You can find more of this on by Subscribe/Star (dot adult slash KajaWilder), it's posted past Ch. 110 there. You can find the same on my new (via Discord per their ToS), under /WildErotica. The DISCORD is at h-t_t-p_s-:_/-/_discord-._g-g_/-N9yDASt6Cw (taking out hyphens and underscores, 'cause FFnet). If you prefer direct links, go to my Discord and follow the 'links in general' section to find the ones you want. All of my fics are well ahead of what I post here, often 10-30 chapters ahead.
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Enjoy!
Chap. 77: Ice-Cold Clarity
No, a voice in her mind screamed, roared, shouted, spoke with a quiet whisper, murmured softly as a lover, or to a child, all at once. No, Zelda, that is not real. Real is danger. Real is threat. The Calamity is not pleasure, but pain only. We have fought him for too long to give in now. We have all fought him. Now it is your turn.
Free Naydra from this cursed agony… free yourself.
Joy comes through love and pleasure, not pain and pleasure. Seek not the fleeting, but watch your-
Zelda heard very little of it. At least, until the arrow she had already loosed found its target.
Below her now, the tail of the massive serpentine beast thrashed suddenly through the air, and crystalline shards of ice like tiger's teeth of huge proportion sliced through the air toward her. Somehow, Zelda was able to twist, lift one leg high, bend the other, drop five feet as she pulled her right arm down, and slide through the attack without injury aside from being buffeted once more by freezing wind.
Then she soared higher again as she corrected, her mind calculating angles and trajectories, force and wind speed, lift, drag, and even elevation with breakneck speed.
All around the dragon, the air was colder than ever, so far beyond simply 'freezing' that Zelda could not come up with a word for it. It swirled and span like a horizontal whirlwind too, creating a sheath like the eye of a hurricane for the dragon to fly through with ease. It would have been, she thought, an invisible tempest were it not for the flakes of snow that formed continually, going around and around Naydra's broken, twisted body until eventually being flung out to fall more naturally elsewhere.
That wind Zelda rode, circling around up, down, her arms growing increasingly tired, fatigue setting in as she fought the currents to move forward. Inexorably forward… and she didn't think it would be enough.
The tail end of Naydra was still dripping black ichor and blood alike in equal measure, red and black, but the magic there was fading. Violently purple, and sickly green light emanated from the place the eye had been in waves as bits of the huge, fleshy orb rained down to pepper the mountainside below them both, sending up little puffs of snow, or shaking trees. Her sharp eyes caught, once, a bit of it touching a Chu, which immediately turned from frosty to some black, malevolent thing before it exploded from the force of impact.
It still wasn't going to be enough. Naydra was too fast, and she was too far behind the creature… already falling out of its wind tunnel.
"No, no, no," she whispered, "I have to get closer! Somehow! Goddess Hylia, Link, anyone! Help me! Please!"
She didn't know how it happened. Whether from the weather itself as the magic of the corrupted dragon's passage grew too distant, or her desperate, short prayer, or some other circumstance, she could not say, but suddenly there was a gust. Not much, just enough for her to catch another burst of speed, both upward and forward.
Not forward toward the dragon, though. Up toward the mountaintop again!
She gasped in surprised, more at the help than how it was helping, but she still whispered another hurried, "Thank you!" as she rose higher and higher, almost as fast as when Naydra had passed close.
The princess dropped, her arms slipping and giving way already as the last of her gripping strength faded under shaky muscles and aching tendons, atop one of the ice spires that Mount Lanayru wore like a crown. "Oh, my," she gasped, tearing her eyes from the monstrous form flying above to the ones below.
Celessa fought like a woman possessed, lunging left, right, ahead with a thrust, swiping circularly downward to parry another blow, taking a third on her new Sheikah-crafted shield that rang with a crack even Zelda heard from more than a hundred feet away and up, over the gales of wind. Three Bokoblins and a Moblin now, one blue, two red, and the larger red as well, tried to circle, harry, bring the warrior down.
But she also stood firm and fast, moving only within a tight space provided by the natural shape of the mountain path. No steps of monsters were visible in the snow, not from this distance, bu Zelda was just as certain that there would be none even from right behind her new knight. "I have to hurry," she told herself, then reached into her satchel.
Stamina-refreshing elixirs were a challenge to make, and she only had a few, but Zelda downed one as quickly as she could, her eyes switching back and forth between Naydra and Celessa's battle, trying fervently to keep track of both. Her heart raced…
But it was clear.
She remembered every detail of the dark, majestic cock, how it made her feel in that hallucination… but she knew that was all it was. A hallucination. The Calamity offered nothing of value. She knew that. Pleasure… hah! It sought to destroy the entire world! To remake it in its own dark, twisted image. There would be no fealty, no pleasure, for any of them if it succeeded.
Only itself.
Still, the memory of even the thoughts projected into her mind by the Calamity's, or Naydra's, or whoever's magic that had been, made her loins ache. She would need relief, and soon.
First, though…
The dragon, or the Calamity, made a mistake. Maybe it was the dragon's doing, she mused, as the head passed directly over her. Another blast of frigid wind was narrowly avoided as it exhaled frosty breath a moment too late, with false fury burning behind eyes that… that leaked actual tears. Tears that froze a moment later, but still tears.
Naydra, Zelda realized. Naydra is crying, as the Calamity forces her to try to kill me.
The tactical error, if it hadn't been deliberate, was going to be devastating. She'd already seen Naydra's patterns. It moved like a snake through the air. Where the head had gone, the rest would follow. Two sets of claws whooshed past her, one she had to leap to the right to avoid, though that almost sent her tumbling from the spire onto the bowl-shaped peak, covered in who knew how much snow. Inches, maybe, or a hundred feet in some deep crevasse, she couldn't tell.
Another pair, this one reaching for her deliberately… she threw herself to the ice, flattening her breasts painfully against it, and her nipples grew stiff from cold even through her parka, with the heat of the Fire Rod warming her.
Then a moment of reprieve, and… a bulbous mass. The lower eye, glaring downward, turned to her at the last moment. Magic began to flare again as she loosed. The dragon's speed was immense, hard to judge at a distance for its size, but the horse-length lower, ribbed scales passed by her two or three every second, the wind inside the tunnel still pulling and whipping at her hair from simple friction.
But she was a very good archer, and knew the shot would connect.
Magic flashed again.
"Your mother hated you," Ganondorf hissed, his words like venom dripping in her ears, caustic enough to sting her soul. "Your mother hated you for being such a willful, rude child. Ruined everything you touched… made such horrible messes and claimed to be 'helping'. Your father thought you were a mistake, a bastard from another man perhaps, and not his own… how could his own daughter fail to carry on the bloodline she was supposed to?
"You were a failure. You are a failure," it continued, as the massive, humanoid but not-quite-human, blue-skinned, porcine beast with red hair and fur like magma almost purred as it stepped around her, carrying a wizard's rod of gold with a ruby gem atop it held in claws carved like a dragon's. Its other hand fell on her shoulder, and pushed Zelda with far too much ease to her knees. "Bow, kneel before your master, and your pain will end. I will reward you, show you your purpose… the only purpose you have ever needed."
"Liar," she gasped. She was herself, but not.
Not the first Zelda, either. She was still blonde, and her bangs were still cut straight over her face, but her hair was done in a more ornate style now, held back by a pink tiara that now sat crooked on her head, bent under the beast's mighty hand before being replaced there in a mockery of her station. Her robes of office were dominantly pink too, with white petticoats and frocks beneath, and the symbol of her family, the mighty Royal House of Hyrule, stitched into the breast of it.
She was sixteen, and the last of her family. She would be the last ever, if…
"I already possess the Triforce of Power," the big-man, giant as any ogre or even larger, sneered, and hot, fetid breath washed over her as his long tongue moved out to glide along her jawline. "I have carried it for three centuries in this body alone, little princess of a fallen land. The cycle continues again, and again. You build… I destroy. But each time, my destruction is more complete. Six hundred and three people left of your once-mighty kingdom, and each of them scattered, living in hiding."
She shuddered. How had- how did he know? The exact number? Even she wasn't sure of that, for all her spy-master and bodyguard, Impa, could do!
"I feel them," he seethed against her, the tongue now rolling around the shell of her ear in a mockery of passion, "Every soul here that is yet untouched… especially yours. You could never have hidden from me, no matter what your desperation called for. Your guard, secreting away the Triforce of Wisdom's broken shards was wise… but I have claimed them already. They wait only for your 'savior' to reunite them for me, and bring them to me."
"Wh- What?"
Ganon sneered, and the sixty-second Princess of Hyrule quailed as he laughed, snorting between gales of it. "You understand so little! So much is lost already! You thought yourself the only guardian of the Triforce… it is but one of three, fool! Your 'knight' carries the third, and doesn't even know it. Impa, your 'bodyguard', has fallen into a trap and lies dead. Your hope is lost… and you are mine. The Triforce, all three pieces, are mine once he unites them for me. Wise, in fact, to break it apart for me, the one of Wisdom… but ultimately futile. I could bind them back together. But why bother? He'll do it for me, and easier still. I must only exercise patience. Power comes to me naturally, after all, and the Triforce of Wisdom and Courage both desire Power…"
"I never sought power," she growled back, "I only wanted peace and protection for my people!"
"Protection requires power, girl," he snarled, and the back of his hand slapped across her cheek hard enough to send her sideways to the stone, cold floor of his labyrinthine stronghold, high atop Spectacle Rock. "It has always required power… Wisdom, Power, and Courage are each necessary for the others to survive. That is a lesson too few of you ever learn. Power is useless without the bravery to put it to work, knowing it may have unforeseen consequences. Power is equally useless when applied in a poor direction. Wisdom without the strength or bravery to direct or cause change is worthless… and courage without knowledge and strength is simply foolhardiness under another name. Can you deny it? I think not."
She said nothing, as she forced herself back to a knee, her hands bound behind her as they had been for hours now. Only glared.
Ganon laughed again, this time low and cold, heartless as only he could be. "You belong to me, now," he hissed, and this time his hand reached out, not his tongue. He grabbed her by the throat, one paw more than enough to lift the young princess into the air so her feet dangled and swayed, as her face turned red with lack of air. "Don't worry, though," he cooed again, silkily, with the same honeyed, sweet tones he had used to convince her father and mother to make him the Wizard of the Court when she was just a child. "I have better uses for you than death, after all…"
The arrow slammed into the eye again, and this time Zelda recovered from the vision quickly enough to see it actually explode like a bomb. Closer, too, the force of it threw her backward onto the top of the spire. Or more precisely, the spire's edge. Her leg and hand already dangled, the latter wrenched painfully as the sharp corner hit just above her knee. Momentum carried her further, though, sliding off, and down, down…
She spun in the air, rolling, and smashed face-down painfully onto both rocks and ice, and a thin layer of snow. "Ow," she moaned, and staggered slowly upward, just in time to see the thrashing tail disappear into the snow high, high overheard.
A moment's reprieve, then, Zelda consoled herself, and downed another elixir, this one a precious healing tonic that soothed the scrapes and bruises considerably.
When she looked up next, the snow was falling thicker and heavier around Lanayru's lofty peak, and everything seemed dark and gray despite being around midday. Below, she could still hear the distant shouts and sounds of Celessa's battle.
Above, the lowing and roaring of the dragon as it whooshed and swirled overhead, this time farther from the peak than even before.
But her pattern had changed. Lower, lower, and further, until she soared and twisted, leaking black, foul ichor in two places now, above the snowfield where she had seen a Korok's fairy lights, then to the crystal spires down in the valley they had traveled before finding the Shrine she and Celessa had spent a night in, and back in a long, wide figure-eight.
"Farther, but so much lower," Zelda whispered as she watched.
Only, even from the distance, she could also make out another black, malevolent-magic-filled cyst appear a third of the way down Naydra's body on the far side. Her eyes widened in horror. "No, not another," she gasped, and took off running, her numb hands reaching once more for the safety-straps of her Paraglider while equally numb feet slipped and staggered on the ice- and snow-covered stone of the mountain.
Airborne again, Zelda allowed herself time to think, to plan. She was definitely too cold, even with the coat and cold weather clothing, and the Fire Rod, which was actually starting to flicker without even being used, its magic unable to sustain itself in the sub-arctic temperatures.
There was another eye forming, and Zelda knew in just a moment's analysis that it would be formed before Zelda could reach Naydra.
From the wind-tunnel, she should have just enough height and reach to get a shot off, and climb higher again… as she had the first time. If, that was, she wasn't caught off-guard by another vision.
She had to try, though.
Below her, the peaks of the lower mountains passed, and her arms grew more weary, but Zelda would not allow herself to stop, to let go. Again and again, she reaffirmed her grip as seven entire miles moved past, thousands of feet below her boots.
The whole while, the dark magic-infested dragon grew larger and larger in her vision.
Blasts of unimaginably cold air wafted off of it now as its fury grew, and as she grew close, it exhaled at her with purpose. Zelda turned left just in time, narrowly avoiding the breath attack and one of the massive pines that rose from the central peak of Madorna Mountain.
Unexpectedly, Naydra veered, and her shot went wide. The wind tunnel, too, was too far, but Zelda was able to adjust course and touch down mere feet from the top of the same high spot. Another, third precious elixir slid down her throat, making her cough, her stomach ache with being too full, too much magic within it, but Zelda forced herself on as her fatigue faded, and started to climb the huge tree.
Amber and sap, snow, needles, and even a few very shocked squirrels moved past, but Zelda paid none of them heed. Not until the tree, mighty enough to withstand untold centuries of snowstorms and blizzards and endless, howling wind, began to bow under her weight. She stopped climbing then, her head just peeking out from the higher branches, and… there.
Crystal purple and violet, orange malice, and her target. Six hundred feet away, the two massive, hate-filled eyes searching, roving, looking for her.
The Calamity hadn't expected the tree, and had lost sight of her. Zelda let herself smile, and pulled out her bow again, leaning carefully against the tree. It would be an awkward shot, but as the dragon circled, at least on the north, she would be able to see the new eye clearly.
Twang.
Without a sight on her, there was no burst of magic, no vision.
But the arrow missed, caught by a stray gust of wind.
Zelda cursed under her breath, stuck in a tree she was so vulnerable, but…
Naydra did not attack. The arrow bounced harmlessly off scales, and she didn't even seem to notice!
Zelda grinned, and waited. This time… "Yes, a Bomb Arrow should do it, even if I miss. I hope."
She was right, but didn't miss. The massive explosion just below and behind the second set claws made Naydra's massive body shudder and wrench, and even fall sixty or seventy feet from the sky before she recovered with a roar of pain and anger.
There was no breath attack, and no claw, not even a swipe of that gigantic tail.
Naydra, corrupted by Malice, fled.
And behind her, high above a tree, mostly hidden from view by pine needles and snow, Zelda, Princess of Hyrule, smiled.
"I can do this," she told herself, and the despair that still seemed to niggle at her faded yet more, before she unfurled the para-glider once more, and pushed off with her legs.
It wasn't that easy. It never was. Zelda Elyse Hyrule was never going to have an easy time of life. She learned, she studied, she did all she could to help others, at the cost of herself. Her truest joys were three; Study and learning, her husband, and her daughter, Zelda Amaryll Hyrule.
Everything else was kind of… terrible. She loved her people, of course, and her kingdom. Her family, and even a few true friends she had built over her life.
But Queen Zelda, one of so, so many before her, had known escape would not be easy for them. But she had to try. The assassins had come in the night, and she had been in her daughter's room only through happenstance. Rhoam had made love to her, murmuring something about a son maybe, and she had been on her way to bed after a bit of wine to cool off… lest she seek another round.
A quick stop in her daughter's room, and a noise next to her own had her summoning the guards on instinct. She could hear fighting through several nearby halls as a small army of red-clad, masked warriors with a reverse Sheikah Eye covering it.
Zelda was in her arms, Rhoam fighting elsewhere, the distant roar of his deep voice, the sound of his favored battleaxe thunking into the soft flesh of one of the assassins as he called for her to answer back, to tell him where she was.
But she couldn't.
The assassins were right outside the wardrobe she and Zelda huddled within, her hand over her terrified daughter's mouth lest she cry out.
"There you are," a firm voice said, void of accent or tone, but loud and clear. A field commander's voice, perhaps.
She heard no footsteps, barely saw a shadow before the door of the wardrobe opened, and a huge, hulking man in armor so much like the other assassin's, but more ornate, stood before them. His mask was adorned with a few more markings too, and from the back of his head, hair rose up in an upside-down knot, which split into two crooks on the left and right.
"You," she whispered.
She'd seen that hair before. Just that day, in fact, though the man had worn no mask then, and claimed to be a traveling merchant from beyond the lands of the Gerudo, there to make an attempt at a trade agreement. He'd called himself Sooga Golian.
"You," the man nodded, "and you… little bird," he scoffed, the first real emotion she'd seen. "Such a harmless thing… you're no threat at all."
His blade flashed, and Queen Zelda flinched, doing her best to cover her daughter.
She felt the blade slide into the back of her neck, and her body collapsed. Her brain, her eyes, unfortunately, could still see. Her ears could hear. As her body fell, the spinal cord cut in a single motion with a second knife she hadn't expected, her perspective twisted. From sideways on the floor, she watched in horror as the huge man picked up her daughter's shaking, quivering hand. "Don't worry," he laughed, darkly, hollow, "this isn't even poisoned. Just a small little thing you won't even feel it. For the Master. For Kohga."
Queen Zelda could not see the mark, though she could see the tiny fleck of blood on her daughter's so-small hand as it trembled. Then the man turned, looked down at her through the mask as he lifted his hand to perform some mystical technique, then vanished in a flurry of paper tags.
"M- Mommy?"
She tried to answer her daughter's plaintive cry. Her mouth moved, she could feel it. But her lungs weren't moving, there was no pressure. No breath.
"Mommy…?"
She saw Zelda move, come closer, as her vision went black.
Queen Zelda Elyse Hyrule died with her young daughter, just eight years old, crying over her paralyzed, helpless form. Her last sight was of Zelda Amaryll weeping over what would very soon be a corpse.
"Fuck you," Zelda snarled, staring now into the face of hatred, of Malice, and of Naydra.
"I'll admit," she continued as she soared closer, as the dragon moved toward her, glaring, its long, toothy maw beginning to pen, "I was tempted by the lust. I felt despair at your mocking words to my predecessor… and yes, I know they were real, you bastard! But my mother… my memories of my mother! I'll fucking kill you!"
The Calamity had miscalculated. Zelda had not.
It had underestimated her fury… and she had not.
The jaws moved closer, inexorably, wide now, a deep tunnel deep into the belly of the beast.
The wind-tunnel caught the Paraglider, and up she went, past the snout.
She didn't draw her bow.
Not this time.
From twenty feet ahead, and twenty above, she let go of the Paraglider. She would trust the straps one more time. Not just with one hand, but with both.
She didn't quite drop like a stone, there was plenty of drag yet, and the wind ripped and tore around her, but without it held out, extended and open, she did drop.
Faster, down, faster still, and Zelda moved. Barely had time, still, as quickly as she tried to do it, to draw the knight's halberd she had kept, and twist it to face downward.
Below her, the huge sphere, black with flaming iris, pupil alight with foul magic of indigo now, suddenly looked…
Afraid.
Zelda smiled, and the heavy, pointed blade made contact.
Zelda did not precisely know what happened next.
Only that she'd done it.
