For a long time (3.5 years, really), I struggled to post this. It was never what I wanted it to be. Now that I think about it, I think I realize it's because I don't want the story to be this. I want the story to be different, and I'm magically thinking that by sitting around on it, I'm going to figure out a way to hide what's going on from the reader. But that's impossible, because you're the reader, and you're going to figure out what's going on. And I'm also stubborn and refuse to change it. I also have considered skipping this and moving on to number four in the series, but I think what happens in BSF is important to understand what happens in ASL. ASL is where everything that ever happened is explained.
So I'm done trying to hide it. I'm just going to post it! Gosh, anyone who ever read this stuff is probably too old to read now. :P
Chapter II
Antithesis of Destiny. ("A Thousand Years pt 2" by Christina Perri)
(OK, shh, this song makes me cry when I think about my stories to it, OK?)
November 23rd, 2010 (221 HT)
This was the daily schedule. Every day began and ended in a very concise way, at an exact time, eliminating his free will, pulling him in everything else's direction, just as everything in his life always had. He'd never had much freedom. He'd always just followed what life told him to do. A slave to his destiny.
That said, he didn't mind this at all, because these were the things he lived for. In the morning he would stand before groups of eager, young faces, and he could never help but feel like one of them as he taught them things he would never have dreamed he'd know at their age. They would listen to him and absorb his words with their spongy young brains, and always did so with the slightest bit of awe because no one ever forgot who he was and what he had done for them. He taught them the laws of the world, the ones Nayru herself had given them. Things that were certain and definite. Things that used numbers and puzzles, which had always come easily to him. As the day progressed, the faces would grow older and more focused.
Then it would begin again, in a very different place. Though he very much enjoyed the first part, the second was what he was made for. The clothes would change. And in his hands he would hold not a book or a pen, but a gleaming sword. The faces he would look at would be contorted, a different sort of determination apparent as they sweat and breathed deeply, built their skills. The knowledge he would impart then was intrinsic to his very soul. His purpose in life.
At the end of the day, he would send his last bits of praise for his pupils into the air, give them his last advice. As they dragged their tired feet across the wooden floor to the stairs, a very special set of footsteps would sound, now traveling toward him. He would see the books clutched to her body, the heavy bag slung over her shoulder. She would be wearing something sleek and original, having just returned from a very similar day, and then he would see her smile in greeting as he put down his practice sword and wiped a drop of sweat from his face.
"Hey, Mr. Navi," she would say. "How was class?"
Nov. 27th, 2010 (221 HT)
This was the sort of behavior that would have earned a lecture and some muttering from Navi in the old days, this indolent refusal to return to the real world. He was vaguely aware of some movement, but the words "weekend" and "day off" rang with more truth in his groggy mind. There was something familiar hanging over him, blurred in his somnolent vision, but he couldn't be bothered by it.
He wrestled an arm from beneath his covers and pulled down a body to himself, turning to the side and trapping it beneath a cage of what might as well have been forged from iron. His prey couldn't escape now, though it struggled, and in his tired stupor, he only suffocated it further.
The fringes of nonsense licked at his brain, pulling him beneath again. His arm grew slack, and his squirming prisoner was able to break free and crawl to safety. This time, it draped itself along the side of his brawny body, its mouth near his sensitive ear, and let out its desperate cry.
"This is the fourth time I'm telling you to wake up," it spoke in deceivingly weak tones. But he was not fooled, and he shifted strategically so it would fall to the bed once again, and so once again he could ensnare it. But it had proved to still have some sort of power over him, because soon his prey had disappeared altogether, and he found himself feeling cold and lonely in its wake.
He nearly cried out in his discomfort, but his protests were quelled when he sensed an even huger threat rushing in his direction. He opened his eyes at the last moment and was barely able to pull up his quilted shield to cover his face before a beast landed atop him, trying furiously to use its weaponous tongue on his skin.
His prey had truly gotten away now, and he could hear her teasing laughter from across the room. She called off her protective beast and it obeyed her commands, sloppily digging its nails into his tender flesh as it pivoted and jumped from his bed.
Overpowered, he pulled the cotton shield down from his face and unhappily greeted the light in the room, but soon his eyes focused on something he couldn't be unhappy about. His prey stalking willingly toward him.
"Hey, you, sleepyhead," it said in its trilling voice.
He sat up with mock frustration, reached out his arms, and pulled her into himself for a third time, his hands relishing the feel of her surely delectable flesh. This time, she didn't struggle.
"Couldn't we just have slept in?" he whined. "It's our day off."
"No, I'm sorry. Actually, it's not our day off."
"Oh, it's not?" he asked in a facetious tone.
"No. We have things to do." She spoke into his bare chest, her warmth welcome on his half covered body. "Very important things."
"I told those kids I was never coming back if they didn't stop being so smart," he said in something that she was sure was meant to be a joke, but he hadn't pulled it off quite well. She pulled her head up to face him directly, but his eyes were closed as he spoke.
"No, Link, nothing to do with school today—"
"Shh," he said abruptly, silencing her instantly. She peered into his eyelids, confused.
"What? Do you—"
"Shh!" he said more urgently this time, opening one eye to peer at her.
"Link, what?"
He grinned, looking quite silly with eyes shut. "We have a stowaway."
"What?" she cried again, even more confused until she heard something.
Something she didn't hear quite so often anymore, but something always welcome, something that always brought joy. It was a high-pitched bell-like tinkle, like someone was shaking a tiny jar full of crystals.
He allowed his prey to sit up then, looking up as, from who knew where, his guardian fairy came whizzing to them, an excited look upon her petite and exquisite face. She was hardly able to contain herself as she squeaked out, "Happy anniversary!"
Link smiled widely, holding out a hand, palm up, on the pillow before him, for his dear fairy Navi to land on. He opened his eyes, watching his miniature friend do a small dance for him.
"Navi," his prey said affectionately. She lay back down to face him and his fairy, where she could see the small girl clearly, beyond the blur of her bright light. Navi turned to her and said, "I see what you mean about him regressing, Meghan!"
"Regressing?" Link asked curiously, raising an eyebrow to the pillow.
The girls giggled at his bemusement, and Navi spoke up and informed him, "She told me that you've been getting harder to wake up every day."
"Not true!" he said defensively, though he supposed his actions that morning were not quite in his favor. But it was his day off. It was the weekend. It was his anniversary with the girl that lay on the other side of the fairy. Didn't he have an excuse?
"Remember when I used to have to wake you up when you were a kid?" Navi asked with fond (frustrating) and sharp recollections playing in her mind. She did have a better memory of those days than he did at this point, but he remembered clearly enough. He remembered the first time he'd met the fairy—he had been a young boy, only ten years old, with a fate dire beyond his years. And he had been sleeping and reluctant to wake that morning. So maybe that was how Navi would always think of him—his sleepy child self.
But he'd changed drastically over the years. Looking back, he could hardly believe that this had been his own life. It was a play, a novel, a fabricated existence someone narrated to him while he slept, and he had dreamed it was real. But seven of those years were still a mystery. He didn't remember a single thing about growing up, just that he had. When he woke up from a forced slumber, he had become a different person, yet not a person at all. As though he had gotten all the rest he needed in those seven years, he hadn't slept a wink from the moment he woke up in Rauru's care until after he slay the disgusting monster, Ganon.
That had been over three years ago. A time when he had been childlike in his optimism, saw the world with wonder while simultaneously being brought down by the cruel reality he was cast into. Confused by life, confused by circumstances. It took getting used to. And that was when he had met her.
She was smiling at his chattering fairy, but noticed him staring at her and flicked her eyes to him. This girl. God-sent from a world devoid of heroes to destroy his, as though his world had needed any more of that. The god had known what he was doing, but somehow, in the end, never meant any of it. They'd come to the conclusion a long time ago that her god had been capricious and impetuous. So really, she was better off here in Hyrule, where the goddesses might not be able to aid them, but at least did not hand out anger-driven cruel fates.
On the subject of fates, he wondered. He had long been a believer of fate, trusting the fact that he'd needed to be this world's hero, and that had been written in stone long before he was born. But as time passed, he began to realize that none of this could be real without the things that couldn't have possibly been a part of his destiny.
Did the fates think about love? Did they assign soul mates? No. So no. No, the one thing he could count on to be spontaneous and beautiful in such an abstract way was love. It wasn't just him. It was everyone that found this, the one thing that could never be torn down or built up by gods—love. Zelda found it when she had managed to send her true soul through a disguise, a prevarication. Luke had found it when he fell in love with a boy. None of this was plausible, like this girl sent for destruction, yet it was all real.
Everything else was his destiny, his job. But to love…that was his life.
Two years ago today meant nothing, truly. If they just thought for a moment about marriage they shared, it was nothing. It was a soul they shared.
"Link, I have—"
Navi sensed his movement a second early and flew into the air as Link propelled himself toward Meghan, capturing her in an embrace.
"Happy anniversary," he said to her. By now, he knew if he spoke in a certain way, made certain actions, she would swoon and giggle. He did this just then, and he got the desired result.
"Ew, this is getting too mushy for me. I'm outta here!" Navi cried from above their close heads.
Link turned and grinned at her without letting Meghan go. "Bye, Navi," he said.
Meghan was too embarrassed to say bye, so she just giggled as the tinkling subsided out the bedroom door.
In truth, she both hated and loved being so cosseted by him. There were moments when it felt so welcome, yet others it felt unhealthy. After two years of idyllic togetherness, they found that they weren't so impervious to hardships of relationships. There were arguments and there were noisome disagreements. But what remained was a steadfast devotion, and knowledge that everything underneath was still the same. Somehow, they were still the same people they'd found in each other.
~~Thank you~~
