A few days after claiming the Master Sword again, Link went down to breakfast feeling like himself for the first time in seemingly forever.

He'd slept through the rest of the day he'd gotten the sword back, and through the following night, and although he'd still been feeling very weak when he'd woken up, his thoughts had at least been clear again. Clear enough in fact not to be surprised that the Master Sword was nowhere in sight – the King was obviously not going to leave him with it unsupervised.

He had headed straight for the toilet for privacy and had searched his pocket for what his mother had given him, hoping it was some kind of memento, hoping it would somehow help him feel better about not even having been awake enough to talk to her. She was his mother, he'd probably never see her again, and he hadn't even had the energy or wit to say I love you back to her.

Her gift had turned out to be a piece of paper with just a few words on it: "Don't refuse a gift just because of the source."

Link had had absolutely no idea why his mother had wanted to give him that. The message was clear enough – if the King was to give him something useful, like maybe a shield or something, it would make no sense to refuse it. Why his mother had thought it necessary to give the advice, and to give it secretly no less, was a complete mystery.

That had been a few days ago and he still had absolutely no clue what the message truly meant. He'd kept the paper anyway: it had his mother's last words to him on it, in her writing, and that was enough to make it worth keeping.

An extremely unpleasant surprise awaited him in the breakfast room: the Princess herself was sitting at the table, eating her own breakfast. She was wearing red and black today. Link could only see the top part of her outfit, but even just that much was enough to see that this dress was just as overdone and ridiculous as the blue number he'd first seen her in. She had a matching tiara again, a black silver piece covered in red rubies, and was court ready with full makeup and a fancy hairdo again.

"Your highness," he said.

"Hero," she said. "Finally fit again? I'm told you are to be reunited with your blade today."

Link's eyes widened. If they planned to give the Master Sword back to him today, it was probably for battle.

"I was wondering whether I had dreamt getting it back," he lied. His trainers with Din's Justice would have been proud, he was faking respect and being polite like a pro. He wasn't sure how long he could keep it up, he was itching to throw insults at the ridiculous princess or better yet, to trip her and see how long it took her to pick herself off the floor with all the slippery fabric she was wearing. Being a bit passive agressive about being drugged was exemplary behavior in comparison to what he'd rather be doing.

Zelda managed to cackle in a very snobbish manner. "I suppose you would," she said. "That second dose was a bit much, you were literally swaying like a drunk. The physician has been whipped quite soundly for the whole debacle. Sit."

Second dose? That was news to Link, but it explained why he'd felt even more out of it after the carriage ride. He sat down without answering.

"Do you remember anything at all? It would be a shame if you didn't," Zelda said, sounding absolutely delighted. "Your mother was there. She looks very young."

Link's fists clenched under the table: the token Princess made the observation about his mother's age sound like a condemnation and a jeer all at once. "My mother was raped by some rich influential bastard when she was just fifteen," he said. "This is going to come as a shock," he added sarcastically, "but he got away with it. I arrived nine months later."

Zelda sniffed and rolled her eyes. "One of THOSE," she said. "Raped indeed. Highly ranked gentlemen don't go around looking for common women. The thought is, frankly, disgusting. The diseases, the filth... why in the world would anyone go out of their way to expose themselves to all that? What actually happens, and it's high time you found this out, is that shameless harpies throw themselves at every rich man they come across in the hopes of extracting something out of them in exchange. Your mother got herself pregnant hoping whoever she tried to ensnare would agree to marry her out of it. Just another gold digging harlot and like most of them, she started young."

Link was up and almost on her, hands ready to strangle her, when the pain hit. It was a new flavor again, akin to breaking a bone except he could feel it in every bone from his skull to his toes, and the pain in each of these bones was way more intense than the one time Link had actually broken one of his arms as a kid.

He found himself screaming on the floor again until it stopped, and he had to fight back tears of rage. Zelda was still in her chair, not even looking at him as she sipped her tea.

He picked himself up and sat down again, taking his time to adjust his napkin on his lap.

"Projecting, are we?" he asked conversationally. "Do you call the King Daddy when he's fucking you? Maybe that's what inspired him to make you the Princess Zelda? Does he slap you on the ass when you're naughty?"

The pain felt like fire again this time.

Link didn't make it back to his room after breakfast: he was accosted by a group of guards, who took him to a carriage and shoved him inside it before closing the door behind him. On the bench opposite him was the Master Sword in its sheath. He heard the driver yip at the horses and the carriage started moving. Link was rather glad he wasn't being made to change into the ugly green servant outfit, but the clothes he'd been supplied with and that he'd thrown on this morning weren't exactly ideal either: linen pants and linen shirt, comfortable enough but basically no more suited to fighting than night clothes. He shrugged the matter off: it was still infinitely better than the green livery.

Link reached for the sword and took it, trying to get used to the idea that it really was the Master Sword of Legend and that it really was his. He carefully unsheathed it and caught his reflection in the polished metal. Even though he felt better than he had since he'd been tossed in the dungeons, he still looked terrible: messy hair, pale with sunken cheeks and dark bags under his eyes. He sheathed the sword again.

They were riding for about an hour if Link judged by the movement of the sun. He tried to open the door when the carriage finally stopped to find he was locked in. He sighed and waited, sheathed sword in hand. He started debating breaking the door, but didn't have time to make up his mind to try: the door opened on a man Link assumed was the driver. He was wearing the normal dark blue version of the King's livery and had the dusty look of someone who'd just been riding outside of a carriage for a while.

"Can you ride?" the driver asked. "A horse, I mean."

"Er... yes?" Link said.

"Good for you, less walking," the driver said. He stepped aside, letting Link out. "I'm going to get one of the horses ready for you, just keep going on the road until you find the monsters, I guess. Or run. I don't care, I'm not going any closer. Not like I could stop you if you did decide to take off."

Link looked around. They could just make out the roofs of two houses uphill from where they were and just ahead of them, a few paces before the houses, the trail turned to a paved road.

"I'm not going to run," Link grumbled. "That's you fucking cowards' specialty."

The driver snorted and came back towards him with the reigns of a horse in hand. The reigned horse, a spotted grey male with a dark brown mane, was following meekly. "Looking forward to how big you talk when I see you next," the driver said. "If I do."

He gave Link the reigns and climbed back on the carriage. Without another glance at his passenger, he proceeded to make his remaining three horses turn around in a circle and took off back the way they had come.

Link looked at his horse again. "All right, Buddy. That's your name now, hope you like it."

He mounted and spurred the horse to a trot straight ahead.

The first clue that something was very wrong was the smell. Buddy picked up on it too and pulled back, nostrils flaring and eyes wide.

Link dismounted and the horse immediately trotted back a way, not going so far as running away altogether, but retreating away from the smell and perceived danger. Link let him be and walked on, aiming for the top of the hill that was blocking his view. He wasn't sure what the smell was: it reminded him of something but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. His brains kept going back to something to do with meat, but it smelled nothing like food.

He forced the matter away from his mind as idle curiosity. It was very quiet, making it clear to Link that this village had been evacuated: a ghost town. All he could hear were some birds screeching.

He finally reached the top of the hill and the first houses on the outskirts of the village. His eyes fell on something in the road and the delusion he'd been desperately clinging to evaporated.

He was reminded of meat because the closest thing he'd ever smelled to this, not that there really was any comparison, was the back of a butcher's shop. The shop had smelled like blood and meat, the air here smelled like far too much blood, gore and a bit of a sewer smell underneath.

The birds he was hearing were carrion birds: one of them, a crow, took off with a piece of flesh in its beak when Link got close enough to spook it.

The village had not been evacuated. Everyone was still here.

In the road, staring straight at Link, was the head and part of the upper torso of a boy that Link judged must have been around five or six years old. The kid's hair looked like it was a light brown under the blood and dirt caked in it. His eyes were brown too. One of his ears was half torn off, either by the monsters that had killed him or the wildlife that was doing what scavengers do. Link couldn't tell what color shirt the child had been wearing, there was too much blood on it. Surrounding the boy's remains were those of a bunch of other people, bigger and even smaller alike, girls and women and men and more boys. Link spotted some paws as well, presumably from pets, and a severed eyeball that had once belonged to someone or something with green eyes.

Link tore his eyes away from the severed head and its immediate surrounding but his gaze just fell on more of the same: a woman's arm a few steps overs, the nails painted a cheerful pink and the delicate lace of the sleeve stained red; a tiny, curled up pudgy leg still wearing a tiny baby shoe; two more heads, one a bearded red headed man and the other a very old woman. He heard a keening sound and realized with some distress that it was coming from himself.

He couldn't seem to breathe properly, he was breathing hard and fast and it still felt like the air wasn't reaching his lungs. He tried looking away again but everywhere he looked was the same, more body parts, more heads, some nearly complete bodies with large holes in their midsection or parts of their heads smashed in. He could see exposed brains, in some cases with pieces detached. He saw a woman with her belly ripped opened and the disembodied head of an unborn baby next to her. As a backdrop to all of it was the blood he had smelled: it was all over, smeared on the ground and the walls, on the bodies, on the trees, on the clothes, on the birds diving for meat, everywhere.

Link fell to his hands and knees and threw up for what felt like a long time, dry heaves taking over once his stomach was empty of even bile.

He got back up shakily. The monsters. The monsters had done this and they were probably heading for the next village to start all over again. He had to stop them. He could freak out some more later. He ran back to Buddy, mounted him again, and spurred him to a gallop, forcing the horse through the village as fast as he could for both their sakes.

"Sorry Buddy," he muttered. "Just run through, just get me to the other side nice and fast, I got to catch the things that did this..."

He didn't have to do much spurring. Buddy wanted away from here as badly as Link did and didn't need any encouragement, galloping as hard as he could once he got going.

It didn't take long to leave the small village behind but Link let the horse run. Buddy ran as long as he could before finally slowing down, shiny with sweat, his rider staring straight ahead, hands clenched on the reins.

The monsters who'd torn through that village were now within Link's sight, just a few minutes ahead on the road. There were three of them, looking like variations of the one he'd killed at the Heroes Museum: big black dirty things with limbs and other stuff sticking out everywhere. They hadn't seen him and Buddy hadn't noticed them.

Link's mouth twisted in a snarl.

"You did good, Buddy" he told the horse, patting him on the neck. "Thank you. I'm going to go get those guys, you're going to stay here."

He dismounted again and guided the horse a few steps off the road before securing his reins to a tree.

"Wish me luck," he said with a last pat at the horse.

He got back on the road alone, unsheathed the Master Sword, and started a fast walk. Once he was at a safe distance from Buddy, he started yelling.

"HEY! YOU UGLY MOTHERFUCKERS MURDERING ASSHOLES!"

He started running then, as the monsters turned around to investigate the noise. They made some kind of noise and faced him, going so far as moving towards him as well, no doubt only seeing another prey.

The fight was a blur. In what seemed like no time at all, Link was surrounded by three piles of black dust. The monsters, when hit with the weapon that actually could harm them, were just big pushovers. So much death, and all anyone needed was the Master Sword.

The fight went out of him all at once and he collapsed on his knees and hands again, and heaved again with nothing coming up but a bit more bile. He didn't get back up right away, every muscle in his body clenched and a roar caught in his throat. Every dead body and body parts he'd seen in the doomed village was imprinted firmly in his mind and his imagination was supplying him with their last moments, nothing but excruciating pain and utter terror, and all of it, all that blood, was on the King's hands.

He eventually got up again and went back to Buddy, who was peacefully eating some grass. Link untied him and guided him back to the road. Everything was blurry.

"This is all the King's fault," he informed the horse, absently patting him. "Fucking evil bastard summoned these monsters. And you know why? To help him stay in power because even before he did that, he's such a hateful fuck that everyone else wanted him gone. So, he called on monsters to scare everyone and get them off his back, and to try and pretend that when they get defeated, it's going to be thanks to the Royal Family. It's worked before. Sort of. I don't think people ever buy it, they just don't want the royals to keep trying, you know? And then after a while, their grandkids don't remember how bad the monsters are and THEY try again because even when there's no actual monsters, things are just BAD. There's people starving, and dying with no doctors to take care of them, and the King keeps stealing most of the crops and whatever else people have, cattle and stuff and wood and anything they can make, and he and his buddies keep hurting and raping people, and anyone who protests, or anyone the King doesn't like for any reason at all, gets killed or thrown in the dungeon."

Buddy made no reply.

"Hylia weeps," Link muttered, and as if in sympathy with the Goddess, his eyes overflowed and tears rolled down his cheeks. He swallowed and wiped them away, and mounted his horse again. Everything was still blurry.

He turned away from the road after all and into the woods: he wasn't going back through that village, he couldn't face seeing all the dead again for real. The fact they wouldn't leave his head was bad enough.

"The King told me there's over two hundred thousand people dead so far," he told Buddy. "Actually, that was about a week ago, so there's probably more by now." His voice broke and he groaned in exasperation, wiping at his eyes again. "I thought I was horrified when he told me. I thought I was angry. I wanted it to stop, for sure, and that's when I agreed to fight, even though the King just intends to kill ME when I'm done."

He swallowed. The horse was walking placidly, seemingly neither enjoying the attention nor minding the monologue, and finding his own way between the trees.

"Truth is, today's my first time seeing an actual dead person," Link confessed. "Two hundred thousand just meant 'a lot' last week. But now I'm… I'm seeing the ones here and imagining piles and piles more."

He wiped at his eyes again. He couldn't seem to stop crying and he was getting pretty sick of it. He was a soldier in training even before he'd turned out to be the chosen one, he had to be a bit tougher than this. But then he supposed he was lucky he still could cry. That little kid with the brown eyes couldn't cry anymore, nor could that lady with the baby ripped right out of her.

He didn't say anything else for a while; it was hard to get the words out because his mouth was twisted and his throat was tight and dry. He noticed he had his arms wrapped around himself and decided that was fine. Buddy didn't seem to mind either way, walking on.

"He summoned them," he repeated in a low growl. "All these dead he told me about to talk me into fighting, they're all HIS fault. Him and every fucking royal and noble. Scourge of Hyrule," he concluded, quoting one of the mantras of Din's Justice again. He unwrapped his arms from around himself, seized the reigns properly and turned Buddy back in the direction of the road.

"All right Buddy, back to the road," he hissed. "Time to do some running. We're going back to the Castle, and I want to get there as quick as we can. I'm going to kill the King. The Master Sword's going to end some evil, right fucking today."