagger, and with every breath they stabbed and stabbed inside me.
I finally emptied my mouth, the mud cradling small puddles of tears. I eased myself onto my back, breathing as swallow as I could allow myself. The rain slid over my bloodied skin and dripping clothes, the wetness feeling refreshing for the first time.
"We made it…Darunia," I said quietly, waiting for a reply. But none came. No one was standing beside me, or was even in sight as I craned my head around the empty fields. Nothing moved beneath the cloudy river, no vague moving shape under the brown veil of the tides. My heart sank like a boat to the punctured pits of my stomach: slowly and with an excruciating nausea. Everything seemed to then ache and bleed twice as much; all hope lost on that sinking boat, ready to embrace the inevitable. "No," I whispered.
The river still thrashed its way down to the horizon, the endless waves disappearing out of sight, lost as they met with the white streaks of lightning that bled across the sky, that grew further and further in the darkness. More thunder broke out overhead, rumbling like the hooves of a hundred horses, galloping free over the fields of the dark sky as if there were some world above them. I closed my eyes and listened with a heavy heart to the voice and song of the storm, somehow feeling that little bit more content with the world. The pain seemed to slowly be soothed away by the melodious whine and whistle of the breeze. Yet nothing could destroy the huge, conscious mountain of angry guilt that erupted with thick fountains of sorrowful depression inside my heart. No matter how far the physical pains dwelled, it healed. Still naught could ever forgive my sin of endangering two sages, so vital and necessary for keeping the world from a true age of darkness; or the sheer failure and defeat for being so completely helpless as to keep them from harm's ruthless way.
But something distracted me. Something began burning bright again, and from some unknown realm, the shred of hope from that sinking ship blazed proudly like a flaring beacon of a lighthouse.
A flurry of torrents flew high up into the air, becoming a firework of shimmering light as another lightning strike flashed across the sky behind, creating a beautiful, almost unreal, heavenly spectacle. I watched with a growing smile as the water rained down, carrying with it on a liquid cloud the spinning form of Darunia. With a low, deafening noise, he fell like a hurling meteor down on the ground, sending tremors along the ground. My whole body shook but continued tingling long after Darunia walked over and picked me up without saying so much as a word.
We continued across the stretching plains toward the dense sight of dark emerald trees that nestled quietly against the naked rising mountains and hills. Nothing grew on the desolate scenery, as if all vegetation had been scraped away by an angry hand, leaving only a handful of scattered shades of dark green against the carved and chiselled whites and greys of the mountains. Everything here was bare, leaving the minimum for survival, so much unlike the Hyrule I knew. The grasses here were stamped down in large oval shapes as Darunia ran through the empty and open fields that reached out into the dark night. I recalled the castle hills and the royal gardens being rich and strong, and when I had once looked out across Hyrule Field, the sun had shone down on the valiant and mysterious Kokiri Forest, spreading the seeping vitality all over the land.
'But now times were dark and evil was afoot, wandering within the borders of Hyrule, bringing with it malice and destruction. There was no life left in this land. That was why Ganon left it for the people to flee to. To eventually starve and suffer while he destroyed what was left of their homes. Ruto had told me that Kokiri Forest had become a desert and that the Gerudo Desert had become a plentiful and prosperous land. She'd told me that Kakariko village had been rendered asunder, with some brave people now residing in what was the Gerudo territory, and that Lake Hylia had once again been drained dry and had become barren land.
'The Gerudos had been his people. They had lived in the severity of the desert, while we, the Hylians, lived in what would be luxury to them: a seasonal rain, resources for food, energy, and housing. Now they had everything, and what would the people be left with when, and if, this war ended? Nothing but a dry, dead land, just like they had. Perhaps justice is being done, the tables being turned. Maybe Ganonndorf was just a pawn to speed this twisted fate along, bringing home a decent existence for his people…'
My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of crushed twigs and stomped thickets breaking underneath the weight of Darunia's feet. Epona's hoof prints were still fresh in the earth, the trees sheltering them from being washed away, and I told the Goron to follow them. The crescent shaped marks weaving in and out of bushes and trees until they came to a small glade in the middle of the forest. A small, red-bricked house was hiding away behind a stone cobbled wall, smoke puffing out of a chimney and vanishing into the night sky. I hung my head back in Darunia's hands, thanking the goddesses when I saw my beloved Palomino mare tethered underneath a raised wooden shelter, standing silently next to Nabooru's horse. She whinnied and began to walk forward into the rain as far as her reins would allow her before they constricted her movement. The door opened as Darunia opened the small garden gate, revealing a stout man with hair as dark as tree bark and a shaggy beard hung around his cheeks.
"What's all the racket out here?" he said, throwing anxious glances back inside the house, clearly desperate and impatient to be left alone.
"Bagu?" I asked. He looked at me as Darunia helped me to my feet. I stood on my good leg and grimaced as I bent the other slightly to avoid hitting the ground. I held onto Darunia and he helped me walk slowly toward the stunned man.
"Y-Yes," he said, his eyes looking as if he'd seen a ghost. "Who are you and what trouble do you bring with you? I want nothing to do with your escapades, young man," he said more severely, looking back and forth between Darunia and I.
"He brings no trouble," Darunia intervened, "but Link needs help as quickly as possible."
"Not often we see a Goron down in these parts. Link, did you say?" Bagu said with a strange curiosity. He eyes me suspiciously and looked at my clothes. "That name has been mighty popular since the Prince died. Parents even go about dressing their children in that forest garb." He paused. "Your parents like that, Link?"
With a pang of sorrow, I mumbled a feeble, "Yes."
My head started to ache, and as both Bagu and Darunia helped me inside the house, I thought more and more about my parents. Who had they been? What had they done to deserve to die? I felt something give way in my head, as though another memory might be released from the warrior's time. But it died away as soon as it had come, leaving me with an unresolved affliction.
"I wonder what the hell's goin' on in these parts today. Already had one turn up on me doorstep not too long ago now," Bagu mused.
"Nabooru!" I cried as I saw her sleeping form lie still on a woven mattress laid out on the floor. Her body was wrapped in reams and reams of bandages and a cloth rested against her forehead. A half-empty bottle, containing red fluid of some sort, along with other vials and flasks lay by her side, all in a neat line.
"You know her?"
"She was…with me when…we were attacked," I said slowly, beginning to feel my head ache grow worse. Bagu said nothing and only frowned.
"I thought you said 'no trouble'," he said turning toward Darunia.
"It's true," I said.
"Troublesome youngsters," Bagu muttered as he left my side to go into an adjoining room. He brought back another woven mat and put it on the floor, then came to my side again. "Lie him down on that."
Immediately, Bagu got up and fetched more bandage and ointment from the same room and put a cold, wet cloth over my forehead. Without even asking he pulled a small knife from a pocket and ripped away the blood stained cloth that was bound around my leg and smeared something cool over it before encasing it with bandage.
"Drink this," he said, passing me the bottle with the red liquid in it. I did so, and instantly felt a lot better. "That Gerudo was barely alive when that horse brought her here. I guess she's yours."
"Yes."
"You've a clever horse, Link. I've done everything I can to help that girl." My head stung suddenly. "I'm not even sure myself whether she'll pull through. I think she'll - " But I heard no more as I fell away into an abrupt darkness, feeling my mind being pulled in two directions.