La Comtesse de Faron
Morbid fear entraps Zelda as she looks up at the woman whom just this morning she had been starting to see as her own mother. Said woman, Arlette, holds Zelda as her prisoner, keeping the poor girl trapped in a stare that could have made any but the most hardened warriors fear for their lives. An icy gale sweeps through the room, and Zelda isn't certain if it's real or if it's her imagination playing tricks on her.
"What do you want to know?" she timidly squeaks.
Arlette's intense gaze doesn't waver. Zelda searches the woman's face for any hint of affection, but Arlette locked any motherly warmth she may have had behind a mask of figurative ice and stone.
"I already know your true name," Arlette replies. The cold words that pass her lips ring alien to the young girl's ears. "You tell me why. Why did you come here to Holodrum? What made you leave Hyrule?"
Zelda breathes deeply, trying to steady her nerves. She knows there is no escaping now. She has no choice except to tell Arlette everything.
"I ran away...because I wanted to be free."
Arlette raises an eyebrow, but the intense look remains on her face. "To be free?"
Zelda fidgets where she stands, looking anywhere other than at Arlette as she struggles to calm her beating heart and clear her cloudy mind, even as sweat starts to form on her brow. "I... I-I hated my life," she begins. A quiver trembles in her voice. "I hated how I couldn't do what I wanted with my life. For as long as I can remember, I have always done what other people wanted from me..." Silence falls as memories of empty lectures, degrading remarks, and false friends rush back to her.
"I wasn't allowed to express how I truly felt," she continues. "I wasn't allowed to be happy, sad, angry... anything. I couldn't cry. I couldn't yell–only smile, and my smiles were fake." A bitter laugh breaks free from her, filled with a venom that would have surprised her if she had been in a different mood.
"What I hated the most—what upset me the most—was that I had no real intimacy." A shiver racks her body and her hands shake at her sides. "They said they loved me... but it was all a lie." The quiet voice leaving her lips overflows with hurt and disdain. The quakes shaking her small frame are more frequent, and it no longer sounds like she is talking to Arlette. "They said I am beautiful. They called me Hyrule's Jewel. Was... was that a lie as well?"
She gazes intently at her hands as if searching for something that isn't there before bringing one up to her face. "Am I truly beautiful?" She shakes her head mournfully, and her shoulders slump forward defeatedly. "All I wanted were real friends and a real family. Is... is that too much to ask for?" Tears start to leak from her eyes, rolling down her cheeks and dripping off her chin onto the floor. "The-the closest I've ever had to a friend, to a family member—to anything—was my nurse. M-my mother... She died when I was young... I... I can barely remember her!" Her rising voice cracks, and she squeezes her eyes tight, vainly trying to hold back the flood threatening to break free. "A-and my f-father.. He... he..." The dam breaks along with her spirit. All strength leaves her as she falls forward only to be caught in the arms of a familiar, loving embrace.
For the second time that day, she sobs into Arlette's shoulder, clutching tightly onto the woman as she soaks her apron with her tears. Arlette's arms wrap more tightly around Zelda as she softly coos into the girl's ear while running a hand through her hair.
It feels as though hours pass before Zelda finally musters the strength to talk again. "He..he t-tried to... He was going t-to... He arranged for me to be m-m-married!"
Zelda feels Arlette's body grow tense and her hand freeze mid-stroke. The room grows deathly quiet.
"That's why I ran away," Zelda explains. "I didn't want..that. I wanted something real. I wanted love. I didn't mean to cause trouble," she continues as a wave of guilt washes over her. "I didn't mean for the guards to come here. I knew it would be a matter of time, but I wasn't trying to cause trouble. I wasn't trying to use you or anyone." She struggles to hold back a sob, and her lower lip trembles from the effort. "Please forgive me!" she wails as she gives way to more tears.
A soft melody carries through the air. Zelda feels Arlette tightening her hold on her, drawing her in closer until her head rests on the woman's bosom. Slowly, Zelda's body relaxes in the motherly embrace as she listens to Arlette humming a soothing tune.
After a brief time, Arlette helps Zelda upstairs to her room. She returns later with a cup of warm water. Zelda sips the water slowly, savouring its heat. A heavy silence falls between the two as they sit on Zelda's bed.
"If it means anything," Arlette begins, breaking the silence. "I had my suspicions about you before today."
This news surprises Zelda greatly, but in her tired state she doesn't show it. She simply stiffens mid-sip before slowly lowering her cup and nodding. "How long did you suspect me?"
"Since the day we first met," Arlette replies coolly. "Everything about you raised my suspicions. The way you walked, the way you held yourself, even the way you talked. What really gave you away though was your hands."
Zelda looks up at Arlette with her eyebrows knit together and her head slightly cocked to the side. "My hands?"
Arlette nods. "Your hands were softer than silk and smoother than alabaster. Not a single callous or scar could be found. Only the hands of a high noble woman could be so flawless." She takes a pause before continuing. "When Lysander told us how Hyrule's princess had been declared missing for a month? With the wanted posters vague description—that matched you perfectly when you first arrived—the close time frame, and countless other inescapably made inferences, it wasn't hard for me to put the pieces together."
Another silence deafens the room, and Zelda looks away, swallowing hard as she hangs her head low, her face remaining expressionless. When she speaks again, her voice carries softly, and she stares straight ahead. "If you knew, why didn't you tell the guards?"
A slight, sly smile tugs at the corners of Arlette's lips. "That would have been very hypocritical of me."
Now Zelda peers intently at Arlette with a look that screamed complete confusion. "What?"
The older woman smiles knowingly as she rises from Zelda's bed, walking till she is in front of the young maiden. She then surprises the princess by dipping into a full courtesy with all the delicacy and grace of a court lady. "La Comtesse de Faron, at your service your Highness."
Words escape the princess as she stares wide-eyed at her landlady; her mouth gapes like a fish out of water. Her senses have not deceived her, yet her mind struggles to process this revelation—that her land lady is the long-lost Comtesse de Faron.
Every noble girl has at least once heard of the missing Comtesse de Faron, a noble woman who had mysteriously disappeared over twenty years ago—long before Zelda had been born—just days before she was to be wed to the Earl of Eldin. Zelda wonders wildly whether she really stumbled across the answer to the mystery.
Many questions form in her mind. There's so much she wants to know, but the question that breaks free first mirrors the one Arlette had asked her. "Why did you run away?"
A sad smile finds its way onto Arlette's face. "For the same reason you ran away. To escape an arranged marriage." She pauses, taking in a deep breath, and Zelda senses that she will receive more of an explanation than she had asked for.
"My mother died giving birth to me, and my older brother was killed in battle leaving me an only child and the heir to our family's title and estate." She pauses, taking another breath to steady herself. She takes Zelda's hands in her own, grasping them tightly. "When... when my father was killed in a duel before my sixteenth birthday, everything was passed to me. The title of Comtesse, the land, the wealth, the responsibilities—everything. I did my best to meet expectations, but my heart was never into it."
She shakes her head mournfully. "Clearly others didn't think I was capable on my own because after only a month, I found out my godfather had arranged for me to be married to the Earl of Eldin. What freedom I had left would have disappeared, and my property would have been lost to a man old enough to be my father. So, I escaped. I snuck out, taking what possessions I dared bring with me along with some of my maid's clothes." A light chuckle resonates within her at the mention of this. "I didn't really have a plan. I was only trying to get as far away from Hyrule as possible."
"How did you get here?" Zelda asks.
A fond smile adorns Arlette's face. "Lysander."
"Your husband?"
Arlette nods. "I had stumbled into Lurelin village where I met Lysander at a small inn. I paid him handsomely to take me as far away from Hyrule as he could. He didn't question me or try to squeeze more money out of me. He quietly took his payment and brought me to Holodrum." A heavy sigh escapes her and she slumps forward. "Things were hard for me when I arrived. I thought I could live on my own, but I had no job and only a limited amount of money. In a matter of months, I found myself up to my neck in dept. Out of desperation, I sold what possessions I had brought with me to merchants for money. It wouldn't be for a while before I found out they had cheated me—buying my possessions off me for only a fraction of what their actual worth. Shortly after, I was kicked onto the streets."
Rage had been building up in Zelda as she silently listened to how this woman, who had generously allowed Zelda to stay under her family's roof, hadn't been shown the same courtesy when she had first started out. "Didn't Mayor Ruul offer any help?" she angrily inquires.
"Mayor Ruul was only Sheriff Ruul back then, and the current mayor had been a less generous man."
"What happened to you?"
"Lysander," Arlette softly replies with a smile. "He stumbled across me one day when I was starving in the streets, took me to his home, and offered me a place to stay." She smiles blissfully at the memory. "I fell in love with him that very day. He helped me get a job at the very guild you work at now and helped me pay off my dept. After only a few months of knowing each other, we were married and have been together ever since." She faces Zelda with a bright enduring smile. "And that's the story of my life. Complicated, but I wouldn't trade it for any other."
Zelda keeps silent for a while, unsure of what to say next. Then a question surfaces to her tongue and it seems to her more important than the last. "Your family. Do they know?"
"Yes," Arlette says without hesitation. "I could never keep that a secret from them."
Zelda keeps silent again for a moment, her brow furrowed tightly in concentration. "What will I do now?"
Arlette gives the girl a comforting smile while rubbing circles over the girl's hands which she had taken into her own. "That's up to you to decide. Whatever that is, don't worry. Things will get better."
The following words are barely above a whisper, but to Zelda they hold all the weight of a scolding and make her inwardly flinch. "Link. Does he know the truth... about me?"
Arlette says nothing for a long time, and Zelda grows tenser by the second while waiting for the woman to answer. When she does, the words are hardly comforting. "Link is no fool. Even if nobody had told him, I am certain he has already figured it out on his own."
Zelda lowers her gaze, dipping her head towards the ground. A sense of loss overcomes her, and if she had anymore tears to spare, they would be dripping down her face.
"You'll have to tell the others," instructs Arlette. "Even if you don't, they will find out on their own. I am certain Linka and Aryll are already piecing things together."
The princess says nothing. A small nod of her head is the only response she gives. Taking her silence as a sign that the conversation is over, Arlette rises from the bed, telling the young princess to rest for the remainder of the day.
"Wait!" Zelda calls out when Arlette's hand rests on the handle of her door. The woman looks back at the girl, her manner giving nothing away.
"Yes?"
Zelda glances away, her body tense with the exception of her hands fidgeting in her lap. She raises her gaze to the comtesse, and there's a pleading look widens them. "Can I still call you mother?"
Warm arms wrap around Zelda's tired body, pulling her into another tight embrace. She curls up into the woman's lap allowing herself to relax.
"Of course you can, dear."
A smile tugs at Zelda's lips and she returns the embrace, wrapping her arms around her landlady. No. Not my landlady. My mother.
*Sniff* How was that for emotion? Did that not just get you right there in the heart? How could not get the feels? You surely felt something, and if you didn't... then your name must be Mandos.
Just kidding! (Sort of.) Anyways, feel free to leave a review if you want.
Important notice: Since school is back in session, updates will be even slower because I now have work and homework to deal with, so please be patient with me in the future.
Shout out to followers: Kabula D mono, GrandMajingaZetto, st4tic sh0ck, and Wicho Poncho. Thank you for liking the story. It means a lot.
Stay tuned for next time, and see you later.