Author's Note: Sorry for the weird formatting...my secondary word-processing program was acting up. --; Thanks for all the reviews and stuff!
"Ummm..." Anju began awkwardly, looking down to the ground. She
wanted to ask Kafei why he was being so... nice. With the way things
had been going, she expected something a little more... vulgar,
maybe?
"Mas..." she trailed off, words dying in her mouth. What was there to
say? Cerulean eyes glanced over to him for a few moments. He looked so... human. It was attractive. With a smile, she looked away from
him, blushing.
Kafei, on the other hand, was very nervous, though he didn't show it.
This felt awkward, but that probably had something to do with the fact
that he hadn't really been around a living person in over a hundred
years. He was a bit more skilled at hiding his faint blush than Anju
was, but still, a hint of pink was visible. As time passed and their
stroll continued, he hesitantly brought a hand down, fingertips
brushing over Anju's as if suggesting he might have wanted to …
well...
He sounded so sappy. Weak, even. The fact that for one second he had
even CONSIDERED holding hands with this girl was absurd. And yet,
within the minute he was holding her hand; loosely, but he was still
doing it. As she began to speak and then trailed off, he glanced over
to her and raised an eyebrow. "What is it?"
Cerulean eyes widened in surprise upon the touch Kafei's hand on her
own. "Uh... nothing. It's nothing." she responded, still smiling.
However, her heart suddenly felt light, and she squeezed the hand
holding her own, moving it into a tight grip. With a slight giggle and
skip, she picked up the pace a bit in their walking. Their footsteps
fell silent in the morbid and dead well, but Anju couldn't remember a
time when she was beginning to feel so alive.
Kafei's face turned sour for a moment and he began to retort, but he
then stopped himself. He knew Alan was watching, and he didn't really
want to be chastised by that rotting bag of flesh again... After a
few more moments of walking, he cleared his throat, forced a smile,
and looked down to Anju again. "So ... if you killed your mother, what
are you going to tell people when you go back home?" A morbid subject
to match the chipper smile spread across his lips.
Anju stopped short, giggling. For a few moments, she looked at him
mischievously. Then she paused again, face dropping. She didn't know.
"I... guess I won't tell them anything." she finally shrugged, before
moving to continue on.
As she stopped, Kafei watched her curiously, finding himself rather
intrigued by the mischievous, albeit short-lived expression she gave
him, "Well..." He continued walking as well, looking ahead of him
this time, "… what are you going to do with the body?"
At least, that's what Kafei would have asked, had Anju not grown tired
of thinking about the consequences of her rash actions. Instead, the
girl playfully turned and threw her arms around his neck. Purring, she
kissed him briefly on the lips. Affectionately grinning, she quickly
moved to place a number of kisses on his lips, tightening her arms
around his neck.
As he was abruptly cut off, Kafei slightly sputtered before returning
a few of the small kisses. After a moment, he pulled back and looked
down at her, brow raised. "… are you ... purring?"
Anju blinked back at him in confusion. "What do you mean 'purring'?"
she asked as if he were trying to play a joke on her. Grinning, she
moved up to kiss him again, just before she loudly began purring
again. This time, she stopped.
"Oh... I am purring!" she gasped, putting a hand to her mouth. "How is
that happening?" she looked up to him questioningly.
He smirked and laughed slightly as she covered her mouth in an attempt
to stop the purring, and yet it continued anyways. "Well," He began,
though he had no clue exactly how it was happening, "You are
changing..." He idly moved his hands to rest on her waist, looking
down at her, smirk still remaining on his lips.
Anju still seemed a bit shell shocked, as she bit her lower lip with
wide eyes. "But Kafei... why?" her mind slipped completely from the
'master-pet' relationship they had, and she looked to him as more of a
friend... as someone whose been through this sort of experience
already. She rest her cheek against his, her idle purring not ceasing.
"I..." He didn't seem to catch her free use of his name. Blinking, he
shook his head and leaned slightly into her warm cheek, "… you know of
the curse..." She pushed her back a bit, hands on her shoulders as he
looked down to her, almost as if considered, "If you keep coming down
here, soon it will claim you too." He had known this ever since she
came to him the first time, "… soon, you won't be able to leave the
well."
Her jaw dropped, even though she had already learned this information
from her grandmother.
"I... I know that, but... " she shook her head, "Why am I purring?
Why...?" cerulean eyes were muddled in confusion as they gazed up into
garnet. She almost found it amusing. Purring, of all things...
But... she still didn't understand why.
He laughed slightly, though it held a sort of melancholy air to it.
As they continued walking, he explained as best he could, "The curse
on this well was made using shadow magic. Shadow magic doesn't hurt
you directly like... dark magic," He stopped for a moment as if in
thought, then looked to her again, "It binds you. I am not hurt at
all by this curse, but I can't live outside of shadow and darkness."
He sighed and leaned against a wall, "Keaton told me of all this when I was
very young, but that was at least 200 years ago..." He shook his head,
"If anyone is exposed to a curse long enough, the curse takes a hold
of them and shapes them into what is was designed to bind... and then
they, too, fall victim. The curse is making you something that's definitely not Hylian."
Anju slowly let her hand slide into Kafei's as she listened, nodding
every so often. Then at the mention of a new name, she looked to him.
"Who's Keaton?" Could it be another ReDead, like Alan? ... Well, no,
because Kafei just said that Keaton explained all of this to him,
meaning that whoever this person was... they were here before
Kafei... 200 years ago. Her jaw dropped fully this time. "How old are
you? How long as Keaton been here? Who is Keaton?" she started
suddenly, moving in front of him.
"Keaton... well... you've seen my mask, and surely you know the legend
of the ghost fox." He smirked, and then ran a hand through her hair as
she stepped in front of him. As she barraged him with questions,
however, he blinked and stuttered, "I... uh... well... he..." He
blinked again, "I don't remember how old I am... and I don't know how
long Keaton has been here."
Anju, now on a roll in her questioning, continued.
"Well... then... how old is Impa? If you're 200 years old, and the
books says she..." the girl began to look dazed, "And why do you look
so young? Does Keaton live down here too? Why have I never seen him
before?"
Kafei laughed and promptly held a hand up to Anju's mouth. "There has
been an Impa in every generation of Sheikah; it's reserved for the
most powerful woman in the tribe at the time. Keaton lives
wherever he wants, and I look young..." He trailed off, his smile
falling, "...because I'm... dead." He sighed, then looked off. He
could only imagine how much of a turn off that would be to Anju.
Anju blinked in silence for several moments, taking in what Kafei had
just admitted.
Dead? As in... dead dead? As in... six-feet-under-kicking-up-daisies
dead? Well, it would make sense... without any sort of life down
here, how could anything exist for long? Her hand squeezed his. That
must have been why he felt so cold. His entire body... every part of
it... held no warmth in it at all.
"Kafei..." she began, bringing up her free hand to his cheek. He looked pained.
"The curse... it changes you... and then you can never change back."
He sighed and turned away, "The curse was designed to contain a
monster, so... that's what I became. An abomination. The walking dead.
Everybody is scared of that..."
"No!" she shouted, moving his cheek so that he faced her. "No, you're
not..." she tried, emotion straining her voice. She sighed, regaining
slight composure.
"Kafei... I'm not afraid."
Taking in a deep breath, she leaned up and planted an affectionate
kiss on his lips. "So you're dead. To be honest, before you, I've
never met someone so alive." she whispered against his lips softly,
eyes fluttering.
Kafei stammered a bit, feeling himself go slightly rigid as she said
this. Looking down into her blue eyes, he felt something well up
inside him that he hadn't felt in a long time. Something he only
remembered feeling around his mother. Something like.… love. Slowly,
he turned the rest of his body to face her, hands resting on her hips
again. "… what?"
"I said that I'm not afraid." she repeated softly, now caressing his
cheek. After a few moments more, she pulled back, smiling.
"Besides, I'm joining you soon, aren't I?" she giggled, before taking
his hand in her own again, and giving it a light tug so that they
continued their walk.
He followed as she continued to walk, jogging for a moment to catch
up with her. He stared at her for a moment before speaking, "… you
know, you... don't have to come back anymore. You still have a little
bit of time." He really, really didn't want to let her go. But if...
on the off-chance that he loved her.… he wouldn't want her to be
trapped forever against her will.
"No... It would be hard to explain to people why my mother's rotting
corpse is in my room, as well as the claws on my fingers and horns on
my head." she giggled, looking to him momentarily. However, her
attention was quickly caught, and she moved to run up to the crossed
pieces of wood in the center chamber of the well.
"Flowers! ... There are flowers here? I've never seen them before."
Well, that may have been because each time she had been down there it
was either was some foreboding sense of doom that would cloud her
other senses. But there they were. Delicate flowers, looking somewhat
wilted and dead, growing in a small bed through the cracks of the
stones around the brown stains of old blood at the base of the wooden
poles.
As Anju ran towards the cross, Kafei began to yell for her to stop,
but he stopped in his tracks as he saw her stop at them to look at the
flowers, "… you didn't fall through." He blinked, wide-eyed, and then
walked over next to her, totally ignoring the flowers for now, "…
you... didn't fall through." He repeated, looking to her as if amazed.
"What?" she asked him quickly with a not quite listening ear, before
kneeling down to more closely observe the flowers. "They're so
beautiful!" she explained, looking up to Kafei. "Look! You must have
seen these before, right?" she asked, before taking one up and lifting
it to her nose. It was not what most would call fragrant, but it still
reminded Anju comfortably of sweet smelling smoke.
"Anju... this isn't a floor. It's a hole." He blinked, resting one arm
on one of the wooden beams of the cross, "The only way you can be
standing on it is if you're a..." shadow spirit, like me. He didn't
finish the sentence, but instead trailed off as he let his own words
soak in. So... it was too late for her, even if she did decide to
leave. Something inside of him sank, but as he looked down to her
happy face, he felt happy again, "...they're called Kakarikos. The
village was named after them."
Not having caught his mutterings preceding his talk of the flowers,
Anju stood and handed some to him, giggles leaving her smiling lips.
"Kakarikos? Really?" she asked, looking down at them. "But... then,
why aren't they above the well too? Don't you think they would be, if
the village was named after them?" Her head tilted to the side
slightly, cerulean eyes looking up into his curiously. She had no idea
of her now sealed fate that resided beneath the well.
"They used to grow above ground. I suspect they don't anymore. When
more people moved to the village and built more, there grew less and
less room for... anything, really. Kakarikos are delicate, and they
only bloom at night..." He took one of the flowers and moved the
blossom to cup Anju's chin, and he smiled at her, "… but it's always
night down here."
Anju looked at him admiringly, and suddenly felt as if she would
swoon. There was something about Kafei tonight... She had never seem
him so... open before. Instead of remaining in his chambers the whole
night, they had managed to get out and explore the well. And she had
ended up learning so much... He was actually opening up to her now.
Returning to the well every night now hardly seemed so bad as it had
before.
Kafei seemed so much more a companion tonight than he had before, and
Anju... She bit her lower lip, knowing the feeling that was gently
enveloping her heart. She had felt it for a while, but had never
wanted to admit to it, out of fear of him. But somehow... Kafei seemed
so different from when she first met him...
Kafei continued to watch her admiringly, lightly stroking her chin,
cheeks, and neck with the flower's blossom, until he noted the change
in her expression, "Is something wrong?"
"No. Not at all." she smiled, leaning into the gentle brushing of the
fragile petals on her skin. Her eyes shut briefly as she sighed
contentedly. Sadly, she came to the realization that much time had
passed by now and it wouldn't be such a bad idea to return to her
home and... dispose of her mother as best as possible. But she could
always return whenever she liked.
Expression falling, Anju spoke softly. "Kafei, I think I should be going now..."
As she spoke those last words, he felt a stinging in his throat as he
choked back a response. It would be best for her to... find out on her
own that she was incapable of leaving. "I'll... walk you out." He said dryly, swallowing hard as he took
her hand again and slowly lead her to the exit. Once there, he stopped
several feet short of the light, and crossed his arms over his chest, watching, and waiting...
"Goodbye..."