A/N: Hey, hey! This is chapter 3 of Cave of the Ancients, in case you're wondering (lol). Please have fun reading. I'm not exactly sure what Zelda's personality would be, because she has so many different ones, so I made her kind of snobby and yet still kind and regal. Please R&R!
Disclaimer: I don't own Zelgadis, Link, Zelda, or wherever they come from, so please don't sue me (then again, they could just sue me anyway).
CAVE OF THE ANCIENTS: CHAPTER 3.
Rather early that morning (for Link, anyway), Link wakes up to find Zelgadis already standing up and buckling his sword to his belt.
"I thought you were coming," he jokes.
"What time is it?"
"Dawn. That's really all I know so far. The sun isn't very...well, traceable."
Link laughs and stands, brushing dried leaves out of his hair before he, too, attaches his sword to his back, placing his shield over it.
"Why, exactly, do you fight with a shield?" Zelgadis asks in mild curiosity.
Link looks up from the supplies he is currently preparing. "My skin isn't made of stone."
"Well, neither is Gourry's, and you're about the same skill level as he is. Is there a better reason for carrying that around?" He gestures to Link's giant blue shield currently strapped to his back.
"Magical attacks. Easy to block with this kind of shield. You know, just in case there isn't a sorcerer around here?" he jokes dryly.
Zelgadis tilts his head slightly sideways. "Well, if you're ready to go, I can remove these barriers now."
Link nods, and together they set out, unknowing of what's happening in Hyrule but sure that what they have to do for now is head towards that castle...
Zelda hurries through the gleaming hallways of Hyrule Castle. The sky is unusually dark, and the sun is blazing crimson. This can't be good.
Which just leads to the dream she had last night, in which two shadowed figures fought together against what must have been Ganondorf, the former king of the Gerudo tribe. But this time...this time, Ganondorf was different. He seemed less angry and more cautious.
Zelda certainly doesn't enjoy her prophetic nightmares, generally in which she wakes up screaming, with cold sweat trickling down her neck. But she knows that she was given this gift for a reason, and this time she's prepared for them.
She sweeps through the entrance hall and out of the castle, telling a runner to get her horse. A few minutes later, he comes back with the white mare, and Zelda rides out of Castle Town, hurrying towards the Kokiri Forest.
As she is riding towards it, however, the air seems to have another idea, something along the lines of, "No, I think you're supposed to come with me."
Zelda barely lets out a shriek before the huge black gap in the air produces a disembodied hand and pulls her through, and as she's going, she can see her mare stopping suddenly and beginning to look around.
Zelgadis looks up from the Bokoblin he just decapitated and mutters, "Something is wrong."
"What?" Link asks, currently murdering a Chu-Chu.
"I don't know. Something just feels wrong. It might have something to do with Hyrule."
The green-clad hero sighs, putting away his sword, and they stop beside a very evil-looking lake, which they know by now not to drink from. There was a poor, poor Tektite that happened to step onto it...
Link starts a fire and pulls out some dried berries and such. "What do you mean by that?"
Zelgadis rolls his eyes. "Didn't I just tell you? I don't know. I don't know everything."
"Well, you sure seem like you know everything. Maybe it's just in the way you talk, but I get the impression you're a very knowledgeable guy," the Hylian replies with a shrug.
Zelgadis sighs. "When you spend twenty years searching for a cure for something like this" —he gestures to himself— "you get pretty smart."
Link looks pretty sympathetic after this. He opens his mouth as though to say something, then seems to think better of it.
Zelgadis shoots him a small, somewhat sheepish smile, muttering, "Don't worry; it's not your fault. My family is just naturally crazy." Suddenly his ears prick, and seconds later Link hears it too.
"IT'S A SPIDER! IT'S A SPIDER! EEEEEEEEEEEK! SOMEONE HELP ME, PLEEEEAAAASE!"
Hysteric screams are heard from around a hundred yards ahead, and then Princess Zelda comes into view, being chased by what is apparently a very large spider.
"Oh, not this again..." Link mutters, drawing his sword and slicing through the spider as it passes by.
"'Again?'" Zelgadis asks as it disappears in a poof of purple smoke, raising an eyebrow.
"She's not good with spiders," the Hylian replies as Zelda runs towards him, sobbing hysterically.
"Spider...giant spider...not good for health..."
Link sighs. "Hey, Zelda? The spider's dead. You can stop freaking out now."
The crying immediately stops, and Zelda looks up. "Link?" ("Does this mean she just randomly hugged someone she didn't recognize?" Zelgadis sweatdrops.) "Oh, by the goddesses, Link, you've been terrifying everyone! I was going to check out the place it happened when...I came here," the princess exclaims almost angrily ("We are here to grieve over the memory of the giant spider, which had the Courage to attack Princess Zelda..."). She finally seems to notice that there's another person here.
"Hello," Zelgadis says just before she points out the obvious.
"Your skin is blue."
Much facepalming ensues.
Zelgadis sighs. "Yes, I noticed." However, he remembers not to be too sarcastic with her, considering she's the princess of Hyrule, and so he bows and introduces himself. "I am Zelgadis Greywords of Seyruun. May I ask your name?" Although he knows it already, it's common courtesy to ask.
"I am Princess Zelda of Hyrule." She, too, seems to regain her composure. "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Saria of the Kokiri mentioned that you almost won against Link. Is that correct?"
Zelgadis' pale blue cheeks flush slightly. "Well, I wouldn't say I almost won. He's definitely the superior swordsman."
Link laughs, "I only won because I'm not as sensitive to stares."
The princess' mouth seems to twitch upwards, but it may be a trick of the light. "Is that so? Whatever the case, do you two know why we are here?"
The green-clad hero of Hyrule elbows Zelgadis just enough for him to feel it. Likewise, the chimera shoots an amused glare at him and starts to explain.
"We both came when some sort of monster appeared through an inter-dimensional portal, which is basically a gap between both the physical and Astral plane. After we met up, something told us that 'he is coming back.' Link figured that that meant Ganondorf," Zelgadis informs her.
"But what told you that Ganondorf is coming back?" Zelda asks in shock.
The two swordsmen exchange a glance, and Link takes on the explanation. "Well, at first there was a...a voice, coming from up in the sky. It told us that we are in the 'lost world,' whatever that is." Zelda shifts uncomfortably, and Link continues to explain. "A Redead showed up, and...well, this'll be hard to explain...Zel, how about you take it from here?"
The beige-cloaked chimera, who is leaning against a ruined building, sighs, but begins to speak again. "When that Redead shrieked, I could understand what it was trying to say. That 'voice' from earlier mentioned that, being from a quiet land, our hearing is sensitive, and because I'm...well, 'blue,' as you put it...my hearing is even more advanced than yours is. So, not only do the Redead's shrieks bother me considerably more than they bother Hylians, I can also understand what they are trying to convey to Link."
"Stalfos, too," Link adds. "And really any other monster. The Stalfos said something about how Ganondorf is still mad at me for helping seal him away. He did say that when he got out he would hunt down my descendants...I guess he just has to settle with me. I know he was hoping to feast on Descendant Souffle, but ah, well."
Zelda smiles. "I can see you two go together well. Is there any place safe for a princess here?"
"No," both of them immediately reply. Zelgadis continues to say, "We've fought what must be thousands of monsters just within a day of being here." A thought seems to occur to him. "Actually, now that I think about it, Princess, how long has it been in Hyrule?"
Zelda looks surprised. "It's been two days since you both disappeared."
"I see. It seems that time passes twice as fast in Hyrule as it does here in...whatever this place is."
"Lorule," the princess murmurs.
Both swordsmen look at her in surprise. "Come again?"
"This land is the land of Lorule. It was lost about ten years ago when the princess, Hilda, passed away." Zelda looks somewhat depressed as she looks around. "You see, back when Lorule was a safe and beautiful place, there were portals that brought the lands together. The first portal which appeared was my bedroom mirror, and Hilda was the one who came through. She didn't know where she was or what was happening, but she knew that I was friendly, and so we began to visit each other. Only when the other portals started appearing did we reveal that we had known about it from the beginning. My father didn't approve, and he sealed each and every one of the portals—except the one in my room, which he didn't know about. Hilda and I continued to meet in secret, and one day, she became ill. She didn't feel like playing with me anymore, and when I asked the healer, he said that she was dying because she had used the portals too much." The elegant princess of Hyrule looks almost as though she's going to cry. However, she regains control of herself and finishes. "The next day, when I visited through her mirror, I saw the queen crying at her bedside. She grew angry at me for causing what I did not know would be caused, and I ran back through the portal. The queen tried to follow, but I...I didn't know. Just after she had walked into Hilda's mirror, I broke mine, and she was trapped in there forever." Zelda starts to sob, but still she continues to tell them. "Through my mirror, I was still able to watch what happened in Lorule. I watched as the castle was invaded, and the last thing I saw of the kingdom was Hilda's mirror being thrown into a fire by some sort of monster."
Link gently brushes the tears from Zelda's cheeks, and Zelgadis looks on in respectful silence. It's obvious that Link is very close to the princess, closer than anyone else could possibly get to her.
With a whisper of, "I'll go on ahead," Zelgadis starts to trek up the gently sloping hill, checking for any sign of monsters. Link follows a bit behind with the princess a few paces in front of him, and they march on like that.
Well, until the Moblins show up, that is.
Zelgadis can hardly call them Moblins. Just their size is impressive, even compared to how tall Gourry is. He can't help but feel a flash of panic. How will they take these down?
But then he remembers that there's a princess behind him. A princess and soon-to-be queen of Hyrule.
As he is remembering this, however, the staff of an arrow sprouts from the first Moblin's chest, and it freezes solid.
"Now! Attack!" Zelda calls as Link starts upwards. Soon more Moblins are freezing over, and Zelgadis wastes no time in destroying the first few Moblins while Princess Zelda circles the area, continuing to shoot arrows from Link's bow.
"She's great with a bow," Zelgadis comments to Link when an arrow zips straight past his ear and hits another Moblin in the eye.
"I know, right?" Link replies, bringing his sword down on a numbed Moblin head. "There's a reason so many men are looking to marry her soon."
Zelgadis raises an eyebrow, casting a Freeze Arrow spell to freeze a few Moblins that were approaching the princess. "Oh, really?" he asks with a smirk. "And do you happen to be one of those men?"
Link makes a pfft sound and exclaims, "Me? The Hero of Time? No way; I'm just meant to save Hyrule and maybe the world from destruction. If I even live long enough, there's no way I'd marry Zelda. It would feel too fake."
An arrow whizzes less than an inch from Zelgadis' eye and impales yet another Moblin's heart. "Really, you should just give her your bow."
"Yeah, but she's got her own bow. She's even better with that one. She could probably shoot an arrow through your hair and hit a falling apple from a tree branch if she really tried."
"I don't doubt it," Zelgadis replies, whipping around and calling, "Fireball!"
Zelda looks over at him when the Moblin that was towering over her burns to death. "Thank you, Zelgadis!" she calls.
He waves it off, continuing to attack the Moblins. Zelda switches to fire arrows after seeing Zelgadis' example.
Soon all the Moblins are gone, and all three companions are panting and exhausted. Nevertheless, all of them keep walking until they can't walk any farther.
Zelgadis begins to heal Link's injuries, and Zelda watches in awe for a few seconds. Finally she asks, "But what's going to keep us from being attacked in the middle of the night?"
Both chimera and Hylian exchange an amused glance, and Zelgadis starts to speak. "You see, Princess, over in our land, magic is a common thing. Our magic is divided into three parts: white, black, and Astral. I specialize in Astral, or shamanistic, magic, which composes of the four elements of nature: fire, water, earth, and wind." He crosses his arms and closes his eyes, still with an amused smile on his face. "I mainly use wind spells, and those wind spells can be both destructive and protective. My wind barriers should do the trick. First, however, we need to work on healing any injuries. I trust you remained unharmed?"
"Yes, I am fine," the princess replies.
"You're sure? Their spears are sharp; I'm pretty sure even I got a few scratches."
When Zelda shoots a glare at him, he holds up his hands in surrender and turns back to Link's cuts and bruises. After a few minutes, Zelgadis lets out a breath and begins tending to his own. He takes considerably longer to do this, and when Zelda asks why, he says, "My skin is made of stone. It's harder to heal because it's...well, thicker, if you would say that."
"Oh."
After that short conversation, the small area they're occupying is completely silent, other than the faint, shimmery sound Zelgadis' healing spell is making.
Finally, it fizzles and goes out. Zelgadis takes a deep breath and begins to chant under his breath. Slowly, wind begins to blow and a pale, slightly illuminated barrier appears in the air around them.
Zelda looks around before standing and walking over to the edge, reaching out a hand to place it on the barrier. She gasps when she sees light particles gather around her hand, and suddenly jumps back.
"It...it..."
Zelgadis smiles, although his expression is now weary. He's still standing somewhat casually beside Link. "Wind barriers tend to shock things if they get too close. That's why they're the perfect protection if all of your party members are asleep." He reopens his eyes, and his expression changes suddenly into seriousness. "They won't do against anything like a Demon Lord, though, so someone would have to keep watch. To my understanding, Princess, you have been kidnapped multiple times by powerful beings. My barriers will not keep Ganondorf or someone similar from getting in. Link and I will in turn keep watch, if that's okay with you."
Her expression remains almost completely neutral, but Zelgadis, knowing emotions such as annoyance quite well, can see the emotion in her eyes. Zelda murmurs, "Very well. Just so long as I'm not kidnapped again."