A few quick notes:
1. This story is rated T due to some very violent content.
2. The story is actually completed, and I intend to post a new chapter weekly.
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 (and for reviewing)!
Chapter 6: The Master Sword
Ganon heard of the incident towards the middle of the day and spent the next hour using the President's body to destroy everything in the Presidential Parlour while cursing at the Princess and the Hero. By the time he was done, they had both been thoroughly insulted and there was nothing left unbroken in the room: even the walls, floor and ceiling had holes in them.
He could not believe how foolish he had been. How could he have been convinced so easily that the pointed ears meant nothing? And the name! A Link with pointed ears, when nobody, NOBODY had had anything else than round ears in Hyrule for centuries! And it had taken nothing more than a few mockeries directed at the boy for Ganon to be tricked into believing he was not the Hero after all! A girl had started it, he remembered: probably the Princess. There had been a few Zelda's in the shop, including one portraying herself as the exact opposite of the Princesses: she had employed the same strategy to hide them both and Ganon had fell for it.
It was debatable whether she'd had to lie about the boy: he certainly did seem like a coward, and the whole shop appeared to be convinced that he was. She had, however, drawn Ganon's attention to the fact, fooling him into thinking the boy was not his eternal nemesis.
The bitter disappointment he had felt was therefore her fault. The Din-blasted Princess had tricked him. At least, Ganon had the satisfaction of having made all of Hyrule pay for the girl's deceit: the first night after he had visited that shop, he had set the Stalfos, Moblins and various other beasts completely free, out of pure spite. He had not bothered to rein them in again since: why would he have? It was extremely enjoyable to feel, through them, dozens of lives ending every night, rather than the meagre one, two (and sometimes none at all) that used the be the norm back when he only set one beast loose every night, in addition to himself. Sure, it meant his slaves were happy too, but it was worth it.
In addition to letting his pets loose, Ganon had also increased his own self inflicted quota of murders. After visiting that shop, he had spent most of the night hunting, and had found and killed nearly two dozens. He had done it out of anger, and not because he was trying to find either Zelda or Link, and he had enjoyed it a lot more than usual. So, the next night, he had indulged himself again. He had killed at least 9 a night since, and on two occasions, had even treated himself to entire dorms.
As enjoyable as those last few nights had been, however, no amount of random killing could compensate for a delay in finding the Hero and the Princess and disposing of them.
He could not wait to get his hands around the Princess's throat and to crush it under his fists... Her death had been much too quick the last time: she had been but a child, hardly older than the Hero, and other than crying pitifully for help, she had not put up much of a fight at all. She had caused him so much grief for so many centuries, it did not seem fair that she should only suffer for a moment.
He had cast the spell to collect her soul and trap it in a bottle, but as much as he could imagine the misery of being trapped inside a small bottle, it was a misery that Ganon could neither see nor hear: it was not satisfying in the least.
The princess dispatched, he had gone in his lair to wait for the Hero. He had known he wouldn't have to wait for long: after all, he had all but gift-wrapped the Master Sword for the boy, and he had made sure to empty the Tower of any monster. He had even gone as far as making Death Mountain as harmless as he could, stopping the avalanches and chasing every monster he could find from it. There was nothing left to stand in the way of the child or to delay his arrival.
He was not disappointed: within hours, the very young boy had walked into his trap, and he had provided much more amusement than the Princess had. Still, it seemed like only too soon after the 'battle' had started, the Hero's soul was also trapped in a bottle.
The bottles were meant to ensure that both of them stayed out of Ganon's way forever. What made the Hero and the Princess were those souls, and since they were his prisoners, they could not be reborn and they would never threaten him again.
It had worked wonderfully. For 6 centuries, Ganon had ruled Hyrule unopposed. He had tortured and killed anybody with a drop of Hylian blood, and hunted down the last of the other magical races. He was soon left with only common Hyrulians, with which he amused himself for quite a while. He forced them to worship him and learn every detail of his many incarnations, excluding, of course, anything related to his defeats. His one victory, however, was drilled into the heads of every one of his subjects. Ganon had had the satisfaction of seeing Hyrule gradually come to hate the color green, barely tolerating it in nature and avoiding it whenever possible, and more importantly, to see each generation grow more angry at the Hero for not returning to try again to defeat Ganon: after all, Ganon had returned countless times, so why couldn't the Hero do the same? Ganon knew why, of course, but he was not about to tell them.
After about 600 years, the Hyrulians had engineered a revolution, and Ganon, bored with Kingship, had allowed himself to be defeated and had kept a low profile for a few years, time to let the Hyrulians choose a leader and start rebuilding their society. When they did, Ganon possessed that leader and made a game of making the population as miserable as possible without revealing himself. When that leader's turn to rule was up, he possessed the new one and killed the old one. He kept that up for close to 900 years, passing the time by conquering neighbouring lands, and Hyrule was eventually four times its original size.
Boredom had settled in again so gradually that he could not remember when it had started. Eventually, it came to be that he was bored almost all the time, and even hunting for people to kill seemed more bothersome than amusing.
The thought that he would soon not enjoy killing at all, when it used to give him so much pleasure, scared him badly. In desperation, he cut himself off, hoping that depriving himself for a while would bring back the excitement and thus, the enjoyment, when he picked up killing again. What he had not banked on was the intensity of his addiction. After a mere few days of not letting himself go back to his own body, he was just about driven mad. He decided he had waited long enough and that night, hunted again. He had hoped to derive immense pleasure from it, but instead, he gave up hunting and entered a house almost at once. He had torn the inhabitants to pieces in a sort of daze, and when it was over, he had had no fun at all: he had only stopped suffering from the withdrawal he had submitted himself to.
He had not gone back to the current President's body that night. He had gone towards his main hideout, killing every animal he spotted on the way, raging that nobody was out yet refusing to go into another house and feel the joyless relief again. By the time he had reached his hideout, he was mad with anger and frustration. He had stormed inside his dungeon for a while, throwing any object he found on the floor or on the walls, no longer caring for any of his treasures. He eventually came face to face with the two bottles containing the souls of his nemesis. He stared at them hard, trying to see the souls, or rather, their suffering. He could see nothing but a faint glow coming from the bottles. He snarled at them.
Ganon cringed upon remembering how he had felt that night. He had been on top of the world, powerful and unopposed, his enemies defeated and at his mercy, and although he could remember it quite clearly, he could no longer understand the despair and the rage that he had felt in that moment. It pained him to admit it, but he had simply lost his mind that night. He supposed it was unavoidable that such a thing should happen every now and then when you lived so long, especially if your life was the same year after year.
He remembered staring at the bottles, snarling at them, blaming them for everything. Even back then, it hadn't been clear whether he was blaming the bottles or their occupants, and what he was holding them responsible for. What had been very clear was the insane desire to destroy the bottles, a desire which he had gratified immediately. He had grabbed a bottle in each hand, and crushed each of them in his fists.
His sanity had then returned.
He had looked in horror as the glow that had been contained within the bottles dissipated in the night, too stunned to even look for new bottles and cast the imprisoning spell again. It would have been no use, and that was the only consolation Ganon had for being so helpless at that moment: there were no empty bottles in the dungeon, and by the time he had found a full one he had not broken yet and emptied it, the souls would have been gone. They had left so fast, in fact, that it was doubtful Ganon would have had the time to cast the spell, had he had empty bottles in his hands, ready to be his enemies' new prisons.
To his credit, Ganon had not remained in shock for long, and had started planning on how to find the Princess and Hero before they became a nuisance. The plan, however, had proven to be inefficient and had now officially failed.
It had been in three parts: The first was that Ganon would search for the Princess in houses where the higher class lived. There was no royalty left in Hyrule, so the girl would not be a princess, as such, but it was almost certain that she would still be close to royalty, or as close as possible: in other words, she would be a member of the upper class. In retrospect, Ganon thought that although she had turned out to indeed be in the upper class, she could easily not have been: she had been disguised as a criminal once, and could have been disguised as a worker this time.
The second part of the plan was to draw the Hero out by letting monsters kill people at night, and by killing a few himself. He had been aware that the President could not understand why he was not worried about the possibility of the Hero being killed by a monster. Ganon didn't know whether the Hyrulian's belief that a lower monster had any chance at all of killing the Hero was more insulting or more satisfying. On one hand, it demonstrated the low opinion the people of Hyrule now had for their champion, but on the other hand, it made it sound like a silly Wolfos might be able to do what Ganon himself had only managed once. It was rather interesting that the President's belief that there was even a chance of that happening was so strong that although he shared Ganon's thoughts and thus had to realize that foolish belief was not shared, he couldn't seem to come to grip with it and kept on wondering why Ganon was not worried.
The third part of the plan had been the most time consuming and the least amusing. As the President, Ganon visited shops after shops, looking for workers called Link and Supervisors or Workers called Zelda. There was always a few in each shop, and Ganon would talk to them, try to assess whether they might be his quarries. That last part of the plan had only been implemented 6 years after the souls had been released, since the lower class started work at that age.
Everything had gone wrong. There were too many upper class houses, and Ganon did not like to empty more than one or two a night: he did not want killing to become even less enjoyable than it already had, so he was restricting himself to a few victims every night.
In addition, Link had not been made to play the hero by trying to protect people at night. Ganon could not understand why, and had to consider the possibility that the boy had not been acting when he had met the President, that the rightful holder of the Triforce of Courage had spent his life up to date being a coward. It was an amusing thought, but the fact the boy had taken the Princess from the shop while announcing that they were going to come after him seemed to indicate that the Hero had found at least some of his courage.
Finally, when he had found Link and Zelda, in the same shop no less, he had been fooled into thinking they were just more ill-named ordinary hyrulians; despite the boy's ears, he had been fooled like a simpleton. Fooled by The Girl.
He roared in fury, but the sound that came out of the President's throat was more pathetic than satisfying. That last vexation was too much for Ganon to endure today. He left the borrowed body and went back to his own. Once there, he roared again, ranted to himself some more, and when the sun set, went out for a bit of fun. After a day like today, he figured he deserved some entertainment.
Left behind, the President occupied his time, as usual when Ganon left him, trying to regain control of his body.
Zelda insisted they stopped in a shop before going into the Woods, and Link had no choice but to wait for her to buy whatever it was she was so certain they needed. She had refused to say anything more about her idea for not getting lost in the Woods, and Link had gradually fell from grateful to have her help to thoroughly irritated with her. He found himself thinking that she had better help him, considering it was her fault he was in this mess in the first place. He knew he wasn't being fair at all, but as soon as she had gotten over her shock that he was back and that he had been in the Lost Woods for about a week, she had reverted right back into her bossy self. Link, who had thought they could be civil and even friendly to each other now that she didn't have to try and beat the truth into him anymore, was now wondering how he could have been so naive.
She finally came out of the shop, with, to Link's astonishment, some paper, ink and writing brushes, as well as a bag. He glared at her.
"What in the world do we need THAT stuff for?" He whispered angrily. "I thought you were going to buy something useful! You said we had to hide quickly and you stop to buy paper? What is wrong with you?"
"I didn't know where we were going when I said we needed to hide right away." Zelda replied, whispering as well. "It's different now. We could stop at the edge of the Woods and yell out that we're going in, and still nobody would believe we actually did go in there, so nobody would ever find us."
Link grunted in irritation.
"But why buy paper?" He asked, still whispering.
"To draw the Lost Woods," Zelda explained. "That's how we're going to avoid being lost. Since we cannot remember what we have just seen, we'll draw everything we see and the paper will remember it for us. I hope."
"'Draw everything we see'? Isn't that going to take forever?" Link asked.
"It will be simplified drawings." Zelda countered. "And it will take less time than wandering around aimlessly."
Link shrugged. It seemed a bit complicated, but he had no alternative plan to offer.
"The thing is, I don't know that it will work." Zelda admitted.
"You don't?" Link asked, stopping. They were not very far to the edge of the forest, and he didn't really want to go in again without knowing they wouldn't be stuck there. Being lost was fine when you just wanted to disappear, but he did not want to be stuck in the Lost Woods anymore. He had been willing enough to go back in there when he had first told Zelda where he had been, but the closer he got to the Woods, the least he wanted to waste more time than he already had wandering aimlessly in the forest.
"The magic of the Woods constantly erases the memory of whoever is in there. I'm sure if it's powerful enough to do that, it's powerful enough to erase the ink from a piece of paper. I'm hoping the magic won't know to do that, but I can't be sure until we've tried." She grabbed Link by the arm and tried to drag him forward. Link resisted.
"I really don't want to get lost. A bunch more people are going to die if we get stuck in there. Can't we hide somewhere else? Or not hide at all? What do you think we need to do? We can start doing that right away."
Zelda could scarcely believe Link had to ask.
"We need to find the Master Sword, of course. What did you THINK we'd need to do?" She answered.
"Well..." Link started. Zelda cut him off.
"I mean, isn't it obvious? Ganon can only be defeated with the sword of Evil's Bane, so to defeat him, we need the Sword!"
"Err..." Link stammered. He didn't quite know how to break the news to Zelda that the Master Sword had not been able to harm Ganon.
"And even you must know that the Master Sword's resting place is in the Lost Woods," Zelda added, cutting him off again, seemingly without even hearing him.
"You think it's in there?" He asked. He didn't wait for an answer. "It doesn't matter..."
"Yes. I'm sure it's in there. If Ganon had it, it would be in the museum. It wasn't, I'm sure we would both have recognized it. What was there HAD to be a replica. I'm sure the Sword has returned to its natural 'home' when the last Hero died."
"Yeah, okay. But the sword doesn't work anymore." He blurted out.
Zelda stared and blinked at him.
"What do you mean, it doesn't work anymore?" She finally asked.
"I stabbed Ganon with a piece of it, and it didn't do anything to him." He summarized.
"It must have been because the sword was broken." Zelda said. "It lost its magic because it was broken."
"But Ganon said it couldn't hurt him. He knew it couldn't. He let me stab him." Link insisted.
"That wasn't YOU, Link." Zelda said, her voice suddenly soft and gentle. "You are a new person now."
"It WAS me, and don't change the subject. The Master Sword doesn't work."
Zelda bit her lip, thinking.
"We can't take his word for it." She said after a moment. "But it's possible the Master Sword alone is not enough."
"'It's possible' the Master Sword is useless!"
"No! All the legends can't be that wrong. The Master Sword is the key. It's the weapon that, ultimately, defeats Ganon."
"But it doesn't WORK!"
Zelda sighed and looked around, mainly to avoid looking at Link. She knew if she looked at him, she'd glare at him. He was so pessimistic, it was maddening. What did he want her to do? All the legends, all the history books even, said very clearly that the Master Sword was necessary to defeat Ganon. Therefore, they needed the Master Sword. From what Link was saying, it may not be the only thing they would need, but the fact was that it was one of them. Her eyes caught the sun, and she gasped: it was starting to set.
"The sun is setting." She said urgently, grabbing Link's arm again. "We need to be in the Lost Woods before the sun sets."
Link did not budge, still hesitating. Zelda bit her lips, wishing she were strong enough to actually drag him along.
"Look." She said. "All right. We'll just take a few steps inside the Lost Woods, and then we'll turn around so that we are looking out and only need to take a few steps in a straight line to get out. We'll draw what we see, wait a bit and then see if the drawing is still there and if it matches what we see. If it does, we'll know we CAN make a map of sorts and we'll go further in. If it doesn't, we'll come back out or better yet, stand right where we are until the morning. How's that?"
Link thought about it for a moment, then shook his arm free, grabbed hers just to show her how it felt, and marched towards the Lost Woods.
Zelda's eyes narrowed in annoyance when he grabbed her arm, but she followed without a word.
They followed the plan to the letter: they took a few steps past the dense edge of the forest, then Zelda made Link turn around until he was facing the direction exactly opposite to where she was facing. She then turned around so that they were both facing exactly back the way they came. Like Link, she had felt judged and approved when she had passed the edge of the forest, but unlike him, she assumed she was imagining things.
She sat down, still facing the right direction, took out a piece of paper, the ink and a brush from her bag and, as Link watched, she started making a rough sketch of what was around them. After a short while, she had a reasonable map of the area immediately surrounding them.
The sun was setting and the light was getting very minimal, but it was still just bright enough, a few minutes later, for them to see the map was still on the paper, intact. Zelda could not remember drawing any particular bit of it, but it was there. They compared it to their surroundings and found that the map was as accurate as you could wish it. Reassured they would not get lost, Link sat down next to her and actually smiled at her.
"Good job." He said.
She smiled back.
"Thanks."
"I still don't know about the sword, though." Link said, losing his smile.
Zelda lowered her eyes pensively.
"I'm sure you need it." She said after a moment. "History and Legends agree on that much. It can't be a coincidence."
"So how come it didn't work?" He asked, anger creeping into his voice again.
"It must not be the ONLY thing you need."
Link shrugged, then seemed to relax.
"Yeah, that's probably it. That's good. It didn't seem right that it didn't work."
Zelda nodded, but Link could barely see her doing so. Night was falling.
They both sat there, tense, wondering how long it would be before they started hearing the screams of the victims. They had their answer much quicker than they would have liked: barely a moment after it became too dark for them to be able to see each other, they heard a long, drawn out scream, thankfully faint for originating from far away. Zelda's blood froze in her veins.
More followed, some closer, some almost as far. Zelda did not sleep, wishing for the warmth and silence of her home. Although he said nothing, not even to answer her few attempts at conversation, she assumed Link was awake as well. It was a moonless night, and the light from the stars could not reach through the canopy of the forest, so the darkness was absolute. Zelda could not see her own hand even if she put it right in front of her face, and the lack of visuals made the screams stand out in the otherwise silent forest even more. She started shivering, curled up in a ball and pressed her palms against her ears, trying to block out the noise and unable to do so. She started sobbing, and soon, she was crying and thinking Link could at least SAY something.
She was still crying when Link was awakened by a sunbeam hitting him in the face. He put a hand on her shoulder, knowing quite well how she felt. He could hardly believe he had slept all night: he remembered hearing one scream, and then, nothing. He hadn't even had any nightmares, which was a rarity.
Zelda startled when he touched her and glared at him.
"What?" She demanded.
Link drew his hand back, startled. He swallowed his saliva.
"I said I was sorry about running away," he said. "But I'm here now! Why are you still angry?"
"Why am I still angry?" She growled. "I've been crying all night and only now do you even acknowledge I'm here! You were punishing me for having had to hear this for several nights by yourself, weren't you? Well it wasn't my fault you ran off!"
"You were crying all night? Wow. I mean... sorry. It's just... I didn't hear you, I was asleep."
Zelda stared at him wide eyed. She looked so miserable with her red eyes and her soaked face that for a moment, Link felt even sorrier for her than for himself.
"You were asleep? Through all those screams?"
"Yeah," Link said, shrugging. "I only heard one scream. I guess I was tired. I didn't sleep much in the last few days."
Zelda wiped her eyes with her arm and looked around to avoid looking at Link. She gasped. Everything looked completely alien: she was absolutely sure she had never seen any of what was around them before.
"It's weird, isn't it?" Link said.
"It changed..." Zelda whispered, horrified. "I was wrong. It did change."
Link bent over her shoulder, his heart racing. If the maps didn't work, they wouldn't find their way back. They couldn't see the edge of the forest and they had shifted position during the night, so they didn't know which way they had been facing. They would be lost in the Woods while people kept getting killed all over the place.
He frowned. Zelda didn't have the map out yet.
"Why did you say that?" He asked. "You didn't even look at the map yet! You scared me!"
She took the map and passed it to him impatiently.
"It looks too different." She said. "It can't be the same."
Link examined the map for a moment, looked around, tutted and handed the map back to her. "It's the same, O Wise Princess."
Zelda stared back and forth between the map and their surroundings: Link was right, it was the same. She got her bottle and ink out and wrote "1" in a corner of the map. She had never dreamed that the Woods would be that effective at confusing her, and wanted to take no chance. Numbering the maps would ensure that they knew which one belonged where.
Link was right to make fun of her supposed wisdom, too, she thought. She couldn't seem to get anything right.
"You need to think more." Link said, as if he had read her mind. "You're smart, you just don't think."
Zelda wanted to glare at him, but couldn't make herself do it. He was right.
"Sorry." She said. She wasn't really sure what she was apologizing for, but it seemed to satisfy Link. He sat down next to her and asked her what she had written in the corner of the map.
"The number one." She replied. "If we number the maps, we'll be able to put them back in order if they get mixed up. I'm going to put an arrow saying where we're going, too."
Link nodded.
"See? That was smart. I don't get ideas like that." He said admiringly. Zelda smiled a bit.
"So… where to?" He asked her.
"I've never heard any details on where in the Lost Woods the sword was." She said. "Have you? Or better yet, do you actually remember?"
Link shook his head.
"I'm guessing it's far into the Woods." He said.
Zelda nodded and drew an arrow on the map, opposite the spot where she had noted they had entered.
"That would be my guess too." She said, getting up. "And besides, it's possible you remember subconsciously, so I say we go wherever you think we should."
"Sub what?" He asked, getting up too.
"It means that you don't realize it, but deep inside, part of your mind remembers."
Link shook his head in disbelief, but he didn't mind leading the way anymore than he would have minded following her, so he didn't pursue the matter further.
They passed the two trees that were at the edge of the map, the one on the left with the apples, and the one on the right with the rock under it and the low split branch, between which Zelda had drawn the arrow. She stopped, sat and took out her paper, ink and brush again. She flipped the sheet with the map and started drawing.
"You're making another map already?" Asked Link. "Come on! We only walked about 10 steps! We'll NEVER find the sword at this rate!"
"Each map needs to start where the last one ends, or they'll have gaps in which we'll get lost." Zelda explained. She tried to make it sound apologetic rather than lecturing, but she couldn't quite tell how well she had succeeded.
Link rolled his eyes, grunted, and picked a couple of apples from the tree they had just passed. He polished them on his tunic and handed one to Zelda.
Eating his own apple killed very little time, and by the time Zelda had completed the map, Link was just about ready to tear all her paper and spill her ink so she'd have no choice but give up on it and keep going. He knew it was a bad idea, but that didn't make it any less tempting.
They finally got going again, but Zelda stopped after a few steps to draw another map. Link looked up, trying to see how much the sun had moved to determine how long this was taking, but the trees' canopy hid the sky almost completely. He sighed and slunk down.
"You need to draw faster." He said. "This is taking WAY too long. I thought you were going to do simple drawings!"
Zelda tutted. "It's only taking me about a third of an hour every time." She remarked. "You have no patience whatsoever."
"What in the Dark World makes you think that's all it's taking?" He asked.
"I'm used to spending a lot of time doing something quiet like this. I have a good idea how much time I'm spending doing these drawings. I could be wrong by a bit, but not by a whole lot. It just feels longer to you because you have nothing to do but wait."
Link sighed and started looking around, trying to think of where the sword would be. He desperately wanted to find it quickly, so he could get out of the forest and be done with those blasted maps.
He paused, startled by his own thoughts. Having the sword and getting out of the forest would mean he was one step closer to taking on Ganon, so why was he in such a hurry?
He sighed. He knew the answer, of course: he was impatient because he didn't want people to keep dying. He had to stop Ganon, and the sooner, the better.
"Why do I have to fight Ganon?" He moaned, sitting down next to Zelda.
She looked up from her drawing, frowning.
"You're not backing out, are you?" She said. "You're not going to run and hide again, right?"
"No!" Link said angrily. "I just don't understand why I'm the one that has to fight him. I don't even know how to fight!"
"Nobody else can use the Master Sword, and only the Master Sword can destroy Ganon." Zelda recited. "You know that. Why do you even have to ask?"
Link glared at her. Zelda glared right back.
"Because I don't stand a chance!" Link yelled. "I don't even know what to do! And you! You don't know where the Sword is, you don't know why it didn't work, and you don't know what else I need! You're not helping at all!"
"You stand a better chance than anyone else!" Zelda yelled back. "You KNOW that! And I may not know everything, but I still know more than you do! You weren't even going to bother getting the Master Sword, and why? Because Ganon - Ganon! - told you it was useless! You didn't even know who you were, until I told you!"
Link wanted to scream at her that he had been a lot better off not knowing who he was, but it was plain from looking at her that she'd just somehow manage to turn that argument against him too.
"Look," he said instead in a voice as calm as he could muster. "I don't WANT to fight Ganon. But I'm going to anyway, because I know I have to. I wasn't asking because I wanted an answer. I was just complaining."
Zelda lowered her eyes. Link had only been asking a rhetorical question, and she had assumed the worst right away. It was no wonder he'd gotten angry with her.
"Sorry." She said. "It's just... I thought for sure you weren't coming back when you ran away."
"Well I did." Link said, rolling his eyes. "So what does that have to do with anything?"
Zelda sighed. She couldn't bring herself to be blunter: telling Link outright that she didn't trust him not to run away again would only make him angry and make it more likely that he'd abandon her and their quest.
"Nothing." She lied. "I'm done with the map. We can go."
They got up, walked a few more steps and Zelda stopped again. Link sighed.
"We're spending more time doing those maps than walking."
"I know." Zelda sighed. "Hopefully your instincts are good and we're heading straight for the sword, at least."
They covered a bit more ground than Link would have expected during the day. By nightfall, Zelda had drawn 24 maps. Link picked some fruits and after eating them, they settled for the night, mostly satisfied with their progress.
Their satisfaction was short lived: the sun was barely down when the usual nightly murders began. Link had been so exhausted the night before that he had fallen asleep despite the cries of the victims, but he was not so lucky this time. After lying down for a while, he took a look at Zelda, just able to make her out in the almost total darkness. She was lying still, but he couldn't tell whether her eyes were opened or not. He listened for her breathing, and found it slow and regular: she was asleep. Link promised himself to act like he couldn't believe she had managed to sleep in the morning, for a bit of revenge.
He got up and walked around, trying to ignore the victims. Most of them seemed to be far away tonight, but there was still the occasional nearby one. He lied down when his legs got tired, thinking that even if he wasn't sleeping, he should probably try to rest his body. He closed his eyes and tried to picture the Master Sword in the hopes of seeing where it was. He only saw it in his own hands, or rather, his former hands. He could remember how it had felt and looked before he had gone in the room where Ganon would kill him: he had felt invincible, he had felt like he could fix everything that was wrong with the world. Even though he knew how it had ended before, he wanted to feel that way again: he wanted the Master Sword in his hands again. That desire had played a big part in his accepting Zelda's reasoning about the blade, and now that he had, the desire was even stronger.
He tried all night to get a better idea of where the Master Sword was, but was only left with a vague impression that it wasn't too far. He shared the feeling with Zelda when she woke up, more to let her know he had been awake all night than anything else. She had looked horrified at the fact she had been asleep, so Link decided not to torment her about it after all.
She showed more enthusiasm for his feeling that their goal was close by than he had, and it seemed to cheer her up a bit. She compared her last map to their surrounding, and, satisfied, drew an arrow on it in the direction that Link indicated and they set out again.
Link found the sword, much to his amazement, shortly before the sun set. More precisely, he found a long space devoid of trees, looking much like a corridor, at the end of which they could just make out some kind of altar.
As soon as the initial shock of the discovery wore off, Link took off running towards the altar. Zelda, having no hope of catching up with him even if she tried running as well, walked there. She was about a third of the way to the altar when Link reached it. He stayed still for a moment, staring at the top of it, then slumped to his knees, his head hung down, looking utterly miserable. Zelda's relief at having found the sword quickly turned to panic and she ran the rest of the way to the altar, imagining Link's reaction could only mean the sword was not there.
Reality turned out to be only slightly better than what she had thought. The sword was there, but in pieces: a dozen of them, each stuck into the marble of the altar.
Link was looking up at her, apparently waiting for her to fix things.
"Maybe we can fix it." Zelda suggested, fighting back the urge to just give up and panic.
"I knew it was broken." Link said. "But it's a magic sword! I thought it would fix itself!"
"Me too. I didn't even let myself consider the possibility that it wouldn't."
Link got up, and walked away from the altar, along the corridor. He looked thoroughly defeated. Zelda caught up with him and put a hand on his shoulder. He stopped.
"I'll find a way to fix it." She said. "I promise."
Link didn't look at her, but when they started walking again, he wasn't quite as slumped. They walked out of the corridor, but stopped for the night after only a few paces into the woods: darkness was falling, and they had things to discuss.
Neither of them slept that night, and they shot ideas back and forth to each other on ways the sword may be fixed. They quickly agreed that just melting the pieces and forging the blade again would likely only create a new, ordinary sword: neither of them wanted to take that chance and they decided to seek a more magical way to restore it. The blade was magic, after all, so it stood to reason that magic should fix it.
It took them all night to agree on their next course of action, but eventually, Zelda managed to convince her companion that they had to come out of hiding long enough to research how to go about fixing a magical sword. Thankfully, most of the murders sounded very far away tonight, which suggested that Ganon expected them to flee their own town and was looking for them somewhere else, somewhere a good distance away.
They set out as soon as it was bright enough to read the maps. Retracing their steps, they quickly found their way out of the forest.
They first headed for Zelda's house.
"Say, Zelda..."
Zelda turned back to look at Link, who was trailing a few paces behind her. She thought for a second that he was stalling, but quickly pushed the thought away: she couldn't go on constantly thinking that Link was about to turn tail and run if she had any hope of preserving her sanity. She walked back to him. He was looking at a wanted sign, and she looked at it too. Her eyes widened.
"That word..." Link said, pointing at his name, "isn't that my name?"
"Yes." Zelda confirmed.
"So that IS us on that poster?"
"Yes."
"We're wanted just for quitting our jobs?"
"Let's start walking again." Zelda said. She followed her own advice and Link followed.
"I should have expected something like that." She groaned. "The President works for Ganon, so now that he knows who we are, he's making it so all of Hyrule will help him catch us. We're not wanted for leaving our jobs, he's accusing us of multiple murders."
"What? But... but... we didn't kill anyone!"
"I know. But the poster makes it sound like we are responsible for some of the nightly murders."
Link stopped, forgetting to walk in his shock. Zelda elbowed him in the side and he started walking again.
"You think people are going to believe that?" He asked.
Zelda nodded.
"They'll want to believe it. Just picture it: if we really were the murderers, it would mean catching us would put an end to the murders. We have to assume that anybody who sees us will report us. On top of that, I bet guards are posted right at my house and at your dorms, so we definitely can't go there."
"So what do we do?"
"I don't know." Zelda admitted. "I need history books. I'm sure I've read something about the Master Sword being restored at some point, but I don't remember any details. I don't think there WAS any in the books I read, so I need a different one."
"So we should go to the library?" Link suggested.
"It's a public place. It will be guarded." Zelda said, a trace of panic in her voice.
Link was about to mind his own business and let her panic if she felt like it, but he knew that if she lost her calm, she wouldn't think things through, and he didn't want that. He grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her to look at him.
"Zelda, calm down." He said. "You don't think right when you're scared, and you keep doing stupid things!"
"Like what?" She asked, outraged.
"Like stopping me to talk after work, at night! Like making me work on swords! Like taking me to that museum! Like when you woke up and the Lost Woods looked different, and you thought the maps were no good! I TOLD you it always looked different!"
Link had to stop to catch his breath, and Zelda took the opportunity to jump in.
"It all turned out fine, didn't it?" She asked angrily.
"What? That time after work, a Stalfos attacked us! I got hit all day after the shift change, and after the museum, I ran away! 'It all turned out fine' because you're lucky!" Link insisted, working hard to keep the anger out of his voice.
"I had to do SOMETHING to make you remember!" Zelda said. "I was desperate!"
"You weren't thinking." Link concluded. "Like when you stopped me after work? You could have talked to me the next day! You're the one who said I wasn't going to get executed because nobody was going to complain about me!"
"But..."
"And when you made me work on swords, so I'd get used to them?" Link snarled a bit at the memory. "I didn't get used to them, I was just even more scared of getting hit again!"
"I already apologized for…" Zelda started to say. Link cut her off again.
"And your first morning in the Lost Woods? You didn't even LOOK at the map before you gave up! You just panicked! You need to use your head more!"
"Look who's talking." Zelda finally managed to say. "You do nothing but complain and wait for me to give you answers and solve your problems!"
"Because that's your job!" Link said. "I don't know what to do! I didn't even know that I needed the Master Sword! I can't even read about what I did before! I need you for that, and I need you to think!"
"But I don't know what to do either!" Zelda protested.
"Yes. You. Do." Link said. "You knew we're us, and you even knew to not let the President find out. You thought of those maps, and you knew how to make me find the Master Sword!"
"But I don't know how to fix the Master Sword, and I don't know how I'm going to find out!"
"You promised you'd figure it out." Link said.
"I know, but..."
"So calm down! Let's sit somewhere, or hide, or keep walking, whatever you want, and you think about it as long as you need."
"We need to hurry, Link. Every day we waste means another night with dozens of victims."
Link sighed. He agreed with her on that, and he didn't really know how to explain what he had meant.
"I know." He said. "I want to hurry too, but... what if we hurry too much and Ganon wins again?"
Zelda bit her lip. She knew Link was right, she knew they couldn't afford anymore mistakes and that as frustrating as it was, they had to take whatever time was necessary to figure out each of their move. If they spent a day planning, it meant one more night of murders. If they got captured or otherwise failed to ever defeat Ganon, it meant countless such nights. She knew Link was right, but she didn't like it.
She forced herself to stop walking and considered the options Link had outlined: sit somewhere and think, hide somewhere and think, or keep walking and think. Sitting somewhere was out of the question, and walking was only slightly better: hiding was definitely safer, even though she was sick of it by now. She didn't want to backtrack to the Lost Woods, but it was probably the best place: nowhere else was nearly as safe, and they didn't have to go in very deep, or to draw more maps.
"I think we should go back to the Lost Woods for now." She said. "Until I think of how to get the books we need."
Link nodded and back they went. They were lucky enough for no guards to be around, and since most everyone was at work, no civilians saw them either.
Zelda thought that her choices were limited to two: breaking into the library at night, or sneaking in during the day. Both were risky: the night had the advantage of offering the cover of darkness, but they could run into some of Ganon's minions, or even into the Monster himself. Going during the day meant they were likely to be spotted by Presidential Guards.
All in all, the Presidential Guards were probably not as dangerous as the monsters. On the other hand, they were more likely to encounter them. Then again, there were more monsters than there used to be, so going out at night was riskier than ever.
She was pacing around their campsite, occasionally rubbing her temples and groaning, and Link was playing with a branch. She frowned at him. He turned his back on her and kept playing with his branch.
"What are you doing?" She asked irritatingly. "You're distracting me with that stupid branch!"
"Don't talk about the Sword of Evil Bane like that!" Link said in mock reproach.
"You're trying to practice using the Sword with that branch?" She asked.
"Yep."
Zelda stopped pacing, at a loss for word. It was admirable for Link to try so hard, but...
"Link... that branch is almost as big as you. You can barely lift it."
"The Master Sword is big." Link explained.
Zelda's eyes widened: Link looked serious. But the sword couldn't possibly be that big... Link looked like the younger workers did when they had the normal sized swords in their hands. She smacked her forehead.
"Oh, very funny." She said. "I know the last hero was a tiny boy and that the sword felt that big to him. There's no need to remind me. What happened to him was not my fault, and unlike him, you're not 5! You are not as helpless as he was! I am not sentencing you to certain death!"
Link finally stopped playing and turned to face her. He looked completely confused.
"What?" He said. "I'm just trying to practice! Are you saying I should have done that back then? What's the point of telling me that?"
It was Zelda's turn to be confused.
"You're not trying to point out that the sword was way too big for the last Hero?" She asked.
"I just said it was big!" Link protested.
"Of course it was, for a 5 year old!" Zelda cried.
Link blinked a few times, blushed bright red and dropped the branch.
"You didn't realize it was only big because he was so small?" Zelda asked, not knowing whether to believe it or not.
Link blushed a bit more and looked away.
"I just figured I should practice," he said in a very small voice. "So I found a branch that was about the weight and size I remembered."
Zelda sighed.
"It's you that's supposed to be wise!" Link said in a stronger voice, insulted. "Not me!"
"Sorry." Zelda said. "I guess it must be confusing. You remember that battle so well that you feel it happened to you, so I guess it also feels like it was recent. And if you're like me, you're almost too tired to think straight."
Link visibly relaxed.
"Yeah. It doesn't feel like it was very long ago. And I just remember it happening. I don't see myself, and I didn't feel small, so..."
Link stopped. He felt like an absolute idiot. He let himself fall into a sitting position.
"Like you said, I'm too tired." He concluded, looking down. "Do you know what to do yet?" He asked, more to change the subject than anything else.
"Guards are less dangerous than monsters, so I think we should sneak in during the day."
"You thought of going at night?" Link asked incredulously.
"The Presidential Guards may be a bit less dangerous, but we're almost certain to run into them, and they're looking for us. The monsters might not be smart enough to be looking for us, and with a bit of luck, we would avoid them altogether. The thing is, we can't just hope to be lucky."
Link nodded vigorously.
"So, do we go now?" He asked, getting up.
"We need a plan. How to get to the library without being seen, how to get in without being noticed, how to find the books I need as quickly as possible, how to get out and back here without being seen or noticed. And, what to do if all that doesn't work and the Guards come after us."
"Hmm... be quiet and run very fast?" Link offered.
"That's definitely the basic idea, but let me think for a bit longer. I may be able to come up with a slightly more detailed plan than that."
Link shrugged and got up. He started looking around for a branch comparable to the swords that they made at the shop, then stopped and called out to Zelda.
"So, you think the Master Sword is about the same size as the swords we make?" He asked. He figured he had better be safe than sorry.
"Probably a bit bigger, but not that much." Zelda guessed. "You know, while we are out, maybe we should pick one up. Just so you can practice in the meantime if it takes a while to repair the Master Sword."
Link didn't reply. It made sense, but he wasn't exactly looking forward to having to handle a real sword: swords didn't have that nice lack of sharpness that branches did. He found a dead branch that looked about right, picked it up and started attacking the nearest tree.
It was shortly after midday by the time they got out of the Lost Woods again. Zelda had plotted a course to the library, picked an entrance point, plotted a course from that point (which was a window in the basement, in the back and not in view of anything) to the historical section on the main floor, and had picked a spot for Link to stand guard while she browsed. They would get out the same way they had gotten in. For each section of the library that they would pass through, Zelda had plotted the quickest escape route in case they met with some guards. She had shown the maps to Link and made him memorize them.
Then, much to his dismay, she had dressed him up as a girl using her undershirt and underskirt and using his own shirt for a scarf to hide his short hair and most importantly, his ears. The end result was that Link looked like a very poorly dressed woman, with no trace of green clothing and with ears that could be assumed to be normal; Link thought it was cruel, she thought it was perfect. He had finally agreed to it only because she had reminded him he was the one who decided that she would do the thinking.
The streets were still mostly deserted, and the few people that were there - mostly lower class children under 6 and their dorm keepers - paid them no attention. They walked right past the library and around the block a few times, until there was nobody in view, then quickly rounded the building to end up behind it. The library had its back to the back of a clothing shop, and the small alley was perfectly quiet.
Zelda found the window she was looking for and pushed it, praying the goddesses that it wasn't locked. It wasn't, and they slipped in.
"How come you knew about this window?" Link whispered once they were in the small storage room.
"It used to be our classroom." Zelda answered, whispering as well. "It became a storage room just before my last year of school: we were moved to the second floor."
They got out of the storage room, and in accordance with Zelda's instructions, Link stopped even whispering and tried to look lost. The idea was to make as little noise as possible and hope not to be spotted, and to look innocent if they were spotted: thus, no talking because it's too loud and no whispering because it's suspicious. Looking lost would hopefully add to the air of innocence by providing an explanation for their presence in the basement.
They made it to the main floor without seeing anyone, and quietly slipped into the main library. They both changed their fake facial expression from "lost" to "concentrated" and walked to the "History" section. Once there, Link stayed near the end of the row, picked a book and started pretending to be looking at it, facing the corridor and actually looking out for guards. Zelda was not very happy with this part of the plan, mainly because Link's clothes strongly suggested that the woman he was impersonating was from the lower class and lower class members did not usually read, but she needed a lookout and had not been able to think of anything less suspicious than look at a book for Link to "do" while watching out for incoming trouble.
She stayed close to him long enough to make sure he was holding the book right side up then moved down the aisle, looking for historical records.
Link barely resisted tutting at her for checking how he was holding the book. He had told her he could tell whether text was right or wrong side up, but she couldn't seem to trust him about anything. He tried not to think of it, afraid to frown without realizing it, and concentrated on the hallway.
Zelda tapped his shoulder a few minutes later, and he put the book back to follow her to the basement. Zelda had hidden the books she had taken in her bag, and walked a bit faster than usual while Link followed doing the same thing: anyone who noticed them would hopefully be convinced they were hurrying to the bathrooms, which were right down the stairs, in the basement.
They walked right past the bathroom and started looking around hopelessly, once again trying to appear lost. They made it without problem to the storage room, went in, and climbed out of the window.
The guard who had been circling the building and who saw them creeping out of the window did not, for a second, think they were lost, looking for the bathroom, or innocent. He ran up to them, screaming for back-up.