The Conqueror

Chapter I: Summoned

She was sore all over. Why? She felt like she was drifting. She didn't want to drift. So she got her arms beneath herself and shoved. The world fell into place before her eyes—what was left of it, at least. Her world was gone. How? She felt like she was drifting. She didn't want to drift.

"Mommy," she called. "Daddy. Where are you?" They couldn't be far. They were never far. Calling them always worked—they were Mommy and Daddy, after all. Why shouldn't they answer to their own titles? But they weren't answering. No matter. She'd find them. Where? She felt like she was drifting. She didn't want to drift. Mommy and Daddy didn't seem to be here. She continued to search, never once stopping to wonder why all of this burnt rubble stood in place of her home. Mommy and Daddy were nowhere near. They didn't respond to her calls, even though a hint of fear had suddenly crept into her voice. When? She felt like she was drifting. She didn't want to drift. Her throat was tightening, and a tear was making its way down her left cheek. Now she ran away from the wreckage, tripping several times over pieces of wood that had escaped the fire. Someone had done this—it hadn't happened all on its own. But—Who? She felt like she was drifting. She didn't want to drift.

"They're dead."

"What?"

She felt like she was drifting.

She didn't want to drift.

She wanted to go home.

- - -

Mera awoke terrified, but the dream itself was already forgotten by the time her eyelids had opened. With a deep breath and an exhalation to match, she pushed herself to a sitting position. She was sore all over—From training yesterday, no doubt. It wasn't exactly easy, training to become one of the Sheikah, and it was damned near impossible to do it without a few injuries along the way.

Mera winced as she made her way to her apartment's adjoining bathroom.

"Should have taken a bath last night," Mera muttered to herself as she ran a bath. To say nothing of the rest of Hyrule, the Sheikah, at least, were fairly well off. That much was obvious, what with lowly trainees being able to stay in private apartments with running—and hot—water. "Or at least stretched a bit before going to sleep," she continued to grumble. "I never stretch after practice, and I always regret it the next morning."

She slowly and gingerly stripped off her bedclothes; then, in the wall mirror, carefully examined the bruises that covered her body. With grim recollection, she recreated yesterday's events, remembering each bruise as it had come to her. There, beneath her left armpit, was her most foolish mistake—she'd actually raised her arm to block a painfully obvious feint, opening herself for an easy strike. The wince she gave now was not caused by the painful bruise, but by the memory of her mistake.

Turning from the rest of the bruises, she stopped the bath water and sat on the bench beside the tub. It didn't take long to soap up her thick, reddish-brown hair, but it took nearly thrice as long to wash it to her satisfaction. It still felt mildly greasy when she'd finished, but that was only because the Académie Shiekah didn't spend nearly so much on soap as they did on lodgings. She eased herself into the bathtub and allowed herself a soft moan as she was submerged to her chin in the hot water.

"I wonder," Mera mused as she soaked. "I wonder what Sito is up to lately. I'll bet he's planning something big." She hadn't heard from the older man for several days. Ordinarily, he went missing for a few days whenever he was planning a treat for the students at the AS. The last time he'd vanished, there'd been a Yearend party the likes of which the Académie hadn't seen in decades. Mera smiled. A smile could still be gotten from anybody at the AS, just by mentioning Avaso's dance routine. That had been something to talk about—up until, and including, the moment he'd fallen off the stage and into the bushel out of which they'd been bobbing for apples.

As if the memory of the barrelful of water had reminded Mera of what she was doing, she sat up sleepily and began to scrub away at herself. She didn't spend as much time on her body as she'd spent on her hair, and she was done in a handful of minutes. She reluctantly got out of the tub and let it drain while she dried herself off and went into the main apartment to find some clothing.

"'General Practice'," she recited from memory. "General Practice today. Wonderful. That means more bruises." As she grumbled, she pulled from her wardrobe a fitted shirt designed with practicality in mind; it was green, in keeping with the style of Faroke Sheikah garb, and, once donned, was elastic enough to hug her body without being too tight or getting in the way. It also had a handful of pockets, conveniently placed yet somehow designed to be near invisible to anybody who didn't know what he was looking for. Mera also grabbed a pair of fitted leggings to match, and some polished boots in the Faroke style—once she slipped her feet into them, they would look like an extension of her leggings, right down to the thin elasticity. In truth, though, Mera could walk on hot coals with those boots, and not feel a thing.

She donned all of her Sheikah garb, and returned to the bathroom to check that the tub had drained (it had) and to examine herself in the mirror. Once she had adjusted her uniform to her satisfaction, she combed her still-wet hair back and secured it tightly in a simple bun. Older, more experienced Sheikah were capable of managing long hair without tying it back. Unfortunately, Mera always found herself reduced to fumbling and cursing when she left her hair undone, so that was not an option for her.

"Well," Mera said to the girl in the mirror. "Ready to learn something today?"

"Sure," she replied to herself, "but I doubt I will."

- - -

"By the love of Nayru," Amrick said, "with each passing day, you grow more beautiful."

"By the wind of Farore," Mera retorted with a friendly smile, "with each passing day, you blow more hot air."

Amrick laughed as he stabbed at the ham on his plate with a fork. "Guilty as charged. I can't help it if I'm a hopeless romantic." Mera laughed at this and pushed a grape between her closed lips, pretending not to notice the way Amrick stared.

"You know," he said, voice cracking just slightly enough to make Mera smile, "you shouldn't tease like that. It's very unprofessional."

"Would it be more professional to jump on top of you right now?" Mera said with a raised eyebrow.

Amrick thought for a long time, then said, "If I said 'yes,' would you do it?"

Mera burst into laughter. After a moment, Amrick joined her.

"Attention, all students and trainees!" The barked shout came from the head of the dining hall, and Mera was suddenly painfully aware that she was one of only five students in the hall. "If you're still in here, you'd better be injured, sick, or otherwise excused from studies!"

"Whoops," Amrick said, bumping the table as he jumped up. "None of the above. Gotta go. Catch you later, pretty lady." And he rushed off, leaving his half-eaten breakfast on the table. Mera shook her head, finished off what was left of her cold Deku coffee, and carried both of their trays to the kitchen. Then she made her quick but unhurried way to the practice yard.

Once she arrived, she easily shrugged off her tardiness with a simple, "My apologies for being late. I was helping another trainee." As she'd expected, the instructor frowned and let her join the other trainees.

"As I was saying," the instructor said (and after a moment of wracking her brain, Mera recognized him as Teron Elik, an instructor whose name she always had trouble remembering), "the two of you I spoke to last time will be practicing with me in the south sector of the yard. The rest of you will continue your instruction on your own—you know what you're supposed to be doing. If you don't, come see me. Today shouldn't be anything special for any of you"—but Mera thought she noticed his eyes lingering on her for a bare moment—"so I don't expect any disruptions to the normal schedule. Now," and he began to walk away from the students, "Ryte, Anna, come with me. The rest of you, begin."

Mera headed to the weapons rack, taking only a moment to remember what she'd been practicing with the previous day. There was a single manoeuvre she'd been trying to perfect with a sword. Trying to perfect it in practice had gotten her a painful bruise in the small of her back. Now ought to be a perfectly fine time to try it out, though. She picked out a thin, light épée and weighed it in her hand. She didn't remember seeing the sword here before—perhaps it was a recent donation. Whomever had donated the thing must have paid a fair price to acquire it. It was a high-quality thing, only marred by a nasty chip in the ruby that formed the pommel of the sword. Still, it had good balance, and a beautiful blade. Not to mention the fact that the ruby complimented her hair wonderfully. She took a few experimental swings with it, and decided she liked it.

So she took the épée to a relatively open area opposite a training dummy (a scarecrow attached to a wooden stake), and assumed a classic fighting stance, with the assumption that her straw-filled opponent would be doing the same. She was following the classic style of Gerhard Locke, a famed Hylian swordsman of centuries past, for three reasons. First, it was a popular style, and fair to assume that she might someday fight an opponent who used this style. Second, it was her favourite sword fighting style. Third, it was one of only three styles which could appropriately accommodate the manoeuvre she wanted to try. So she saluted the dummy and raised the sword with her right hand, blade extended across her line of sight to the left.

Closing her eyes for a moment of concentration, she called silently to the power of the Goddess of the Wind. It came effortlessly, saturating her entire body in an instant. Now she raised the sword, blade erect and vertical, and directed the power into the blade. Someday, she reflected, she'd have to figure out how to do this in action. No opponent would simply stand still and allow her to prepare an attack like this. Nik certainly hadn't, when she'd tried it the previous day. Ah, well, such was the price paid when one tried to develop one's own sword techniques. As far as Mera knew, nobody had ever done this before. Perhaps that was because it was so damned difficult.

Mera now extended her sword arm out to the side and bent her knees just enough to be able to push herself in a clockwise rotation, as rapidly as possible. As she spun, the power in the blade extended out past the end of the blade itself. She'd found that spinning was the most effective way to extend the power. Unfortunately, she'd never been very good at techniques that required her to turn her back on her enemy. Regardless, she completed an entire rotation, and the by-now glowing green blade, twice as long as the épée itself, sliced cleanly through the dummy's body. She realized belatedly that it had also sliced through the wooden post. She then realized, even more belatedly, that she'd destroyed the dummy. "Damn it," she muttered, and called to memory the simple time-reversal spell that all trainees were taught on their first day.

It seemed impressive, but really, it was a pathetic spell. All of the dummies, and certain other things in the AS, were enchanted to be susceptible to several spells. One of these spells was a very simple time-reversal spell which would return it to whatever state it had been in several minutes ago. Needless to say, the spell had been developed to repair destroyed or damaged training dummies. As Mera completed the spell and performed the accompanying gesture, the severed parts of the dummy moved in an exact reflection of their earlier motion, and settled atop the remains of the dummy. The rips and frayed edges vanished, and the dummy was like new. Well, not quite new. It was like slightly used.

Mera looked at her sword, and the faintly glowing power that still rested within it. She swung it idly, and watched as the power within swelled slightly. It occurred to her that the centrifugal force, not the spinning itself, was what affected the power's extension. Perhaps she simply couldn't swing it fast or hard enough. With a disgusted sigh, she banished the power and returned the épée to the weapons rack.

She had just begun to search for a new weapon when an arrow wedged itself in the wooden weapons rack, bare inches to the right of her head. She growled to herself.

"Setras," she said amiably as she turned around.

"Mera," the tall, thin, blonde boy sneered. "Having fun? I'd suggest you try the daggers. From what I've heard, they're the favoured weapon of thieves and beggars."

"While we're on the subject of what weapons are used by different people," Mera said without missing a beat, "why are you using a bow? I thought snakes fought with their fangs."

He sneered again, baring the teeth in question.

Setras was a rich boy who'd made it into the AS by virtue of his family's prestige and wealth. He seemed to have a tradition of insulting Mera at least once each day, but never before an instructor. He didn't like her, and the feeling was mutual. She generally tried to avoid him, but when he accosted her like this, there really was no chance of that. So she plucked a quarterstaff from the rack and hefted it experimentally.

"Well, as long as we're both here," Mera said casually, "What say we test those fangs of yours against this oak quarterstaff? Or, if you prefer, there are some lovely daggers you could use…"

She ducked the arrow that came at her. "Now, I know that wasn't meant to hit me," she said as she dashed toward him, swinging the staff in a simple horizontal sweep at chest level. He danced just out of reach, then let fly another arrow. This one scratched the side of her face, but it didn't feel as if it had left a mark. She made her way back to the empty area where she'd been practicing earlier, deftly avoiding his shots all the while. She paid careful attention to the quiver on his back—when it was depleted, she knew, he'd draw his sabre, and he was lethal with that thing. She managed to catch him flat across the chest with the full weight of her body against the quarterstaff, but this caused her to lose her balance. He was thrown backward, but managed to kick her in the right calf as they went down, and she gasped with the pain of the blow to the relaxed muscle. She was able to roll away from him before he tried another kick, and by that time, he was halfway to his feet and already drawing an arrow. She used the quarterstaff to push herself to a standing position, then, on an impulse, hooked it around and caught the bow out of his hands, flinging it off to the side. In the same movement, she brought the staff back around and, taking advantage of his surprise at losing the bow, knocked him off his feet by sweeping the staff underneath him.

Setras was visibly angry by this point, as might be expected.

"After daggers, cheating is the favoured weapon of thieves and beggars," he spat.

"Don't name me 'rat' and then complain when I fight like one," Mera said simply. "You're just the pot calling the kettle black, buddy boy."

"I'll show you a black kettle," he snarled, and Mera could already see the flames gathering about his hands.

"Setras!" Setras froze and paled at the furious shout from across the yard. Mera looked to see Teron striding toward them. "What in the name of Din's fire do you think you're doing? I shouldn't have to tell you that the usage of raw energy is absolutely forbidden within the Académie—do you want to kill somebody?!"

Yes, Mera thought dryly.

"N-no, Instructor," Setras stammered, all previous confidence gone.

"That's the second time this month you've been caught breaking serious regulations," Teron said. "Get out of here. Report to the Council. You'd better pray to Din they don't expel you—I know I would, if I had the authority!" Setras hung his head as he left the yard. Teron looked to Mera, and his expression was no less severe.

"Well?" he said. Mera knew the routine.

"He insulted me," she said with a shrug. "He seemed to want a fight, and sparring isn't against the rules, so I obliged him. I won, and it's no secret that he's a sore loser. That's about where you come in."

Teron sighed. "You ought to know by now that you two don't mix well," he said. "Can you just try not to butt heads too much?"

Mera bit back a sharp retort and nodded. Teron was a superior, after all. "Yes, sir. I apologize for the commotion."

"Trainee Mera!" The shout wasn't angry, but it demanded attention. It came from the eastern entrance to the practice yard. When she looked, her jaw fell open. She quickly shut it.

Standing at the entrance to the practice yard was Pheos Myranna, one of the highest-ranking Council Members of the Sheikah. She hurried to answer the summons, coming to a nervous halt before him.

"Yes, sir?"

"Follow me," he said quietly but not unkindly, and turned away from her. She obliged. Not long into their walk, Pheos turned his head and eyed her appraisingly. "I remember when you came here," he said. "Barely a young girl, a truly sad sight. Now you are nearly a woman—and soon to be more."

Her stomach performed a deft back flip. "More, sir?"

Pheos nodded. "Much more. You are to be tested for acceptance into the ranks of the Sheikah Faroke."

She actually stopped walking for a moment, then hurried to catch up with him. "Really, sir? I'm—you—tested?" She stopped again, hurried again, and grinned. "This is one of Sito's jokes, isn't it?"

He looked at her, puzzled. "Certainly not, Mera." She noticed that he was not addressing her as 'child', as he usually did. "Do you not feel prepared? As you know, the Graduation Testing can only commence when both the Council, and the Trainee to be tested, agree that it is time. If you do not feel—"

"It's not that," she said, and realized that she did not feel ready, "it's just that—well—I've been in training for so long, and I guess—"

"It seems strange to think you may ever do anything else," Pheos said with a smile. "That is not an uncommon sentiment. For what it's worth, Mera, I feel that you will do fine. The testing will take place in here," and he stopped before a cherrywood door. Mera looked at Pheos' face, at his warm eyes, for just a moment, then turned to the door.

I am ready, she thought to herself. And if I'm not, well, it's not like I have to leave the AS. I'll just keep training until I'm ready. But that doesn't matter, because I'm ready now. I really am.

And she laid a single shaking hand on the doorknob. She hadn't realized her hand was shaking. Why was her hand shaking? She'd been nervous before, but that had never happened. Her breathing seemed oddly fast—and shallow. She wasn't taking in much air with each breath. Ah, well. She was breathing rapidly enough to make up for that. The door was still closed. The knob wouldn't turn. Why wouldn't the knob turn? Oh. She wasn't even trying to turn it. Funny, how she hadn't realized that sooner.

"…Mera? Are you all right?" Pheos' voice sounded oddly distant. Mera nodded.

"Mera, can you hear me?" She nodded impatiently.

Yes, yes, I can hear you.

Her hand slipped off the knob. Were her palms that sweaty? She caught hold of the knob again.

"Maybe you should sit down."

I don't need to sit down. I just need to open this damnable door.

"I'm going to get you a glass of w—Mera!"

Suddenly, her hand slipped off the knob again.

She felt like she was drifting.

Until she hit the floor.

Author's Note

Well, this is The Unsung Bard here, formally known as the infamous rebel Twilight Eye What's that? Never heard of me? Prepostorous! this is going to be the final attempt at a story i have tried and failed several times. Luckily, now I have a friend to do all the wordage for me.Yes, the plot and the majority of the characters are all mine, but you have to thank the Great and Powerful Keski for the awesome dialouge and the stunning narative. Well, we have the mystery of Mera on our hands now. What will happen next? What will the 'test' entail? What awaits the characters introduced thus far? What is Sito up to? And where the hell is Link?

Tune in next week for Mera's testing!