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. 9:
Rigid Ridgeland
Circling the meadow, Zelda found herself the next morning high above the charred, burned-out skull she had set ablaze the previous afternoon, the smell of smoke a little muted but still very plain in the air.
She was now following not so much the hint of civilization the trail and then the strangely-lit fire (which had burned through the night on little fuel that she had added, but was now just coals already banked by her), but a glint of metal. Possibly raw ore against the mountain, yes, but the ledge ran straight there, she thought, around the upper ends of that same ravine.
But no. Of course it didn't.
Simply walking along the ledge that climbed a little higher as it wound around the mountain's northwest slopes would have been too easy, and Zelda was not allowed to have things easy.
"At least it's only about forty feet up, and it seems a far easier- if less stable- climb than up that pillar to those measly arrows before."
The gap she would have to shimmer by was about eight feet wide, too far for her to jump and land safely without a ledge at least as wide as her foot. If she were able to tuck and roll on the far side, Zelda was sure she could do it at a run with no problem. But jumping that gap onto an overhanging cliff face with a much longer drop below was...
Treacherous, at best. She was no great mountain climber, and no goat.
Slow and steady up the side of the cliff to her right it would have to be.
One aching foot after another grinding, worn finger getting caught in another craggy slot on the rocks. At least it held, instead of giving way, when the thing shifted under her weight.
Zelda was starting to hate climbing itself more than being high, but at least she got a small rush of satisfaction as, once again more tired and sore than she had realized at first, she rolled onto her back on the grassy stone of the higher ledge.
The sky and the clouds are beautiful, at least, she thought to herself. All blue, and white. There, she thought she might've even seen a hawk, but it was gone behind more fluffy white too soon.
Zelda waited until she'd caught her breath, then rolled over once more and levered herself to her feet.
The metal that had caught her eye was, unfortunately, all that was on the high ledge. It might once have been a shed, she thought, though why it was here she had no idea.
But now it was blocks, some three feet on a side, as long as one of her arms or a bit more. Sixteen in all, in two stacks of two by two by two, with one from the right side misplaced to lie awkwardly between them. Each of the blocks was identical on the three opposite faces. One side showed a swirl, rather like a mirrored version of the Fire arrows, one a geometric pattern that would have looked nice were it repeated, and the other circles, or perhaps they were meant to be bubbles, one within the other in three different sizes.
Zelda stared, wondering what the point of carving steel or iron blocks like this was, much less leaving them disorganized.
Then she realized that the blocks, while pitted and worn with age, were not made of steel or iron at all. They were stone, cleverly disguised as metal. All except the one in the middle.
The one that would replace the missing piece.
Her eyes narrowed. Still, though Zelda knew she would never be able to lift that hunk of solid steel on her own- it probably weighed more than she did several times over- she could cheat.
Magnesis rune active, Zelda maneuvered carefully and laboriously, until the block slotted just so.
At once, her mind, bothered by whatever strange puzzle that had been out of place, felt at peace. As she shut the rune down and set the Slate on her hip-belt once more, Zelda shivered with the sound of another high-pitched laugh from nearby. "Hahyaa! You found me and solved my clever puzzle! You're smart and strong, lady! That was cool magic. You can have my seed. Don't forget to give it to Hestu when you see hi-aaack!"
Zelda had lunged with both hands outstretched, seeking to grab the thing by the neck.
But it was gone in a poof of leaves, one more golden pellet falling into the grass at her feet.
"I'm really starting to hate those things," she muttered darkly. "If these things aren't actually gold and of fair value, I'm going to be really angry."
At least the annoyance made her brave enough to jump down to the ledge below, and the roll she had tucked into at the end was just enough to absorb her momentum, so the princess actually took the landing smoothly despite a full story and a half drop.
On and up Zelda climbed, taking note of the huge, miles-long series of suspension bridges following the canyon far below and to the west, and the strange, orange-glowing shrine much like the ones atop the plateau beneath the second to last strand, far beneath the tall, wide-topped pillars of stone.
Eventually, Zelda found the end of the trail atop the palisade wall itself. Ahead, there was another of those strange, roost-like pillars or watchposts, with another chest just visible at the peak. It rested part-way up the hilly slope. To the left, a mile or so distant, she could see the towers of another Bokoblin camp beneath the sun as it rose higher, possibly high above and a bit to the west of the Shrine of Resurrection. To her right, a large tree with a skull-decorated drawbridge of sorts leading up to a crude but sturdy-looking wooden platform. On that shelf, like a large monstrous tree-house, several Bokoblins were already sleeping.
Zelda wasted no time approaching, though she knew she had to be careful to catch them unawares.
Beyond that, already moving, Zelda could see a swiftly-moving, glacier-fed river with higher slopes and snow beyond. Ahead and up from there, the last of the plateau's shrines taunted her, high on a rocky butte.
Soon, I'll have the old man's warm clothing and warm, spicy meats to go with it.
Below the platform, there were several small spicy pepper bushes, a campfire still lit but smoldering, and a nearby cookpot on a stand, though that fire was cold.
There was not, however, a convenient way up.
The monsters were cleverer than she had thought, if they'd pulled up the entrance behind them.
Zelda looked around, further checking for another way, when she spotted it.
The crude, decorative framework that held the beast skulls near the top of the tree was not just decorative. The ropes also looped around and through it.
Ropes, as she had already discovered, could be cut with a simple arrow or two.
It might even be quiet enough that the monsters would still sleep.
The crash of the ramp might wake them, but... Zelda could deal with that, too.
Carefully, she calculated where she expected the thing to fall, then made a mark in the dirt with her boot. There, she placed a square bomb, and left it while she repositioned. If it was for naught, she could simply dispel the explosive later.
If the crashing noise woke them, well... hopefully she was right, and the first few would run right by the trap.
While her aim with the bomb itself was a bit off, the first three Bokoblins were either killed outright in one case or severely wounded in the other.
Unfortunately, while the wounded were easily dispatched, that left one archer and one blue-skinned boss at the top, completely unharmed.
And somehow, the archer had gotten lucky, sending a strip of wood and stone-tipped arrow into her right thigh.
Zelda shrieked as the last of the first three Bokoblins died, and in her fury, she tossed the stolen club she had used against the last one at the archer.
Somehow, spinning through the air, it smashed into the creature's nose. It cried out in pain and dropped the bow as it was flung from the platform entirely, but she knew it was not dead yet.
Hampered by the pain in her leg, Zelda's shield came up just in time to deflect but not completely absorb the blow from the mighty boss. It sent her crashing to her knee, the damage to her thigh worsening as the arrowhead tore into her muscle, and Zelda winced again. Another flash of pain hit her as the creature's hand caught her jaw, smashing her head to the side.
Another, sharper and dirty, as a second pair of fingers closed around her left arm, teeth baring down on the shield itself.
It splintered and broke as the club was wrested from her grip, now in the blue Bokoblin's hands. It snarled viciously, then reached down and tossed away the smaller, red Bokoblin.
Crying out in horrified betrayal, the smaller creature sailed out past the edge of the rocks and into the river, where it vanished with a splash.
Then, to her horror, the creature spoke. Its Hylian- or whatever language she and the old man spoke naturally- was broken, a rude, pidgin form, but understandable. "You pretty. Me enjoy ruining you."
With a lurch, the world shifted, and Zelda quickly realized she was, once again, on her back with a monster over her. But as the blue Bokoblin reached down for its loincloth, pulling the thing aside to reveal another little prick, she got a second shock.
It wasn't little. Instead, the blue Bokoblin's member was at least a few inches long, five maybe, and two or three fingers thick.
She, however, was no longer some wilting, damaged little girl with no resources of her own. So, even from her back, with the prospect of another rape ahead of her, Zelda chose to fight back.
Just within reach was another club from the first Bokoblins to come down the ramp. It fell into her grip easily enough, and though heavy, rose with shocking speed as her elbow whipped closed. Crack, the Bokoblin flew off of her, grunting as it was thrown to the side. Zelda rolled away twice, twisting as she did to land on one knee, right and facing the thing with her broken shield hanging awkwardly on one arm, and the also-cracked branch in the other. "Not as much as I'm going to enjoy ruining you," she snarled at it as the monster, too, leaped to its feet in a surprisingly dexterous move.
"Hah, hah," it grunted, then charged, both arms held out to grab her in a powerful bear hug.
It seemed the creatures, even the smarter blues, had no sense of self-preservation. Her own reach far exceeded its own. This last club was hurled with more purpose and aim, two-handed, overhead.
It swung with purpose, and though the shield bonked Zelda on her head on the downswing, she let go at the perfect moment to send the heaviest, thickest end straight into the Bokoblin's sternum.
Its forward momentum vanished as it hit the dirt, the back of its head striking first.
But she could see it was still moving, still up, still fighting.
Zelda released the crude catches on the broken bark-shield quickly, ignoring the stabbing pain in her thigh from the now broken arrow-shaft, and brought her shortsword out to play.
Underhanded, both fists curled tightly around the grip. She brought it down, stabbing twice, three times, ten, twenty times into the creature as it burbled and coughed crimson red up into her face.
"I don't like rapists," she whispered as, finally, the creature was allowed to die.
Mental scarring and trauma aside, Zelda found over the next twenty or so minutes as she scavenged the camp that it was a pretty good haul. Two chunks of amber, another bark shield but larger and framed with sturdy bone lashed to thicker pieces and with a better handle to boot, and a replacement bow for the last shoddy one she'd used to cut down the ramp were most of it. Discarding a couple of sharpened sticks for spears, another crappy bark-shield, a second more worthless bow, and the remnants of several past meals in a pile, Zelda was a bit happier to see a more sturdy, oil-wrapped torch, and no doubt the prized weapon of the blue Bokoblin itself, though it had fought her without it:
A soldier's blade.
No mere short sword, this was the sidearm of a professional warrior. Not too heavy to use, though a bit heavier than her liking, with a broad blade about three feet long and a comfortable, practical hand-and-a-half grip. The weapon was plain but quite serviceable, and in good shape, too. Not that she was any expert, but Zelda could, she thought, at least identify a well-maintained weapon.
It was, without a doubt, the best thing in her arsenal, except perhaps the feathered spear and the heavy war- or mining-hammer.
Between the three, it was probably in the middle as far as ease of use, but Zelda quickly found with a few practice swings that, while yes, it was heavy, it wasn't as bad as she'd feared. It would be decent with a shield, at least.
The peppers, mushrooms, and other things the creatures had been eating that were worth saving, Zelda took up too, but soon she was ready to move on. At least, she had been until she realized that poor Bokoblin (who had been about to die anyway) hadn't been thrown into the river, but down the entire plateau. Just north of the camp, the river she had spotted dropped away, down, down into a raging cataract. She stepped to the edge carefully, wary of slipping rocks, but they were dry here, at least. The princess had no idea how far the water dropped, but she guessed down to the river below that had held the shrine on its little island. The water's surface was hundreds and hundreds of feet down, if it was one.
The falls were at least fifty, maybe eighty or more, feet across, and many times that downward. Almost from the top, a cold mist rolled off of them, but she didn't dare get too close. Even from here, she could feel the biting winds of the snow just across the river. No... until she got that outfit from the old man, she'd be staying on this side. Besides, that bridge she could just make out didn't look very sturdy, and she did not want to plunge into a frigid river moving that fast just above a waterfall with an effectively lethal drop.
No... she'd stick to this side and the safer route up, even if she was so close to the shrine now.
She could even see a path on this side of the butte leading up there, much like the one she'd just climbed to the meadow, between the mountain and the wall's higher sections.
But she was not suicidal.
The second roost-tower, Zelda found, was much easier to scale. True, her arms still burned, but it was at least fifteen feet shorter, and she barely needed a break to recover before taking her hands to the task of opening the small chest there.
It was rotten food, and a single bundle of five arrows. Nothing special... like the last one. The princess sighed in frustration, then decided to at least use the excellent high point to get the lay of the land.
Almost directly to the east, a mile and maybe a quarter more distant, the hills seemed to peak before turning to the left, where an outcropping ridge held the same Bokoblin camp the sun had almost hidden before, an hour back now. Beyond that, she suspected it continued on, for Zelda had seen hills along the ridge stretching between here and the rocky land by the Temple of Time. To the south of that ridge, in which the Shrine of Resurrection lay, it was easy to see the mist-shrouded valley that the map on the Slate said contained the Funeral Lake, and the swift but short River of the Dead. Appropriately named, she thought, given how lethal swimming in it would be. That was a long drop for a very numbed body to make.
Beyond that, a shoreline leading up to several trails or valleys that climbed the highest points of Mount Hylia itself.
As far as mountains went, Zelda decided it wasn't that impressive, for all that it was snow-capped. Three peaks, the central highest and the one where the shrine said the lowest, in a gentle arc, all framed by gray skies and the walls of the plateau's barbican defenses. It would have been a truly awesome redoubt against any sort of mundane invasion, she was sure, but against the Calamity...
Even this mighty fortress had probably not lasted more than a few days.
But Zelda could not dwell on that.
Instead, she had to move. It was already cold, and the night was approaching. Still below the snow-line, she had no desire to be anywhere near it without some protection against the elements, especially as overcast as it was. Snow would be the worst in the thin cotton shirt she wore.
It took a mere twenty minutes to jog her way up the gentle, grass- and flower-strewn slope to the highest parts of the ridge, but another forty just to clear out the single sentry of the camp on its tower. The thing was quite watchful, and Zelda didn't want to give it any warning that danger was coming.
Worse, it only had to watch one approach.
Still, it was felled easily enough once the creature finally turned away, allowing Zelda to crawl closer to the last three monsters.
One, she was particularly wary of. It was a red one, just like the others, but it carried a long, twisted stick for a spear, and it kept poking the thing into the fat dripping out of their meal, then into the fire to set it alight. It watched the mass burn until the oil was gone, then repeated the process. She was sure it would hurt all the worse if she let the thing stab her with actively burning pig-fat.
She was able to get quite close without that one watchful sentry, though, and a single well-placed bomb either sent the creatures to their master in an instant, or blew them off the entire cliff to tumble in free-fall, she suspected, all the way to the Forest of Spirits far below.
A fitting, painful end. True, it left her with less in the way of rewards, but Zelda didn't truly care to carry around a thousand bits of every monster she came across. Even the weapons weren't truly worth picking up, aside from a few fresh apples, one wrapped baked one, and a few more arrows to replace what she'd used in the camp below and with their lone guard.
But the locked chest, at least, that had held a half-quiver of ten arrows and another huge chunk of amber the size of her big toes, Zelda thought, was worth at least something, in addition to the increased safety on the plateau.
Down and east she jogged or walked when it was too steep, trying to actively work on her stamina. Zelda didn't know if it was having any effect, but she had to try. Walking everywhere, while it might save her pain, would only make things take longer. So jogging it was.
She almost ran right by the next Bokoblin camp.
Only their howls of laughter at some crude joke one had made caused the princess to skid to a halt, the short sword climbing into her hand almost of its own volition.
But the creatures hadn't spotted her. Instead, through a few trees, she could see them still clutching their hands to their paunchy little bellies as they laughed around the fire at the center of their camp. She debated, this time, rushing in. Surely she could handle three? She'd already done it a few times. But no... there were still easier ways, and her resources were not infinite.
Except for the bombs.
Tabbing over to the round Remote Bomb rune, Zelda carefully aimed, hoping she was reading the slope right, then nudged the thing down the long hill with her doeskin boot. When it was ten feet away and starting to pick up speed, bouncing a little along the grass, she ducked down. The Bokoblins, if they looked, would still be able to see her, but only if they looked straight at her. At least, that's what Zelda hoped.
With one hand on the trigger for the Slate, she waited, and waited...
No.
That bomb, unfortunately, curved to the right and straight off the cliff.
With a sigh, Zelda detonated it, so far away she couldn't even hear more than the faint puff of a far-distant explosion. She tried again, but this time the bomb went to the right. Somehow, the Bokoblins spotted it, and two jumped to their feet to chase the thing, but neither got in range as she tensed up before that one, too, rolled off the cliff.
With a frown, the Princess grumbled, "One more time, then I'll try getting closer."
Repositioning herself further east in a stand of pine trees that nestled nearby, Zelda tried again, this time actually bowling the bomb underhanded as she sent it between a small gap and down a stair-step little gorge less than three feet wide. She heard its almost hollow-sounding bump, bump as it bobbed and bounced, then "Hraraargh? Whuzzat?"
"Blue!"
"Me take!"
"No- Me!"
Perfect. Even without seeing the things, Zelda knew she was close enough. Boom!
With another huge sound, she saw bits of Bokoblin fly past the rocks into the air, a club to the right, and a leg, she thought, to the left.
With a grin, Zelda stood and loped down the slope.
What she saw in the ruins of the camp made her smile widen further. Two of the creatures still lived, but one was missing both legs from the knee down, and the other had half its torso caved in, and was scrabbling forward toward the fire with one broken, shattered arm dragging behind it.
With a snarl of revenge and rage, Zelda brought her sword down on both. Only the second even noticed she was there, and it let out a whimper of almost relief as it finally died. She, honestly, didn't care. She could put it out of its misery for now, if only to save it from the remote possibility of breeding later.
Unfortunately, while her guile had let her dispatch this camp as easily as any other, there was nothing to show for it aside from the Bokoblin teeth and horns themselves. And without even one of the bodies, that was a scant reward indeed.
Finally, a glance at Zelda's map told her she was over the Shrine of Resurrection itself. She'd nearly canvassed the entire plateau, everything that wasn't behind the barrier of warmth or across the freezing river. It was also already the end of the day in which she'd told the old man she'd meet him at this cabin, but time was wearing on.
She had one more task to do before heading there, at any rate, and just one place to do it.
At least it was on the way.
It took the princess nearly two hours to pick her way carefully down the ridge, following a snow-melt stream and gravity alone, to reach the upper cliffs over the small pond west of the Temple. From the new vantage point, Zelda saw several features she had not seen when she'd first come across the body of water.
The northeast corner was filled with lily-pads, several of which were arranged in a suspicious circle. A rocky island at the center of the pond, probably just within swimming range if she didn't freeze, had a sword, of all things, sticking out of the ground. And beyond that, just out of sight from where she had filled her water skin so many days ago- was it a week, already? It was hard to tell- was a rocky crag that partially buried a cart.
Someone had died while resting there, it seemed.
But that meant there might be other things there than bones, too.
And Zelda could always use a weapon, even if she was mostly back here for a different reason. Before moving on, Zelda took out her water skin once more, filling the internally large container with the slow trickle of the snow-made stream as best she could, where it fell over a few rocks before falling into the pond itself, then starting moving north.
Before long, she was standing atop the very stones where she'd met the old man, but even a hands-around-her-mouth call hadn't netted a response, so she assumed he was far off. Likely, she knew, at the cabin itself, waiting for her.
So Zelda began to do what she had wanted to in the first place.
Even if it was all she remembered, Zelda had no desire to be covered in grime and the dust of the road any longer. She desperately needed a bath, and not because she stank. ...Though the princess noticed with a grimace as she lifted an arm, she did.
So desperately, in fact, that she decided she no longer cared if the old man, or anyone, really, got an eye-full. Taking care to leave a few weapons at hand, Zelda stripped down to her underthings, organized the lot in a crag except for the throwing spear and a shield- it would help keep her afloat if she needed a rest, after all- and dove into the water.
She broke the surface twenty seconds later, gasping for air, shivering from the cold already, and loving it. "It's amazing," she cried, before taking a deep breath and diving once more.
All around her there were fish, too unused to people to even be afraid (though they were cautious enough to maintain some distance) swimming. Green scales and blue, orange and pink, over the lake-weeds and amidst them, around the rocks. Zelda swam quickly, powerfully, more alive than she would have expected as the bracing-cold water enveloped her, until she realized that this, too, was something that came naturally. She loved it, cold and all!
She could already feel the sweat-caked dirt and mud, stains of grass and salt, washing away. Too, the darker browns of bacteria left her body as Zelda, without any soap but with mud and dogweed gathered from the shore alone, scrubbed her entire body until it shone red despite the cold.
But, all too soon, the temperature started getting to her as the first few stars began to show in the twilight. Before she left the pool, though, Zelda, still clad only in her sodden underthings, climbed up onto the rocky spire and took a closer look at the sword. While the basic design was identical to her soldier's sidearm, this one was clearly in worse shape. The grip had degraded to scraps of barely-there cloth, and the blade was pitted and rusty. A few tugs were enough to free it from the mud in which it was stuck, but even doing that made some of the rust flake off, and the blade lost about an eighth of an inch of depth. It was still sharp, but...
"Just not in good enough condition," Zelda muttered darkly, then tossed the thing. On a whim, she aimed at the circle of leaves... and was shocked when, in a puff of green smoke, another of the strange forest-creatures appeared.
Like the rest, it was green-masked, but this one's covering was as long as its entire, two-foot body. It flew on one of the same two-leafed, spinning magical... things, hovering over the water to give her a seed before it vanished, too.
"Weird little things," Zelda muttered, shaking her head. "At least it didn't seem to care that I was nearly naked."
It was easy enough to return to the shore and dress once more, but this time as Zelda moved toward the Temple of Time, she stopped and moved along the narrow shore from where she'd filled her water skin the first time to where that cave-in was.
In the end, she decided it was too much work to do by hand. But a pair of bombs, one square and one round, detonated at the same time while tucked into the rocks of the landslide...
No, that would do the job nicely.
The concussive blast even gave her a few dead frogs floating up to the surface to have for dinner, even if their legs were small.
There wasn't much left of the caravan, but a half-smashed lockbox buried deep contained a few crumbled gemstones, and another opal, small but beautifully cut, caught her eye as she picked up the lot. The rest, unfortunately, was probably worthless. As well, the overhang left by the landslide seemed both stable and deep enough to provide shelter...
"No," Zelda decided. "It's late, and I'm cold. I don't want to continue to the cabin tonight. I'll go first thing in the morning. It's not much, and I still can't make a fire, but it's at least out of the night breeze."
It took her some time to fall asleep, but eventually the princess did just that.
