Coin-Operated

18.0

I've Put Myself on Ice

Link glances over at the president, unsure if the bastard is dead or alive. He can't feel for a pulse, the other three men are dead, and Zelda is losing blood fast. Even without all that, the choice for him is a simple one. Save Zelda. At all costs.

The car still sits on the road, engine running. Exhaust puffs up in clouds from the tailpipe as the engine putters. There's one saving grace today that he will thank Farore for.

When Link glances back at the president, he's startled to see that wound he'd inflicted is starting to knit itself back together. The burned flesh on his leg is bubbling and starting to settle back into smooth skin. Such a man could have healing magic?

His eyes dart back to the car purring on the roadside. They just need to go, get out of there, get some distance before the president can fully heal himself. Zelda does not have a chance if they remain here.

Link throws the duffel over his shoulder and scoops Zelda up, and with one hand, he awkwardly tries to keep pressure on the puncture wound. He moves to head to the car, but his eyes dart back to the accordion sitting under the apple tree. Zelda's long hair falls in waves as Link struggles to keep hold of her, the wound and reach for the accordion case. He steels himself a moment, waiting to see if anything will fall, and when nothing does, he hurries back to fence. He drops the case, wincing a little internally at the damage he might have caused it, and struggles again to keep balance and hold of petite Zelda while trying to get over the fence.

He seats her pale form in the passenger seat, throwing their duffel into the backseat of the car and bolts back to the fence for the accordion. He wastes no time in making sure that the instrument is safe in the back, and simply tosses it in like the duffel. The mechanical man clambers into the vehicle and seats himself behind the wheel, eyes scanning for the pedals. Throwing the car into gear, Link speeds them as fast as he can down the dirt road, one hand reaching over to put pressure on Zelda's wound and trying to focus on getting them away from the president and Kakariko as fast as possible.

Farore, keep her alive this time.

The whole thing is just surreal.

Of all the people…

He tries not to think about it all too much. Has to think of Zelda. Of the road.

But Farore what will he do if she dies she can't die he has to make sure of that but where are they going to go what can he do what can he do she can't die she can't die he can't do this again not again not again-

Then he feels something.

Feels something.

At first he's not totally aware of it, still simultaneously stupefied and panicked by the whole situation, yet the feeling persists. It's a prickling in his hand, the one that's over Zelda's knife wound. Surely he must be imagining this. This whole thing.

Is he actually off? Is this some sort of divine joke of a dream? Can he even call it dreaming?

All of this! All of this is so new. So strange. Odd.

The road stretches and stretches, but Link isn't really paying much attention. His whole mind has gone blank.

The prickling feeling is still there.

Finally, thinking the distance is far enough, and he can't ignore the thousand needles sinking into his artificial hand, he turns to the very pale Zelda. The blood he'd accidentally smeared on her face earlier is a stark contrast to her white complexion. His hand still on the wound, Link places his other over her breast and begins trying to feel for her core. With his mind whirling like a tornado, it's hard for Link to focus, because what if it's too late what if she dies what is he going to do without her and he just can't go through that again not again not again he can't-

The feeble pulse of her core meets his desperate calling. He's a little shocked when he sees the massive changes her core has undergone in just a short span of time. It's all in the name of defense, he's sure. His magic has wrapped itself so tightly around her core, thorns at the ready, but when it recognizes him, his old magic begins to retreat.

Something touches his palm.

Link pulls away, presses himself up flush against the door of the vehicle. Blood smears across the seat from his hand.

At the wound's exit, the blood begins to bubble a little. Hesitant, Link leans back towards Zelda. Her blood is hot and sticky, and he jerks his hand away. His fingers peel away from each other, the ruby substance clinging to his silicone skin. The strange tackiness tickles him, and the blood is so smooth, just so smooth…

Link has to pull his eyes away from his hand.

Zelda's wound still bubbles. Link takes a corner of her ruined shirt and dabs a little at the wound. No new blood comes out.

He looks inside once more. Her magic, not his own, is the root cause for this. Her magic has healing properties and is steadily making headway on stitching her flesh back together. His magic protected her, but Link can see the soft waves of blue flowing out to heal herself. She'd always been good at healing magic, but that doesn't make his relief any less sweet. It would simply take her awhile. He encourages his old magic to help in the healing process, and the vines, reluctant to leave her core unguarded, take a bit of begging before relenting. Although his old magic stays on the alert, still wary of threats.

So Link turns to his hand with Zelda squared away. He turns it over, palm down, then turns it back, palm up. Index fingers and thumbs rub against one another, but he doesn't feel anything.

Not now.

Link sits, back pressed up against the little corner formed by the seat and door. There's clearly blood on his hand, and he felt it, he's sure, but now he can't?

It doesn't make sense.

Nothing is making sense.

It is driving him mad.

Zelda, for all her patience – thank Nayru – doesn't pry too much. It probably just makes it easier on her to not bother with it; that is, that's what Link prefers to believe. For him though, Link thinks that he must be on the verge of losing his mind, which hits him hard considering he doesn't have much left to lose. If he loses his mind, he can pretty much call it quits now.

But Link is sure, he's so sure, that he felt something. For one moment, he had nerves in his fingers, picking up that smooth sensation of Zelda's blood, the prickling as her flesh started to knit back together.

No, he can't be losing his mind. It's practically all he's got now.

Just to be sure though, Link reaches over and touches Zelda's wound.

His fingers feel sticky.

…

When he wakes the next morning, he's a little afraid to move. She rests on his back, still sleeping soundly, so he just lies there and closes his eyes again. Her chest pushes against him with each breath of air, and the long strands of blonde tickle his skin. Soon enough, the need to use the pot overrides anything else, so Link reluctantly pulls away, trying his best not to disturb her. She snuggles into the warm spot on the bed that he leaves behind. When he sits up, the bare skin on his back prickles at the sudden chill now that the queen's hot skin does not cover it, and his vision slowly swirls. He groans a little and bends down to cover his eyes with one hand.

He grumbles a little to himself as he heads over to the pot. Waking up still a little intoxicated is not how he wants to start his morning. Once he's relieved himself, he uses her basin to wash his face, hoping to help clear the haziness up somewhat.

Link goes and takes the wine bottle still sitting on the table where the queen had supped the night before and checks the cork. He stashes the bottle in her armoire. The mead bottles weren't large, and he can easily slip them back in the kitchens before returning to his room. He picks up one of the two left on the table and gives it a shake. While there's not much, there's a fair amount still in the bottle, and he briefly entertains finishing it. With the way the world lags behind each of his movements, however, he thinks better of it.

His vision swims when he turns his head a little too fast to look across the room where her bed is. Pillows have fallen onto the floor, and the blankets hang off the side of the bed, leaving the queen with only a sheet partially draped over her. Thankfully, each step towards the bed he takes feels a little more solid than the last. Link bends over and starts ripping through the mess of bed covers to find his trousers. He finds his shirt first when the queen starts to stir. "What're you doing?" she mumbles as he fumbles with the stupid piece of clothing. Which sleeve is which again? "Get back in bed. It's too early."

He complains about his missing clothing. She hears him tell her to get out of bed.

"Don't order me when you can't even be decent," snaps the queen.

Picking up the covers on the floor, Link flings them over the queen. Another pillow is thrown from the bed, but it misses him when he flies back to dodge, and Link doesn't retrieve it. Instead he slaps her with one of its other fallen brethren and tries to quell the swimming sensation in his head from the sudden movements.

He finds that his trousers have crawled under the bed somewhat. Link retrieves them and throws them on. He says to the queen as he kicks around for his tunic, "You should probably get up."

The queen gives a muffled groan.

"Zelda." He cocks his head to one side, eyebrows needling. "Are you going to be sick?"

There's another muffled slur of words that he thinks is supposed to indicate that she's fine.

He leans over the bed and shakes her shoulder some. "Come on, Zelda. Let's sneak down to the kitchens for some food. You'll feel better."

"Cancel everything today."

Link chuckles to himself and runs a hand across the back of his neck. "Come now. Get dressed. Let's eat." When the queen still refuses to go, the knight just takes it upon himself to sneak some food from the kitchen after slipping his green tunic back on. After lighting a candle, he plucks up the two empty mead bottles and slips into the passageway, leaving the trapdoor open. He's slowly learning his way around the hidden passages in the castle, but he's walked the path from her room to the kitchens so many times now, that it's ingrained in him. The small amount of illumination offered from the candle seems a little silly to him, for he could probably find his way there and back in the pitch black of the passage.

When Link reaches the end of the passage, he sets the candle on the ground a ways down from the exit, though in his slightly drunken state, it is none too gentle, and he almost loses the candle and its small flame. The passageway's door cracks open just a smidge, and Link peers out from the small opening. The kitchen cellar appears to be empty, so he opens up the door enough to slip through. He plops the two bottles on a shelf where he'd retrieved them the night before for some poor sap to find empty of any mead and creeps up to the main area of the kitchens.

The cooks are hard pressed to have breakfast prepared. Servants whisk around trying to prep the dishes to go out to the hungry nobles gathering in the dining hall on one side of the kitchens. Plates and cups clatter as they set them out for food to be dished out on, though Link cannot quite see through the racks that separates the prep area from the storage what exactly is being served that morning, but he can smell and taste the spicy scent of sausage in the air. It makes his belly, still sloshing with alcohol and no solids, churn. The noise isn't helping either, as each clang and scrape of metal from the cooks and servants makes his head rock.

A smile stretches on Link's lips though when he spies one girl scrubbing pots by herself not far away on the storage side of the kitchens. Pressed up against the wall of spices by the cellar entrance, he waits for her to look up from her task. A lock of platinum blonde hair slips from her cap, and she blows a jet of air to push it out of her face. The girl notices him hiding in the shadows when she goes to rinse the pot. She frowns at his disheveled appearance of scraggly hair with cowlicks that just won't go down, no shoes or belt and wrinkled clothing. Link gives her a hopeful smile, and her head flies around as she looks to see if anyone else is near.

Seeing that no one is watching, the girl holds up a finger to tell him to wait. Link mouths, "Thank you," to her as she dries her hands on her apron, and he slips back down the stairwell to the cellar to wait. The petite girl quickly integrates herself among the servants preparing dishes to go out, and she loads a couple plates up. When the cooks aren't looking, she grabs a few extra rolls and throws them on top of the plates and scurries away. She flies over to the stairs and shoves the plates into Link's arms. "I owe you, Ciela," Link gushes when he sees the amount of food.

"Get lost before the cooks have my head," she snaps with a smirk, giving Link a small snicker. "Sup later?"

"Definitely," Link promises her.

Without another word, but a smile on her face, Ciela whips right around to go back to her scrubbing, and Link disappears down to the cellar. He stops briefly to consider maybe curbing his coming headache with another bottle of mead. The booming of a pot smacking the floor jars him enough that he decides against it. He juggles a plate on his forearm and sneaks back into the passage.

Zelda hasn't moved at all since he left, and he laughs to himself as he kicks the trap shut and the carpet back over it. His wrist aches with awkward balancing of the two plates and candle, and he sighs some with relief when he finally sets it all down on the table. With one glance at the queen, however, he's sure she's not all that likely to be moved from her current position. After shaking out his wrist, he grabs both plates once more and brings them both to her bed.

Queen Zelda grimaces when he sets the plates down on her sheets. He hands her a glass of water poured from the carafe on her bedside table as she grumbles at him. "You are not-" Her mouth slackens a little when he rips into a bread roll and little crumbs falls onto her bed.

He taps the glass, and she grudgingly drinks.

They eat slowly, and it takes some time before the sickening feeling of having food in his stomach settles down. Farore, he had needed to eat. The food settling in his belly helps quell his sickness, but the slimy feeling of something off does not leave him.

Like any good servant of the queen, Link seeks the Sheikah Impa out and relays the queen's request to be left undisturbed for the day. His elder flashes him a cross look, red eyes narrowing, and all he can do is offer her a sheepish smile. Thin lips turn in to an almost nonexistent line. The Sheikah guardian does not approve, and she mutters to herself as she turns on her heel about youth and their drink.

He checks up on his beloved queen one more time to find her trying to sleep off the hangover before returning to his rooms through the passageways.

The knight strips himself of his clothing and hastily washes himself. Fresh clothing is pulled from his trunk, and he can still smell the lingering scent of the gardens where his tunic was hung to dry. Link lays the soiled clothing out for the servants to take to wash and unlocks his door. A plate of food is waiting at the foot of his door, and he stoops to pick it up. He does not often dine with the other courtiers in the dining hall these days, and the servants have taken to leaving him his meals at his door.

He tries to go about his day, but he can't help but sense something amiss as he walks through the castle halls. The knight in green is barely even fazed when he runs into his older brother. Sir Raven gives him a gruff greeting, yet Link is not ruffled by the growing rift between them.

It is only when his squire Colin plows into him does Link realize what has been amiss in the castle. Link helps steady the lad, and he has to ask the squire to repeat himself twice in order to understand the babble that comes out of the boy's mouth. What Colin says is so strange… so utterly bizarre, that Link has a hard time wrapping his still muddled head around the situation.

The young squire leads his knight master to a closed study. The guardsmen posted outside the doors are visibly shaken and pale. Sweat rolls down their milky white skin as they pull the halberds aside to allow the squire and knight through the door, though the pair doesn't make an immediate move. Link takes in the harried expression on the two guards, but he doesn't question it.

Feeling more sobered than he has all day, Link strides into the study. Hair matted to his forehead with perspiration, the man in the center of the room is tied down with rope to a chair to keep him from thrashing about. Link recognizes him as another cartographer, Ike, that he had met briefly down in Ordona Province. Colin shuts the door behind him and stands next to his master. "He was brought in less than an hour ago," the boy says, gesturing at the man. "Her Majesty isn't receiving anyone today," which is completely Link's fault, "so I suggested that you might be able to do something." The boy fiddles with his hands and bows his head.

Link approaches the man and tentatively reaches out to him. Ike lets out a guttural sound when Link's palm flattens against his chest. His muscles constrict, and he tenses under Link's touch. The knight feeds into the man to see into his core, and Link nearly recoils in horror at the sight before him. The man coughs, blood splattering and dribbling on his chin.

Shaking off his frozen nerves, Link very calmly and forcibly tells his squire, "Go get the queen."

"But milor-"

"BREAK DOWN HER DOOR!" Link roars. The inner panic in his chest starts to swell up the longer he looks into the man. "JUST GO."

Colin skitters out from the room.

Link's heart starts to race. Each rushing pump of blood in his veins is another wasted moment. What can he do though? From what Link can remember, the cartographer was capable of magic, but nothing to this extent. Ike's magical core was not very large, but Link knows what he's seeing is real. The man's core has swelled significantly.

There must have been some sort of surge that ran through him, and Ike's small core could not withstand the strain. It is cracked in several places. His magic is starting to run rampant, spilling out and leaking from the webbing of cracks. Link breathes in deep, trying to calm himself from the frantic pulsing in his ears and begins trying to plug the rogue magic from further escaping, but the core is far too damaged for Link to do much. The knight is too inexperienced and his magic too immature to do much for the distressed cartographer.

Link barely has the man holding on when the queen bursts into the room with the meek squire at her heels. The guards outside the door only stare dumbly at the queen clad only in her shift. She brushes back her hair and bends down before the man. "What happened?" she demands as Colin shuts the door on the scene.

"I don't know, but his magic is going everywhere. I can't keep it contained. There might have been a surge."

Link stands aside for the queen, and she slams her hands onto the cartographer's chest. Her eyes widen, and a strangled gasp is let out when she sees the poor state of his core. The queen screws her eyes shut and tries to focus.

The minutes drag on as Ike pulls at his restraints, and the queen mutters in soft tones to herself. Finally, his movements cease, and Link and his squire stiffen in anticipation. The queen, however, drops her head and hands. Colin's eyes dart between his lord and his queen. Her Majesty does not rise, and his master grunts to himself and shuts his eyes. When Colin settles his sight on the cartographer Ike, the reality settles in on him.

The Queen of Hyrule raises her head. "It was definitely a surge." Her mellow voice usually laced with honey, carries a lead weight instead.

Colin asks for an explanation.

Link sighs and rubs one eye. "Somebody fed so much magic into him, his core couldn't contain it."

"Cores are actually delicate things. They need to be protected and cared for," the queen further explains. The knight master habitually rubs the back of his neck. "His was far too gone for us to save. It burst under all the pressure."

Colin had seen men die before. Death was not some foreign entity to any one of the three. They'd all seen it before. The knight and his queen, however, have watched men beheaded, hung, maimed… violent deaths, some they were directly responsible for. The boy has only seen old age and sickness claim lives. Those things are so far out of man's control. Maybe if Colin had run for his master sooner, to the queen quicker… Seeing the guilty look pass over Colin's face, Link rests a hand on the squire's shoulder.

"Why?" the boy chokes.

The queen rises and closes the cartographer's eyes. "Why, indeed. Something foul is out there, hunting." Her lips purse.

The long moments of silence stretch thin. Link's hand slips from the squire. He turns on his heel, one hand cradling his head, and he grunts, "I need a drink."

…

Good goddesses! Farore, what is going on with him? Link buries his face in his hands in a feeble attempt to block out the world. Far too much as of late has he been living in the past. What is wrong with him? Every time he closes his eyes and shuts down, there it is, some memory unfolding right before him of things he hasn't thought about in so, so long. Why now? He pulls his hands away and looks around the box car.

Zelda is still curled next to him in a blanket with her head resting on his lap in lieu of a pillow. He checks behind him, and the duffel doesn't seem to have been disturbed by anyone. The accordion sits next to him with Zelda resting up against it. He'll have to double check to make sure their meager belongings are all there, but nothing feels off, however.

His eyes click around.

A hand goes to the coin slot on his chest as his eyes dart down. The slot is still there, right under his hand.

Did he just turn on? By himself?

Zelda couldn't have done it. The blonde is clearly still unconscious on his lap.

Link pulls away her coat, which he'd laid across her like a blanket. His fingers find the holes in her clothing where the president's knife cut through. He pushes the fabric around, but the skin underneath is smooth with only the slightest blemish marring her skin.

Relief floods Link in an awesome wave.

Zelda is safe.

Another thought clicks around in his mind. Zelda was carrying their money last, so he checks her pocket. Sure enough, he's relieved to see the pouch wallet still there. Pulling it out, he opens it and the money is still there as well, appearing to be untouched and all accounted for. Thank the goddesses.

At least that's another thing safe.

As delicately as he can, Link rises from the floor of the box car and puts Zelda at rest on the duffel. She stirs some, but her exhaustion keeps her out. Blonde locks pool over the bag, and her chest rises and falls deeply. Poor girl, always looking so tired as of late.

He checks her core quickly. The rest she's gotten has allowed her to replenish her lost strength, though only a small amount. A good sign all the same, he nods to himself. He has hope that she'll be fine, she'll make it through. The vines have finally come to lower the guard around her core for the most part. She'll make it through. The wound has closed up, though not all the way healed, he's sure.

He'd left the door to the box car slightly cracked open, and the mechanical man peers out on the abandoned train yard. Farore's second saving grace.

Link had ditched the car miles back after reassuring himself that he wouldn't lose Zelda. He's still relieved to see that woman was holding up and pulling through. Farore's third saving grace… or would it be Nayru's? Considering his companion's patron goddess was Nayru…

With no muscles to grow tired, it wasn't all that difficult of a task for the machine to carry their belongings and Zelda over the distance. He isn't sure how long or how far from Route 59 that he'd taken them, but he hopes that the distance is far enough. With no muscles to grow tired, Link only stopped once when it occurred to him that he needed to keep the machine going.

For Link, coming across the train yard was a wonderful thing. He's glad that it's been abandoned, so they won't have to deal with any bulls coming round, ready to beat any drifter or hobo from hiding in the cars. Once settled in the car, he had stayed vigil in watching over Zelda as her blood dried and cracked on her skin. At some point, he'd shut off.

Link closes his eyes, wishing that maybe just for the moment, he'd be able to smell the fresh air, the rusty tracks and gears.

A new thought hits him. Why in the world did he dream of that? He remembers Ciela from the kitchens, of course, but he could not recall her face or hair. Now when he closes his eyes though, he can see the platinum tresses, her crystal eyes. He can even hear her voice, something he thought he'd long forgotten.

That cartographer, too… the one that went rogue after undergoing a surge. He hadn't thought of that fellow in ages, it seems.

Link drifts away from the box car's door to wait by Zelda's side, only occasionally getting up to check outside the car.

When Zelda wakes, her brow knits as she places a hand to her chest. "Are you okay?" Link asks her when her eyes full open and start to roam around.

His voice startles her some. Her hand clenches the fabric on her breast. "I didn't expect…" Zelda trails weakly. Her hand loosens its grip. She says with cracks in her voice, "Sorry, it's nothing. I'm just imagining things."

Zelda looks around the dark the box car, taking in all the shadows and textures of their current safe haven. She groans a little, a hand over where her wound had been, when she sits up. Link's at her side in a moment, saying, "Hey, take it easy. You got stabbed."

"Wha-what?" she manages as Link helps prop herself up against the car's walls. "Where are we?"

Link blinks.

"You don't remember?" he asks after a pause.

All Zelda can recall is being in the orchard, the black vehicle pulling up on the route. She thinks she saw the president, but she laughs a little. That has to be impossible, has to be something from her imagination. Right? Eyes wide, she looks to Link for confirmation, and he hesitates.

"Zelda… you were stabbed. By the president."

The soft smile on her lips falters a little, and she considers it a joke. But Link doesn't smile back at her, doesn't crack a joke, doesn't even chuckle. The stony look he gives her makes her face fall.

"No way," she says. "That's stupid."

"It's not!" he insists. "You'd be dead if you weren't able to heal yourself!"

His face brightens a little when he recalls it. He says quickly, "Look, look! I got shot, remember?" He shows her the holes in his shirt and body the bullet formed when it blasted through him. "See?"

This seems to stun the blonde. Her eyes dart to where the knife wound was, and her fingers graze over the puffy scar. She'd been stabbed. And by the president of all people! Something seems to click in her mind, and her other hand goes to her breast, right above her core. "I didn't do that," she whispers. "She did. It must have been her." Zelda's eyes roll to meet Link's.

She? She did that?

"She said it wasn't my time," says Zelda, "that she wouldn't let me go so soon.

"I don't know any healing magic, Link."

Link curses silently to himself. Once again, he finds himself debating, doubting. Is Zelda one or two?

…

Cole Malladus is in a rush. His train is set to leave in about an hour, and instead of making his way to the station, he is sitting in his office ripping apart files haphazardly. Nayru, how could he be so stupid?

He was taking a second look at the sketches that man and woman from the Lost Woods, when he realized that the man, whom he was so sure was Link Coutts, he had seen somewhere else. He is currently tearing apart boxes of paraphernalia and other curiosities from a carnival his men had burned down months back. Some of the recovered items were from a fortune teller's tent and wagon that have some strange magical properties to them, but are not overly complicated. Flyers and posters were also taken for souvenirs from the carnival and stored in mat frames for safe keeping which Malladus begins to look through.

Malladus grimaces when he comes across a slightly charred poster of the Lizalfos Man. What a freak. Nobody in their right mind would voluntarily tattoo their body entirely in reptilian scales. He flicks through a few more. The Evelyn Sisters, the conjoined twins joined at the torso. There's one for a trio of acrobats. He stops his flurried search when he comes across the Coin-Operated Boy, still in good condition. He pulls the poster out from the stack of them.

Now this is peculiar.

Malladus flips open the book he'd stuck the sketch of the man in, and compares the poster to the portrait of the knight Sir Raven and the sketch.

And suddenly, it all makes sense.

The telephone begins to ring, causing Malladus to jump slightly. Jerked from his thoughts, he sets the matted poster down and answers the call, "Cole Malladus." The book slaps shut, encasing the sketches once again.

"Oh good," the president purrs on the other end of the line, "you haven't left yet. When is your train set to depart anyway?"

"Ten," Malladus says, glancing at his wristwatch. His obsessive search already put him behind schedule, and he is sure that the president may just make him miss the damn train altogether. "Will this take long?"

He hears President Ghirahim snort. "Tell me, do you know anything at all about a Ravio and Hilda? I don't have surnames, but I sent you a file about them."

"Sorry?"

"The drifters in the Lost Woods," Ghirahim snaps. "I had a very interesting run-in with them late this afternoon."

"Sorry, I told you that I don't know anything about that. I'll let you-"

"Yes, yes," the president drawls with impatience. "Let me know if anything comes up about them. I want them destroyed. Not just dead, do you understand?

"And on that note, I trust that you'll hand the little issue out in the desert? We can't have that spreading to Lanayru."

"If you keep me on the line any longer, I won't."

"Don't disappoint." With that the line goes dead, and Malladus slams the handset down on the receiver.

He's about to stride out of his office when he realizes his foolish mistake. He must be a fool indeed if he thinks that the president will just let this whole thing about the drifters go with the click of the phone. The Coin-Operated Boy poster is ripped from its matte backing, and he throws the now empty matte on top of the stack of posters from the carnival. If anything, it could be argued that the extra, blank matte was just protecting the top of the stack. He doubts any real questions will arise from the blank matte that once housed Link Coutts' poster.

Malladus, damning any sort of hope of making his train, makes sure that all the carnival oddities are back in storage where they belong with not a thing out of place. Or so he hopes. Prays. When he strides back into his office, he makes a beeline for the book with the sketches still tucked inside. The book is tossed into his trunk, and Cole Malladus rolls up the poster of the Coin-Operated Boy. He will leave nothing.

The beggars have gotten worse as of late, and as Malladus walks down the street, he passes several bums with tin cups for change. Some bother him for a small coin or two, but he pays them no mind as he hurries to the station. Others are trying to catch some sleep in tattered clothes and worn blankets. Halfway to the station, a group of them are gathered around a steel trash bin filled with debris and flames to help keep them warm during the cold night.

Malladus decides to feed their fire. He breaks through the circle around the trash bin and jams the poster of Link Coutts into the flames.

The bums don't say anything.

Cole Malladus misses his train.

He buys a ticket for the next one.

Look at me, posting on a Monday. Such a rebel.

I'm currently in between projects at the moment, but I really need to get a start on the next one. Hm-hm. Love those forms. Either way, I was able to finish this, and work on a novel and the next two Zelda stories I concocted a while back.

SO TAKE THIS. TAKE IT AND ENJOY IT.

Also, a while ago, my brother and I found this band called Nine Treasures. Freaking awesome. They're a Mongolian folk metal band. Yeah, let that sink in for a moment.

Drop a word! I'll catch you guys on the flip side! (And I'm sorry for not replying lately!)

:x