A/N: 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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Chap. 23
Equinamity
Zelda blushed as she gave a greeting nod and smile to Paya, unable to stop herself from remembering in precise, unerring detail exactly what the rivulets of water that flowed down Paya's body as she bathed looked like the night before, but forced calm and politeness in her voice as the taller woman led her once more into the depths of the manor house she shared with Impa.
After a quick goodbye and a wish for Zelda to return and visit when she was able, she made her way out of Kakariko after the longest period of peace Zelda had experienced since waking.
While there, she had reminded Impa once more of the dangerous camps of Bokoblins in the mountains to the south, but promised her that she would help thin their numbers at least on the way through.
Her first stop was the Pillars of Levia. Zelda, tired and bone-achingly sore, felt herself quite an accomplished mountain climber when she finally crested the highest of those spires, perhaps three hundred feet below the top of the tallest peak on the other side of Kakariko Canyon, at the height of Bonooru's Stand. The mountain peak was narrow, perhaps only fifteen feet on a side and sloped with a bit of rough sage grass the only bit of vegetation. Still, there was one stone that rested at the very top, not sunk into the ground more than a few inches.
And that made Zelda pause as she caught her breath. Why was the rock not half-buried? Certainly the mountain itself was very rocky, but there was enough dirt for the grass to grow, yet the stone had not sunken into it with the passing of... years, if the moss told her anything.
Zelda nudged it with her boot, "Interesting."
And then a high laugh made her jump, and nearly tumble backward off the mountain itself. "Yah-hah-hah!"
"Fucking Koroks," she growled as she caught herself with a hand fisted in the grass and on one knee, "Stop startling me like that!"
"Sorry, lady," the tall, long-masked green spirit said as it faded into view, not sounding that way at all, "You surprised me too, when you made my house bounce! But since my brothers and sisters told me you're finding us for big brother Hestu, I'm gonna give you a seed now, okay?"
Then he was gone in a puff of leaves, and she watched yet another little golden nugget drop to the ground next to the stone, glinting in the morning sun.
It had been more than a day since she left Kakariko, and the Korok's strange, squeaky voice was the first she had heard aside from the bone-clattering laughter of a pair of Stalkoblins she had fended off the night before, but Zelda was still glad to see him go. She didn't mind the Koroks themselves, but she felt their tricks and pranks childish and immature.
They were, she suspected, actually children, if Hestu, with his size, was their 'big brother'. That made sense, at least.
Still, she reached down and took the stinking piece of... whatever it was and added it to her once again growing collection. She had thirty now, so if she ever did find the giant Korok once more, Zelda hoped he would be able to do more for her than the measly few improvements he had made to her satchel so far. As useful as those were (and Zelda was still very grateful for them), she wanted more. She needed more.
From there, far to the south, she could just see the Dueling Peaks Stable with her Slate's scope, and the Ha Dahamar Shrine near it. For a few moments, Zelda debated simply using the Travel Gate there, but decided against it. As long as the Bokoblins were still a threat to travelers, she could not just teleport around what was left of Hyrule. She would have to kill as many as she could, and that meant going on foot. Or maybe on horseback, she decided, once more casting an eye to the Blatchery Plain where she knew several small herds roamed.
But the Bokoblins had to come first... as soon as she found their main camp.
Her fight with the Stalkoblins had gained her- not lost- more than fifteen arrows since she'd been forced to catch several on her wooden targe, and it was near useless by the time she'd felled the archer of the pair. The other had carried a club and a simple bark shield just like the ones on the Plateau had. She left the former (and the bow), but took the shield as a poor replacement. All in all, since she'd gained enough Fangs from the skeletal creatures to at least improve one of her standard adventurer's garb's pieces and arrows besides, Zelda considered it at least a fair trade, and she might have come out on top.
Thanks to a trio of suspiciously-placed trees and even more suspicious fruit, Zelda obtained another Korok Seed soon after, and refilled her supply of Chu cores (not that she was low) from a pair of larger blue ones that popped out of the grass nearby in the saddle-valley the trees rested in.
It took another miserable, rain-soaked day for Zelda to reach Kakariko Canyon, and she was forced to wait there near where she had been ambushed previously (there were no signs of Bokoblins that she could find, and she did indeed look) while the rain stopped and the sun dried up the leftover moisture in a fine, silvery mist through the next morning before she climbed the other side.
It had been around here, she knew, that Zelda had also followed Bubmin's instructions and found the road once more. She was not that far away, then, from where he had rescued her. Would she see the now-blue Bokoblin again?
… Did she want to?
He was still a monster... but he had saved her from a brutal, terrifying fate. Yes, she had saved him first, twice in fact, spared him from torture at the hands of his own kind. He had died saving her, though she mostly believed he would have been revived in the Blood Moon the next night, as would the rest of his kin.
But he was a Bokoblin. A monster. A threat, to her and all of Hyrule.
… He was also a traitor to his people, she reminded herself, and had died in rescuing her from impossible odds, freeing her from an impossible situation. True, if he was a traitor once he could betray her, too.
Would he? She didn't know, and didn't want to really find out. But, Zelda decided, she would... she would at least give him a chance. He deserved that much, after saving her. Didn't he? Blue Bokoblins were far stronger, yes, but also smarter than their orange-red skinned kin. If he was blue now, did that mean he was able to communicate better? Think more? Plan? Would he...
"Would he fight beside me, if I asked?" Zelda wondered.
She didn't know... but she had a sneaking suspicion he would, if she ever had the opportunity to ask. Somehow, she thought she might, even if she had no particular reason to feel that way.
She tracked mountain boar and goats upward into the steep-walled valleys between the great spire-mountains of Bonooru's stand for more than a day into increasingly cold air before she found the tracks of Bokoblins mixed among them. Better, so far as she could tell they were fresh, the clawed shapes dug deep into the soft, wet mud after the rain of the previous day. "They're close," she concluded, and immediately started looking for higher ground lest she be ambushed again... and, of course, to better spot their base camp from.
Zelda had hunted more than a few goats and boar already, and a few more herons for their delicious meat as well, so she was actually adding to her stores of food rather than depleting it. She was not going to eat any of it raw unless she had to, though, and did not dare start even a small cookfire while there were probably a great many Bokoblins nearby. After they had been dealt with, that was a different matter.
The tracks led up and east, higher into a wide valley that moved off into unknown territory on the Sheikah Slate's map, but Zelda was reasonably confident she could find her way back even without it, since there were several useful landmarks nearby, and the group of five or six Bokoblins who had made the trail were not bothering to be stealthy. The spoor lead directly from one end of the valley to the other in a more or less straight line, only varying for minor inconveniences of terrain. So she climbed high to the north, glad the rocks at least had been dried, and eventually left even the last bits of valley mist behind.
She even came across a pool of swiftly-running water just teeming with Staminoka Bass and Mighty Carp that a few well-placed bombs netted her a healthy weeks-long ration of, and all without completely clearing the pond so it could repopulate.
Then she found the camp itself. Judging by her position on the dark areas of the map, she was perhaps six miles from the edge of where she already had found a Tower for, and two days south-east of Kakariko in the rough terrain, just on the east side of what she assumed were still the rocky peaks of Bonooru's Stand. Far to the east now another great edifice of rock rose, jagged and almost covered in spikes of stone, high above even the tallest of the mountains she had been on in the last week, higher even than the Dueling Peaks' upper summit by several hundred feet. Glacier ice and snow covered the lot, so it was still below the clouds-line, but not by much Zelda guessed.
Something about the mountain called to her, but Zelda was forced to put it from her mind by the more immediate matter.
That camp was, fortunately, not as large as she had feared. Perhaps there was another nearby, but Zelda didn't think so, somehow. A dozen red-skinned beasts went about their business, lazing in the shade, or cooking, or cavorting, or in one cases, crafting one of their poor bows around a clearing a few dozen feet on a side, nestled in a small nook between three cliffs. Only two blue Bokoblins were present, on opposite sides, and even though Zelda spent nearly an hour creeping carefully around in a full circle to watch for towers or guards, none of them seemed the least bit concerned for their own defense or safety.
Fools, she decided, and then resumed climbing. From high above, she pelted the whole camp with one bomb after another, then a few arrows, and more bombs. Again and again the cycle repeated, until the majority of the Bokoblins, most of whom were blown to pieces or panicked in moments, were gone. Only one blue monster survived long enough to spot her and make his way around and up... Only to be pelted with two more, then three, four, five arrows, each thudding with unerring precision, shot by a master archer.
Even if she didn't know she was.
For all their threat and danger, for all the Bokoblins would have tortured, raped, and then destroyed her utterly by sending her to Ganon, it took less than thirty seconds for the camp to be annihilated.
And the only thing Zelda could feel upon the completion of the brief, very one-sided battle was satisfaction.
Her strengths, after all, were not in brute force. If she had charged in, or been forced to melee as she had been by the same creature's ambush, she would have lost against that many. Lost badly, too.
But with the advantages of surprise, terrain, and low-grade artillery, not to mention her reach, it was almost a foregone conclusion that she would win.
Zelda allowed herself a small, proud smile, and then started jogging toward the remains of the blue Bokoblin. Sadly, while there were plenty of parts left, not many were the fangs she needed for Cotera. Zelda still gathered the few she could along with the rest, leaving the weapons largely discarded or burning in the little cook-fire, while the few arrows the lone archer had were added to her only slightly diminished supply.
What was losing a dozen overall when you had two and a half hundred?
There was even a smattering of Rupees, fifty-seven in all, among the Bokoblins' scattered treasures, no doubt looted from the bodies that supplied the skeletal remains nearby.
No... Zelda could only feel satisfaction for their deaths, and no remorse at all.
If the alternative was rape, torture, and eventually to be eaten, all the Bokoblins were better off dead, as far as she was concerned. Certainly the Hylian, Sheikah, and other humans were better off that way.
She was just about finished with her cleanup when the ground began to shake.
Rhythmically, loudly, and growing worse. One pounding tremor after another, louder and more frequent.
Then she saw the trees on the ridge to the northeast shake, and it came into view.
At first she thought it was a Guardian, for the head was vaguely dome-shaped. But if it was, it was truly colossal. The thing was not as large as Cotera, her scientist's mind supplied, but it was far, far too large to be normal.
Redder of skin than a similar Bokoblin, darker too, the flesh that covered the monster was thick, leathery, and dry, except around a great, slobbering mouth filled with mismatched, flat, broken teeth that were yellowed and gray but still large enough to snap her in half with a single bite. A pig's snout, larger in proportion than a Bokoblins' but otherwise similar, sat between that gaping maw and a single bulbous, huge eye ringed with layers of blue, yellow, and red around a black pupil almost as large as Zelda's face.
In one hand, it held a horse's corpse, half-eaten, and in the other, a tree that it had no doubt ripped from the ground to use as a club, which still had leaves on one end and dirt raining from the other.
"Smell blood," it roared in broken speech, peering in her direction. She saw the snout move, and it took another three lumbering steps forward, the vibration in the ground reaching her a moment later thanks to the distance.
Even from nearly a quarter mile away, Zelda knew she was done for if she stayed. That thing was terrifying, not least because of the- the thing between its legs. Even as a dark part of her mind wondered what it would feel like to be punctured by that red-skinned, organ-breaking dick, she knew it would never happen. Not if she could help it, because that would be deadly. It didn't wear a loincloth, didn't wear much of anything but a few weapons on a cheap rope-necklace around its neck and shoulders. "Blood!" it cried again, and Zelda ran.
Heedless of safety, of stealth, she tore through the grass as quickly as she could while staying low. Thankfully, its eyesight at a distance did not appear to be great, so while she heard the thing shout "Hyli-human! I smell!" once, it was unable to follow. She was sure that, if the giant had wanted, it could have caught up.
She didn't stop until night had fallen and her legs, her lungs, burned with searing pain. She was still alive, though.
Far below her, Lake Siela lapped against the rocky walls of the cliffs that surrounded its eastern side. Zelda had, somehow, ended up at least near where she wanted to be. While she made her tired way down the slopes toward the cliffs themselves, determined to take the easy way and Glide down from there, she came across a familiar-looking sight. Three boulders, arranged in a loose triangle, and the top of a natural chute of stone. Far below, eighty feet or more away, a single hole rested, just wide enough for all three to have come from it. Zelda grinned. At least this Korok she would earn and not be startled by!
It took two tries, for the first boulder her body strained to push (and eventually resorted to using Stasis to budge) had gone to far. After a few minutes to recover, the second had bounced, rolled back and forth up and down both sides of its track, and in the end fallen smoothly into the hole.
After the Korok had given her its seed (with some thanks, for once), Zelda continued hiking lower.
It was rapidly growing darker, thick clouds adding to the gathering night, but she had to press on, tired or not. The mountains where that giant monstrosity lived were simply too dangerous to linger in. At the very least, she had to pass into the lower parts of the canyon some miles west.
Eventually, her tired and weary body forced a compromise. By gliding to a pine-lined ledge half-way down the northern slope, Zelda was able to get shelter from the soft rain and stay out of reach of even the giant, since it could not possibly climb to her without her noticing. Her dinner that night was meager and cold meat and fish, but at least it was cooked.
In the morning, Zelda climbed the tallest of the pines, and was rewarded by a Korok for doing so, though she did so more for the lay of the land.
On the south side of the lake, some kind of robed, humanoid figure danced and bounced through the air on conjured disks of light, with a rod wreathed in flame beneath a conical hat. There were the burned-out remains of some outdoorsman's hut nearby and a cave lined with ore than glowed faintly in the early morning light, but her limbs were still too tired and sore, and cold, to risk braving an unknown, probably magical and therefore dangerous adversary, even for strange ore.
Worse, one of the ugly, hideous Octoroks was just visible in the water a few hundred feet away.
Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be a lot of choice. Unless, that was, she wanted to spend another day climbing up, back to where the giant hunted, and then west to where Hestu's maracas had been kept. Or, maybe, use Cryonis to cross the long length of the lake to safer grounds, with the tentacled monster pelting her.
No... she would rather not do that. Especially if, by some miracle, the flaming humanoid... whatever it was, was not as dangerous as she feared.
But she would still use cunning, stealth, and guile. And preparedness.
"I don't have a lot of these Ice arrows, but I do have a few. Ten... if it's a monster of fire, it should fall easily to its opposite. I think. I would use Fire against Ice, anyway... I have to try. If I can get a good shot or two, even a powerful foe might die before it can become dangerous. Right? Wasn't that what you taught me, Champion? Link, if that was your name?"
Of course there was no answer.
Zelda had not expected one, though. She could not rely on the ghosts of the past, she had to do things herself. Besides, if what Impa and others had said was true, then Link was busy himself. "Alright... this is actually not a bad place to start, if I can remain hidden, I can glide in and take cover, at least. Arrows at the ready..."
Zelda took no chances otherwise. Rather than her hunting bow, she pulled out the crude but bone-reinforced and spiked Boko bow, which had more than twice the draw strength, and strung it with her thighs wrapped tightly around the sticky bark of the pine tree, then threw it over her shoulder before unfurling the glider. It wasn't that far away, and even with a steep fall she would be alright to make it across the narrow, long lake.
The hard part would be doing it without being seen.
She jumped, aiming for a trio of bare, burned husks of similar pines on the far side of the ruined house from the creature...
And landed safely. There was not a peep from the beast, and it continued to chant in some strange dialect quietly to itself as it danced and hopped through the air.
Once Zelda's bow was out and her magical, frost-elemental arrow knocked, she risked a careful glance- she could not afford to miss, after all.
Some sixty feet away, seeming entirely unaware of her presence, the creature paused mid-air for a moment on one thin-heeled boot, as a long-fingered hand came up to scratch the dark skin beneath the cowl. Coal-like eyes burned with amusement as a great, flaming mouth opened, showing the depths of hell itself or so Zelda thought.
The fingers and face were both blackened with fire, charred and unholy, yet the creature moved without visible pain. There was even a certain grace to its movements. But it was clearly inhuman, and therefore likely a servant of the Calamity. It certainly cackled with malevolence as it sent a random blast of fire against the ruins of the old house, which were already long-charred.
It did little, the flames only flickered and died, but the rod which the creature had used for its spell flared as it did.
It uses the rod for magic...? I wonder what would happen if I put magic into it...? That... that could be most useful.
But first, I have to make this shot. I can't afford to miss, not against an unknown like this, and a fire-spewing one at that!
Thankfully, she did not. Moisture in the air crystallized in an instant, causing a thin line of snow to trace the arrow's rapid passing, and then blossomed out in a burst of ice shards several thin feet long as it struck.
The beast gave a short, interrupted shriek as its flaming body turned blue, and then it vanished as the ice fell to the ground and burst, already dead.
There was no trace of the creature left, except one.
"Yes!" Zelda cried, dashing forward from her cover to claim it.
The thing was warm in her hands, a handle of bone capped with a ruby on one end and twisted, square shaft of charred wood that had lines of yellow and molten energy moving up to a fireball-shaped piece of red glass at the tip. Even holding it in her hand, Zelda could feel the magic within. Definitely based around the element of fire, almost purely destructive in nature... but it had also been twisted by the being that had used it. Fire, she knew, could heal, create, and refine as much as destroy.
In her hands, she hoped this shaft, simple as it might seem at first glance, would do just that. Carefully, she forced just a tiny trickle of the same unknown something that had powered her last few attacks in the Ta'loh Naeg Shrine into the rod...
And the glass at the end began to glow. Softly, yes, but glow it did, and the rod seemed to shiver in her hands with anticipation. "Oh, I will use you indeed," Zelda whispered to herself, then added a bit more, and more magical energy until the Fire Rod vibrated in her hand. Then, aiming carefully at the distant granite beyond the lake, Zelda released the power with an act of will and a short thrust of her hand.
Her hair blew backward, and a wash of heat smashed into her in a wave, making the princess stagger back a step. Flames did indeed erupt from the rod, a fireball size feet wide streaked over the lake, screaming and whistling through the air before it impacted, leaving a small crater in the bedrock itself. "Wow," she gasped, looking down at the rod in her hand.
Without reason, she could not explain what she felt, it somehow its power had been diminished. As if forcing that much magic through it was powerful, but it eroded at the power inherent in the wand itself, sapping it of strength. "Perhaps less power then," she concluded, "and only in emergencies. A too like this is simply too useful to waste."
Unfortunately, that left her options for melee combat somewhat limited. In the end, she chose to discard her much-worn soldier's blade for one of the two Sheikah short-blades, and felt its grip comfortable in her hand.
Yes, a weapon designed to slice rather than chop or slash was definitely right for her, she concluded, and smiled as he gave the fine weapon a few practice swings as well. Even her footwork, she noticed, adapted to the difference in style without question as her stance changed.
Perhaps I am better-trained than I thought, she concluded.
Though she looked, Zelda found little but a trio of blue Chu around the clearing where the old house had once been. Inside the cave itself was a bit more of interest. In the light of day in the short tunnel- the entire thing was short enough she could see the other end clearly from where she entered it, some seventy feet up a slope half-filled with dry, pale grass- the strange ore she had seen glittered but did not shine with its own pale blue-green light. "Luminous Stone," the Slate informed her once a few bombs had freed several large shards and chunks from the surrounding rock. "Interesting- I don't know that I believe it holds the souls of the dead, but it's very interesting. And... faintly magical. I can feel a little, just a small bit, in each piece I've got. Fascinating."
That was not all she found. A swarm of Keese, brought down by two bombs, one to startle them into flight and the other to blast most of them from the air, was finished off by a few almost idle swings of the keen blade she was using. Their wings, Zelda was even more delighted to learn, were enough to be of use to Cotera next time she went back to Kakariko. On the other side of the tunnel, Zelda was distracted from her journey toward the Dueling Peaks Stable by something else that caught her eye: Gemstones. Many of them, only loosely embedded in the broken face of what must have been someone's private mining claim.
No doubt, she reasoned, the burned home had once been the miner's, for its proximity. It was heavy work, and once again Zelda's arms were sore (though thankfully a little less, it seemed as if she was starting to regain some muscle tone), but within an hour most of the visible chunks were in her satchel. Sapphires, yes, but mostly amber and flint in large quantities. Not a huge haul, but well worth her time given their usefulness as trade commodities, the princess concluded.
There was even a Korok nesting among some of the rocks, and one Zelda didn't mind seeing because it was neither hidden behind a child's puzzle, or one that wanted to startle her.
Eventually, shortly after a walking lunch, Zelda made her way back onto the Blatchery Plain. She was far to the east of where she had been before, on the opposite side in fact, but Zelda could still make out the ledge she had first scouted the place from while climbing the Dueling Peaks, and the much closer but still distant Stable. Between her and it, however, were Guardians. Many of them.
Mostly dead, she was sure... but she had been surprised before.
Even now they caused a tremble of fear in her, if only due to their numbers.
But Zelda steeled her resolve, and walked on. First to one, and then another, coming close enough she was sure that every noise was one activating. Again, and again, she got close... and nothing. Her heart still pounded, but she gathered many useful parts from the remains all the same. More shafts, screws, and gears joined the few she had scavenged on the Great Plateau as Zelda wended her way southeast over miles of rolling hills and thick grass.
The sound alerted her first: A whomp, and a distinctive one.
She threw herself to the ground as a rock sailed overhead, shattering against the ruins of some stone building a dozen feet away. It took her a few more seconds, and another lobbed stone, before Zelda spotted the Oktorok. Unlike the first one she had seen, this one was green with darker mottling rather than blue, and instead of the lily-pad like growth that one had sported, this green Oktorok had a small shrub atop its bulbous body.
Fortunately, her cover was ample, and Zelda was able to duck behind a convenient tree before the third rock would have struck her face. Less luckily, it caught the upper end of the bow she was in the process of drawing, sheering it off completely and yanking the rest of the shaft from her hand. "Shit," she swore under her breath, shaking her now very red hand. It took her several seconds while the stupid creature continued to pelt the small oak with rocks to draw and string her second hunter's bow, but this time she was able to aim more carefully, and timed her shot between its own regularly-spaced attacks. "One, two, three- rock. One, two, three- rock. One, two, three, four, fire!"
She almost got another stone in the face for her trouble, but the arrow sank home and burst the floating, balloon-shaped creature in a single shot.
Once it was quiet again, Zelda turned and hurried toward it, now keeping low in the grass. If Oktoroks could masquerade as shrubbery instead of just hiding in bodies of water, the world was a far more dangerous place than she had thought!
Thankfully, any wriggling tentacles were gone along with the rest of it when she reached the monster's remains, only a single air-bladder remained. That was pocketed into her monster-parts section of the satchel, and she moved on quickly, glad it was as simple as that.
Simple until she saw the Bokoblin camp, anyway. She saw it from some distance off, and thankfully the short beasts hadn't seen her yet, so Zelda was able to approach at a near-crawl, her breasts brushing against the dirt on occasion as she kept low to hide within the grass. When she was much closer, she dared climb the far side of a brick and stone-work tower that had long since crumbled, a support she guessed for a much larger structure. There were many such ruins in the plain, but hers was among the tallest. Then, actually laying on her belly, she looked down. Two watch towers on opposite sides each sported one red Bokoblin with bows, as they usually did, while a third with a shield and club patrolled around the nearer side of the camp. On the far, western edge, a pool of water gave them some illusion of safety, so they must have thought they were protected on all sides.
In the middle, a blue held court over three more reds, bullying them into doing its bidding. Most of their weapons were discarded, laid against a large log near the north end, and a single chest was locked by magic atop a third tower on the other end.
If she could pick off the guards, it would all be easy, but six red Bokoblins and one blue all at once would be... risky. Thankfully, Zelda knew night was coming on, and as she lay atop the pillar to watch the patrolling Bokoblin's pattern, and then the next as he was replaced by another, fresher monster.
A light rain began, and the princess grumbled under her breath. The Sheikah outfit was surprisingly good as an insulator against temperature shifts, but it did absolutely nothing to protect against water. She may as well have been swimming, she was so wet within moments.
"I may as well make use of the noise and concealment, though," she decided, and slithered backward to drop onto the grass a dozen or so feet below with nearly silent feet.
The first guard and the patrolling Bokoblin fell quickly and silently, but Zelda's luck did not hold.
The second Bokoblin on its little tower turned at the last moment to scratch its warty behind, and her arrow clipped its ragged ear, tearing off a chunk but leaving it otherwise unhurt. Her second shot, in panic, went wide and to the right, which left the creature enough time to get out just one abortive blast on its horn before her third caught it in the throat.
That was enough. Even though she had taken out half the reds, the others swarmed her in moments. Zelda ran, and as she did hurried to drop a single square Bomb behind her. In their own bloodlust, none of the trio of chasing creatures bothered to stop and investigate.
Five dashing steps, seven, nine, ten- she hit the trigger.
The shockwave carried Zelda, who had leaped into the air as she pushed the button on the Slate, a good half-dozen feet. She hit the ground in a roll, twisting and turning as the world spun around her with gut-wrenching speed, her body bruised and battered by the wet grass and hidden stones.
Once she was slow enough, Zelda threw out her arms and legs to stop tumble, and jumped to her feet, dizzy and swaying- but there was no more pursuit.
Somehow, the bomb had gone off close enough to two of the Bokoblins to end them immediately, and she saw one feeble red arm reach upward, weaponless, a dozen feet off.
That one she staggered toward, wiping a bit of blood from her lips where they had dashed against a stone in her tumble, and then thrust downward with two hands the moment its eyes landed on her.
Without a sound, the last red Bokoblin fell...
Zelda did not see the blue one.
Standing tall for a moment in the rain, her eyes swept in a circle, lest it sneak up behind her. There was nothing. She had run a few dozen feet past the edge of the camp... where was it? Surely it was not distracted, or dead already?
Slowly, carefully, one hand on her bow and the other her already drawn eightfold blade, Zelda crept forward, nearly slithering through the grass once more.
The hiss of the rain was a boon, hiding the faint, magically muffled sound of her passage in the grass, and a low rumble of thunder far off to the south did a bit more. Around the watch posts, the log... nothing.
Not thirty seconds after she had reached the now-doused campfire the creatures had been using, the thing wandered back into the camp, tucking a small little blue pecker beneath its loincloth. "Ahh, good piss," it grunted, then stopped and looked about. "Where everyone go? Doobus? Wifflum? Gok! Where you go? Come feed Zibble!"
"I'll feed you," Zelda whispered from just behind it, a moment before her very sharp blade found a soft spot between pelvis and ribs, angled upward.
"Grk," the thing grunted one last time, already fading into smoke as she withdrew a blood-soaked arm and sword.
Near where it had been feeding on the other's work, Zelda was quite happy to find more than just a few basic, wooden weapons. Somehow, the blue had scavenged away another soldier's sword and shield. The first, as much as they were useful, she did not take for her satchel was already straining to hold the weapons she had. But the second, to replace the feeble bark shield? Yes, that would do nicely. Steel reinforced wood was far better than bark, and her bone-reinforced Boko shield was a far sight stronger than that, too. In the once locked chest, Zelda found a single small opal and a few Rupees, but nothing truly special, nothing to warrant what she considered a powerful enchantment.
Were the gems truly that valuable? Did the Calamity, or the Bokoblins, value them? In the end, they were just pretty stones, weren't they?
Or was there some deeper purpose, something she had not yet divined or heard of?
Zelda did not know, and so the adventurer pocketed it with all the rest, and kept moving into the cloudy, deep night.
Her journey was interrupted briefly by the malevolent, purple-red glow of a decayed Guardian coming to life as she moved too close when scavenging for more the ancient technology's parts. Fortunately, there was plenty of cover in the Blatchery Plain. Even though the ground was relatively flat, the ruins and even husks of more-damaged Guardians gave her plenty of places to rest as she moved from hiding spot to hiding spot until the techno-magical creature finally went dormant again.
Eventually, an hour or so after the sun had risen, Zelda's weary feet carried her into the fenced-in domain of the Dueling Peaks Stable for the second time.
She was tired, sore, scratched and bruised from the mountain climbing, the several battles, and running from the terrifying giant creature and decayed Guardian, but she was alive. The stalls and merchants were only just getting set up for the day while the more permanent residents were going about their chores. Children fed chickens, dogs, and cats, while the older youth arranged boxes, curried horses, or even did some gardening. The adults, mostly, did the harder work while keeping a careful eye on the younger ones.
She couldn't blame them. The wide valley might be relatively safe, and safer now that she'd cleared out at least one large pack of Bokoblins, but with Guardians and even wild horses around, you never knew what could befall a child that wandered too far.
Zelda wasn't able to stock up on much, largely because Beedle was not present that she could see, but the princess was able to get a few more Endura Carrots and Endura Shrooms that a Sheikah trader named Jenji had brought from Kakariko, apparently while she was traipsing around the mountains. She bought several of his stock eagerly, leaving her with just shy of a hundred rupees remaining. Then she spent the day slaving over one of the several publicly accessible cooking pots outside the Stable.
The princess found a simple joy in cooking, one that she thought might have surprised her past self. What spoiled princess enjoyed cooking, when servants and master chefs could do that for her? None, she presumed. But she did, at least for the time being. Chopping vegetables with a borrowed cooking knife and board, adding herbs, spices, and oils at just the right time and just the right amount, stirring, stirring, and stirring some more...
It was in many ways tedious, mind-numbing even, but Zelda found each successful attempt that much more relaxing than the last. Even better, knowing that those successes rebuilt her stock of cooked and ready meals, which were somehow preserved inside the enchanted satchel her father's ghost had created. With her raw supplies shockingly low but the section of the satchel dedicated to prepared food nearly overflowing with meals from simmered fruit to a wrapped pumpkin stuffed with steaming meat soup (which thankfully would neither cool or spill with the satchel closed), Zelda was quite content to pay Magheren for another hot bath and room, though she supplied her own evening meal. She even got to turn in early, with the sun just down an hour, while the common room near the large yurt's entrance was packed full of travelers and even a traveling minstrel of some skill, judging by the music and muted cheering.
But she could not sleep.
The bed was comfortable, soft, the sheets and blankets clean. Her body was weary, her mind more-so.
But sleep still would not come.
Somehow, Zelda was able to discipline herself not to dwell on the anxiety-inducing task- or the dozens of them, depending on how you looked at it- but she could not stop thinking about other things.
The faintest of memory fragments, all that remained of those strong, toned arms circling her as her nude body was pressed to his...
Mina and Mils together kissing her, pressing mouths and hands to every part of Zelda's body...
Rubbing herself senseless while a Korok, or an imagined army of the little forest spirits, watched on eagerly...
Watching Sagessa get pumped from behind by the mediocre (if that) cock that Hino sported... Goddess, she had looked so good with her breasts swaying like that, even if the act seemed unsatisfying to the whore herself.
Paya... Beautiful, delicious, shy Paya, as she bathed innocently in the moonlight, unaware that the perverted princess herself was spying on her, watching every glistening droplet of water that ran down her perfect, pale skin...
Zelda's eyes opened, as she realized she was rubbing her own chest with one hand, and the other was between her legs. Her fingers were soaking wet, too. "What in Hylia's name...?" she whispered into the shadowed room. Light still filtered around and beneath the thick curtains to the hallway, and occasionally she saw or heard people making their (often drunken) way to their own rooms, but as Magheren's rule stipulated, only female customers came down this particular hall, so Zelda wasn't all that worried.
At least, not about being heard or interrupted.
Why she was... well, yes, she had to admit it to herself: she was masturbating while thinking of not just one, but several women and only one man. Or two, because she could only assume the masculine form pressed against hers in that first, fragmented memory (if that was what it was) was a man, and then Mils.
But Mina, Sagessa, and Paya (and Impa too, she had vague memories of now, Zelda recalled)... She had thought about at least four women in a sexual way, and could only recall two men. Did that mean she... preferred women?
It was a strange, tantalizing thought that both intrigued and frightened the princess-turned-adventurer. But was it real? True?
Zelda forced her body to be still for a moment while her mind turned over one possibility after another. Mils... he was shy, handsome enough, probably eager once you got past any initial reticence... and thinking about him along with his sister was quite a bit more arousal-inducing than thinking about him alone. It wasn't that Zelda wasn't able to be attracted to him...
But it took work to think of him like that, as if it wasn't natural to her. Mina? She was beautiful, and the princess felt her nipples tighten as she imagined the white-haired beauty's body laid bare for her to caress, to stare, to possess. The two together... well, that was more arousing still.
Zelda even let her hand twist and twirl around her sensitive clit, over her underwear at least, as a reward for coming to that conclusion. She was being as analytical and logical as she could, though her body was urging her to simply take whatever release it could.
Because she was an intelligent woman, independent (mostly, anyway), and not some lust-addled animal, damn it. She could, and would, control her unbidden impulses... at least until she had an idea as to what would satisfy them better.
Hino, she knew, wasn't interesting or attractive to her. That much was essentially a given, even if Sagessa valued that he was 'cleaner than most'. The small package he sported and lack of care for his partner's pleasure (paid for or not) relegated him to the 'not with a ten-foot-pole' category.
As such, it was almost unfair for her to even count him- he was a 'no' for other reasons.
But Sagessa, her breasts swaying as Hino fucked her had been hypnotic, and Paya bathing was almost transcendent in its innocent (for the Sheikah woman), voyeuristic (for Zelda herself) sexuality.
Zelda's nipples tightened again, and she whispered, "If I saw her right now, I would probably be able to climax quite easily... which means that not only am I genuinely attracted to at least three women, I am also a pervert."
The sentence ended with a self-derisive snort, but it did not stop the princess' slow working of her genitals. But her analysis was not yet done.
Even if she was attracted to women (which she admitted now she truly was)... that was not the end of it. That man (if it was actually a man). The passion with them, him, had been... more.
The partial memory of kissing a youthful Impa had been filled with the same emotions. Affection, trust, passion, lust... but Zelda thought it was just somehow more with the man she had dreamed about while hiding from a storm beneath a tree in the Forest of Spirits.
As she thought about it, Zelda struggled to bring up more memories, to recall something, any other detail of that night, or that incident. Was it just one? Had the fragments been from a single incident, or a multitude of them? How long had she been with that person, if it was more than one time? Had they even... done it?
She felt childish for even thinking it like that. "Done it," like some half-grown youth would imply, rather than an adult. She was, in many ways, at that same age, of course. But Zelda prided herself on honesty, on intellect, did she not? She could be mature about it.
Had she, then... had sex? With that man?
She couldn't say for sure, and of course was not brave enough to push fingers inside herself to find out if she was still intact. Would her life of combat, or the Calamity, or whatever else had gone before, have left her intact anyway?
There were just so many questions, and not enough answers.
But she was safe, warm, dry, not feverish, and so desperately horny.
Whatever was happening to her, Zelda knew it would not be enough to just use her fingers. She had to have more. Maybe thinking about Paya- even if it made her feel a bit dirty for using an illicitly-gained memory to do so- or Sagessa would be enough.
Or maybe...
Zelda shuddered. No, she was not a virgin. Or at least, her hymen was not intact. In a more aroused state, not so very long ago, she had used an Ancient Screw to pump her vagina full again and again.
You screwed yourself with a screw, she inwardly chuckled, more amused at the irony than aroused by the memory. That whole period leading up to and then concluding the Ta'loh Naeg Shrine was just... strange.
It had begun, she could see looking back (her memory after waking up on the Great Plateau seemed perfectly good, at least, for all she had lost so much), with praying at the Goddess Hylia's statue in Kakariko. It had grown worse through the day, until she had the most explosive orgasm she could remember with a cold piece of ancient metal buried in her nethers.
Well, cold until her body had warmed it, anyway, she thought with further amusement.
Maybe she should just go dig the thing out of her satchel now?
Maybe it would be enough to satisfy her growing lust again.
"Or maybe I should just dream of Paya or Sagessa, and-"
The curtain outside wiggled, and a soft knock fell on the frame outside. "Oh? Did someone say my name? It's Sagessa."
Zelda felt her face heat.
Or...
Or maybe...
"Yes," she said, swallowed past a sudden lump, then called, "It's Ze- Zina. Come in, if you don't, um, mind."
"Sure," the other woman called, then pushed the curtain aside and stepped in.
Her usual green over-tunic was gone, along with most of the rest of her outfit. In fact, Sagessa actually wore very little. A bodice of some sort covered most of her torso between the ribs and about half-way up her breasts, which were pushed up and swollen by the shape of the molded, red-dyed leather. The lower half of her was covered by thin stockings that had seen better days, soft, pointed dancer's shoes, and a short skirt that was black on the outside, but pleated to show strips of white between them as her legs moved.
It was clearly more expensive, to Zelda's eye, than her standard day-wear... and meant to catch eyes. Was she working, then...?
"I'm sorry if you're working," Zelda murmured, having a hard time deciding where to rest her eyes. On Sagessa's pretty face, her soft, warm blue eyes, her bountiful breasts as they threatened to spill from the bodice with every breath, the narrow waist, the wide hips, or the toned, muscled legs...
"I'm about to go get a client, but I can wait- the crowd's busy tonight," Sagessa shrugged with an easy smile, "I can wait a bit. What can I do for you, Zina?"
Too late, Zelda lifted her hand from between her legs as she sat up on the small bed, but Sagessa didn't seem to notice where it had been, and in the dim light, she hoped the wet spot on her underwear would be invisible. "I.. I was actually just thinking out loud."
"About me?" The question sounded innocent enough, but it was accompanied by a suggestive wiggle of the brunette's eyebrows that made Zelda's blush deepen. "Oh, ho! You were! Well, I'm here now, so... What do you need?"
Goddess. Was she... Was she really about to do this?
It was... so dirty, so wrong. Worse than spying on the grand-daughter of a maybe-once-lover!
"Don't go find a client," she whispered.
"Why not?" Sagessa frowned slightly, "A girl's got to eat, you know, and this will be a busy-"
"Stay with me," Zelda interrupted, her entire body alight with nerves. "I'll- I'll pay for the night."
Sagessa actually stiffened, then frowned before moving back toward the door. "I'm flattered, but you- clearly aren't ready for me. It's fine, if you aren't into me, then you aren't, but I don't need your pity because of how I make my living."
"N- no!" Zelda cried as the other woman put a hand on her curtain again, "I- I'm trying to hire you, I- I'm just, um... well, a bit n- nervous."
"Paying me to sit the night out doesn't sit right with me," Sagessa told her softly, not turning around to face her.
"That's not what I want to- to pay you for," the princess replied, nearly whispering, "I... I want you to, um- to please me. Please."
Slowly, Sagessa's head turned back to face her over the shoulder. "You're... serious?"
Zelda nodded, unable and, truth told, unwilling to even try to push down the blush now. "I... I'm very, um, pent-up, and you're... well, you said you would, if I..."
"Hell yes, I would," Sagessa chuckled, then reached into her pocket and through the gap between door-frame and curtain to hang something on the small post-nail there. "Alright, now people will know I'm in here working... No take-backs, now. Fifty rupees for the best night of your life, beautiful."
"If- If it's that good," Zelda replied, trying to sound as brazen as she could as the blankets were pulled off her now-bare legs, "then it'll be worth every green rupee."
"Oh, it will be," Sagessa murmured, then closed the distance between them slowly, her eyes locked on the princess' body as she watched the prostitute's: Hungrily.
