A.N: Hello fantastic readers. Link is finally free of that wretched infirmary and so am I. Another stifling chapter in there and I'd have gone mad! For those of you perhaps eager for more action, or indeed those who feel it hasn't started yet, please be patient. My secret master plan is almost ready, the final pieces are falling into place and it will be unleashed in just a few chapters time. I, for one, am very much looking forward to it. MWHAHAHA!
As always feedback and constructive criticism is very much appreciated. Hope you enjoy this latest instalment.
Chapter 18 – Hunted Animals, Haunted Faces
Hyrule barracks training yard – 190 days A.G
Freedom at last!
Link basked in the sensation of the warm summer sun's rays on his face and the welcome brush of a cooling breeze playing with his ash brown locks, peeking out from the rim of his green hat. The fresh summer air was alive with the distant sounds of birds, insects, rustling leaves and, rather closer, the clanging of practice blades.
The hero, however, was not wielding one, as he hobbled across the training yard, exchanging waves or nods of greeting to some of the combatants. Some among the spectators waiting their turns, took a moment to enquire after his health, to which he politely dismissed them with a nonchalant reply of "I'm alright".
The princess, as usual, was right in her prediction. The matron had assured him all the bones should have mended by now, but his ankle and his wrist were still swollen, throbbing painfully with every motion. It was testament to the sense of liberation, born of his release, that such pains did little to dampen his spirits.
After a week trapped in the stuffy, caustic odours of the infirmary, the fresh air compelled him to breath deep and savour the sweet scents of freedom. It turned out freedom smelt of sweat, hay and horse manure, with the faint hint of fragrant flowers drifting on the breeze, likely from the castle gardens. Such a concoction of conflicting aromas was hardly surprising, given his current destination. He was heading to see one of his oldest and most faithful friends… who was probably mad he hadn't visited all week. He just hoped she'd understand when he explained. She probably would, after all, she was a smart horse. That wouldn't stop her from throwing a strop about it though. Epona could be even more stubborn than he was.
His thoughts were pulled away from his faithful stead when a new unexpected whiff tickled his nostrils. The musty odour seemed to carry a familiar tinge, yet he was unable to identify it. Curiosity piqued, he decided to take a small detour around the barracks to see if he could locate it.
It didn't take long to discover the source as, rounding the corner of the main building, he was greeted by two castle servants struggling to manoeuvre a massive mounted boars head through a side door. Once he'd recovered from the initial surprise of such a bizarre sight before him, his conscience came out in a rash of selflessness. Unfortunately for his conscience, and the overloaded servants, it was an itch he couldn't scratch, as his wrist shrieked at the mere suggestion of it.
Instead he could only watch on in mild puzzlement, as the boar's head was soon followed by a bear's head and then a dear's. A little procession was forming, populated exclusively by servants hauling a menagerie of diverse hunting trophies off towards the main castle, with varying degrees of strain. Five… Six… Seven… Eight… How many of these things were there and where in Holy Hyrule had they come from?!
Link waited patiently for the final trophy to depart, before sticking his head inquisitively through doorway. He found a long corridor he didn't recognise with an uncharacteristically ornate door just visible, roughly halfway down. After a moment's hesitation, held back by the frankly absurd notion that he was trespassing, he ventured into the corridor to investigate. He made a beeline for the ornate door, his path illuminated by shafts of the glorious day streaming in through small slit windows just below the roof along with the meagre remains of last night's candles.
As he approached, he spied a sun-bleached plaque bearing a name, faint, neglected and nigh on unreadable. Indeed, the tell-tale scratchings of a blade scrawling an illegible word across it told him it wasn't just unloved by its owner. He had a strong suspicion he knew who resided here… or used to at any rate.
His suspicions proved correct as the door, with hinges just as unloved as its plaque, wheezed open allowing the escape of a familiar voice from within. "… and please be careful with that. That chair is a family heirloom."
The voice was familiar but the manner was not. The man was addressing a servant. He'd expect swearing, not polite despondency?!
The door opened fully to reveal the chair in question. Large, stately and ostentatious, upholstered with an oversized red velvet seat cushion, it fit its owner to a T. "Even in the width department" he noted dryly. He sidestepped to allow the monumental furniture and its two carriers to pass and only when they'd done so could he view the scene beyond.
The room, square and substantial enough to accommodate all the command staff, seemed almost naked and abused by prolonged neglect. Wood panelling, faded and carrying a thin layer of dust, lined three of the walls, while the forth presented two windows looking out on a small inner courtyard. The room had clearly known the suns warm rays in the past, as evidenced by the bleaching of the wood panelling, with stark patches of original venire marking the positions of now absent hunting trophies. Yet today it appeared the sun was reluctant to extend it the same glowing exuberance with which it greeted the courtyard outside.
The room did not want for light, the windows supplying a surplus of golden hews, yet an atmosphere of oppressive gloom maintained a steadfast grip on the space and its lone occupant.
The rotund form of Lord Halshaw stood facing away from him, leaning on a long and imposingly heavy looking desk, one of only four remaining furnishings encroaching on the expanse of dusty floorboards. A small but sturdy trunk lay to the desks left, seemingly trying to hide from the sunlight. Two display cabinets, displaying glistening medals, seemingly the sole objects still cared for judging by their lustre, sat against the wall opposite the windows. The cabinet's glass cases acted as a mirror, reflecting dimly the despondent scene of the rest of the soulless space.
Seconds ticked by in stillness as Link watched the silent silhouette of the Lord through the doorway, expecting him to turn at any moment and lash out with a barrage of insults. He waited but nothing happened.
He could only assume Halshaw was unaware of his presence. The option to simply walk away was undeniably tempting, yet something compelled him to stay… to confront his enemy.
He stepped into the room and the creak of the floorboards announced him. The predicted barrage didn't appear. Instead, on hearing Link's entrance, Halshaw did little more than glance over his shoulder, before turning back to stare at the desk. No rebuke, no facial jab came. Just silence in the gloom until…
"Have you come to gloat?" He asked plainly, tone devoid of life.
Having already prepared his riposte to the Lord's predicted attack, Link was thrown for a loop when it failed to arrive. Forced to change tact, but still wary of a late ambush, his reply was gruff and monotone. "No."
Another pause…
"Then you possess greater civility than some among your comrades…" Hang on, Had Halshaw senior just offered him a compliment?! "… though some would argue I deserve it." The Lords tone was as soulless as the empty room, droning and near emotionless as he continued to stare at the desk. Even his plum accent sounded subdued, lacking all the pompous stridence of their last encounter.
Shaken by his blunt words and soulless delivery, Link tried to glean some hint as to the man's mood from his profile in the reflection of one of the display cases. Lips, straight and thin, told him nothing and, by some trick of the light, the eye and its socket appeared concealed in shadow.
Seemingly aware of the hero's probing gaze, Halshaw finally turned to face him to reveal that it was no trick of the light. His left eye was red and bloodshot, with the surrounding socket painted a deep painful purple and sporting a small welt on the outside. The rest of his visage was a sickly white and his white moustache, previously manicured and disciplined, now looked unkempt. It was his right eye, however that was most shocking. For the first time the man's gaze was clear of the misty drunken haze that concealed what lay within its depths, and those depths possibly revealed the very reason he'd shirked sobriety. Where Link had expected to see burning animosity or supressed outrage within the Lord's brown eyes, he was instead met with resignation, despair and possibly… regret? The eyes of a man without hope, without life, but most shockingly, without ego.
He wouldn't have believed this was the same man he'd met in Ordon, were it not for the same attire, proportions and characteristic wheeze in his voice. All the pomposity, arrogance and bluster he'd previously displayed were conspicuously absent, as was the stench of alcohol. With his sickly hew and emotionless expression, he appeared half dead.
Halshaw stared at him and Link could only return the favour, unsure how to interpret or react to the husk of a once proud man who stood before him. The Lord clearly expected a response, yet he couldn't find one, wary of a possible trap but unable to shake the gut feeling that what he was seeing was true.
"Would it change your answer to know that I protested most vehemently against your position here at the castle?" The Lord asked pensively, peering intently, trying to decipher his reaction.
Under such scrutiny, Link turned his ice blue gaze to one of the cabinets, taking in its warped reflection as he considered his response. His mind was currently in a state of civil war between naïve conscience, cynical pessimism and rampant paranoia. For better or worse his conscience was, by some strange twist of fate, the victory and as such picked blunt honesty for his reply. "No. Quite frankly, you already deserved it after what you did in Ordon. I'm just not one gloat and I believe the princess gave you what you deserved."
He'd expected protest, both for calling out Halshaw's behaviour and his referring to Her Highness simply as The Princess. All he received was a rueful nod and a murmur of "indeed" and it was Halshaw's turn to Look away. The angle exacerbated the Lord's swollen eye socket and Link couldn't resist inquiring "Who did that?"
"Hmmm?"
"The black eye?"
There was a hollow chuckle and for the first time in this meeting, Halshaw's voice betrayed some sense of emotion… bitterness so subtle yet so potent it seemed to pollute the air. "Hmhm, just one of my greatest… "admirers"." He murmured but refused to go further, letting the words hang.
As silence threatened to settle in, bringing with it an almost eerie suffocating atmosphere, Link forced the conversation onwards with a question which had rattled round the back of his mind ever since he'd learnt of Lord Halshaw's supreme rank in the military. "If you were so against me getting this position, how did I get it?"
"Oh, Her Royal highness has her ways…" Yet again Link was left taken aback, as he could have sworn he detected admiration in the Lord's voice. "… There is none other at court so knowledgeable in the caveats of the law or possessing the skill to wield them so effectively."
Noticing the hero's surprised expression, the lord gave another chuckle, though it lacked the last's bitterness, instead rattling with rueful mirth. "A perfectly understandable reaction. From my past actions, you probably think I hate her and… for a time that wouldn't have been far from the truth. Hindsight and unexpected chains of events however, have a habit of… shaking one's perspective. I recognise that I held her highness responsible for hardships, of which she was entirely blameless and brought her undeserved hardship in return…"
Link struggled to prevent himself gaping in shock. He found it near impossible to reconcile the quiet penitent man before him with the obnoxious, slanderous slime ball who'd blustered his way into oblivion back in Ordon, three months past. It turned out, however, that this confession was just the prelude to the real shocker.
"The same could be said of my treatment of you…" WHAT! "While in all honesty, I still must voice my strong disapproval at the nature of your association with her royal highness, on political and social grounds, I must admit that I have… misjudged you. I thought you to be nothing more than a… a cowardly, manipulative weasel leeching off another's glory and a girl's naivety, possessing neither the courage or the capability to accomplish such feats. Well your actions have proved me wrong."
The cogs of his brain slipping in disbelief, Link managed a sputter of incredulity " ?"
"Contrary to what you and many of your comrades probably think, I have not been quite so neglectful of my duties as this room would say. I receive reports and I have heard much of your fighting skills, even witnessed them on a couple of occasions. The way you fight… is not that of a duelling school, but of a man who's truly seen his share of combat."
A mist of melancholy descended over the Lord's gaze and he turned from the stunned hero and shuffled across to one of the display cabinets. The glass pane hissed as he slid it open and picked up one of the most ornate medals, which glittered in the reflected sunlight as he caressed it in his hands. "I know this will probably seem hard to believe but I did not earn these medals through nepotism, reading reports as a table tapping bureaucratic. I was once a knight, one of the finest of my age… and I… saw combat also. For that reason, I hold in high regard those who have served the kingdom with bravery and nobility, qualities I once considered impossible in one of your station. Whether the full extent of her highness's claims about you are true or not, I do believe you are, as she stated, a hero and for that… you have my respect."
He glanced at Link, neither his gaze nor his voice betraying any strain or concealed disgust in admitting such a sentiment, though the hero searched desperately to find it. Staying silent, his mind still in turmoil, trying to decipher Halshaw's intentions, Link merely stared as the Lord carefully replaced the medal in its display and turned back to face him. As Halshaw approached his eyes suddenly narrowed and Link instinctively tensed.
"Of course, one could question the true extent of your nobility when you attack my son outside of an agreed challenge…" Ah here's the twist! I knew it!
Link opened his mouth to protest, yet something held his tongue and allowed Halshaw to say his peace. "however, it can also be argued that… my son's behaviour and actions, were equally ignoble. Besides, her highness has informed me you will receive a suitable punishment for your indiscretions, just as my son has for his flouting of knightly tradition."
Yet again, malice and contempt were searched for but not found in Halshaw's tone. Instead the most blatant emotion that could be gleaned from his stoic tone was that of subtle disappointment, seeping through his last words. Disappointment in his son?
Link was adrift, thrown be the complete contradiction to the man who, he kept reminding himself, had previously attempted to run both his and Zelda's reputations through the thickest mud he could find, before spitting on them. Yet despite his best efforts, he was gripped by an inexplicable gut feeling that the Lord was genuinely sincere. Regardless of the truth, however, there were still some sore points of contention which the Lord had seemingly omitted from his little rationalisation of last week's events, namely his own hand on them.
He was about to raise the point, and most likely Halshaw's temper, when the return of the servants halted the conversation.
"Ah, I trust all items have been transfer to my chambers safely?" The Lord clipped.
The servant was hesitant, clearly nervous as he fidgeted with his sleeves "Well almost all, My Lord. Unfortunately, Lady Halshaw… she…"
Halshaw's expression instantly soured at the mention of his wife and he snapped sarcastically. "What does her ladyship command now?!"
"She, um, objects to your hunting trophies, My Lord. Indeed, she has taken to blocking the door to anyone bearing one."
Halshaw grit his teeth and rubbed his stormy brow intensely with a finger and thumb. "Grrrr. Fine! Fine! Just… take up those cabinets and I'll come and deal with her ladyship shortly."
By his orders, six servants surrounded the cabinets and heaved them aloft, only for two empty bottles to tumble out from one of them, somehow miraculously surviving the descent before rolling against the floorboards, kicking up dust along the way. The Lord appeared to flinch at the sight. "Careful!" he bellowed. Link, however, couldn't help but notice Halshaw's gaze following the rolling bottles, rather than his prized medal displays as they were hauled away. Had he spied shame in the man's eyes? disgust?
With the cabinets safely manoeuvred through the doorway, two more servants moved to lift the trunk.
"Stop! I don't want that. That stays."
"But My Lord? These are your…"
"I know what they are…" The Lord snarled before, with pause and a deep calming breath, he stated more steadily. "I don't want them anymore."
The servants exchanged looks of shock but did not question their master and hastily slipped away leaving just Link and Lord Halshaw, who was currently fixated on the abandoned trunk. A cloud of dust, stirred up from the cabinets, drifted across the now empty shell of, what Link presumed must have once been a rather grand ostentatious monument to the now lowly lord and his past glories and esteemed position. It now stood as a reminder of all the Lord had lost, deservedly or not. A testament to a man's failure.
Link did not possess such a physical space himself, yet as a faint echo of Nightmare Ganondorf's words bubbled up from the darkest recesses of his thoughts, he couldn't shake the disturbing notion that he may carry a similar space with him… somewhere in his mind. "Behold your failure!"
The atmosphere was cold and hauntingly empty, with the summer sun through the windows offering no respite. The hero shivered involuntarily, struck by the eerie sensation of having walked across someone's grave. Halshaw didn't react, simply staring at the mystery container.
"What's in there?" Link asked, barely more than a whisper.
…
"Five bottles of premium Brandy" came the hushed reply and the Lord finally tore his eyes away to regard the hero pensively. "You or your fellow officers are welcome to it."
"Is it poison?" Link asked sardonically, though he was not fully able to disguise his twinge of genuine suspicion.
The Lord simply gave a wry smile and turned towards the door "Hero, from what these last few years have taught me… all drink is poison. It's just one of the two poisons in life insidious enough to convince you it's worth having."
"What's the other?"
The Lord paused but for a moment before replying "… love… and now if you'll excuse me, I have affairs to attend to. My other poison is calling."
Without waiting for a farewell or even an acknowledgement from the hero, Halshaw shuffled out, his heavy footsteps creaking down the corridor, finally disappearing out into the full light of day. Link remained in the depressing pale emptiness, his only company a dusty desk and a dubious trunk, his restless mind a whirl of conflicting theories and assumptions, all left unanswered.
Had anything Halshaw said been truly genuine? And if so, then how much? Had he honestly changed? It all seemed sincere, but then he had little understanding of the machinations of the court elite and their deceptions. He'd appeared to be disappointed in his son's actions surrounding the incident of the Holmgang, yet Halshaw junior's motives had seemingly been fuelled by his fathers own distorted telling of the Ordon incident. Was his disappointment simply a façade to try and distance himself from the whole affair in an effort to insulate what little reputation he still had?
All these appeared on casual inspection to be plausible, even likely hypothesise, yet his old naïve conscience adamantly insisted on Halshaw's sincerity. Should he trust in empathy or cynicism?
Then there was the mystery of the trunk. Did it really contain brandy or something more sinister? There was only one way to find out. He approached the trunk warily and noted the lack of dust. Clearly it, like the medals, had received rather more attention than the rest of the room.
Slipping the latch cautiously, he lifted the lid to reveal, just as the Lord had said, five bottles of premium Eldin brandy… along with three empty ones.
What in Hyrule was he supposed to do with these? His time in the ranks may have introduced him to alcohol, including brandy, but he could scarcely be considered a big drinker and he had no fondness for brandy, no matter the quality. Then again, this stuff was no cheap swill, so simply chucking it would be a shameful waste, particularly when he knew several people who would very much appreciate it. Borri sprang readily to mind. Perhaps he could claim he used his winnings to buy them, gift one to Borri in leu of the round he promised and donate the real winnings to the orphanage. A pretty genius plan…
that was…
if the contents of the bottles were genuine!
Could they actually be poisoned?
Why though would Halshaw go to the trouble of poisoning them? To get at him?! Halshaw had no way of predicting his completely coincidental arrival.
Could they be poisoned as weapons against court rivals? Possible but then why would he leave them in a trunk within arm's reach of where he sat and, apparently, spent much of his time drinking himself into oblivion? That sounded like a recipe for disaster.
The man appeared to have made a concerted stab at maintaining sobriety. Was it as simple as him not wanting them anymore to avoid temptation? If so then why not sell them? He could hardly call himself an expert on fine alcohol but five bottles of Premium Eldin Brandy?! That was probably worth about 6 months wages for a legate like him, though to someone like Halshaw, such wealth was likely a trifle. Wait! Perhaps that was it? Was this a peace offering of sorts? Not that there had been a war, just simmering contempt between them, but Halshaw had seemed to expect retaliation in some form.
Or maybe…
Perhaps he'd discarded them because he sensed someone else's far more malevolent spite laced into the liquid within? Could Halshaw have suspected foul play and thought to kill, quite literally in Link's case, two birds with one stone by passing off his poisoned luxuries on to a man he despised?
Once again, his gut gave an emphatic no. The laws of plausibility and probability seemed, shockingly, to favour Halshaw's intentions being innocent as well, though his cynical side remained sceptical.
He picked up one of the bottles and examined it intently. With no visible abnormalities found, he turned his keen nose to the conundrum, prizing the top off and taking a deep sniff of the dark amber liquid's aroma. Nothing out of the ordinary was beheld in the heady scent, only its undeniably strong alcoholic kick and he could almost feel his eyes cross from the inebriating fumes.
Link set the bottle down on the table and spent a minute just glaring at it, as his mind ran through the permutations and possibilities again. Had he intended to keep them to himself, he would have happily dismissed the threat of poisoning as absurd paranoia, accepting the risk without a second thought. The problem was it wasn't his life he was gambling and THAT was a risk he couldn't accept.
There were only two options; he could chuck it or he could test it on himself. He was the prime candidate, with his superior endurance along with his handy possession of two healing potions. True, there was no knowing whether healing potions could actually counteract a poison's effects, but if anyone was going to find out, it could only be him.
With determination brewing in his chest and plans stewing in his brain, Link swung his traveling satchel from his back and bundled the brandy in. It was quite a squeeze and quite a weight but after a minute of swapping, shifting and struggling, all the bottles were safely stowed on his back and he limped out of the room, glad to escape its eerie ambience. The load sure wasn't helping his ankle or his wrist but he was damned if he was going to ask for help. He'd had more than enough of that from the nurses!
His stratagem was simple; head to his room and, making sure he had a potion on standby, sample each of the bottles in turn and see what happened. Taking a moment to regain his bearings in the unfamiliar corridor, his formidable sense of direction led him away from the light of the outside world to the end of the corridor, following a hunch. The hunch was proven right when, taking the first left, he was presented with the corridor to the mess hall. How had his boundless curiosity never brought him up this far before now?
No matter. The satchel was gaining pounds by the second and his ankle was screaming bloody murder so he attempted to pick up his pace… and promptly collided with a soldier exiting the mess.
Link would have generally expected a wave of casual expletives after such a collision, yet all he received was a gasp of terror. one look at the afflicted party told him why.
Zorran had his back pressed to the wall, terror filling his eyes as he stared unseeing, straight through the very man who'd almost knocked him over. It was a look the hero recognised all too well and he hastily worked at trying to calm the petrified soldier before he started whimpering… or worse, screaming.
"Zorran. Zorran… Zorran" He tried as calmly and softly as possible, yet his attempts failed to penetrate the terror filled haze that suffocated his comrade behind glazed grey eyes.
He quickly scanned the mess to see if he could locate Borri, who was far more proficient at breaking his traumatised friend from these trances, but he was nowhere to be seen. Link's heart sank.
It sank still further when, turning his attention back to Zorran's petrified form, he saw the book, clutched vice like in his frozen fingers. "Madam Safi: manifestations of the mystic." He was still reading her books?!
He had held out a vain hope that telling Zorran some of what he knew of the Twilight invasion might help to ease the man's disturbed mind and stop him from seeking answers from such uninformed, unsavoury sources. Borri had been right to label the "esteemed" madam a mad old coot, her ravings varying from the harmlessly bizarre to the dangerously deranged. For all their combined efforts dissuading him from his quest, simply knowing what happened would not satisfy the haunted man as he sought something no mortal could truly provide. A reason! Some divine justification for the kingdoms suffering and, with his prayers failing to stir an answer from the Goddesses, he turned to quacks and charlatans for a salvation that didn't exist. He was far from the only one, as "mystics", "seers" and "spirit guides" had sprouted like a pox in the aftermath of the invasion, preying on the fears and ignorance of the vulnerable and the grieving. It made him sick just thinking about it.
For all his compulsion to snatch the book from Zorran's frozen hands, Link knew that trying to force him to stop could well end up making matters worse. The fact was a solution, if there even was one, was just as elusive to the hero as it was the still petrified soldier.
With words alone having failed to break through the nightmare, which held the man's mind hostage, Link gently laid a hand on his shoulder and tried again. "Zorran, Zorran… It's alright. It's me… Link."
Contrary to the sudden violent, scream accompanied jump he'd expected with his friend's jolt back to reality, what occurred was closer to a gradual thaw, as life and recognition slowly seeped back into the glazed stare. The taut and twisted brow slackened and, with an audible crack, the jaw, clenched in terror, unlocked and released.
Regret, trepidation and shame flashed across Zorran's face in quick succession and upon recognising Link, he reflexively hid the book from view. "Oh, uh, uh sorry Link. I didn't… didn't see you there. Err, err you all fixed up then?" He stammered, trying and failing to summon a façade of nonchalance. It was the expected reaction.
"Well, I'm on the mend. Off duty for a month but I'm recovering… how about you?" Link hesitantly probed, similarly missing the mark of feigned nonchalance.
"Oh, I'm alright. I still have… err… problems but then… haha… so does everyone, right? Nothing to worry about."
"Well that's good to hear. But you know… if you need help with anything…"
"Oh yeah sure, sure, I will, I will. Now er… I hate to rush off but er… I'm late for my guard shift."
Link watched as the haunted man fled down the corridor and out of sight. For all their best efforts, he appeared to be getting worse! In his fractured state of mind, he was wholly unfit for a soldier's life, yet there was only one other choice available. At least here he had others who could look out for him, for all the good that it did. Just another person he couldn't save.
Trudging off once more towards his courters, the satchel growing more cumbersome with each passing minute, he turned his thoughts back to the Halshaw dilemma. No new conclusion was reached, sealing his fate. He'd be drinking one way or another!
It was a great relief when he finally reached his room. Of course, it being solely his courters, no candles had been lit and the single slit window along the line of the ceiling offer precious little illumination but he could manage fine in the gloom.
Everything was just as he'd left it. A modest single bed consumed the space from the door to the far corner, with his "adventure" chest standing sentry at its feet. A simple, sturdy cupboard, the store for all his soldier's gear, miraculously squeezed into the gap between the bed and the opposite wall and a small table found just enough space alongside to coexist. The walls were barren barring two items, the only personal touches in the whole room. His Hylian shield hung by the door and simply nailed above his desk… was a sketch of Midna, the real one he'd come to know. The devious, mischievous, insufferable little smart mouth imp seemed so full of life on the page. Why did he put her up there?
Yet even as he pondered both his picture-perfect memory and his masochistic streak, Link couldn't suppress a smile at the sight of his room, after his week-long exile. His exhilaration at the joy of freedom, deflated by his recent sombre encounters, returned with a vengeance. So great was the elation that he dumped his satchel with rather less care than was wise considering its fragile and dubious cargo. Nevertheless, even the threatening clink of glass striking rather impetuously and its reminder of his potentially fatal experiment failed to bring down his suddenly soaring spirits.
The pungent smell of damp wood, the slow drip of the leaking roof in the corner, the particular creak of THAT floorboard and the sight of the chest and all the memories that lay within. "It's good to be home" he whispered in warm satisfaction.
Wait! Had he really just said that?! His relationship with this room could be described as turbulent at best, volcanic at worst. Well, maybe the proverb was true, absence really does make the heart grow fonder. Either that or he was already drunk on brandy fumes!
The core of the matter though, which shook him ran far deeper, was the simple admission that this was, indeed, his home now. In just three months, his childhood home had been washed from the banks of his every waking thought to the rivers of his memory, yet on the river it had regained some of its purity and tranquillity, flowing gently through the back routes of his mind. The shadow of the twilight on the world of his childhood had faded, allowing the good times to a chance to shine through the gaps.
Still ruminating, Link turned his attention to his adventure chest, the holder of every artefact, item or curio he'd discovered on his six-month quest, each with its own tale he remembered all to well. Retrieving and lighting his special traveling lamp, he proceeded to rummage through his cornucopia of souvenirs and recollections, some compelling him to hold them and reminisce, while others left him baffled as to why he'd even kept them.
This was the first time most of them had seen the light of day since he moved here and upon seeing them again, he couldn't suppress an urge for melancholic sentimentality. He pawed through memories and remembrance, the flickering light of the lamp dancing on each object, drawing out every crack, every curve and every crease with faltering, fluxing shadow.
Ah, the dominion rod! Quite frankly, he hadn't a clue when he'd ever be in a situation of using it again, however he couldn't bring himself to part with it. Besides he couldn't just chuck it. If it fell into the hands of any one of his comrades, he could just see it becoming a tool for pranks. Oh, the chaos they could cause. He shivered. No! that's definitely staying safely hidden away.
Iron boots…
Double clawshot…
Then there was the fishing rod, complete with the coral earing gifted to him by Ralis, glinting in the lamplight. Man, he hadn't been fishing since the Twilight. Nor had he seen his Zora friend since his short visit in the direct aftermath of Ganondorf's demise. He'd need to find some time to rectify that… someday.
While small stabs of guilt and regret accompanied many of his ruminations, to his great surprise, the crippling fear which had haunted those memories back in Ordon was conspicuously absent. Was it his newfound purpose that held them at bay, his time away from Ordon… or perhaps the mere presence of a certain royal.
Link had come upon his sketchpad, open at his final piece of work in Ordon. His masterpiece, the profile, straight, proud and elegant, of a wise princess, calmly and effortlessly destroying a drunk dragon, spewing slander and slime from his vicious mouth but to no avail. Link smiled. It was his most perfect picture.
"Not surprising give the subject matter. She is rather perfect." Chirped a familiar voice from the back of his head. He could only snort derisively in response. If his heart carried on like this it could get him in real trouble. The sooner he could discard this insufferably insistent crush the better everything would be. Besides he was here to get a healing potion, not daydream of fairy tales.
Fortunately, with a little more digging he found one of his two remaining bottles of the red medicine and, with a few distractions, set about preparing his "experiment", clearing his desk, retrieving his standard pewter tankard from the cupboard and recovering the, miraculously unharmed, brandy bottles from the satchel. The next stage was momentarily delayed by another reminder of the princess, namely the book she'd gifted him, sitting in the bottom of the satchel. What he'd read of it had certainly been fascinating, however he suspected that, for all the thought she'd given of leaving him something to occupy his restless mind, she'd neglected considering the practicalities of handling such a monstrous tome… when you've a broken wrist to nurse.
Nevertheless, having swallowed what morsels of pride remained with him in that infirmary bed, driven by inescapable boredom, he'd had the chance to flit through a few chapters with the help of the matron. He'd learnt of the origins and history of true holmgangs, and hopefully how to avoid getting involved in another. The books knightly traditions had also held some illuminating and eye-opening insights into the duties and mind set of nobility, but what had really caught his interest was the potential implications of the princess's second bookmarked chapter.
It appeared that, in order to circumvent the military authority of disciplining knights, Zelda had called upon an ancient knightly tradition called a "duty of reverence". It was tied into a whole slew of enigmatic rules and tenants of knightly conduct but, from what he could decipher, it gave a prince or princess power to issue one direct command to any knight in the kingdoms service and, as long as said order was legal, the knight was honour bound to carry it out, regardless of the authority of the army's grand general. To refuse would be to dishonour themselves and their families, as well as seeing them potential stripped of their knighthood. Apparently, Zelda had, in what was probably a highly unconventional use of the noble tradition, given the "honourable" Sir Eddengrin Halshaw a truly devious order as means of punishment. Link just wished he knew what it was so he could gloat. Maybe he wouldn't gloat to the man's face but knowing Eddengrin's fate would certainly give him some satisfaction. Indeed, just thinking of possible humiliating options brought a warm fuzzy feeling to his stomach.
After a moment smirking at a blank wall, revelling in running through suitably repugnant punishment options, Link came to his senses, turning his attention back to his important experiment.
Time to taste test some potentially poisoned brandy… and hopefully live to witness whatever torment the Beautiful princess had concocted for her least favourite knight. Also, he'd just love to see the princess again.
With the bottles lined up in a neat row, Link started by picking up each one and investigating its aroma thoroughly. As with the one he'd tested before nothing stood out as suspect.
He poured a small measure of the first bottle into the tankard and waited for a possible reaction. Nothing happened, not that he'd expected it to. Looked like there was no getting out of it… other than just chucking the lot.
He glared at the liquid and rallied himself to face the possibly lethal liquor. Oh come on! It's not like he hadn't faced almost certain death a million times before and those were far more credible threats than this.
He picked up the tankard and swirled it for a few seconds. Oh well, bottoms up! He raised it to his lips…
Actually, was he sure he had enough to properly judge? Perhaps a little more just to be certain.
The amber liquid glugged all too merrily into the pewter vessel until it was close to a full measure. And now for the moment of truth…
Subtle sweetness and essence of oak slide smoothly down the throat, only sharpened by the kick of alcohol, a far less unpleasant sensation than suspected. Even the pewter tankard did little to sully the luxurious ambers flavour. Could it be he actually had a taste for this drink?
Irritatingly, he knew he should wait before confirming that theory with a taste from the second bottle. After all, some poisons take a little while to act… or so he assumed. He was no expert on poisons.
And so, he waited, drumming his fingers impatiently on the desk as the minutes crawled by. He'd had such a simple schedule planned this morning; pay Epona a well-deserved visit and then off to the library to start his mission on learning politics. Instead he'd suffered two uncomfortable encounters with two unsettled people, both of whom would have probably rather not seen him either. Now to cap it off, he was wasting precious moments testing brandy bottles for poison… which probably isn't there.
Well he didn't feel any different. Time for the next one. He poured out close to another full measure from the second and after another swirl swigged it down. Same taste, and blow him down, he may actually like it!
Another wait, another non-event. How Long should he wait anyway? Was there some set rule for poisons or should he just wing it? Well, being as he knew practically nothing about such things that question answered itself.
Alright. On to the next one.
"Woah, you can really feel the alcohol in them" he audibly gasped as the third measure slipped down his throat, shaking his head like the wolf he once was, trying to shake the mist slowly descending on his faculties.
It made for an impressive anaesthetic though. His ankle's throbbing had been drowned out and his wrist was fast on the way out too. Far from poisoning him, this drink was the best medicine he'd had all week!
Ok. Now for number four…
And a glorious one it was! He was actually enjoying this. A welcome change of pace and he was barely even tipsy. He'd figured himself a lightweight but clearly not. He… was… MIGHTY!
…
Um…
How much was a measure again?
Icy blues squinted at the liquid with almost pained concentration, yet it remained tantalisingly unfocused.
Perhaps a smidge more maybe?
Oh well, that looks… about right. Bottoms up for number five!
Aaaaaaaaah. Another satis… satisfying drink and it seemed his gut instinct was right all along. No ulter… ulterior motive to found. He felt Fiiiine, indeed better than fine, he felt fantastic and… getting more fantastic by the second. True, the room was beginning to sway, but that's just part of being drunk, right? Regular drunk, not reeeaaallly drunk. Reeeaaallly drunk was when you fall over.
Ummm…
So, he'd tested and the bottles weren't poisoned. Ok, what now? He was sure he'd had a plan for the day.
…
Of Course! Epona, his rusty stare, er trusty mare.
Link strode towards the door; strident, majestic and wobbling like a broken pendulum…
On second thought, perhaps he should wait till the room stopped spinning. It shouldn't take long for the worst to wear off. He certainly wasn't going to late it waste his hold day.
How bad could it be?