The Legend of Link:
The Bastard Prince
8. Kakariko Village
The three of them left the Village and mounted their horses in silence. After hearing the stories from Impax, a certain kind of resolution to see this to the end had settled itself in Zoelda's mind. And, as she looked at Alarink and the Princess riding just in front of her as they crossed the field, it seemed to have settled over them all.
A kinship seemed to have formed between them, one that distributed the weight of stopping Demise's curse between the three other Triforce bearers.
At about the halfway point between the Hidden Village and Kakariko, another horse came running towards them. With the sun having just set, it was very difficult to see the rider of the horse, so both Alarink and Zoelda drew their swords, pulling in front of the Princess to protect her at Alarink's gesture. The horse slowed as it got closer, soon giving view to Link in the saddle, looking very confused by the weapons pointing his way.
"Link!" The Princess exclaimed as she saw her knight, running her horse towards him as he stopped. "What are you doing here?"
The two exchanged a whispered conversation that neither Alarink nor Zoelda could hear from their position a little ways back. After watching for a few moments, Zoelda turned to Alarink and asked, "Why do they talk like that? Surely it would be easier to just let Link talk freely."
"Wouldn't it just," Alarink agreed, putting his sword away. "It's an odd rule that the Princess enforced on 'Link' after I arrived. To stop any arguments that Linky there wasn't the Hero reborn, she made him take an oath of silence and asked him to start dressing and behaving like the Heroes from Legend. She seemed to think that as long as he looked and acted the part of the Hero, people would think he was him."
"Did it work?" Zoelda asked as the Princess and Link began to wonder back to them.
"For the most part. Though, I'd imagine 'Link' isn't much of a fan of keeping quiet, the kid could swear for Hyrule when I first met him. Plus, he still gets called a fraud from time to time, and, while the overwhelming opinion of the Kingdom is against me being the Hero reborn, there are still some who support me. Although," Alarink lowered his voice so that the Princess couldn't hear his next, self-mocking words, "aren't there always some who support the perceived enemy?"
"Link has gotten the blessings of the Gorons to revive Ganondorf," said the Princess as they rejoined the other two. "All that's left now is to actually revive him."
"Well then, thank fuck we wasted five minutes standing still while you established what we already knew," Alarink snapped quite ungraciously with a large grin. "I'm sure that Shad will appreciate knowing that that was what held us up when we arrive late."
"No need for the sarcasm," the Princess shouted at him as they nudged their horses into a run again.
"No, perhaps not," Alarink shouted back over his shoulder - he and Zoelda were now running ahead of the Princess and Link, clearing the path of any monsters who tried their luck against them. "But I don't recommend we keep Shad waiting too much longer."
"How do you know Shad, anyway?" The Princess asked, obviously not enjoying the silence of the group as they rushed to Kakariko.
"I just do," answered Alarink cagily as they moved into single file down the narrow path into the village.
"Right…" Princess Zelda rolled her eyes. "Do you perhaps know why he doesn't like me? I tried to get in contact with him about climbing into Gerudo a while back and he refused."
"People can refuse you?" Zoelda asked, a little shocked; surely no one is allowed to refuse a request by royalty.
"Yes, it was very odd. Most people don't refuse the royal family, and those that do are often looked down on and treated poorly in public."
"But Shad can't be poorly treated or looked down on," Alarink said, not looking back at the two girls from his position at the front of the line. "Because of his status as a former Resistance member, a man who helped during the Twilight era and a Pestilence survivor, he's of a high enough status that no one dares look down on him. Plus, he's the only person who can work the lift into Gerudo Desert."
"How come he's the only one who can do that?" Zoelda asked, very confused now. She could only really remember Shad as the ginger man who helped Twilight Link find the cannon that lead him into the City in the Sky. He seemed to be a lot more than that now.
"He created the lift himself shortly after everything settled down twenty years ago. No one other than him knows how it works currently, though he's been teaching me recently and Father knew how."
"And that's how you know him?" Asked the Princess, her eyes deep in thought as they walked into Kakariko. Lamps were lit here and there along the street and in the front of buildings to guide the way in the dark. There was no one in the street anymore, though there hadn't been many people around even when it was light. "Is that also why he doesn't like me, because he likes you?"
"It doesn't work like that, Zeldy," Alarink said as he dismounted at the entrance to the Eld Inn, leading Malanya and Rogue into the stable for the night, with Link following behind him with the other two horses. "But yes, he doesn't like you because he liked my Father and me."
A few moments later they started off in silence and on foot to the graveyard, pausing only briefly as Alarink stole a lantern from in front of the graveyard entrance.
The graveyard itself was the same as all others, a dark and faintly scary place that seemed to have an atmosphere of its own, one heavy enough with death and a fear of it that lead Link, Zoelda and the Princess to huddle together as they followed closely behind Alarink. The brunet seemed to have no fear of being in a graveyard at night, and rather seemed to enjoy himself as he hummed his way to where a lone figure stood before a huge monument.
As they approached the figure and monument, Zoelda noticed that a curious candle was burning in front of the marble base. It was made in such a way that it would burn for perhaps a week before all the wax melted, yet it was also in a contraption that caught the wax from the candle to make a second candle beneath it. It was encased in glass, so the fire couldn't go out, and it seemed as though it was being fed a wick through the second candle. Zoelda stared at it for a while as Alarink whispered pleasantries and the like in his usual manner to the new man. Finally, her brain could only come to one conclusion, this candle was rigged in such a way that it would never stop burning, not by any means.
Wondering why this candle had been made so specially, Zoelda looked up at the monument and who it honoured. Her eyes widened as she understood. In the wide marble base of the monument, the names of many had been etched. There were enough names to make the font very small, yet some names were slightly bigger than others, those were the names Zoelda recognised.
Impaz. Malo. Rusl. Telma. Renado. Agatha. Darbus. Ilia. So many, too many more were written plainly in the surface of the marble.
Slowly, Zoelda looked up at the rest of the monument. At her chin - at about the height of the average Hylian's eyes - read the words: "The Pestilence will never be forgotten."
Above that, at the top of the monument - still clearly illuminated despite the dark thanks to more of the odd candles - stood three statues of three people who hadn't been named in the engravings. Princess Midna stood to the left, her hands clasped together at her chest and her eyes closed, almost as though she was praying. Princess Zelda stood to the right, her eyes open and hands spread in front of her, as though she was welcoming the populous towards her one last time. And in the centre stood Link, his shield on his back and the Master Sword in both his hands, it's point thrust into the surface of the monument. Link stood in a calm stance, his eyes open but empty, his face smiling gently down on any who looked up at him.
Knowing that he was the cause of the Pestilence, Zoelda found the statue of Link somewhat offensive. She suspected her feelings towards Alarink's father in that moment to be quite similar to the feelings most of the population Hyrule held for him after meeting Alarink, the bastard baby of an affair.
"Actually," Alarink was saying in an amused yet hushed voice to the man next to him. "I came to the graveyard at night to find out what you were working on, not whether or not you can help us."
"If it wasn't for your sarcasm, I'd be more than thrilled to tell you, my boy." The man said in a similar amused but hushed tone to Alarink's. Finally getting a look at him, Zoelda noticed that he hadn't changed all that much over the score of years.
Shad stood at about Alarink's shoulder - making him a little shorter than the Princess, though Zoelda suspected that was only because of her heels - and was dressed in a similar get up to what he wore all the years ago, though now his purple jacket reached his wrists, its collar lay flat and he wore long boots to cover his shins instead of the odd socks he'd worn before. He was still strikingly ginger, though he was marked here and there with silver shots and his face was beginning to show his age. Despite all this, his eyes were still very young and bright behind his glasses, burning with a passion to tell Alarink all about his latest invention.
"Oh, I'm dying to know what you've been doing out here for the last few weeks." Alarink smiled at him. Noting the way that he spoke and stood with Shad, Zoelda suspected that Shad had known Alarink a lot longer that Colin did, a fact that made her both confused and intrigued. If Colin had known Alarink since he moved to Hyrule, and Shad had known him seemingly longer than that, he would have had to have known the brunet before he arrived in Hyrule. Suddenly, Zoelda realised she had never asked Alarink where he had lived before his father had died.
"Alarink, don't make dying jokes." The Princess said firmly, but her voice crack gave away how nervous she was in the graveyard.
"Well, if you're going to insist, it would be rude of me not to tell you about my newest creation…" Shad smiled, carrying on as though the Princess had never spoken, suddenly gesturing at the odd candle at the base of the monument. "Behold! This candle has been my focus for the last few weeks. You see, my boy, I had read about candles that collected the melted wax to create a second candle, but I wanted to take it a step further. SO, I experimented for a bit, and have now created the infinite candle. These candles can never be blown out, due to the glass; can never run out of wax, thanks to the wax collection; and as long as the wick is changed yearly, can never burn out. It's an extraordinary invention that will allow the Pestilence monument to be forever lit and those affected by it will be forever illuminated and not forgotten. Marvellous, isn't it, my boy?"
"It is indeed," Alarink said, looking up at the three illuminating that statues and smiling a little sadly. "But, while you were at it, couldn't you have taken down the Midna statue? She's not dead, you know that."
"I do, but taking it down would deface the property and I don't think the populous would forgive me if I did that, not with how I speak to her Highness here."
"No. No one would forgive you if you defaced the Pestilence monument," confirmed the Princess in a firm voice that didn't shake this time. "And Princess Midna is dead, there's no one trustworthy who can claim they know for sure if she's alive."
"So, myself, Shad and the Zora King Ralis aren't trustworthy enough for you?" Alarink asked, his arms crossed over his chest.
"The only one who can say for sure she's alive out of the three of you, is you, Alarink. You told the other two about her Highness being alive, and they choose to believe you. I do not, because you are not trustworthy."
"Given his credentials, your Highness," Shad said, his eyes confused and a little angry. "I should think Link's word that Queen Midna is still alive is enough."
"Let it lie, Shad," Alarink said as he saw Zoelda's eyes widen at how he had called her Queen Midna, not Princess. Subconsciously, her mind was piecing together all the information of the day together in a way that not only made sense, but seemed plausible, but consciously, she was too tired and hungry to give it much thought. She really wanted to get out of the graveyard, eat some dinner then collapse in a hotel bed for the night and start thinking again in the morning.
"Oh, and who is this girl?" Shad asked, suddenly noticing Zoelda for the first time as Alarink continued to meet her eye with his own.
"This is Zelda, code name Zoelda," he answered smiling again, a smile that turned his whole posture from a cross armed challenge to the posture of a guy introducing his newest conquest. Zoelda wasn't quite sure which posture she preferred. "She's the latest in the twin line and the reason I've asked to see you so late at night."
"I'll head to Lake Hylia immediately," Shad said, instantly seeming to understand the situation, his eyes meeting Zoelda's and face serious, making him look much older.
"We'll meet you there some time tomorrow afternoon," Alarink said, turning back to face Shad completely, though the older man couldn't seem to take his eyes of Zoelda.
"Of course," Shad absently replied, picking up the few things he had scattered on the floor.
Holding them to his chest, he began to walk through the group back to the entrance of the graveyard. In his haste, he dropped his book next to Zoelda. As she picked it up and gave it back, he lent in to give his thanks and whispered, "If you act as much like your mother as you look, we can all rest easy knowing Ganondorf is as good as dead."
After that, Shad hurried out of the graveyard on his way to Lake Hylia, leaving the four of them alone again and Zoelda confused once again.
"... Right, well, shall we head to the Eld Inn for dinner?" Alarink asked after a pause.
"Yes!" The Princess responded immediately, clearly happy to be getting out of the graveyard as she took the lantern and lead the way with Link by her side.
Both Zoelda and Alarink hung back for a moment to look at the Pestilence memorial one more time before they exchanged a glance and started after the others.
It was relatively late when they finally arrived at the Inn for dinner. They were the only ones at the tables when they're meal was served - a similar selection of food as their lunch had been, not that anyone seemed to mind - and the Goron who served them seemed a little surly about having to be up and cooking even after the kitchen had closed for the night. That attitude quickly changed when he realised he was waiting on the Princess, he was almost unbearably polite after he served them, apologising frequently as he walked away and left them to eat.
"Doesn't that get on your nerves?" Alarink asked the Princess, pointing with his wine glass in the direction of the kitchen that the Goron had retreated into.
"No, not really," Zelda answered as she started to eat, seemingly unfazed by how the Goron's attitude changed. "Why? Does it get on yours?"
"Yes, a great deal. Why do you think I'm drinking?" Alarink responded slightly sardonically as he took another sip of his wine before he started eating.
"I didn't really think you needed a reason to act like a bum." The Princess responded, not looking up from her plate, but a clear desire for an argument in her tone. Zoelda was beginning to suspect that the Princess was always looking for an argument when Alarink was involved.
"It's not bad manners to drink at a meal, Zeldy. You're doing it too, after all." Alarink's tone was very calm, one that was obviously well considered to make the Princess even angrier.
Worried that the impending argument would wake the whole Inn, Zoelda decided to interrupt just as she noticed the other girl's eyes flash with anger. "So, what's the plan for tomorrow? I'm a little unclear at the moment."
"We'll leave here as early as they'll allow us to and head straight to Lake Hylia. Shad should be waiting for us before the Desert Province plateau wall and will take us up to the desert using his lift. By the time we get to the desert, it'll likely be dark again, so we'll set ourselves up for the night in a little inlet I know and head off to Arbiters the day after." Alarink listed out the plan in the same tone he used before, not looking up until the very end, smiling as he asked, "That is, as long as that plan is acceptable with you, Zeldy Dear?"
Glaring at him, the Princess turned slightly in her chair and raised her voice to call for the Goron at the front desk. "Pardon me, Master Deru, when is the earliest we can check out tomorrow morning?"
"Breakfast is served as early as the crack of dawn, so perhaps half an hour afterwards, your Highness. I'm sorry our service hasn't been warm enough to permit a longer stay." Answered Deru rather sadly despite his politeness.
"Ah, no, your hospitality is more than some of us deserve," Zelda glared contemptuously at Alarink as he smiled into his wine glass. "However, we are on an urgent mission and all haste must be made to allow for its swift completion." Deru seemed to perk up a little after hearing that.
"Swift completion, eh?" Mumbled Alarink suggestively into his glass, eyeing the Princess as he did.
"Princess, don't-" Zoelda started to warn the blonde not to retort, just a little too late.
"Oh? Is that a phrase you're used to hearing, Alarink?" She asked, her grin wicked as she stared at Alarink. "Perhaps from your dissatisfied lovers?"
A second passed, in which the Princess seemed to congratulate herself for such an impressive insult, then Alarink began laughing uproariously and Zoelda buried her head in her hands with embarrassment and annoyance that they were arguing like children again.
"Wow, what an insult you had there, Princess!" Said he between laughs as the Goron chef came back to collect their plates. "My goodman, did you hear how her Highness just insulted me? 'Twas the stuff the Legends are made of!"
"I'm sorry," he apologised, looking slightly shocked at the way Alarink was gripping his arm. "I'm afraid I missed that. Was it truly as impressive as he says, your Highness?"
Zelda glared at the still laughing Alarink and sighed, "No, I fear that Alarink is simply mocking me. I suggest you leave now, goodman, your service and food has been excellent, but I'd rather you didn't remain long enough to allow our philanderer here to start flirting with you."
"Oh, there's no need to worry about that, Princess," said Alarink slightly giddily. If Zoelda didn't know - or at the very least suspect - that this was all some ploy to make the Princess snap at him, she would have thought it was the wine getting to him. "I have no idea how Gorons have sex, and while I'm sure it's pleasuring, I don't really have any desire to find out. My apologies that I don't consider you fuckable, my goodman."
"No need to apologise," the chef muttered, his expression profoundly uncomfortable.
"Do the Princess and Alarink always go out of their way to agitate each other this much?" Zoelda whispered to Link, watching as the blonde girl started to draw herself up again. Link's response was an eyeroll that seemed to say, 'you haven't seen anything yet'.
"I apologise for Alarink, goodman, we are truly humbled by your service," the Princess said as the Goron picked up the last of the plates and started back to the kitchen.
"And I am humbled by your presence, your Highness." He mumbled in response, still seeming enormously uncomfortable as the doors to the kitchen closed behind him.
"Seriously, Princess, just between the four of us," Alarink looked around the small table at the rest of them, his eyes slightly wild as he did. "Can you honestly say that all this royal pampering and whatnot doesn't get on your nerves? Because of your status, you can never see the true side of people, only the respectable side they show to royalty. Doesn't that bother you at all? Knowing that your people are too afraid of you to show how they truly feel?"
"Did it bother you?" The Princess asked, seeming not to think before she did as she seemed as surprised as the rest of them.
"What?" Alarink asked flatly, all signs of his apparent drunkenness gone as he stared at her.
"The way commoners treat royalty; did it bother you?" Princess Zelda asked him, her gaze steady. It appeared, at least to Zoelda who had no idea what the Princess was insinuating, that she might have gained the upper hand in the growing argument somehow.
"What do you mean by 'did it bother me'? It does bother me, if that's what you're asking." The brunet was suddenly sat very still and tall, his eyes flickering between the two girls as he did.
"No, I'm asking did it bother you," slowly the Princess lent over to touch his hand, her eyes boring into him as she did, flicking over to Zoelda once before saying, "You know, when you were a member of the royal family?"
"What?" Zoelda asked, looking from Alarink to the Princess and back again before looking over at Link, only to see he was as shocked as she was.
"The Bastard Prince," Zelda practically purred as she stared down Alarink. "How did you feel when people treated you differently because of that title, Link?"
"I think it's time we go to bed." He said, standing up suddenly, almost knocking the chair down behind him as he did - an act of very uncharacteristic ungracefulness.
"And who will be accompanying you tonight?" The Princess called after him as he started up the stairs towards the beds.
"No one. I think we could all use a full night's sleep tonight."
"Very well, but before you go: who would you say won this round?"
"You did, now goodnight." Alarink stomped the last few steps as the Princess turned to Link and highfived him.
Once again, Zoelda was more confused at the end of the day than when it started, even despite all the answers she'd gained from Impax. She followed behind the Princess and Link as they showed her to her room for the night and then made their way to their own, talking quietly among themselves as they walked down the hall. The room she'd been given was small and uncrowded, with a small bathroom to the left of the door that featured a bath full of slightly dusty cold water.
After a few moments contemplation, Zoelda decided to brave the cold, dusty water for only a few seconds before changing into the Inn provided bathrobe - that was obviously too small for her - she was beginning to suspect that everything in Hyrule was doomed to be too small for her. As she made her way to the bed, she realised she had no clothes to sleep in for the night and began to contemplate whether or not just to say screw it and go to sleep in the bathrobe. Shaking her head at herself, she put her boots on and made her way quietly down the stairs and out to the stables, conscious that her clicking heels had the potential to wake everyone up as she went.
The moon was full and very high above the town as she emerged from the Inn into the surprisingly cold night. Pulling her bathrobe closer about herself, she turned towards the stables and stopped suddenly as she noticed a figure moving just a few feet from her. As the figure moved out from the shadows of the stable and into the moonlight, Zoelda realised that the figure was a tall man, and one she knew well, at that.
Hidden among the shadows of the Inn doorway, Zoelda watched as Alarink made his way to the Eldin spring, his movements sneaky as though he didn't want to be caught going there in the middle of the night. The thing that most caught her eye about him, and the thing that made her hold her tongue instead of calling out to him, was how he was dressed. He wore a dark hooded cloak that reached his knees at the front yet trailed behind his ankles at the back, closed over his torso and waist by a length of rope that obviously didn't come with the cloak.
Everything about him made Zoelda's mind scream that something was wrong, or at the very least, very different about the Alarink she knew and the one that walked away from her. Regardless of what her mind was telling her, Zoelda stood shaking in the door way until she was sure she could go back inside without catching his attention - getting a change of clothes was no longer a possibility, what if he saw her in the stables as he came back?
As she turned to go back inside, watching Alarink leave her field of vision as she did, she could have sworn she saw a slight blueish cast to his skin under the cold, brilliant moonlight…
AN:
Okay, first off, thanks to the guest known as James Birdsong for reviewing, you're my favourite.
Anyway, as previously mentioned this is where things start to pick up in quality and the story starts to gain momentum, so, if you've stuck with it this far allow me to tell you it only gets better from here.
Otherwise, have a good week all of you - we're now sitting at a high of 10 people per chapter again, so I hope the new readers or those who picked it up over the holidays stay with me!
Also, why not tell me what you think? Little review or Twitter comment? I don't expect anything, but I'm going to keep pushing for people to tell me what they think because that's kinda the only way I can improve.
So, have a nice week again.
~WWQ