Chapter 42: Striving for Hope

\-==/\==-/

Link felt nothing for the longest time. He drifted through a void, black, without heat and without cold, without thought and sensation of anything at all. He was aware of nothing but time, dragging on for what could have been days, but just as easily could have been seconds.

When he did feel again, he wished he could return to the void that had consumed him before. Everything hurt, but he lacked the strength to cry out. He was lying on his back, which was a form of torture in and of itself; without doing anything at all, he was putting pressure on sensitive welts and bruises and raw furrows in his skin. How comfortable the mattress may have been did not matter - it did nothing to ease the pain across his shoulders and down his spine.

There were a few other pinpricks of pain scattered across his chest and arms. Most of them felt dulled and distant, and he knew that they were well on their way to being healed.

But there was one region of his chest that hurt considerably worse than all the others. Rooted deep in his side was a ferocious throbbing burn, as if flames were licking at his innards and along the edges of whatever wound was there. With each of his shallow breaths and the expansion of his lungs, the pain burned hotter as his skin stretched in different directions.

His hands and feet were other considerable sources of pain. His fingers and toes in particular seemed to sting and throb in time to his heartbeat. The knuckles ached severely, as if he'd gotten them stuck in a doorjamb, and his palms and the pads of his fingers burned against the bandages around them, much too warm.

As he returned to full consciousness, his memories returned to him, insequential and yet not confusing. He stared aimlessly at the wooden beams crisscrossing the ceiling above him, allowing thoughts to come and go as they pieced themselves together. I was stabbed… Zelda went missing… Filo stabbed me… said Zelda had been kidnapped… It was cold… snowing… We found the kidnappers on the river - they were Yiga… The Master Sword spoke to me… I went with Choice… I took Zelda to the Sage Temple; the Master Sword led me… I wasn't dressed right so I felt cold… so cold…

Clarity slowly returned to his mind, along with an icy sensation seeping into his blood and squeezing his soul. Choice wasn't with us when we reached the Sage Temple… Something happened to her.

That terrible crack of bursting ice, and the splash, and the split-second image of Choice rearing her head up in surprise as she sank beneath the freezing waters.

His breath caught in his throat, and his eyes, prickling with tears, went wide.

If you falter, you will fail her.

He had faltered. Instead of diving in after his mare, diving in to save her somehow, he remained on the edge of the ice, doing nothing until it was too late and there was no hope for her.

His shoulders shook convulsively as a strangled sob clawed out of his throat, and tears dripped from his eyes. His shadow had never been talking about the Princess. No, it had meant Choice, all along.

I faltered. And I failed her. And now she's dead -

A shudder wracked his body and he curled his arms around himself, flopping weakly to his side, trying to make himself smaller despite the fresh pain it spurred in the stab wound digging between his ribs. As if the thought of Choice's death had broken through a dam, tears poured down his cheeks and anguished cries escaped his lips, though he tried in vain to muffle them with his pillow.

She was dead, she was dead, she was dead… The words repeated over and over again in his mind and he wept as he never had before. Agony fiercer than any he had before experienced ripped at his soul, joined by guilt that welled in waves of powerful nausea and shame pressing at his innards as if trying to make them shrink and disappear. He wanted to disappear - would that be so bad?

It was his fault she was dead, after all. His shadow warned him - falter, and you will fail her - and he hadn't listened. He had waited on the edge of the water, waited uselessly, and she died. She drowned, in that awful freezing water.

Goddesses, NO! He didn't realize he had screamed the words, not until he heard dimly the pattering of rushed footsteps and the creak of a door as it burst open. Unfamiliar, aged faces huddled around him, deformed by his tear-blurred vision. Hands grabbed at him, pried his arms away from his torso, pushed him over onto his back, pulled his legs straight. He fought them, with what little strength he had. He didn't know why - they were telling him it would be alright, they were murmuring words of soothing comfort but he wanted none of that. It wasn't alright; he didn't want any comfort. Choice was dead - how could anything be 'alright' after that?

She was everything to him. She was his lifeline. She was all he had. She helped him when no one else could. In the aftermath of his brutal training sessions, her sweet ministrations of comfort - mussing his hair, rubbing her nose against his chest, gently nuzzling his back and shoulders as if trying to groom him as she might a fellow horse...

Gone. Gone forever.

The thought prompted a fresh wave of tears and he whimpered feebly, greif settling over him like a thick blanket that offered no warmth, suffocating him, seizing up his lungs and making it difficult to breathe. He sucked in ragged, shallow gasps of air, weeping shamelessly as - much to his elderly companions' relief - he went still at last, his strength spent.

\-==/\==-/

His spells of consciousness progressed in a similar fashion. He wept until he didn't have the strength to go on, and then he merely lay still, his eyes burning, his body aching, his soul torn asunder. He would lie staring blankly at the ceiling or the flames dancing on the hearth until his eyes slipped closed, and then it would all start over again.

Yet as the hours dragged on, the tears lessened, replaced by a shocked sort of numbness, as if his mind was frozen by the intensity of his grief. It wasn't just Choice that he mourned now. He recalled the fate of his parents, remembered Janin's treachery, and mourned them as well.

It was distinctly uncomfortable when the healers and priests around him stitched closed the stab wound in his side, but he hardly reacted at all. With everything else plaguing his mind and soul, the physical pain barely registered. The guilt, the shame, the despair, the loneliness… He was consumed by the sensation of falling down a deep dark pit, down where no one could reach him - not that anyone cared in the first place, he thought bitterly.

If only I hadn't hesitated - if only I had just jumped in after her! Maybe there was something, anything, I could have done. Something that would have changed what happened. Then Choice would still be here.

He spent hours wracking his mind, trying to think of what it was that he should have done to save her. None of his efforts proved fruitful - he was too small to possibly have the strength to lift her out of the river on his own. Nor had he the time or supplies to build a ramp of some sort that she could have walked up to the shore. There were no branches on hand that he could have extended down to her, that she could have gripped in her teeth as he pulled her out - But her jaws aren't strong enough for that, and… neither am I, no matter how I wish otherwise.

Then there was the cold to consider. Even if he had miraculously figured out how to get her out before it was too late, the icy temperature could have been enough to kill her all on its own. If she somehow had made it to shore, there would have been no way to dry off her coat, to get her somewhere warm and safe; she would have died before they reached the Sage Temple.

And so Link's thoughts chased themselves around in circles, torturing him with incessant what-ifs, feeding the fire of guilt and regret eating at his soul.

He had never felt so alone. One of the first times he had regained consciousness, he felt a brief sliver of hope remembering that Zelda was there with him, probably recovering in a room somewhere just as he was, only to learn from the priests that she had left long before he opened his eyes. The discovery stung, like a slap to the face. Of all the times he would have liked a friend by his side…

So it was that he was alone in his grief, surrounded by strangers who didn't care, strangers eyeing him with hesitant mistrust.

He was absolutely sick of it - sick of the judging looks everywhere he went, sick of the rumors spread at his expense, twisting the truth into juicy tidbits of false information. They painted him as a scoundrel, a hooligan, a traitor. And since the vast majority of the kingdom had never met him, never even glimpsed his face, their opinions of him were carefully shaped solely by those rumors. They had made up their minds about who he was before he even showed his face, and he was tired of having to deal with it.

Just wish they'd leave me alone… why can't they leave me alone?

Three days after his and Zelda's arrival at the Sage Temple, a small sledge driven by a castle courier arrived to take him back to the castle. "Your duel with the Captain of the Royal Guard is to take place tomorrow," explained the guard assigned to escort him, not a trace of empathy or even pity in his voice or his cold gaze.

Link felt nothing at the revelation as he climbed carefully into the seat of the sleigh. It was just another blow on top of so many others, another brick added to the load he carried on his shoulders. He couldn't distinguish this new weight, this added misery, from the rest of the pool of grief and despair dragging him down. He had reached his breaking point and could not feel anymore.

He was weak - so weak. The wound from Filo's dagger, his beating at the Captain's hands, his mad flight through the freezing storm… it had taken quite a toll. He had regained only a little of his strength over the past days and struggled even to walk at a reasonable pace. He didn't believe it was possible for him to wield a blade in battle in such condition. There's no chance I'll win. Which means Zelda is just as dead to me as Choice and my parents. He had lost them all - everyone he cared about. One by one, because of his failures, they slipped through his fingers…

His mind drifted on the journey back to the castle. He imagined himself facing Janin in the Sanctum… the sharp tip of his mentor's blade gleaming… the disappointed, scornful look in his eye…

He imagined himself running at the Captain, as if in fury. He imagined casting the Master Sword aside at the last moment… running himself onto the edge of Janin's blade. It would hurt; he would feel pain.

Then… nothing. A smile would grace his lips as it ended - as all of his pain and suffering came at last to an end. He would be free.

It was too much - it was all just too much. The endless loneliness, the opposition on all sides, the hatred directed towards him from everyone - from people he knew to those he had never met. The torture every day brought, with his nightmares, with his fears, with the physical wounds and the emotional ones dealt without mercy to his fragmenting spirit.

It was just too much.

And now with Choice's death…

I can't take it anymore - I can't do it. I don't want to do any more of this - I can't! It's too much… it's just too much…

The temperature, already quite low to begin with, had dropped even further by the time he arrived at the castle and began, wrapped in fur cloaks, on shaky legs and aching, frost-blistered feet, the long walk up towards his room. Just past the castle gates he was met by Captain Janin, striding confidently - clearly in perfect health - down the winding path towards him.

"The Princess tells us that you have caused the death of an expensive, highly trained animal belonging to the Guard," he growled, his brows angling sharply down his forehead. "As such, you will need to pay her estimated value - 6,400 rupees. Due to your absence, we have already taken the money from your quarters; the King requested that I inform you when you arrived. He didn't want to provoke you into an unfounded panic upon discovering your coffers lessened."

Link stood in the cold, shivering slightly, feeling very much alone and hopeless.

Zelda told him that? Did she… did she know what that would mean for me? Maybe she's… upset with me?

She hadn't seen him at all while he was recovering at the Sage Temple; she'd left before he even woke up. Link's heart burned like open flesh exposed to the elements as he wondered if, perhaps, she had abandoned him.

Janin wasn't finished; his lip curled into a disgusted sneer. "Consider yourself lucky," he snarled. "Seven guards have been killed. The Sage Temple sent word that the Princess and her… knight… appeared in the middle of the night on their doorstep. She is in shock and has told us next to nothing useful to help us determine what, exactly, happened that night. We know that the Yiga were involved, and that you met up with them after they left the castle, and that your horse is dead, but nothing else. It was the King's intention to interrogate you immediately upon your return, but… the General managed to persuade him to wait until after our duel tomorrow." He shook his head, scowling. "As I said - consider yourself lucky." And he turned on his heel, marching smartly back up the way he had come.

Link didn't move for several moments. A frigid wind drifted over the castle grounds, sending a tremor through him, as he attempted to process this new information. Seven men… seven men killed… just down the hall from where I was sleeping…

If I had awakened sooner, could I have saved them?

His stomach gave a lurch, feeling as if it had suddenly dropped out of his body altogether. If I had awakened sooner, could I have kept Zelda from being kidnapped in the first place?

Then those seven men would not be dead. And Choice… he never would have had to take her out into that storm. She would still be alive now.

His stomach lurched again, and all at once his knees wobbled beneath him, threatening to give way. He spotted a small tree up the path a few feet and stumbled towards it, managing only a few steps before his legs gave way entirely and he crumpled to his knees. His stomach gave a final unbearable lurch and he vomited into the snow beneath the tree, coughing up the mostly liquid contents of his stomach. Fresh tears spilled from his eyes as he dragged himself closer to the tree and used it to pull himself to his feet, lacking the strength to stand on his own.

With a hand on his pulsing stomach, he slid one foot and then the other slowly over the icy cobblestones, continuing the climb up to his room. Blessed Goddesses… I could have prevented all of this. It's… it's all my fault.

When at last he reached his room and counted out his rupees, his spirits sank even lower - something he had not believed possible. He had a grand total of 147 left over in his wallet.

He dropped himself to his bed, not bothering to undress, trying not to think about the choices he would have to make once the duel was over and he was officially dismissed. Food, or shelter?

And that was, of course, only after whatever 'interrogation' the King had in mind. They don't think I kidnapped Zelda, do they?

The familiar burn of tears pricked at his eyes, but he had no more left to shed. I've made such a mess of everything.

The idea of ending it all seemed ever more tempting.

\-==/\==-/

A young squire, mousy-haired and bright-eyed, awakened him the next morning with a loud knocking on his door before bursting in uninvited. Link sat up groggily, gingerly rubbing his eyes with a bandaged hand. The small boy intruding on him stared with wide eyes at the bloodstains on his shirt, and Link quickly pulled his blankets closer around his chest, feeling downcast. It was a useless gesture - the blankets were spattered with blood as well, along with the stone floor and his wardrobe.

"Erm," the boy gulped, holding out the pile of clothes in his arms. "Y-your uniform, Sir. For the… for your fight. I - I was told to advise you to get dressed at once; the duel is in an hour."

Link frowned. I… I won't be wearing my Champion's…?

He cut off the thought quickly, realizing that the King and Janin were probably aiming to dishonor him as much as they possibly could. Sighing heavily, he slid his legs out from beneath his blankets and let his feet rest on the cold stone floor. Using the bed he pushed himself to his feet, taking the clothes - dyed a deep blood-red color - and setting them down on his pillow. "Thank you," he muttered to the squire, who nodded eagerly and turned back to the door hanging ajar.

Link rolled his shoulders back, stretching the kinks out of his spine and grimacing as the motion pulled at the wounds on his back. He reached for the bottom of his shirt - the very same bloodied shirt that he had run off in four days ago now - only to find that the squire hadn't left and was still staring at him, wide-eyed.

"What is it?" he asked, gruffer than he intended, and the boy bit his lip.

"Well… it's just that…" He fidgeted nervously, tugging at the laces of his tunic. "Did you really ride through that awful storm and get stabbed and everything to rescue the Princess from assassins?"

Link winced, his heart seizing up in his chest. "Yeah," he muttered. "It… wasn't…"

But the boy's eyes went wider, filled with something Link was surprised to recognize as awe and admiration. "Wow," he whispered reverently. "Was it… was it because you like her? The Princess?"

A lump was forming in his throat. I'll lose her today. If she isn't lost to me already. "Yeah."

The boy nodded slowly. "Everyone's talking about it - all the squires, I mean," he said. "Some of the knights tell us not to, but I don't know why. They… say lots of mean things about you, but… I know they're wrong." He nodded determinedly, a spark of fire in his warm hazel eyes.

Link shook his head glumly, running a hand through his sleep-mussed hair. "I don't know about that," he muttered, turning back to his bed and the pile of clothes there.

"But they are!" the boy insisted. "Dad says that you can judge the measure of a man by how he treats his lessers, and you treated your horses like they were - like they were royalty! And you saved Marin, and you saved the Princess, and - and I just know you're not what they say!"

Link stiffened at the sound of the familiar name. Marin… she was that girl from… from Tabantha Village. He took another hard look at the squire hovering in his doorway, taking note of the mousy brown hair. "...Thrangus?"

The boy looked ecstatic, beaming from ear to ear. "Yeah!"

"What in Din's name are you doing here?" Link asked blankly. "Didn't… didn't you like it at home?"

Thrangus nodded eagerly. "Well, yeah, but I wanted to be a knight like you! And help people and stuff!"

Link smiled bitterly, sitting down on his bed again with a slight groan. "It's not all like that. Sometimes… sometimes you don't feel like you're helping anyone at all, no matter how hard you try." He pressed his lips together before he could say more. It feels like everything you do is for nothing, and everything you care about gets taken away.

"Well," the boy shrugged, "that's okay, isn't it? Mum always says that you can't help everyone all at once, but if you just make a difference for one person, then it's all worth it! She's here today - she and Dad. They were visiting for the new year, but they decided to stay a while longer to see what happens for you today. They… we were all really sad when they… when you…"

Link knew what he was trying to say. "When they punished me," he muttered, digging a thick pair of stockings out from under his bed and carefully pulling them over his bandaged feet.

"Why'd they do it?" Thrangus asked with sincere, innocent concern.

Link drew in a deep breath, briefly closing his eyes and suppressing a shudder at the resulting flair of pain in his side. "I was angry with the King," he explained reluctantly. "I… I didn't like the way he treats Princess Zelda, and… I said some things I shouldn't have." His insides squirmed with shame. I've made so many mistakes - what's the point in going on? I can't do this anymore.

Thrangus watched him carefully for several moments; he seemed to understand that the confrontation with the King wasn't something Link wanted to talk about. "...Do you… want me to leave?" he asked quietly.

Link's heart tugged guiltily at the hint of disappointment in the boy's voice, and he realized that he really did not want to be alone before his duel with Janin. "No, you can stay if you want," he said quietly, sorting through the pile of clothes Thrangus had brought and finding the black undershirt. Instantly Thrangus brightened.

"Can I help with anything?" he asked eagerly, twisting his fingers together excitedly.

Link shook his head, pulling himself free of his nightshirt and briefly double-checking the bandages around his chest and shoulder. There were bloodstains on the wrappings over his stab wound, but they weren't fresh, so he decided not to worry about them. "No, that's alright. It's just… it's nice to have someone to talk to."

He tugged the black undershirt over himself and lifted the accompanying tunic. It was large - meant, as he discovered when he found a shirt of mail among the pile of clothes - to go over armor. His brow creased as he saw the peculiar crest it bore - a dead, black tree with an owl perched among its branches, accompanied by a boar at the base of the tree and a dragon coiled in the sky above it. "Thrangus, what… what are these? Whose are they?"

The squire chewed his lip nervously. "Well… Captain Janin needed one of us to deliver them to you so I volunteered. He said they bore your crest."

My crest?

He studied the image again, and his blood ran cold. All at once it made sense - the tree, the boar, owl, and dragon. Thyphlo.

He remembered now. The Captain had said at the end of the last tournament he had participated in, half a year ago now, that he was having an actual tournament uniform made for him. So he expects me to wear it now. Not as an honor, but as a reminder of my failures.

"Is the Princess' horse still mean?" Thrangus asked timidly. Link shook his head, still staring at the tunic. Blood-red - a violent color. A reminder that he wishes my sole purpose to be the shedding of blood. It made him feel nauseous.

"How's your horse?" Thrangus went on. "I liked her - she's nice."

Link was utterly caught off guard by the question; his heartbeat accelerated, pulsing loud and fast in his ears, and the air in his little room seemed all at once too thick, too stuffy, to breathe in. "She… she's dead," he whispered miserably, fighting at the sting of tears in his eyes. He slowly shook his head, blinking rapidly, fighting to swallow past the tightness in his throat. "When I… went after the Princess… w-we were… on the ice - the river… had frozen over." He gave a strangled, bitter laugh, gripping his hands tightly together. "We were lucky it held out for so long as it is, but… but it broke. She… she was too… the ice couldn't hold her." He didn't know why he was sharing this with someone he barely knew, but he felt a burning desire to explain, to communicate how terrible it was, how unfitting and untimely a death for his beloved companion. "I w-wanted to go in after her, but…"

The wave of guilt that washed over him was unbearable; his insides seemed to twist and shrivel as if trying to disappear, and a slight tremor shook his body. Unconsciously his hands balled into fists, fingernails digging into the skin of his palms. You faltered. You failed! "She died," he whispered hoarsely. "I keep wishing - thinking - maybe there was something I… She… she was everything to me. My closest friend - my family."

Thrangus had gingerly taken a seat next to him on his bed, watching with a furrowed brow, concern evident in his gaze. Link barely noticed. His heart was pounding fast; he felt as if something had been opened in his soul and poison was pouring freely from it - he had to speak, he had to explain, to give that poison somewhere to go so that he could be free of its weight and pain. Tears were dripping down his cheeks but he didn't care. "I was so afraid to lose her for so long; I always thought it would be because I was dismissed, not because she… died."

He swallowed thickly. As much as his heart screamed at him to release the poison, the pain, it was difficult. Agonizingly so. "I had no one else. People despised me, either because they felt threatened by me or because they saw me and the Master Sword as heralds of the Calamity's return. And the nightmares - I saw things from - from my past. Awful violent things that made me - that felt so frightening, even after I'd woken up, even though I knew that they - they weren't… that it already happened. I felt - I feel so alone, and it - it hurts, badly. I don't know what I would've done - what would've happened to me - if Choice hadn't been there. She - she made everything alright. Made everything… bearable."

He dropped his head to his hands, his soul aching; he squeezed his eyes shut. "I'm so sick of it all," he muttered. "I - I don't want to do this anymore. I feel so… so tired, worn out, by everything - I can't handle anymore. I'm not nearly strong enough to win this duel with the Captain; my life will be over by this evening. I… I've lost everything." And it's all my own fault.

Thrangus' eyes were wide. "The King's going to kill you?" he gulped.

Link almost smiled ruefully. "No, it's - that's not what I meant. I… I'll still be alive, but… I'll have lost everything I know." My home, if it can be called that… my livelihood… Zelda…

"Then you'll just have to win," Thrangus said quietly. "You can do it - I know you can!"

Link slowly closed his eyes, feeling the lingering soreness of his bruised, torn back, feeling the deep, rooted sting of the stab wound in his side, stitched shut but nowhere close to healed.

He opened his eyes again, noting the hope and compassion burning bright in Thrangus' eyes. He didn't have the heart to put the boy down. "Thank you."

Thrangus didn't seem entirely convinced. "You're not a - a herald of the Calamity," he said firmly. "Me and my mum and dad all agree, and so does everyone else back home. And so do lots of other squires, too! You - you're a hero to us. We know you can do it!"

Link fought hard, teeth clenched, against the burn of tears that had suddenly worsened behind his eyes. He opened his mouth to respond but couldn't find the right words. With a last hopeful, encouraging smile, Thrangus left the room and pulled the door closed behind him.

I can't, he thought dejectedly, studying his bandaged hands clasped on his knees. Wearily he lifted his head and turned his gaze to the Master Sword leaning against his bed, and heaving a sigh he took it in his right hand. The hilt was cold against his palm, even through the bandages, and there was no sign at all of the mysterious voice of the sword's spirit.

But the weapon did not feel heavy in his grip - it never had. Due to its magic, I guess. That's one relief - I'll at least be able to hold my sword.

He pushed himself to his feet again and crossed the short distance to his wardrobe, pulling out a simple mail coif, leather boots, and gauntlets. For a moment he studied them, bundled in his arms, reflecting. The boots and gauntlets he wore on every journey with the Princess, but the coif…

Must've been at the last tournament that I last wore it. That's probably reckless of me.

He slid the mail shirt over his chest and pulled on the crimson tunic Thrangus had delivered to him, feeling a bitter squeezing in his heart at the sight of the crest. Forcing himself not to think about it, he fastened a belt around his waist to keep the long chainmail and tunic from flopping loose around him while he moved, then buckled his baldric, with the Master Sword attached, on around his chest and shoulders.

His muscles tensed with the pressure on his aching back. Scabs had formed where the whip had torn through his skin; he was still sore, and any amount of contact sent varying degrees of cold, stinging pain through his body.

He stuffed his feet into his boots, slid the coif down onto his head, and pulled his gauntlets over his hands. The bandages between his skin and the leather gauntlets made them uncomfortably tight.

The image of Thrangus' face, wide-eyed and confident, swam uninvited into his mind's eye, and his heart clenched with a peculiar emotion - not quite sadness, not quite hope, but a strange blend of the two.

I… I've got to give this my best effort, he told himself resolutely, trying to believe it. I can't just give up. For Thrangus, for Zelda, and for - for Choice.


Updated 7/8