A few quick notes:
1. This story is rated T due to some very violent content.
2. I intend to update weekly. I don't write that fast, but the writing is all done. I don't like when a story I'm interested in dies without an ending, so I figured I would make sure this story was finished before I posted any part of it.
3. I don't own any Legend of Zelda character or setting. I'm just borrowing them and I hope Nintendo won't mind too much.
4. Thank you so much for reading!
Chapter 1: 1500 years later
It was still pretty dark. The sun was technically up, if barely, but dark clouds covered the sky, so that the dawn's light was all but non existent. Still, it was bright enough for Link to spot the supervisor waiting by the door of the workshop.
Link, who had already been walking as fast as he could, started to run and cast his eyes downward to avoid having to look at the man waiting for him. He stopped in front of the supervisor and waited, his head hanging and his eyes locked on the supervisor's boots. His heart was beating a bit hard, and not just from the run.
He was in trouble: he was beyond late, and the supervisor was going to discipline him. He very much wanted to run away, but then what? He didn't exactly want to starve and he'd never be able to find another position if he ran away from this one.
The supervisor's upper lip curled with disdain as he glared at the kid. All the workers knew that their quota this month was especially high and that everyone needed to do their very best. Being late this month was just not an option, and all the workers understood that. In fact, most of them had been showing up early almost every day.
"You are late." He said.
"I... I'm sorry, I... "
"Shut up."
Link gulped and kept quiet.
"Do you remember anything special about this month's quota? Answer."
"It... it's... big. I... I've been doing pretty g..."
"Shut up!"
Link hung his head a bit lower, fighting with all his might the urge to run away screaming.
"Do you remember what happened the last time our quota wasn't filled?"
It was a rhetorical question: it was not the kind of thing you could forget. Presidential Guards had come to the shop and executed one supervisor and three workers. Link nodded.
"Why are you late, then?"
The supervisor smiled and his menacing tone transformed into baby talk.
"Let me guess... wikle Winky was up all night because of big bad nightmares again?"
Link felt the blood rushing to his face. Nightmares were exactly what had happened, but he was not about to admit it. He had tried to explain the nightmares the last time he had been late, months earlier. He had tried his best to explain that he couldn't wake up until the nightmares were done with him, no matter how hard anyone yelled at him or shook him. As the supervisor had just demonstrated, all anybody had understood was that he was complaining about bad dreams, and he was going to be mocked forever for it.
He had not been asked to talk, so he just shook his head.
The supervisor switched back to threatening mode.
"You will work later tonight to make up for this. And you can forget about your breakfast, it's long gone."
Link nodded his understanding. If that was his only punishment, he was getting off amazingly easy: he had expected to be severely beaten.
The next moment, he was sagging to his knees and clutching his stomach, following the supervisor's sinking his knee into it.
"Get up and get to work." The supervisor said.
The supervisor stepped away from the door and watched as the worker got up, still clutching his stomach, and walked into the shop nearly bent over. The supervisor was still furious: he had wanted to do a lot more to the kid than a knee to the stomach, but he needed him to be able to work. Link was, maddeningly enough, a very good worker, and even if he had only been average, replacing a worker would have meant having a vacancy for nearly a day - not something they could afford at the moment. He had to get back to work himself, too, so he followed Link inside and shut the heavy door behind him.
Link hurried to his workstation, avoiding the eyes of pretty well everyone in the shop. He figured that if they did miss their quota, everyone would seize the fact that he had been late to blame him for it. Considering that Link had already exceeded the share of work assigned to him, a full three days before the end of the quota-month, that wasn't fair at all. That fact wouldn't stop anyone, however.
As if to prove him right in this intuition, his station neighbours came down on him as soon as he got to his place, before he had even picked up a chunk of wood and his hand axe. On most days, they didn't get started picking on him until lunch.
"Oooo... look who's here!" Koma said from his own position, right in front of Link.
"Why, it's our dear pointy eared coward!" Belly answered.
"Oh, goody! I was afraid he had been scared to death by a house fly!" Odupo said.
Link sighed but elected not to answer. They'd get tired of talking eventually, and in the meantime, he just had to concentrate on cutting down his piece of wood into a decent shield: thick enough to be solid, thin enough to be light, and of the mandated size.
"So, Link..." Belly asked. "You must have seen the sun on the way in."
"Just a bit, it was too cloudy." Link answered, hoping this was the start of a civilized conversation.
"You know, the sun can set things on fire. Didn't it scare you?"
Koma and Odupo snickered. Link rolled his eyes and went back to ignoring his neighbours as best as he could.
"I don't get why he hasn't quit yet." Koma said. That was an exaggeration: Koma knew as well as anyone that people who left their job usually never found another one. "Notice how he always walks as far as he can from the fire pits?"
"He's really scared when they go out though. It gets too dark for him." Odupo said.
"He makes nothing but shields, either." Koma said. "He's too afraid of the swords. I'm surprised he can work with a blunt hand axe."
Link glanced at his axe nervously. As a matter of fact, he hated having to work with it. Thankfully, his station "buddies" were not looking at him and didn't notice. They merely went on with their conversation, all the while talking about him as if he weren't there. By lunchtime, they were done making fun of all his fears and had moved on to their next favourite topic: monsters.
Oh, they simply loved talking about monsters. Stalfos and Re-Dead were their favourites, because they were the ones that got the most reaction out of Link. Since the whole fun of talking about monsters was that Link was scared of them and consequently disliked hearing about them, the best monsters to talk about were the ones that scared him the most.
They didn't rest during lunch, either. Despite his hunger, Link barely managed to swallow the cheese sandwich that was brought to him. He kept picturing a re-dead holding him like he was holding the bread, and feeding off his life.
Unlike the workers, the supervisors were allowed a half-hour long sit-down lunch in a small cafeteria off the main working area.
The supervisor who had been waiting outside for Link, Migo, put his tray in front of Zelda's and sat opposite her.
"That boy!" He said.
Zelda looked up from her Cuckoo stew, puzzled.
"That Link, I mean." Migo said while dipping his bread into his own stew.
"Which one?" Zelda asked. There were two workers called Link in the shop.
"Which one? The one who was late this morning!"
"Ah yes," Said another supervisor, sitting down next to Migo. "The pointy eared wonder."
"Ah, see?" Migo said. "Ejar knew who I meant right away!"
"No, he knew who was late this morning." Zelda said with a touch of annoyance in her voice.
"I just don't get this kid." Migo said. "He's lucky he's good with his hands, because he certainly has nothing else going for him."
"I'll say." Ejar said. "Late twice in three months. I hear you let him off easy, Migo?"
"Kind of had to, didn't I? He wouldn't be much good with his arms broken."
"So what was he late for this time?" Zelda asked.
"He didn't say. I'm getting him to work tonight to make up for lost time, so all in all, I'm pretty happy he was late."
"Why?" Ejar asked.
"He lost half an hour this morning, I'm making him work at least two hours tonight. I think I can reach our shield quota tonight, with him. We're not that far off. How are you doing on swords?" He asked Zelda.
"On schedule. I think we'll reach our quota tomorrow. We've all been doing extra hours, but it's paid off."
"Are you staying two hours tonight, too?" Ejar asked Migo.
"Have to. Link'll sneak out, otherwise. I mean, most people don't like being out at night, and I'll bet he likes it even less."
"Are you sure you want to make him stay that late?" Zelda asked. "I know last night's incidents were not near here, but still..."
"Oh, puh-lease." Migo said. "They were in New Hyrule, last night. And there was what, fifteen? More than ten usually means there's none the next night."
"Not really," Ejar said. "Half the time, there's still some the next night, just less. My cousin was one, the night right after that dozen last winter."
"Sorry," Zelda said. "How old was he?"
"Thirty, I think. Oldest person I've ever known. Not a single tooth left, white as snow. There's no way he'd still be alive now even if he hadn't been murdered." Ejar said.
Migo shrugged.
"Last night was still beyond Death Mountain," He said. "And they don't travel that fast."
"It once went from Lake Hylia one night to far past the desert the next." Zelda said. "They're not even sure there's only one murderer. Come on, Migo. It's just not smart to be out that late."
"Like being home is safer!" Ejar said, rolling his eyes.
Zelda insisted.
"Not staying late will keep at least one of them safe. Besides, the houses are usually attacked later in the night, so Migo'll be home during the dangerous period anyway."
"Oh, fine." Migo said. "I'll only make him stay one hour tonight, and one more tomorrow. That's about as long as I can stand to look at him anyway. I wish boys were allowed to grow their hair so he could hide those ears."
"I wish people weren't allowed to name their kids Link." Ejar said. "Zelda, I can see. They were the princesses and all, and it's cute to give a girl a princess name. But Link? It's like asking for the kid to go off and get himself killed before he turns 6. They may as well make him wear green."
Migo almost choked on his milk.
"Don't talk about that Din blasted colour!" he cried. "What are you, crazy? You want the shop to suddenly crumble or what?"
Ejar snickered. Before he could start making fun of Migo's superstition, Zelda changed the subject.
"Link is not that bad of a name. Nobody knows exactly how many heroes there's been, but historians are pretty sure it's more than 20, and only one of them lost against Ganon. That's a pretty good average."
Migo snorted.
"Yeah, well, one was enough, wasn't it? Ganon ruled for about 600 years!"
"Yep." Ejar agreed. "Because unlike Ganon, the Great Hero never bothered to come back and try again."
"You know, Zelda," Migo said. "Maybe your name is getting to you. First you convince me not to keep that Hylian wannabe too late, and now you're defending his name?"
Zelda rolled her eyes.
"Don't be silly," she said.
"And those ears..." Migo said. "I hate Hylians, and that's almost what they make him look like."
"I don't care about his ears, other than the fact they're ugly," Ejar said. "The Hylians are gone, so what's the point of hating them? Besides, their ears were supposed to be really long, not just a bit pointy."
"It's because they're gone that I hate them! They ran away when Ganon took over!" Migo said. "Quite nice of them, disappearing right when Hyrule needed folks who could use magic."
"There's a theory," Zelda said. "That they didn't run away at all. Some people think that Ganon spread the rumour that they had fled, but actually just killed them all."
"Why would he do that?" Ejar asked. "Lie about killing them, I mean."
The bell that signalled the end of lunch break rang. All the supervisors promptly got up and headed back to the main room. Zelda, Migo and Ejar got up with the rest, and Zelda waited for the rumble of chairs being backed away from the tables to subside before answering.
"Don't know." She said, shrugging. "Dishonour their memory, I guess."
The conversation ended there, as Migo stayed on the central aisle of the shop, around which the shield making stations were located, while Ejar and herself turned left, towards one of the two sword making sections of the shop.
Link sighed and cast a glance at the high windows far above the shop's door. They were so dirty that they were hardly nice to look at, but they still kind of allowed him to see outside, and that was some comfort. Of course, they were so near the high ceiling that all you could see out of them was the sky, and since they were filthy, you only saw a grey-brown version of the sky. When the day was cloudy or rainy, like today, this resulted in a grey-brown version of a grey sky: not a cheerful view by any standard.
Link still needed to look at them every now and then, because otherwise, the shop just felt too closed in and Link was very afraid of closed-in places. He needed to see an exit to be comfortable. The windows were the closest thing to that in the shop, because the only door was shut so tight that it let no light in at all. In the dark shop, it was just about invisible unless you were standing right next to it. Also, the door was kept locked, and to Link, a locked door was even worse than no door at all.
The windows were not exits either, really. They were too high to access, too narrow to go through, and they didn't actually open. Still, if push came to shove, it would be possible to pile up some tables, climb to the windows, break them, break the bit of wall between them, and get through. If anyone did that, they would be about two stories above ground, but they would be outside.
Link returned his attention to the shield he was working on, wondering if the day was nearly over yet. He was nearing the end of his resistance to being inside the shop, which was quickly getting darker, and therefore more threatening. He was just about ready to throw his hand axe as far away from himself as he could before it could hurt him. He was getting increasingly certain that someone would suddenly get the idea that throwing him into one of the fire pits would be hilarious. The air, thick with smoke, made him feel like he may choke, and it was getting harder not to imagine all kinds of things jumping out from the shadows. He didn't think he'd be able to keep himself from screaming if Belly, Koma and Odupo started talking about monsters again.
Somehow, he managed to keep under control until the windows were almost completely dark and the bell signalling the end of the day rang. Belly, Odupo and Koma threw their tools down and rushed to the door with the rest of the workers. The supervisors glowered at their staff for leaving right away.
Link stayed where he was, knowing he had to work overtime. He did drop his axe and pushed it away, however. Taking a break might just give him the extra endurance he'd need to get through the extra hours he would likely have to work.
The break did not last long. Within a minute, the supervisor who had punished him that morning was in front of him.
Migo's upper lip curled again, and he made no effort to keep the dislike he felt out of his voice when he spoke.
"Get back to work! We're staying for an hour tonight, and an hour tomorrow."
Link picked up his axe again and set to work.
The hour passed relatively fast for Link. The supervisor did not talk at all, concentrating on sanding and painting the shields that Link and Koma had finished cutting but Belly and Odupo had not got to. When he finished that, he started cutting more shields himself. The silence between them was a huge relief from his station neighbours constant chatter.
He was a bit surprised when the supervisor dropped his hand axe and the shield he had been working on and told him he could go. He looked up at the windows, and found he could barely make them out: the sky outside was now even darker than the inside of the shop, which was no small feat. A shudder ran through him and he just managed to keep himself from whimpering.
"O… okay." He said. "I'm sorry again for being late. Are... are we close to the quota?"
Migo, who was already on his way to the door, stopped and turned around, looking profoundly annoyed.
"Yes, we're close. We should be able to finish sometimes tomorrow, unless the President stays too long. You'd think he'd at least have the decency not to visit on the same month as he increases our quota."
"The... the President? He's visiting? Tomorrow? Here?"
"Yes. Are you coming or do you want to spend the night here?"
Link deposited his hand axe and his shield and followed the supervisor to the door.
"Hmm... can I ask you... which way do you live?" He asked when they reached the door, which the supervisor unlocked with a key attached around his neck.
"Well, let's see." Migo said. "Everybody in the upper class lives in the South part of town, don't they? And I'm in the upper class, so take a wild guess, genius. Where do you THINK I live?"
"In the South of Town," Link replied with a sigh.
"Right." Migo said. "And since you live in the North of Town, we're going in opposite directions. So no, I'm not walking you home. You're what, 16? You can walk yourself home."
Link nodded and followed the supervisor out, his heart already accelerating. He stopped outside the door, wondering if he really would be allowed to sleep in the shop and whether he wanted to.
Migo rolled his eyes when the kid stopped right in front of the door and shoved him out of the way to lock it. He checked it, and without another glance at Link, quickly set on the road going south from the shop. Link watched him walk for a few seconds, then turned around and looked at the road he had to take home, which went east. Link had to walk on this road for about 5 minutes before turning on his own North-South oriented street. He would then have to walk another 5 to 10 minutes before he got to his dorm.
That meant almost 15 minutes alone in the dark, with a murderer on the loose. Link did not read and nobody had shared news with him on that day, so he had no idea the previous night's murders had been North of Death Mountains, in New Hyrule. Not that knowing would really have reassured him: he believed the murders were committed by a bunch of monsters lurking in the night, everywhere, and who were always just waiting for someone stupid enough to be out after dark.
Link gulped and pulled his tunic away from his neck. He felt like he was choking. He started breathing faster, and couldn't seem to move. He wanted to scream for help, but only managed a whimper. The sound, weak as it was, at least seemed to unlock his legs, and he sprinted down the road.
He tripped twice, but met no monsters. He arrived safely at his dorm, exhausted and trembling, but intact safe for his scraped knees and hands. Others in town were not so lucky on that night.
Zelda was stopped by Ejar on her way out of the shop. He offered to walk her home, and after a short hesitation, she accepted. If nothing else, a bit of conversation on the way home would be nice.
"I can't believe the President is coming tomorrow," Ejar said almost as soon as they set on the Southern Road. "Right near the end of a work-month where our quota almost doubled, talk about bad timing!"
Zelda nodded.
"There's got to be a reason for it," She said. "Every President does it; they all spend a lot of time visiting shops. Maybe they're inspecting the quality of the merchandise? Telling off the managers when necessary?"
"Don't know," Ejar said. "They're all the same on everything, anyway. I remember the last three Presidents - I was too young to remember the one before that - but I've never seen any actual change from one to another."
"Hmm. The earliest election I remember was when I was 8. My parents were really excited because they really liked the new candidate. As far as I can remember, they hated him as much as the old President within a month. It was the same when I was 13."
"They died a few years ago, didn't they?"
Zelda nodded. "Three years ago." she said. "And in the last election... do you remember the campaign?"
"Yeah, I do. This candidate really seemed different. I fell for it, as much as I hate to admit it."
"I did too. I'm blaming it on wishful thinking."
Ejar laughed.
"You know you're going to get a bit of attention tomorrow, don't you?"
"Oh, yes. Another thing that's the same with all the Presidents. They all love historical names. At least there's five Zelda's in the shop, and two Links, so he won't concentrate on me TOO much."
They were almost to Zelda's front step now.
"Since you walk home by yourself usually," Ejar said, "I'm guessing your servant works somewhere else than at the shop? You don't have to wait too long for her to get home and cook dinner, do you? Mine works closer to my place than I do, so my dinner is already started when I arrive."
"I don't have a servant," Zelda said. "I don't feel right asking a lower class, with more physical work than mine, to do my chores."
They were on Zelda's front step now, but she had turned toward Ejar, as if challenging him to justify having a live-in servant. Ejar nodded, acknowledging her point, and had the good taste to look slightly embarrassed.
"I'm really careful not to overwork mine," He said defensively. "He just cooks my dinner and cleans up a bit. I rather think hiring them is doing workers a favour: they get their own room, even if it's the living room... I mean, at least they don't sleep with ten or fifteen more people; and they get a supervisor dinner. In addition to living in the South of Town, which is still safer than the North."
Zelda smiled gently. She could tell Ejar felt a bit guilty, and she really didn't think he had any reason to. He was only taking advantage of one of the privileges of being in the higher class, just like the great majority of them. What she had told Ejar was mostly the rationalization that she had trained herself to believe in order to be less bitter about not having the servant she should have been entitled to. Her smile had the intended effect as Ejar seemed to relax again.
"Thank you for your company," She said.
Ejar smiled and blushed.
"Pleasure's all mine," he said. "Listen. I know I'm a bit older than you are..."
Zelda couldn't help smiling. At 19, Ejar was only one year older than she was, and it was quite obvious that he was only bringing it up because he wanted to appear more mature.
"... But anyway," Ejar continued. "If you don't mind, I'd really like to... to get to know you better. That was nice, walking with you today. We could do it again tomorrow, what do you think?"
Zelda lost her smile and sighed.
"I really did enjoy your company, Ejar, but..."
She stopped. Ejar looked so disappointed that she suddenly felt like the meanest person in the world.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I don't mind spending a bit of time with you, I really don't, but I..."
"It's okay!" Ejar interrupted her. "I'll see you tomorrow, all right?"
With that, he turned his back on her and left, looking very much like she had just broken his heart. She sighed again, unlocked her door and got in.
Link went straight to his dorm's kitchen, looking very much forward to whatever he would find there. His lunch time sandwich had seemed even smaller than usual, and he had spent the whole afternoon longing for more food. He found a plate on the table, in front of his assigned chair, and sat down with a reassured smile. He had half expected someone to steal his dinner, despite the dorm's strict rules.
Even though he was still out of breath from his run, he inhaled his cuckoo drumstick in a few bites, and the two slices of tomatoes did not last much longer. He then ate his bread, cleaning the tomato juice and cuckoo fat from the bottom of his plate with it. All this took less than three minutes, and did next to nothing to calm his hunger. He stared at the plate, trying to will food back on to it. It didn't work, of course.
Link got up and put his plate back in the cupboard with the other ones. He noticed some of them still had a bit of fat or juice on them and for an instant, wished he was rude enough to lick them clean. He wasn't, so he closed the cupboard door and joined the common room.
His roommates sat around in small groups, chatting or playing games on the dirt floor. Link joined the two of his many roommates he got along with the best: Kariko and Dekussay.
Kariko was a girl with a severely scarred forehead and cheek and one missing eye. She had been attacked by a giant spider when she was 4 years old, and the monster had almost bitten half of her head off. She was very bitter about her disfiguration and was not friendly with anyone except for Link and Dekussay. She was almost constantly talking, and a good part of her speech consisted of insults and complaints. Link and Dekussay just ignored most of them, which seemed to suit Kariko just fine.
Dekussay was a boy three years younger than Link, and like Kariko, he had been attacked in his youth. The resemblance with Kariko ended there, as Dekussay had been attacked by a human and his wounds had healed without any visible scar. In his case, the permanent damage had been done to his spirit, and had left him afraid of everyone. He kept mostly to himself, and even Link and Kariko had a hard time getting more than a few words out of him at a time. For everyone else in Hyrule, Dekussay may as well have been mute.
"Hey," Link said, sitting down next to Dekussay.
"You're late. He was worried." Kariko said, pointing to Dekussay. "Of course, he's always worried, so no big change there. I wasn't, though. I'm sure you run faster than any monster."
"Sorry." Link said. "I had to work longer because I was late this morning."
"Sorry." Dekussay said. He sounded utterly miserable. "I TRIED to wake you up. Were you punished?"
"Just a kick in the stomach and no breakfast." Link said. "And the extra work. Don't worry about it, nobody can wake me up when I'm having those dreams. Thanks for trying, though." He smiled, trying to look like being late really was no big deal. "How about you? How were your days?"
"Fiiiine," Kariko said. "Unless you don't like everyone staring at you all day, again. They won't admit to it, either. Bunch of jerks. I'm the best worker in the place, the rest are all either super lazy or they spend all their time telling on everyone else that's not working. I picked twice as many tomatoes as anyone else today. The Din blasted supervisor said that I didn't, of course. She hates me because I'm smarter than she is."
Link nodded to the familiar tirade and turned to Dekussay, who worked as a cook and cleaner in the bomb shop.
"How about you?" He asked.
Dekussay shrugged. "Nothing special." He said.
"Nothing EVER goes on at your shop, according to you." Kariko said. "The whole place could blow up and you wouldn't tell us because it would take more than five words. Come on... nobody pissing you off?"
"Not really." Dekussay answered.
"How was breakfast? Lunch?" She asked.
"One of the cooks made himself a supervisor's lunch."
"Did they catch him?" Link asked, his eyes round with the sheer astonishment that someone could have that kind of nerve.
Dekussay shook his head. "Says he's doing it again tomorrow."
Kariko then proceeded to describe what they had for lunch and breakfast at the farm, at great length and in quite unflattering terms. Link had to admire her ability to talk for ten minutes just to describe an egg for breakfast and a lettuce sandwich for lunch, but it was making him even hungrier. He chimed in as soon as she paused for breath, just to change the topic of the conversation
"The President is going to visit my shop tomorrow."
"Ooooohhh," Kariko said. "Aren't you special! He visited the farm three months ago, I didn't make a fuss about it."
That was a blatant lie. Kariko had talked of nothing else for weeks. If the President knew one tenth of the things she had said about him, he would have had her and possibly the whole dorm executed.
"He's going to talk to you." Dekussay said. He sounded as though this was a terrible thing.
"Probably not too long," Link answered. "Nobody likes looking at those for too long." He pointed to his ears with his index fingers.
"How do you think they like looking at my face?" Kariko asked. Said face had turned a bright red from anger, except for the scarred tissue, which looked very white by comparison.
"Sorry," Link said. "I just hope he doesn't find them interesting and end up talking to me MORE."
"He might." Dekussay said. "Maybe you shouldn't go."
"I can't do that. They'll never take me back in if I miss so close to the end of the quota month."
"It's just so cute how you'd be even more of a coward if you weren't afraid of what would happen." Kariko said.
Link didn't know what to answer, and Kariko took over the conversation, ranting about the President, until the dorm owners sent everyone to bed. Link and Dekussay proceeded to the boys' bedroom, upstairs, and Kariko left for the girls' bedroom, which was adjacent to the common room.
Link took his boots off and got in bed. He was exhausted, and fell asleep within seconds.
He suddenly found he was having a lot of trouble breathing. He tried to get up to get help. The bedroom was empty, so he walked to the door to the corridor and tried to open it, but it was stuck.
Link, gasping for air, tried his best to open it, without success. He turned sideways and tried to break through with his shoulder, but the door did not budge at all.
Link could not breathe at all by now. He kept pounding on the door, trying to attract attention, but the door was too soft, his fists made no noise on it. He used the last bit of his air to cry out, but no sound came out.
He collapsed against the door, and a cold feeling started creeping over him. It wasn't exactly painful, even the burning sensation in his lungs seemed to have subsided. Still, he desperately wanted to stop it, even if it meant feeling the pain in his chest again. He was powerless, though, and the cold sensation completely washed over him, leaving him in total darkness.
Then, he felt something similar to a slap in the face. He got up, confused. He had died, he knew he had. His eyes widened with terror as he suddenly wondered if he had been turned into a re-dead. He checked himself over and cried with relief. He was still himself, he was not an undead monster. His relief was short lived, however. He had died, he was certain that he had. So how was he still alive? Was he really, or was he a ghost that didn't know it?
He was in the shop, lying next to his workstation. He got up, and Belly, Koma and Odupo made fun of him for falling. He shrugged them off and started banging the sword he had been working on. He had never worked on them before, so he didn't really know what he was doing. He supposed banging it with the mallet, against the flat stone made it thinner and straighter, but it was really more of a guess than anything else. The sword had a pretty blue handle that he supposed he had attached to it, but he didn't remember doing it. He didn't remember anything about the morning, just that he thought he had died, asphyxiated.
He heard a sharp cry to his right. Belly was screaming. She had been too close to the fire, and she was burning. Horrified, Link took a step back from her, but since he had switched position with her and was now between her and the fire, this was not a good idea. He fell into the pit.
The pain was even worse than Link had ever imagined. The fire was engulfing him, turning his body itself into fire. The pain was impossible to endure. Link was screaming, but his damaged throat could not emit a sound. He tried to get up, but his legs crumbled under him, turning to ashes. He tried pushing himself out with his arms, but they too, crumbled. Link had time to briefly wonder why he was still alive, then the fire started growing colder and darker.
Like before, Link tried to fight it, but once again, there was absolutely nothing he could do. He felt his chest crumble like his legs and arms had, and even though he was burning, he was again overtaken by a feeling of icy coldness. All his senses seemed to stop working, and there was nothing anymore.
Then, the slap again.
Link jerked up, breathing hard. He found himself surrounded by assassins, and each of them had a sword pointed straight at him.
"The worst monsters are people." Dekussay's voice said from next to him.
When Link turned to face him, and ask him if he knew what was going on, the Deku Scrub squealed and hopped around, looking very much panicked. Link stared at him, because Deku Scrubs did not actually exist: they were just a legend. His attention was wrenched back to the assassins when he saw one of their swords poke at the Deku Scrub and felt the tip of another one against his side. He slowly turned to face the assassin, hoping to negotiate.
The assassin smiled at him and thrust his sword into him. Link felt the sword piercing his flesh like an overripe tomato, slipping past a rib and piercing something inside of him. The assassin ripped his sword out, and Link felt that whatever it was inside of him that the sword had pierced was bleeding. Blood was also pouring from the opening between his ribs. He tried to scream, but all that came out was a weak gasp. He fell to his knees, clutching his side. It didn't hurt as much as the fire had, but the pain was still considerable. The feeling of disgust at the sensation of the sword forcing its way into him did not help matters any.
He didn't have time to recuperate before another assassin slashed him across the chest. It was like a paper cut, only a hundred times worse. Blood was coming out from the large cut at a frightening speed. Link started to cry and tried to plead for his life, but only a whimper came out.
A third assassin drove his sword through his left thigh. More pain. It was a mixture of the worse cramp he had ever had and having his leg burning all over again. Since his left leg could no longer support him, even at a kneeling position, he fell to his left, painfully crushing his injured thigh. He looked for the Deku Scrub, his only ally, but the poor thing was in pieces.
He hardly had time to feel sorry, as a fourth assassin had his turn and impaled his hand to the ground. Link screamed. He had felt every one of the little bones in there shattering under the sword. The assassin removed his sword and Link's hand was soon swimming in a pool of blood.
Link was starting to feel drained. A fifth assassin plunged his sword into the small of his back, piercing some other organ inside and slashing through his spine. Link jerked from the pain, and tried to crawl away from the assassins, forgetting he was surrounded. He found he could not move his legs.
One of the assassins rolled him on his back with his foot, and Link found himself staring through half closed eyes at the leader of the group of assassin. He bent close to Link, so that their faces were inches apart. Link, panting, tried to push him away with his good hand, but he was too weak.
The assassin never moved his face, but Link felt something poking his chest and his eyes widened in fear. The assassin smiled and pushed his sword in.
The cold was very quick this time, and the assassin's face quickly faded, along with the sound of the other assassins laughing and the smell of his own blood. Soon, there was only nothingness again.
For the third time, Link felt as though he was being slapped awake. He sat up in his bed, panting, and his heart racing.
At the foot of his bed stood a moblin. Link gulped in disbelief and horror. Moblins did not exist. Most people agreed they never had. Link closed his eyes and when he reopened them, another moblin had joined the first one. Link screamed for help.
"Shut up!" Came the supervisor's angry voice.
The moblins attacked, and tore him apart with their claws, tusks and fangs. When the cold came, Link did not fight it.
Link did not wake up before he had been killed 9 times. After the moblins had come stalfos, then he had found himself in a room that shrunk until it crushed him, then he was in a dark place and keeses had very slowly scratched and bitten him to death, following him wherever he ran. After that, he had been executed by archers, and finally, a giant pig had crushed him under his weight.
He stayed sitting up in his bed, determined to stay awake until it was time to go to work. He didn't want to go through the dreams again. It didn't seem to matter that he had these kinds of dreams almost every night, he just couldn't seem to get used to them at all: while he was having them, he couldn't even remember that he'd had them before. He never recognized them for what they were until he was really awake, and therefore, could never understand what was going on and why he kept coming back to life.
Thankfully for his plan to stay awake, the moon was up and even though it wasn't full, it was bright enough for Link to see, so he could keep his mind busy by looking at the things and people in the room. After a while, a scream pierced the night.
His roommates jerked awake and looked around, confused. Link's eyes went straight to the room's window, three beds over to his left. More screams resounded. Everyone in the room stood frozen. The screams stopped after a few minutes, and were replaced by a roar that sounded quite a bit like a laugh. After that, the night was silent again.
The boys spent the rest of the night talking, nobody intent on getting back to sleep. Link stayed mostly silent, but listened attentively. The conversation was a good distraction, and the boys were avoiding the subject of what had just happened, and anything closely related like monsters and death. Like him, they were trying to forget and to not wonder who the victims were.
Zelda stayed by the door for a while, listening to Ejar's steps fading away. She brushed her shoulder length hair away from her face: the day had been hot and humid, and it had been sticking to her face all day. She tucked it behind her ears, the very things responsible for her having to endure her hair clinging to her cheeks and chin all day.
Like the morning's latecomer's, they were pointy. From the few times she had seen him, she judged his were no worse than hers. Luckily, she was able to completely hide hers under her thick hair.
She still had to be careful, though, and at times, it was really taxing. She could never wear her hair up, or even just pulled back, in public. She never dated, either. Each time she met a boy she liked, she found herself picturing him running his hands through her hair, feeling her ears, and backing away in disgust. She had also never dared to hire a servant, afraid she would discover the ears and tell the whole town about them.
Ejar, who prided himself on being tolerant of everyone, had admitted he found Link's ears ugly at lunch time. From him, that meant he found them absolutely repulsive and would not for any money spend time close to them if he could help it. Zelda had never actually been interested in Ejar, but she did find him good company, much better than that ignorant bully Migo, and she was not about to let him find out about her deformity: he'd probably never talk to her again.
She pushed the matter away from her mind and went to the kitchen to start fixing her dinner. The food had been delivered the night before, as always. It didn't take long to fix: the meal of the day was noodles with pieces of beef and onions, one of the quickest of the regular meals to prepare. The desert was even easier: the apple needed no cooking at all.
Once dinner was done, she sat down with a history book and read until it was time for bed.
She woke up to the noise of heavy footsteps below her. Her heart skipped a beat, and started thumping like mad, as if to make up for that one lost beat.
She crept out of bed and squeezed herself between her headboard and the wall. She had been rehearsing this in her head for a while, and had even gone so far as putting the head board just far enough from the wall to fit behind it. She had also made herself stay in the cramped spaces for increasingly long times, which had not been easy. She was so afraid of enclosed spaces that even though she was even more afraid of whatever it was killing people in their houses, it had taken her months just to work up to staying behind the headboard for 3 minutes. She was up to almost double that, now, and she could only hope it would be enough. She waited, hoping whoever it was would not have a lamp and could not see in the dark. She also desperately hoped the thing was not patient and would not make any significant effort to look for her.
The curtain separating her room from the stairway was torn off and the monster walked into the room. Zelda squeezed her teeth and lips together to keep herself from gasping at the sight.
In her doorway was an enormous moblin-like creature. It had limbs like a man, only bigger, but his head was that of a particularly ugly pig. It saw the empty bed and entered the room. It headed for the closet and Zelda shrank back further against the outside wall. The monster ripped off the curtain to her closet and searched through it, tearing her clothes apart.
After a very short while, the creature turned away from the closet. It drew an enormous sword and started stabbing through the mattress, obviously in the hope of getting her if she was hiding under it. It stabbed the bed in about 20 places, and growled in frustration.
It then left the room without noticing the bed was not flush against the wall. Zelda waited for the footsteps to leave the house before coming out from her hiding place. She sat on her bed, breathing heavily.
She replayed the whole thing in her head. Something about it what so familiar... but she had never been attacked before, so why would it be? Her parents had been killed, but Zelda had been spending the night at a friend's and had not witnessed it. She shuddered as she realized she had just escaped the killer for the second time. For a wild moment, she wondered if the monster was after her specifically. There was no reason why it should be, and it was not like it had attacked the same house twice: Zelda did not live in the house where her parents had been killed. Logically, there was no justification for even thinking for a second that the monster was looking for her in particular.
Except, that is, for the eerie familiarity of it all. It seemed like she had been hiding from that monster all her life, and that it had been after her for even longer than that. She visualized the monster and concentrated hard on it.
She could see it in her doorway again. She could see the ugly beast that looked almost human from the neck down. She could see it drawing its sword, the enormous sword that was probably longer than she was herself. She could see the face very clearly: a pig's face, blue in color.
Memories soon started to flash before her eyes. She remembered countless times when the creature had been trying to use her, or to hurt her, or both. She remembered being rescued by the Hero. She remembered both the Hero and the creature calling her "Princess"...
Zelda pressed her hands against her head and tried to shake the memories away. It didn't work. They kept flooding through her, several lifetimes worth of brief flashes where both the monster, Ganon, and the hero, Link, figured prominently. She had no idea how long it lasted: it stopped when she heard the screams.
She jumped up from her bed, and rushed to her window. The screams seemed to be coming from a few houses down, and they stopped as abruptly as they had started. Zelda backed away from her window, shivering.
She sat back down and forced herself to order her thoughts.
She only remembered bits and pieces of her past lives, but it was enough to identify herself. She was not merely named after the princesses of old, she was several of them, reborn. It kind of explained the ears, anyway: they were an echo of sorts: a leftover from her previous lives as a Hylian.
The monster who had been killing people was Ganon. He was back, again. She couldn't tell if any other monsters were killing people at random, but she felt quite sure that all the murders that happened in the homes of upper class people were committed by Ganon himself. She also had a feeling that Ganon was doing it at least in part because he was looking for her. He was always after her, why would this time be any different? Besides, if he hadn't been looking for someone in the upper class, why attack these houses? Most of them only had four occupants or less, while the dorms of the working class typically had about thirty people living in them, and the Ganon she remembered would definitely choose to kill thirty people over killing only four.
Zelda shivered as she pictured Ganon laughing away while ripping victims apart one after the other. He had to be stopped and it was obvious that it wasn't the President who would do it, or anybody working under him: the President and his cronies had never shown any concern for the murders, merely advising people to be careful.
No, the authorities would be of no help whatsoever, she was sure of it. The task would fall to the Hero again.
Zelda's eyes widened as she thought of the Hero: her thoughts had immediately centered on the boy who had been late to work at the shop this morning. She frowned and tried to think of the other Links she knew. Her thoughts did not cooperate with her wishes, however, and kept coming back to the Link she least wanted to have to rely on. Her emotional side was soon fighting over the matter with her logical side.
Logic pointed out the name was right. Emotions replied that it was a common name, there were two right at the shop and there had to be at least a dozen in town and possibly hundreds in all of Hyrule.
Logic argued the age was right too. As far as Zelda could remember, the Hero was always her age or just a bit younger. Emotions argued that lots of people were her age or just a bit younger.
Logic asked about the ears. Emotion refused to answer.
Logic finished the argument by stating that being in denial was just wasting time.
Zelda sighed. The Hero was a coward who, at last count, was afraid of: the dark, fire, magic, magical creatures, especially monsters, especially undead monsters, death (more so than normal people), sharp things, such as hand axes, swords, or just about anything else that could be used as a weapon, and just to top it off, who was just as claustrophobic as she was herself.
She resisted the temptation to just accept the idea that Hyrule was doomed and spent the rest of the night thinking about Link and of what the best course of action was.
By morning, she had only managed to decide that she should try and see whether Link knew who he was and what needed to be done.
Ganon growled in frustration. It was always a disappointment not to find Zelda in every house he visited, but not finding anyone was infuriating. He gave a last slash through the bed and the floor under it. There was nobody there. He contemplated kicking the bed across the room, but he didn't really feel like it. Destroying objects had gotten boring about 1400 years ago.
Truth be told, just about everything was boring, and had been for some time. He had enjoyed not having to worry about the Hero for a while, but the lack of a worthwhile enemy to crush had gradually become maddening. If not for a nagging worry that the Hero could possibly defeat him this time, Ganon would have been quite happy that his nemesis was alive once more. If nothing else, looking for the boy and the girl kept him somewhat entertained.
He left the house where he had found no toy, and walked up the street. He entered the next house he sensed had female inhabitants, hoping these women were home, unlike the last one.
They were. Ganon tried to make them last, but enthusiasm quickly overtook him, as it usually did, and it was all over in a minute. The two females, a woman and her child, and the one male, presumably the father of the child, were ripped apart until the whole room and Ganon himself were covered in their remains. Ganon stood there for a while, feeling like his toys had been taken away from him too soon, before leaving to return to his closest lair.