Legends of the Waker: Remnants of Old
Chapter LX: The Rogue Element
(Link)
Fists clenching and releasing.
Dark thoughts swirling around my head, whispering possibilities and temptations.
How far was I willing to go to save Zelda? How far would I be driven to stop Ganondorf?
"Further than the death of one insignificant man." The voices would whisper back.
Before I could contemplate about it any more, Trisyrt dropped to his knees and screamed, "No, Darunia! NO!"
The tunnel suddenly shook with a massive voice that seemed to come from the very rock surrounding us. "YOU DARE THREATEN MY PEOPLE, YOU INSIGNIFICANT WORM?" The hateful tones set the cave shaking and both of us bouncing forward. The rubies on the walls seemed to burst with light, but I was sure it was a trick of the massive headache I'd acquired.
"DID YOU REALLY THINK YOU WERE OFF THE HOOK, YOU STUPID IDIOT?" I SHOULD HAVE HAD YOU DEAD WHEN THE FIRST OPPORTUNITY CAME. NOW YOU AND THE GIRL WILL SUFFER!"
"What do you want from us?" I screamed back, "What could be worth all this? be worth the death of your people?"
"It is your civilization that will crumble, hero boy. Leave my servant be, and prepare yourself for death." The voice was fading now, and so too, was the shimmer in the veins of ruby on the walls. I wondered now if there was a connection. Trisyrt's eyes had looked just like it when Darunia had been in possession of his body.
I raced to one of them. "In the darkness, bring the light." I quoted my former teacher and sent a blast of light into a line of the gems, sending shards of ruby scattering across the floor. I had just enough time to hear Trisyrt mutter something before the world disappeared.
"You fool."
(Zelda)
Pain.
Pain had absorbed everything, crushing my will under its heavy, burdensome toll. Not a day went by that the thin Goron didn't find some new means of hurt for me to suffer. All because I withheld information about Link. Somehow they knew I loved him, so they threatened him, which was their only effective torture. I didn't see how divulging information would help him, so I remained silent.
I hadn't spoken a word in what was now three weeks of captivity. What had happened to Link? I'd expected to be here a day or two at most, but onward the number of days climbed, till I began to wonder if he had given up on me, and if I should speak freely to save myself from suffering.
No. That couldn't be right. Link would never abandon me. I had lost my hair, hacked off and used to strangle me to near asphyxiation. I had lost weight from starvation. I had lost my smooth skin, which was now layered in scars. But I hadn't lost my determination.
Link would never abandon me.
...Would he?
(Trisyrt)
"You Fool."
I turned away in disgust as Hero disappeared in a flash of light, leaving nothing but scattered shards of broken gems. Having him gone would save me a lot of trouble, however. Now I wouldn't have to walk with him at my heels all the way. It wouldn't change much else. I still had to get to Darunia's headquarters in Ruby City for the next move in the game.
On foot, it took some time to make it there, and when I finally did, I was drained. As drained as Hero must be by now. "Not that that would matter to him at the moment," I said to myself with a chuckle. Hero had bigger concerns now.
The Goron cities always take my breath away, no matter how many times I see them. Darunia's home city was made out of the gem he sprang from, and though I never told him, I always preferred the cool walls of Sapphire to the blinding scarlet that always surrounds me here.
With a loud fluttering, I was surrounded by Bellen-Der. How I loathed the creatures. They'd once been a beautiful, intelligent race, living deep under the earth peacefully. But Darunia had twisted them into grotesque slaves over the years.
Being in his service was getting old. Darunia had promised Rost, Griman and I rulership over Kakariko, and all the things we and our people could want. Now my friends were dead and we were no more in possession of what Darunia had promised us than ever.
Hero was his problem now, and I was about to become Darunia's. It was time to deal with my would-be benefactor.
It was time to kill Darunia.
Chapter LXI: Battle Gray
(Mako)
As we left the already rotting "mountain", I could feel the tree weeping beneath me. It had been through too much. I began to cry unashamedly with it. It was dying, something of vast sorrow to my people.
Faceless spoke up, saying nothing of my tears. "The Marauders are following us. I am heading back to our village. Let's hope our friend makes it." I looked back, but for a moment all I could see was a wet blur. After wiping a ragged tunic sleeve across my face, I saw them. The wind ruffled their tattered skin as they gathered together from the scattering they'd received. A loud horn pierced the air, and I realized then we were in for trouble.
When we reached the village, the tree suddenly hit the ground. The branch I was holding onto crumbled, sending me tumbling to the ground, to land amid a pile of dirt and dry roots. Faceless hopped beside me nimbly as the rest of the tree turned to ashen dust.
Battles make me sick.
A massive group of faceless men, women, and even children charged from the whitewashed walls of the town, and I with them. I'd long ago lost my staff, but their leader, a tall, powerfully built man with blond hair, had given me a spear. The Marauders had been massing for some time now, and upon hearing Faceless's report (whose name turned out to be Mareri), they'd decided to make a decisive blow.
As it turned out, the faceless are a warrior people. Only the infants, incapacitated, and disgraced stay behind. The disgraced are those whose courage failed them in battle, and so they are expected to care for the rest that can't go.
My heart was beating way too fast. I was sure I could almost hear it. My stomach churned as we struck a group of Marauders on the far side of a hilltop. Two titanic waves crashed into each, and the battle began to flood towards me.
I dropped to my knees in the grass, gasping, as violence overtook everything. This wasn't an elegant swordfight, or a desperate struggle of wills against an evil man.
It was slaughter.
I caught a glimpse of Mareri. She held an odd, double-bladed sword with no hilt. The middle was simply smoother and protected with blue leather. It slid like water between her palms, striking here, there, moving easily through the flesh of all nearby enemies.
Suddenly a Marauder was about to bring an ax down on me. A faceless warrior wearing no shirt, bare chest wet with blood, struck down on him. The warrior jerked his head towards me and rubbed his palms together, which I later realized was a show of contempt.
I was disgraced.
Neither side seemed capable of gaining an advantage. The Marauders were fewer but seemed to require death to be stopped.
I couldn't seem to find the strength to rise. I wanted to be away from here. Back in the forest, back where I belonged, but it all seemed impossibly far away now.
While everyone else fought each other, I fought with myself, struggling to beat out the fear that kept me on my knees. I would never forget the sights, sounds, smells around me. The frenzied bloodlust in a cute little girl's eyes, the grunting of a faceless man as he lay dying. The smell of the blood that soaked the fields.
Worst of all was the Marauder's special talent. They could remove their loose skin and take control of the faceless ones' dead. Something had to be done. I was a sage. People were supposed to be able to count on me. People needed me. I pushed all fear aside. What did one death matter?
This needed to end. Battles make me sick.
Spear held high over my head, I charged into battle.
Chapter LXII: Tools
(Medli)
I floundered onto the broken mast, lungs heaving. I looked all around. The gray sky still rumbled angrily. The Octos still floated in a line, waiting hungrily for the first person to drift their way.
They formed a wall that I realized was growing far too fast. With so many feathers wet or gone, I wasn't at all sure I could fly. I began fumbling with the knot at my waist. I was the only one left attached. All the others had reflexively cut theirs as we went down. It wouldn't give. I knew almost nothing about knots.
I couldn't hold back a scream as a tentacle lashed out and gripped the wooden spar tightly. My little raft was yanked into the air with dizzying speed. I could hear Laruto fighting elsewhere, and there were strange noises coming from the water, but no one was nearby. No one could help. I was going to die alone, I knew, as the Octo shoved the mast, with me attached, straight into its mouth.
(Shiek)
-"Use the tools you have been afforded."-
The voice flooded my mind as I treaded water, and suddenly I knew what I had to do. The only real flaw was that it depended entirely on Laruto's strength. I knew she was a powerful being, but this time she might be in over her head.
But I couldn't think about that. I had only to do what I could, and hope everything came together. I pulled out the Wind Waker and stabbed forward with it experimentally. I was blasted backward, across the waves. My father had told me the Waker was a conductor's baton, but for some reason I'd never been able to use it that way. Nor had Medli.
I flew through the air like a firework toward the first pirate, the wind beneath and behind me creating a tunnel of air. The pirate still had a bit of rope dangling from his waist and I grabbed onto it and pulled him with me, going slower than before. The man screamed at first, but seemed to realize it was me.
The insanity of what I was doing struck me with the second man's grunt of surprise, and I had to surface for longer than usual so I could laugh. I was using a wind wand to swim through the water and gather up pirates to protect them from giant sea monsters, while a fish-girl took them out. I kept right on laughing as I worked, and soon had everyone on a couple of makeshift rafts. Nobody had seen Medli or Cufell, and they were especially worried over Zelda.
A scream cut the thick, dark air, and I dove for the water as a horrific sight made me gasp. Medli had been eaten.
(Laruto)
I ran straight across the head of an Octo, back flipped, and fired orbs as I fell. The creature's back was covered with weak spots. These were horribly flawed monsters. Their odd, pus covered openings made perfect targets. I'd already taken down two others, and this one would soon fall. I hit the water and slid easily into my world, dodging tentacles, spinning this way and that.
I jumped out into the air, ready to end it, but a tentacle was waiting for me! Backhanded, I went flying twenty feet and landed with a powerful crash back into the water. It almost seemed like something was guiding the Octos, something was helping them and pushing them.
Ganondorf hadn't just put the Octos into place. He was leading them.
I surged forward and tried to strike again but was caught in the suckered grasp of one of the Octo's many appendages. As I struggled, my hatred for Ganondorf seared, breaking down all my barriers. As Ganon's darkness flooded through the being that held me, I reached deep, pulling out all my anguish, loathing, sorrow, and horror.
"This is my darkness, Ganondorf!" I cried out. A blast wave of energy burst from within. "Do you fear it?" The Octo and several around me disintegrated. I saw and felt bruised flesh around my stomach, but ignored it as I went spinning into the waves.
The water closed over me. I could hear it's roar, smell the ocean, see the rain that the sky finally relinquished. The rain... it seemed to patter against the sky, striking the waves with increasing tempo. I forced myself to swim after another Octo. The battle wasn't quite over yet.
Something white moved in the depths, and I gasped with horror.
I was soon rising up, brought back into the world of air by an Octo. The whole long line of them was filled as if it had never been damaged at all.