A/N: Thanks to ZeldaRubix, James Birdsong, RoseWing and (NEW REVIEWER!) pikachucat for their reviews!
Thanks for the review ZeldaRubix. Ostentatiously is an awesome word but I think I used it in the wrong context DX So think of Zelda as saying that particular phrase bluntly, or crassly. I'm just an idiot who needs to look at a freakin' dictionary more often! (By the way, see if you can spot the 'The Girl with the Green Hair' reference in the chapter. It's subtle, but hey).
Thanks RoseWing! I wanted Zelda to come across as shying away from that, uh... 'regality' (is that even a word? haha) she used to have, and to become a bit more savage. I'm glad it worked!
I did a bit of research on OoT3D, and I just discovered that the 'prison' doesn't even have a door! X) So, uh... yeah. Just imagine it does and Zelda's in the Thieves' Hideout right now.
A side note: If you didn't have an account and wanted to review but weren't allowed, it's because I had anonymous reviewing turned off. However, I just turned it back on, so I encourage anyone who couldn't before to review. We're almost at the big 100! Let's see if we can get there this chapter, shall we?
So, Zelda is going to try to escape the Gerudo Fortress. Will she be successful?
Read on!
Chapter 29 - Escape
Zelda crouched low and slithered through the hallway. Like a Rope, a monster she had never seen but had learned about back in the castle. The hallway was slightly slanted, so it was quite easy to traverse. As she came to the middle there was a small barricade made of wood with large gaps in between. Zelda could quite easily have squeezed through the gaps, but she instead jumped over, and her feet thudded softly on the ground on the other side. Her side protested quietly before settling down again, grumbling, and letting her continue.
She squatted slightly and cocked her ears toward the entrance to the next room. Faint voices sputtered out of the room. Distinct, they were, women's of course. Zelda guessed thanks to her fantastic hearing that there were two guards in there. She readied her needles and surreptitiously slid along the wall leading to the room. She snuck a glance in, and found two guards in around the same area, chatting casually as their spears swayed on their backs. Poised like a guard dog, looking behind their back to see what there is to protect the owner from.
Zelda shook the needles out of her sleeve and aimed. The guards stayed unaware to her presence, casually strolling slowly past each other and occasionally whispering. Zelda aimed again, looking to catch that bulge, that nerve cluster in the neck of the first guard, who had her back to her. Just one shot. Right there, easy does it...
Now! Zelda shouted in her mind, and flung the needle. It zoomed, perfectly straight, past the second guard's eyes so quickly it wasn't even a blur. And the first guard's too. It missed, careening into the wall with a resonant clink!
Zelda cursed quietly and flung herself back behind the hidden corner of the wall. The guards looked at each other and, as if panicking, looked around the room, trying to ascertain the origin of the sound. If they didn't know any better, they could've sworn that maybe... just maybe. No, she couldn't have escaped. Could she?
They looked around again, but couldn't see anything out of the ordinary or suspicious. Shrugging slightly, they nodded to each other, silent now and marching slowly away from each other. They were so close to dropping their guard. No chance of that happening again, which was bad news for Zelda. Looks like she would have to face them head on. And quick. It looked like one was heading her way.
The guard shook wearily as she approached the doorway where Zelda was hiding. Whatever the noise was, if someone was around, they'd be right around this corner... She hoisted the spear in both hands and slowly crept to the doorway. As an extra precaution, she sliced the spear around the corner to ensure there was less time to apprehend the person. All that was heard, however, was a largely metal clank, showing that nothing or nobody was around the corner. The other guard looked back at her and smirked, as if knowingly. The guard smiled back before turning back to the doorway.
Just in case, she crept up to the doorway, spear still firmly gripped in both hands, ready for anything that would be behind this corner. Ready to charge, the guard slowly shuffled next to the wall. Slowly now... No alerting the intruder.
The guard jumped into the doorway and thrust her spear about wildly for a second, before realising there was nothing to stab. She breathed a slight sigh of relief in knowing that the prisoner hadn't escaped. Nabooru didn't take kindly to letting the prisoners leave, especially prisoners that were most likely out to obtain information on the Gerudo's outings and thieveries.
The guard's shoulders sagged as if a weight had literally been lifted off her bare shoulders. She was about to leave the doorway when a figure leapt from the ceiling in front of her, slapped the spear out of her hand and stuck its fist into her neck. She gasped as she felt the wind leave her lungs and her vision started to blur. Her head spun and her eyes flitting around and rolled upward, before eventually they rolled back into her head and she dropped to the ground. And throughout all this, not a word, whimper or squeak was uttered. The other guard remained completely unaware as to the actions of her companion.
Zelda dragged the limp body back and propped it against the small wooden barricade. The guard stayed unconscious, but Zelda could feel a weak pulse, meaning she was alive. Good. Zelda couldn't live with letting innocents die. It was a trait of the quality of cowardice that she despised in people so much. Now all that remained was the other guard.
The other guard was still patrolling the area where she and the guard first were. Her back was still turned to the doorway so she had no idea what had happened to her companion. As she turned and saw her partner was gone, she assumed she had gone down the same doorway to check behind the crude barricade they had set up. Chuckling lightly, she moved to where her friend was standing only moments ago.
'No need to check behind the barricade, Mar,' she called out as she approached the doorway. 'If they want to get through there they have to get through us.'
She got to it and looked in. Mar wasn't there. Confused now, she started walking toward the barricade. Meanwhile, from the ceiling, Zelda watched her movements. She seemed somewhat relaxed although judging from her neck she was beginning to tense with feverish anticipation.
'Mar?' the guard called softly. Nothing answered. Zelda dropped from the ceiling so quietly that the guard continued moving toward the barricade. She followed the guard, keeping a wary eye on that spear.
'Mar?' the guard called again, louder. Zelda could have sworn she heard a hint of panic in her voice. That panic escalated her movement speed toward the barricade. Zelda merely picked up her foot speed as well, but remained absolutely silent all the same.
Eventually the guard found her friend's trouser leg, characteristically puffed out at the knee. It was on the floor, oddly, and was stretched out as if Mar was sitting with her legs straight. As the guard got closer, she could see, finally, her friend's face. The neck which held it up weakly had a huge lump and was darker in that area. Naturally, the guard almost dropped her spear, but she still kept a hold of it just in case the attacker was near. And how right she was. Zelda was now mere inches from the guard's neck, and in the perfect place to strike and render her unconscious. In an unrequited attempt at humour, Zelda put her lips an inch from the guard's ear and readied her hand at her neck.
'Boo.'
Before the guard had any time to react, Zelda jabbed her neck, and her vision started to fade just like Mar's. She was panicking. A major surge of thoughts plagued her last conscious moments. Is Mar alright? Where's my spear? What will Nabooru do? They were all useless thoughts, of course, that she could do nothing about, but she still held on to them as if they were the last things she would ever think.
It was only a few seconds before she too fell unconscious and dropped to the ground. Zelda smiled as she looked at the easily dispatched obstacles.
'Not bad for a princess, huh?' she asked herself rhetorically. She picked up the second guard easily and propped her up next to Mar. She hesitated as she rose again; hand on chin, pondering on mischievous thoughts. After a second, she grinned widely and draped Mar's arms across her friend's chest and spread her legs out over her friend's. She then dipped the other guard's chin so that it was level with her friend's forehead and tipped Mar's head up to meet it. After a few more seconds rearranging them as she saw fit, Zelda stood up to look upon her new work of art. The two guards would sure be in for a big shock when they woke up.
Zelda laughed, a little surprised at the potential she held for mischief, then headed out the door. Smiling at the memory of it, she stopped as she caught a glimpse of the guard she was about to attack before she was so rudely apprehended. She readied a needle and got out her secret weapon. She was genuinely surprised she hadn't thought of this before. One thing's for sure: it would have saved a helluva lot of time.
A bottle of purple chu jelly. She carefully daubed it along the needles in her hand. It was a somewhat potent poison, but not enough to kill, thankfully. She aimed it at the guard. It didn't really matter where the needle hit, as long as it sunk quite deep into the skin to let the venom circulate. She readied herself and flung three needles in one quick movement. Two smacked the wall behind the guard, but one stayed true to its path and hit the guard's stomach. Luckily, that was one of the more effective areas to hit.
The guard hissed in pain, probably due to the initial sting of the impact, but then her arms began to move erratically (another side effect of the venom). This was a good sign; usually with purple chu jelly poisoning, this symptom would occur a few minutes in. Maybe it was a lucky shot, but still.
A few seconds past and the guard began to drop to her knees and clasp her hands around her neck, a sign her throat was starting to swell. Zelda took the opportunity to sprint up to her and jab her in the neck. Almost instantaneously, the guard fell unconscious.
Now, one thing you must do to prevent the venom spreading too quickly is to bleed the person and allow the venom to pass out. Of course, in order to be rid of all the other symptoms you need a blue potion, but thankfully, by using this technique, the guard should live.
Zelda stabbed the guard forcefully in the arm and purple fluid seeped out. This was also a good sign, as the venom would come out faster. Now it was even less likely that any lasting effects would happen. Zelda smiled, yanked the dagger from the guard's arm and spun it a few times before storing it in the holster.
Being a slippery assassin has its advantages, particularly the extreme flexibility one must have. Due to this trait, Zelda made short work of the huge gate guarding the desert and slipped through the gaps in the bars. A guard from atop a tower near the gate shouted in alarm that Zelda had gotten through, but Zelda, in all honesty, could not care less. It's not like they would follow her into the death trap. With this thought in mind, she took out Rauru's crystal and tapped it lightly. It glowed subtly and flickered when a voice came through.
'Zelda?' Rauru's voice shone.
'I'm through the gate, Rauru,' Zelda =grinned confidently.
'Very good, very good. You know your objective?'
'Of course, Rauru. I'll tell you when I get into it.'
'Good.'
The crystal's light turned off as if a switch had been flicked. Zelda smiled and shoved it in her pocket. Sighing heavily, she proceeded into the desert, a sense of satisfaction passing through her mind like the soft breeze on her cheek.
The opacity of the air thickened, until eventually Zelda could not be seen.
A lone figure in a gritty mist of death.