Worlds Apart
Part II
By Miss Lydia

Chapter 5

"Get UP already!!"

The voice jolted Lydia out of her dreamland rather abruptly. Link was shouting in her ear.

"The way you sleep weirds me out!" Link continued. "You may as well just DIE and save yourself the trouble of waking up in the morning!"

Lydia sat up stiffly. "Didn't I tell you to quit harping on my sleeping habits?"

"I can't help myself. It's nearly eleven o'clock. This is too much."

"We were up late, man."

"Midnight isn't that late."

"Quiet, Long Ears. I'll sleep as long as I want to."

A pillow flew from across the room and hit Link's head. Gordon's voice followed.

"Honestly, you two. Fighting first thing in the morning," he said.

Lydia threw the pillow back and rolled out of bed, playfully shoving Link out of the way. She stumbled over to the window and opened the shutters. The sunlight glimmered through small holes in the gray clouds overhead. 'Yuck' was the first word to enter her head.

She yawned loudly and asked, "So, guys, what's our plan of action today?"

Gordon sat on his bed. "I was thinking about that last night," he said. "Everyone in Hyrule needs our help. But we obviously can't do it all at once. So there's the factor of who needs our help more badly."

Link joined in. "You mean who we need to help first, or who's in the most trouble. I see. We need to do things in the most effective order possible."

Lydia sat in the chair by the window. "I get it. Like, you mean that we should fix the Kokiri Forest before Lake Hylia, because the Forest holds dozens of endangered Kokiri, while no one really lives at the lake." An extra thought quickly forced its way in.

"Right," Gordon said. "I was thinking we should go to Zora's Domain first. And Goron City, too. See, we know that the Kokiri are okay for the time being. We saw that yesterday. But all the Zoras are missing again. Remember what happened the last time they were missing?"

"Yeah, I do," Lydia sighed heavily. "We found them in that horrible Ice Cavern, nearly frozen to death."

"The Domain was in horrible shape, too," Link added. "No water. The water's there this time, but it's totally frozen."

"We need to go there first. We need to know if they're still alive."

"Not to make the mood worse, but I don't think anything could survive in a frozen place like that."

"I wonder if the Gorons met a similar fate..."

"Then let's not waste time," Gordon suggested. "Let's get moving now."

***

"Even though we've already seen this," Gordon whispered, "it's still upsetting."

Everyone was standing just inside the entrance of the frozen domain, looking it over again.

"Yeah," Link agreed.

"Is that ice really totally solid?" Lydia wondered. "Is there any water down there at ALL?"

Link walked forward and jumped down from the path to the ice, landing hard. He stamped the ice with his foot a couple times, then bent over and looked through it.

"Yeah," he finally shouted. "Solid as a rock all the way down."

Lydia and Gordon jumped down after him and looked down. It was ice all the way to the bottom. There wasn't any liquid water anywhere.

"Man," Lydia scoffed. "This place is always in such rotten shape. Every time I leave our peaceful little house in Kakariko, I end up hating Ganondorf even more."

Link straightened up. "We should go check out that Ice Cavern again. We need to find the Zoras, if they're still around anywhere."

"Yeah, let's get moving," Gordon said.

They started to walk, slip, and slide across the ice toward solid land that would take them to King Zora's room. When they neared the middle of the ice sheet, Link suddenly stopped dead in his tracks.

Lydia turned around and asked, "Link? What are you doing?"

Link slowly reached up and gripped the Master Sword's hilt. "...Something's wrong."

"What?" Gordon asked.

Link glanced from side to side as he spoke. "Something isn't right. There's something else here." He took a few steps backward, still looking around nervously.

Lydia followed him. "Are you sure? I don't hear anything."

Link slowly shook his head, still looking around. He suddenly stiffened and pulled his sword and shield out. "Something's definitely here!"

Lydia was about to call him crazy when a blast of wind shot through Zora's Domain. Several clouds of smoke appeared around them. Gordon turned and got into spell-firing position. They watched as the clouds of smoke quickly materialized into very tall skeleton monsters. Each one wore ripped clothes and had a jagged sword and shield of its own.

Lydia backed up against Link as more clouds of smoke appeared behind the skeleton monsters. Those clouds also became skeletons. Very soon, there were dozens of these creatures surrounding them.

"Look at this!" Link suddenly shouted. "Ganondorf's already trying to stop us!"

"What are they?" Lydia asked as she listened to the monsters moan and groan to each other.

"Stalfos. They're really tough monsters. I beat one when I was a kid, and that was really hard. Now there are dozens of them! We really have our work cut out for us this time."

"Ganon must be up to something again," Gordon suggested.

"Gee, ya think?" Lydia retorted. "What more could he possibly want? He's already done his damage to this poor place!"

"We'll figure that out later!" Link shouted as the Stalfos began to approach. "We need to survive this first!"

"Let's go then!" Gordon shouted.

Link was the first to charge. "Blade Haut!" He brought his sword down to the ice hard and the tremor of energy sailed toward a group of Stalfos. The spell was a lot bigger and stronger than what his old Kokiri sword had ever produced.

When the Stalfos began to scatter away from the advancing energy, Link suddenly shouted. "Break!!" The tremor split and fanned out, hitting several of the Stalfos at once. Just as Link was enjoying this small victory, a Stalfos snuck up from behind and got a cheap shot in. Link staggered forward and turned to fight.

Gordon whirled around to another group of the monsters. "Gaav Flare!" The spell shot right through the Stalfos in front, then continued and hit every one behind it. The monsters fell like dominoes.

Lydia ran forward after picking her own group of prey. She wasn't known for being the most graceful person in either world, so she slipped on the ice and fell within seconds. She reached down and rubbed her sore behind as the group of Stalfos moved forward. When they got close, Lydia, half ignoring them anyway, threw her hand out rather carelessly. "Fireball," she gruffed plainly. The Stalfos tried to run, but were blown away.

They weren't done yet, however. Lydia carefully stood up and watched the group of Stalfos she just attacked stagger to their bony feet again and begin to advance.

Lydia smirked. "So," she said with a cocky tone, "you guys don't fall to fire that easily, huh?" She slid her way closer to the group until she was in close range. "Then I'll have to hit you from underneath, won't I?"

The Stalfos grunted and moaned, almost in reply. One of them raised its sword and advanced quickly. Lydia's simply chuckled at it. "Not fast enough, pal! Explosion Array!!"

The ice broke apart from under the group of Stalfos and exploded, sending all of them flying.

"Ooh! That was fun!" Lydia laughed. "I need to use that spell more! Where are some more skeletons??" With that, she ran off, sliding all the way, toward more monsters.

Gordon picked his next group of victims and ran toward them, casting a spell the whole way.

"Source of all souls which dwell in eternal and infinite. Everlasting flame of blue, let the power hidden in my soul be called forth from the Infinite!"

He dropped to the ground and slid on his hind end right into the group of Stalfos, moving his head from side to side to avoid getting introduced to the bad end of one of their swords. When he finally came to a stop, he was sitting right smack in the middle of the Stalfos, and they were closing in fast.

"Rah TILT!"

The powerful spell spread out from where Gordon was seated on the ice and enveloped every Stalfos in a 30-foot radius. They all shrieked and disappeared. When the spell finally faded away, Gordon was already on his feet, brushing the ice off of his jeans.

The sound of sword-against-sword was coming from Link's end of the battle. He had busied himself with taking down the Stalfos one by one. He put his shield to good use as he worked on killing the last one in his area.

The Stalfos struck, but Link rolled to one side to dodge the attack. "Astral Vine!" The Master Sword glowed more brilliantly and with more power than his Kokiri Sword used to as Link stood again and slashed at the monster. The Stalfos tried to block the vicious attack, but its shield only shattered under the power of the Master Sword. The creature fell quickly.

Link sighed with relief and sheathed his sword. "I'm done!" he called.

"Me, too!" he heard Gordon call back.

They listened for Lydia's call, but only heard "Explosion Array! Explosion Array!" They looked toward where the explosions were coming from, and watched Lydia finish off the last of the Stalfos with a spell Link hadn't seen before. The Stalfos flew around and landed on the ice hard, failing to get up.

When she finally stopped, Link conjured up the courage to approach her with highest hopes that she wouldn't blast him too.

"Hey," he asked, "what's that spell you're playing with?"

"The Explosion Array," Lydia replied energetically. "It's my new toy. Wanna see it up close sometime?"

Link knew what she had in mind. "No thanks," he declined quickly.

Gordon appeared behind them and looked at the fallen Stalfos all over the place. "You didn't kill them," he said. "You only scattered them about."

Lydia stood defiantly. "The Explosion Array isn't enough to kill. It doesn't even do a lot of damage. It's for weakening the enemy. But it's just a lot of fun to cast!"

"You found that battle fun?"

"Of course. Anything can be fun when you add the Explosion Array."

"Whatever," Gordon retorted plainly. He snapped his fingers toward the fallen Stalfos. "Rah Tilt."

They squinted their eyes as the bright white light surrounded the half-dead monsters. Lydia put her hands on her hips when the monsters vanished.

"Aww, you're no fun," she snapped. "I wanted to finish them off. You had you own to kill."

Gordon sighed heavily. "Then don't waste your time and effort next time. Let's just keep moving." As he walked past Link, he leaned up toward his ear. "Can you believe I'm related to her?" he whispered.

Link laughed softly and followed, leaving Lydia standing there with diminishing pride.

"Hey, you guys!" she called as she began to run, "Who do you think you are, leaving me behind?"

She slipped quickly and fell into Link, knocking him onto his stomach. Gordon started to laugh.

"Geez," he laughed, "We need to get you some spiked shoes or something."

Lydia sat up on Link's shield and glared at Gordon with an evil eye.

Link quickly started to groan and complain. "Ow! Get off my back, will you?"

Lydia slid off quickly. "I'm not that heavy," she grunted. "Don't exaggerate."

"No, it's just that—" Link winced as he sat up.

Lydia slid next to him and yanked off his sword and shield. She found a long slash wound staring her in the face. She shook her head and chuckled softly. "You can't do anything without getting yourself hurt, can you?"

"Hey, I'm not invincible," Link replied shamefully. "Besides, it was a lucky shot."

"Oh, come off it," Lydia replied as she began to heal the cut.

"Leave him alone, girl," Gordon scorned. "I'm surprised, as careless as you are, that you're not in three pieces."

Link looked over his shoulder, giving Lydia a look that asked for an apology. Lydia figured she'd done enough damage and had better not disappoint him.

"......Sorry," she said quietly. "I didn't really mean anything."

"I know," Link laughed. "You're just being yourself."

Lydia's face twisted. "Are you saying I'm a mean old witch all the time?"

Link refused to say anything more. He figured it was safer that way. Lydia moaned and finished healing Link's back.

"There," she finally said. "All done. But now you've got a rather large hole in your tunic. I'll have to fix that when we get home."

Link was about to thank her when Gordon started to laugh.

"You?" he howled. "You couldn't sew if you're life depended on it."

Lydia scoffed loudly. "I can sew this back together! It's just a simple hole."

"Don't let her, Link," Gordon warned, still laughing. "Your shirt will never be the same again."

"Don't worry," Link laughed. "I've got a few spares."

Lydia jumped to her feet with her teeth chattering with anger. "Do you guys really have that little confidence in me?"

The boys stopped laughing immediately. Link quickly started to crawl away. "Bad move," he muttered to Gordon. "We made her mad..."

"Explosion Array!"

***

Lydia shivered as she walked across Zora's Fountain. "Damn," she muttered, "This is frozen, too."

Link and Gordon trailed behind, brushing dust off of their clothes. "Did you have to blow us up?" Link asked her as he examined a new hole in his shirt.

Lydia ignored him. "Looks like the fountain is frozen all the way down, too."

Gordon followed her gaze. "Did you expect something else?"

Link shook his head. "Looks like we're faced with that 'Hyrule will dry up' problem again."

"Compared to what Ganondorf will do," Gordon said, "that isn't much of a problem at all."

"Maybe," she said as she removed the Sorcerer's Rune from around her neck, "I can do the same thing I did last time."

She reared her arm and chucked the Rune toward the center of the ice sheet. It bounced twice before coming to rest. It started to glow brightly and shoot out rays of light that illuminated the dark sky.

"Bingo!" Lydia shouted.

"All right!" Gordon shouted with excitement.

The excitement fell quickly. The energy emitted by the Rune had faded. They could now see the fountain again through the light.

"It....didn't work...?" Gordon stuttered.

The fountain was still frozen. The Rune's power had no effect.

Lydia repeatedly stamped her foot in anger. "DAMN! Damn damn damn DAMN!"

"Why didn't it work?" Link wondered.

"Arrghh! I don't KNOW! Damn damn DAMMIT!"

"Hey," Gordon said, "calm down a little bit, okay?"

Lydia sighed and unballed her fists, silently counting to ten.

"Don't lose hope yet," Gordon continued. "We still need to check the Ice Cavern."

Link grabbed hold of Lydia's shoulders and started to push her toward the Cavern. "Let's go before Lydia explodes."

Lydia broke out of Link's grasp suddenly. "Hang on, I need to get my rune." With that, she walked to the edge of the fountain. She raised her right arm and concentrated hard. On the ice sheet, the Rune trembled, then rocketed through the air and slammed into the palm of her hand. She winced, shook her sore hand, and slid the chain back around her neck.

Gordon sighed. "You know," he said, "If Ganondorf has any intelligence at all, he'd better stop messing around with Hyrule, or..."

"Or Lydia will tear him to pieces, then grind each piece into the ground," Link finished. "I've never known someone to get so violent when angry."

Lydia turned to the boys and shouted "I'm going in! You two follow! Levitation!"

"Well," Link said as he watched Lydia hover to the high entrance of the Cavern, "let's not waste any more time."

Gordon took hold of Link's arm. "Levitation!"

"Still as cold in here as always," Link muttered.

"I swear it's colder in here than it was last time," Lydia insisted through clattering teeth.

"Must be because the domain is frozen," Gordon suggested. "It's made this place colder than usual."

"That's typical," Lydia grunted through her teeth. "Well, the sooner we get going, the sooner we can leave."

All three started moving through the Cavern. Traveling in there was a little easier than it was the first time they had visited. They went to the cavern the last time the sorcerers were in Hyrule, so this was familiar territory.

They passed through the big room with the high ceiling. Lydia looked up where Ganondorf's ball of magic had been the first time they were there. Nothing was up there this time.

After several minutes of walking (rather, slipping around, in Lydia's case), they reached a room they had been in before, but something was different. Bluish-black bats were flying around, trailing icy air behind them.

"Oh damn....," Link muttered, "Ice Keese."

"I don't remember those being in here before," Lydia said.

"They weren't. Must be a new addition of Ganondorf's."

"They look pretty easy to kill, though," Gordon suggested.

Link shook his head slightly. "Never underestimate a Keese. Sure, they can be killed by one arrow, but they're fast, and incredibly annoying. I've never messed with an Ice Keese before, just the regular ones. I've heard that they can freeze their enemy in a block of ice."

"Yikes, that sucks," Gordon scoffed.

"It supposedly doesn't last long, though. That's the weakness of their attack. Let's just kill them before they get the chance to attack us."

"If they're Ice Keese," Lydia said, "that means they must be vulnerable to fire."

Gordon and Link backed up, seeing what was coming.

"You said they could be taken down by one arrow," Lydia continued, "so that's what they're gonna get!"

She raised her arms as if she was holding a bow and arrow. She then aimed herself at one of the bats and shouted, "Flare Arrow!" The Ice Keese squeaked and fell to the ground before disappearing.

Lydia turned around so the boys could see her patting herself on the back, just in time to see two Ice Keese flying up behind them.

"Guys! Heads up!" she warned a little too late.

The Keese rammed themselves into the boys' backs, freezing them each in a large block of ice.

"Dammit!" Lydia cursed at the Keese, who were flying away. "Flare Arrow! Flare Arrow!" Both of the Keese squeaked and fell.

Lydia turned to free the boys, but saw the blocks of ice fall apart around them, letting them both fall to their knees.

Link stood quickly and whipped out his bow. "See why I hate Keese?" he asked angrily. He aimed an arrow with incredible precision and let it fly. The arrow zoomed away and hit the last Keese, who was clear across the room.

Lydia blinked a couple of times and said, "....Wow. Nice shot!"

Gordon stood up shivering and said, "I see why you say Keese are so annoying."

"Forget 'em," Lydia said. "They're gone. Let's keep moving."

The three travelers eventually made it to the room that had once held the imprisoned Zoras. To everyone's disappointment and anger, there were no Zoras here. The room wasn't unoccupied, however. It was full of Ice Keese. There were so many that the ceiling seemed to move. They all stayed in the doorway to avoid being spotted by the swarm.

"Well, I'm officially pissed," Lydia growled quietly.

"Look at 'em all!" Link whispered.

"Well, we've come all this way…." Gordon said.

"Let's toast the flying mice, then, before we go."

Link and Lydia backtracked just outside the room, while Gordon prepared a spell. A red ball of flames appeared between his hands.

"Fire...BALL!"

He rolled the fireball into the Keese-filled room like a bowling ball until it reached the center. "Break!" he suddenly shouted. The fireball exploded, destroying every Keese in the room. Everyone shielded their face from the heat as the fireball faded.

Gordon turned around to grin as Link commented on what a cool move that was. The victory didn't last very long, however. Gordon watched as Link and Lydia's faces twisted into disbelief and fear. They were staring over Gordon's shoulder.

"....What's wrong?" he asked them hesitantly.

Both of them weakly pointed behind him, toward the ceiling.

Gordon turned to look where they were pointing. Ice Keese were popping up out of nowhere. They were completely regenerating in greater numbers than before. When they finally stopped appearing, there were three times as many, and all of them were hovering near the ceiling, staring at the adventurers.

Lydia shrinked back a little. "Uh...oh...," she weakly whispered.

The Keese continued to hover near the ceiling with a stare that would scare a banshee. Suddenly, they left their spot at the ceiling and charged at top speed toward the trio.

"GO!" Link shouted loudly.

Everyone turned and ran away in the direction from which they had come. The Keese flooded out of the room and made chase, flying faster than normal, trailing ice behind them. The bats followed them through the large room, and didn't stop there. Link ducked his head as a Keese zoomed past his ear. Gordon ran to one side just as a Keese tried to ram itself into his back. Lydia concentrated on not slipping on the ice. If that happened, she'd be swallowed by the swarm of flying rodents.

They sprinted through the narrow hallways, with the Ice Keese at their heels. The bats were covering the walls and ceiling as they continued the chase. Finally, sunlight could be seen at the end of the passage.

"We'll try to lose 'em here!" Lydia shouted. "They can't be too bright!"

The sorcerers each grabbed one of Link's arms as they continued to run. "Ray Wing!" The group gained speed in the flight through the long tunnel, and the Keese responded by gaining speed themselves. As the circle of sunlight grew larger, Lydia turned to Gordon and shouted instructions.

"Gordon! Reach for the sky!" she yelled.

Gordon nodded bluntly with understanding.

The Keese gained incredible speed in trying to catch their prey. As the group flew toward the sunlight, Link glanced back. The bats grew closer with every second. They were practically biting at his toes.

"Must go faster!" he shouted to the sorcerers.

"Almost there!" Gordon shouted back.

Finally, they broke into the sunlight. Gordon and Lydia veered straight up with incredible speed and flew vertically toward the sun. They stopped about fifty feet up and looked toward the cavern. The swarm of bats poured out of the opening, continuing to fly in a straight line. The group breathed heavily as they watched the bats fly off and disappear over the horizon.

Lydia sighed with relief. "I knew they wouldn't be that smart," she said.

"That was really close," sighed Link.

"Did you see those things just appear out of nowhere?" Gordon asked them. "Ganondorf's trying really hard to get us out of the way."

"And we didn't find the Zoras," Lydia sighed. "Where could they be?"

"It's getting late," Link pointed out as the sun started to set. "Tomorrow we'll go see the Great Deku Tree in the forest. Maybe he knows something about the Zoras."

"So that's tomorrow's plan," Gordon confirmed. "Now, I'm sure we're all tired and absolutely freezing, so let's go home for now."

With that, the sorcerers turned toward the sunset and flew off, with everyone looking forward to their warm beds.