This is likely going to be posted sometime close to the Holidays, so Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and Kwanza! Whatever you celebrate, I hope it's great.
In other news, addressing an issue many people have reviewed with: No, not all the characters I've introduced will play a prevalent part in the upcoming chapters, however, a few will. It was only my intention to indicate how many people actually lived in these places, and how many were upset by what was going on, while sliding a few cameos in in the process.
So relax. Breathe. Everything will be fine. And on to Castle Town! The action will only pick up from here!
Hope you guys enjoy,
~Alyssa
Cum sequeretur adepts lentas, lentas adepto eundo.
….
When the going gets tough, the tough get going.
[As an added note, I have begun to update previous chapters with more interludes, this time little bits that aren't in Nox's point of view. This is primarily to add character development, and as of now are not necessary to read and will not juristically impact the story in any way, since I knew some of you would be grudging to go back and search them out. If you are interested in reading more like this little snibit here, I have gotten as far as chapter seven. I will let you know when I have gotten farther.]
ox(O)xo
"You seem improving, dear."
His soft, cool hand caressed over her forehead, convincing himself that today her cheeks looked a tad less pale, the contours of her face seemed a bit less hollow, the sheen of her hair was growing slightly back to its normal shine.
"I feel so." she lied through her teeth, smiling in addition, though her insides screamed. No, she was not doing better. And she was not his dear. "Just a day or so, perhaps, and I'll be right as rain."
He answered her smile, tucking a stray, white-blonde lock behind her ear. "Marvelous." He paused, looking apologetic. "I'm afraid I must go now, the council is expecting me. I'll be back as soon as I can."
Leaning down to kiss her forehead lightly, he stood up from the bed and smoothed his tunic. "I love you," he said gently, squeezing her hand once.
"And I, you." She said back quickly. After all this time, she didn't even have to think about it anymore. It was habit, automatic as her heart beating or her lungs breathing, but in the worst way possible. The words weren't her own. She was becoming brainwashed.
Despite this, she accepted his second kiss and plastered an attempt at a smile on her face, reassuring his qualms, allowing him to continue in the façade that she was perfectly fine, until he closed the door behind him.
She threw her covers off, sliding as quickly as she could out of bed, picking up the untouched tray full of food at the foot. Handling it as though it was a detonated bomb, she walked to her open window, hardly sparing a glance at the bed of roses four stories down, full of broken glass and ruined by soggy bread and spoiled stew. Getting ready to throw the contents away as she had for the last few weeks, she was stopped short by a voice from the shadows.
"Majesty. You must eat something."
Closing her eyes and exhaling in irritation, she placed the tray carelessly on the windowsill, hoping dearly that it would teeter and fall. "Pardon." She murmured, folding her hands lightly and letting them hang in front of her lap. "I was not aware that suddenly you had any bearing over what I must or must not do."
The owner of the voice revealed herself, her crimson eyes narrowing. "I've been your governess your entire life. You have never treated me with such disrespect before. I refuse to see you wither away like this, Highness. Starving yourself is not the solution!"
"What else am I to do?" Her hands balled into fists as she stormed away from the window, pulling the curtains away from her bed so hard they ripped, collapsing into a pathetic pile at her feet. "It isn't as though I'm stupid enough to poison myself, and I can't just go to Rauru and ask for some potion to get rid of it, can I?
Her charge growled in frustration, taking a different approach. "Think of the people. This will be the fourth one in over a year you have lost. You're only putting off the inevitable."
"I am young." She replied stubbornly, resuming her position in bed and closing her eyes, showing how little she cared for the conversation. "Not twenty-two years past. I have no obligation to provide a successor, not yet. And even if I did not, Lucien has two younger brothers and a nephew to boot. And I a score of cousins on both sides. Let them take the throne for all I care."
"You swore the oaths in your coronation, Highness. It is your duty to Noamas, to Hyrule, your home, to bear him a child!"
The queen snapped up, her gaunt, grey eyes shining with fury. "I will not!" she shrieked, or tried to. Her voice came in something hardly above a raspy whisper. "I will not allow anything of him to grow inside me! Duty or no, can you not see it's killing me?" She began to sob, her head falling into hands. "Let him write me off as barren for all I care! Perhaps then he'll allow me to return to my own chambers and leave me in peace without him calling me into his bed every night in hope for an heir! I can't keep living like this. I cannot, I will not!"
"So you would rather die?" the other woman demanded.
"Better die than continue to live this…this lie! I've given up my entire life for duty, my childhood, my love, my hand, my innocence, and now I must give away my happiness as well? And the rest of whatever wreck of a life I'm doomed to live out to raise his child? Soon I will have nothing left to give! I'm only an empty shell of the person I used to be, and he is using that shell, too, so he can have his heir and then leave me to rot!"
She lifted her head up, her cheeks streaming with tears and her eyes begging for her to understand. "I…I cannot keep doing this." She whimpered, partly to the other woman, but partly to her subjects, her husband, the child growing inside her, to everyone in the goddess-damned kingdom who had so many goddess-damned expectations and her goddess-damned duty that she could no longer bear the weight of. It was crushing her, and slowly but surely, she was being destroyed.
"I cannot force you to eat," Her charge sighed in defeat, biting her lip in a rare show of emotion. "But know you are not the only one you hurt when you allow yourself to waste away like this."
Her hand wandered to her stomach, where she could feel the faintest burning of life growing…one she was determined to snuff out. "If they were here, they would understand." She tried to assure herself, then turned to the other woman. "It doesn't even know the sound of my voice yet. It's nothing but a collection of cells, it can't think."
"It's a boy." said the other woman with venom in her tone. "And he can hear you. It pains him to feel you ail so, he feels very responsible, and tries to take from you as little as he can. As for his looks, the Royal blood burns strong, he will take after you, both in appearance and spirit; though his eyes are a strange cerulean that belong to neither you, nor Lucien. It seems as though the Goddesses would like him to ease your weary heart. He is a gift, the child is."
She paused, watching the bedridden woman fall apart again, knowing she was crossing every line she had ever drawn. "But I suppose that doesn't matter, now." She said offhandedly, turning on her heel to go back into the shadows. "His light is so feeble I can hardly feel him anymore. A day or so more and you will have succeeded. But that is what you want, is it not?"
She looked over her shoulder, an afterthought occurring to her. "A new group of Sheikah have been dispatched to act under the façade of guards. They will be here in two days time. I believe you will be interested to see who is among them, so I would suggest you make yourself presentable before then."
And she disappeared, leaving the sobbing queen to her bed.
Then
One thing I learned about the Sheikah: when they said sunup, they meant sunup.
Jay, with an exhausted Eli at his side, had roused us at the crack of dawn, banging on everyone's doors and cheerfully promising death threats to those who were reluctant to leave their beds. As I quickly rose, he handed me a bag full to the brim with food and two neatly corked bottles of red potion for the three day journey to Hyrule on horseback.
Dragging a heavy-lidded Kassia by the hand with the rest of the drowsy teenagers towards the stables, I found Wolfe already there quietly talking with Archer, the former standing by the mare we had ridden here on, the latter in the process of saddling up a very ferocious looking gray stallion.
"Morning." I greeted cheerfully, opening the stall beside Wolfe's and quickly mimicking them, fastening our bags to the saddle of the roan Kassia had begun to affectionately call Beast.
"Glad to see you're doing better." noted Archer, a brow raising at my nonchalant demeanor.
"It's amazing what a good night's sleep can do to you." I threw back easily, smiling in an attempt to play off the concerned glance Kassia shot me.
Damn him for making her suspicious. It would take the next three hours to convince her I was okay.
"Good?" Wolfe moaned, leaning on his horse for support, abruptly breaking any tension between us. "I've had better sleep on the floor of the damn forest!"
I laughed along with the rest of them, but it was more out of relief that I was out of the spotlight rather than humor, tightening the belt of the saddle and patting Beast thankfully for behaving.
"Can you get up first?" Kassia yawned, tucking a wisp of hair that fell out of the tight knot on the top of her head behind her ear and refusing the hand I offered to help her up. "If I ride in the front, I'll fall off before we're off the mountains, let alone before we hit the border."
"No problem." I said, hoisting myself onto the saddle and helping her do the same, easing Beast out of the stall and immediately beginning to follow a dozing Leila atop her bay mare, only a few years old by the look of it.
"Good morning." She said half-heartedly, waving once at the already half asleep Kassia, her head resting on my shoulder.
"Hey," I smiled, pulling back on the reigns, trying to get Beast to move a bit slower as to not disturb my passenger. "Where's Eli?"
She rolled her eyes dramatically. "Probably still with Jay. Last time I saw the two of them were pounding down Hank's door."
Ah, yes. Hank. After his mother died in childbirth and his father went off to battle a year or so ago, as Eli told me the previous night, he was the only family left for his sister, Synea.
And now he would be ripped from her, too.
A part of me took pleasure in the small fact that I wasn't alone, that others would have their own lives torn apart just as violently as mine was, but the other roughly pushed it aside. The girl was only twelve years old. I wasn't heartless.
"He's still set on not going?"
She grimaced, her eyebrows falling down at the edges in sympathy. "No," Her eyes fell downcast as she sighed. "But there's no way to avoid it. If he doesn't, it'll be considered treason. And, you know, there's only one way most places deal with treason. It's not hard to guess."
And my gaze was abruptly on the ground, effectively ending our conversation.
No. It wasn't.
Eli appeared a few minutes later on his own black stallion, his lids as droopy as the rest of ours. "'Lo," he greeted us, letting loose a yawn that stretched his face to its breaking point. "Nice morning, isn't it?"
We carried short conversation throughout our day of travel. Neither Eli nor Leila had ever gone out of a mile radius of the caverns, and were terribly interested with what the outside world was like.
Much to my dismay, that night around the campfire, I was coerced by Kassia into telling her "…the story that you told me, when you first arrived! Oh, Nox, it was magical!"
"Well," I began, finally giving in to the incessant teasing of the rest, "long ago, in a magical place called Kokiri wood, there was a boy without a fairy. His name was Link…"
So I sat with their attention, retelling the story of my life (though no one knew it), watching as I eased all their worries of the days to come, watching their eyes flutter shut as one by one, they fell asleep. By the time it came to the final battle, everyone but Hank and Eli were asleep.
"And as he pulled the hilt of his sword out of the finished beast, a rush of triumph washed over him. However, he was not able to celebrate for long. As soon as the adrenaline left his body, he fell to his knees, all the pains in his body colliding with the force of a megaton hammer. He was dying, he realized, but at least he had done his duty before doing so.
'Link!' he heard his princess cry, and Zelda rushed to his side, shaking him roughly. 'Link! Stay with me! Please!'
Link did not have the courage to tell her that he had minutes left, that he could feel death's breath upon his neck, but there were things he had to tell her before he was gone. 'Zelda,' he whispered, tenderly grabbing her face in his hands. 'I…I love you. I'm sorry…'
'Goddess dammit!' the Princess shrieked, beginning to tear through his things, 'I won't let you die! I can still save you!'
But Link did not want to be saved. He was tired. He was as happy as he had ever been. Everything was alright, and he could die content in that fact.
But Zelda would not give him even this.
Taking the ocarina from her hands, she began to blow a ballad, a lulling melody that drew his eyes closed.
He was confused, at first, but too tired to care. The darkness was beginning to take him, and the music along with it. How fitting, to hear the music of the temple of time just before his time was up—
Time?
The Song of Time!
"Zelda!" His eyes flew open as he fruitlessly tried to grab the instrument from her hands. "What are you doing?"
"I'm sending you home," she whispered, blinking away the tears that fell from her cheeks. "Where you're supposed to be…the way you're supposed to be…without me."
"Zelda, please! Don't do this!" the Hero begged, but it was too late. A blue wind began to swirl around him, and the world began to shimmer and blur, taking her away from him…
"I'm sorry, Link." He heard over the roar.
"…Goodbye."
Her last words to me fell from my lips, and I bit back tears as two eyes waited patiently for me to continue.
But what was there left to tell?
"…That's all." I said after a deep breath, ignoring the disappointment on their faces, kicking dead leaves onto the dying fire, watching it sputter and die. "The end."
And in a way, it was.
ox(O)xo
We made it to Castle Town early two mornings after, and for the first time in over a decade, I walked through the gate.
It was like nothing had changed.
The giant, circular fountain was still set in the middle, all the shops and things surrounding it. Children chased each other back and forth, others tormenting the cucoos that clucked about. Merchants shouted out their wares, and people in groups of twos or threes lingered, adding to the din of merriness. In the corner, by the mask shop, I even spotted a familiar head of red hair with a basket of bottled milk, smiling while chitchatting with a friend.
There was no time to dawdle, according to Jay, so we rode up to the palace with our horses, the guards opening the gates—it was the first time I had ever been granted access to the palace without sneaking in—and wishing us well.
As we drew closer to the castle, my stomach began to churn. How long would it be before I ran into her? Or more terribly, if Kassia ran into her?
Or even worse, what if we both ran into her, at the same time?
Din, I'm an idiot.
Our horses were taken from us, and we were led up the grand staircase and down several hallways, ending up in a large, nearly empty room I assumed was in the barracks. With the instructions to wait until our 'tutor' arrived, I sat against the wall sandwiched between Wolfe and Archer, who were bantering back and forth.
Suddenly, the door flew open, and a woman with silver white hair bound back in a ponytail entered the room, her presence alone enough to make all of us fall silent.
Impa.
Coldness filled the room as she entered, and the hair on my neck stood up on end, but not because of that.
What if she recognized me? What if she remembered me?
Her sharp, piercing eyes flickered over the group of us, her lips pulled taut in a disapproving grimace. "Welcome to Hyrule Castle." She murmured, and her voice was just as I remembered, low but not extremely so, feminine yet dangerous enough that it promised death to anyone who stepped a toe out of line.
"I assume you have not been filled in of your duty here. We have had a shortage, to say the least, of guards around the castle. With the Queen in her condition, we can afford no breaches in security."
The Queen in her condition?
What did she mean?
"You will be trained, and I will choose the best among you to serve as the King and Queen's personal attendants. Although I have served this job for many years, I regretfully cannot be every place at once, and you will be of great help to me. Your job is simple, to protect and blend in. Not everyone in the castle is familiar with our kind, and for our purposes you are all just normal Hylian children that have been drafted, do you understand me?"
They all nodded their assent, but I was still silently pondering her words. Was something wrong with Zelda?
"Now, before we begin, who is the leader among you?' she asked, looking expectantly towards Archer, who must look a bit more like Hoan then I realized.
Archer's ears began to redden under her attention and the annoyed glances of the other Sheikah.
Jay stepped forward, inclining his head respectfully. When her eyes did not turn to him, he cleared his throat out quietly. "Jayson Mead," he said eloquently, as if he had practiced for this moment a thousand times.
"Mead," repeated Impa thoughtfully, seeming to forget about the rest of us for a moment. "Your father was the Hylian, correct?"
He flushed, and Eli stiffened beside me. "Yes, ma'am," he said, sounding a hundred times less versed.
"I was very good friends with your mother. Taught her myself. She had a good head on her shoulders, Aral did. That is, until she met that father of yours." She paused, her head tilting slightly to the side as she watched Jay's teeth clench and his eyes fill with anger.
Only a minute with him and she already knew everything he was, knew where he drew his lines, knew exactly how to make him snap.
Watching her tear him apart made me fear her more than ever before.
"It's a good thing she passed her line down to her children before she was killed, so I can't call her completely useless." She noted offhandedly.
At this, Jay's head snapped up, fire burning in his eyes. "Don't you dare talk about my—"
"Lesson number one," Impa said loudly over Jay's protests, addressing all of us again. "Never let the enemy inside your head. When taking this new duty, your life won't be the only one at stake anymore. You must protect each other, and most importantly, the Queen and her family, and a guard is only as strong as its weakest link."
She turned to Jay, patting him once on the shoulder. "We shall have to work on that, won't we, Mr. Mead?"
And thus, began my stay at the palace.
I feel like I can tell this story better with those little sections that aren't in Nox's point of view. Like it? Don't? Let me know. What you guys tell me is what will decide whether they leave or stay. If you don't want to review, I have a poll set up on my profile.
I'm dreading telling you guys this, but you've probably already noticed: this chapter took almost twice the normal length to get out. I seriously feel terrible, and I feel even worse when I have to say this: this will probably become the norm. Ahh, I'm so sorry. There's been a lot of things going on at school, and especially at home that have not been leaving me in the best frame of mind to write. Don't worry, no, I will never abandon this, but updates might come shorter than usual. Thank you for understanding, and if not, you can private message me. I've got plenty of explanations if you don't feel this one suitable enough.
I love you guys! See you next update!
~Alyssa