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Rauru's magic returned Zelda to the darkness. Saria's presence to her right was marked by the appearance of a short orange flame, while Arielle allowed a gasp to slip free of her lips to Zelda's left, followed by, "Princess?"
Zelda placed a hand on the younger woman's shoulder. She said nothing else.
Beyond the perimeter of visibility granted by Saria, darkness still dominated. The floor beneath their feet was rubber, receding whenever sufficient weight was placed on it. The material itself was ragged and worn, as though something was slowly eating away at the floor. The air, meanwhile, was moist and thick. Each breath carried with it the scent of something toxic.
Zelda sniffed.
"Princess, where—" Arielle said again, her voice softer.
"Stay where you are, Arielle." Zelda glanced to the girl with green hair, whose skin seemed to glow in the dark. "Saria, illuminate the edges of the room—slowly."
In the darkness, the girl nodded. She lifted her hand, at which the small flame hovering before her slipped away. As it went, the ground beneath it seemed to grow decrepit. Fragments of the stone floor showed through. Gaping holes were covered by a gray substance in the manner of spider webs. As the flame neared them, the material seemed to recoil.
Many feet ahead came the wall, a stone barrier that appeared as if from nowhere. In keeping with Zelda's instructions, Saria shifted the flame to the left, moving it along the room's perimeter. Each section was the same: clammy and gray, collapsing inward from so many centuries of disuse. Though Rauru somehow granted them entrance to the chamber, there seemed no way to leave.
"Princess," said Arielle, "where is Lord Geoffrey?"
"Safe." Zelda's eyes continued to follow the flame. In the darkness, she was invisible, save for the red of her eyes. "—with the Sage of Light."
"What—"
Zelda shushed Arielle before further questions could be asked.
In silence, they followed the flame. When it provided no further revelations, Saria drew it back, holding it before her as she had before.
Zelda turned to her handmaiden. "Arielle. You have continued to practice at the keep in my absence?"
Proudly: "Yes, princess."
Zelda took two light steps back, facing bother her companions. "The creature is one of my father's original guardians."
She pointed up, a gesture that was half-masked by the darkness.
"It's observing us."
Both Arielle and Saria looked up, but the shadows revealed nothing.
"Saria."
The girl with the green hair turned her attention back to Zelda.
"How far would a concentrated blast of your fire extend?"
Saria considered it for a moment. "I've… never tested."
"On my mark, you will fire directly upward. Put everything you have into a single blast. Don't allow it to dissipate until it's made contact with the creature." To Arielle: "When she makes contact, run. If you are in the center of the room, you will die." She placed a hand on the girl's shoulder—a final act of assurance. "How skilled are you at fighting in the dark, Arielle."
Hesitation, but the handmaiden nodded. "I can use everything you've taught me, princess," she said, her voice even softer than before.
Zelda nodded. "Then don't die." She lifted three fingers. "Three," she said.
Saria widened her stance, as though bracing herself.
"Two."
Arielle did the same, shifting into a combat stance.
"One."
A single finger.
"Now."
Saria's attention turned to the ceiling. At that, her fires grew. A cone of orange flame shot upwards, blasting them with heat and revealing for a moment the entire room. As the flame made contact, an outline was briefly visible—a massive beast, eight legs spread wide as its grip crumbled. Its flesh was rotted black, peeling in places and dead in others.
And then a scream.
It was a burst of agony twisted with a high pitched screech. The noise seemed to echo about the room endlessly.
The trio dash away, splitting off in different directions as a weight tumbled forth from the ceiling. They seemed to clear it only just in time, as it smashed against the floor a moment later, shaking the chamber to its foundations. A second scream followed, louder and more ferocious than the first. Rather than pain, it encompassed rage.
Zelda skidded to a stop, wary of her footing as her feet skipped along the rubbery surface created by webs overlapping with the stone of the floor. She turned and redirected herself, sprinting towards the creature. Her thoughts were attuned to sound, listening for each scrabble of noise as creature in the middle righted itself.
In her right hand, she held Geoffrey's long-sword.
Ahead of her, flashes of flame. Saria' form was briefly visible, her hands held forward, commanding wave after wave of fire to lash out at the beast.
The creature advanced on the girl. The licks of flame seemed to accomplish nothing more than irritation, but in the light, further portrait of the beast was granted. A single monstrous eye gleamed from its back, its bloodshot iris glowing in the darkness.
The beast so close, Saria turned and ran.
Zelda increased her pace. Each step she took, stone fragments poked through the soles of her dress shoes. The beast was not difficult to find, even in darkness. Each scrambling step it took drew Zelda to its location.
"Saria!" she called.
It caught the attention of the girl, but also the beast. The bloodshot eye turned to Zelda.
The creature paused.
Zelda sprinted beside it, lashing out at two of the creature's legs. The second pulled away before it could be injured, but the first did not survive. Strength of steel ripped through twisted flesh. Inky green blood sprayed from the wound as the lower half of the creature's limb flopped against the floor, still leaking its lifeblood.
The creature screamed again and turned all its attention to Zelda. With its two forearms, it lashed out, each blow missing and crashing into the floor and imbedding itself in the rocky surface.
Zelda's movements remained calm. She forced down all unnecessary beats of her heart and steeled her limbs against the quakes of anxiety. With each oncoming blow, she slipped away, each time feeling a brief gust of air as the attacks came closer and closer to matching her movements. Geoffrey's sword lay abandoned elsewhere.
A grunt of effort sounded from near the creature's backside. It wailed again, stumbling for a moment. When it turned to face the second attacker, Zelda noted that one of the creature's hind legs was broken, snapped at the connecting joint.
Zelda smirked.
A moment later, a concentrated funnel of flame engulfed the creature. Though the attack seemed only the faze it, the fire ate away further at its skin. The smell of charred flesh permeated the air.
The beast turned to face the Kokiri—but lashed out at Zelda with a movement of one of its side legs.
She was thrown backwards across the room, landing some feet from the conflict. Fragments of sharp stone penetrated the thick fabric of her formalwear and lodged themselves in the flesh of her back. The pain was enough to elicit a gasp. Zelda pushed herself to her feet a moment later, but winced as her skin moved against the stone.
From a cry of pain, followed by the sound of impact against stone.
A cone of flames engulfed the beast again, but had no effect. It turned to the source and began to advance on it, though it was slowed by the absence of one limb and the crippling of a second.
In the darkness, Zelda recovered Geoffrey's sword. She moved all pain to the back of her mind and charged, holding the sword at her side. The beast's attention turned, Zelda lashed out again. She cut into the flesh of another leg, then into a fourth. Sprays of blood. The inky green substance splattered against her torso, then against the leather of her shoes.
The beast wailed, but could not turn fast enough.
Zelda cut away a fourth.
A fifth.
On the opposite side, Arielle did the same, snapping the remaining limbs.
The beast struggled to support itself, staggering away. Its single glowing eye atop its back moved between each of its attackers. Legs scrabbled across the floor, no longer able to find solid grip. Chunks of flesh peeled away, falling to the puddle of green blood beneath. At long last, the beast collapsed. Following several twitches of the eye, it fell silent.
The rapid breathing of both Saria and Arielle was audible.
Zelda lifted her sword up and rested the middle of the blade in the palm of her opposite hand. A moment later, she stepped forward and rammed the tip of the steel in the flesh of the creature's abdomen. A grey, puss-like substance ran, but the creature itself did not react to the blow. Even so, Zelda allowed the blade to remain in its flesh for a moment. Her expression was pensive.
The panting of one companion grew more intense. Saria held a flame before herself, staggering into Zelda's field of view. The fire illuminated her chest, revealing a long gash that cut through the material of her shirt and deep into her flesh, revealing the tendrils beneath that made up her inner body.
"Saria?" Zelda said.
The girl with the green hair looked to Zelda, but did not seem perturbed by the injury.
Zelda looked next to Arielle. Her chest was heaving and her blouse covered in the inky blood of the fallen beast. In the firelight, her features seemed aged. She said nothing, her eyes a stew of emotions and instincts.
The flash of light. The chamber lit up as though by a sun.
Saria brought up a hand to block the sudden illumination. Zelda squinted, forcing her eyes to adjust.
The light was all-encompassing, revealing all shadows and leaving no secrets. The structure of the room was magnified. All walls curved upwards towards a peaked center, at which a tiny hole seemed to peek out to the surface. Across the walls were seven stained-glass portraits. Captured in those portraits, the images of seven individuals stared down as though scrutinizing the companions.
A middle-aged woman dark skin and tattoos across her face, hair a stark white.
A woman with skin as browned as Zelda's and hair far more flamboyant.
A humanoid creature with pale white flesh and a triangular head, at the tips of which were two additional eyes.
A young girl with green hair, a stony look across her face.
The other portraits were long since shattered, leaving no trace of who might once have been honored in them.
New visibility granted by the light, Zelda surveyed the room. The remained sealed inside, for no door made itself apparent. She looked back to the center of the room, expecting to find a raised platform housing a pedestal mirroring that of the temple's entryway—but there existed none.
"There is no Master Sword."
Zelda did not turn to face the voice of the Sage of Light. His heavy steps behind her made his presence apparent.
"When the Link Third vanished, the sword dulled." Rauru passed Zelda, encircling the fallen monster. In his expression, something mourned. "When the King of Darkness returned, we sought to use the blade against him—"
"And shattered it in the process," said Zelda.
Rauru did not acknowledge the interruption. "He struck us down as though we were children." He looked to Zelda. "It is blind arrogance to think you can accomplish what we could not. No weapon exists that would accept the child of shadow, nor does there exist any power to augment you."
Across Zelda's face, a smirk. "Only because you are so resigned to rely on magic."
"Against Ganondorf, there is no other force strong enough."
"There is always a solution."
A slight thump.
Zelda turned her gaze. Saria had fallen to her knees, her hands limp at her sides. Zelda approached her. She stared upward at the stained glass portrait of the girl with green hair. "Saria," she said.
The girl said nothing. The life seemed to leave her form. Across her face, a lax expression. Her eyes fell shut. Her lips mumbled something incoherent.
"Saria," Zelda said again, placing a hand on the girl's left shoulder.
The girl's eyes flew open. Thin red lines spread across the white of her eyes. "Saria," the girl said, though her pronunciation was different, placing emphasis on the early half of the word, rather than the latter.
Her hands began to twitch.
Zelda retracted her hand.
"I remember," the girl said. Her voice was panicked, her breathing spastic.
Her arms twitched.
Zelda stepped away. "Arielle, get back."
The younger woman appeared fatigued. Sweat ran down her shirt, into the crack between her breasts. Messy brown hair clumped together and fell over her eyes. She stepped back, but then said, "Princess?"
"Sage—" Zelda's gaze turned to Rauru. "Remove Arielle from this chamber—now."
The Sage of Light's eyes moved briefly from Zelda to Saria.
"NOW, Sage!"
Without acknowledgement, Rauru stepped towards Arielle and placed a hand on the younger woman's shoulder. With a sudden snap and a flash of light, the pair vanished from the room.
At that moment, Saria was engulfed in flames. As the girl placed her hands on the stony floor beneath, fire swirled about, encasing her in orange light. Only a distance of several feet separated Zelda from the flame's touch. She backed away, lifting her arms to protect her face from the heat. From within, the screams of the girl, muffled by the roars of the flames.
"Saria!"
Zelda dashed hesitation and sprinted into the flames. It licked at her body, burning through cloth till it found flesh. She suppressed the pain and closed her eyes to protect them. Even closed, orange ripped through her eyelids, blinding her. Zelda followed the girl's screams, finding her in the center. At last, the flames backed away, leaving a small bubble of space around the girl.
"Saria!" Zelda said, calmer this time. She placed her hands on both the girl's soldiers and tried to bring her to her feet, but the girl seemed as heavy as iron. Saria remained keeled over against the floor, her hair splayed across her back and falling alongside her head. Each breath the girl took seemed labored.
Zelda coughed and stumbled forward. Her lungs reached for air, but found only smoke.
Saria lifted her head to stare at the ceiling, where the room's unnatural light was still visible beyond the flames. Images slipped across her gaze, reflections of things not there. Her eyes twitched about, as though trying to absorb what she saw in spite of the pain.
"Sa—" Zelda coughed, unable to finish the word. "…what do you see?" she said at last, somehow able to find the strength to utter one final sentence.
Saria was standing. She twisted around and grabbed Zelda's forearm.
Zelda hit her across the head.
Saria fell to the floor, where her head bounced off the stone. He flames around them died, leaving Zelda to the sweat and burns they'd left all across her body. Zelda knelt down and lifted the girl into her arms, though her legs wobbled under the extra weight. That moment fatigued her more than any armed combat.
"Stupid… girl. I've put too much stock in you to let you kill yourself," Zelda said. She looked up to the hole in the ceiling through which sunlight seemed to shine. Beside her, the corpse of the spider creature crumbled to a golden sand, spilling out across the floor. "Rauru! I have another task for you."