It didn't matter how quietly Heather tried to be, the slightest noise of the bars bending alerted Keeta to their escape.
"What's going on back there?" he roared, throwing his cards down. "I swear, if you two don't start behaving I'm going to..." but the stalfos didn't even get a chance to turn around because, as soon as Heather had been able to squeeze through the bars, she rocketed towards the skeleton.
With a high placed roundhouse kick, the monster's head flew across the room hitting the wall with a crack. This left Keeta's body walking around blindly before collapsing into a pile of bones. Melissa had to admit the girl knew how defend herself well. Just one blow and the skeleton was down. Melissa didn't want to admit it, but it kind of made her jealous.
"Ouch." Keeta's head remarked sounding a little sarcastic, as Heather kicked it face up. " I'm curious, now that you've decapitated me, what will you do? You can't kill me and I don't plan to let you leave."
"Oh, and how exactly are you going to stop us? You going to bite my ankles off or something?" Heather laughed.
"I just might." The skull responded sounding very serious.
"Heather... um, don't you think we should be getting Link out instead of taunting the stalfos?" Melissa said trying to get the girl back on track.
Heather stomped on the skull causing it to shatter.
"Let's see you stop me now." she spat before coming back to Link's cell all smiles.
"What did you do?" Melissa asked appalled. "We could have just piled him in a cell. There was no need to smash his head in."
"Why are you upset? He was just a monster and deserved what he got. One would think you felt sorry for it." Heather replied teasingly.
"... he... they..." Melissa struggled for words.
"You do feel sorry for it!" Heather cried astonished.
"Well, I..." Melissa started embarrassed.
Her feelings on this matter were a little mixed after having heard the explanation of how the stalfos had came into being. She didn't particularly care for Keeta, especially after the skeleton had knocked her out, but Heather's actions had seemed a little extreme.
Before this, Keeta had probably been a good man, just following the orders of his king. Only that had gotten him trapped in a curse he hadn't agreed to in the first place. If Keeta had a family before the curse, they had probably left him. He was now feared and treated as a monster. Could Melissa really blame the creature for his cruelness?
"How could you feel sorry for that skeleton after what they have done to us? Are you really that dense or just plain mad. Oh wait, I forgot you have a soft spot for evil things." Heather laughed.
" Just grab Link and let's go already." Melissa growled defensively.
She couldn't help the way she felt. Maybe if King Igos's hadn't shared his story, Melissa could have gone on blissfully ignorant. But now, knowing what she did, made it hard not to see the stalfos as more than monsters.
" Shesh, it was just a joke. You don't have to get all bent out of shape." Heather replied nonchalantly, as she passed.
Within seconds she made her way into Link's cell, swinging him over her shoulder. Melissa was really starting to worry about him. Even being moved didn't elicit a response from the unconscious hero. She could only hope, that once they got him out, the doctor Ashei had mentioned could do something for him.
Melissa turned around startled to the sound of rattling. Her gaze immediately drifted to the pile of bones, but they still sat in the same place, unmoving. Had it just been her imagination?
"What is it?" Heather asked, beginning her walk to the front of the room.
"I'm not really sure. I heard a strange noise, but it stopped ." Melissa replied, staying where she was, watching the door in case the noise had been another stalfos.
"This place makes a lot of noises. Doesn't mean it was a monster. Believe me. Impa told me what this place is capable of. This temple is not like any you have visited before. It literally feeds off the fear and frustration of anyone stupid enough to wander in. It will try and trick you by throwing sounds. Leading you in circles till you are totally lost. So if your going to be this jumpy, you should just wait to be rescued. I have enough to worry about and I certainly don't need to be looking over my shoulder every five minutes to see if your still there."Heather said going off on some tangent, stopping beside Keeta's remains.
"I'm not jumpy. I'm being cautious."Melissa argued, wondering if the temple fed off of anger as well, because she was definitely starting to feel a little more than perturbed.
Melissa almost decided to let the girl have it till she heard the rattling noise again. Heather seemed to be oblivious though, and as the bones began to shake slightly at her feet, Melissa felt no compulsion to warn the girl. Instead she just smiled as the girl kept going off on how Melissa wasn't suited for a quest. That she and Ganon should have just left this up to her and Link. By the time Heather had moved on to bragging about how efficient a team Link and she were, the captain's arm grabbed her ankle causing the girl to let out a surprised cry.
"Get it off me! Get it off me!" she shrieked flailing about before she finally remembered she was wearing the Titian's Mitt.
She yanked the arm off and threw it into a cell. The impact against the ground seemed to phase it for a few minutes, but it eventually got up and began to creep it's way back to the bars. Luckily it didn't seem to be able to figure out how to squeeze through. Instead it just kept flinging its self at where Heather was.
"I do believe it is after you personally ." Melissa said hiding a smirk.
"You! You were just going to let it get me! With no warning or anything?" Heather shouted accusingly.
" I don't know what you're talking about. " Melissa replied feigning ignorance, but Heather wasn't buying it.
"Just you wait." Heather growled taking an angry stance, looking as if she wanted to fight, but the bones began to move once more.
"This can wait till we are somewhere safer." Melissa said, knowing it was only a matter of time before Keeta would pull himself together.
Melissa definitely didn't want to be here when that happened and if there was any question as to whether the skeleton could find them without a head, all Melissa had to do was look back to the arm. The way it seemed to track Heather on the other side of the bars sent chills down her spine.
Heather stared at her for a moment then back to the shaking bones before nodding. Before Melissa knew it they were out of the prison running down the corridors. She noticed as they went that the halls seemed to have a fun house effect. Twisting and turning every which way, they made her feel off balance, but none of this seemed to bother Heather. If anything she seemed to speed up. Unable to keep up, Melissa tried calling to her, but the girl kept going. Was this the girls way of getting back? Was Heather intentionally leaving her behind to get lost?
Melissa franticly tried to catch up, but it got to the point where she could no longer see which way Heather had gone. This was bad because the halls were starting to split off more. At this point she could only guess on which way to take. She almost wished she could hear that mysterious voice that guided her on occasion. It had helped her in the other temples, so why not now?
Concentrating, she strained to hear if it was there, only to be surprised to hear a girls scream. Not in her head of course, but with her ears instead. Had Heather finally found trouble? Heck! She wouldn't be surprised if the girl had run straight into a trap.
With that thought in mind, Melissa moved more cautiously, following the sounds of desperate shouting. It eventually lead her to a high ceilinged room where she noticed Link sprawled out on the floor. It almost looked as if he had been thrown. The only question now was where had Heather disappeared to? Her eyes searched every inch of the room, but the girl's cries were echoing about making her hard to pin point. It wasn't till Melissa looked up, that she finally spotted her dangling from the grip of what could only be a Wall Master.
It looked like a giant gnarled hand that had been cut off at the wrist. Its skin was wrinkled and beyond pale with a tinge of blue. To Melissa it gave off the appearance of a limb that had been deprived of oxygen for a while.
She knew in the games, wall masters that usually grabbed Link would carry him back to the entrance of a dungeon, but she doubted that was where the monster was taking Heather. Melissa squinted after the hand as it drifted further up. Were those spikes lining the ceiling? She couldn't quite tell because it was covered in shadows, but as the hand drifted further up, Heather's shouts for help became more desperate.
Something needed to be done and soon, but how to take the monster out. She remembered she had used either a sword or Din's Fire in the game, but all she had now was Link's bow and possibly a torch off the wall. The torch would require the hand to be a lot closer though. Well, maybe if she annoyed the monster enough with a volley of arrows, she could lure it close enough to set it on fire? She was unsure this plan would work, but it was all she could think of at the moment.
Taking aim she loosed an arrow, which sank into the creature's thumb. To her amazement the creature somehow let out a groan and plummeted a few feet, before dropping a screaming Heather the rest of the way. If this hadn't been a serious situation, Melissa probably would have sat there wondering how a creature with no mouth or lungs, could make a noise at all, but she didn't have time for such quandaries.
"It sure took you long enough." Heather complained pushing herself off the ground.
"Your lucky I was able to find you at all." Melissa muttered under her breath.
"What was that?" Heather said with a frown, but there was no time for Melissa to repeat herself.
The hand that had been shaking angrily was now swooping back down to reclaim it's prey.
"Here!" Melissa called, throwing the closest torch she could reach to her.
The girl grabbed it and promptly thrust upwards, as the wall master came down on her with an unearthly speed. Melissa was unsure if it had been intentional or not, but with a combination of the bracelet and gravity, the torch went straight through it. The fire spread quickly, causing it to fly spastically around the room. It kept hitting against the walls before finally falling into a chard heap.
With the monster destroyed, Melissa offered her hand to Heather, who had been knocked off balance in the monster's commotion. To her surprise the girl accepted it.
"Thank you." she said quietly, which made Melissa drop her to the floor again.
"Ow! What the hell did you do that for?" Heather demanded angrily.
"I am so sorry! I didn't mean to... it's just ... I... well... that's just not something I would expect to hear you say to me. It kinda caught me off guard." Melissa stammered apologeticly.
"And why would you think that?" She asked folding her arms.
"Well... don't you hate me?" Melissa responded.
Heather just sat there for a minute unmoving.
"Hate you?"Heather said, looking up. " You have it all wrong. I dislike Ganon and I might feel a little intimidated by you, but I don't hate you."
That statement left Melissa even more baffled.
"I don't understand. How in the world could I intimidate you?" Melissa asked in disbelief.
" I don't know... you were the first one to figure the whole dragon thing out. You can do magic. Something I have yet to figure out. I guess I feel like I need to prove myself, but it always comes out sounding bossy or arrogant." Heather admitted looking almost embarrassed.
Melissa was surprised by this. She had never thought that the girl may have been acting out because of her insecurities. Why had it taken her this long to realize? Heather pushed herself up off the floor apparently done with sharing, but Melissa felt she needed to let the girl know she wasn't the only one who had worries and doubts. Maybe they could find some common ground if she shared a little of her's as well. Heather picked Link up once again and moved forward a few steps before Melissa thought of exactly what she wanted to say.
"You shouldn't have to worry about impressing anyone. Least of all me." Melissa started causing Heather to halt.
The girl turned looking angry. "I know what your doing. You feel sorry for me. Poor little Heather can't keep up. Well I don't want to hear it." The girl snapped at her.
"No, wait! That isn't what I was trying to say at all. Look, most of my skills are pathetic as they come. If you don't believe me I know a few gerudo you can ask. I might know a little magic, but am still learning the rules behind it. I am sure if you had the right teacher you could learn it as well, but even if you don't learn any that's okay. We all have our own strengths and weaknesses. For instance, your skill at karate. That is something I can't do. I can't handle a sword or fight hand to hand. I can barely use a bow. It bothers me that I haven't been able to really help Ganon like I should. I mean, what's the point of being a guardian if the one person you're supposed to protect does all the fighting and tells you to hide?" Melissa exclaimed hoping the girl would at least listen a little.
Heather face softened as she seemed to contemplate that, so Melissa took that as a sign that she could continue.
"I read something in a scroll once that said we are not only here to protect our bearers, but to balance them as well. You think you feel intimidated? How do you think I feel having a bearer who is practically a master at everything? What is there for me to balance out? " Melissa explained, not sure if she should have shared that last part.
"I'm sorry I blew up at you." Heather said with a frown. "I didn't realize you were having just as hard a time. You just seemed to know what was going on and what to do at the temples, while I was in the dark. I just figured..." Heather trailed off.
"Can we just start over?" Melissa asked abruptly.
"What?" Heather blinked.
"Can we start over?" Melissa repeated this time holding her hand out.
Heather eyed her for a second, but took it with a nod.
"Just don't expect me to be all buddy buddy with your partner." She said causing Melissa to laugh.
"That's fine. I didn't really expect you to. So should we continue?" She asked looking around realizing for the first time that she didn't see any doors or hallways, other than the way they had came.
Heather seemed to notice her confusion and smiled. "You do remember where we are right?"
With that the girl took off to the far right wall and placed her hand on it as if she were searching for something.
"There you are!" The girl smiled triumphantly. "This is why I said we really needed the lens of truth." She said showing Melissa that the wall wasn't as solid as she had believed. "It will probably be more dangerous from here on. Just stick close and we should make it out alive."
Melissa didn't like the sound of that. What could be more dangerous than what they had already faced? She would just have to place her faith in the girl and hope she knew what she was doing this time.
I am so sorry this took so long to write. I kept going back and re writing everything a million times, so I hope the chapter reads better. I wanted Melissa and Heather to finally come to an understanding in this chapter and Ganon should be back by the next.
Also Contest update. I have the shirt design sketched out now. All it needs is to be colored. It will take a little while due to the large resolution size so you guys have a good head start. The contest will be held on a deviant art group I recently created. Will let you know more in the next chapter.