Going Under pt 2

A small match flares in the darkness, illuminating the dirty room that Link and Roosta have fallen into. Link holds the match out as far as he can, not wanting to waste his magic powers when he could simply use a match. They appear to be deep under ground, in a craggy, dusty, rocky room, completely empty, aside from themselves. The hole they have fallen through is over fifty feet above their heads. Roosta is in a sitting position on the spot where they have fallen. His helm has rolled into a far corner, but otherwise he is completely the same, aside from a few scratches.

"Look, a door," Link points out swiftly. Indeed there is a small door, almost blending in with the wall, but with a solid outline. It has no handle, so he assumes it is a pushing door.

"Why don't we just go back up to the surface?" inquires Roosta hesitantly, retrieving his helm. Link whirls around, his face contorted, unable to believe that the chief knight of the Hylian Guard could make such a dumb statement.

"Because the men up there are trying to kill us, and because there is no way we can levitate ourselves back up fifty feet into the air and exit back out of a barrier," he snaps, getting in Roosta's face. The knight stumbles back slightly, eyebrows raised.

"Okay, okay! It was just a suggestion, that is all. My point is, we don't know what's beyond that door, and I was hoping we could get reinforcements before we just journeyed out there on our own. But you are quite correct … we cannot journey back up through the hole, so it is null and void. We must press on and see where we are."

"We are underground," confirms Link wisely. "And if we don't get out of this room before this light burns out, I'll have to use unnecessary magic. Let's go."

The two friends walk over to the door, and shove it open effortlessly. It glides on smooth hinges, opening up to a much brighter expanse of space.

They are underground, alright … a huge stretch of it. They stand together on a ledge about twelve feet across, stretching around an immense, dark pit that reaches as far down as either of them can see. To their left and right, the ledge continues along the wall, with the pit, out of sight. The carved ceiling above them is equally huge, fifty feet up. The sheer vertigo of an experience could kill a man, but Link and Roosta merely feel dizzy. Their footsteps echo everywhere as soon as they take a step …

"There are doors all along the wall!" says Link in awe.

"This must be an underground community …" whispers Roosta, sounding quietly afraid. "But a community of what?"

"A community of whoever is creating the holes on the surface," says Link. "There can be no other explanation. What we must do now is gather any information that we can find on what is going on down here, and why its going on. If this is indeed a community with living inhabitants, it is completely unbeknownst to the royal family, and whatever operation is being carried out is against the laws of Hyrule if not for the notification of a surface member. We are still in Hyrule, after all."

"Right," answers Roosta, sounding slightly nervous. "So we walk?"

"So we walk," agrees Link.

They set off.


A day passes.

Link and Roosta are dazed and trudging still along the same ledge after twenty four hours of hiking through the underground, passing countless doors. Their stomach's are growling in protest, their lack of water taxing. But they press on, knowing they have no choice. They have tried many times to open the doors, but they are all locked, and nobody seems to be inside.

"Perhaps this place is abandoned," suggests Roosta for what must be the fifteenth time. Link glares reproachfully at him.

"Well then this may all be for nothing. But we're continuing on, there is no point in turning back now."

More hours pass, mostly in silence, still with the same results. Walk ten feet, try a door, yell for help, nothing happens, continue on. They begin to grow frustrated and angry not only with the surroundings, but with each other, which cannot be helped. An entire day with just each other for company can do that to people.

As the hours pass by, however, they notice the wall structure slowly curving in a long oval shape. Link guesses they are finally reaching the opposite side of the underground, however far they have traversed, they have gone in the direction of Hylia City, and so they must be far past Hyrule Castle by now.

Finally, far off in the distance, they see a solid rising wall curving around into the distance to their left. Darkness emanates from that side of the cavern, which is why Link resolves not to go there. Danger lurks there, and that is not the price they must pay to discover what is going on. They continue at a slightly increased pace, eager to reach the side of the cavern. Somehow, they have it connected with finding their strength if they reached the other side. They do not know what is in their minds, but it lingers there, a strong sensation of determinacy that will not break or waver.

After about a half hour, the path curves hard to the left, and they kneel down gratefully, resting their legs. They have traversed many miles and are sick to the teeth of the whole concept of walking erect. Their legs feel like marshmallows, weak and wobbly, unable to support weight any longer.

"Well, we made it," says Roosta, grinning over at Link. Link smiles back, realizing that he has just uttered the most obvious phrase possible.

"Yes, we have. But what do we want to do here?" he questions, gazing up at the infinite reaches of the ceiling, his voice echoing loudly across the stone around them. The question is obviously rhetorical, and so they fall into silence … looking ahead at the immense pit … quietly pondering …

Footsteps echo around them. The reaction is instantaneous. Roosta and Link jump up to their feet, their swords filtering into their hands. Roosta slams his helm onto his head and their heads whirl around, searching for the owner of the soft, padding feet.

And out of the shadows to their right, a figure emerges, clutching two small swords, looking very open and obvious. His shape is nearly indiscernible; they can only tell that he is tall, with long arms and legs. Hair, features, and such are hidden by the darkness around them. He walks slowly forward, the swords pointed toward the ground coolly. Roosta growls from within his metal helm, and dashes forward. Link, who has a terrible sense of foreboding about this man, shouts "ROOSTA, NO, DON'T!"

But it is too late. Roosta swings the sword toward the mans legs. Both of the figures small swords catch the blade between themselves, and twist it from his grip. The blades fly forward as Roosta's sword hits the surface of the ledge, and catch his arms just above the elbow, causing lines of blood to trace through the gap in the armor. Roosta cries out in pain, and a second later is tripped by a sweep of the figures leg.

The rattling of the armor striking the ground reverberates around the clearing, and Link glares with hatred at the being standing over the now presumably unconscious knight. He senses a familiar dark aura around him … something so powerful that it is beyond reckoning. Concentrated evil that emanates from the persons very body. Link cannot not place the feeling, but he has felt it before …

A blur of movement catches him off guard, and he instinctively shoots his Hylian shield up … a sharp pain bursts from his kneecaps, and his legs collapse beneath him. He feels hot liquid leaking from two deep cuts … then a flurry of pain resounds through his head, and he is on his back before he knows what is happening. He rolls across the ground, staining his tunic with blood from his cuts, and dirt and dust from the ground. He slides to a halt at last, panting roughly. Blood pounds in his brain, and he gasps, looking up at the figure.

The person steps out of the shadow, revealing himself to be the dark skinned elf Link chased out of Hylia City just the previous night. He glares angrily through his haze of pain at the elf, but can't find the strength to form a word of magic or pick himself up. His fast over the past twenty four hours still has him weak. He feels his sword and shield leave his hands, but does not resist … what's the point?

Then more pain flashes forth, and all fades to darkness around him.


Link awakes in a darkened room. Not surprised in the least, he feels hot pain wash over him, and resolves to beat it. He first wiggles a few joints, then moves his entire left arm defiantly. Paint bursts forth, and he groans, muttering in his mind, fuck beating the pain.

He decides instead to look at his surroundings. He is lying against roughly chiseled rock in a small, square shaped room, completely unremarkable, and empty. At least, from first glance. When he turns to his right, he sees a small figure huddled down in a corner, crying quietly to itself. From the sound of the sobbing, he discerns that it is feminine.

Using all of his nonexistent strength, he scoots forward across the hard earth, feeling scabs cracking and bleeding all over his body. He doesn't know where they came from, but at the moment does not care. His mind is set on finding out whom this woman is.

After several minutes of struggling and grunting in pain, he comes within feet of the shadowy figure, and calls out softly, "hello."

A head lifts, and he sees discernable blue fins, deep, bright blue eyes, and smooth fish skin. Reality closes in roughly, and he feels dazed … well, more than he already is.

"Ruto?" he guesses. She gasps out quietly, and flings herself over to him. In the dim light, when her head falls onto his chest, he sees visible scars and bruises, and blood stains caking her face and body all over. He tries his best not to notice her feminine curves, and focuses on the trouble at hand, rather than his sexual thoughts. His hands are bound behind his back … a very stupid way of preventing movement. Holding Ruto still on his legs, he lifts his body up and slides his arms underneath himself, over hard rock, scraping them slightly. But he hardly notices. His mind is set.

"Oh, Link, is that you?" she asks softly, huddling closer and closer to him. He invites this with welcome, glad to have mixed company after countless hours with just Roosta … and now an empty room. He nods, and she sobs harder, trying if possible to get closer to him. She lays herself across his legs. He ignores this, and begins sawing at the ropes binding his hands against the sharp rock walls beside them. As he works, he is dimly aware of the kidnapped sage speaking to him.

"Thank god you are here. I have been here for weeks; they have been whipping me every day … oh, I have so much to tell you, so much you must know! I know of the plans that these people have in place. That man who threw you in here, his name is Neam, and he is the son of Ganondorf."

That gets Link's attention off of sawing off his bindings. He whips around to face the zora.

"Well, it is as I and Zelda suspected …" he confirms. "And I am making a guess here, but are all those pot marks and holes around Hyrule connected with his plans?"

"Yes," she says brightly. "He and his master have something terrible planned ... and I don't know what to do … I don't know how to stop them …"

"Don't worry, I am going to free you," promises Link. "We will figure something out. But to do that … I need to get free of these damn bindings …"

The door to the room bursts open. Light spills in, and Neam strides in confidently, his two blades at his sides. He wears a purple silk robe with a black cape resting on his shoulders, curving down to his feet. In his hand, he holds a long, blood caked whip.

"Well, the Hero of Time wakes at last," laughs the son of Ganondorf, his sneer evident in the lighting from outside the room. "I have been rewarding your idiotic knight friend for intruding upon the underground."

He indicated the bloody whip he clutched. At the thought of Roosta being beaten by that thing, rage swells within Link. He forcibly holds it back, knowing that only with control can he escape. He has a very shrewd idea what is to happen to him now.

"Well it seems that two of you in the same room could cause some trouble," grins Neam, his perfect, straight and white teeth beaming with a disgusting edge. "So why don't I just move you, Link m'boy, to another room. Ruto, you wouldn't want to watch this anyway."

"NO!" the zora cries out, desperately leaping forward as Link is seized by the collar and dragged out of the room. She lands on her side, flailing desperately.

"THE DIAMOND, LINK! THE PURPLE DIAMOND! HE'S––"

The door slams shut, and Ruto's pleading cries are cut off immediately. They are in the middle of a long, stone hallway, with many identical doorways stretching about the walls. "Oh," says Neam politely, "would you excuse me for a second, Hero of Time?"

He opens the door to Ruto's room, and shuts it almost the entire way, but leaves it open just a crack, so that sound may be heard, but nothing seen. Link scrambles around, and tries as hard as he can to reach for the door … to stop the fiend …

A sharp snap of a whip being cracked roughly across bare skin echoes loudly and a terrible cry of agony rips through the cracks of the door … Ruto's voice. It snaps again, and he hears a pitiful squeal of pain. It increases in volume.

"RUTO!" screams Link, fighting against his binding, but to no avail. He remains laying on the ground, unable to move. More whips sound, and pleading is heard now, twisted in pain. Tears stream from Link's eyes. His great friend is being tortured, and he can do nothing to help her. He strains hard and long, using all of his effort. Sweat beads on his forehead. The bindings stretch to the breaking point … he pulls harder …

The whip cracks. Ruto yelps in pain. "STOP, STOP, PLEASE!" she cries out, sobs racking her voice.

"Very well," says the smooth voice of Neam, and Link does not like the tone of that voice. Kicking and yelling, he pulls and tears at the bindings with his teeth.

"RUTO! RUTO!" Link hollers, more tears leaking down his face. A swing and thud of a fist against skin is heard. Link hears the zora splutter, and another fist smacking down.

"NO!" a blinding pain emanating from the pain being done to his friend tears through his body, and a surge of new strength burns within him. It channels into his fists, and he pulls them apart roughly. The rope bindings tear, and fly off, leaving bloody marks where they had been wrapped. Standing, his face darkened by a shadow of hate, he elbows the door open, rushes in, and has a split second vision of Ruto laying crumpled on the ground, dotted with flecks of her own blood, before he seizes the dark skinned, stunned looking elf, and hurtles him against the wall. The strength is such that it smashes the rock to pieces. Neam collapses and he groans in pain.

But Link does not stop. He grabs his face between his index finger and thumb, and draws back a huge, gauntlet covered metal fist. Down it flies.

Bloody gashes cut Neam's face as Link mercilessly beats him. Again and again he hits, each time growing more furious. He would not do this … he would not hurt Ruto and live to tell the tale to others … for two solid minutes he beats Neam senseless, then draws a fist to the side, and clobbers his temple. Blood mist shoots everywhere, and the elf flies across the room, landing down on the floor, unconscious.

Link is sure he has killed him. His gauntlets and knuckles are slick with blood. Somewhere along the line, they have split open, but he does not feet the pain. He hurries over to Ruto, and picks her up, slinging her across his back.

He sprints out of the room, and kicks the door shut behind him. Just for precaution, he aims a palm at the door, and calls out a magical phrase. The door seals itself shut with a squelch. Turning, he runs down the hallway, kicking every door he sees open … he must find and save Roosta before whomever Neam's "master" is he spoke of, finds out what is happening. He goes through five doors before he sees the knight, hunched up and bleeding in a similar room that he has previously been in. He calls out his name.

Roosta's eyes snap open, and shock crosses his features. He stares at Link blankly.

"I might have killed that elf, but he's got a master, and if he realizes what's happening before we get out of here, then we're all up shit creek. GET UP!"

The last two words he screams when Roosta does nothing. This command startles the knight, but he leaves his helm behind, and, apparently forgetting his gashes and wounds, he jumps up, hurrying out of the room, slamming it shut behind him.

They hurry down the hallway; Link with Ruto's unconscious and injured form on his back. Every second they don't have help, his worry for her safety increases.

At the very end of the hallway, there is a single doorway. Link kicks it open roughly.

They find themselves standing on the very ledge that they spent an entire day walking across. They are at the same wall that they were ambushed by Neam, standing in the doorway of one of the millions of doors around them. The immense dark pit stretches before them.

A loud yell of rage shoots through the hallway behind them. Link and Roosta turn to look down it, worry rising in their throats, somehow constricting them. In the distance, the door that Link sealed shut bursts open, and a tiny figure –– Neam –– stumbles out of it. Even from the distance, they see him turn to look at them, glaring with pure hatred.

There is no way they can run back around the entire pit and get back to the hole that he and Roosta previously fell through a day before, especially not with an injured zora on his back. He considers their possibilities quickly, searching for an answer. He could not even attempt to fight Neam … the hallways were a no go since that was where the dark elf was currently running toward them from … and the ledges are too far.

The one choice scares the life out of him, but he sees it as their only chance. He turns to Roosta, and utters "will you do as I say?"

Roosta shoots him a look of incredulousness. "Of course I will, but we'd better hurry if you've got a plan!" he answers.

"Then GO!" shouts Link, and pushes Roosta roughly over the ledge, and into the colossal pit. He dives in after him, with Ruto still across his back.

They plunge into the darkness … wind howls, blocking out all noise, even his own screaming, and Roosta's …

Twenty long seconds pass, and Link does not dare loose his grip on Ruto. Blackness encases he and Roosta, for he can tell he is just below him, falling faster and faster every second. They can not see a thing … if they hit ground, they were done for, but if they hit what Link was counting on, they had a chance to survive …

And they did. A second or two after twenty seconds, they landed splash down hard in a strong current. They quickly sunk under, but with a quick word from Link, light illuminated their surroundings. They were deep under water, and he looked around for Roosta, praying that he was alright. He saw him a few feet away, unfastening his armor and swimming toward the surface. Link pulls Ruto's body with him, and they break a second later. The light follows them as they are carried swiftly downstream. Roosta looks at him with even more surprise and wonder.

"How did you know there was water down here?" he questions, wide eyed. Link shakes his head, clutching Ruto to him to keep her head above water.

"I didn't," he replies simply.

"Where does this go to?"

"Dunno. Let's hope we go somewhere we know well, or we may get even more lost."

Roosta seems to decide that there is nothing left to do but float and let the current take over, leaving their fate in the hands of the rushing water.


Hours later, they fly out of the darkness, and out onto the calm, clear waters of Lake Hylia. The sun is setting in the distance, casting orange light on the two elves and unconscious zora.

"Unbelievable," whispers Roosta, as he and Link float toward shore, and limp out, covered in blood, dirt and water. "Do you realize just how lucky we are?"

"What kind of a stupid question is that?" laughs Link, almost unable to believe his own voice, which is scratchy and burns terribly. "Of course I know."

"Let's go to god damn bed," suggests Roosta. Link nods gratefully, setting Ruto down on the soft grass beside him. The two friends also lay down … almost instantly, their eyes shut, and their memories fade into the swirling dream world.


Epona rides all three of them into Hylia City the next morning, early, as the sun is rising. They are all still completely filthy, but Ruto is now conscious. Link has refrained from asking distracting questions … he feels they should get up to the Castle and meet Zelda before anything is spoken or decided. It is a silent agreement.

Hyrule Castle is the same as it was when Link left it the day before. When Fulst is forced to let them onto the grounds on Roosta's orders, they quickly hurry up the path, hop off Epona, leaving her on the meadows to eat the grass, run over the drawbridge, and enter the main foyer of the castle, which is bustling with activity as usual. Servants and butlers who hurry past eye the three dirty companions with distaste, some simply avoid eye contact.

"Roosta, Ruto, go see the healers, the can tend to your wounds. I must go see the princess," orders Link. Though privately, he simply wants privacy with the princess. He misses her dearly, and is grieving to see her once more ... to see her beautiful, compassionate face ... her deep ocean blue eyes ...

He sprints full out up the main red staircase, swerves left, and runs down the flagged hallway, shoving mistresses and servants aside as he does.

Several hallways, corridors, twisting staircases and passageways later, he arrives at the doorway to Zelda's Quarters, and hurriedly pushes the door open, half sagging against the doorway in exhaust from both running, and all the trials faced in the underground.

The door swings open smoothly, revealing the beautiful domed room, lined with expensive furniture, tables and doorways to various pampering rooms. Link's eyes do a quick sweep over the surroundings, and he spots her.

Zelda lies on a small red couch, huddled in a ball and sobbing loudly. He can see tears sliding down her face; from her beautiful eyes ... he hates to see her in pain. He walks slowly into the room, and to the couch, to her side.

"Go away, father, I want to be alone!" she sobs. "I don't want you to--"

Link puts a comforting hand on her shoulder. She jerks, and looks up, through red eyes stained with large tears. Her mouth falls open, and more tears leak from her eyes.

"Link!" he cries weakly, getting shakily to her feet and falling into his arms, not caring about his dirty and bloody clothing. "Oh, Link ... oh goddesses, you're alive!"

Holding her there, her sobbing form, he feels her deep pain, hating to see her crying, and without thinking, without planning it out, without knowing the consequences or the outcomes, he knows only one thing ... he has to ease her suffering. And so he lowers his head down, and kisses her deeply. Their lips meet slowly at first, them come together comfortingly, a warm sensation emanating from the touch. Their tongues flow into each others mouths, forming together ...

They stand there, embraced, holding each other close, for many minutes, until they break apart. Link wipes her tears away, smiling gently down at her, his arms wrapped around her lower back. She smiles, her red eyes still evident.

"I love you, Zelda," he whispers, hugging her close to his body, feeling her warm body pressing against his.

"I love you too, Link," she responds, and kisses him again. They slowly lay down together on the couch next to each other, their mouths still glued together, and they slowly slip off each others clothes, their feelings for each other matched by none in their world, or any other.