Link was flying.
Above him, the sky was a pure blue. The same blue as the Princess' eyes: the most beautiful color in the world.
Around him, bathing him, was the golden light of the sun; gold like the Princess' hair: warm and joyful and vibrant.
Below him, clouds stretched out in all directions. There were no rain clouds here: instead, the sky looked blanketed in soft white fluff.
The wind whipped at Link's hair and clothes as he flew faster and faster towards nowhere in particular. He was grinning, the movement and the speed exhilarating.
Even more exhilarating was the fact that he was not flying alone: next to him, just out of reach, was Princess Zelda. Link looked at her and the very sky vanished, everything but the Princess gone from his mind's eye, the whole world forgotten. His grin softened to a smile, jubilation giving way to adoration.
She was just SO perfect.
She was beautiful, too, but Link suspected that beauty itself, the very concept of it, had been rewritten in the hearts of all creation when the Princess had been born, to acknowledge and honor the newborn perfection.
Link didn't have the words to explain what made the Princess so special. Everyone knew she was kind. Everyone knew she was knowledgeable and creative, logical and wise yet always learning, but he wasn't personally familiar with too many specific details on any of this. He didn't actually know any more about her or what she did during the day than the average knight trainee. He'd only met her once, during a presentation ceremony, and they hadn't spoken. He'd saluted, like all the other trainees had, and she'd smiled at all of them, which meant she'd smiled at him, too.
He didn't need to know any of the specifics: he knew that she was perfect in every way, and he knew that she was his whole life, and he accepted that he'd never actually be anything to her. As long as he still got to catch sight of her now and again, and as long as he eventually got to protect her and serve her as a knight, it was fine.
Their flying paths drew closer, through no effort on Link's part. If he'd reached out, he'd have been able to touch her. Not that he would have ever dared.
She smiled at him and her arm moved towards him.
HELP ME
The Princess suddenly looked distressed, and she reached out for him more desperately.
Link's eyes widened. This was wrong. Nothing should threaten her. How dare something frighten her?
PLEASE HELP ME
I AM A PRISONER IN THE DUNGEON OF THE CASTLE
A cage materialized around the Princess and suddenly, she could no longer fly. The cage, with the Princess trapped inside of it, started plummeting.
Link's blood froze in his veins, his indignation giving way to nearly paralyzing fear. He gasped and followed, angling his flight downward, towards the cage, towards the clouds.
This couldn't be happening! Who would dare do this to the PRINCESS, to Princess Zelda, to the most wonderful and perfect person to ever be? Who or what could be so evil as to cage her and endanger her?
MY NAME IS ZELDA
She was so much more than her name. She couldn't fall to her death, she couldn't be in danger, this was NOT acceptable. Link flew as fast as he could, stretching and reaching, trying to reach the cage. He would save her. If it was the last thing he did, he would save her. He refused to think of living in a world where she no longer was, he wasn't going to allow it! He. Was. Going. To. SAVE HER!
PLEASE! HELP ME!
He would. He would. He would!
He'd save her, he would definitely save her, nothing else made sense. He lived for her and without her, existence would be meaningless. And yet the cage kept falling faster, the Princess reaching for Link from within it, her face showing no fear because she believed in him.
Link tried flying faster, and yet it felt as if he was all but suspended in the sky. He swam downwards against an air current trying to propel him upwards. He screamed because nothing worked: the cage, the Princess, kept falling further and further from him and he was powerless to stop it.
The cage finally disappeared below the clouds. The Princess disappeared. Link heard someone scream, and it might have been the Princess or it might very well have been him.
Link woke up with a gasp, his heart thundering in his chest.
Just a dream. It had been just a weird nightmare that had somehow taken over his favorite dream, the "Flying with the Princess" dream. Link never so much as touched the Princess or talked to her in those dreams, but she was present, and she was allowing him to be present, and sometimes, she even smiled back at him. It was everything he'd ever wished for.
He sat up with a scowl, angry at his own head for ruining his favorite night time fantasy. Outside, thunder rolled. Much closer, steps resounded as his uncle, Sir Gedion to everyone else in Hyrule, walked and puttered around.
Link blinked, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. It was the middle of the night, so what was his uncle doing up and about? It wasn't like him: although he was technically retired, Link's uncle was adamant about always being ready for duty and part of that was being in bed at a decent hour. Link knew this well, having had the same principles imposed on him pretty much his whole life, ever since his uncle had taken him in about 14 years earlier.
The only reason his uncle would be up was if the call to duty he was always prepared for had come. As a knight in training, Link was well aware that retired knights didn't get called into service in the middle of the night unless something seriously bad was happening.
"Uncle?" he called. "What's..."
"I'm going out for a while," his uncle interrupted. "I'll be back by morning. Stay here. No matter what happens, STAY HERE. Don't leave the house. Understood?"
Link frowned, his worries mounting. "What? Wait!"
There was no answer: Link's uncle had already stepped outside, and the door closed with Link now alone in the house.
Link frowned at the door, his heart hammering anew: his uncle had had his sword and shield with him. Something was definitely happening, and his uncle was walking right into it. He swallowed nervously.
Sir Gedion was retired for a reason: he was still capable, but he was getting old and more importantly, he had some long standing injuries that impaired him regardless of all his training and skills. He could easily get seriously hurt if he ended up in combat against something dangerous. He could...
PLEASE HELP ME
Link was startled right out of worrying about his uncle, and his heart started hammering louder. He stood stock still, eyes wide.
I AM A PRISONER IN THE DUNGEON OF THE CASTLE
Link gasped and jumped out of bed. That was just like in his dream! That was the Princess! But that would mean she really WAS in danger!
MY NAME IS ZELDA
"NO!" he cried out. He winced. He hadn't meant to yell at her, it was just that the nightmare was real, the Princess really was in trouble, and the very thought was horrifying. "I'm sorry!" he cried. "I'm coming! I'm coming, Princess!"
This was wrong, this was an abomination. The Princess, in trouble? It was unacceptable, inconceivable. What kind of evil would dare threaten her? The Princess who made the world better by merely existing within it... how could she be in the dungeon, desperately calling for help? It was madness, it was monstruous.
Was that why Link's uncle had just left fully armed in the middle of the night? Had Sir Gedion heard the Princess' call too? If that was the case, did it mean every knight had heard it? That would be good, it would mean his uncle had probably already joined with a bunch of other fighters instead of going into danger alone.
PLEASE! HELP ME!
Link winced at the plea. The poor Princess was a prisoner in her own home, and she was terrified and pleading for help. It was unfair, she didn't deserve such a plight, she didn't deserve ANY kind of plight.
The thought that his uncle was on his way to her, quite possibly along with every knight in Hyrule, and that this same uncle had told him to stay home, tried to assert itself. He angrily pushed it aside.
The Princess needed help. He was training to be a knight, and he considered himself already sworn to her service even though his vows hadn't been officialized yet. Therefore, if she needed help, she needed HIS help too.
More importantly, nobody had any right to be making her so much as feel unsafe. He was not going to let it stand. He was saving her, right now. If it turned out other people were trying to do the same, good. It didn't matter. He had heard the call, he was answering it. He was going to save her because she was everything and he couldn't possibly do otherwise.
He grabbed the one lantern left on the table – his uncle had clearly taken the other one – and headed out.
The fact that he could hear frequent peels of thunder, not to mention the rain loudly beating against the roof and the windows, suddenly reached his conscious mind again as said rain soaked him through as soon as he passed the threshold of his door.
The fact that he was still wearing nothing but flimsy light pajamas also reasserted itself then. He felt heat rush to his cheeks: he could NOT save the Princess like this. Appearing in front of the King's Daughter wearing nothing but night clothes? The disrespect was completely unthinkable. She'd be rightfully horrified.
He couldn't do that to her. She was already having a bad enough time, whatever was happening, he couldn't ADD to her problems. He rushed back in, grabbed a towel from the cupboard and dried himself just enough to be able to slip out of his sodden pajamas and into his trainee uniform: he'd already had the pants, shirt, tunic and cap laid out for in the morning.
The whole operation took about one minute. He left the towel where he'd dropped it on the floor and grabbed the lantern again. He'd never be able to use it in this downpour, but the dungeons might be dark.
He headed out the door again.
I AM A PRISONER IN THE DUNGEON OF THE CASTLE. MY NAME IS ZELDA. PLEASE HELP ME.
Link winced. How desperate did the Princess have to be to be calling telepathically? He would have heard of it if she was known to be able to talk to people's minds, so this had to be the first time she'd even tried. And who would try something like that unless they had absolutely no other hope?
He started running.
Zelda huddled in the corner of the cell she'd been thrown into. She was trying to stop shaking, and she couldn't.
She wasn't crying anymore: she was too exhausted to sob, and her tears had dried up. Her mind was crying on the inside instead, refusing to stop dwelling on the events of the night.
Her father was probably dead, finally reunited with her long lost mother. She hadn't seen the body, but the Sorcerer Aghanim had told her that the King was dead and Goddess help her, she believed him.
She wouldn't survive her father for long if she didn't manage to escape, either. She knew what waited for her in the morning: that traitor Aghanim had been quite clear on that. She was to be sacrificed like the other six descendants had been, her soul sent to the Dark World to be used by his master, Ganon, to break the seal.
Every single word spoken by the gloating wizard had been a fresh horror, and he'd said it all with a grin.
Sacrificed. She was going to die. As much as she wanted to be brave, even just that terrified her.
Her soul sent to the Dark World. She'd never find peace even in death, she was being condemned to eternity in the Dark World. Every comfort she might ever have derived, like many did, in the belief that the afterlife could be kind, was unavailable to her. An eternity of horror is all she could expect. The thought made her shake uncontrollably.
Just like the other six descendants. They'd only known of three people disappearing. There were six, and the terrible fate that awaited her had already befallen all six of them. She was the seventh, which completed the set. If the descendants had been identified correctly, and she was not so optimistic as to think they might not have been, Ganon would have all the power he needed to break the seal on the Dark World and unleash his evil on Hyrule.
Ganon. The Prince of Evil that had been banished ages ago, the one who the Seven Sages of old had only been able to seal away during the imprisoning war...
He was back. Ganon was back and the descendants of the Sages would not be able to stop him this time: instead, their souls would be used to free the demon in a cruel reversal of their ancestor's accomplishments.
She couldn't let it happen. It was her duty to protect Hyrule, she couldn't let Aghanim have his way. She had to escape, she had to stop her own sacrifice in order to stop Ganon. As much as she didn't want any of this to happen to her, as much as she was scared nearly out of her mind, the fact was that for the sake of Hyrule, she HAD to save herself. She would have selfishly wanted to anyway, to a point, but right now, nothing else mattered. She had to escape, or all was lost.
And she couldn't do it alone. She needed help, which meant she needed to call for help because she had no allies left here: all the guards and knights she'd come across tonight had been placed under some kind of spell that twisted their heart and made them loyal to Ganon. So, she needed to call for help and to allow anyone at all who heard that call to throw themselves into danger. If fifty heard and one survived and saved her, she would spend the rest of her life knowing she'd done the right thing and not feeling any better for it.
She focused her will, just like her attendant Impa had been training her to do. Impa... she hadn't seen her tonight. She might be dead too.
She cast the thought and the fresh misery it brought aside, focusing with desperate will. She'd only ever managed to speak simple phrases to another mind before, and only to Impa, who was trained to listen out for it, but the potential was there. She could do this.
She cleared her mind of everything else, focusing on just the few words she needed.
HELP ME. PLEASE HELP ME. I AM A PRISONER IN THE DUNGEON OF THE CASTLE. MY NAME IS ZELDA. PLEASE, HELP ME.
She stopped, panting and heart hammering as if she'd just run the length of the whole kingdom. The guard outside her cell didn't react, too far gone from the curse that poisoned his mind to care about his prisoner as long as she didn't move to escape.
When her heart and breathing felt like they were back to normal, Zelda tried again, repeating the same message.
Goddesses, let someone hear. And sweet Hylia, if at all possible, let them survive saving her.
Link was drenched just as fast as before. His clothes were sticking to his skin, his hair was dripping in his eyes, and it didn't matter because the poor Princess, the light of the kingdom, was the victim of some mysterious evil and she was in the dungeon, alone and afraid and probably cold and Sweet Hylia, let her at least not be hurt!
Link ran faster and quickly made it to the castle' moat. He skidded on the wet grass when he turned left to get to the bridge and the castle's gate, and he went sprawling. He was up again in a flash, running faster again to make up for lost time.
His blood went cold at the sight that greeted him: the gates were up. It was the middle of the night, and the gates were up.
Now that he thought of it, he wasn't sure how he'd intended to even get to the dungeons, but he certainly hadn't expected the gates to be up in the middle of the night. He'd never even heard of something like that happening. The gates were NEVER up at night. He'd have been less shocked to find the castle suddenly being made of gold than he was at seeing the gates up at night. It was unfathomable.
HELP ME
PLEASE HELP ME
I AM A PRISONER IN THE DUNGEON OF THE CASTLE
MY NAME IS ZELDA
Link winced again. The poor Princess... she sounded so scared, so desperate... He swallowed back a sob. She needed him to help her, not to feel sorry for her. Even if she had been tossed into her own father's dungeons, even if she might be hurt – Goddesses please please PLEASE let her not be hurt – and even if she was perfection incarnate and should never be subjected to anything bad ever, he couldn't waste time just feeling sorry for her, he needed to save her, he needed to save her NOW.
And the gates were up in the middle of the night. It was so wrong, all of it was so wrong.
At least, one little thing still made sense: the entryway was guarded. The guard spotted him and called out.
"Oy! Link! What are YOU doing here?"
Sir Gavan. Link hadn't recognized his face under the helmet and in the dark, but the voice was unmistakable. Sir Gavan, one of the Royal Knights, who had been on duty the day before, had been pulled into night duty anyway, to guard the gate. A knight. A knight who'd been on day duty, doing a regular guard's job, at night, without a rest.
Wrong. It was all wrong. Everything was wrong and Link's skin was crawling from it. And his uncle was somewhere in the middle of it all, with a bad leg and a worse back and one blind eye... Link needed to find him. He needed to find his uncle so said uncle could remind his silly nephew that he was the very capable Sir Gedion and that he knew how to work around his own physical limits, and so he could make fun of Link for worrying like that.
"Sir Gavan?" Link called back. He wasn't sure what to say. What do you say when you just want to scream because it feels like you're in an absurd nightmare where nothing makes sense and where the most precious person in the whole world desperately needs help but the person you're talking to shouldn't even be there? "This is going to sound crazy..."
THE WIZARD, AGHANIM...
Link's voice died in his throat. The Princess was trying to explain what happened, but her mind's voice had faded mid sentence.
"What's going to sound crazy?" Sir Gavan asked. He shook his head. "No, I don't care. Listen, kid, go home."
CONTROL...
Link's eyes widened as the pieces fell together. The Princess was barely managing to project her thoughts, but she'd made sure to say the wizard's name, and something about control. And everything was wrong, and the gates shouldn't be up, and Sir Gavan shouldn't still be on duty, especially not for work knights did not usually do, and the Princess should definitely, definitely not be a prisoner.
Aghanim would never allow all this to go unchecked. The wizard had been the key to resolving several catastrophes that had befell the kingdom a few years earlier, and had since been the King's most trusted adviser. Aghanim was Hyrule's Savior. The Princess mentioning his name could only mean that she was trying to warn Link, and whoever else might hear her, that Aghanim would not be able to help.
And without the wizard's help, the castle had fallen and someone else was now in control. Link gulped. That was the crux of it. The castle had fallen.
Yet Gavan was still guarding the gates. Link was nearly overcome by a wave of rage and indignation. How could Gavan take orders from the invaders?
Link didn't know for sure, but he thought that all the knights had probably heard the Princess' call, along with all the trainees if Link himself was any indication. But that would mean that Sir Gavan would have heard her too. Sir Gavan would have heard the desperate pleas for help from his Princess. And if he had, and he was still here guarding the gates for someone else rather than rushing to Princess Zelda's help, Gavan was not just a traitor but the vilest of traitors.
Link's voice came out in a growling snarl as he fought back the urge to just charge the knight. "Sir Gavan, why are you here?" He threw his title at Gavan more than he said it: being called 'Sir' was an honor that Gavan no longer deserved and it was a reminder of what the traitorous knight had turned his back on. "'Twas not your liege who ordered it, I know it!" Link continued, his voice rising. "How could you? How could you break your oaths? How can you ignore the Princess in her time of need? YOU TRAITOR! HOW DARE YOU?"
Sir Gavan grimaced and shook his head. "You're not a problem. You're not a problem. Don't become one. You're not a problem." He sounded like he was chanting more than talking to Link. "Go back home. You're a kid, you're not a threat, just go home just go home NOW!"
As if to emphasize his point, he leveled his spear at Link, his hands shaking.
"P...please. Link. Go. GO! I... I can't...GO!" the last word was roared even as Gavan trust forward with his spear.
Link dodged sideways, eyes wide. All his rage and indignation were suddenly redirected away from Sir Gavan: the knight who'd just tried to spear him was clearly fighting against some kind of magical compulsion. None of this was his fault in any way. Sir Gavan wasn't a traitor after all, he was another victim. Just the same, if Link didn't run, Gavan would kill him because the bespelled knight wouldn't be able to resist the curse he was under.
This was wrong, this was a violation. Taking someone over like that, making them do things they didn't want to, not giving them any choice about it... Link wanted to throw up.
And he couldn't worry about it for now. He needed to get to the Princess, he needed to save her.
So he ran.
Hoping Gavan would be satisfied as long as he was gone, Link made for the gardens and dove behind the nearest edge to remove himself from the sight of the possessed knight. He stopped then, listening intently.
There were no footsteps pursuing him. Link turned around and risked a peek between the edge's branches. Gavan was back in position at the gate, as if Link had never been there.
A shudder ran through Link. Sir Gavan would NEVER let an enemy escape so easily. Even though this was exactly what Link had been hoping for, the reality of it was insulting to the knights of Hyrule: one of their own, turned against his will into not only a traitor, but a mindless automaton as well. Link realized his fists were clenched when he felt his nails digging through his palms. He clenched harder before forcing his hands to relax.
He couldnt' stop snarling and his breathing was too fast, too shallow. His thoughts were all over the place, refusing to focus. He couldn't remember ever being anywhere near so angry. The enemy's crimes were adding up at a dizzying pace, and every one of those crimes was heinous, disgusting and unforgiveable.
And what of his uncle?
The thought sobered Link up instantly.
Where WAS Link's uncle? Was Sir Gedion under the same spell Gavan had fallen to? If so, would finding him just mean trouble for Link? He supposed that his uncle being bespelled too would at least keep the retired knight safe. But then, what if his uncle was NOT under the spell affecting Gavan? What if only some of the knights were affected and they were all fighting each other? But then why would some of them have fallen to a spell and some not? Why had Link himself not been enraptured in the curse controlling Gavan?
Link's eyes widened in sudden horror as the thought occurred to him that almost all the knights lived within the palace walls. Gedion was an exception because he was retired. What if every knight and guard within the palace grounds was under the spell? What if Link's uncle had gone straight to a friend for help and...
He shook his head. He refused to think of it. His uncle was fine, he had to be. Link would probably find him with the Princess in tow, rescued already, rendering Link's own efforts so far useless. He wouldn't mind, he'd be ecstatic, and they could all escape together, and figure out what to do next.
But he didn't actually know for sure that his uncle would find the Princess first, or at all. He needed to find her himself, just in case. He needed to find a way to the dungeon. Who knew what someone who'd sink so low as to turn knights into senseless puppets might do to an innocent young princess? He gulped and shook his head: it was best not to even think of it less his worry turned to frantic panic.
It didn't matter what the villain who'd seized the castle and the very mind of quite possibly most of the knights and guards, the villain who'd incapacitated or possibly killed Aghanim, had planned for the Princess, because Link was going to save her. Unless his uncle saved her first.
Princess Zelda was getting saved either way, because no other scenario was acceptable. The Princess would NOT stay a prisoner and she would NOT remain in danger, because the very thought was abominable. Link was going to find her. He just needed to figure out how to get to the dungeons without passing the main gate.
Link started walking aimlessly, trying to think. He came to the end of the path he was on, below the small shelter of a large tree and in front of a potted bush surrounded by decorative paving stones. He stared at the bush, wondering not for the first time why the gardeners had been so determined to end the path on a bush as to use a pot when presumably, the soil failed to be an option because of the tree's roots.
It was idle thoughts, but with nothing productive to offer, his brains weren't cooperating in shoving them aside.
This was bad, this was terrible. He needed to get inside the dungeons, he needed to rescue the Princess. Or to find her in the process of escaping with his uncle. That would be even better since it would also reassure Link that his uncle was fine as well.
It was then that Link's brains caught up with his eyes: the familiar pot at the end of the path was slanted, as if partly dug into the ground.
"What in Nayru's name...?"
Link grabbed the pot and lifted it. It was probably nothing. His wild imaginings that his uncle had found a passage and not been able to quite reposition the potted bush properly from underneath it were probably just desperation talking.
His eyes widened and he just barely managed not to cry out in delight when he saw the hole the pot had been concealing. He felt for the first rung of a ladder, found it, and started going down, grinning madly.
"I'm coming, Princess," he muttered. "Please, please be okay for just a bit longer. I'm coming."
The thought that this secret passage may not lead inside the castle or at least to the inner courtyard was pushed aside as soon as it occurred. This had to be the right way. It HAD to. He refused to believe otherwise.
He was going to find the Princess, and together, they would escape and find a way to fix whatever was going on. The castle would go back to normal, Sir Gavan and everyone else would go back to normal, and the Princess would be able to go back to the safety of her home, and to continue being a perfect shining light blessing Hyrule and all within the Kingdom with her very existence.
Imitating whoever had been here first tonight – possibly his uncle – Link reached up once he was inside the hole and dragged the potted bush back over the opening. He couldn't risk Sir Gavan or someone else under the enemy's control wandering over and discovering the passage by way of falling into it.
What little light the night had provided immediately gave way to complete darkness. Link proceeded to climb down the ladder until his feet hit solid ground. As soon as he was standing firmly, he took out his lamp and willed it to light up. The magic inside himself responded and some of it left him to pour into the device, causing it to come to life with a fire that burned much brighter and steadier than a normal flame could ever have.
Link raised the lamp and extended his arm forward, trying to light as much of the chamber he found himself in as he could.
There wasn't much to it, but it was clearly something that had been built, as opposed to a natural hole in the ground. The floor was tiled and even carpeted, and the walls were cut stones. Off to the side towards where the castle would be, Link could make out an opening in the wall. He headed that way.
The opening led to a hallway that shared the same floor and walls as the ladder room. The lamp's light didn't reach the end of it.
Link was a couple of steps in when he heard a groan.
He froze.
He dearly hoped he was imagining things, because he thought the groan had sounded like his uncle, and more precisely, like a dying man who was his uncle.
And that couldn't be, he refused to entertain the thought. He was definitely imagining that he recognized his uncle's voice from a groan. He didn't even actually know the groan was from a person, even if it certainly sounded like it, and he definitely didn't know that this person was dying, just that the groan was alarmingly weak and rattling, and he OBVIOUSLY couldn't possibly recognize his uncle's voice. Recognizing someone's voice from a groan was not a thing. His brains were just playing tricks on him.
He ran forward and the light from his lamp hit a prone form leaning against the wall.
Link's eyes widened and his lamp fell from his suddenly nerveless fingers.
Sir Gedion, Link's uncle and for all intents and purposes adopted parent, was sitting slumped against the wall, covered in blood and otherwise visibly pale as death even in the orange light of Link's fallen lamp.
Link wasn't aware of moving but he was suddenly kneeling next to the man who had raised him and taken care of him for as long as he could remember.
"Uncle?" he asked uselessly. He grabbed one of the blood soaked hands.
Link's thoughts weren't lining up, the whole landscape inside his head was suddenly blank. He couldn't move, he couldn't speak, he couldn't think. This couldn't be real, this had to be a nightmare. He tried to force his eyes to open, even though they already were, in an effort to wake up.
His uncle's hand squeezed his, weakly. Link's eyes did not open any further than they already were and Gedion's did not open at all.
Link whimpered. "Uncle..."
Suddenly, he knew what he needed to do. It was so simple he should have thought of it right away. He grabbed the utility pack his uncle wore on his hip – it was covered in blood, but Link wasn't going to start evaluating how much blood there was, nothing good would come of that - and opened it. His uncle needed a potion, simple as that. Give him a potion, restore him to good health, and then go rescue the Princess together.
The pack contained no potion. Link turned it upside down and shook it, causing everything it contained to fall out, and it was nothing but useless stuff like rupees and... bandages!
Link grabbed those and looked over his uncle, trying to find the main injury. He didn't have to look for very long: there was a gaping hole in his uncle's chest and blood was pulsing out of it. His uncle's right leg was also missing its foot, ending instead in a stump that lay in an expanding puddle of blood.
There was too much blood, and the chest injury was too big. Link whimpered again, his hands clenching on the useless bandages, his thoughts refusing to focus on anything else than wishing this wasn't real.
"Link...?"
The voice startled him badly, for all that it was but a whisper.
"What... doing here? No..." Gedion took a wheezing breath. "...matter. Sword. Take... take it." He breathed again and coughed blood. "And... shield... P...Princess... your..." He stopped again and Link waited for the next words, the next breath.
Neither came.
Link grabbed his uncle's hand again and squeezed, hard. "Uncle?" he asked.
There was no response. Link dropped the hand and shook the man's shoulders. "UNCLE!"
The dead man still didn't not react.
Link was screaming before he knew he'd been about to. His uncle was dead, he was gone, he'd been killed, quite possibly by one of his friends and it didn't matter that he was a knight and that this kind of death had always been a possibility, because Link loved him, and he shouldn't be DEAD!
"You said you'd be back!" Link yelled, shaking his uncle's shoulders again. "You SAID! You...!"
HELP ME
PLEA...
Link's breath caught and his whole body started shaking. The Princess' voice had died mid word.
He clenched every muscle he could to stop shaking, and he clenched his mind and his heart as well so they'd stop shaking too.
The Princess needed help. It might already be too late as it was, there was no time to lose. Crying for his uncle would have to wait – there was nothing Link could do for him, except finish the mission that had been Sir Gedion's end.
Link was a Knight in training, his life's purpose was to protect the Royal Family, and he might be the Princess' last hope. He couldn't stay here and cry, as hard as it was to do anything else at all.
He took his uncle's shield and sword and picked his lamp back up. Looking around, he spotted stairs. There were blood splatters on them, and he couldn't afford to start picturing his uncle going down them in an effort to escape his foes or to the contrary, being tossed down here by a puppet who couldn't be bothered to properly finish off the intruder they'd just murdered.
He cast the thoughts aside and climbed the stairs.