Prompt No.18
Word count: ~1900
Universe: Majora's Mask
Pairings: None (but Zelink let's be real)
Rating: K
Themes: Involuntary movement/body control/body enslavement

Muffled Scream

When the Princess of Hyrule, trudging through calf-deep snow up to a secluded cottage in the mountains, found the man she suspected had been the Hero of Time, he was feeding his goats. He didn't acknowledge her, though she supposed he must have heard her coming from half a mile down the slope; heroes were notorious for things like that.

"I'm looking for the White Warrior," she said to his back, setting her jaw when he set the feedbucket down without turning. "Have I found him?"

"Who's asking?"

She swallowed. "An old friend."

He scoffed. "I would hardly call you that, Your Highness."

Nail bit into knuckle where her hands had closed over themselves. Though she had expected him to harbor some bitterness, his callous greeting still stung. But she certainly hadn't come all this way to be put off by the cold shoulder.

"Does Hyrule need saving again?" he asked placidly, finally turning around. His eyes were like ice, cutting through the snow right into unhealed wounds. But she didn't frown.

"Hyrule is doing very well."

"Then what are you doing here?"

For a moment, the mountain and the snow and his hostility swallowed up every sound, blanketing the world in a fragile silence. Then she told him, so much more quietly than she intended, "Looking for you."

He sighed, his breath leaving him in a great, white whorl. She feared they were at an impasse—that he would turn her away. But then his mouth tugged into a frown and he said, turning towards the house, "Come inside."

She followed him, shivering. His cabin was modest, though there were telltale signs that it was his: a Hylian shield over the fireplace; an ocarina on the mantle; a stash of weapons piled in the corner; a book on the desk written in Zoran script.

"White Warrior," he echoed, shaking off his cloak. "Where did you learn that name?"

"Many places," she breathed, pulling off her boots. "That's what they called you in Umrimul, and Fordiskae, and Drehd Sol before that."

"I'd forgotten Drehd Sol," he murmured, and her heart squeezed.

"They haven't forgotten you."

He hummed, dragging a second chair toward the hearth for her. She drifted towards the warmth of the fire, and he lifted the empty kettle off the floor before turning to go out back. She took that as an invitation to make herself at home, moving to explore a little. The ocarina was familiar, small enough to fit in a child's hands. The shield was bludgeoned and worn. A chest peeked out from under his bed, gilded with a gold rim and lock. She pulled it out gently, peeling the lid open to peer inside. It was full of masks.

The lid slammed shut, nearly closing her fingers inside, and her eyes snapped up, startled.

"You would do well to mind our own business," he bit out, kicking the trunk back under the bedframe, and she swallowed, slowly getting up from the floor. He was gone before she could apologize, picking up the kettle from where he'd dropped it in his hurry to keep the masks from prying eyes, and set it over the fire. Then he sighed at her. "You won't make it back down the mountain before the storm hits. You'll have to spend the night."

She sighed, too. Someone in the village had warned her as much, but she had been so eager to finally find him…

"I don't mean to inconvenience you," she whispered, and he fixed her in an icy glare.

"Then what do you mean to do?"

She shook her head, settling in front of the fire and staring tiredly at the hungry flames. "I don't know."

They sat in silence until the kettle shouted, and then he made them both a floral mountain tea. She thanked him quietly, just breathing the steam for a while as her numb fingers gradually came back to life.

"They sing songs about you in Umrimul," she whispered, her mind filling with the reverent, bittersweet lyrics. "They loved you."

"They didn't know me."

She arched an assenting brow. "They said you swept through like a storm."

"I was younger then," he mused. "Still chasing after adventures."

"Then why did you settle here?"

"Why not?"

"You could have come home."

He studied his tea, taking a pensive drink before he answered. "No. Not Hyrule."

She stared, the question burning a hole in her throat until she finally forced it out, barely more than a whisper. "Why?"

He took another drink and tipped his head back, watching her sidelong. "There are some powers not meant for this world."

She scoffed, her own bitterness, her own yearning, coloring her voice. "And you consider yourself among them?"

He whispered, "I do now."

She frowned into the silence, turning her attention back to the fire. She wished he would just be plain. She wanted him to come home. But if he wouldn't be coerced—if he wasn't willing, or if he couldn't forgive her—then she didn't want to prolong her suffering by holding on to hope. She had held onto it for so long already.

His voice stirred her out of her reverie.

"You look exactly the way I remember."

She rolled her eyes gently. "I was a child when you saw me last."

He shook his head. "I mean before."

His eyes bored softly into hers, and their sudden familiarity made her heart ache. As then soon as it had come the moment was over, and he receded easily back into his armor.

He asked, "Are you hungry?"

"A little," she admitted, and he left her to fix them both an early supper.

The stew he made was hearty and burned comfortingly in her stomach after the long, cold journey up the mountain. He set out a veritable cloud of pelts for her beside the fire to sleep on. She suspected his failure to offer her his own bed had more to do with the trinkets that lay beneath it than any lack of manners on his part.

She settled down into the pelts in her travel clothes with her back to the hearth, watching him cross the room to his bed with the chamberstick.

"Link," she whispered, and he took too long to turn around, like he wasn't used to hearing his own name. "Why do you keep those masks under your bed?"

He sighed, turning down the sheets and climbing into bed. Finally, the words prying themselves out of him like a confession, he said, "Because they're dangerous."

And then he blew out the candle.

When she stirred in the middle of the night, he was sitting with his back against the hearth, eyes trained on her as she slept.

She sat up with a gasp, startled; it was hard to make out in the firelight, but his face had changed. His hair was too pale, and his skin was ashen, and between the vivid markings on his face, where the crystalline blue of his eyes should have been, his irises and pupils were alabaster white. His lips twitched towards a smile.

"What are you doing up at this hour?" she murmured, wiping at eyes laden with sleep.

"Watching you," he said simply.

She took a rousing breath, moving closer to the embers for warmth. She pursed her lips. "You're wearing a mask."

He puffed a laugh. "Astute of you to notice."

"You said the masks were dangerous."

"So is a sword, if you don't know how to use one."

She glanced at the chest, the gilded edge catching the glow of the fire and casting it back in a muted beam. He followed her gaze and smiled.

"Would you like to see them?" he asked, his voice quiet. Tempting. "I know you're curious."

He got to his feet before she could answer, dragging it back to the hearth and opening the lid wide. They were scattered about inside over a few protective layers of cloth, staring up and sideways soullessly. Then he was behind her, watching them with her from over her shoulder, and his body was unnaturally warm.

"They're mostly harmless," he murmured, so close to her ear, encouraging her to rummage.

Her better judgment told her to leave them alone. The bitter part of her that wanted to understand why he never came home told her to take the answers before the opportunity was gone.

"Do you remember this one, from when we were children?" He reached in and drew up a yellow mask with slanted eyes, adorned with bright ears tipped in black paint. "Keaton spirits will speak to you while you wear it, if you know where to look."

"Keaton spirits can be mischievous," she murmured warily, and she felt his mouth turn up into a smile.

"So can children."

She traced faces, shapes, textures, feathers, scales, wondering at them. He pulled out another mask, flesh-colored, that wrapped around eyelessly and curved up like a quail's feather into a second face.

"A spirit named Kamaro gave me this. He was a master dancer. But he never passed on his teachings. The mask is filled with his regrets. If you wear it, you can perform the dances he once knew."

The inside of the mask faced her hollowly. It was chilling; it was as though, without eyes and without a face, it was staring up at her, full of impatience.

"Would you like to try it?" he asked, surrounding her with his arms as he took the mask in both hands, and she sank back into him as he guided it closer.

She objected quietly, breathless, "I don't know how to dance."

"The mask will help you," he soothed, and whispered into her ear, as the cool edge of the mask touched her face, "I would love to see you dance for me."

The mask sealed to her skin, so tightly she feared she wouldn't be able to breathe. Then she was moving of the mask's accord, shedding her cloak as she nimbly got to her feet. It was as riveting as it was disconcerting: dancing so elegantly, so precisely, as her muscles obeyed each command in absolute perfection. She leapt and spun, arching her back and her neck and her limbs into the exquisite positions the dance demanded. And Link watched her from beside the hearth, the flames dancing in his colorless eyes.

But she couldn't stop. Her hands wouldn't reach for the mask, and her feet wouldn't obey when she tried to rest. She danced, helpless as a marionette as the mask pulled the strings. She danced until her lungs burned, until her feet bled. She wept and screamed and begged to stop, but the sounds were muffled from behind the mask. And Link watched her from beside the hearth, the flames dancing in his colorless eyes.

Finally, she began to overcome it, regaining the slightest control over her fingertips, over her toes. She dragged her hands down to her face, dizzy with overexertion and fear—

And then he was there, gently holding her wrists, pulling her hands away from the edge of the mask and pressing his mouth to her ear, swaying with her, running his hands slowly down her sides as the mask compelled her to dance and she helplessly obeyed.

And as he held her close, Zelda heard Link's muffled, broken screams from the other side of his mask.