Short chapter, but ahh. Something about it just didn't work. Writer's block sucks. Sorry, I wish I had something more to show for the long wait, but nope. Big drama next chapter though! And good news, it's already like, halfway done, so it should come out soon!
~Alyssa
Crudelissimis mendacii sunt saepe dicebam in silentio.
….
The cruelest of lies are often told in silence.
Now
I lived in luxury.
No longer did I have to walk the two miles or so to the market with Baxter before the sun had even risen to swipe bread and milk for our breakfast. I was given enough food for ten men, more often than not in bed, around ten o' clock or so or whenever I cared to wake up.
No longer did I spend my days playing with our deflated old ball with Archer in our muddy yard, or teaching Linden her letters, or doing errands for Zenith. Colin was more than happy to hire Linden a private tutor, who taught her worlds more than I could have, educating her in history and geography, commerce and math. Zenith had a fleet of servants at her disposal at the insistence of Colin's wife, Illiana.
As for me, well, there were horses there, and also the gardens and outlying woods that were dying to be explored, not to mention the private spring, the archery range, the sparring arena, and the giant library.
Not that it mattered. I didn't want to make the time go faster. Each tick of the clock brought Zelda closer to leaving me more permanently than she already had forever. It was like the moon was about to plummet, the townsfolk slowing watching it fall and waiting for it to crush them and die.
And there was nothing I could do to stop it.
Not a damn thing.
Kassia especially had noticed my foul mood, and had taken to showing me around Casperlight.
When she took me to the beach and started wading in the water, I called out jokingly, "I thought you couldn't swim!"—something that Zelda had told me once when we were children. The air left my chest and fear struck my heart, but she turned around with a lighthearted expression, "I thought you said that! Or are you just too scared?" and said nothing else of it.
When she wanted my opinion on the gown she would be wearing for the wedding, she towed me along to the dress shop, and upon asking me I nearly suggested purple, about to mention that it would bring out the violet in her eyes. When a petrified look came over my face at my near slipup, she kissed me on the nose, laughing with the shopkeeper at how 'clueless men are'.
I couldn't keep leading her on. I had to break it off before things got too serious. No matter how much I cared for the girl, my heart belonged—and always would—to another. Kassia was not Zelda. No matter how many times I kissed her, no matter how many days we spent together, she would never be Zelda, and the wedding would not be canceled.
She deserved someone who would love her, not someone who was using her as a distraction.
Yes, I used her. I admit it. But at the time I was too selfish, too weak to be without her. I would work up the nerve to finally come out and tell her, but one look into those damned eyes and my entire speech would crumble, and she would drag me off somewhere else, and I would decide it could wait another few days.
So unwilling to lose my distraction and hurt her feelings was I that on the night before the wedding, when her lips parted from mine and she whispered, "I love you, Nox."
I replied, "I love you, too."
And I have never regretted anything more in my entire life.
ox(O)xo
Then
"Hey!"
I rolled over, muttering something under my breath, covering my ear with my pillow.
"Hey! Get up!"
Pressing down on the pillow more forcefully with my arm in my sleepy stupor, I groaned. "S'aright, Navi." I muttered, a yawn escaping me. "Hyrule can wait five more minutes."
An exasperated sigh. "Link. Get up."
This caught my attention. My eyes flew open as I shot up from bed, shock registering as I realized I was not in fact in the loft at Lon Lon Ranch, but in Noamas, in Amex Manor, to be specific.
"I—" I stuttered, frantically searching the darkness for the source of the voice. "My name's Nox."
"Okay, Nox." said the voice again, by the doorway. My head whipped to the left, and we met eyes. "If that's what you prefer,"
He stood nonchalantly against the door, picking at his nails with a casual expression. He wore all green, from his tunic down to his sock cap, which partially hid his disheveled blonde hair. His muscles were not large, but toned, which suited him just fine, considering his less then large stature would have looked foolish with anything bigger. A sword with a dark blue hilt peeked out from behind his right shoulder, glowing faintly in the darkness.
If I had been standing, it would have been like looking into a mirror. Or rather, taking a glimpse into my past life.
He smiled at the dumbfounded expression on my face.
Goddesses.
I threw off the covers, swinging my feet over the edge of the four-poster and treading over the cold wooden floor to where he stood, reaching out a tentative hand. Where I expected my fingers to go through as if he was a specter, they encountered warm flesh, a beating heart.
"You're real," I said out loud, closing my eyes tiredly, weaving my fingers though my hair. "Great. I'm insane."
He smirked. "Hello to you, too."
"Shut up." I snapped, beginning to pace. "Farore. I've gone off the deep end!"
"You're not crazy." He said, rolling his eyes.
"Am so!" I replied childishly, turning to face him. "You're me! I'm right here! You don't exist!"
"Do so!" He retorted, mimicking my tone, crossing his arms. "If I didn't, then why would I be here?"
"Hell if I know!" I threw my hands up in exasperation. "Maybe I've finally lost it! My life hasn't exactly been a walk in the park, you know!"
His eyes softened. "Yeah. I do know. That's why I'm here." He paused, taking in my expression, his lips twisting uncomfortably. "Look, I can't say much—that is, without messing a lot of things up. But my entire being here is going to be for squat if you don't take me seriously."
"Fine." I muttered, still thoroughly convinced that I should just turn myself in to the closest insane asylum.
The-man-who-looked-and-acted-exactly-like-me-but-w asn't-me sighed in relief, his eyes rolling up to the ceiling as he thanked one Goddess or another. "Listen." He said, his voice becoming urgent. "You're…you're going to do some things you're going to regret. But they can all be prevented. I—I can't tell you how. And I can't tell you when. But you have the power to fix things before they're too late. You can still give yourself a happy ending."
I rolled my eyes. "I ruined my chance for a happy ending a long time ago."
"Zelda is still in there." He said gently, standing from the wall and coming forward to touch me gently on the shoulder.
"I've seen her." I said bitterly, shaking my head. "She's gone. She doesn't even remember my name."
He bit his lip. "She's made a lot of bad choices, too." He sighed, looking defeated. "Ones that can't be corrected. But she loves you. Even now, she loves you."
"Bullshit she does!" I snapped, shaking his hand roughly off. "The first thing I did when I got sent back was to go and see her. She called her guards on me! That Zelda didn't even recognize my face, let alone lo—care for me!"
His eyebrows rose. "Is it that hard to say love, Nox?"
I shook my head, sitting back down on my bed. "I loved her," I admitted, putting my head in my hands. "I always loved her. But she always said she wanted to wait until I was 'safe' as she put it. I realize now, she was just biding her time. Waiting to get rid of me, hm? She never loved me. She only wanted me to save her damn kingdom."
"You are a fool." He growled in frustration. "Has it been so long that you can't remember clearly?"
"It's been ten years." I snapped, immediately turned off by his tone. "And I've suffered enough for one lifetime. I've had every reason to want to forget."
"She loves you!" he insisted angrily.
"She's getting MARRIED. SHE GOT RID OF ME." I roared, grabbing my fists full of hair, a sob shaking my form. "SHE PLAYED ME FOR A FOOL, AND I BOUGHT INTO IT. WHAT AM I?" A manic laugh escaped me. "A DAMN LOST ORPHAN FROM THE FOREST WITH A STUPID HAT. HOW COULD SHE EVER LOVE ME?! SHE WAITED FOR ME TO DO WHAT SHE WANTED AND THEN DISPOSED OF ME, BECAUSE I WASN'T WORTH IT TO HER."
I took a heaving breath, tears streaming down my face.
"She's gone." I whispered. The excruciating reality of my own statement stabbed me right in the heart. My voice suddenly was defeated, covering my face with my hands. "She never loved me."
"Then why do you continue to pursue her?"
"I don't pursue her." I said raggedly. "I haven't seen her for ten years. Kassia—"
He rolled his eyes. "Don't feed me crap about Kassia. You and I both know that when you look at her, you see Zelda. And I have to applaud you for finding her. They're remarkably similar, or have you not noticed?"
There were no hiding things from the-man-who-looked-and-acted-exactly-like-me-but-w asn't-me.
"Fine." I said, taking a deep breath. "I still love Zelda. I'm a sorry excuse for a man. It's been almost a decade, and I still haven't moved on, and she's getting married. Tomorrow."
"And what are you going to do about it?" he prompted, looking hopeful.
"Absolutely nothing." I said. "I'm going to forget about her, and marry Kassia, and maybe I won't be miserable for the rest of my life."
His palm collided with his forehead. He opened his mouth to say something more, but his gaze flickered to the doors that lead to the balcony. He swore under his breath. "I've got to go. You have the chance to fix things, Nox. Zelda is still in there. You just have to get her to remember."
He came forward, clasping me on the shoulder. "Just…remember this." He paused, looking very uncomfortable. "Everybody makes mistakes, okay? Some are just…bigger than others."
"What do you—" I began, but the weight on my shoulder vanished.
And he was gone.
And I was left alone.
Again.
ox(O)xo
A bright, golden light appeared in the center of the room, and the woman sitting patiently on the window seat snapped up, suddenly attentive as a man clothed in green appeared, his face less than pleased.
"I presume things did not go as planned?"
Ripping the sock cap off his head, he stormed to the bed that occupied most of the large space, sitting down with a large huff.
"Was he always so goddess-damned stubborn?" he cried, falling back until his head hit the pillows, biting his lip to hold back the tears of frustration.
It didn't work. His eyes burned as he recalled his face, so hurt and broken as he fell apart at the mention of her name. He was different, so different since the time she had seen him last. He had replaced her, found a family and a lover and a life without her.
He wouldn't even call himself Link anymore.
The woman at the window stood, sitting lightly at his feet, her eyebrows drawn with sympathy. "It was that resilience that gave him the strength to save this land. Surely, he would have failed without it."
"He did fail." The young man reminded him, balling his hand into a fist and clutching the pillow. "He failed because I was too weak to get to him in time and now he's paying the price and I hate myself for it."
"You're being too hard on yourself." said the woman tenderly, sitting at the foot of the bed and taking to stroking his hair soothingly. "There was nothing you could have done, nothing any of us could have done. Why do you continue to torture yourself?"
"Because I tried to fix things and all I've done is broken them more!" he cried, hiding his face and sobbing into the pillow. "I let him slip between my fingers before I could even tell him that I—"
A banging outside the door cut him short. He gasped quietly, his cerulean eyes widening as their heads both shot to the source of the noise.
After a moment of agonizing silence, the woman spoke.
"Perhaps you should remove the glamour before we have any unwanted visitors." she suggested, looking warily to the door and back again. "This body doesn't suit you, I'm afraid to say."
He sniffled as he sat up, using the back of his hand to wipe his eyes. "You're right." He murmured, standing and lifting his arms over his head.
As they fell, a shimmering light enveloped him, the room shining with a blinding glare until suddenly it wasn't a young man clothed in green that stood in the center of the room, but a slight young woman in a silver nightgown, her eyes red and puffy from tears.
Though she had come to grips with the fact that he was gone several years ago, a realization struck her now. For once, there was nothing she could do to clean up her mess. There was no spell in the world that would fix his ruined mind, no incantation or charm that would make him forgive her for what she had done. She couldn't mutter a string of words and have this miraculously solved, couldn't snap her fingers and make things right in a blink of an eye.
For the first time in her life, she was completely helpless.
"I've ruined things beyond repair." She whispered, falling to her knees.
And the woman on the bed could say no words to comfort her, because she had.
Leave a word or two, if you don't mind!
~A