A/N: Not dead!
Chapter 17
When Link rose, fully rested and bubbling with energy, his watch only read 3:30. Though only a thin blanket had separated him from his bed of stone, he had none of the aches that would follow an uncomfortable sleep. He did not even feel like yawning.
Desi woke shortly after, and they followed the dark tunnel up to the main chamber in silence. There, they saw Gorons pulled tight into living boulders, slumbering against the walls. Other creatures lay strewn here and there. Some cuddled together. Others slept alone. Link suspected it was the will of the Great Fairy that he wake while the others remained asleep. He couldn't say why, but he suspected it all the same.
A bowl of fruit awaited them in the center. They nibbled at it, though in this place Link felt little need for sustenance. He knew he would miss it as soon as he stepped out into the desert, however, so he ate.
When they were finished, the stone doors to the Great Fairy's chamber swung silently open. The Great Fairy floated out, illumined in a dull light. She beckoned; Link and Desi followed.
They stopped before a passage they had not seen before. The walls seemed perhaps a touch more jagged, but all in all it was much like everything else in the cave: dark, simple, functional.
"My domain ends here," the Great Fairy said. "This tunnel will lead you to the Temple of Time. Desi, my child, this task is not yours. Should you choose to remain, you will find a welcome home here."
Desi paused, then shook her head. "If the Master Sword will bring Zelda back, then I will go and get it." Link wondered how she could summon such fierceness deep in this sanctuary of peace.
The Great Fairy turned to him. "Link-"
"I know my duty."
She smiled, then, but her eyes held fear and sorrow.
"There is a reason we are here and not in the temple," she warned. "Servants of evil have overrun it. As you have seen, not all beings banished to the desert were such as I."
Back in Hyrule, this might have concerned him. Outside the Great Fairy's presence, he might have despaired at this power which could break even her. But that was not the case.
"If I do not go, then it will be Hyrule which is overrun."
She laughed, then. A clear laugh with a high peal, slicing through the dark morning. "Ah, the nobility of youth! How long since I have known its spark. She knelt and kissed his brow. At the brush of her lips, a fire rippling through him, and it was all he could do to keep a blushing smile from ruining the solemnity of the moment.
"May the heart of Farore buoy you through the hell that awaits. May the love of Nayru envelop you, and guard you from evil. May the arms of Din lend strength to your own, and make you mighty. Retrieve what was lost, and set right what is wrong."
"My life for the will of the Goddesses," he intoned, his lips pulling the ritual response from an unknown memory.
She turned to Desi."I say again: this task is not for you. But it is a fool who spurns help freely given, especially from such as you." She kissed her forehead too, and Desi gasped as she made contact. "Your love burns as bright as the fires of Din in the void between dimensions. Let none say it is a weakness, for by this may the tide of battle perhaps be turned."
"Th- thank you, Great Fairy."
She looked at each of them, once more. "Look after each other, and come back safe."
They turned and began walking down the tunnel, guided by their flashlights.
"Told you we'd need light," Desi said once the glow of the Great Fairy dimmed behind them.
"No one likes a sore winner, Desi."
She laughed. Cackled, really. Link rolled his eyes and kept walking. His legs didn't really start to feel strain until an hour into the hike, and even then it was nothing he couldn't live with. Fresh from the Great Fairy's aura, and surrounded by cool stone, they made much better progress than they had struggling over the shifting sand. Or at least it felt that way. If judging distance in a flat desert was hard, it was nearly impossible when you couldn't see more than three feet in front of you.
Desi wanted to have a walking lunch to get there faster, but Link stubbornly plopped down against the side of the tunnel. The ten minutes it took to eat wouldn't matter much, and he meant to fully enjoy it. Sighing, Desi sat down next to him.
"You're lucky I've seen so many horror movies," she said. "Some of us know better than to split up."
Link did not get to reply; his mouth was stuffed with jerky, and by the time he swallowed she had moved on to a different topic entirely.
Three hours after their lunch break, Link began to feel a breeze. He scowled. More desert was the last thing he wanted to see. But he supposed he'd have to if he ever wanted to get the Master Sword.
They found the end of the passage half an hour later. Trails of sunlight poked through a decaying wooden door, occasionally rattling from a gentle breeze. Link raised a cautious hand, nudged it open, then slammed it back shut.
"What's wrong?" Desi asked.
"Found the temple."
"And?"
"It's really close." He could even make out the heads of the bokoblins patrolling on the roof. "We should wait for darkness. We come running out now they'll see for sure. They have slings or bows, we're dead before we reach the front door."
"Um… Link?"
"Of course, if they're really paying attention we're doomed either way. But if you stand guard on a broken temple in an abandoned desert long enough, you're going to get complacent. And then you die."
Desi placed her hand on his shoulder and shook. Link barely noticed.
"Get what sleep you can. When night comes, we move fast, we move hard. Things go right, they won't know we're there until I get the sword." He grinned. "And after that, we'll have little to fear."
"Link, shut up!"
He froze.
"What the hell? Where's the wimpy little kid from Hyrule? Two days ago you were freaking about about killing just two of them."
He thought. He didn't feel like he'd changed much. If anything, he was more himself than ever before. But he grabbed hold of his inner rock, and in the maelstrom of his schemes and plots, he heard a small voice, hesitant and shaking.
"Is this really important to talk about right now?"
"What else are we going to do? And don't tell me to go to sleep. It's not even five yet."
Link sighed, but before he could think how to explain, a voice rang out from his pack.
"He was touched by the Great Fairy, weren't you, Link?" Flueckli shot up and began whizzing around their heads, as though to make up for being silent and still all day. "She can do that, you know."
"She touched both of us," Desi said. At the same time, Link asked "Does the Great Fairy know you're here?"
"She is not my mother," Flueckli said, shaking herself vigorously. "And I don't mean like touch touching. It's… gaaah, non-magical creatures are so hard to talk to!"
Link closed his eyes and let the boy come back to the front. "She reminded me of some things," he said, forcing himself to relax against the wall. "Who I used to be before…" He paused, searching for the word, then shrug. "Before I wasn't."
"That clears things up," Desi muttered.
"The important thing is that we're here, and we're gonna get the Master Sword and the Temple of Time back!" Flueckli said. "So what's the plan?"
Link stared at her, fighting back a glare as a headache built up. "I think we should start by going to sleep, and you can go back to the Great Fairy."
"Link, that's rude!" Desi said.
"I can come if I want," Flueckli said. "Why can't I go on an adventure too? Just because I'm a fairy?"
Link opened his mouth, but she talked over him.
"You don't get to try to protect me. That's my home over there, and I want it back. I'm not even slowing you down, because I can fly way faster. I know the bokoblins better than you, I know the Temple better than you, and I can totally go recon the place without anyone seeing me. Need a diversion? I'm on it. So tell me, Mr. Hero, what's so special about you that you can go fight, but I can't?"
She hovered before his eyes, wings flittering madly. He could not meet her gaze. He had no response to give. At first he had thought she was just too stupid to be of use, but the fairy knew what they were getting into probably better than he did.
"I'm sorry, Fueckli. I judged too quickly."
Her light flickered. "Huh. I thought Hylians were supposed to be unreasonable. So what's the plan?"
"Sleep," he grumbled. Then he leaned his head back and did just that.
Link's watch read 9 pm. Still some moments before the sun was fully extinguished, then. No reason to wake Desi, yet. He stretched his sleep away as silently as he could manage. Beside him, Flueckli fluttered awake and perched on his shoulder. With an exaggerated motion, Link placed a finger on his lips, then cast a meaningful glance at the sleeping girl. Flueckli bobbed up and down in silent acknowledgement.
For the next half hour, Link enjoyed the serene rock Aghreal had shown him. He felt the drying sweat that stuck his shirt to his skin, the cold rock wall behind him, and the dry wind that blew the occasional gust of sand through the door. He felt them, savored them, and let them go. His heart screamed to race, but the still evening soothed it.
Then it was time. He woke Desi with a gentle nudge, and they shared a muted dinner.
"Ready?" he asked. Desi nodded, her mouth drawn to a small line. He turned to Flueckli.
"Been waiting for years," she said.
Link explained the plan. Just because it was dark and the guards wouldn't be paying attention, didn't mean they were going to be stupid. They would move slowly and hug the ground. Their packs would only add extra bulk to their outlines; they would be stripped of the bare essentials and left behind. Flueckli would hide under Link's shirt (she giggled, cut off by glares from the two Hylians). Her glow would just be a giant warning flare, otherwise.
The temple's front door would be the obvious entrance—the obviously wrong entrance, that is. If the bokoblins expected intruders—and it would stupid to assume they didn't—that door would be more heavily guarded, watched, and trapped than any other part, save perhaps for the chamber where the Master Sword lay. So Link and Desi would circle around until they found some other way in.
"Big stained glass windows all around," Flueckli offered. "We could always make an entrance."
Link nodded. "An entrance, or a diversion maybe." Of course, it would be better if an entrance had already been made, but again, there was no point in being stupid about things.
"This is going to suck," Link concluded. "Be slow, be careful, and if you see a way to kill any without wasting bullets, do it."
It was fully dark by the time they emerged. Not even the moon lit the night. A flickering torch by the temple's gates and the distant starlight was all they hand to work with. Hugging the ground, Link began to pull himself forward.
It took all of ten seconds for Link to become fully miserable. The still-warm sand had creeped into every opening in his clothing and scraped against his exposed skin. Beside him, Desi pushed herself up on her elbows, doubtless to get away from the sand. Link took her by the head and pressed her back down. She resisted, but only for a moment.
"Sorry." Her voice was just the hint of a whisper. Link squeezed her hand, hoping to reassure her, then continued forward.
Forty minutes, seven breaks, and millions of sand particles later, they pressed up against a side wall of the temple. There, only a guard looking straight down would see them. Even then, he would likely only see vague shadows. Certainly nothing to cause an alarm. Link sidled along the wall, fingers probing for a broken windows. Desi followed beside, her leg overlapping his so he'd always know she was there.
As Flueckli had said, the temple had windows a-plenty. Some even had small holes that an apple just might be able to fit through. He had passed by three already. As he came to the fourth, he thought he saw a shadow moving about within. He stepped back. They would crawl under, rather than risk being seen.
But just as he moved from the window, it shattered. A sword protruded from the now empty space. Without thinking, Link lunged. His hands closed on a pair of thin, bony wrists.
Desi was only seconds behind. She leapt to his aid, pummeling the creature holding the sword in a fierce barrage of punches. Its hands loosened, and Link had the sword. The tip slid easily through window, into the chest of the bokoblin inside. It died with a faint whimper.
They had their entrance, but Link paused. Things just shouldn't die that easily. It wasn't right. But he had killed bokoblins before, and they stood between him and the Master Sword, so he forced the feeling away. He could deal with it later. Sometime when a mistake didn't mean death.
He probed the outline of the broken window with the sword, making sure the hole was large enough. Something larger would have made him more comfortable, but it would do. He crawled through, keeping his elbows tucked to his side. He fell to the ground on the other side, then motioned Desi through.
"Flueckli," he whispered. "Out."
She rose out of his shirt. "Aren't I supposed to be invisible?"
"I'm not going to explore this thing completely blind," Link said. "Besides, you know where we're going, right?"
"Er, if they haven't moved it. But I don't think they could. I mean… it's the Master Sword. Evil isn't supposed to be able to touch it."
Link was only halfway paying attention. He examined the room under Flueckli's dim glow. Fragments of battered armor lay scattered about. Cobwebs laced the ceiling, and a thick blanket hung from each corner. Curious, he pushed one aside with the tip of his new sword. Behind it, in a pile of dirt, lay two black bulbs almost the size of his head. He stooped down to examine it.
"Link!" hissed Flueckli. He stopped. "By Din's flame, back up." Sensing the danger in her voice, he obeyed.
"Those are bomb flowers," she explained.
"Bomb… flowers?"
"You pick them, they blow up in like five seconds."
"That sounds useful," Desi said, an eager edge to her voice.
"No. Absolutely not. They are not useful. They are deadly. You don't know how sensitive they are. You don't know the delay."
"You said it was five seconds," Link said.
"Five seconds if maintained by expert Goron craftsmen under ideal conditions, not blumbering Bokoblins inside a sacred temple. Please, please, please, if you value your lives, or your princess, or your country, or anything at all, don't mess with bomb flowers!"
Link nodded and resisted the urge to wipe sweat from his brow. Her explanation alone made him nervous. Desi nodded too, as he knew she would. She was wild, and a bit air-headed at times, but that didn't mean stupid.
"Only one door that I see," he said. "Shall we?"
The hinges creaked as they opened, but there were no other sounds. He saw a few sleeping bokoblins as Flueckli led them through an expansive hall, but their numbers were small. Hardly enough to say the temple was 'overrun.' So either the Great Fairy had exaggerated, many of the monsters had died off, or there was something he didn't know. He grasped his pistol in his left hand.
The chamber was thankfully sparse. It had been a temple, after all, with all the barren simplicity of ancient Hylian architecture. The only obstacles to avoid were the slumbering bokoblins, and Flueckli led him carefully around them. The single feature of the room was a chest-high slab. He couldn't see the details, but he made note of it in case he needed to take cover from arrows.
Flueckli stopped before an opening to a passageway. "Through here," she whispered. "At least, I hope so."
Link nodded. Only one way to find out. He crept forward, careful to stay in Flueckli's light. But when the passage opened into another chamber, a high merciless snicker froze him in place. A torch flared to life before him, revealing a bokoblin most unlike the others. He stood half again as tall as Link, and while the assorted beasts of the desert expressed only a dumb fury, Link stared into this creature's eyes and saw cold, reasoned malice.
Link and Desi drew their pistols, but before they could fire, Flueckli screamed.
"Powder kegs!" Her sharp voice assaulted his ears, and he cringed away. But at the same time, he looked. Row and rows of barrels lined the back wall. Trails of a strange black powder trickled from many of them.
"They explode, don't they?" Of course they did. Why had he expected this to be easy?
The bokoblin cackled again, then stepped to the side. As he did so, an arrow whizzed by Link's head, narrowly missing his ear.
Finally, he took action. "Keep their heads down," he yelled at Desi, leaping to the side. He cursed himself; they'd been standing stock still for at least five seconds. Stupid, stupid.
The pistol rang out behind him, accompanied by surprised cries of bokoblins. No time to celebrate. He charged the monster in front of him, sword clenched tight in his hands. It swung first, and its reach was longer. Link could do nothing but roll under the strike and come to his feet too far away to do anything.
For some reason, his foe did not pursue. Then Link saw why. He stood in front of a pedestal. A pedestal which housed a sword. Link charged again.
The bokoblin readied his weapon, but that didn't matter. Link no longer stood opposite a wall lined with powder kegs. As Desi continued firing down the passageway, Link stopped running, raised his pistol, and fired three shots into his opponent. Then, for good measure, he ran his sword through the stunned monster's heart.
"Almost done," he called to Desi.
"Hurry up."
Desi fired again. Another arrow sailed past her.
"Are you done yet?" she grunted.
Link crossed the final two steps to the pedestal and wrapped his fingers around the sword's hilt. It fit perfectly, as though he were clasping the hand of a very old friend. He pulled. As the sword emerged, the blade erupted in blinding light, and Link was pulled from the realm of the living.
A/N: That was the first dungeon crawl I've ever written. How'd it turn out?
