As a reminder, you can find MORE of this on my SubStar (dot adult slash KajaWilder), it's posted up past chapter 85 there... And if you guys haven't seen an update in at least a week, please let me know! I have a busy life, and I get distracted and forget things. This story (and PTaL) are supposed to be updated WEEKLY from now until they're both caught up with each other (like I was doing with FwB until this weekend).

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Chap. 55: Fever Dreams

There were hands. Dark hands, light hands. Hands made of shadow and fire and death. Of flesh and blood. Monster hands, human hands, and more. Eyes, yellow and shining with malice. Orange or blue, Moblin and Bokoblin eyes. Green, blue, handsome, loving eyes. Brown ones, common but no less beautiful.

The eyes watched her, roamed over Zelda's body. Looking at her, observing her... they would be undressing her, but she saw that she already was bare, nude, exposed. It send a thrill through her, knowing so many were seeing her. Knowing she was vulnerable, unable to stop them from knowing every bit of intimate detail about her, from the innocent, gentle curve of her neck, to the slightly more pronounced, pert upturn of her breasts, to the embarrassing rigid stiffness of her nipples.

Down the graceful, increasingly toned length of her arms, to the hands that were equally comfortable holding a bow or spear, or plunging in and out of her desperate, hungry, needy pussy... or someone else's. Her taut belly was swollen now. What had once been a slight bulge she was trying to ignore had become impossible to pass by. The eyes moved over it, too, knowing her secret, the one she had been trying to keep from even herself.

Between her legs, to where her hairless slit dripped visibly, she was sure, the eyes moved. Down her calves, more toned than even her arms due to the amount of walking she had done since waking from her long recuperative slumber, to the calloused but smooth bottoms of her feet. Her back side, Zelda suspected they could not see, for the myriad eyes, those of beast and monster and humanity alike, were all visible to her, too, if she cared to look.

But there were so many. Even as her fevered, fogged brain and helpless body were laid bare, even while she enjoyed (so indecently) the feeling of all those eyes upon her, Zelda knew she lay on her back.

And the hands moved, too.

Touching her. Holding her hands, running fingers through sweat-drenched hair. Touching her neck, her cheek, her face... two fingers into her mouth, briefly, just enough that Zelda instinctively bit down.

No, those were not fingers, but a roll of soft leather, put there for just that purpose: to give her something to bite on.

Hands touched her, everywhere. Even beneath her, in places the eyes could not see, they caressed an stroked and roved over and under and inside Zelda's body. Following the shell of her ear, along with the quiet susurrus of whispered voices intending to be soothing... and the whispers of the damned inside the hands and eyes of the malice-filled dark ones that made her flesh ache and shiver and crack, desiccating all that they touched even as they thrilled her, too.

The hollow of her hip, some gripped, and some gave each breast a squeeze that made her back arch to meet them. Nipples tweaked. Down and over every hill and line of her legs.

Every scant fraction of an inch of Zelda's body, the hands roamed and slid, alternatively burning or soothing her.

She climaxed again and again from their touch, before any dared slip inside.

Her body was lost, along with her mind, in an endless cycle of buildup, orgasm, come-down, and then back up again.

It was glorious... except for when it was not.

For there were no fingers plundering her depths, bringing her to pleasure and orgasm. There were no glorious cocks, whether human or monster, or even toy.

But there were screams.

Screams her overheated brain recognized: Her own.

And that of a child, a newborn babe.

Whispers in the dark and madness.

Her body writhed in agony.

Concern, and care.

A few words filtered through, "At least she wasn't Meg, with two," someone said.

A quiet voice, still concerned, worried, but also relieved.

A moment later, or perhaps several orgasm-soaked hours, another voice said, "-her cleaned up. Poor girl, and after all she's done, she had to-"

Madness, and sleep, and rest.

Zelda dreamed, finally.

More peacefully, rather than the agony of insanity and pain and pleasure, all mixed into one bout of... whatever that had been.

She still dreamed of eyes, and hands. They still roamed over her. Seeing her, touching her, speaking words. Some of pain and death, and some of comfort.

But the feverish quality had broken, and some semblance of normality was there, too.

Eventually, she dozed, slowly coming out of a deep, dark slumber to realize she was in a bed. Not laying on the grass in some meadow, or in a dark cave. Her slumber was so deep, in fact, that Zelda felt a moment of panic that she was waking up in the Shrine of Resurrection once more. But no... bleary eyes peered about in the darkness, and saw unfamiliar surroundings that were nonetheless reassuring.

There were no strange constellations of orange stars on the walls, or cold, almost alien walls themselves. No blue mysterious apparatus above her, or bed of liquid slime below. She was not dressed, and the blankets slipped low around her waist as she sat up, pooling about her. Drenched in stale sweat, now slowly drying, they stank... but Zelda was still reassured despite her nakedness.

Her belongings were piled loosely in one corner of the unfamiliar room, to the right of the single door. Opposite it, flanked by two small windows in the middle of the wall, the bed she lay in sat. Its blankets were rumpled and a soft, pale blue, lit by moonlight that streamed past the curtains of either window and a third to her left, set into the wall her clothing and satchel and weapons had been placed against. There was a washbasin, and a small flame on a stove kept a clay pitcher of water warm near it, against that wall too. On the opposite, several shelves filled with small bottles with a hundred different labels rested, each filled with a different colored powder, unguent, or component.

In the corner nearest her on the left, presumably one corner bedroom of whatever house she was in, there were two wardrobes side by side, one on each wall, both open and empty aside from a single gown of thin, but clean linen. And in the other corner, a basinet.

For a baby.

Zelda shuddered, and laid back down in the unfamiliar room, and pulled the blankets up to her chin. Then higher, over her head, to block out the world.

She'd laid eggs, like a monster. Octorok eggs, she was sure of it.

Then...

Worse.

If she blocked out the world, perhaps she would not have to acknowledge that?

Would not have to admit to herself that she had been somehow glad to have born a child, even at her tender physical age? Or was she truly physically over a century old, even if she did not show it? How did one calculate that, anyway?

Anything her mind could do to distract itself from the horror would do, she supposed.

Her baby had been red of skin, with a small, light ivory horn on its bulbous head.

A Bokoblin.

No, no, no! There hadn't been a baby. That was just a dream. She hadn't been impregnated by those black Bokoblins, and certainly not by any other. If there was a baby, it would be in the bascinet, swaddled lightly, and born from the Yiga rapist. It would, at least, be human even if she might never be able to stand looking at it.

But no...

Her traitorous mind corrected, the math did not add up. She had not been raped nine months ago, but mere weeks, if that.

She hadn't been awake for nine months, just a few.

Zelda cried, the salty mix of tears adding to the old sweat beneath the blankets.

Eventually, she drifted back to sleep, her mind returning to a chaotic mix of hands, and eyes, leering and laughing as they touched her, groped her, used her, again and again, while her womb produced one monster after another to populate the world in beasts.

All for one purpose: To ruin it. To ruin the world, on behalf of the Calamity, who used her most often.

Eventually, Zelda woke up again. Light streamed in even brighter through the three windows, whose curtains and shudders had been tossed open. Warm air filtered through two as well, carrying with it the scent of fresh-baked bread, carrots, cucumbers, pumpkin, wheat, rice, and so much more. It made her stomach rumble just imagining each vegetable or fruit her nose identified.

But what she needed most was...

There, on the table beside her borrowed bed. Another clay pitcher, this one smaller and simple, with condensation dripping around it, and a small stoneware cup. Her body gave several twinges as the reached over to pour and then drink. Zelda downed three full cups before she was sated for the moment, half of the entire pitcher.

Somewhere in the building, the one she was sure was a home (and likely in Hateno, given the scents she detected), someone was humming as they moved about another room. Outside, she heard children playing in the distance, and the lowing of an ox, accompanied by the regular thunk-fwssh of a hoe or shovel in the earth. The day seemed benign. Surreally so. Even pleasant, peaceful, after what... what had happened.

Zelda let out a long, slow breath, as she forced her mind to be rational. Yes, she had been raped by not just a Yiga man, but two Bokoblins. Yes, she'd willingly let an Octorok have her, and loved every moment of it. Yes... that had consequences. She'd laid dozens, hundreds, of little eggs, most of which had probably died in minutes of leaving her body.

… That had been revolting, even as she felt a strange sense of pride over their sheer existence.

And after that, perhaps spurred on by it, her body had... what, gone into labor?

Early? She didn't know. How did a Bokoblin even impregnate a Hylian woman? Normally, she thought, species that were that different could not. But if so, then how did Bokoblins reproduce? Boko-Matrons, she had thought, were, well, exactly what they sounded like: Female Bokoblins.

But the words she had heard from her rapists gave lie to that assumption. A woman who had been either gang-raped into submission and addiction to their pleasure, or... something like it, was what a Boko-Matron truly was.

Was she turning into one? As someone who'd apparently given birth to a horrendous, red little offspring, was she a Boko-Matron, in technicality if nothing else?

… Did she care? Did it change anything, ultimately? She had already learned she had lovers before being all-but killed, her Champion among them. One of her most pleasant memories was of them making love in some hot place, their bodies drenched in sweat as the writhed together. He... well, it was vaginal. There were at least decent odds that he'd finished inside her, given how much she seemed to enjoy the sensation. Had she been a mother already, when she was seventeen, instead of a century plus?

True, it was less likely, with him by her side, that it was a Bokoblin that had done it, but was there any way to know for sure? Impa, maybe, or Purah might know, if she dared ask. They had known her back then, and she believed everything they said about it. What little choice did she have? Her own fragmented snippets of memories confirmed what they had told her. Would they answer, about a previous pregnancy? A child, perhaps? Was she, maybe, gravid when she had 'died'?

Again, did it matter? It was in the past, now, a century before. Her child would have been long grown, perhaps with great-grandchildren of its own, if it had somehow survived. Now, she could only imagine her first child as a Bokoblin's baby.

Was it even still alive? How would she know? Was it only a dream in which it had been born? No... her a soft touch told her that her vagina was still swollen and inflamed from her labor, and her belly was still a bit distended, though it seemed to be returning to normal already.

With a huff of frustration at herself for allowing her mind to race in useless circles, Zelda pushed the covers down to her feet and climbed out of the bed. It was comfortable, somewhere between firm and too-soft, so that standing took more willpower than effort, but eventually she rose to somewhat wobbly feet, with a hand on the nearest wardrobe while the blood rushed from her head. "Easy, girl," she whispered, not wanting to scare the other person in the house. Or, worse, call them into the room before she was ready.

Because even if she'd noticed it what might have been hours before, that small flame still burned, and the water rising from the larger clay pitcher suddenly seemed very inviting indeed.

The princess was quite careful as she washed herself, the water just shy of boiling, to let the liquid fall only onto a towel set out for that purpose. Even more, she was careful not to hurt herself. Tender scrapes and scratches littered her, some from nails (had she thrashed violently, so the people she dreamed of had been forced to restrain her?), some from stones, or bushes, but there were no major injuries on her. The worst pain was between her legs, but the hot water held within the cloth after she finished rinsing eased that, as she held it against her belly as if it were her time of the month. After that, her knees, both of which were raw and still oozing blood from where she had crawled through the dirt, vomiting and shitting and giving birth to Octoroks.

She was a mess, then, Zelda was sure.

Yet the people of Hateno had to have found her while she was delirious, or worse, and...

And helped.

They had helped a monster-fucking former-princess who had failed to save her kingdom, to save them, from the Calamity.

Zelda let the tears of gratitude fall.

Maybe they had killed her child. She couldn't blame them, it was a Bokoblin. The memory was clearer now, of the midwife and another helper examining her and the child. But maybe they had not. Soon, she would have to ask. But for now, she could only sob quietly as she forced herself to dress once more. She was, after all, still the best hope these people had.

That all of Hyrule had.

Maybe her child was a monster. But it was hers. If it was dead, so be it. If it was alive... could it, perhaps, be... tamed? Raised? What was the best word? Bubmin was not beyond reason, and he had been a simple-minded Red when she had met him. If this child, that of a scholar and a much more intelligent Black Bokoblin, could be shown how to live properly, in a civilized way... did it not deserve that chance?

She had to hope.

In the meantime, Hateno was still a safe place. Whoever had cared for her had brought her to the home of the nearest midwife, or physician, where she had been cared for further. Her wounds, while undressed, were definitely treated with something. Unless she'd been asleep for weeks, which didn't seem possible. She was thirsty again, and now famished, but she was not gaunt. A couple of days at most, she thought.

Once her clothes and equipment were back on (thankfully clean of the residue her body had left, another thing she was grateful for!), Zelda took a long breath, then opened the door out into the rest of the home. "Um... Hello?"

"Ah!"

"C- Clavia?"

"That's right, dear," the middle-aged woman replied with a kind smile, holding a hand over her chest. "My, you nearly had me jump out of my skin! Are you... up for walking? Not everyone recovers so quickly. Do you need food? Water? A bath?"

"I just finished washing, and had three cups," Zelda replied quietly, blushing as the mayor's wife set down her baking and fussed over Zelda, instead.

"Three? You should probably wait a bit before more, but I'll have you drink the rest of the jug before you leave the house," Clavia told her sternly, turning Zelda's head this way and that, before pulling down one eyelid. "You're a bit pale," she pronounced as she let go, "but not too bad. Considering... Come, we should talk."

Zelda nodded, "Alright, um..."

She wasn't led far, just to the worn, well-used wooden table in the mayor's kitchen, one that had probably seen several generations

Clavia let her sit and stew, her mind running with dozens of questions she had, most of which were concerned with wondering what the mother herself would ask, for several minutes while she slid a cast-iron pan full of some sort of dough into a brick-walled oven set above the stove mounted against the same sturdy stone wall. Then poured out stew or some sort of thick soup from yet another of the seemingly endless clay pots in her icebox into a steel pan that hung on a hook over the stove, and set that to warming, and finished by pulling down a half-dozen bowls, cups, and spoons, before pouring out some tea for both her and Zelda.

Finally, she sat down across from the princess, and took a few calming sips of the chilled beverage (Zelda had never had cold tea before, and found it strange, but not unpleasant, if a bit too sweet for her tastes) before Clavia said, "How long ago were you attacked by the Bokoblins?"

Zelda shrugged, her face heating. "T- Technically I attacked them."

It was a deflection, and she knew it. Clavia seemed to know what she was trying as well, for her face soured, "I'm trying to help you, Zina, or Zelda, or whatever your name is. I seem to have heard several different names from the people who helped me take care of you. I would appreciate it if you were simply honest with me."

Feeling very much like a child who had just been scolded by their mother or grandmother for getting into a cookie jar, Zelda's face heated further. "I- I'm sorry. I... I did technically attack them, though. I... I'm not sure what day it is. How- How long was I...?"

"Unconscious? Delirious? Feverish to the point of dying?" Clavia's expression was as neutral as her voice, but Zelda noticed the knuckles around her own tea were white, as if she were struggling to remain that way.

She sighed. "I... yes. All of that. The last thing I remember was... calling for help. Oct- Octoroks."

"I hoped that wasn't you," Clavia whispered, her face going a little more pale, too. Her eyes closed for several seconds as she struggled to control her breathing, or perhaps temper. When they opened, she let go of her own wooden cup with one hand, and placed it over Zelda's. "Dear girl... when Meghyn and Nat told me you rescued them, got them to safety, I thought... I thought you'd know of the dangers of Bokoblins. Not... not just what they do, but..."

"Yes, they... had me," Zelda whispered, "You already know that. Many times. But I have also killed a great many of them. Most are... not that dangerous, not to me."

"Yet there was a reason the menfolk and guards of the town haven't gone to rescue Koyin's sheep. That's when it happened, wasn't it?"

Zelda nodded, but didn't say anything. She was grateful for Clavia caring for her, and even the tight hand around hers was reassuring more than judgmental, but she still felt like she were being chastened, and it wasn't that pleasant a feeling.

The mayor's wife sighed again and let go, taking another sip of her tea. Then she gestured at Zelda's own, "Drink up. It's full of nutrients your body will need. Tea and medicine combined... for the labor you've just gone through."

She started drinking. Haltingly, for it was still quite sweet, but she did slowly finish off the cup as they continued to talk about more mundane topics. Eventually, the story came out, how Zelda had used the Bombs she could create to weaken the Bokoblin Camp's defenses, and had hoped to finish them off that way...

How things had gone wrong, and then she was being stripped, invaded, assaulted... how her body had betrayed her, giving in to pleasure. She skipped over the parts about her supposed past self comforting her, and made up even more details about how she had escaped, but Clavia didn't question it, or her story. If anything, she seemed surprised but overjoyed that Zelda had escaped at all. Then the story of breaking, or at least twisting, her ankle escaping the stone giant at Mapla Point had her gasping, and then finally returning with the sheep, and saving Koyin yet again, more directly.

"That girl's going to be head over heels for you by the end of the week, you keep this up," Clavia chuckled wryly as the story concluded, "She's always had a bit of a hero complex... anyone that can fight to protect others, she worships. You've saved her not once but twice? Heavens..."

Zelda blushed again, and pointedly did not mention how she might have, almost, skirted around taking advantage of that very thing. It wasn't the mayor or his wife's business, was it?

"At any rate," Clavia continued, "We... disposed of the baby. I'm sorry if that upsets you."

Zelda felt her eyes close, and her own expression twisted into a strange, confused grimace. Then she shook her head, and whispered, "I understand. I... I would not be able to... stay, and... do anything with it, anyway. Not yet."

"Do something... would you have tried to raise a Bokoblin, as if it were a person?"

Zelda shrugged, and looked away. "I... don't know. Some speak. Some... can reason. One, Bubmin is his name, has saved my life on three occasions. They are beasts... mostly. But not all of them."

Clavia shook her head, her eyes aghast. "Saved... a name... I've never even heard of such a thing. I believe you, or at least I believe that you believe that, Zina, but..."

Zelda suddenly reached out and took her hand in turn, her voice earnest, "If you ever see a Bokoblin- he's blue- who gives his name as Bubmin? Don't attack him. Tell him you're my friend. I... Tell the guards, the men. Bubmin... helped me. If he attacks you after that, then defend yourself, but he... I owe him. A lot."

"Alright, alright," Clavia sighed, patting Zelda's head, "And I'm sorry about the... baby. I know sometimes young women like yourself, in that situation, feel a strange... kinship, even though the child is a Bokoblin. But it isn't one of us. It never would be."

"I don't believe that," Zelda told her quietly, "I can't believe they could never be anything else. I have to have hope that... that things can be better."

"They might be," Clavia admitted, "I hardly know all things under Hylia's sun, after all, but neither I nor my grandmother, nor my husband's family, have ever heard of such a thing. Maybe the old witch up on the hill, the Sheikah woman, knows more, but... I do not. I only know that too often a Bokoblin raping a woman results in a child before they can even try to escape. I know that sometimes they are there too long, and their bodies grow to... to crave more of them. Sometimes, their minds are lost, and all the woman wants after that is to eat and... mate. With Bokoblins."

"A Boko-Matron, they call them," Zelda nodded, "Bubmin told me."

"I suppose it's as good a name as any," Clavia agreed, "Pray that you... don't feel the same. I regret not thinking that it could've happened to you, too, until you showed up under the arms of a few of the village's menfolk, already in labor and leaking of Octo-eggs... the red one that came after was an even bigger surprise. We nearly lost you to the fever. Both at once was... too much for your body, I think."

Zelda nodded. "I... I didn't know."

Clavia sighed again, and once more took Zelda's hands. "There are herbs. Teas. I'll give you a supply for your travels before you leave tonight, it should last... oh, a good month. Take it daily starting on the first day of your blood cycle. Stop when the next one should start, wait a week, and start again. It will not only prevent... that, but it will also prevent most of your cycle. Makes the pain less, the cramps nearly gone. If you vomit the second day- not the first- stop taking it, and come back, we've got other methods too. That one means an allergy to one of the herbs."

Zelda frowned, "Is this the... yellow-bulbed thistle with thick green stem? Grows up to my elbow or so?"

Clavia nodded, "Yes, but that's just one ingredient. It's the one most people react to, though."

"I'm not allergic, thank Hylia. I use that one as an herb in my meats sometimes."

Clavia smiled this time in response, "I do, too. Bit bitter, but I do like the taste. Alright, dear, Zina, or-"

"Zelda. Zelda is my name."

"Alright, Zelda. Well, remember what I said about the tea. I'll write down the recipe and send a few ingredients as well. It'd be hard to make on the road, but can be done, there's only a little use of mortar and pestle. But if you... if you're attacked like that again? Get help. Please. Any of the Stables, or any settlement, should have at least one competent midwife. I... I know you aren't telling me everything. I know you have reason not to stay. But Prima likes you, Meghyn and Nat like you. Koyin, if I know her at all, would be devastated... and a few of the menfolk have taken a bit of a shine, too. It'd be a shame for you to just... disappear. So don't do that, alright? Be safe, come back to us, back to Hateno... whenever you go."

Zelda felt her face heat, but she smiled faintly as she nodded, "A- Alright. I'll do my best."

"Good, see that you do. I'd hate for all my hard work keeping you alive to go to waste, after all. Come on, let's get the little ones in for lunch, then I'll have you lay back down while I run breakfast out to my husband. After that, the tea, and you can do as you see fit."

"Yes, ma'am," Zelda smiled, "I'm... grateful, for all you've done."

"Think nothing of it, dear. Come on, why don't you start dishing up your own, and I'll call in the children. They've been waiting to see you up since yesterday."