The Deku Tree Temple: Part 2
Link
Of course she had insisted on still bandaging his hand… he didn't know why he had even been surprised… or why he had bothered trying to argue…
Still, it were a precious few minutes he had spent with her, despite his conviction that no further care was needed. Watching her elegant fingers work always had something calming, mesmerizing… and right now, hearing her chatter excitedly about how that light had felt on her fingertips, what mental image she had conjured, how she had sensed something warm and gentle and powerful inside her chest… feeling her anxiety drain a bit with each word and relief begin to settle in… it made him feel so profoundly happy he had to hold back tears of joy and affection.
It was a moment of respite after a harrowing experience… a worthy reward for victory, just being touched by her sweet hands and listening to her voice… He didn't know whether she realized how utterly, stupidly lovestruck he stared at her adorably spirited face and he didn't really care…
Of course, the moment was all too short and their work was far from done.
Link gazed at their surroundings, a grin forming tentatively on his face. They had, of course, fled from the site of their battle and its terrible stench… it had dissipated somewhat after the destruction of the monstrosity, but it had nevertheless soiled the wood of the basin-chamber beyond repair…
After their trek back upstairs, they had been met with a pleasant surprise. The intangible sphere of purifying aura around the heart of the Tree had returned… smaller now, and feeling even more frail as it battled the air of decay that had forced its way in… but still, it was a sign most welcome. They couldn't have wished for a better place to have their precious minute of peace… though the Tree's dead branches and the many fallen leaves still filled Link's heart with gnawing sadness…
Shouldn't the Great Deku Tree be able to gradually restore itself, now that His connection to the earth had been restored? Was there more they should have done? Or did it simply take a long time? Would they first have to expel the malign presence from the temple, before He could recuperate? Yes, that had to be it!
He tried moving his wrist when Zelda had finished with her bandage and grinned. It was solid work, tight enough to keep the wound with her healing salve on it securely protected without robbing him of his mobility.
"How is it?" she asked timidly, glancing back and forth between her handiwork and his face.
"Pretty professional. I hardly feel a thing!" he assured her. Then he turned serious again. "We should keep moving… I fear we have only bought some time…" He stopped himself. An idea had struck him. "Do you think you could… try to commune with Him once more? Maybe through His dormancy, he cannot speak with us directly…" he mused.
She seemed to think very carefully. "I… think it has to be you…" she stated softly at last.
"Me?" he questioned. "But I don't…"
"You seem to have a far deeper connection to the Deku Tree than I." she interrupted. "I think that, whatever He wishes to convey, if anything, it would be meant for you!"
He mulled it over, thinking how strongly his emotions had been influenced when first he entered this room. He felt uneasy… The thought of some past self breaking through the surface and taking over his conscious frightened him. But then again… even though they had not, strictly speaking, been his very own, the emotions and sensations had been of the purest kind… They had felt his own, even though they were not.
"What… how do I…" She took his left hand in hers and gently placed its palm against the soft soil. Still feeling a bit worried in his gut but trusting her judgement, he closed his eyes and tried hard to focus more on the feel of the earth between his fingers and less on her warm hand on his.
"Concentrate on the ground, Link…" she reminded, as if she had read his thoughts.
The corners of his mouth twitched treacherously, and he was very tempted to-
Link… you have come…
He very nearly jerked his palm away, if not for Zelda wisely holding him in place. A voice humming in his innermost being, deeper even than his thoughts… ancient and eerily familiar…
Link… the ancient evil… the Lord of all terror and destruction… is awakening…
Even though it was still like the faintest whisper of the softest breeze, he could do nothing but listen before its grandness…
His cursed servant is perched up above within these halls… I beg of you, Link… cast out this presence… or the rise of the dragons, the harbingers that would bring end to chaos, shall ne'er come to pass…
The peculiar, intangible contact ceased, leaving him flustered and… strangely lonely…
"Farore's mercy!..." he gasped, finally pulling his hand from the ground. It tingled as if he'd just touched an electric keese! "Did you… hear?" he asked for lack of a better word.
She shook her head. "No. I felt you tense up… I sensed something passing between you and… somewhere… but I was shut out."
He told her the things he had… felt, rather than heard. Her thoughts lined her face as she repackaged all her tools and dressings. "The harbingers… bring end to chaos…" she muttered to herself. She gazed back up at him, her brow furrowed, biting on her lip. "Something about that…"
"…rubs you wrong?" he finished, to which she slowly nodded. He mulled it over, thought about the way the Tree had said it… Hard to judge with only a disembodied talking without real inflections in your brain…
"Let's think about it later, hm?" he suggested, standing up. "Maybe He himself can shed some light into it, once we have 'cast out this presence'!" he intoned dramatically, making his voice sound deep.
"Let us hope so… I am more than ready for a little bit of insight!" She too stood up and was eager to move on. He couldn't suppress an adoring grin as he marvelled at her dauntlessness in the face of all the direness they had encountered today alone, both friendly, monstrous and olfactory. She shot back a little smile of her own, the brief, jaunty boldness in her expression invigorating his spirits as if by magic.
Wresting himself from his admiring trance, he strapped his sword back where it belonged. He almost reached for his shield, but remembered just in time that his trusty defence had perished in the vile bowels of that horror down there. A strange, sharp sadness gripped his soul. That annoying, unwieldy piece of wood had been with him since the beginning of his journey… he couldn't possibly say how often he had cursed it for being so heavy or for hitting some part of his body against its hard rim… or how many times it had made him feel protected behind its well-crafted curve… He nearly had to laugh out loud at how emotional its loss made him feel as he flexed his now useless right hand.
Soft, delicate fingers snaked their way between his and squeezed "Hm?" she asked wordlessly, understanding in her sky-blue eyes.
"Nothing…" he shook his head. "I'm just being silly…"
She chuckled softly as she gently pulled him away from the Tree. "I once cried for a whole night because that one hag of a governess took away my favourite rock…" she recounted, staring off into memory. When she looked back, she blushed ever so slightly at his expression, which seemed to ever so slightly question her sanity.
"What?!" she asked defensively.
"Your favourite… rock…" he pronounced very carefully, as if talking to a madwoman.
"Yes! I was six!" she blustered. "It was sparkly… a chunk of pyrite, I believe. I found it when our carriage broke down… It was one of the only times I was even allowed to leave the bloody thing and run about…" A noticeable tone of resentment now carried her voice. Her hand in his subconsciously squeezed harder. "That is, I wasn't permitted to do so, of course. I simply ran away… a bit, at least… to feel wind and sun on my skin…" She sighed. "Didn't take them long to find me, naturally. Still, long enough for me to completely ruin my dress with dirt and tears because I had climbed onto a big rock. Goodness, the maids were in upheaval! I remember wondering back then, whether these hens would have even made such a fuss if I had broken my neck but had kept the dress whole… Anyway… On the rock I found the stone, small enough to fit it in my palm… and to hide it in my… you know… undergarments…" she giggled slightly at his perplexed but appreciative nod.
"I kept it hidden for the entire remainder of the journey, only taking it out at night, where it would even sparkle in the moonlight… Then, back at Hyrule Castle, that old dragon found it between my clothes and, despite my begging her, threw it out for being 'dirty'…" The nasty, wrathful way she uttered the last word made goosebumps rise on his skin… and the immense, uncaring injustice of it all actually made his belly tense with anger. The thought of tiny, six year old Zelda, distraught that her one memento of a tiny moment of freedom was so callously taken from her…
They had walked slowly, both loath to leave the soothing influence of the Tree. At the edge of the circular runlet he stopped, his emotions now in even greater turmoil.
"I'm sorry..." she mumbled, giving him a quick peck on the lips and looking genuinely conscience-stricken. "I don't even remember why I spoke of this… it just bubbled up…"
"That was not a very pleasant story…" he agreed, raising her hand to kiss her fingers.
She carried out a resigned shrug-nod. "Sadly, I don't have too many of those…" she sighed. He didn't know how to answer. Even though he desperately wanted to find consolatory words, they just wouldn't come, his throat stricken with sympathy for this magnificent angel who deserved so much better…
"Let's move on…" she suggested with a brave, wry smile. "Now that I have successfully murdered the mood, what else is there to fear?"
He smirked, kissed her forehead while mentally preparing himself to leave the frail bubble of comfort and be tossed back into the heartless reality.
The first thing they noticed as they stepped over the rivulet was the oppressive silence… as if the thick, heavy, foul air didn't carry sound as well… When they had entered the Tree's purifying aura ten minutes ago, they had been startled initially at how clear everything seemed after they had gotten used to the muffled atmosphere outside… They had nearly whispered for the first two minutes, as normal speech had seemed terribly loud… Now it was the exact opposite, everything was dull and slow, as if they had thick cotton swabs in their ears…
Yet still…
That flapping of wings he had heard earlier… Link's gaze darted upwards, back and forth as he tried his hardest to maybe catch a tiny glimpse at whatever seemed to make that sound… a sound that was so faint he was never sure whether he actually heard it or whether it was a figment of his overtaxed mind. But the mist would not be pierced, no matter how sharp his eyes were…
Even the light filtering in through the strange, impossible slit in the wood, which had seemed so bright and pleasant when they still sat on the hill, was now feeble and dirty… Not for the first time Link wondered whether reality was forced through a filter of decay here... or, even more disturbing, whether the proximity of the Deku Tree's heart actually applied such an alteration, only in the other way… which would mean that these filthy, rotten surroundings were the real, the true reality…
"Goddess above…" Zelda gagged beside him. "I had hoped the smell would be better now…"
He gave a meek, agreeing nod. "So did I… It is, I think… a bit…"
"Marginally, maybe… Did you really have to waste my expensive Safflina essence on such frivolous things as lighting a bilious daemon from hell on fire?!" she asked with perfectly executed petulant ire. Thankfully, he knew her well enough to realize she was just playing.
"To my defence, I was weighing my options. It was either that or throw you into the Chu's belly… I'm sure it would have recognized you as kin and would have left us alone…" he mused, scratching his chin… and bracing himself for impact.
"Funny! I was thinking along similar lines… given how utterly, scurrilously base you are, my dear, and given it's acidity, you two might have simply cancelled each other out and I would have not one, but two problems off my back!" she shot back instantly, her voice as sweet as syrup.
Link had to giggle and nod appreciatively at her scathing wordplay and seeing how it made her grin with delighted pride, he decided to let her have this round.
The began ascending the winding slope, upward this time. The surface was uneven, with the occasional root or bulb jutting out, so they had to be aware of their footing. At least the wood here was dry and normal… no half-digested sludge offending his fingers as he touched the Tree's wall.
"What did you call that thing again?" Zelda asked after a while, cocking a curious eyebrow.
"Hm? Oh… a Chu… I'm pretty sure that's what it was… Or I can imagine that's what a Chu would look like, at least…" he answered a little disjointedly.
"Hmmm…" she thought about it, chewing on the inside of her cheek… something she always did when she pondered about something… It's funny how you begin to notice these things when you observe someone long enough… especially if it's someone you could simply watch day in day out without ever getting tired of it… He still had the feeling he had only skimmed over the true extent of her beauty…
"Funny… I don't think I have ever heard of such a monster…" she finally admitted.
"I'm not too surprised… As far as I know, they are more of a folktale… Or miner-tale, to be exact. Creatures of the deep, vegetating without ever a glimpse of light… One wrong swing of your pickaxe and it's coming out of the walls to eat you… the kind of story you tell a new boy to get him scared while the older men laugh into their beards. Except…"
"…as is often the case, a speck of truth is behind it." She finished for him, shivering. "Chu…" she let the word roll off her tongue. "It doesn't do it justice… not in the slightest… Why would such a creature be… here, then? So close to the surface?"
"I do not know…" he admitted, shaking his head. "Why are there suddenly more monster attacks in the last weeks than in the ten years before? Why are there more and more sightings of unnatural fiends roaming the fields? And why does no-one have the confidence to discount such tales as nonsense, as they usually would? I'm afraid, the answer to all of these is… well…" he trailed off meekly.
Zelda only nodded… she understood…
They had passed almost two full turns around the enormous cylindrical room and were now about 50 metres up. The Tree's heart had almost completely faded into the all encompassing mist… only the uppermost branches were still visible… and there was still no ceiling in sight. The air seemed a tiny bit less heavy here, which was good… however, the ominous flapping sound now reached his ears more often, but whenever he tried to actively listen for it, there was nothing but silence. It was getting him more and more uneasy… as if whatever was behind it was fully aware of him… and waiting…
"Link, look!" She was pointing upwards and across the hall.
"Well, finally… I was getting dizzy…" he joked dryly. Another half turn up was what seemed to be a wooden platform sticking further out towards the middle. A few steps further and they could see that a door, same in design as the others, led from the great hall through the bark. Their pace quickened, eager to escape the monotony of the spiral climb… and was halted abruptly when they saw the nearly two metre wide gap between the ramp and the platform. They looked at each other, both uneasy. Objectively, the distance was jumpable with relative ease… but seeing that a tiny mishap could lead to a long fall and an almost certainly very final stop made the prospect of attempting it seem very unattractive.
Another thought seemed to plague Zelda's mind. "Why would there be such a gap here? It doesn't look broken off…" she muttered, clearly annoyed as she let her hand brush over the edge of the ramp. "There must be a reason…"
"Maybe the reason is simply that the children of the forest seem to be rather impervious to gravity…" Link remarked with an equally unhappy frown. "Think of our little acquaintance in those enchanted woods… To Maca this wouldn't even be worth a thought…"
She growled unintelligibly as she had no better explanation.
"Nothing for it, I'm afraid, my grumbling dumpling." he sang with a wry grin. "I don't think it is our destiny in this conflict of good versus evil to be deterred by poor interior design. I go first, then I'll catch you, if necessary!"
She gave a hesitant nod, he clenched jaw speaking of her nervousness. He understood her completely… were they just a metre off the ground, he too wouldn't think twice about such an easy jump… but after having just climbed a long, long way up, the thought of taking the express route all the way down tied his stomach to a knot.
He took a couple of steps back, did a last quick calculation about the jump and tried to ban any thought about falling short or overshooting the target from his brain.
3-2-1-Go! He stormed off, his muscles flexed for a jump when he suddenly remembered that he really should have taken off his backpack… His heart raced, but it was already too late. He catapulted himself off… time froze for a moment, making him think, just for one tiny moment, that he didn't have enough speed… then landed perfectly on the other side. He took a brief second to gaze around, wide eyed, making sure he had actually made it… then congratulated himself silently for his dexterity… and his stupidity.
Zelda, all the while, had both her fists pressed firmly against her mouth, holding her breath in silent hoping, her body so tense she seemed ready to twang like a bow-string. He raised his hands in a silent shrug, giving her a victorious smile… and downplayed his own anxiety substantially. Wouldn't do to show her just how bloody afraid he had just been over a tiny hop like this, would it? Not very manly…
"Erm… throw me your backpack before you try, would you dumpling?" he suggested in a consciously steady voice.
"Err… right!" she answered, looking a tiny bit flustered. She stepped close to the edge, made sure she had good footing and dexterously tossed her stuff over to him.
"Good… now throw yourself, would you? Preferably into my arms!" he joked, but made very sure he stood stably to both catch her in case she fell and to stop her, should she jump too far… The platform wasn't too narrow, but if you stumbled while trying to land… "I'm ready. I'll catch you no matter what." he promised with an encouraging smile.
She looked hard into his eyes, swallowed, then nodded. Taking the same running start, she launched herself off with a strained hiss… and landed excellently right in front of him. She wouldn't even have needed him… He hugged her anyway… half to hide his relief and half just because…
"Not too bad, huh?" she exulted, smiling her proud, radiant smile, her cheeks flush, her eyes alive with excitement. Goddess above, how he loved her spirit!
He couldn't help but share her elation, if only for a brief moment.
The shadow of movement in the corner of his eyes made him spin around, searching fervently for something to fix his gaze on.
"Wha…" she began, startled by his sudden move, but stopped when he raised his hand.
His brow furrowed and his muscles tensed. He knew he was looking at something… he sensed it… he just didn't see it! A muffled, but eerily close flapping came from the other side, forcing his eyes on a wild dance back and forth. Suddenly, standing on a borderless, dreadfully high platform, he felt terribly exposed.
"To the door…" he commanded quietly as he softly pushed her toward it. He stepped backwards, not daring to take his gaze… off of the nothing he could see. In a fluid motion he grabbed his bow from his back.
"I feel… something… tiny… hidden…" she breathed… they were still a couple of steps away from the closed gate… He hoped it would open like the others…
A sudden flurry of wing-flaps from his right startled him so much he nearly dropped his bow. It was close… and fearsomely fast!
He twisted around, aiming an arrow at nothing… and felt a miniscule breeze waft past his face... He reflexively jerked away and just barely heard another tiny flutter… from the other side!
At the very last possible moment he raised his shoulder and ducked his head… and an instant later felt a sharp pain in his arm as vicious teeth dug into his flesh where a moment before his eye would have been.
With an angry hiss he swiped at his shoulder with hectic speed, feeling something warm, bony and leathery skittering around. It gave a shrill, enraged shriek as he batted it away, but he still couldn't see it! He heard it flap twice, then it once again faded from his perception.
Behind him he heard Zelda brushing hastily over the symbol… it would be another two or three seconds until they could rush through… but whatever was attacking them could easily follow!
Once more, his ears alerted him to something, this time from the left. He drew his bow and shot at the noise, but either it evaded or he was simply off, as he hit only air.
Nevertheless, he had learned… and immediately ducked down. He felt disgustingly leathery wings brush over the back of his head and thought he heard a tiny screech of frustration.
He stood back up, nocking another arrow. These things were lightning quick… they could pester them wherever they went! …But there were only two, as far as he could tell… and they had used the exact same tactic twice, even though it hadn't worked the first time… Would they be stupid enough to try a third time?
A thought snapped through his mind… or maybe a memory… a memory of skills once finely honed, but forgotten for millennia…
Taking a deep breath to calm his racing heart, he slowly, reluctantly closed his eyes. As he focussed solely on his ears, the rushing of blood was nearly overpowering… he knew he had only a tiny moment to concentrate before they would attack again! His friend Marten could hit a rabbit in full sprint through metres of underbrush, just by the sound of its feet… This was easier, these creatures were coming right at him! His first shot had been hasty, he had still relied on his eyes, foolishly…
Focus… Breathe…
The hiss in his ears was silenced… and he suddenly perceived everything with almost startling clarity. The soft rustle of his clothing, the miniscule creak of his bow as he drew it, his beloved princess' heartbeat, so much more important than his own... even the tiny droplets of water crawling upwards in the Great Deku Tree's bark… And, most importantly, he heard two pairs of wings, and so exactly that he could pinpoint their precise location without a thought.
Both were diving at him, the right one much closer already… Ignore it, it won't attack, it's nothing but a distraction!
He snapped to the left and shot… with his senses enhanced like this, there was no point in taking time to aim… or to wait whether he had hit his mark. He heard the air being split by the steel tip of his projectile...
Without a moment of hesitation he grabbed his bow with both hands and swung it with all his might at the one approaching on his right… and felt a satisfying, crunching resistance as the mistreated wood crushed tiny bones.
Link opened his eyes, no longer able to resist his natural impulse, and the unnatural acuity of his senses faded. He heard a sharp 'thock' and a moist 'splat' as his arrow hit the wooden wall, its flailing quarry impaled, and the other beast was squashed against the other side. The magic veil that had hidden them from his sight was lifted and he saw them both twitch sickly for a moment before they lay still… and with startling speed shrivelled up like prunes before crumbling to fine black dust.
He stared at the two little mounds, his brain trying to comprehend the near impossible feat he had just done and mostly failing. To shoot a creature no larger than a bat with absolute precision by relying only on the sound of air swirling past their wings…
"Were… were those…" he heard her voice approaching from behind, frighteningly loud to his oversensitive ears.
"Keese…" he muttered through gritted teeth. But not only that… invisible Keese! The bloodthirsty demons of the darkest depth were seldom seen above ground, even in the blackest night… Now he had encountered them twice in one week! They were rumoured to be nearly imperceptible, that even whole swarms could strip a man's flesh to the bone without someone standing next noticing a thing… But to be able to hide themselves utterly from sight even in this murkily lit room?
"Like the creature we saw dominating them… the one chasing Veneli…" she mumbled, guessing his thoughts.
He nodded tensely. The winged horror they had just barely been able to drive back had appeared in his dreams more than once… It too had been cloaked in shadows…
"Link, pull up your tunic over your shoulder, please." Zelda commanded to his confusion. Seeing his uncomprehending look, she pointed at his arm, where a small patch of blood had soaked through the fabric.
"Oh…" He hadn't even felt it until now…
Disinfecting and bandaging took less than a minute… The beast had fiendishly sharp teeth… Its fangs might only be a centimetre long, but it had rammed them deep into his muscle, even through his tunic. Had he not brushed it away so quickly, he had no doubt he would be missing a thumbnail sized chunk of flesh… The thing had tried directly for his eye… The thought of what damage it would have done had he not sensed its approach… a wave of nausea washed through his gut as his mind conjured all too vivid pictures…
He looked upwards. About 25 metres above he could see an end to the impossibly high chamber. In the very middle of the ceiling was a round opening, about 5 metres across, leading further up. He couldn't see anything past it though… the light that pervaded this room seemed to stop abruptly, leaving only darkness behind. He had a bad feeling… He suspected their way must lead them further into the crown of the Tree… but the thought of entering this hole that seemed to be teeming with such a sharp blackness… seemed to lure him into the black, draw his thoughts into an infinite vortex down to depravity until he could never see the light again… He had to suppress a cold shiver…
"Do you… can you sense anything? From above?" he hesitantly asked as he felt her standing beside him, following his gaze.
She seemed to concentrate, a look of apprehension passing over her delicate features. He knew how her sixth sense frightened and pained her, how she was forced to experience people's fears and hurts as if they were done to her own body. He knew she would gladly forget about that torturous ability, if only she could. Sadly, it was that reluctance, he suspected, that held her back immensely from learning more about her powers… But who wouldn't shirk back from something that forced visions Yet for him she braved the terror of lowering her defences… He didn't know whether he should just feel gratitude or disgust at himself…
"No… but…" she frowned and absentmindedly gripped his arm to ground herself back into reality. When she opened her eyes, a sheen of sweat had formed on her forehead. "It's… like there's less than nothing… as if I am being consciously shut out…" she explained, confusion and anxiety in her eyes as she looked into his.
He nodded, despite not being able to fully understand. "As it stands, we have no way of reaching up there anyway… maybe we can circumvent it entirely…" he suggested without truly believing his words. Still, she nodded, took a deep breath and let go of his arm. With tremendous effort, they wrested their eyes away from the hole into blackness. The hairs of his neck stood on end as he presented it to the sinister opening… He prayed without hope that their way wouldn't lead them through there. It wasn't the absence of light that scared him… It was the sound he had heard in the brief moment of perfect perception… The sound of hundreds and hundreds of nervous, leathery wings…
The open door waited for them, with a short corridor and another room beyond. A dry, dusty smell wafted against them from it, scratching their throats and leaving a slightly unpleasant taste on their tongues. The hall itself was like a long tube… like the inside of an enormous branch, Link realized. Ten metres across and about 20 in length. They had entered at about half height, standing on an even platform with the branch's curvature above them. The room was divided in the middle by a large trench spanning the entire width form left to right. At the far end was another platform, just like theirs, but…
"Is that… are those…"she began, then swallowed.
"Spider webs…" he finished for her and fully understood her dismay. Almost all of the other side, floor, walls and ceiling, was covered by thick layers of spider silk. Things were scattered over the floor over there, but they couldn't even guess at their true form under the sheer density of the stuff. Link took a very careful step forward and, with a certain reluctance, looked down into the trench. His stomach confirmed with a queasy feeling what his eyes saw. Skulltulas… hundreds, thousands… myriads… An uncountable number of eight-legged critters, the complex movement of their dull, metallic looking carapaces giving the 'floor' the look of sizzling iron as they crawled past, over and under each other. Most were smaller than his thumb… but very many still were decidedly, uncomfortably larger. He spotted how some of them vanished or appeared through tiny cracks in the wood, making him wonder how far, how deep their tunnel system went… and whether a flood of them could at any point pour forth from the walls.
He also had the incomparable opportunity to see how a dog-sized specimen dragged in a still twitching crow… and how in mere seconds it was reduced to nothing but bones that quickly sunk below the tide of spindly legs.
A repulsed little sigh from his left very nearly made him jump into the pit. He had been so engrossed in the disgusting spectacle, that he hadn't even heard her join him. A look at her expression told him anything he needed to know about her current thoughts.
Neither of them were phobic of the things, thankfully… but a whole childhood of hearing the terrible, unspeakable things that Skulltulas did to their victims had left them with a healthy caution. "Eight legs on a skull? Run, or be one for the cull!" is what many Hylian parents told their children…
The main difference between these nasty critters and spiders, which Link actually rather liked, was in character… If a spider found you sleeping, it would just walk over you… A Skulltula would bite you for good measure, simply because you were there… and it would depend on its size whether you would be spending three days in near incurable pain, or whether you would be dead within the hour.
"…Well…" he whispered forlornly.
"Quite…" she answered, equally hushed.
A few seconds of silence passed, both entranced by the spectacle below. "Why are we even…"
"HEEEY!" a sharp, high shout nearly stopped both their hearts. "OVER HEEEEEERE!"
Link, his heart still hammering, gazed over to the other side and his jaw dropped. What his earlier, cursory glance hadn't uncovered was how a thick, moist looking cocoon hung suspended from the webbed ceiling by a single, thick strand of spider-silk. And that cocoon was now wriggling and hopping up and down in an almost comical manner. "GET ME OUTTA HEEEERE!" a slightly distorted, childlike voice screamed hysterically… Maca's voice!
"Maca?! Hold still! Don't move so much!" Link yelled back, trying to be silent and audible all the way over there at once as he gazed nervously at the throbbing mass underneath.
"Linky! What took you so long?!" the forest-child's voice reached their ears, sounding slightly miffed. "I've been hanging here la-di-da-di-da for DAYS! They tried to eat me! TWICE! But Iiiiii'm too tough, WAHAHAHA!" The spider-sack bounced in tune with his laughing. If the threat of thousands of enraged Skulltulas hadn't loomed so closely, it would have been an absurdly hilarious sight.
"Come on! Get me out! The Great Deku Tree asked me to help you, which I can't do in here… Unless I'm supposed to help you free me, but then how am I supposed to help you, if I'm in here instead of out there where I can help you free me from in here, so you have to free me so I can help you free me, ooooooh this is getting complicated!" the strange boy burbled on in one breathless tirade.
"Hold. Still!" Link hissed back, getting increasingly worried because the roiling masses underneath seemed, to his eyes, get increasingly antsy. He hoped it was just his imagination… "I'll come get you, but you have to be quiet!"
"Alright! Going to sleep, then!" he informed them happily and was instantly silent.
They gazed at each other meaningfully, then scrutinized the room more carefully. A plan was beginning to formulate in Link's head… though it wasn't one he particularly liked.
"How are you going to get over there?" Zelda whispered anxiously, still having trouble to divert her attention from the menacing sea of legs and teeth below.
"That way, I believe…" he answered and pointed to the left wall. At about a metre above their heads four branch-like posts jutted out. From two of them hung a frayed piece of rope…
"I believe a bridge of some kind once spanned between here and the Maca's end… I think it was suspended from these." he explained silently. "It must have crashed at some point… and is now probably part of the Skulltula nest… I think I can jump from peg to peg…"
Her expression darkened… he could see that she didn't like his plan. Understandable, as he wasn't all that fond of it himself. But he saw no other way…
The right side, incidentally, was covered with spider-web all over… but the four corresponding posts still poked through the thick, sticky substance.
He walked over to the web-free wall, gauging the height of the first peg.
"Link, look!" she directed his gaze around. "Aren't there…"
His eyes went wide. "Oh…" was all he could manage right now. A few, extremely fine strands of silk spanned diagonally from the wall into the nest in the trench… none reaching quite as high as the poles were, but…
"If you touch any of them…" she began, alarmed and terrified. His mouth went rather dry… Thank Nayru she had spotted that… he would have to be doubly careful… and swinging from post to post was now out of the question. He would have to jump and land on them perfectly!
"I'm actually surprised that they haven't attacked us yet… traipsing around foolishly as we are…" he muttered, furious at himself for his lack of vigilance.
"Dumb luck?" she suggested, giggling out of pure nervousness. "They don't hear or see all that well. They also don't hunt within their nest… and the apparently simply don't recognize us as a threat. But if you touch any of these strands..."
"We'll have graduated from irrelevant to intruder." he finished for her, his insides squirming uncomfortably at the thought. He took a good, long look at the distance between here and the first peg… the further away he gazed, the harder the fine strands were to spot. At the far end, he could only guess…
"The way to the first one seems clear… as long as I don't swing too much, I should be able to hang from it and pull myself up…" he mumbled, thinking aloud in part to calm himself. "Right… I'll try for it. If I don't think I can progress, I'll just return and we think of something else…"
"Mhm…" she hummed with a jittery, high voice. He didn't move for a few seconds.
"Err… you'll have to let go of me dumpling, or I won't get very far." he reminded her gently.
"Oh… I'm sorry…" she squeaked after looking confusedly at her own hands that had his tunic in a vice grip without her noticing.
"Don't worry. I'll be fine." he promised. He hoped…
She stared into his eyes, hers grim and hard and full of worry… then nodded fiercely. A silent, irrefutable order to keep his word…
He took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly, calming his racing heart and his twitching muscles… Then sprinted the few paces towards the wall, keeping his steps deliberately light. He jumped at the wooden surface at the last moment, ran two strides upwards, then jumped off as best he could. His leap took him over the edge and over the death-promising pit… if he had misjudged anything, he could only hope that his death would be quick…
Thankfully, he had easily enough height. His chest rammed against the wooden inward-branch and his hands hurriedly slung around it. The wood groaned due to the sudden weight, but didn't budge. He hung there for a second, not even daring to breathe. Over his shoulder he glanced at the waving, jittering, seething mass below, fearing that his last conscious thought would be millions of Skulltulas exploding up the walls… and engulfing her… Thankfully, they did not seem any more agitated than before. The breath he exhaled was so full of relief, he nearly lost his grip due to his muscles relaxing.
Cautiously, deliberately, he positioned his hands and shifted his weight so he could push himself up with a minimal amount of leg-swing. Slowly so he wouldn't lose balance, he managed to place his feet on the narrow peg, so he now perched on top of it.
An almost uncontrollable giggle forced its way out and he glanced back at his Zelda. Her hands, balled to fists, were in front of her mouth and her entire body seemed so tense it was a wonder it didn't snap… But seeing him do his stupid, wide grin her hunched posture eased slightly and she started breathing again.
Right… back to narrowly avoiding death again…
Very delicately and using the wall for balance, he turned so he faced the next pole. He took a good minute to make sure he knew that no silky strands were in his way, then slowly got into the perfect position to jump. Goddess, how often had Mart, Ric and he made a game out of jumping from stem to branch to rock without touching the floor… and how often they had all landed face first in the mud. This time, the consequences would be quite a lot harsher than a few scratches and a fiery lecture from his mother.
Shaking his head free of these distracting thoughts he leapt. Time seemed to slow, just enough for him to reflect on how useless that really was… it's not like he could change his trajectory now!
His feet hit the peg first and together with both hands on the wall it was enough to break his momentum so he didn't have to do a controlled fall off the other side… or do anything pointless like waving his arms around.
Exhaling another tense breath, he repeated the process: perching, looking, planning, getting ready… Now that the first hop had worked so well, he had a pretty good idea how hard he needed to jump off. Repeating it would be easier, but he still took all the time he felt he needed.
The moment was there, his muscles tensed and pushed him off… A resounding crack underneath, the wood gave way, taking most of his force with it. His body, panicked, stretched as far as it could with a strained grunt and his fingers barely found the next post. His body turned and swung, no stability possible as he was only holding on with his left hand. His shoulder complained viciously, but he barely paid it attention. He pulled himself up just enough so he could grasp with his right too, then used all his body control to stop himself from swaying.
His mind trembling with red hot panic, he looked over his shoulder and downwards, fully expecting to see the masses below boiling in rage, a wave of evil little legs and teeth already crawling up the walls, ready to envelop him in certain, painful demise…
The treacherous peg hadn't fallen, it swung lazily from a few, last strands of saving wood… and by the look of things, his feet had just narrowly avoided a few of the alarm-strings. The Skulltulas below seemed as they were before, the low background-noise of their carapaces dragging over each other hadn't changed. Still not daring to breathe, he carefully unfurled his legs enough so he could begin pulling himself up. His left came terrifyingly close to another thread of silk… he prayed to all goddesses that he had just imagined it waving slightly due to the puff of air his motion had caused…
With horror fuelled care her began his ascent, despite his arms and hands urging him to haste. When he was finally up, he made sure he had good balance, then closed his eyes for a few seconds, trying desperately to keep both his heart and his stomach down. Gritting his teeth he pulled himself together, letting a bit of anger take the place of fear. Ire didn't cripple you like fear did…You just had to make sure that it didn't make you incautious.
The last jump went smoothly, thankfully. Part of his brain fidgeted about how he would make his way back, seeing as one of the pegs was now unusable… but he suppressed it for now. Instead, he focused on reaching the cocoon with Maca.
It didn't look good… from his perch on the last post, he could see that the entirety of this platform was webbed in… the only uncovered foothold he could see was the very edge of a table underneath him… which was good, but he would still be much too far away from the child's prison to do anything.
Careful as not to disturb anything or, goddess forbid, set his foot onto the stickily glistening web, he let himself down from the pole and onto the wooden surface of what looked to be a workbench of some sort. He gazed around, hoping to find a spot that could take him just a little closer… but try as he might, the white, silky surface was unbroken.
He glanced over to Zelda. Nayru's wisdom, she looked pale as a ghost! He cursed himself for his clumsiness, making her tremble like that… even though he knew he couldn't have avoided it.
Still, even from across the room, he could see her intelligent eyes scanning the area for a solution. After a few seconds, with a questioning expression, she pointed towards Maca, then did an increasing swinging motion with her hands.
Link's face lit up, he instantly understood. He took another long look at the cocoon, and the length of the strand with which it was affixed to the ceiling… yes… Yes that could work!
"Maca!" he whispered sharply.
"At your service! …if I wasn't still in here." Came the answer without a moment's delay.
"Listen carefully. I very close, but I can't quite get to you without these things deciding that I'm going to be dinner…" He explained, adapting a way of speech that he somehow knew would captivate the forest boy.
"Aaiiii, how dreadful! You're not supposed to be dinner!" the child's voice whined.
"Exactly. So as I can't get to you…"
"I'll have to get to you!" he finished happily. "Buuuut waaait. Howzzat gonna work? I tried digging myself out, they just made the thing thicker!"
"That's why I need you to swing back and forth until I can grab the cocoon. Can you do that?"
"Ooooh, I like the idea!" he giggled as if there was no better excitement to be had in the entire world.
"Nice! Now, just follow my voice and start rocking!" he ordered, carefully taking his knife into his left hand.
"Bah, I'm not a Goron! I'll rather sway like a willow's branch!" he announced, and without further ado began with surprising dexterity.
"Wooo! Weee!" he warbled, moderately silently, with each back-and-forth.
"A tiny bit more…" Link hissed as his outstretched fingers could almost grasp it.
"On my waaay!"
One more long swing and he would catch it! He stretched as far as he dared and with a last "Wheeee!" he caught the surprisingly hard, yet sticky prison. With one fluid motion he brought his knife across the thick thread, the sharpened steel cutting it easily and…
Silence.
The incessant scuttling from below ceased in an instant and only a portentous, deadly silence remained. In a moment that seemed to draw into infinity, nothing moved a muscle…
Then Link bolted and pushed himself off with superhylian, terror-driven strength, reaching the closest peg almost from a standing leap. Below him the floor exploded… A torrent of black and white carapaces of all sizes cascaded upwards with frightening speed, the former low susurrus now a tempest of hissing, screeching and clacking legs and jaws.
Sheer panic sending his heart to a stifling race, he simply jumped forward, his body taking control when his mind was paralyzed with horror. He hit the next post as if in a full run, his eyes subconsciously spotting that the flood of death had almost reached the height of his legs. Without thinking he leapt off yet again without slowing, the cocoon held firmly under his left arm. His right reached out… the second pole was gone, so he had to somehow reach the one closest to Zelda. Mid flight he saw something that made him scream out his precious breath in yet another wave of fear.
An enormous, spiky, hairy leg reached out from under the platform Zelda stood on and crashed heavily into the wood right beside her. With terrible speed a Skulltula the size of a horse, previously hidden in the shadow below the platform, heaved its massive body up top, and advanced with unmistakable menace.
With a mighty roar he grabbed the last peg with his right, swung widely to conserve his momentum, then let go at precisely the right moment to continue his flight towards the fearsome creature and the exit. There wasn't even an instant to be wasted with thought! He chucked the sticky lump through the open door, then grabbed his sword before his feet touched the ground. He rolled smoothly to control his landing and tore forward, the hungry storm surge of a myriad spiderlings just scuttling over the edge, less than half a metre away from his feet.
He ducked through the brutal-looking legs of the Skulltula queen that would reach Zelda within a moment. With a furious howl he hacked at a joint in the monster's front leg, his blade slicing through with a bluish-green flash, but that was probably just an illusion from his terrified eyes.
The creature reared up and instinctively retreated from the source of pain, giving him just enough time to continue his unbroken sprint, grab the fleeing Zelda by her waist, lifting her up and speed down the corridor. The violent stream of a million Skulltulas deafened his ears. He couldn't turn to look how close they were, but he could almost feel them biting at his leg and dropping from the ceiling.
He passed the door onto the platform overlooking the main hall, his lungs burning, his mind in panic at where to flee next. They couldn't be outrun!
"Close!" Zelda screamed with all her might in his arm and, blessedly, the Tree must have heard as the heavy log-door slammed shut with a bone shaking crash. For a few breathless minutes they heard the vile things throw themselves against the wood, hissing and spitting in primal fury… but open it they could not. After a while, the sound died down… and silence returned to the Heart of the Tree.
Gingerly, because he started trembling so much he nearly lost all feeling in his hands, he set down his beloved Zelda, who immediately wrapped her arms around him and squeezed so tightly that it almost hurt. She buried her face against his chest and he his in her wonderfully scented hair… They held each other as tightly as possible, both supporting and at the same time leaning onto the other, all in silence as the terror was still far too great for any words.
He couldn't say how long they remained like this, somehow not toppling over despite their knees being nothing but mush. He also didn't care how long it was. Bit by bit her warmth against him, her scent in his nose, her heartbeat against his chest, the sound of her breath in his ears returned the world from utter madness to some semblance of sanity. As one, their tremulant hearts slowed and their minds were cleared of horror-visions with torrents of vicious fangs and legs.
Maca was considerately quiet… Link suspected the little imp understood quite a bit more than his naïve behaviour suggested. Still, after what felt like an eternity, he couldn't hold still any longer. "Could you… free me now, Linky?" the strange boy softly twittered.
The addressed slowly, reluctantly let go of the girl who once again was helped restore his sanity. He gently stroked over her head and cheek until she was ready to release him.
He looked around for the dirty-white cocoon. "Err… Maca? Where are you?"
"Well how'm I supposed to know?!" he blustered. "I'm sure I'm somewhere! I'd rather be somewhere else though!"
"Hang on…" Link asked, tired enough now that he actually considered walking back down and resting under the Tree. Following the odd, slightly distorted voice he spotted that he had thrown the cocoon a tad too far… and it was now sticking just barely to the outside edge of the platform. Very carefully he slung his arm around so an errant move wouldn't dislodge the thing entirely, resulting in quite a far plunge.
Cutting the spidery prison open turned out to be surprisingly difficult. The thousands of singular strands firmed a dense, tough, almost leathery substance… he also couldn't just hack at it, of course. The last thing he wanted was to hurt the forest child inside.
"Almost there, my friend. Soon you can hop around to your heart's content again! …Don't wriggle so much!" Link warned warily.
"I'm just SOOoo excited! Being in here is no fun at all! It smells of nasty!" the boy warbled, bouncing around.
"You can say that again…"
"I'm just SOOoo excited! Being in here is no fun at all! It smells of nasty!" he dutifully repeated.
"Very good…" Link muttered with a wry grin. "Aaand you're free!" He sliced through the last few strands and pulled the thick coat apart with all his strength. Without a moments hesitation Maca had squirmed out and jumped high in the air, almost high enough to touch the ceiling. "Wheeeeeeeeeee-oomph!" he made with a slightly jittery landing.
The kid stood on the platform, stock still for a second, then started to tremble more and more until his entire body was rocking. Both Link and Zelda wondered whether he was having a fit…
Suddenly he darted right for the teen's leg and hugged it fiercely. "Waaaaaaaa!" he yelled miserably. "It-it was te-te-terrible…" A whole concert of sobs and snivels poured forth from the boy, which startled both his rescuers. He had, up till now, seemed so undaunted… but, it appeared, he really was, at least in part, just a child. Brave when he had to… distraught when he could no longer be strong.
Link gently patted his head as Zelda knelt down the stroke his back. "You were very brave, Maca… I didn't even notice that you were afraid!" he said truthfully.
"I-I… I sap-ping hate Skull-tu-las!" he shouted into his imprisoned leg and bounced to emphasise every syllable. The two chosen of fate glance at each other, their expression telling of both their sympathy and how adorable they found the display.
"How did they capture you anyway?" He couldn't resist asking.
The child gazed up to look at his saviour's face alongside his body. "Weeell…" he seemed a bit sheepish. "I wanted to shoo them away, of course! And clean up! Because you were coming…" he explained a bit cryptically.
"You wanted to… shoo a nest of Skulltulas out…" Link asked for confirmation with an incredulous smirk. It did sound like the delightfully, stupidly innocent thing he would do.
"I asked nicely!" the boy defended himself. "And when they didn't listen I just grabbed a broom and wanted to sweep them out! They didn't seem to understand…"
Another glance passed between Zelda and him and neither could suppress a little giggle.
"What?!" The lad stepped back and set his arms akimbo. "I had to clean up for you, didn't I? It's been so long since you were here!"
"What's so important about that chamber?" Zelda asked curiously.
The small creature turned towards her. "Well it's… it's his room…"
The information hit Link somewhere in his stomach, creating a strange, hollow, sad feeling… only then it passed fully into his brain. "My…" he began, but couldn't finish.
"Yes… long long ago…" the boy explained, his voice sounding mournful. "We kept it nice for you for… a loooong time… but…" he broke off, sounding positively dejected now… "…but when everybody else… left, I just didn't have the time… I'm sorry…"
Link's insides cramped at Maca's story. The idea that the forest children had kept his room tidy for him for… centuries maybe… in the hopes that he would return… And hearing that this one had been alone for goddess knew how long… To say it choked him up would be an understatement…
He felt her warm hand on the back of his neck, gently brushing through his hair. He swallowed heavily, trying to control his voice. "I… I am sorry, but… I don't even remember… not really…" he began.
"I know you don't… the Great Deku Tree said you wouldn't. But like this, we had something to remember you by…"
"Thank you for… doing this… and for trying to remember me…" he mumbled, not really understanding fully why he said it. His eyes burning treacherously.
"'S alright. I'm just sad that the others can't see you returned..." the boy muttered, hanging his head.
"Where are the others?" Zelda asked when she noticed that her Link couldn't, though her voice didn't sound any less moved.
Maca was silent for a long time. "Some left… others went to sleep… The Great Deku Tree couldn't support us all after a while… and now that He has gone to sleep too…" He looked up hesitantly. "I thought, maybe you could stay for a while, Linky…"
Without another thought Link bent down and locked the child, who his entire body achingly told him was a dear friend, into a firm embrace. He felt as if he might burst from powerless sadness, but strangely, the tears wouldn't come. A wooden, but also warm and soft hand patted him softly on his back. "Don't be sad. I know you can't stay. But it was nice hoping anyway…" The slightly warped voice lilted in his ear. Then he gave him a sharp little love tap on the head. "Now, we mustn't waste time! The Great Deku Tree needs your help! And you need… ME!" he yelled, all excitement again. "We can talk… another time."
The sudden mood-swing was a tad jarring, but weirdly, it helped to get his thoughts back to the matter at hand. "Right. We do, Maca. Can you-" He began, but the interruption followed immediately.
"Bah! Such a long time and you still haven't learned to jump that measly little hop?" the boy tutted playfully. "Leeeearn from the MASTER!" And with an effortless, majestic leap he was off towards the dreadful, dark hole in the ceiling. As his trajectory was just about to dip downward again, he carried out a perfect little spin and, with an audible 'poof', he suddenly clutched a strange peculiar, four-leafed plant, not unlike a clover. "Tadaaaa! Bet you have forgotten about that little trick as well, haven't you? Teehee!" he sang gaily. To both teen's open-mouthed amazement, the odd plant's leaves spun around the stem in Maca's hand, giving off a soft, greenish pink light… and allowed him to fly! With a fascinated grin, he spotted the hungry look in Zelda's eyes. He bet she would go to some lengths to get her curious hands on one of these… If they were at all something that could be grasped, both literally and figuratively.
"Yahahaaa! Now for my nex-puaah!" The kid, uncaring of his height smacked his head neatly on the ceiling, his wonder-leaf slightly bent out of shape until he regained control. Neither of them could stifle a slight chuckle, especially at the barely intelligible tirade that was thrown at them for finding merriment at Maca's expense. It too, helped them both to cover the smothering sadness they had felt for now. In a moment of strange insight, Link wondered how much of all this the whimsical forest child had planned…
"Hhanyway!" the boy huffed. "I'll show you what's what! I'll show you the power of the grrrreat MACA!"
It was hard to see from the distance, but he seemed to twirl his hand around until it was encompassed in a mild, green radiance. Tiny emerald sparks dropped from his pudgy little fingers, their light shining all the way down to the bottom, colouring the ubiquitous mist in a vibrant shades of life. The two heroes stood mesmerized at the gorgeous display, their skins reacting in unisono goosebumps at the verdant power that wafted against them.
With a triumphant cackle the forest imp flew towards the very rim of the hole and drew his glowing hand once around the entire circumference. With a fascinated gasp, their eyes witnessed vines growing immediately where Maca had worked his magic, sprouting with impossible speed and cascading downwards. Giggling excitedly, the little woodling directed their growth with a few simple hand motions, and they obediently twisted and intertwined. Within a minute a large convoluted branch had spiralled its way all the way towards the platform they were standing on and smoothly wrapped around it until it was securely anchored. Another minute later, the green vines were lignified and had sprouted long, horizontal leaves. With open mouths, they understood what had just been made to grow in a manner of moments… a spiral stairway!
"Holy Farore's mercy…" Zelda whispered, spellbound as the interwoven vines finished their arcane growth spurt, the bottommost leaves fully unfolding and Maca gently corrected small mistakes or irregularities. Link was no less enchanted, grinning madly like a child at funfair. If a tiny gnome like Maca could command such powers, what awesome miracles could the Deku Tree unleash? It boggled his mind just thinking about it…
With a snap of his fingers, the sorcery ceased and the familiar gloom returned to the cavernous hall. The boy floated on his magical clover right at the entrance of the newly 'cultivated' stairwell… a sentence that sent even more swirls of incredulous confusion through his brain.
"Well?! Wwwwhaddaya think?!" the imp roared heartily.
"Maca, that was… breathtaking!" Zelda exulted, immediately bowing down to inspect the vines with both eyes and hands, ever the bright-eyed scientist. Slightly less a scholar but not a iota less intrigued, Link joined her, the two of them soon ogling, pointing, showing and sharing each new discovery like children. A moment of rare, pure childhood that, forced into an early, vicious adulthood, they sorely lacked.
"Hehehe! Well it's not… it's not that good…" Maca mumbled, suddenly a tad bashful. "If the Great Deku Tree was awake, he'd show you something REALLY great!" Then he put his finger over the mouth-shape in his face-leaf in a very kid-like gesture. "…although, he'd probably be all like 'Now, power should never be wasted for idle bravado!' or something like that…" he explained, making his high voice sound as deep as he could.
Something that has been gnawing at Link's mind suddenly formed an important question. "Maca… is the Deku Tree going to… is He…" he trailed off, but he received his answer anyway.
"Of course the Great Deku Tree will be alright! What did you expect? He's the Great Deku Tree!" the boy explained full of fervour. "But he still needs your help…"
The chosen of fate nodded, heavy with responsibility. "I understand. I will not fail Him or you!" he promised with a sincerity that surprised even him.
Maca giggled and jumped from his rotating clover right into his friend's arms. "I know you won't, Linky. I've seen you do it before…" he warbled softly. "And don't be glum… everything is as it should be!" He remained still for a few seconds, hugging the befuddled teen, whose head swam with burden, doubt, hope and shreds of memory that both comforted and saddened at once.
Then, as if stung by a wasp he wriggled away and bounced about again. "Now I gotta go! I've dawdled enough with you already, teehee. I have to take care of my own business now! Bye!" and with a sudden 'poof!' he had vanished in a cloud of mist.
Link stared numbly at the now vacant spot, a thousand barely formed questions burning on his mind. Despite the soul-rending sorrow that ungraspable part of him felt, it was now a calm, coherent grief… like a wound that had stopped festering and had started to heal. Maca's last few words, strangely, had been a great source of comfort… both that the Tree would live, as well as the vague assurance that everything was going its correct course. Mostly he was relieved that, despite the forest-child's condolement, there was no blame, no bad blood whatsoever.
Once again he felt Zelda's soft, consoling hand caressing his neck and he smiled thankfully at her. In her sparkling, magnificent eyes he seemed to find the strength he needed.
"No point in dwelling on the past... especially one that… seems to be mine only by inheritance, right?" he stated… though he still hoped for her highly valued thoughts.
She bit her cheek, but didn't break eye contact. "The past isn't to be feared, I think… and reliving and learning from it is not a mistake unless sweet memory turns into debilitating melancholy… The past is what brought you to the present, but it doesn't define it."
He could do nothing but smile meekly at her words that seemed to perfectly fit that hole in his soul… "Then I choose to go forward and refuse to let the occasional glance back slow me… but have it invigorate me instead." He paraphrased to show her he accepted her wisdom as true. She grinned happily, stood on her tip-toes and gave him a painfully short, but encouraging kiss on the lips. It made him simper like a complete dolt.
"Well… we're already saving the world… no reason why we shouldn't be able to save a big old tree and His children as well!" he stated, the absurdity of it not lost on either of them.
Zelda snorted a tiny chuckle and nodded.
As one, they looked at the newly grown spiral staircase, still marvelling at the magic behind its creation, but also wondering whether the leaves that comprised the stairs would actually hold. Link couldn't help but think that, due to his almost non-existent weight, Maca might have misjudged the carrying capacity of his opus… Then again, they did sprout from the Tree itself, didn't they? And then there was the matter of where the thing led to… the sinister hole in the ceiling that seemed to negate any light… and that seemed to house more of the winged horrors…
But one thing at a time! Gingerly, he set his foot onto the first leaf… he could feel small hands gripping the back of his tunic to yank him back, just in case… The peculiar step bent a bit under his weight but as far as he could judge, it held stably. Over his shoulder he gave her a look that said 'Yeah, well, maybe, should be fine.'
Slowly but steadily they made their way up. As often as he could, he gazed upwards into the unknowable darkness, trying to catch a glimpse of anything... and his nervousness increased with every step. More and more his ears warned him of flapping of leathery wings and the scratching of tiny claws on wood… but his eyes could not pierce the blackness overhead. He swallowed, trying to formulate plans for all eventualities. Most of all, his mind battled itself with the decision of either taking his protégé with him so he could keep a close eye, or whether he should ask her to stay behind until he had sorted it all out up above… Then the thought of her probably explosive reaction to such a proposal solved that little conundrum right quickly.
"What are you smiling about?" she asked sharply. He flinched, but his grin only got wider, despite his best efforts.
"Nothing!" he promised, shaking his head.
"Hrm." She huffed. "I wished I could muster such eagerness for entering a pit of complete darkness…"
A few steps before their heads poked through the hole, Link lit a torch, though he had little hope that its light would be able to compete…
To both their continued amazement, the vines hadn't just cascaded downwards, they had also grown up, providing yet more easy access through the at least 3 metre thick ceiling… Though their adulation was rapidly snuffed as they ascended further. With every step they took, the air got colder… and quieter… The light of the torch was barely enough to show the next step… The wall itself was cold, but otherwise to the touch… yet it seemed to be covered by a film of something that would not let even the tiniest shimmer pass. The only way they knew that the room finally opened was through the change of the sound their steps made… and because the enigmatic stairs suddenly stopped.
Zelda walked up behind him and stayed close… He could see puffs of vapour forming from her breath and saw her shiver slightly. Her eyes gazed around wildly, wide and scared. He was faring no better… All his own vision showed was the two of them, standing amidst a seemingly endless, impenetrable darkness that seemed to slowly choke even their last little speck of light. Even sound had ceased… the vile noises that had become more and more urgent as they ascended, were silenced… With each breath they drew, it seemed to become more stifling, the all encompassing blackness appearing to draw closer, nearer and nearer, even though all their sensorium seemed deadened. It was like a lethal maelstrom of blackness that silently encroached, incomprehensible and unstoppable… It would tear them asunder, rip their entire essence from their bodies until nothing was left and the light in them had been snuffed.
He gritted his teeth, his mind working furiously while running out of space… How… how could he possibly fight this? How could he battle primal darkness with nothing but a simple sword?!
"Link! …!" Zelda hissed something with an urgent voice, but he couldn't understand…
He turned his head, desperate for anything that might help. No sound reached his ear any more… He already couldn't see his own body, or most of hers… the fire of the torch was nothing but a sickly blue flamelet… But her eyes! Her eyes shone as brightly, as crystal clear as they always had! Her inner light had not been tarnished in the slightest, despite the wall of dark being almost upon them. He let them be his anchor, his guiding beacon though the blackest night… most of all, he wouldn't let any of this vileness touch them!
She meant to tell him something… he read it in the earnest, pressing way she looked at him.
…She sensed something! Something beyond… Without a second of doubt, he sheathed his sword and grabbed his bow… He had seen something in her eyes… or maybe heard her voice… he couldn't say… He only knew she spoke to him, one way or the other.
He drew, now all of his vision gone except for her eyes… he didn't even hear his own breath anymore and the cold had numbed his fingers… But even when no communication seemed possible, he trusted her. Implicitly. He only needed one more sign: where to shoot.
Her eyes darted to the right and, almost as if he could for a tiny instant see from her perspective, he knew precisely where her mind was focusing on. He swung his bow around, his hands guided by more than mere, basic senses and loosed.
For a dreadful moment there was nothing. He felt the vibrations of the bowstring in his arm, a slow, undulating twanging as he breathlessly waited, prayed for his arrow to hit true.
Just as he was about to lose hope an ear shattering, furious scream pierced the absolute silence like a hot knife through skin. A cacophony of flapping wings and tiny, frightened screeches resounded from every direction.
Both children of fate clasped their hands over their ears as the sound was painful enough to make them groan and buckle, though it was of little help. The screech seemed to rattle their bones, threatening to split their skull open and push their blood out through every pore.
Link gritted his teeth against the agony and looked around, his vision blurred with tears. His eyes had been restored! No longer was there an impenetrable veil of darkness upon them! But what he saw was of little comfort…
The black maelstrom hadn't gone, it had simply taken the form of hundreds, no, thousands of keese, swirling around the two of them, snarling and gibbering hungrily. And behind them, presumably where he had shot his arrow, squirmed a creature he had hoped he would never have to lay eyes upon again. The horrid monster that had hunted Veneli and that he, Link, had chased away… a being that seemed to be made from utter blackness, its gaping maw of cruel rows of teeth gnashing in rage, its bony limbs and leather wings shaking with the intensity of its scream. He could see a deep gash in its thigh that leaked thick, tarry ooze.
Link knew he had no time. When that thing commanded its army of keese to ravage them, they had no chance. They would be ripped apart, one tiny bite at a time.
Fighting the agony in his head, he dashed at the nightmarish creature, bursting through dozens of its minions, pelting them aside as he reached for his weapon.
He couldn't say whether such a monstrosity from the depths of hell could feel fear… but its emaciated, twisted features seemed to express it nonetheless as he stormed right at it.
Its scream stopped and it whipped its arm to the side so its wing could shield its body. He was almost there! The tip of his sword would find its heart before its wing could bar his way!
A heavy blow to the side knocked the air out of his lungs and lifted him off his feet. Tiny claws dug into his skin where the blow had hit… He smacked to the ground, the momentum of his sprint making him roll across it briefly before he caught himself. About twenty of the being's minions lay scattered across the wooden floor, either still or flailing groggily. It took his staggered mind a moment to understand that they were what hit him, commanded by their master's gesture. The creature flapped its wings once and gently glided to the other side of the room, a weak, husky cackle coming from its lipless maw.
"That is twice you have seen through my illusion, she-fodder!" the thing spoke to them… though not through sound! "You will die almost as painfully as the juicy morsel that dared to wound me…"
Its voice in their heads sounded like the inescapable rumbling of mountains, the tempestuous fire beneath the earth… But Link wasn't fooled. He had understood that all the thing had done till now was feed them illusion upon illusion. His invisibility, the soul-crushing darkness and now the voice, meant to intimidate them… But most importantly of all: he had seen the brief glimpse of terror in those red-glowing eyes. Demon it may be… but, he realized with a malicious grin, it too feared its mortality.
"You will harm neither her nor me." He stated coolly as he stood. "All you are is dust and shadow. And we are not going to be your food!"
A furious hiss escaped the monster and its poise crumbled to an aggressive, agitated tremor. "You are nothing, fleshling!" The mountainous voice droned angrily, though it already sounded far less majestic, and much more croaking. "You chose to come between me and my prey… The feathered thing was good sport… we could have ended it at every turn, but we liked to see it suffer. You interfered! You shot an arrow through me! You chose to take the place of my prey, fleshling! You are nothing but food!" The foul beast lifted its arms as if to conduct their demise and the thousands of Keese, as one, took to the air again.
Once again Link dashed forward, pulling every ounce of speed from his muscles. He had to reach the monster before it could set its minions on them. Again he smashed through hundreds of filthy wings as they filled the air between him and his goal. He gritted his teeth… this time, he wouldn't be too slow!
The black nightmare lowered its claws and drew further back, its fiery red eye-sockets widened with shock. Again it brought its wings in front of it… Link's lips curled into a fierce smile. If he had learned anything from the times he or Veneli had been attacked by creatures under this thing's control, it was that it was predictable! It had such a wide array of weapons, it apparently never had to use them in creative ways… maybe it was just too stupid, who could know?
The attack of densely packed keese was expected, he dodged it almost lazily. Bringing his steel in a wide arc, he sliced vertically at the black, leathery wings. The bones at their top offered a surprising amount of resistance for such slim things, but it wasn't enough. His blade separated the tips of both appendages from the rest, sending a spray of tar-like blood through the air.
The monstrosity screeched its abysmal, paralyzing scream, but he had anticipated this also. Biting through the intense pain between his temples, he didn't break his sprint and barrelled into his enemy. Weighty he might not be, but speed he did have! He felt the sickening crunch of ribs as he shoulder dug into its torso, driving all air from its lungs. His charge catapulted the monster, which weighed next to nothing, against the wall, against which it crashed with a satisfying clatter of its bones. Only then did he realize his mistake. He had allowed the thing space once again, when being directly in the fray was the one thing it couldn't handle! Within a second, it vanished from sight, a tiny scratching sound on the wooden floor being the last sign of its presence.
Instantly, Link's eyes turned wide and frightened. The being from hell had underestimated his speed, had gotten careless… It wouldn't make that mistake again… And now he had accidentally given it just enough time to once again don its illusory cloak! Which gave it all the time in the world to command its army of claws and fangs at him! His flesh would be stripped to the bone… and then hers…
A barrage of little, prickly bodies hit his back, hard enough to make him stumble forward.
"Attack me, will you?" the deep, terrible voice rumbled.
A whole swathe of keese flew in an arc at his face. He had just enough time to burry it in his arms, but a hundred of little beclawed hands tore into his forearm and torso. It felt like being flayed by one, continuous stream of razor sharp needles.
"Try to break me, will you?!" the voice roared.
With a desperate cry, he brought his sword broadside through the never ending cloud of vicious critters, scattering them briefly, but he now saw he was in the centre of a veritable cocoon of nasty, glittering teeth with wings, being looked at hungrily with a thousand tiny eyes.
A sharp bite to his left side made him swipe his sword madly in the general direction, before another clump of them to the back of his knee made it buckle. His whole body hurt with countless little bites and scratches, but he cared little. With his fists clenched hard enough to crush rocks, he refused to give up! But what could he do? What had he learned that could help him now?
Screaming with frantic rage, he jumped back up, keeping his eyes closed. There were too many for them to make sense… but maybe his ears could…
Focusing in the tiny moment he had before the next wrathful attack would come, he tried to conjure up those hidden talents that seemed to slumber within and come out whenever they pleased. He prayed that they would answer his call…
The sound of a thousand chaotically flapping wings reached his ears… his heart fell. Even with unparalleled senses, hearing an approaching assault would be like finding a needle in a haystack! There was just no way to distinguish a hostile intent from the mere threat all around. With every attack that got through, he would be a little bit slower, a little bit more occupied with hurt…
But… A memory of Sir Alistair suddenly sprang to mind… "Combat always follows some set of rules, lad. If they're not to your liking, change 'em!" the old knight had rasped. "Life's not a tourney! Make 'em dance to your rules!"
Could it be that easy? He had been forced into a purely defensive position… attacking seemed ludicrous! Then again… he could not hold his defence… what was there to lose?
With a desperate roar, he launched himself through the wall of keese, tucking his head between his shoulders. He heard the little pests chatter in anger as he felt their bodies rebound off of him. He rolled over the ground and back into a standing position. His eyes still tightly shut, he refocused his attention. The infernal noise was far less now. A few of the critters swooped at him, but a few quick jabs ended their attack before it even begun. He swung in one elegant, fluid motion at all the miniscule monsters around, but his heart sank nonetheless. Even now, he had not even the faintest clue where their master was hiding… He had bought time and little else.
Gritting his teeth, he steadily retreated towards the wall, hoping he could at least keep his back free.
And then what? He had no answer… The monster's minions would encircle him again, and quickly… and the likelihood of him defeating all thousand of them was slim…
A wide, well aimed cut took out four at once, then he had to jump hastily away to avoid three more that wanted to lunge at his neck. A quick swipe at them as he leapt ended them, but he already heard the large mass of them approach once again. He brought his sword into a wide, diagonal swing right as he landed, turned quickly, his arm outstretched, and struck another quick horizontal blow. Another ten dead… But his shoulder already ached from the incredibly quick, reactive attacks he had to make… He wouldn't be able to function much longer… much less against another thousand!
All of a sudden the uncoordinated attacks stopped, giving him a moment for a deep intake of air… Then every last keese darted directly at him, claws outstretched, fangs bared.
Link sighed in the tiny second that remained before they would hit him from all sides. An image of Zelda's smile of pure sunlight floated through his mind… he almost felt it warming on his skin…
In the same infinitesimal moment his senses suddenly snapped open, like they had before in the hall below. With a little gasp, he could suddenly hear every swirl of wind off of every wing, every grain of dust on his skin… and more! He could feel all of their tiny, vile hearts, could sense their hunger, their lust for his blood.
They were so close… One was only a span away from his left eye…
A dreadful, bone-shaking screech shattered through the air, forcing Link to rip his eyes open in shock. He saw how all the little vermin spasmed and fell from the air, some dropping harmlessly against him. His head snapped over to where he heard Zelda's quick, panicky breath. Her face was contorted in the fiercest, most aggressive snarl he had ever seen. Her wide-eyed, hate-filled stare was fixed at the far end of the room… at the bony, nightmarish monstrosity… which convulsed and screamed in obvious pain… and clutched at an arrow sticking right from its chest. Shocked he gazed back at her… and only now he could make full sense of what he saw. Standing there like an avenging angel, she held his bow in her delicate hands… streams of tears on her cheeks, her teeth bared… The hand with which she reached for another arrow trembling, the other dead calm.
Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw the monster lift a quaking claw… and saw the stricken keese stir, flap their wings and turn towards his warrior princess.
His mind clicked and before he could so much as blink his legs had carried him off. His left hand gripping his steel so hard it threatened to shatter the grip, he stormed towards their common enemy, still busy at trying to pull the arrow free from its emaciated flesh.
It would get no chance! The room was a blur, it passed beneath his feet in less than a second, the vile creatures crunching helplessly beneath his feet.
The beast didn't even see him approach… His blade sliced through its arm right at its elbow with impossible precision… it didn't even offer the slightest resistance to his purposeful strike…
The demon had just enough time to widen its gaping, infinite, red eye sockets before Link's sword, never stopping, finished its arc and lopped its head clean off. A tiny bluish green spark seared the filthy flesh right where it touched his razor sharp steel, followed by a thunderclap that blasted the monster away, disintegrating most of it instantly in a billowing cloud of ash and dust no sooner as the sword had finished its cut. The rest of the hellish spawn crumpled against the wall and fell apart into nothing but cinders as well, followed swiftly by every last of its minions.
Link stood there, unmoving where his backswing had finished, his eyes transfixed on the filthy remains, his muscles aching to strike again.
He heard something clattering behind him, then a series of hasty footsteps. He turned, but all he saw was a cloud of golden hair storming at him before he felt her familiar weight hanging from his neck. Instinctively he pressed her slim form against him, his relief immeasurable at seeing her unharmed… and his gratefulness indescribable for her valiant, undaunted action.
"Thank you… for saving my life…" he mumbled into her hair.
Her face buried into his chest, she shook her head vehemently, but didn't say a word. He could tell how hard she fought not to cry… her hands opened and closed, softly pulling his hair where her fingers were nested and her shoulders shook ever so often… He squeezed her as close to him as he could without hurting her, never happier than now to feel her heartbeat or her hot, jerky breath against his chest.
He swallowed, taking another lungful of her wonderful scent… then looked up fiercely.
Despite his senses slowly returning to normal, Link could still feel the impurity, the witch, that blight upon this holy place… This place that was so deeply rooted in his memory as… home… In the middle of his near demise, he had heard her cackle…
Just you wait, bitch… The last hurdle is overcome… and you are next!
Goddess above, 50 chapters already! Does one do some sort of jubilee-thing? No idea…
Anyway… next time, end boss! Hope you're all excited! (…and that I can pull it off…)