A/N: I do not, in general, write kid stories. My adult ratings are for a reason. My stories feature: violence (often graphic), Sexuality (almost always graphic), and worse. The villains in my stories are typically very villainous. The heroes are not always heroic- even if most of the time they are. Readers should expect a blanket trigger warning on everything I write. Themes of dubious- or non-consenting sex, domination, violence, gore, and character death- including major characters- exist in many of them. I do not condone such activities in real life, but unfortunately they are real in our world, and I don't feel that I could write fiction fairly without including them.
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Ch. 8:
Spirits of the Forest
There, that should be perfect. The wind had picked up over the last two hours, and though the day was just passing into the afternoon, Zelda felt the storm would be vicious enough she did not want to be out in it. As well, while she somehow knew the normal time to sleep was at night and a person should be awake in the daylight hours, her schedule since waking in the Shrine of Resurrection had been... off.
Very off.
Perhaps it was sleeping for a century as the strange machines under the mountain to her south rebuilt several key portions of her body. Or maybe the danger of this place, this time in which she had awoken, made Zelda unable to get any real rest while the monsters that seem to lurk behind every stump or rock, creep through every patch of taller grass, lurk and prowl. Maybe it was knowing the terror that lurks in her dreams, the same that swirls around the distant castle, visible even now through the gaps of trees far beyond the plateau?
Maybe it was all of that, or none of it. Zelda did not know.
But she knew she needed rest. Even though her body was not yet tired, she didn't want to try traversing a dense, Bokoblin-infested (or worse, spirit-infested) woods in the dark, and less so while there was a chill-wind storm blowing in. Aside from it being too early for her body to want to sleep, there was the energy still lingering from her recent clashes with Bokoblins and the Owa Daim Shrine before them. The Spirit Orb may as well have been a full night's rest and then some. It had only been several hours since she had received it, but even though her walk from the abbey ruins on the east side of the plateau to the old man's cabin and then north had been long and over rough terrain, she still felt as if the day were only half-over.
She could not run far or fast, or hit hard, but Zelda felt like she was well used to the gentle pace of a modestly fast walk.
Her mind knew better, though. Her dreams, limited though they had been since waking, were restless and wild. Her sleep was either incredibly uncomfortable, curled up on hard, broken brick with that wall as the only shelter against a wet, moist wind, or on cold, uneven ground. The one night of decent sleep she had gotten was in an old man's half-abandoned cabin, where part of her had worried that even he, the only ally Zelda felt existed in her life, dubious though that alliance was sometimes, would attack her in her sleep.
But here, even if the old man expected her nearby...
She spent a few minutes looking around, even paced a few circles around the large tree at some distance. While she spotted some spoor and tracks of cloven feet, likely from the boars the old man had mentioned, there were no other signs of Bokoblins nearby, and a pig would not likely threaten a creature her size that wasn't hostile or threatening.
A baby, maybe. Boars, like more domesticated pigs, Zelda remembered from... that blank endless somewhere in her head, could and would eat unattended babies and even small children they could catch.
But she was the same size as many boars that would inhabit this relatively sheltered plateau, wasn't she? Perhaps one would be more massive than her, but if she were no obvious threat it was likely they would just leave her alone. And if not... well, the traveler's spear might just be able to hold one at bay until it lost interest. It was just too bad it didn't have boar-tips on it. Weren't their stories of the enraged beasts running their bodies up the length of a spear to gore the man holding it? Wasn't that why the tips had been invented, to prevent that thing from happening?
It was crazy that a normal animal could be that aggressive, but Zelda believed the stories all the same. No one would have bothered attaching side-spikes or bars to a spear, adding weight to the weapon, without a reason, after all.
The area seemed relatively quiet, however. The large tree was raised at least a few feet off the ground, leaving a hollow beneath it. Perhaps wind had caught the tree ages ago, or the rock beneath it had shifted in some tectonic activity, or maybe the tree itself had lifted the rock by the roots over several centuries. Either way, there was a huge, moss- and grass-covered boulder on one end to shelter her from the wind, and the tree itself, broad and wide, would protect her from above, with several huge roots dividing the lee side of the area beneath the tree into half-walls.
The area beneath the tree itself, predictably, was filled with leaves and a few small, non-edible mushrooms. Older spoor, too, but nothing she guessed was within a few months old, and that was probably deer or rabbit if she had to guess.
Whatever those were, or how she knew.
What princess had any idea of woodcraft? It was almost ludicrous.
Yet, here she was, recalling information with no idea how, and apparently one of the royal family of this former kingdom.
Zelda shook her head once more at the strange situation she had found herself in, refusing this time to give in to anger or frustration. The situation was what it was, and griping about it now would do no good. Instead, she focused on being practical. On hands and knees, glad she was wearing at least trousers and a shirt instead of the ragged dress, Zelda crawled into the hollow beneath the tree and started using her lone short-blade to scrape and pull out as much of the detritus as she could. The leaves were made into one pile against the stone, hopefully to make a mostly bug-free bed. The loam, the mushrooms, the worms, and the beetles were shunted out with a whisper, "Sorry, little ones, you'll have to brave the storm in my stead."
It took far too long, and Zelda could hear the pat, pat, patpatpat of rain picking up in the leaves overhead when she started piling a few rocks into the easternmost entrance of the hollow. She moved faster, electing speed as the rain picked up in earnest. Over the stones, once she had most of it blocked, the princess kicked as much of the loose leaves and loam she had taken out of the hollow as she could, then turned and hurried around the trunk to the east.
A few minutes later, she sighed, shivering, and reached into the satchel beside her for the old, mud-stained white dress.
It wasn't much, but wrapping it around herself at least added a little more protection against the biting wind. It seemed to want to curl around the stone and tree, lashing into her hollow viciously. Her makeshift barrier on the right was holding, but Zelda didn't want to think about what she would do if it gave way. The wind seemed to have shifted, and now it was blowing almost straight from that direction. She frowned as she realized her left foot was getting colder than the right. It was growing dark, but her hand still reached down and... moisture coated the dirt in that area.
No, no no no! That wouldn't do!
Grumbling, she threw the dress over her satchel and crawled toward the lowest entrance. Yes, there, she could just see it in the gloom, lit by occasional flashes of distant lightning. One... Two... Three... Four... Seven seconds away. Further than before.
A rivulet was all, but that would be most uncomfortable if she had to sit in it all night. Zelda frowned, using the blade of her sword once more, along with a flat rock she had found earlier, to scrape up a little dam just inside the shelter of the tree.
She watched carefully, but after her work was done, it seemed like it would hold. The rain was pouring now, and her arms, which had been out there for only a few minutes, were now clammy and pale. But Zelda didn't have the knowledge of how to build a fire properly with the materials she had, and no material to do so either.
Dimly, she thought she might have been able to figure out a flint and steel, but obviously she had none. Somehow, the old man could do it, but Zelda had no desire to traipse all the way back to his cabin at this time of night in the rain.
No... she would just be here, cold and miserable. It wasn't like she couldn't be worse off.
... If only that annoying cold wasn't making her nipples hurt with stiffness.
Eventually, huddled beneath the tree in the lee of the boulder and shivering while wrapped in the tattered old dress, Zelda fell into a fitful sleep.
And she dreamed.
The dreams, as they often were now, were fragmented and nonsensical. Part of her thought she should be able to control them somehow, dream or not. They did not truly seem to be memories, for the few times she woke in the night, the storm still howling but the rain having passed on the first and returned with a vengeance on the third, she could not place any of what she had seen.
There was a person, though. Strong, but not over-muscled hands, as dirty as her own, laughing with her while he showed her how to build the wall she had, with rocks and leaves and rich forest soil. To find the trees like this with shelter beneath them, both rock-raised and eroded, or dug out by animals (though he had warned those were usually still occupied, and even a fox could be deadly in the wrong circumstances). The pines, mostly, with their wide and low-hanging, thick bows. Ancient guardians of the high forests and travelers alike.
There was no face, and not even more than a hint of the man's voice, but she knew he was young, like her. His hands were calloused and no stranger to toil, but they were no more stained with brown dirt than her own, only speckled with it by recent activity.
The dream scattered, and there were Bokoblins. Moblins. Other things. Things she had no name for, but were great, monstrous forms of steel and fire and death.
Beams of incandescent white, hotter than the sun. A big man, cut through the chest by one of those, his beard raining down in pieces along with his life as he fell to his knees.
A scream. Hers, maybe, or an older woman's, it was hard to say.
Then under a hollow much like this one, but shaped slightly different. That same pair of hands, calloused and worn from a lifetime of holding and moving things, but not from traditional labor. Tanned, but not burned by the sun, like her own.
Zelda dreamed that she put her hand next to his to compare. She was a scholar, but still used to being outside. Not as dark as his, but darker than it had been, darker than the underside of even his own.
He said something, a quiet murmur Zelda could not catch, and even in her dream, the princess felt her face heat up.
Her vision shook. Not trembling, but up and down. Had she... nodded to whatever he said?
Then his hands were on her, over her clothes, beneath them, touching her, and the face she could not see shadowed her own, pushing her down against the forest floor beneath her, and her body blossomed with heat.
Zelda woke, gasping.
It was still dark, and darker still in her little hollow, but the wind had dropped from howling gusts that shook the trunk of her shelter, to bough-creaking, more steady speeds. She was cold still, no longer quite clammy but feeling a bit like it anyway, but part of the her burning, practically on fire.
It took her but a moment of self-reflection to realize what it was. Or at least, where the heat was emanating from.
Her lower belly, between her legs, and up a few inches.
Zelda only realized then that she was breathing hard and rapidly, as if she had been running for a mile or more, or fighting ten, fifteen Bokoblins one after the other. Again, her nipples were hard, twinging against the soft fabric covering that she'd worn when she woke, and over that, the rougher but still comfortable red shirt. Dully, the princess shoved a hand down, sucking in her belly slightly to give her room to shove a few fingers between her legs.
They came away damp and pungent-smelling, though the odor was quickly dried and gone by the wind.
It took Zelda a few more seconds to realize what all those different signs meant.
Molten heat was contradictory, perhaps, but the warmth in her body and the wetness too told Zelda it could only be one thing. She was aroused, mightily so, by the dream she had just woken from. For a moment, she debated taking care of the problem, but a few tentative brushes of her fingertips over the sensitive flesh she had just checked changed her mind.
Her fingers felt... foreign. Strange. Not that they weren't hers, but they were dirty, calloused, rough and broken, dry. Not like she was used to, in the rare chance for self-pleasure the ever-curious princess would have enjoyed.
She huffed in annoyance, laid her head back down, and closed her eyes.
Of course, sleep refused to come.
So an hour or so later, once the sky was turning the trunks and leaves outside a muted, overcast silver-gray, she bundled up the last bits of the dress into her satchel, took out a meager, cold breakfast, and started to eat. At least she could get an early start on the day.
And even though the dreams were strange, fragmented, frustrating (even if very fun, for while that part had lasted), Zelda was grateful for them. Her mind, at least, felt a little rested from the night. More than her body, anyway, which was cold and stiff. Maybe it would've been better if she had just stayed awake.
No, don't think like that. Your mind needs rest too, she told herself, making a final glance around to ensure the satchel, her weapons, and the Sheikah Slate were all there at her fingertips before poking her head outside and taking a careful look around.,
The leaves were still thick on the trees above and around her, but she was sure many more had been added to the forest floor overnight, but the wind was much more bearable. Still, Zelda found herself shivering again briefly as she started moving. If anything, now would be a great time to come upon a lone Bokoblin or too. It was likely the time of day they were sleepiest. But the monsters were not her primary target in the Forest of Spirits.
Boar were. She had to get enough meat to satisfy the old man, after all, and no doubt get some supplies for herself, too. Mount Hylia didn't seem like a truly treacherous climb; the slopes neither exceptionally deep nor at too much elevation, but with only the Sheikah's strange, ancient magic keeping the cold at bay, it would not be a pleasant one, even if one wore appropriate clothing. She would need warm foods, too. Something fatty, rich in proteins, and plenty spicy to keep her body functioning right. It wasn't like she had a man's muscle mass to generate heat, after all.
She never even noticed the addition of a little golden pellet to her small satchel of them. The forest spirit whose home she had ransacked the night before shrugged as she moved away, and thought to itself that at least the spring cleaning was done, finally, before vanishing into the tree once more.
Zelda found the old man first, long before any boar or Bokoblin made itself known. He was tending a fire recently made, blowing gently on it to help expand the little flame on a larger log. Clearly, he had used the spot before, though. His campfire was much larger than the fire now, and filled with black ash and old coals. The many rocks that lined it were stained dark from smoke. One side of his camp was framed by a huge, scarred, half-rotted trunk, while another nearby was sheltered in part by a partial wall with an open archway door. Only half of that wall remained, with no walls in any other place, no roof, to tell her what the building might have been.
The old man himself looked up as she approached, giving a little wave. "I've a few more arrows there, and my spare bow if you wish. I have another at the cabin. I'm glad you took me up on the suggestion, Princess. I only ask that you be careful. A raging boar is no less dangerous than a red-skinned devil."
Zelda nodded, this time not questioning his intentions or generosity as she reached down to take up the bundle of ammunition and the hunter's bow. The craftsmanship was excellent, if simple, and far better than she could have made. With a casual motion, she removed the string from the Bokoblin bow and wound it around her wrist, then stored the lot in a loop with one of her bow's storage hangers. "A backup," she answered, to the silent question from the old man, "It's fraying, but in case I have one snap."
"Ah. Excellent thinking, Princess. They are often the first part of a bow to go, after all. Have you sufficient supplies for your hunting expedition?"
Zelda heard herself snorting, a sound that drew an amused chuckle from the old man as she twisted the pouch around to show him, "Five bows now, and none of Bokoblin make anymore. I've seventy arrows, and what you just gave me, plus nearly thirty enchanted ones."
The old man whistled, "You have been busy collecting them. That is more arrows than I have used in several months, and I'm a decent marksman these days, for all my eyes aren't what they once were."
Zelda could only shrug. "I feel more comfortable with a bow in my hand than any weapon I've found yet, even if I don't remember learning to shoot. They make for many dead Bokoblins before they have a chance to strike back, too. Most of my arrows are theirs, but they are at least cut from straight wood."
"Ah, yes. I've always found their bowyer work lacking, but they do make decent fletchers. If nothing else, you can always use their arrows to get more; after all, they aren't master-crafted. It isn't like I truly have room to talk, though, ho, ho! It took many years before I reached the level I have now, and that isn't all that impressive."
Zelda found herself grinning as she tested the draw on the 'spare' he had gifted her, "This is made for me, isn't it?"
"You've guessed right," the old man admitted, his smile kind even as the laughter died off quickly. "I have suspected you would soon awake for a few months now. I've been keeping a watch as best I was able, and as the exterior of the Shrine of Resurrection began coming to life... I prepared as I could."
"Thank you," she said, a wash of gratitude falling over her, "I don't even know you, but you've done so much for me."
The old man only waved off her concern. "The day that is no longer true likely comes sooner than you think. Once you've finished the little quest I gave you, I promise I'll tell you everything I can. More will be clear after that, I'm sure. You should get to hunting, though. The beasts of the forest are active at this time, and the Bokoblins less so. But a reminder, Princess- beware the hollow. The monster there is far beyond you or I together, I'm afraid."
"I will be careful," she said seriously, "Do you know the best places to find a boar?"
He shrugged, opening both hands wide, "All 'round here, in fact. They are likely quiet because of our yammering, but if you fall still you may hear one snuffling along soon enough. I'll go partake of my own hunting to the northeast. I suggest we divide and conquer, for now."
"Very well. I'll see you here soon then, or perhaps back at the cabin," Zelda said with a happy little grin. He returned the gesture, then, with a final glance at his fire to ensure it was still growing and would heat his pot well, he hurried into the forest, more or less in the direction she had come from.
Zelda wandered the forest for several hours, finding the place oddly peaceful. She, unfortunately, had a hard time recognizing boar spoor at first, and even their grunting as she moved quietly through the woods wasn't enough to alert her to their presence before they scented her. At least three times, the creatures had realized they were being hunted and torn off into the undergrowth before she could get more than a shot off. At least she'd been able to recover her lost arrows.
Finally, Zelda decided to change tactics and started looking for high ground. She found it in a spire of loose, jumbled boulders that seemed carved through the eons from layered bedrock, stacked higher and higher almost like a giant's cairn. Scrambling to the top, Zelda found herself higher than the trees of the woodland itself, but from there she could take easy stock of the situation.
There, the trail of smoke from the old man's camp. Beyond that, the tall, slanted tree she had slept beneath. There was a huge fallen monster of a tree that boar no doubt used to nest when they slept. A vast oak, with a bird's nest. Eggs, she thought hungrily, and acorns.
She found more than that, too. Boars, two of them, rutting beneath a Chickaloo tree for truffles or other mushrooms.
Zelda smiled as she slowly reached down to restring her trusty bow.
"Aim higher," a voice whispered in her ear as Zelda took position.
She screamed, and the arrow did indeed go higher, arcing out over the tree-line, possibly far enough to vanish beyond the edge of the plateau itself, several hundred feet away. Her elbow slashed out, and for a moment she thought she'd struck the old man who was only giving her advice.
But no... he was not there.
What was there was another diminutive forest spirit, leaf-mask and all, slammed into the stones of the pillar with all the force her surprise and shock could give her. "Oof," it said breathily as it slumped and slid to the grass, "That was hard! You are strong, Princess. Ha, hah! Take my prize, you-" it coughed twice, weakly, thinly, and held one arm over its little, wooden chest, "you- earned it..."
Then it swirled on one foot, fell to the earth, and vanished in a puff of leaves, leaving a single pellet behind.
Zelda felt a moment of panic as she thought she'd truly killed the creature, before she heard its soft giggle from somewhere nearby.
Her eyes narrowed, and while she did reach out to grab the seed it had left, she was already grumbling about the wasted arrow. She was already aiming higher, damn it. She could shoot!
Of course, it scared off the boar, too, by making her scream.
Little tricky bastard.
It took several deep breaths for her to calm down, but eventually the hunger of the pigs lured one out of hiding again. It took a few cautious steps forward, wide nose twitching as if searching for her, but Zelda knew she was downwind here, and far enough it might not consider her a threat anyway. With a few more calming, steadying exhalations, Zelda loosed...
And crowed as the beast tumbled to the earth after several ragged, shaky steps, the arrow lodged feathers-deep in one eye.
"Got it," she grunted, rising to her knees and hopping down, bow in one hand, before jogging forward.
It took her about two hours more to drag it back to the old man's camp. Thankfully, he was more than up to the task of showing her how to dress the thing properly. It was bloody, gruesome work that turned disgusting once he had emptied the thing's intestines to the ground through its anus, but Zelda knew the work was necessary.
Even if she was only taking a few pounds of the meat for herself, and all of that either leg-meat or from its haunches, Zelda had no desire to get some sort of disease from the digestive tract infecting other things.
And thankfully, yet again, the old man had done all the actual work, so she was only dirty from the forest itself as she moved back to the west once more. The old man had, after showing her the fieldwork, offered to cart the beast back to his cabin alone and promised to meet her there the next day to see the wondrous meal she had somehow gotten out of his half-written instructions.
Zelda had only smiled, nodded, and promised she would be there. If not the next day, no more than one after that. At this point, she was more than willing to finish off the unexplored lower reaches of the plateau, clearing out the last few Bokoblin camps in return for the favor of the far bloodier boar-dressing he had done.
More than a fair trade, to her.
With her satchel overflowing with more acorns, eggs, Chickaloo nuts, Stamella mushrooms, and Hylian mushrooms, she had made short work of the first of those camps. Doing so had cost her the spear's haft, leaving a barely-useful leaf tip head and splinters, but the opal she had found in their magically-locked chest was probably worth it, if she could find a tradesman. And while the club she replaced the longer weapon with certainly hit harder, it still just did not feel right to hold one. At least she had gotten another ten or more arrows from them.
Even a few fireflies made their way, caught by hand, into her growing stash of strange belongings, though they were added to her monster part collection. The box, at least, she hoped would keep them mostly intact. Some more honeycomb, a few rare-looking, bell-shaped flowers of a beautiful night-sky blue color, which she took only because they were beautiful, and a strange, white-glowing mushroom, just one, that she found toward the western end of the Forest of Spirits made her wonder if it was, in part, the reason for the name. It was almost ghostly how it glowed, but it was, in the end, just a mushroom, and one she thought might be edible.
The yellow flower, spotted on one end of the massive tree she had gone looking for to find more nesting boars, was a bit more of a problem.
Her hand had reached out for it easily enough. A bright yellow daisy, she thought, only wishing to smell it at first.
Then it vanished a moment before her hand made contact.
Zelda's brow wrinkled, and she heard a little giggle.
Looking up, eyes narrowed in confusion, Zelda spotted another one a bit further into the log. She swiped again, faster, and the flower vanished.
Another appeared, as if by magic, twenty steps further. Zelda moved cautiously, nonchalantly, and then reached out slowly, slowly...
Poof, no flower.
"Are you another of the forest spirits...?"
Her question was not answered.
But the flower, the same flower she now realized, appeared further still, toward the stump of the great forest-king whose corpse she now stood in the middle of.
Now Zelda ran. To the right, the left, jumping back and forth as she chased it, the flower moved. Then, finally, a sigh... and it reappeared, but now white with a yellow center instead of yellow with a white center. "Are... are we done?"
She was gasping, panting, laughing at herself for the sheer, simple fun of playing a game of tag with a vanishing flower. And when she reached out for it, Zelda half-expected the flower to vanish again.
She was not disappointed. At least, this time, one of the creatures did appear, depositing another golden pellet in her hand before vanishing, clearly breathing hard as she was, still laughing.
"At least that was mostly fun," Zelda said with a tired chuckle, wiping a hand over her brow to clear it of a light sheen of sweat. The sun was high now, and she thought it was just after noon.
A few more hours and she'd actually be ready for bed.
If felt like Zelda had, over the first half of the day, nearly run the length and breadth of the eastern side of the Forest of Spirits a couple of times over, and her legs were starting to feel the strain, but nothing truly great yet. That was when she realized she was surrounded, truly surrounded, by two dozen large, red-capped mushrooms, and she had been walking downhill for a good ten minutes.
It was also when the very ground itself lurched beneath her feet.
Zelda ran and ran, ignoring the groan of trees and the grinding of stone on stone in favor of survival.
Stupid, stupid, how could you forget? You've been warned so many times, Zelda! Don't go into the hollow in the Forest of Spirits! That beast is beyond you! Stupid!
While she did not dare look back until the sounds had quieted down, Zelda ran until the hulking, groaning, thudding steps of the great beast had halted, turned, and then started to take huge, rumbling steps further away rather than after her.
Zelda finally stopped running after it had faded into the distant silence. All around her, the animals of the forest were just as quiet, even the leaves were silent as she was.
Zelda sighed, then slowly picked herself up off the ground from where she had landed, cowering against another oak stump.
Then she fell immediately into regret. She had no idea where she was. The largest landmarks were evident, of course. Mount Hylia was still snow-capped, and she stood in its foothills. The edge of the plateau wasn't that far off, and beyond that, other massive terrain features gave her at least a sense of direction, but Zelda didn't think she was even on the same side of the woods anymore.
At any rate, in the shadow of the mountain, the air was dryer, and the grass, too.
At the end of the little vale she found herself near, Zelda could see another of those strange, skull-shaped rocks, too, with other Bokoblins around it. This time, more. Two blue ones, she thought, though it was hard to tell even shielding her eyes against the now late-afternoon sun, with a small army of red-orange-skinned creatures at their beck and call.
A heavy challenge, to be sure, but Zelda did want to try. If nothing else, it would help make the old man's stay on the plateau a bit safer if there were no enemies left to threaten him.
Zelda's hands tightened around her club as she moved in, the dry, wheat-like grass rough and sharp as it moved against her bare arms and chin.
Then it occurred to her that even sneaking close to them was dangerous. With an almost sadistic grin, though she couldn't have identified it as such, Zelda reversed course. True, this method would cost her precious resources, but she had a little to spare now.
Once she was well clear of the patch of dried grasses in the ravine, Zelda strung her trusty bow once more, and pulled out a very specific arrow.
The fire-colored red gem lit up, shining brightly, as she knocked the arrow. "Perfect," she whispered, before taking careful aim and letting fly.
She needn't have bothered being careful.
The blast radius wasn't large exactly, a mere fifteen or twenty feet across, but Zelda saw the dry grass go up like... it was, in fact, dry grass.
Within thirty seconds, the near edge had burned out, but she was able to trace, inch by inch, but more than five feet a second, as the fire-line raced upward into the narrow, twisting canyon. Soon, she could see leaves and chaff from the grass being sucked upward with the updraft the wildfire, small though it was, had caused. It even whipped her hair with it.
Then there was an explosion, loud enough that for a moment, Zelda thought the great spirit of the earth had awoken once again.
But no... it had come from ahead. And there, a plume of smoke, almost mushroom-shaped!
She crowed with victory, and, holding a hand over her mouth to help mask the smell of charcoal and smoke, she started jogging up and in.
There wasn't much left of the camp: a few burning clubs, a charred bow, a sachet of arrows, not even really a quarter-quiver. But those were pocketed along with the charred remains of a few Bokoblins, and more protected an iron chest that still glowed somewhat red after the explosion. Carefully, Zelda popped the hinges with a stick she had to go back and fetch from the forest, and was rewarded with another bundle of the very same arrows she had just used one of to claim them: Fire arrows.
With what she'd just used, she now had nearly a full quiver of those alone. Zelda stashed the lot away, then did her best to hurry downwind and out of the narrow, dry ravine. The burning grass stench was bad enough, but many of the Bokoblins hadn't had time to vanish, and they smelled rancid after being cooked alive.
From there, Zelda moved north, having gained her bearings, and back into the western reaches of the woods. A tall spire was her next goal, some strange construction of one tall hexagon-shaped cylinder blocked on top of another, thirty, forty, maybe fifty of them high and each two or more feet long. The gaps between the blocks showed that many, many long years had passed since they were arranged that way, but somehow the pillar itself stood tall and straight. The craftsmanship alone, the design... the builders must have been phenomenal architects, Zelda heard her own inner monologue say, as if from either yesterday or a century in the past. And at the top, a wider spot, as if for a bird to roost.
Zelda would have thought a little more of it, if she hadn't already seen the top parts of a chest at the top, too, when she was leaving the canyon.
Making it to the top was tough, difficult, and the largest unbroken drain on Zelda's endurance that she had yet faced, but she had done it all in one go, with no breaks.
It still left her panting for more than a half-hour while she tried to rub life back into her aching, shaking arms before she bothered with the chest itself.
The measly ten arrows, half a full quiver, and old, broken bow of some mysterious but once-fine make were not worth it, she decided, but at least it was more than she had before.
And the pillar was a decent spot for a nap... as long as she tied herself to the chest so she didn't roll off.
Again, Zelda was fairly certain she wasn't afraid of heights. That sudden stop at the end of one could be a killer, though, so some precautions were necessary.
Even if tying oneself to a stone lockbox was a bit much, she was quite a ways off the ground, and simply did not care not to.
Eventually, though, she had to make her equally laborious way back down, and keep moving.
It wasn't long before she ran into another large camp, this time on the far side of a pond. At least now, knowing- remembering she had a map, Zelda could identify it as the furthest west in the Forest of Spirits. She was near the western edge of the entire plateau, and if she read the terrain right, it wouldn't be long before she either had to turn back or start heading upward. First, though, she had Bokoblins to kill.
At least six, so a smaller camp than the last time, but she would have no convenient terrain features to burn them all alive with. As she continued scouting, moving slowly around the noisome creatures, she counted seven, not six, in all. Three of them stood on watchtowers, just as wakeful and alert as any others she'd seen taking up the rudimentary but quite serviceable posts, while the other four either foraged nearby or cooked their basic meals around a central fire. She could see from the start another of their strange, face-like chests, no doubt locked by magic too.
Which meant that, even aside from making the place safer for the old man, this would probably be worth it for her, too.
At least if it didn't kill her.
But Zelda had already learned that she did not excel at stand-up fights.
The watchers were removed first; an arrow or two was more than enough to take them down without the alarm being blown. It took longer, yes, but Zelda knew that time was her ally now. At least in the short term. As long as the mysterious Hero could hold out against the Calamity, anyway. Once the creatures began to fall asleep, it would be much easier for her.
She didn't wait that long, though. The princess had far better tools than she'd started with, after all, and some of them in what looked like limitless supply.
When the first round bomb rolled into the camp from a little way up the hill, they stared at it carefully. After a few moments, one of them dismissed the thing as it rolled to a halt. Another snorted, sniffed at it once, then turned away as well. A third growled, then stood up and stalked toward it on stumpy bowed legs, hissing and snarling while the last watched. No one even raised an eye to the now-empty watchtowers.
Just as the angry Bokoblin pulled back a foot to give the bomb a kick, Zelda pressed the button that made it explode.
She felt quite satisfied watching the nearest one get turned into a fine red mist, gone before it could even begin to turn to smoke. The next nearest, perhaps six feet away, was hurled against the short tower on which their chest rested. Its back bent horrifically, snapping loudly, she was sure, though Zelda couldn't hear it over the ringing in her ears. It was smoke before it hit the ground. The next, the one who had ignored it entirely, was thrown from its crouch to skid in the dirt, finally coming to a halt several feet away before shrieking in pain and lunging up, one arm bent at an odd angle and clearly broken.
The last probably suffered the least from the remote bomb, but it was still hurled ass-over-teakettle into the nearby pond.
That was how Zelda learned that Bokoblins, at least this one, couldn't swim. It sank quickly despite a truly valiant effort to keep afloat, and had dog-paddled maybe two feet closer to the shore once again before it finally sank beneath the burbling, rippled water and didn't come back up. A few minutes later, thankfully, a horn, two teeth, and a sinewy, ropey intestine or other tube, still twitching, did.
Zelda picked it up out of the slow, gentle waves as they were blown to shore with revulsion, wondering why she was so sure all these monster parts were useful. They were awfully macabre trophies otherwise.
Somehow, the one with the broken arm had proven the largest threat. It had the wherewithal to strap a shield to its shattered limb all the same, grunting and hissing in pain as it did, then lunging at her with a club swinging wildly. It missed Zelda's face by less than an inch, so fast that her nose felt cold as it whipped by, and she felt a few long, golden strands rip from her scalp with the force of it. Her own answering blow was a bit weaker and slower, perhaps, but better timed, and it came up into the Bokoblin's now well-extended healthy elbow.
Once it was broken too, finishing the creature off was almost anticlimactic.
The princess wasn't an abundance of resources richer by the time the latest camp had been cleared, but another twenty arrows on top of what she'd used (one of which she was even able to recover intact, if a bit bloody), but Zelda had also claimed another of the pretty raw opals they seemed to like to collect, replaced her club with a newer one, and got a bit of meat that wasn't over- or under-cooked for dinner, too. It was bland, but filling... even if she was sure she'd be sick of eating boar soon.
She was about to turn east once more and head back to the old man's cabin when the whirr of a beetle's wings caught her eye. Far from simply reaching out and catching the rugged-looking rhino beetle as it started to take flight (and feeling inordinately proud of herself for pulling that off without hurting herself, too!), Zelda took only a moment to add its useful parts to her elixir collection when she noticed what she was looking at.
A winding path moving up the rocky slopes to the south... and on the west side of the mountain, flanked on the far side by the palisade walls of the plateau itself. The path looked fairly well-trod, at least mostly grass-free, unlike much of the rest of the plateau.
Did that mean other civilizations? Was she- and the old man- not the only ones on the flat mountain top?
The adventurous princess didn't know, but she did know one good way to find out.
Even though she quickly found the trail somewhat paved with stairs, it was more overgrown with grass and mud and the ages than anything more solid. At least it was partially shaded by the now-setting sun, giving her a bit of cool air (which also blew down from the heights) to relieve Zelda of the sweat that soon started to build in her body.
She did not expect what she saw on reaching the end of that trail, though.
The meadow, filled with the strange medicinal herbs in an almost garden-like way, if that garden had been left unattended for a century, she might have found normal enough. Even a few apple trees. The cliffs and ledge of the greater mountain beyond, the west face of it she thought, were normal enough too.
The path even continued on, higher and now south.
The campfire, burning merrily with no one around,+ was very strange, though.
She approached warily, but found no other sign of habitation. No tracks, no food, no leftover cooking utensils... only a fresh fire.
After staring at it cautiously for a few minutes, Zelda decided that she would be forced to deal with a ghost if there was one, and carefully stepped closer. A minute later, she dared to slowly slide her satchel from her shoulder, eyes roving cautiously around the meadow.
But no threat materialized, neither ghost nor Bokoblin.
Eventually, the neatly-organized but small stack of firewood told Zelda that whatever had lit this fire was returning, so she pulled out the sharpest rock she'd found yet for a makeshift knife to start, and finished with one of her better arrowheads, using the thing to carve out a pair of roasting sticks.
Two hours later, she gave up waiting for a mysterious companion and ate the share of food she had made for them, too.
It wouldn't do to let it burn or go to waste. She could use the fuel, at any rate.
Eventually, curled up in her dress once more, but with the fire warming her against the steady night wind, Zelda fell asleep once more.
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