A/N: Thank you Othaeryn, cheesepotassium, Mokki Takashi, Alter Ego Bob, AnonaLee, Voidlash, Bluebadger (I'm glad this story is able to make the year a little better. Baby steps, indeed.), nofilter (I liiive!), Kyoki no Megami, and Branded Lunacy for your reviews last chapter! I hope this new chapter is to your liking.
I find the song 'Runnin'' by Adam Lambert to fit this story. It's had some influence on my writing.
Chapter 31
Wind howls in every direction, taking me this way and that, as if it's a beast trying to tear me apart. All the while I cling to the straps of the ballooned-out sailcloth for dear life, white-knuckled, arms straining. My hair writhes on my head, and my dress flaps upward madly, exposing my underwear to the entire frickin' biosphere. Meanwhile my guts feel like they're trying to jump out of my throat.
No one comes to save me.
This time I'm glad for it.
The cloud barrier swallows me whole, the mist flowing over my body like the cool sighs from waterfalls, tickling my skin with tiny pin droplets. The sensation engulfs me. I slide through a realm of white and wind.
Down.
I pierce through to the other side, and suddenly the whole world is at my feet. So small, but getting bigger and bigger as I descend.
Down.
The wind takes me where it pleases, and I am left at its mercy, praying with all my might that it will land me somewhere safe. All I can see are trees—and a lake that is too far off to save my landing.
Down.
An ache settles in my shoulders, arms, and hands. A jolt of pain shudders down my spine. Every muscle is taut, every fiber holding on. I don't know how much longer I can take it. I squeeze my eyes shut and grit my teeth so hard it hurts my jaw. I snap my eyes back open to see the end is in clear sight now. I'm not lucky enough to be blown over to the lake. The thick canopy of the forest is what waits to greet me.
From higher to lower I go, now all I can do is brace for impact.
I sweep in, the tops of trees whipping at my ankles. My heart screams against my ribcage and a muffled shriek reverberates in my throat. The whips crawl up my legs until the many branches of one tree stops me completely, catching me like a clawed hand, knocking the air out of me. I hang suspended, every limb wobbling amongst the high canopy that has snared me.
Then all is quiet. The wind no longer howls, but buffets me gently as a woodland breeze. The sailcloth floats down to rest over top my head, taking my vision of green leaves and turning it to white cloth.
Both the roar of my blood and each labored breath fills my ears. I try to get myself under control, but another sound breaks in, startles me.
The crackling of wood.
"Oh, please, no…"
The branches that hold me precariously are too small for my weight and disclose their displeasure with a quick succession of cracking snaps and pops, resounding like firecrackers.
I draw in a breath but don't have time to let out a scream before I'm falling. I hit the next row of the tree's branches, and those snap as well. Leaves hiss and branches pummel me. I scramble, feet waving wildly for footholds and hands grasping desperately for a steady branch, but I only manage to catch twigs and sticks.
Curses spew from my mouth the entire way.
Finally, I hit the larger limbs, stable enough to take my weight without bending. I lay cradled in a forked branch, trying to steady my breathing and racing heart.
Everything. Hurts.
"Ow," I moan, repositioning myself, feeling the coarse bark against my exposed skin. I drag my body out from the forked branch, moving to sit on its thicker base. It's there I take stock of my surroundings. I'm still fairly high up in the tree, somewhere in Faron Woods. I can tell by the brightly colored fungi scattered about.
Getting down from the tree is no easy task. I ache and pick my way down sluggishly. I wear the sailcloth over my shoulders as a wrap, and the heavy material becomes cumbersome, almost making me miss my grip on a branch.
Eventually my feet find the ground. Sweet, wonderful, solid ground.
I start walking, trying to ignore the sting of various cuts and abrasions the tree gave me. The Skulltula silk dress protected my torso and upper arms, but my legs and forearms were not so fortunate. Silently I curse Ghirahim for not giving me any dang pants.
I don't know where I'm going. But I'm going somewhere. Somewhere, anywhere, on this surface is better than being trapped on the floating rock I just came from.
The air down here is thick in my lungs. It fills me with renewed energy as I traverse terrain rough with roots and buried rocks or soft with moss and tickling grasses. I find a deer trail and using it helps me escape grasping underbrush and gripping thorns. I'm hoping it'll take me someplace I recognize so I can figure out where I am and where to go.
A breeze whistles through the canopy that shades me, rods of sunlight spilling in, glittering with dust motes and spores that swirl as I pass by. My feet trace the path imprinted with cloven hooves. I move quickly, heart hammering, mind racing with questions empty of answers. Where is he? When will he find me—or will I have to find him? More potent is the question my stuttering heart asks: Is he angry with me? Oh, no doubt. Better to ask how angry.
The deer trail ends with no luck of familiarity, and I'm back to scuttling over rotting logs and pushing through thickets and picking my hair from snagging branches and thorns. When I stumble across a little stream, I stop by it, use the clear water to cool my stinging abrasions. Then I rest, sitting beside the rippling stream, watching it flow over silt and pebbles, with knees drawn up to my chest.
The golden collar, with its small red jewel, lies dormant around my throat, quiet, not a prickle or tingle to be felt. Has he given up? Given up right when dowsing or activating the tracking magic of the collar would make a difference?
I debate with myself whether to stay put or not. The fear of being lost in the wilderness without food or shelter looms over me. I'd rather not go through that again. I don't want to be left out here in the night, where before I had Turk to keep me warm, but am now alone. So in the end I decide to keep moving, if for no other point than to give my pounding heart a reason to go so fast.
I run through the wood, wild and searching, lost and wanting to be found, until my senses catch up to me. The Great Tree. Of course. That behemoth of all flora is what I need to see to turn me in the right direction. I climb a tree, though I am loathe to do it, having fallen out of one so recently, hoping the high vantage will grant me its sight.
I go high as I dare, clinging to rough bark and branches and peering through leaves flittering in the soft wind.
And there, on the horizon, I see the Great Tree.
The trek takes far longer than I thought it would.
The sun makes its journey across the sky as I make mine across earth. I take no easy deer trails this time, afraid I might veer off in the wrong direction. I go straight. Straight from the tree I climbed to spy the great one. It doesn't matter what lies before me. I stagger my way through stinging nettles, push past colorful mushrooms, some smaller than my foot, others taller and wider than I am. I stop to rest in clearings only for short moments, just enough to catch my breath.
I know I'm getting close when I start seeing Bokoblins.
They're everywhere.
Patrols march on well beaten paths while sentries keep watch at the edge of wooded areas. They trace and retrace their steps, beady eyes peering around trees and bushes. Like they're looking for something to appear. Or someone.
I stay low in the brush, unsure of my next move.
Keep hidden, I eventually tell myself. I don't want to be brought to Ghirahim like some wanted fugitive.
I stay out of sight, slipping through the thicket like a nervous hare. When the Bokoblins backs are turned, I go from one tree to another, hiding behind thick trunks. When beady eyes are turned away, I rush from a tall mushroom, its spongey flesh cool beneath my fingers, to dive behind a bush, careful not to get my hair caught again.
Further and further I go, closer and closer I get. Soon I can see the Great Tree looming from the ground. I'm almost there.
"And then what?" I murmur to myself. Wait, comes the answer. There's nothing I can do but wait. The realization has me reconsider appearing to the Bokoblins.
As I ponder my options, I keep moving. The nearer I get to the Great Tree, the more I notice puddles of water lying stagnant everywhere. Notice, too, the humidity lingering in the air.
Monsters crawling everywhere. Water pooling. Is the Water Dragon beginning to flood the woods already?
My mind wanders with its thoughts, distracted…
Suddenly a Lizalfos with dark scales bursts through the underbrush. Her nostrils quiver with each intake of breath, searching, tasting the air with the tip of her tongue, and then she spots me crouched in the shadow of a shrub. Her dark amber eyes narrow on me and she snarls. Her spikey quill differentiates from Shii's feathered crest, and her snout is thicker, like Essil's.
The unknown Lizalfos approaches me, one step, then two.
I stand slowly. She sniffed me out. Clever girl, I think, vaguely reminded of a movie where a velociraptor came through the brush to startle a hunter. This Lizalfos has a face that reminds me of said raptor.
Well, looks like I'm going to be taken in as a fugitive anyway. I really rather Ghirahim be the one to find me.
"H-hey…" I hold up a hand in greeting, but the Lizalfos returns no such gesture. If anything, her snarl gets worse. "Uh, yeah, sorry he has you out here looking for me. Maybe you can go tell him I'm here and…and… Hey, what's wrong?"
The Lizalfos bares all her sharp, jagged teeth. There is a venomous glint in her eye.
It's then I recognize her. That hateful stare… It's the same one from the group of Lizalfos that let me run out the castle doors, back when I had discovered the human-eating history of the demons. She and her cohorts let me bust outta there like a bat out of hell, didn't stop me from getting lost in the dangerous, dark wood.
She creeps towards me, hissing. She draws her blade—a crooked dagger—from her holster.
My eyes go wide and I backpedal. "Hey, hey—don't you dare…!"
Just then, two more Lizalfos come from the undergrowth, and I think, Thank God, but that thought slowly morphs into, Oh crap, when I see they are also not friendly. The two newcomers stand on either side of the aggressive Lizalfos, and they look to her. They then turn their snarling snouts my way and daggers slide out of holsters.
I keep backtracking, and they keep coming forward. I reach around my back for a knife that hasn't been there since I first fell to the surface, and I curse myself for coming down here without a weapon. My mind scrambles. What do I do?
The leader, the one with the velociraptor-like face, hisses and coughs her guttural language at me, points her blade at my face.
It's then I recall the Lizalfos language, of Shii's instruction.
"Shaa haaf ssil," I say, brain skittering for the right words. Those weren't it. I asked her what she speaks.
The leader Lizalfos spits more words at me, glare narrowing into slits.
Shii taught me a certain phrase. What was it? Remember, c'mon, remember!
"Uh, uh—!"
The leader lunges and I scramble backwards.
"Shaa haaf ssil!" I screech the wrong phrase again, mind panicking. What were the words Shii taught me, what were they? "Uh, um—! Saah mish Ghirahim!" I shriek suddenly, the right words coming through my frightened haze. 'I belong to Ghirahim.' Then I remember more: "Heich mals chitah oush saa!" Meaning, 'If you touch me he will kill you.'
The two side Lizalfos' eyes widen. They look at each other, cough a few words. But between them stands their leader, ever snarling. Her teeth are thick, nothing like the needle teeth of Shii. I wish Shii were here right now.
"Stu-pid hu-man," speaks the velociraptor-face in broken Hylian. "You think you worthy? You think you servant of Lord Ghirahim? No, not worthy."
I don't have a chance to reply before she is charging at me.
I leap back to dodge the swipe of her dagger, shriek curses at her while the other two Lizalfos begin to circle around. If I don't do something fast, I'm going to be surrounded.
It is then I hear the thudding of many feet, and before long a bunch of Bokoblins come stampeding through the foliage to stand between me and the Lizalfos. They wave their cleavers threateningly and croak and screech in their own tongue. The Lizalfos respond in their snake-like language.
I stand in shock, not understanding at first, but quickly come to realize the Bokoblins are protecting me.
A Bokoblin at the back of the throng looks at me over his shoulder. He gestures to me. The pale crisscrossing scars scattered across his red skin gives testament to his identity. It's Bob, the Bokoblin I taught sign language to. He is signing at me now.
Go, he says with his hands. Run!
I hesitate before complying, wondering if he'll be all right. I decide he'll be fine with his group and I run. To where I don't know. But I run, run, run as fast as I can, through the thicket, through the woods, trees and undergrowth flying by in my peripheral vision. I stumble over rocks and roots and spring up only to go faster. My heart and mind race each other and it isn't until I come up to a stone wall that I stop. My gasping breaths fill my head, and I look around. There, to my right and down a flight of stone steps, is a door, and I recognize it as the entrance to the Sealed Temple.
The seal of the Sheikah—that strange crying eye symbol—glows upon the stone of the door. I rush up to it, bang on it with my fist. "Open, dammit, open!"
Surprisingly the symbol disappears, and I am able to open the door, the hinges creaking as I do so. After I slip in, it recloses with an echoing slam.
I walk slowly into the main area of the crumbling temple, where pillars covered with vines and lichen line the room, and grass grows where the floor has split. My eye quickly goes to the compacted slab of etched stone that is the inactivated Gate of Time. I wonder at it, at the carved symbols on its surface and the magic simmering just beneath.
To think Ghirahim strives so desperately for something that's right under his nose.
Sunlight trickles through gaps in the cracked stone ceiling, the bright streams leading me around the ancient stone slab and to an old woman sitting before the great door that I know will lead to Zelda enclosed in amber crystal. The old woman sits quietly in her elongated hood, her long braided hair swinging like a pendulum.
"I wondered when you would find yourself here," says the old woman, who I know to be the elder Impa.
I say nothing for a good while. Finally, "Hey. Am I late?" I can't help but quip.
The old woman chuckles. "No. You adhere to a different clock, don't you?" It's more statement than question, and it has me wondering her meaning.
"What?" I stare stupidly.
She goes on, "You have lived two lives. It is your former life that has prepared you for this one."
I frown at the mention of my lost life—a life cut short. "…What are you getting at?" I ask bitterly.
"Beware the softening of your heart in regards to Ghirahim. You were meant to impede him, not help him."
My eyes widen, and I gawk dumbfounded. "What…did you just say?"
"Hylia has given guidance to you from the edge of time. In the form of dreams and visions she has spoken to you. You have received these messages, have you not?"
I pull a flatline from my brain.
Then, stutteringly, I recall the dream where dark fields were turned red with blood, where broken bodies lied in shadow, and there, among them, was Ghirahim, the perpetrator of the slaughter. The white rhombus patterns on his dark skin seemed to glow, but blood stained him, dulled him. He stalked to where I stood with a weapon of thunder in my hands. He tore open the metal diamond affixed to his chest, revealed the red core underneath, baring his weakness to my gun. At the edge of my vision was Hylia, a towering goddess of light. Her lips formed words I could not hear. I only could make out, "She… She…" as she mouthed soundlessly.
With a thunderstruck of awe, I realize it was no ordinary dream.
"You are the sheath that will contain the blade's edge," says the old woman, jarring me out of my recollections.
I stare at her in fearful astonishment.
She… She… Sheath…
Contain the blade's edge…
That's what Hylia was saying.
"It has gone as Her Grace had hoped," the old woman continues. "His feelings for you grow ever stronger. It was predicted by Hylia herself. She foretold it, many eons ago. 'She will possess neither great beauty nor wit,' the goddess said, 'but she will hold a knowledge and power unlike any other, and he will bare his heart to her, will love her as he loves himself.'"
"…Love? You've…gotta be kidding me. No way." I blink, my cognizance tripping over one other thing. "And did…did you just call me ugly and stupid?"
She continues as if I hadn't spoken, "Ghirahim will be torn between his duty to his master and the love of his life, and pray as he might to have both of you, he will find himself deprived of that wish." The old woman nods, her coiled braid swinging. "You will be the one to lead him to his end."
…lead him to his end…
Her words filter through my mind. Disbelief has them puttering around, their meaning dulled. But ultimately what she says settles and the silence is broken by my angry voice.
"What in the hell are you talking about!" I yell, stomping up the stairs leading to the raised floor where she sits. "Who do you think you are! Who does Hylia think she is? She is not my God!"
She is not my God, I think vehemently, remembering the dream where Hylia pointed to my gun and then to Ghirahim's exposed core. My God did not tell me to pull the trigger on my enemy.
The old woman raises a placating hand. "It is the destiny laid out before you. You have a role to play, just as Link and Zelda do."
"My destiny is not dictated by your goddess," I snarl in her face. "I am not some puppet Hylia can make dance on her string. Do you understand? I am not her puppet! And I will not be his end!"
A hush pervades the temple.
The old woman lowers her hand and says nothing.
A door opens somewhere, and then I hear the voice of Groose. "Hey, Granny, you got any spare nails, or, uh…" He goes quiet when he sees me. "Hey, it's you…"
"Yes, it's me," I say darkly. "Don't worry, you can go back to building your Groosenator. I was just frickin' leaving."
As I turn and go down the steps, the old woman speaks once more, a hint of worry lacing her tone. "Humanity's survival depends on his loss. Do not let him win! Do not!"
My resounding "Piss off!" echoes along the walls.
Rage permeates down to the very marrow of my bones. My heart beats like a war drum as the old woman's words repeat themselves over and over in my head.
No.
No, no, no.
I will not be the one to kill him.
White light flashes at the edges of my vision. It takes my sight like a tunnel. And it is the white light that explodes forth from me, blasts open the doors of the temple and shatters a barrier I could not see. I hear the old woman rapidly chanting some incantation behind me to erect a new one, but in my anger, I don't care about her or the Gate of Time being exposed.
I run through the open doors, run out into the wood.
Run from the words that were said back in that temple.
Run from a destiny I cannot accept.
Funnily enough, I reunite with him in much the same way I first met him.
Running through the forest with dread and rage coursing through my veins, I look over my shoulder only for the briefest of moments. It's then I slam into what feels like a rockface. But it's not. I land on my butt, and look up to find Ghirahim standing before me.
I don't know what it was that finally brought him to me. Maybe the Bokoblins rushed back to tell him, but I doubt that, preoccupied as they were. More plausible is the white light and the explosion of energy that resulted from it. The surge of my aura brought him here to me.
I stand on shaky legs, the wind blowing out of my emotional sails. "Uh, I…"
He stares at me with no discernable expression on his face. It frightens me more than if he were angry, and for a sliver of a second, I doubt the wisdom in returning to him.
I struggle for something to say. "Uh, look, I… I'm sorry I got caught. That wasn't my intention. And I'm sorry it took me so long to get back down here, but they were watching me like hawks, and I ended up having to set a fire to get away and…" I sprinkle the truth with some lies. There was no way I was going to tell him it took so long because I was questioning whether I should return to him at all. No way.
He still says nothing. Just stares at me with those dark, dark eyes.
A shiver flows down my spine. "Just…just get it over with," I sigh. Then I stand there with my head bowed, bracing for the worst.
Finally, he walks up to me, grips my shoulders.
And I wait.
I expect anger.
I expect outrage.
I expect violence.
What I do not expect is for him to wilt over, forehead connecting to mine. Do not expect to then be pulled into a crushing embrace, face smothered in his red cape.
"You came back," he whispers so quietly I almost don't hear.
I turn my head so I can breathe, and his hand relocates to the back of my head, keeps me pressed against him while his thumb makes rubbing motions in my hair. "I came back," I whisper in kind.
"Of your own volition." He seems to marvel it.
"Of course," I respond a little waspishly.
Laughter—of all things, laughter—bubbles up his throat. The joyful noise is loud in my ear, which is pushed against his chest, and I feel the vibration and movement from it.
Ghirahim holds me tight, wilting around me, as if trying to encase my body with his own, relief apparent from the huge sigh he lets out in one billowing breath. He begins to rock me back and forth, the swaying motion subtle and soothing.
I don't know how long we stand there like that. The sun is going down. The birds chirp their last goodbyes to the fading day and shadows stretch long on the ground.
Suddenly he pulls back, suddenly he grips me by the hair, not painfully, but firmly, and forces me to look up at him. "Never do that again. Do you hear me? Never," he hisses through clenched teeth, fangs baring, blackfire glare blazing.
"Never ever?" I ask with a spark of playfulness, a smile twitching at the corner of my mouth.
His grip tightens. "Kya," he says warningly.
The tentative smile drops and I get serious. "Yes, Master. I'm sorry."
Slowly he releases me, untangles his hand from my hair, and it comes away with a stray leaf sticking to his glove. He stares at it in bewilderment before reaching back into my hair to pull out a twig. He then steps back, looks me up and down. "What on earth have you been doing? Traipsing through the forest like a wild beast?"
I place my palms on my hips. "I was looking for you! Did you stop searching for me or something? Way to leave me hanging. You stop caring?"
"Don't you dare to even jest that I don't care!" he shouts, voice hard and hot as burned iron.
I take a step back. "Uh—"
"Do you have any idea what you've put me through? Do you? Do you know how I've felt these past days?" He retakes the space between us, retakes hold of my shoulders. He gives me a little shake. "I've been sickened with despair! Sickened! And I'm not exaggerating, darling, oh no, not even close. I haven't been able to eat, I haven't been able to sleep, or even think straight, and you—you…!" he trails off, gaze flickering around my face, down my body. "You're hurt. My darling…"
He raises his hand, the back of his fingers trailing down the side of my face like a lover's caress. I stand stock still, trying to process his reactions. I want to deny it, want to deduce that it is some sort of trick like I usually do. The old lady must be getting senile, I reason. He does not love me. He doesn't. He can't.
But then his lips touch my cheek, my temple, my neck, peppering the scrapes and scratches there with the gentle strokes of his mouth, and denial becomes like a fluttering bird in an updraft, being carried far away, and I call for it, beg it to come back.
All the while the words of the old woman swirl like smoke in the back of my mind. I try to mentally fan them away, but they linger, smothering me, choking me. The ewe cries out, begs for his survival, and the she-wolf howls her fury at the tendrils of a fate she refuses to play along with.
"Master…" I whisper despondently.
He pulls away, pushes a stray strand of hair behind my ear, traces the rounded tip. Then he takes my face between his hands. "Look at you," he whispers. "What ordeals have you been through just to make it back to my side?"
"I jumped from a deathly height for one," I mutter, then I stand silently, letting my appearance be the answer.
"You beautiful little creature…" he breathes, smiling.
My heart gives a jolt, and I stagger back out of his grasp. "I—I'm not beautiful," I snap, flinching only after I hear my nasty tone. I tense.
He's quick to close the gap, gaze unblinking. He lifts my chin with a gentle hand, looks me in the eye. I cannot read—or, rather, comprehend—his expression. Too gentle. Too warm. His eyelids are lowered, a heat gleaming in his stare.
"I'm just an ugly little human," I say in a last-ditch defense, but from what I…I'm not sure.
"Now, once upon a time…I'd agree with that assessment. But now…" He tilts his head and smiles ruefully. "Oh, I don't know. Something's changed."
My eyelids flutter, I process his words. "What's changed?" Me…? Or you?
His smile widens.
And then he swoops down and his lips crash onto mine, wiping the question, and everything, from my mind.
A/N: This chapter took a lot of editing because I wasn't happy with it, but I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you for reading!