The Interrogator yawned lazily, scraping flecks of wood from a tiny branch. He inspected the sharpened twig, then set it on the table with seven others like it.
Across from him a dark-haired youth, no older than 19, shivered in his seat. Heavy rope bound his hands and legs to the chair, stiffly constricting all but the heaving of his chest. He wasn't entirely sure what his captor planned to do with him. He knew the man was a Royalist, and when he'd first been captured he expected torture... this had been anything but.
He took deep breaths, calmed himself and thought of his family. The Interrogator set down another twig.
"I'm not telling you anything."
The man continued whittling, paying no mind to his captive. "Yes you will."
"Go to hell. Your master killed my family. Razed my home. I'm not afraid of you and I'm ready to die." With every breath, the captive felt bolder and bolder. He knew he could face anything.
The Interrogator smirked. "Die? What's your rush?"
There was silence for a moment, and then the light tap of wood on wood as another stick joined its kind. The Interrogator sighed, breaking off another piece of a branch. "Thank you for your patience, you've been quite understanding. I try to prepare these things in advance, but sometimes..."
His captive was stone-faced, trying to filter out the patronizing banter. The Interrogator stopped, knife sticking out of the branch.
"You know what, this is a waste of time."
He pulled his chair closer, turning it around and leaning over its back, inches from the boy's face. "I don't think I'll need all ten. Do you know why?"
The bound boy spat in his face, and the Interrogator hardly blinked, letting the spittle run down his cheek. "Because you're a coward, boy. The garden variety I've seen a thousand times before. And so I'm going to strip you down and drench you in warm water, so that you're awake and aware, so that your nerves are padded with blood, so that every cut is going to be acutely translated into the most excruciating pain you've ever so much as imagined. I'm going to hurt you, slowly and immaculately. You think you have nothing to lose, oh but you do! -and I'm going to take it all from you. Everything except your tongue, so that you can tell me all that you know- and your eyes, so that I can tell if you're lying. And don't think I'm going to take your life, no, no. When you let all your little secrets come spilling out for me, and I know you've told me the truth- the whole truth- then I will give you death. Consider it a parting gift. Now!"
The Interrogator picked up the first stick and towered over his captive like a vengeful god. The boy started to cry.
-
Hours later, the Interrogator washed the last bit of blood from underneath his fingernails, hardly able to hide his excitement, smiling openly into his mirror.
"The Hero of Time, huh? Fascinating."
"Uncle Borcha, what was the Voyage like?"
The rotund man in question peered down at his curious nephew. A smile curved under his moustache. "Why so curious, Pocco?"
The boy frowned. "Cause Papa won't tell me."
His uncle laughed, and tousled the boy's hair. "I see, I see. Well then, it was five years ago… and you were a new little boy."
In the markets, two men loaded bags of grain onto a tilted cart, sweating and boasting and carrying on.
"Just a boy! I was just a boy of seventeen when I joined the resistance!"
"Well I was only sixteen!"
"Sure, but I'd have followed Sheik even if I'd been a toddler!"
"You'd have fought as well, at least!"
Nearby, a woman glanced out her window at a patrol of volunteer soldiers, brightly colored in their piecemeal armor. "At least we had real homes. I suspect we traded one master for another- and his damn caves."
"Mother, please…" Her son chided, tying his tunic closed, "Don't say that. Sheik unified us, organized us…" he paused to pull a coat over his head, "He took the resistance and turned it into a real army! He's not our master, he's our leader."
She huffed. "Well he lead us into a damn volcano!"
In his home, Pocco played with his soup, watching little hunks of carrot slip off his spoon into the murky brown below.
Borcha smacked him lightly. "Don't play with your food! –so we had a leader, but no direction. We had an army but nowhere to put it. We wanted to run, but we didn't know where to go. And d'you know what Sheik said then?"
The carrots swirled in the earthy soup, and Pocco looked up. "What did he say?"
Between the market stalls, the bag of grain tore open, spilling across the stone ground.
The two workers didn't notice, now tossing the cargo at the cart without so much as a glance. One yelled as he heaved the next sack. "'Go north!' said Sheik! And so we went north."
"Through the plains!" said the other.
"And the frost!" came the reply.
"I must've walked a thousand miles on that trip."
"So did we all, y'fool!"
The old woman drew the windows closed. "Fool plan from the very beginning. You see those idiot soldiers every day. You think they'll ever match up to the Royal Army?"
Her son sighed as he pulled on his boots. "I don't know, mother."
She huffed again and crossed her arms.
He walked up behind her and hugged her closely, kissing the top of her head. "I do know I carried you on my back for the last leg of the journey. I know I saw your eyes light up when we first poured into Kokiri. A whole village, abandoned in a mountain, like it was waiting for us. We got our own house, and… and two meals a day…"
She interrupted him, misty-eyed. "I'd rather have my grandchild!"
His smile wilted, and he withdrew immediately. "I… I know, mom."
"Mom?!" Pocco's mouth dropped open.
His uncle's grin split his face in two. "That's right. Your mother took out three soldiers all by herself. I found her sitting in a pile of them!"
"Awesome!"
Borcha sighed. "Sitting right there," he frowned, "with my brother… with your father."
The door opened, cool air rushing in with a tall brunette, hand on a stomach round and swollen.
Borcha stood up to greet her. He patted his nephew on the back. "Go play, Pocco."
"Kay!"
The boy ran out, hugging his mother on the way. "Mom, you're cool!"
She arched an eyebrow. "…Okay? I love you too, honey."
Pocco disappeared through the doorway, and his mother gave his uncle Borcha a confused look, then put her arms around the stocky man and kissed his lips deeply.
Outside the boy galloped down the ramp to a familiar corridor. He came out in a quiet patch of land beneath a low-hanging ceiling, and as far as the eye could see, there were solemn stones rising from the dirt.
The boy sped through the field of rock until he came to one he knew. He sat down in front of the door-shaped stone and ran a hand along its rough surface, feeling the indentation of every letter.
"Papa, tell me something new today."
The graveyard hummed with distant silence.
"Please."
Sheik folded his hands. "And that's how we got here. We fought our way across the plains, through two legions, and made it to this volcano. We had an entire village with us. Families carried their entire lives on their wagons… markets, butchers, bars… it all came together in this little, secluded world."
Malon still had difficulty grasping it all. "But… this is a frozen mountain range. Where do you get your food?"
"An underground farm," came the casual reply.
This made her very cross. "Uh-huh. And where do you get your underground sun?"
Sheik and Enzo snickered, the latter defending his leader. "The farmgirl is not convinced! I'd be glad to give you a personal tour of our fields."
"It sounds thrilling, really. But surely there's something more pressing for us to do outside this lovely town."
"Oh?"
"Of course. Link and I are here to help with the Resistance, not relax. Give us messages, give us a mission. As soon as he's well again we'll depart."
Sheik's brow softened, and he leaned back slowly. "I see. You haven't quite pieced it all together, have you?"
Malon looked confused. "Pieced… what together?"
The captain and his leader shared a furtive glance at this.
The sound of an approaching patrol interrupted their conversation, and soon Link entered with his guards. Sheik stood, eyes lit up.
"If it isn't the courageous hero himself! I utterly apologize for your sickening treatment. We're simply not used to visitors here."
Link shrugged, seeing that Malon was alright. She moved across the room and hugged him close.
"I'm glad you're okay, Link. They're going to send us back towards Castletown once you're better, so you need to focus on getting-"
Enzo cleared his throat. Sheik looked quite uncomfortable. "About that… as I was about to mention, I don't think a… mission of that type is what we currently need the most."
Malon waved him off. "Fine, then. There has to be something we can transport back to Castletown to help the Resistance. Orders, weaponry, explosives- name it. Then we can work from there to-"
Sheik interrupted again. "That's what I'm trying to tell you- we need both of you here for the time being. Particularly Link- no offense to your considerable expertise, miss. Furthermore, it's absolutely critical that no one leaves the mountain until we are ready to embark against Ganondorf, this time as an army proper- we took enough of a chance simply directing the two of you here."
Malon spun around to face Sheik. "War! Well why didn't you say so?! Of course we'll stay if that's the case- Din's fire, you're preparing a legion? When do you sortie? In a month? Two? Link- listen to that, we're going to return with an entire army!"
The two seemed ecstatic over the concept, Link grasping the situation only in the simplest terms- but he fed off Malon's enthusiasm, and understood the generality of 'War'- and the opportunities such an event would provide him with to stick sharp, steely objects into Zant's fleshy bits.
The rest of the room was deathly silent, every man present from guard to general uneasily shifting gazes.
Malon paused in the middle of a rant about liberating her hometown in the farmland near Lon Lon. "Well, Sheik? Tell us, when do we march?"
Sheik swallowed, and answered coolly.
"Fifteen years."
Dark here.
Oh dear. Fifteen years? Our beloved heroes will be almost forty by then, and I feel I'm already pushing it with Link's 'gruff adult' act. This simply won't do.
I tried something new, stylistically that is- I hope you enjoyed the shifting perspectives used to tell the story of the village. I felt like I could've had another boring exposition fest with Sheik (as I did with Enzo last chapter, sorry!) and still leave everyone in the dark as to what the village was really like… instead the people tell the story. Obviously Kokiri Village (which you can't leave- get it now? Ha ha.) is very Jewish in its conception. (Replace 'voyage' with 'exodus'.)
I hope it wasn't too confusing. Originally there were no bullets, which I dislike, but I think they're necessary (and not too intrusive) here. Any thoughts on this chapter would be greatly appreciated. I like this chapter a lot, but it feels unpolished- even a single well-thought out critique would probably galvanize me to edit some.
I'm off on vacation this week- updates may be spotty. Let's hope the travel virus doesn't run me out of town for another two years!