I'm back, people! And with what looks like it will be an almost entire week off due to weather conditions, I'll be typing…a lot. That's not saying that anymore chapters will be posted on any of my stories this week, but I'll definitely be making progress.
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Link shivered, parting his thick, frost tipped eyelashes to allow his azure eyes to scan his icy prison for the umpteenth time. How long had he been here? How many times had he watched the glittering sunlight shine and fade through the gap in the ceiling? He had lost count, but if he really needed to guess, he would have said about three days, and two nights. That was an accurate summation, but he remained unaware of that fact until a little later on. His mind was almost as foggy as the breath that left his lightly parted lips, his eyes reflecting the blankness of his thoughts as they stared almost unseeing ahead of him.
He suddenly cringed, his right arm clutching his broken rib as it gave off a throb of pain. His left arm, which, he guessed, was also broken from the blow it was dealt by that huge ogre, hung limply at his side as he sat against the wall, trying desperately to keep warm, but to no avail. His injuries had only worsened from the cold, and he was certain that he was far from recovering quickly if he didn't either get rescued or find a way out of here himself. Though a small part of him constantly told him that no one was coming for him, that he needed to rely on himself, he still clutched desperately onto the hope that someone was looking for him. He wasn't exactly in the highest of spirits, nor in the best condition health-wise. A thin, almost transparent layer of frost covered his blonde locks, freezing them in place. He drummed his fingers against his knee, trying to regain at least some feeling in them, and mentally cursing for the umpteenth time that his gauntlet gloves didn't have any fingers. His skin was deathly pale, almost blue, as he tried blowing on his hands to warm them up at least a little.
His spirits were at an all-time low. The cloaked figure had visited him quite often, each time asking him if he was going to give her the information that she needed, and each time walked away without gaining any knowledge from the hero of time. But just before she left, the figure would emphasize to Link that no one was coming for him, that no one even knew that he was missing. But she was wrong, Link would always tell himself. Zelda still knew. Zelda was the only one who knew, as far as Link was aware, that he was missing.
Zelda…
If his lips weren't so blue and he wasn't so tired, he would say her name just to hear it with his own voice. Her name tasted incredibly sweet on his tongue, and it was the only thing that could come close to keeping him warm. He had waited to hear from her again, through their telepathic connection, but he was at first disheartened that he received no word from the princess of destiny. He even went so far as to try to find her himself, but he had later noticed a seal that had been put on the walls of his cell. The incantations were worn, but what little he could read confirmed that it was a silencing seal, preventing any magic from being used in this cell. It explained the silence that had hung over the two friends at such a time as this.
His injured ribs gave off another painful throb against his chest. He sighed inwardly when he heard the same echoing footsteps, laden with authority, from outside his cell. He was rather surprised at first when the footsteps passed him and continued down the hall outside without so much as a pause in front of his cell door, but dismissed it as one of the shadowed figure's guards.
Though he shouldn't refer to his warden as a shadowed figure anymore, now that he knew her name, having seen it engraved into the blade of her sword. He had not seen it the first time that she had used it on him when she butted him in the gut with its hilt, but when she was inspecting it during one of her visits, he got a closer look at the engraved title on the blade. At first, he had thought the engraving to be the name given to the blade, not its wielder, and did not say anything. It wasn't until she noticed him staring at the name that she confirmed that it was her own. "Not that it will matter much to you soon, though," She had scoffed at his wounded form as she continued to inspect her sword fondly, "it's not as if my name will do much for a corpse."
He had grown to hate that name, so much that he didn't even want to remember the word that was engraved into the steel of the sword. With what little logical functionality that Link was still capable of, he mentally cursed the name Anzipora, the name he saw on her blade, the name that belonged to the woman wielding it. But he soon felt his anger dwindle away to the comforting thoughts he had of Zelda; the little comfort that he could still cling to in this icy jail. Her radiance, he felt confident, was capable of melting the very ice that surrounded him. Her kindness was enough to keep his heart warm through the cold sleep that overcame him each empty night. She was enough to sustain him, if only for a little while. The hope that she would come was what kept him going, kept him alive through his pain, both physical and mental.
She was enough. She was more than enough.
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Zelda's brow furrowed as she examined the mountain before her. Were the inhabitants of the forest confident that this was where Link was taken? She had managed to convince Impa to cover her disappearance for a little while as she tracked Link down, so she went to the Kokiri Forest, as a starter for a place to look. The villagers all claimed that they saw Link run past the village in a hurry a few nights before, but no one indirectly connected with the hero was able to give her much more information than the direction that he ran. Thankfully, no one suspected her to be the princess of Hyrule, let alone anyone of importance, so suspicions and questions were not aroused.
Fortunately, Saria (who was really the only one who could tell that it was Zelda) said that she saw a group of ogres attack Link. She admitted that she had grown frightened, and covered her eyes when she saw one of them raise its club against him. When she didn't hear anything after a few moments, she opened her eyes again just in time to see Link being dragged away by one of the ogre she had seen moments before.
"If you saw all of this, then why didn't you get someone for help?" Zelda asked as politely as she could when she was in such a hurry to find the hero of time. Saria's emerald green eyes grew dark with sadness as she recalled the events leading to Link's disappearance. Her head tilted downward in defeat before a heavy sigh escaped her lips.
"I tried, Zelda. Really, I did. But no one believed me that the hero of time was beaten up and kidnapped by a group of renegade ogres from the mountain tribe. They all said that I was just being the overprotective sister figure that I always was to Link." After Saria pointed the way toward the mountain ogre tribe's establishment, Zelda thanked her friend and continued toward the mountain until she had managed to reach its foot, where she now stood.
She could clearly see the entrance of the mountain's interior- about five yards away from where she was standing, an icy staircase of about twelve steps led to a dark inner chamber of the mountain, where she could only hope to find Link. So, after taking a deep breath to steady herself, she slowly entered the dungeon, her sword hilt gripped tightly in her right hand as her cloaked shadow blended with the darkness of the chamber, giving her an almost ghostly sense of fading into obscurity through the snow.
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Sincerest apologies for not updating sooner, and I hope that everyone enjoys the new chappie. Click the cute little button below to submit a review, okay?