"I hope you won't mind sharing a room for a bit," Ilia said as soon a she entered Ashei's room, dragging her enormous suitcase behind her.
Ashei was on her bed, flipping through a field journal. "It's fine," she answered flatly, not bothering to look up.
Ilia bit her lip and looked around the room slowly. "I like your antlers," she finally said, referring to the decoration hung on the wall.
"Thanks."
"I promise I'll get my own room as soon as everything's settled," Ilia continued. "It's just, until then—"
"It's fine," Ashei insisted, shutting her book. She looked up for the first time. "Don't worry about it. I really don't care."
Ilia's shoulders slumped and for a second she looked hurt. She picked herself back up almost immediately when somebody knocked on the door.
"Come in," Ashei said flatly, tossing her book to the side and collapsing back onto her pillow.
Shad and Link trotted through the door, each holding one end of a bed frame. They set it on one side of the room and disappeared, returning seconds later with the fitting mattress.
"Perfect," Link decided once the bed had been fitted with sheets and a new pillow. He caught Ilia's eye. "Like it?"
Ilia nodded with a grin that could light up an entire room. "You're so good to me," she said to Link. She turned to Shad. "You, too."
Shad turned away bashfully, smiling like an idiot.
"Ilia, you know Shad, right?" Link asked suddenly. Ilia and Shad both nodded.
"We've met a few times already," Ilia said. "We all spent a few days together here, in Castle Town. And then we met again at the Sanctuary in Kakariko." She almost looked sheepish as she said it.
"Speaking of Kakariko," Ashei said dryly, "I think there's some explaining to do."
Ilia looked confused. "What about?"
"About Telma," Shad said, shutting the door and locking it. He looked around at his companions. Then, he turned his eye on Link. "What exactly did Auru tell you? We all want to know."
Link gave a sigh and sat down beside Ilia on her bed. Shad tried to sit next to Ashei's feet on the other bed, but Ashei booted him off carelessly and he ended up on the floor.
Link began by explaining to Ilia the situation with Telma. "She had been receiving these letters from Renado," he began. "They'd all been marked for urgent delivery, and at first she denied receiving anything. Then, she said that Renado was asking her to visit. Nobody really understood at first, so we decided to let it be. It wasn't until I brought it up to Ashei that it occurred to me that something could actually be wrong."
Ilia drew her knees up to her chin, clearly interested in the story already.
"A few days ago, I went out to town and ended up having a conversation with Auru. I brought up the letters in passing—just trying to make conversation, you know—and suddenly he turned to me with this urgent look on his face. He said he knew what the letters meant, and that it was a bad thing."
His friends were all staring at him now with that same captivated look. It was almost funny, the wideness of their eyes, the tightness of their jaws.
"We always knew Telma and Renado had had a… fling," Link started. "Telma used to brag about it all the time."
"She was flirting with him in Kakariko," Ilia said. "Back during the dark days…" she stopped immediately as she noticed the look on Link's face. "…Never mind."
Link shook himself back to reality. "Anyway, I guess they'd had some conversation about six months ago when Telma was in the village about themselves, and the possibility of getting together again. And the whole thing set Renado off because his wife hadn't even been dead a year, and he thought Telma was kind of being insensitive by trying to rekindle all these old feelings from when they were kids."
The company was practically leaning forward now, grasping onto every word Link said. It was like they couldn't wait for more.
"Telma tried to keep it some big secret, their whole conversation," Link continued. "I guess they didn't want people knowing about their, uh, their fling, because it happened during the same time that Renado's wife was pregnant with Luda. So they kept it secret, and that's why he sort of rebuffed her last time they saw each other."
"But that's crazy," Ilia said suddenly. "I never thought of Renado as being unfaithful… he's a shaman, for Goddess' sakes!"
"Yeah, but…" Link shifted his weight, "…But they… I don't know, they…"
"This was fourteen years ago," Shad piped up. "They were pretty young… and restless…"
"But what does this have to do with the letters?" Ashei asked, obviously not wanting to wait anymore.
"Well, Renado is kind of in a bit of a pickle," Link described, shifting again. "There's this… guy."
"That's vague."
"I know, Shad, but…" Link bit his lip. "There's an issue with the Sanctuary. Renado is more or less the mayor, which is why he lives in the Sanctuary. He has a lot of connections with important people—like Ilia's father, for example. Ilia's the mayor's daughter," he added. He paused and seemed to ponder something for a moment. Then he cleared his throat and continued. "Anyway, ever since Zelda's been restored to the throne there has been this group of soldiers that goes from town to town and tries to weed out untrustworthy leaders."
"I have a feeling I know where this is going," Shad said with a sigh.
"Obviously, Kakariko is one of Hyrule's most popular towns—it's been getting a lot of tourism recently. And so this would mean that Renado would be one of the first to be interviewed by this group. So far, he's proven to be pretty trustworthy, but it would take very little to prove otherwise. And then he would lose his rights to the Sanctuary and his rights to protect the graveyard."
"But that's wrong!" Ilia argued. "That fling with Telma doesn't make him a bad leader. That's his personal life and has nothing—nothing—to do with who he is now!" She looked angered. "Renado is an old friend," she growled. "How dare they hurt him…."
"Renado saw this coming a mile back," Shad said. "In one of his letters to Telma, he mentioned that they'd had a conversation about this exact topic before."
"I remember them saying that!" said Ilia suddenly. "I was there! I didn't remember any of it, of course… I had lost my memory…."
Link had tuned out of the conversation awhile back, focusing only on Ilia. He hadn't noticed until now how much he had really missed her. Her voice, her smile, the way she held her shoulders… it was all so familiar to him. He'd taken up residence in Castle Town, but Ilia reminded him with a pangof Ordon. She was like home to him.
Could he be in love with her?
It was a question that had crossed Link's mind on occasion ever since Telma had invited Ilia to stay with them. He knew that she was his closest friend, his oldest friend, and that was okay with him. But the thought of romance scared him.
Real romance. Not just the trophy-wife angle he had played with Zelda. That had been for fun, because he liked her, and also because he felt it was his duty to protect her. When she had shot him down so suddenly—and with fairly blatant disrespect for his feelings—he had been upset, yes, but he had gotten over it fairly quickly.
But the thought of actually loving someone—of giving himself over to them, of owning them, and being owned in turn—it terrified him more than any monster ever could.
"…Link…."
He shook away his thoughts as he realized Ilia was waving her hand in front of his face.
"Earth to Link…"
"Sorry," Link said, rubbing his eyes as if it would make the image of Midna go away. He didn't know when he had started thinking of Midna, but all of a sudden her face had flashed into his head and he couldn't get her out.
"I think we'll just have to convince Telma to deny the relationship," Ashei said, finishing some conversation that Link had missed when he blanked out.
Shad seemed to agree. "If we can get both her and Renado to deny it, then it will get the investigators off of his back for awhile."
"I still don't see how this could make him lose his job," Ilia piped up.
"I think if anybody revealed that they'd been… uh… tapping… Telma, they'd lose their job," Ashei commented.
"Because it's Telma?" asked Shad innocently.
"Why else?" answered Ashei with a smirk.
"Because," Link said, "it proves that he's not all he's cracked up to be. His record is pretty flawless, and if a secret like this gets out, they'll wonder what other secrets he's hiding."
"What other secrets is he hiding?" asked Shad, clearly amused.
"You don't want to know," Ilia answered with a small smile. When nobody said anything, she looked up. "No, really. You don't. Have I ever told you the sumo-wrestling story?"
"Aaaaaand, we'll leave it at that," Shad decided. "We should go talk to Telma."
…
"Absolutely not."
"What?" Ashei cried, taken aback at Telma's crass response. "Telma, I'm sorry, but that's bullsh—"
"I don't think you understand why this is so important," Link cut in. Telma seemed quite baffled.
"That's that old shaman's problem, not mine. I don't care what happens to his job. If you had heard what he said to me six months ago—"
"I heard," Ilia said quietly. "He was very kind about it… at least, I think so."
Telma bit her lip. She had a soft spot for Ilia and wasn't about to argue with the girl.
"Listen," said Link, knowing that it was now or never, "this isn't about you and Renado. Sure, you have to deny that you ever knew each other—"
"—Oh, she's denying more than that—" Ashei said.
"Way more than that—" added Shad, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards.
"—But that's worth it when you think about what the real problem is here," Link continued. "Being in charge of Kakariko gives Renado rights that he wouldn't otherwise have. First of all, he has rights to the Sanctuary, and since he is—quite coincidentally—the only doctor in Kakariko, he needs that building for medicinal purposes! Furthermore, being in charge gives him the rights to the property that the graveyard is on. He controls who gets in and out. Can you imagine if somebody else besides him had those rights? There would be vandalism, grave robbing, you name it."
Now Telma looked plain uncomfortable. "…Suppose I deny it and they still don't believe me. What then?"
"Then at least you tried and Renado will leave you alone," Ashei said, giving her input. She picked up a letter from Renado that had arrived on the bar that morning. "And if you don't… more and more of these every single day."
Telma almost looked angry. "He doesn't deserve my help," she insisted. Everyone else groaned simultaneously.
Ilia stepped forward quietly. "I really think you should do this, Telma," she said, looking the woman in the eye. "Renado is a good man who made simple mistakes… I think you should help him. He's an old friend of mine. And if you're not doing it for him… do it for me."
The angle Ilia was playing was quite obvious to her friends, but Telma loved the girl so dearly that she fell right into the trap.
"All right," Telma said with a sigh. "I'll do it. But it's a long trip to Kakariko… I'll need an escort."
"I'll do it," Auru said, who had emerged downstairs a few seconds prior. "We can do it tonight. That shaman has waited long enough. I suggest you go pack."
Telma gave a brisk nod and hurried away. Once she had disappeared upstairs, the group gave a collective chuckle.
"How'd you convince her?" Auru asked. Ilia smiled.
"She's got thick skin," she answered, "hiding a huge heart." Auru nodded, clearly impressed.
"I've been trying to convince her to go for days, now," he commented. He gave Ilia a pat on the shoulder. "But you seem to have it covered."
"How did you know?" asked Ashei, unable to hold back. "How did you know about what was going on, when Telma was so secretive?"
Auru seemed amused. "I'm old," he said. "I know everything that goes on… even that which is supposed to be kept secret." And then he cast Ashei a look that was almost unnerving, because it was clear that he knew something about her, too… something that he wasn't letting on.
…
"And this is the Southern Thoroughfare," Link said, giving Ilia a tour of Castle Town. Telma had left for Kakariko an hour or so earlier with Auru and Rusl for company, leaving the kids behind to tend to the bar. Ilia was taking in her surroundings with awe. Ashei and Shad followed suit.
"Over in the corner is the old guy who asks for money," Ashei said. "And across the street you'll see two blond men. One has a guitar. You see them? You wouldn't believe what's in their pipes."
"Stop making Castle Town out to be terrible," Link said with a chuckle. They made it out into the main square and Ilia's eyes widened.
"The castle," she whispered to herself. "Hyrule Castle." She turned to Link eagerly. "What's it like inside?"
What happened to Link's face then was interesting. The smile vanished instantly as something seemed to flash in front of him. After a few seconds, he shook his head—a habit that was becoming more and more apparent to Ilia—and grabbed her wrist. His smile returned.
"And over on the Eastern Thoroughfare is the STAR game… cheapskate's always stealing your money…."
They turned a corner and ran smack into a small crowd of Hylians.
"Excuse me," one said to Link. He went to leave, but then his face lit up in recognition. "Link!" he cried suddenly. "Link of Ordon! Hero of Light!" And he grasped Link's hand, shaking it viciously and introducing himself. Within moments, the others in his party were doing the same.
Ashei and Shad, who were used to this sort of thing, found it funny and played along.
"Link of Ordon!" cried Shad, bursting through the crowd and grasping his hand. "We are so indebted for your services!"
Ashei did the same, grasping Link's other hand and thanking him for saving Castle Town, their voices leaking with over-exuberance.
Ilia was confused by the entire matter. She knew that Link had done great things, but exactly what he had done still confused her. Ilia had heard stories of his dealings with a tyrant on Hyrule's throne and of his encounters with the princess- but she thought that these stories had been exaggerated. She had suspected that somebody had marred the truth somewhere along the line that had made Link's deeds seem more extravagant than they actually were.
Could it be that they were… true?
And furthermore… was he famous for these deeds? Was he a celebrity? The idea struck her as odd, and at the same time, it kind of made sense.
For the third time, now, Shad squeezed his way to the front of the crowd and thanked Link for saving his cat from a tree.
Link's reaction was automatic. He smiled and nodded, shaking hands. His politeness was forced, it was fake- it wasn't the smile that his friends knew.
…
Link wasn't in the mood to do anything else after that, so the group—somewhat begrudgingly—returned home. The bar was filled to the brim—as was the usual, of course—but all hell had broken loose in the absence of a bartender. The brawny visitors had begun to serve themselves drinks, which was naturally chaotic. There was loud singing and shouting. Laughter came from all corners of the room. A mug went flying across the room and hit the wall directly above Shad's head.
Despite the madness, the group cut through the crowd, paying very little attention and barely caring. Shad seemed awestruck.
"Does nobody notice this… this pandemonium?" he cried as something spilled near his feet. Nobody paid any attention to him. "Hello? IS ANYONE GOING TO TEND TO THIS MADNESS?" he shouted. Ashei gave a brisk wave of the hand, and the group disappeared upstairs, leaving Shad to fend for himself.
"Okay!" Shad cried. "I see how it is! Leave all the work to the scrawny, nerdy swabbie—AH!" he had been backpedalling as he spoke, and he had walked straight into a broad-shouldered, angry looking man. The man snarled and Shad noticed that he had caused the man to spill the entire contents of his mug.
Shad gulped. "M-My apologies, Sir, would you like me to, uh, clean that—"
A growl emitted from the man, and Shad knew that he was in far deeper than he would like.
…
"Link?" Ilia opened Link's door softly, tiptoeing inside. The room was dim, with the last of the daylight coming in from the small window and outlining Link's figure. He was sitting on the bed, leaning up against the headboard. His knees were drawn to his chest.
She shut the door quietly behind her and approached the bed, sitting down on the mattress tentatively. "Link?" she asked again.
"Yes?" he asked, his voice dull. He didn't look up at her, and instead watched the window. He seemed strangely weary.
"Are you okay?"
"I am," he answered monotonously.
"All those people in town today, when they were thanking you like that…."
"What about them?"
"Do you get thanked like that every time you go out into town?"
Link gave a small nod. Ilia smiled.
"You must be very proud," she said. "The stories I heard—about your travels—I thought they were fake. They seemed too glorious to be true."
"Whatever they told you is true," Link answered.
"Did you really fight a dragon?" Ilia asked now, leaning forward.
"If the dragon story fascinates you," Link said, "then you obviously haven't heard the entire story."
Ilia's eyes widened. "Why? Did you fight something worse than a dragon?"
Link didn't answer. Ilia took his hand, which rested limply on the bed. Almost immediately, he pulled it away.
"You wouldn't understand," he recited. How many times had he said that now? A hundred? A thousand?
Ilia was hurt. "But I want to understand," she said. "Tell me, so that I can."
Link finally caught her eye, and he flared with anger. "No!" he yelled. "You wouldn't understand because you weren't there! Just like those other people from town—they thank me because they think that I pride in having done what I did!" He leaned forward. "Would you be proud if you had hundreds of people thanking you for—"
He stopped. Ilia's face softened. "For what?" she asked quietly.
"For being a killing machine," Link answered firmly.
Ilia didn't speak for a second. Then she said, "I'll get out, if you want me to."
"Yeah," Link answered, his voice cracking. Was he crying?
"Goodnight, Link."
He didn't have time to answer—or maybe he just chose not to—before Ilia shut the door behind her.
…
The first thing Ashei noticed when she entered her small bathroom that night was that Ilia had strewn her things everywhere. Not in an obnoxious, sloppy manner, but in a way that made them evident. She had put them there—whether she had realized it or not—to be noticed.
Perfume, makeup, toiletries. Girly things that Ashei had forsaken as a young child as a way of feeling more masculine. As the daughter of a father who had always longed for a son, Ashei felt that maybe, by making herself feel more boyish, her father would be pleased with her.
It was something she didn't like to think about often, in all honesty. Especially because it all tied into the mystery of her mother—something that Link had mentioned in passing a week earlier. It had struck a nerve when he'd said that, no doubt about it.
She tried to brush the thoughts away, but it was useless, at this point. It was that time of night where—for some reason—her brain decided to remember everything that had ever made her angry, all at once.
And to tie it all together were Ilia's girly things, set out for the eye to see. They were probably there to remind Ashei that she was too brutal to ever be wanted by a man, much less Link—
Woah. Where had that thought come from?
She'd been with Link way too much lately. Having changed from her day tunic into some sort of nightgown, she observed her reflection in the circular mirror. She had pulled her hair out of her face in a ponytail and took in her own features, now. Her face was very plain. There was nothing about it that could ever be considered attractive. But maybe that was because she didn't try to dress it up like other girls. Ilia, Zelda, and even Telma all put makeup on in the morning.
So why didn't Ashei?
She was a girl. She was nineteen. It would make sense to decorate her face, just a little.
She reached for a pallet of colors that belonged to Ilia. They were accompanied by some sort of brush. She'd seen this done before—the dark pinkish color went on the brush, and then was applied to the cheeks.
Half of it was curiosity. The other half was denial. She wanted to do it quickly, if only to get it over with.
The brush hit her face and raised a great pink cloud in her vision. Figuring that she'd started now and might as well finish now, she powdered the rest of her face and did something to outline her eyes.
When she was through, she barely recognized the girl in the mirror. Sure, it made her look more attractive. But at the same time, it wasn't her.
This was wrong. Completely wrong. She hadn't been able to resist the urge, and now she regretted it.
She put Ilia's things away and then scrubbed her face until it was raw. The makeup wiped away, leaving the old face she remembered.
Nobody could know about this.
When she returned to her room, she found Ilia curled up on the other bed. She was sniffing about something.
Probably lamenting over a broken nail, Ashei figured as she snuffed out her candle and let the darkness surround her.
The next update will probably not be for awhile, unless I can squeeze one in this weekend. I'm leaving in just over a week for a trip to Scotland—hello, UK!—and will not be returning until mid August.
Additionally, I apologize for the complete lack of Link/Ashei interaction, which has been a big focus until now. I promise that the next chapter—which will focus on a fishing trip—will make up for it!
Reviews are appreciated! :)
