Ch. 3. A Party and a Pact
In the weeks leading up to the Midsummer holiday, the entirety of Hyrule, above and below the sea, was incredibly busy. Suddenly, drab back alleys were alive with lights and banners; people scurried back and forth delivering goods to their homes; travelers arrived in the capital from every part of both worlds to see the festivities. Servants drove huge covered carts of supplies to the castle in preparation for the Royal party to be held for the nobilities there, and on the day before the party, the Crown Princess Zelda, heir to the throne of Hyrule, stared in shop windows, accompanied by her childhood friend, Link, and her sister, the "Mystery Princess", Lorelei, called Lor by her friends.
"Oooh, Link, look at this!" Zelda's face was practically mashed against a pet shop window, staring at a large grey stone in the front display. She was disguised as a normal girl, her blonde hair in two buns with two locks framing her face and wearing a simple pale pink dress, her normal tiara abandoned on her bedside table.
"It must be a pet rock," Link said with a grin. He had blue eyes and blond hair, cut shorter but still a little on the long side and falling into his eyes. He was dressed today in a green tunic, brown leather boots, and strange hat he seemed rather fond of, and though he couldn't wear them with his pale blue pages' uniform during the school year, he wore them almost every day in the summer. In addition, he had a leather belt and shoulder-strap that held a short sword and shield at his back, ready for use.
"I want it," Zelda replied, strolling into the store.
"What? Is she serious?" Lor asked, amazed, "I mean, it's a rock!" This girl wore her long blonde hair down today, and she had rose-colored eyes that leaned a little to the reddish side. She, for some reason, was wearing a pages' uniform, a pale blue, sleeveless tunic over a white shirt and pants, and silver edging. She, too, had a sword, but she wore it at her waist.
"Of course she's serious," Link muttered, rubbing his forehead and following the princess. Lor quickly followed him.
"I want that pet rock, please!" Zelda told the cashier, pointing to the rock.
"That'll be 100 rupees," the he told her, lifting the rock with some difficulty. Zelda smiled and paid the cashier, then attempted to pick up the rock. She finally managed to get it up with magic, after five minutes' experimentation using physical means. The cashier stared, wide-eyed, as the rock floated beside the girl.
"That was fun," Lor sarcastically muttered behind her.
As they left the store, Link walked up beside Zelda and whispered, "You do realize that you were just totally conned, right?"
"I was?" Zelda asked. A hundred rupees was cheap!
"Yeah, I mean, you find big rocks everywhere outside. There's ones in the desert as big as the castle!" Link explained, gesturing to the building as he did so. Zelda was amazed. The only real thing she had seen so far of the outside was the ocean above, where most stones were worn small and smooth by the waves.
"Did you learn that on the pages' camping trips?" The princess, of course, was referring to the trips the pages take at the end of the summer and winter months. She knew how Link resented the winter trips, and had even shown her an impression of the training master's explanation: A knight doesn't choose his conditions of battle. If you wanted a choice, you should have become weavers.
"Yes," Link replied, smiling at her. Zelda felt a blush creep up her face. She rubbed it a little bit, not wanting her friend to see.
"Maybe you should ask to come some time. The training master hasn't had us do any guard missions yet," Link joked.
"I think it's a little early for guard missions. I mean, that's squire work, isn't it?" Zelda teased back, skipping a little ahead, mostly because she couldn't stop blushing. What was wrong with her today! But inside, she wondered if it wouldn't really be nice to accompany them on a trip. Perhaps she would ask sometime.
"Rub it in, whydoncha?" she heard Link grumble quietly.
Water
"Well, Master Ganondorf, I added in all the factors and possible outcomes and came up with what I believe is a passable plan, also calculating the occurrence of Murphy's Law," a seemingly young girl with short brown hair and dark green, almost black eyes replied, passing up several sheets of parchment with tiny, crammed writing up to her master. She was dressed in very dark green edged in brown, under simple, relatively unadorned black armor and one paldron on her right shoulder, edged in dark silver and decorated by one red jewel where they met. She wore matching tall boots, a guard on her left wrist, and a glove on her right hand, all with one red jewel on them. Thrust in her belt was a Kendama, not good for close combat, but a good focuser for Dala's long-ranged, earth-based magic attacks. Though she kept a pair of Tiger Hook Blades, Dala rarely used them, relying solely on her magic and Kendama in battle.
"Remind me, Dala, what is Murphy's Law again?" Ganondorf asked, reading over the notes with some difficulty. But then again, Dala Mast, the rebel Kokiri, wasn't hired for her writing, just her brain.
" 'Anything that can go wrong will go wrong at the worst possible moment', sir."
"Hmm. Well, I can make sure that nothing happens to go wrong on this one, as you forgot one factor, Dala," Ganondorf replied, passing back the papers with a truly evil grin.
"What would that be, sir?" the Kokiri asked politely, blinking in surprise, "I have it all worked out, a team to infiltrate the castle and bring the princess back here, then return her before anyone knows she's missing… Why did you want that one, Master? She's not much of a threat."
"One question at a time, Dala. I need the other because she is closest to those whom the legend concerns. And the factor you forgot, Dala, is that I'm doing the job by myself, and I should have no need to bring her back here, unless Murphy's Law indeed comes to pass."
"When do you plan to put it in to action, sir?"
"The Midsummer festival."
Water
"Lor, are you sure you're sick? I mean, you're not lying like the last two years?" Link asked Lor, who lay on her bed in her pages' wing dormitory, doing her best to feign illness. Zelda knelt beside her, placing a hand on her little sister's forehead. She was slightly surprised at how genuinely ill Lor seemed today. Her little sister was a very good actor, though.
"She's burning up, Link," Zelda lied with a gentle voice, playing her part to help her sister hide her identity as the Mystery Princess, "Let her rest. Perhaps she'll be better in the morning. Hurry up and get ready, I'll see you at the party."
"Go on, Link. I'll be better tomorrow, I promise," Lor said weakly, "Anyway, being sick is much more interesting than being at some dumb, fussy old party."
"Get better soon, okay?" Link told her as he left for his own room. Zelda shut the door silently as Lor crawled out of bed, and they both heaved a sigh of relief.
"You owe me big time, little sis," Zelda whispered to Lor, helping her change into a simple red-velvet-over-white-silk, long-sleeved dress, with only a little gold embroidery and rubies to show that it belonged to royalty.
"I know, Oneechan," Lor replied, still sounding weak, and using the term for one's older sister.
"You can stop pretending to be sick now, Lor," Zelda told her. Lor merely nodded.
Lor then stared in the mirror as she rearranged her hair in such a way that it would help shadow her face without looking outlandish. In other words, it made her look somewhat shy, even more so when she was constantly looking at the ground. They topped it off with a simple gold circlet adorned with one ruby.
When Lor insisted of wearing her thigh-high combat boots, which, as Lor was quick to point out, would easily be concealed beneath the long skirt, Zelda insisted on lip color, so she'd look more like royalty and less like a maid at the Ladies' Academy for Proper Etiquette. Lor insisted on bringing her sword and shield in secret, and hiding it behind the thrones or disguising them as wall decorations, and Zelda insisted on earrings, because that was in style now.
They finally compromised at the sword and one earring, a sort of square clasp thingy with a little red jewel hanging on it, clipped on her right ear. They would hide the sword in a shadowed corner, but even if Lor didn't get to it, should something happen, there were plenty with the suits of armor and on the walls. Lor complained that the decorative blades were too dull to do much damage.
As a final touch, Zelda called on her magic to create an image of Lor asleep on the bed, then blew out the candle as the real Lor slipped near to the closed shutters and opened them, ready to sneak outside through the window. Zelda opened the door and made sure to call an audible goodbye, just to fool anyone in the hallway, and closed the door. She strode quickly down the hallway to have a final word with Link before she joined the rest of the Royal Family in another hall.
"How's Lor?" he asked, giving Zelda a worried look.
"Asleep, thank goodness," Zelda replied, pretending to look relieved. Link really did look relieved.
"She doesn't usually get high fevers when she's sick, so…" Link said, reading over the fancy script on a wall hanging.
"Umm, after Father says the opening grace, could you meet me at the balcony? It's about that thing I need to tell you," she whispered, staring in at the, for now, empty banquet hall.
"Huh? Oh, of course," Link said, giving her a smile.
"Uh, uh, thanks," Zelda replied, walking away as fast as she could. She felt like she was about to melt! Was she sick? Perhaps I'm just hungry. Yeah, that's it, hungry, she thought, nodding at how quickly she figured out the solution to the problem. She wasn't a princess for nothing, you know!
Water
"Well, Dala? What do you think? Is it passable?"
"Um, yes, sir. If I may ask, who's body are you using?"
"Young Lord Chiron mysteriously died in his sleep last night," Gannondorf replied, and vanished into the crowd of noble partygoers. Only when he was safely out of sight did Dala allow herself to drop her mask of perfect obedience and glare in his general direction, her entire body shaking with rage. She hated him, him and his goals and his tower and his blatant disregard for life of any kind.
When her first master, and her teacher, Orielle the Half-Werecat, died at Ganondorf's hands, she separated from her other two companions, also former students of Orielle, on the vow that they would not contact each other again until they were sure that their true leader was going to awaken for her second and final life. After several years of seeking information, she got a job as a tactical advisor for the one person she hated the most. Now, her ordeal was almost at an end. Dala removed a small mirror from her pocket and whispered a spell onto its surface.
After several minutes, a face finally appeared in the mirror. A young boy blinked back, surprised. Dala hardly recognized him, until his appearance shifted and he became an adult with long black hair that fell over the right side of his face, completely hiding it. Dala knew he was blind in that eye; she was there when it happened.
"Da…la…? Is that… really you?"
"Vaati. I couldn't recognize you in the form you were using… are you pretending to be a page? A straight-A student, no doubt. You were always good at creating disguises."
Vaati nodded, looking anxious. "I thought it was my best bet at information. Then you've…?"
"Yes. I've found Orielle, and she's closer to you than you think. Where are you?"
"At a party. In the castle. Disguised as a page. As usual." He said it such a way that Dala was half expecting a "duh," to follow.
"Then we're closer than you think, too. Contact Dark Link. We'll meet at the old hideout and get re-organized."
"I'll do it first thing tomorrow. It's summer break, and we won't have the summer trip 'till next week."
"You're an adult, and you're thinking about school? You pay much more attention to detail than me, then!"
Vaati smiled, then looked around, his form shifting back into a child. He covered his own mirror and Dala's also went dark. The rogue Kokiri vanished into the shadows, a single black rose growing in her stead, thorns long, curved, and cruel.
Water
"Lorelei dear, are you quite sure you're well?" the queen asked, lifting her youngest daughter's chin to see her face. Her hair was long and golden, like her daughters', and her eyes were blue. She wore a very elegant lavender silk dress and her hair was piled into curls atop her head, topped with a crown.
"I'm fine, Mother. Promise. It's just nerves. Please don't worry." Lor smiled at her mother, the same smile Zelda knew meant she was lying. But what could she be lying about?
"Just don't worry so much that you become ill for real," the king replied, giving both of his daughters a hug, then went to stand beside the queen. The king looked different from the queen, with black hair and brown eyes. Even though Zelda thought otherwise, he often joked that the girls were lucky to look like their mother. The king also wore silk: a tunic of rich reds and blues, and a sword at his waist, and a crown on his head.
They walked into the banquet hall to a fanfare, both princesses behind the king and queen, Lorelei closest to the wall and cringing with every blast of the trumpet as though it pierced through her skull. The rest of the guests stood and waited until the royal family sat in their own seats. Then they sat themselves and waited for the king to give the opening speech.
"Nobles of the realm, I welcome you to the annual Midsummer feast…" Zelda tuned out the speech as she looked for familiar faces. There was Link, next to his father, who had temporarily returned from duty above. Zelda heard his mother died when he was little. He said he was only three, and couldn't remember much, but he said 'good morning' to a picture of her every day. Zelda had seen it. His mother was very pretty. Just like him… Zelda thought with a sigh, and suddenly gave herself a mental shake. She tore her gaze from Link and looked around again.
There was the Baron and Baroness of Highreach, up on Death Mountain, and their young daughter, Katilin, playing with a doll to pass time. Across the room was a small group of Rito, mainly their chief and a few others of signifigance. Zelda always found most of the Rito exceptionally dull people, as their talk consisted chiefly of weather patterns and mail to be delivered, or omens their guardian spirit saw in the winds.
She peered into the shadows. Though near impossible to see, the Sheikah had always been and still remained the guardians of the Royal Family. Each member had, since birth, their own personal guardian that followed in the shadows, but Lor had completely refused to allow her own to follow her anywhere, as she was learning to defend herself, and should need no help. Worse off, Lor seemed to have a sort of sixth sense that told her when she was being followed, and was very good at slipping out of their reach. Zelda was also good at sneaking away, but she rarely went farther than the castle gates. Aha! A glint from an eye told her that the Sheikah were indeed in the shadowed corners, watching silent as… cats. Really fast, scary cats.
Zelda looked over the crowd once more, a little sad to see no Goron representatives this year. Sometimes they came, sometimes they didn't. Lacking a government in Hyrule, they only ventured down every once and awhile from the wild Northlands, but when they did, the parties were always livelier.
The boring speech ended, the music began, and Zelda stood up and waded into the crowd. Lor usually ran for the nearest exit about that time, but instead, she also walked into the throng of guests, keeping her head down, and walked to the balcony, where her sword and shield were. Zelda thought she looked rather pale, but shrugged it off, and began to chatter amicably with the other partygoers.
#Fire#
Lorelei wasn't feeling well at all. Her head swam. Every time she took a step, she felt like her legs were jelly. And everything was burning up around her, even in the unusually cold nighttime air. She clutched at the railing to steady herself, one hand on her head.
"Milady?" an all-too-familiar voice asked. Pasco. Lor whirled around, startled. Her head ached again and she grabbed the rail to keep from falling.
"I'm… I'm all right!" Lor gasped, pushing past Pasco to get to the door. Suddenly, her legs stopped working and she collapsed.
"Milady, I think you need to see a healer," Pasco said, picking her up.
"No! No healers! I'm fine…!" Lor cried, keeping her face averted. Please, please, please, don't let him see my face, Lor silently prayed, but nobody up there was listening at the moment. She squeezed her eyes shut just a little too late.
"…Lor?" Pasco asked, confused. Lor merely nodded, ashamed. She never thought her charade would end like this. Now she could never go back to school again.
"So… this is why you never come to parties?" Lor nodded again.
"Why…?" Don't ask! Lor thought frantically. "Why didn't you ever…" CRASH! A cloud of dust and debris erupted from a far wall, and a large troll clubbed its way into the room. Lor wrenched herself from Pasco's grasp and grabbed her sword and shield, not even bothering to buckle the sheath onto her belt. She dashed out into the hall, trying to stay conscious.
The Sheikah guards had all jumped out of their hiding places, attacking the troll. The commotion caused even more dust to go up, obscuring everyone's sight.
"Your Highness!" Lor looked over her shoulder. Through the dust, she could barely see the outline of a man. Another headache attacked her body.
"Your Highness! This way!" Lor blinked again, looking for the monster. There it was, with a bunch of Sheikah and knights and Link and Zelda all fighting it. She should be there, too…
"Your Highness, please hurry! The Sheikah can take care of it. Please, follow me!" A tight grip settled around Lor's wrist and yanked her out into a hallway. The door slammed shut audibly.
"Thanks…?" Lor said, confused and dizzy. Her head was throbbing.
"Hello, Your Highness," came the voice again, this time, the face was clearer. It was Lord Chiron, the young nobleman in charge of the fief Whitetower, a small estate and town overlooking the ocean, built near the ruins of a city also named Whitetower. Lorelei had seen him in the castle several times. Lord Chiron's pale blue hair was pulled back, just like always. In fact, he looked the same as ever, but with one exception… his eyes were glowing red. Suddenly, Lor realized who it was. The man at the ruin. The one who controlled monsters.
"You!" Lor cried, trying to stand up. An unusually strong hand kept her seated with her back on the wall. She reached for her sword, but it was nowhere to be found. Oh no! She must have dropped it when the man grabbed her wrist!
"Ah. You're smarter than I thought," the man said, a bit of magic glowing on his free hand, which he touched against Lorelei's forehead. She wanted to scream, but bit down hard on her cheek instead. She would never give whoever-he-was the satisfaction of seeing her cry. Soon, the pain was gone.
"What did you do to me!" Lor demanded, and regretted it instantly. The sounds of crashing and banging from the ballroom coupled with her voice echoing down the hall intensified her headache several times.
"Nothing much. You're going to work for me now."
"And what do you want! The gold in the treasury? The castle!" Lor growled, keeping her voice quiet so as not to increase her headache again.
"Nothing like that, dear. What I want is much, much more important. Have you ever heard of a blade called the Master Sword?" the man asked with a glare.
"Blade of evil's bane, right? That's just a fairy tale, and I doubt that you'd qualify to use it," Lor scoffed at him, returning the glare. She wondered how long the conversation would last before he discovered she was playing dumb. As a princess, she knew that it existed.
"But it's not just a fairy tale. It's true," the man replied, "the Master Sword really does exist. It's enshrined somewhere in the depths of this castle."
"And you want it."
"No. I want what it seals," the man said with an evil grin, "The thing you're going to help me get. The Triforce."
"Just another fairy tale," Lorelei replied, being careful to continue the act of complete ignorance, "Look, whoever-you-are, what you're looking for is a myth. A story. Nothing but a bunch of words in a moldy old book." She hoped that this man couldn't see her shaking. The Triforce. He wanted the ultimate power. Lor started to feel very dizzy.
"But before you can even get to the Master Sword, you need to unlock the door. So, you're going to lead your friend, whats-his-name… Link, that's it, you'll lead Link to the three Spiritual Stones, which are the keys, and bring him back here to draw the Master Sword, freeing the path to the Sacred Realms, where the Triforce lies."
"Okay, I get it now. Joke's over. Where's the hidden moving picture recorder?" Lor asked, faking a giggle and looking around.
"I must admit, Lorelei, you are a very skilled actor. You had me fooled for quite awhile. But you know exactly what I'm talking about, don't you?" the man said with a not-very-nice laugh.
"Alright. You caught me. What if I refuse to help you?" Lor asked, giving up the act. She cringed as a resounding crash from the party hall knocked a corner of the hall away, allowing the sounds to come flooding in.
"Then I'll kill your friends, all of them, one by one. And I'll make you watch. And the last thing they'll know before they perish is that they could have lived, if you had helped me." Lor took one look at his face and knew he was completely serious.
"And as for your first question, that spell I put on you is merely a safeguard. If you try to tell anyone about any of this, then you'll immediately forget the attempt. And if you refuse to obey an order…" A wave of pain blasted through Lor's body, so strong, she couldn't even scream. Her head felt like two of the floating cities above had collided. Soon, the pain vanished, and Lorelei remembered no more.
#Fire#
Lor was laying on something warm and soft, with more soft things wrapped around her. She couldn't move.
It felt like death.
Lor slowly opened one eye a crack, just to get her bearings. There was a stone ceiling. A strong soapy smell overwhelmed her senses. Those warm things wrapped around her must be blankets. She was lying on a cot in the castle infirmary.
She opened her eyes all the way, blinking as she adjusted to the light. There were three people at her bedside, talking. Lor closed them again and listened to the conversation, trying to identify them by voice.
"If she was really the princess, then why…?" Link, she thought. Hearing his voice made her heart hurt. If what happened at the party was real, she was going to betray her best friend.
"You know Lorelei as well as I do, Link. She can't stand special treatment. And she knows that all the teachers fear the wrath of the Royal Family." Oneechan. She would betray her, too.
"And if they knew she was a princess, then they'd give her a passing grade, even if she didn't try hard. She would never have learned a thing." Pasco. That rat! He must have told them everything!
"But why did she hide it from us? We're her friends! We would have kept it a secret!" Link again. Lor sat up, being careful not to make noise. Her head didn't hurt anymore, and she wasn't dizzy. The castle healers had done a good job.
"I'm sorry," Lor said, startling all three of her guests. Then, to her absolute horror, she began to cry.
"I'm sorry! The monster came and I wasn't feeling good and I couldn't do anything and my head hurt and I've been hiding everything from you and I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!"
"Hush, Lor. Take a deep breath," Zelda replied, hugging her sister.
"But if you really were sick, you shouldn't have gone at all," Pasco said, sitting down on the cot, "That monster was tough stuff! Way too tough for a little cutie like you to handle," he teased with a toothy grin. Lor blushed with embarrassment and smacked him across the face. It seemed to be Pasco's lifelong goal to annoy her to death.
"Don't you imply that I'm weak again or I'll smack you!" Lor cried.
"Don't say it after you've already hit me!"
Zelda and Link watched the spectacle, semi-amused, as Pasco traded more half-insults for Lor's fists.
"It's good to see Lor back to her usual self," Zelda said cheerily, ducking a pillow, now leaking feathers.
"Um, Zelda, what was it that you wanted to tell me? The monster kinda barged in before you got a chance," Link said. Suddenly Pasco's and Lor's shouts seemed to grow quieter.
"… My dreams are getting worse."
"What?"
"We need to act soon. Before the world falls into chaos."
Hi! It's me again, Kendansa! How is everyone? I hope you're enjoying the story. I don't really have much to announce, and there are no extras this time… I kinda used up my page limit. Not that there is one, but I try to keep my chapters under nine pages long so you don't get bored reading them. This one wasn't very violent, was it? But it certainly was important. Please R&R! I haven't gotten a review in so long! Chow!