Chapter 3
The Crimson Eyes of Good and Evil
Princess Zelda could hear...laughter...or it might be sobbing? It was hard to tell.
Shapes and colours blended together, she was in...the library, or was it in the castle? One or the other. The details weren't important.
She was comfortable, a candle lit at her side as she picked up and read her favourite book. What book was it? Doesn't matter, but it was her favourite and she wanted to read it.
Shad, the librarian's son, was there. She liked him. He was nice and friendly, one of the few friends she had. Yet now he was not looking at her. He was busy reading his own book...or he was busy trying to talk to that one soldier he had a crush on. The point was, he wasn't paying attention to Zelda and her issues.
She looked down at her book, trying to get into the story within its pages, but that eye, that crimson eye of horror that she glimpsed in the tornado that destroyed the tower melted into the ink of the pages, glaring at her from the paper.
"You cannot escape!" it screamed.
She snapped the book shut and began to run, passing by the corridors of the castle...
So it was the castle after all?
...she reached the throne room, and King Rheadon, her father, was lying on the floor with a sword going right through his chest, and blood spilled out...he looked dead, but was he dead? Zelda couldn't tell. He was alive the last time she saw him, he couldn't have...well, what if he...no, that didn't happen! Zelda refused the image and it faded.
What she could not refuse however was the next image, that being of someone sitting on Hyrule's throne that was not the her father...nor herself for that matter...but a woman with red curly hair, green eyes and a scowl on her serious face.
She looked down at Zelda with an angry yet stoic expression and asked, "What are you doing in my castle, sister?"
A tornado swept the room aside into smoke and Zelda was blown away by it, the eye from before staring down at her, "You can run...you can keep running, but I will find you!"
...then it disappeared.
"Hehihihihihhheheh!"
A lantern holding a green flame came into view and a peculiar figure in a black coat and wide-brimmed hat appeared, laughing madly. "Your destiny awaits you, lassie!" he said, then went back to laughing.
HEEEHHEHIHIHIHIHHHEEHHEHE!"
He poofed away into smoke, and two green figures rushed to her side, a boy and a girl...a big dark hand snatched the boy and dragged him into the abyss...while the girl kept running.
She was holding something golden in her hand, something round and shiny. Zelda reached out for her (or maybe the treasure she was holding?), but then the eye appeared again, separating them.
"There will be no more heroes."
A spear flew across the air and pierced the big red eye...and another red eye, or rather a pair of red eyes, replaced it. But these eyes did not frighten Zelda, they gave her comfort.
...At least until they said, "...You're useless."
...and then Zelda woke up.
Her eyelids felt heavy, but slowly and surely, she opened them. In fact, her whole body ached, but that just proved she was alive at least...alive and somewhere unfamiliar.
She felt the touch of wind, slight but it was there, so she wasn't indoors, and she could also feel the heat and hear the crackling sound of a fire burning. She was in a bed...no, not a bed, but something similar to one. Maybe a bedroll? She could see trees around her, so still in the forest? It was dark, but with a hint of sun on the horizon, so...early dawn?
There was someone else there with her...a figure sitting by what she could now identify as a campfire, feeding and maintaining it. It looked like a woman, but it was hard to tell right now, she had white hair tied up into a high ponytail and was wearing some kind of black poncho or cape. Zelda could not see the stranger's face from this angle.
"Ughh..." Zelda groaned, trying to get up.
The woman by the campfire heard the slight sound Zelda made with the help of a pair of very sensitive pointed ears and immediately turned to look at the waking princess...and by Hylia her face was a sight the princess would never forget! Brown skin marked with coloured tattoos: a white tear drop under her right eye and sharp orange markings around her left...and speaking of her eyes, they were intense, fierce, and tinted crimson much like the eyes from her dream.
It was the most beautiful pair of eyes Zelda had ever seen.
...and that wasn't all. The woman looked youthful, probably not much older than herself, but bigger. She wasn't that much taller, but she wasn't nearly as skinny as the dainty princess, and Zelda couldn't help but blush when she saw the woman's defined biceps and muscular build, and she swore she even spotted abs through a gap in her outfit...an outfit featuring an aesthetic Zelda immediately recognised.
"About time," the woman remarked with a smirk, her voice rather deep for a woman's. "I was wondering how long it would take you to wake up."
"Where...where am I?" Zelda asked, pushing herself up into a sitting position so she could properly look around at her surroundings, but saw not much of interest other than trees and the sky.
The woman stood up, giving the princess a better view of her impressive stature. Why did she suddenly feel a massive shiver, Zelda wondered?
"Not too far from where I found you, princess," the woman replied, taking a seat next to Zelda.
"Princess? How do you know I'm-" she began to ask...only to be silenced by a look from the other woman, a 'well duh' kind of look. "Nevermind, I guess I am pretty recognisable. You...you're a Sheikah, right?"
Her red eyes, white hair, and especially the traditional tattoos on her skin, as well as her garb, which had a lot of distinctive symbols on it, made that an easy deduction for Zelda, even in her groggy state. Also, she had met quite a few Sheikah in her life, and knew well what they looked like.
They were a tribe of humans, or...well, human-looking beings who were once upon a time, in a long-forgotten age, the blessed servants of the Goddess Hylia; gifted with an innate talent for magic, enhanced physical strength, enhanced senses, near-perfect health and long lives, and even had a penchant for technology. They had been Hyrule's closest allies for both the best...and the worst...eras of that kingdom's history, and quite a few served at the castle where Zelda grew up. One of them she even considered an honorary uncle.
"Hmm...yeah, I'm a Sheikah," she confirmed, sounding rather deadpan. "Any more painfully obvious questions you have for me?"
The tone of her voice when she said that irked Zelda a bit. It might just be a bad first impression, or a temporary mood the woman was currently in, but she sounded a bit...rude? Or was it too early to come to that conclusion? Either way, for now she decided not to focus on that and instead asked, "What's your name?"
"Impa," she said. Just her name; no fancy introduction, no dramatic flare, just her name and nothing else. Still, that was all Zelda had asked for, so she wasn't in a position to complain.
"Alright, Impa...how did I get here?"
Impa let out a snort and crossed her arms, "I carried you, obviously. You're heavier than you look, by the way."
A surge of brattiness and vanity overcame the princess at that remark. "Excuse me?!" she haughtily asked, mimicking the Sheikah's crossed arm pose while looking rather indignant.
"Oh, I'm sorry, did you expect your unconscious body to be as light as a feather just because you're a princess?" Impa asked back with some bite in her voice, obviously not caring much right now about being polite. "Also, keep your voice down. The last thing we need is another monster attack because of your yelling."
Zelda looked up at Impa and stared at her for a full eight seconds...and then asked, "Are you always this cranky?"
"No...today I'm feeling friendlier than normal, actually," Impa snarked, sarcasm colouring her words. "After all, I did save you from being digested by a giant amoeba, and dragged your limp unresponsive body all the way here while covering my tracks and did it fast enough so Ganon's goons couldn't follow us here. He is not an opponent to take lightly I might add. I got to say I'm impressed that you managed to give him the slip as long as you did."
Well that answered her previous question at least, Zelda noticed. She was having some...mixed feelings about this Impa person. Zelda was grateful that she was there to save her life, that was definitely not something to downplay, not ever...and well...Impa was rather easy on the eyes thought a part of Zelda that she had done her hardest to suppress for most of her life...but, the Sheikah's attitude was starting to rub her the wrong way.
Zelda then mentally chastised herself for judging Impa for that so soon. After all, they had just met, and Impa did have plenty of reasons to be cranky after dragging an unconscious body for...however long and far it was. Zelda knew full well that she would not be in a particularly good mood if she herself did the same.
More importantly, Impa had saved her life. She had no right to act ungrateful because of a few snide remarks.
Zelda sat up a bit, stretching her limbs. They were still feeling sore, and she could spot some bruising on her right arm, probably from that time King Bulblin either picked her up by that arm or dropped her in the grass. It was hard to tell though. The injuries kinda merged together in her memory after how much misery she had to go through yesterday.
"So...what brings you all the way out here to the Monster Wilds, Impa?"
"You can thank your sister for that," Impa answered while standing up, walked towards a bag she had left on the ground, and rummaged through it for something. "I'm a scout, sent deep into enemy territory to report what the enemy is doing. There were rumours of something happening here in the Monster Wilds, and General Duelia sent me and a few others to investigate. Turns out, Ganondorf himself was hiding here, building his forces for a massive attack...an attack for which my message arrived too late to do anything about it seems."
She pulled out a bottle filled with milk from the bag and pulled the cork off, then handed it over to Zelda. "Lon Lon Milk. You need to recover your strength."
Zelda didn't hesitate and eagerly took the offered item from Impa's hands, gulping down the whole bottle in a short amount of time. It was very satisfying and pleasurable experience given how thirsty she had been ever since escaping Ganon's Tower. The last time she consumed any liquid was a mug of water she had been provided for in her cell during her captivity...four hours before Ganondorf brought her over to his music room, as well as the events that followed. Since then and up until now, which was more than a day's worth of time, Zelda hadn't tasted any food or water whatsoever.
"I remained in the area to gather more information, not much else for me to do really," Impa continued while Zelda drank her milk. "I saw Ganon's army return to the tower some time later, and I also saw that you were with them. I sent another message back to the Hyrule that you were held captive here, and have kept my eye on the tower ever since...at least until the whole thing blew up."
A surge of irrational anger compelled Zelda to stop drinking and ask, "You did? Why didn't you try to rescue me then?! You had plenty of chances."
Impa sighed and rolled her eyes. "I may not consider myself a coward, but I also don't consider myself an idiot. They outnumbered me eight-hundred to one, and leading them was Ganondorf! The man known as a walking calamity! It would have been suicide to take them on without reinforcements or some kind of absurd advantage. I did consider a few opportunities to employ stealth and sneak you out, but every time I considered it, the circumstances were too risky. I'd be no use to you dead, would I?"
"Oh...well, I guess that makes sense," Zelda noted, now feeling rather stupid for asking. Who was she to ask one lone scout to take on Ganon's entire army just to rescue herself from his captivity? It was a dumb, irrational and selfish request, and she now felt like a monster for making it. "Sorry."
"When the tower fell, I was asleep," Impa continued her rapport, paying no further mind to Zelda's previous question or her apology. "The noise of it crumbling woke me up, and I rushed to investigate. I didn't find you, but I found your footprints, and followed them as best I could. I heard a Bulblin horn and figured you'd run into some trouble so I picked up the pace, and...well, be glad that I did, because you would have been dead if I had not been there in time."
That notion brought a dark and cold feeling to Zelda's heart. While she was of course glad that she was saved, the fact that she got so close to death in the first place was harrowing. It wouldn't have been a dignified death either, as Morphas hunt by squeezing the life out of their prey like a constricting snake, then letting them get slowly digested in the creature's slime. Not even her bones would remain in the end.
The mental image of that happening to her nearly made Zelda puke.
"Trust me...I am very glad you were there, Impa," she said with a vacant stare, then shook her head in an attempt to rid her brain of any more unpleasant thoughts about her own potential gruesome end. "So...uh...what now?" she asked awkwardly.
"We need to get you to safety first and foremost," Impa replied without missing a beat, stepping over to where her weapon, a traditional Sheikah spear known as a naginata, was lying on the ground, placed her foot under it, and with a swift leg movement, launched it high enough in the air to grab it with her hand without bending down to reach it, then twirled it around three laps so fast it cut through the air. "You may have escaped those Bulblins, but I have a feeling they haven't given up yet. Plus, there's a thousand other things out here that will kill you in any number of ways. You won't last more than a day out here on your own, so while I may be a lone scout rather than a bodyguard, and thankfully so, it falls upon me to be your guardian until we can get a proper security escort to take you back to Hyrule Castle."
Zelda was ashamed to admit that she may have been a bit too distracted by Impa's fancy spear move to really listen to what she was saying, but she picked up just enough for her brain to catch up on the plan. "Oh...right, well, I appreciate that. Thank you. So you know where to find a 'proper security escort' as you put it? Honestly, I have no idea how to navigate this place."
That actually brought a bemused smirk to Impa's lips. "Heh, you...really don't. The path you took after escaping the tower was actually in the complete opposite direction of where Hyrule is. The only thing you'd find that way would be the Lanayru Coast, then the Lanayru Sea...and then Holodrum."
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Zelda actually snickered at the irony. All the frustrations and agony she had over yesterday transformed into humour. Sometimes, you just need to laugh at the pain, no matter how painful. "Well, hehe...I suppose that wouldn't be too bad. Holodrum has rather pleasant weather last I heard," she said, still giggling a bit.
"Hmmh, I'd take your word for it." Impa replied, smiling a bit...and then she got serious again. "Anyway...there's a Hyrulean outpost about three days walk from here. Captain Alfonzo's in charge of it, and he can provide you with what you need to get home safely."
"A three days walk!?" Zelda sputtered, horrified. "I can barely last walking just one day in these stupid heels. How in Din's name do you think I'll last several?!"
A moment of tense silence followed as Impa just glared at her...followed by another sigh and another eye roll, "Oh, excuse me, princess, but I'm afraid you'll just have to deal with that! Whining about it like a little girl isn't going to make things easier. Maybe we'll find you some better shoes, but other than that, there's nothing else I can do for you."
The Sheikah's words made Zelda nearly recoil from the sheer force behind them. Perhaps she wasn't the only one here feeling frustrated, she wondered?
"Oh, and while we're at it, let me make one thing perfectly clear..." Impa continued, looking Zelda dead in the eye. "While I may be sworn to obey you, my master taught me that experience outranks everything, and sad to say but you're completely out of your depth in this place, so until we get back to civilisation, whatever I say goes. You won't complain, you won't whine about it, you'll just do it without hesitation. Is that understood?"
"Uhh...I...uhhm..." Zelda mumbled, not at all used to having anyone talk to her that way...or at least, anyone who wasn't her father.
"Is that understood?!" Impa repeated, louder this time.
"Yes! Of course! You're in charge!"
"Wonderful," Impa remarked, bending down to scoop up some sand and dirt with her hands and then poured it on the campfire to extinguish its flames in a way that wouldn't waste water and had a greater chance of covering the smoke to make it harder for anyone to track them. Once she was done with that, she moved on to pack up her supplies and equipment. "Then get up on your feet and be ready to move! Every second we waste is a second more for Ganondorf or his minions to catch up with us. I don't know what happened to his tower, but that beast doesn't die easily, so it's best to assume-"
"Actually..." Zelda interrupted, holding up a finger. "Ganondorf is dead."
That surprising bit of information made Impa stop what she was doing for a moment as she processed what that meant. "Huh? How did that happen?"
A pang of guilt hit Zelda as she remembered the brave hero who had given his own life to save hers, the memory still quite fresh in her head. "There was this...boy, or...young man, probably around my age. I don't know his name or where he came from, but he was the spitting image of the heroes from the old stories; dressed in green and holding the Master Sword and the Triforce of Courage in his hand. He fought and defeated Ganon, stabbing him right through the chest with the only weapon I know of capable of killing someone like him. I watched as the Demon King's eyes faded and he died."
"Oh, well...good," was all Impa really had to say about that turn of events. "So there's something to those old stories after all? I thought most of them had to be made up or exaggerated. So what happened to that boy after killing Ganon? Shouldn't he be around to protect you instead of me?"
"No...for he died as well," Zelda answered grimly. "There was something that happened, some kind of...creature, unlike anything I've ever seen before. It looked like a giant eyeball."
"A...Dharkstare or Digdogger maybe?" Impa suggested, listing off every monster she could think of that matched that description. She had encountered quite a few beasts in this aptly named Monster Wilds, and there were bound to be all sorts of creatures she hadn't encountered yet that were lurking in the shadows.
"No, I know what those look like. This was something far less...basal. It commanded the wind itself, and I...felt it. I can't really explain how, but I felt its presence. It was old...far older than even Ganondorf was, and at least as powerful. It destroyed the tower and killed the hero in one powerful attack, and I...I only survived out of sheer luck."
Impa processed the information Zelda was telling her. It truly seemed like she missed a lot by getting her required sleep just when all of those things happened at the tower. Dreadful timing indeed. She could sparsely imagine the monster Zelda was talking about, having never seen nor heard of anything remotely like it.
"So...what you're saying is...we don't have to worry about Ganon, but we do have another incredibly powerful ancient monstrosity after us?"
"Well...yes."
"Hmm...in that case..." Impa muttered in a calm and thoughtful tone...before she suddenly yelled, "What are you doing still just sitting there?! Get up and let's move already!"
"I'm going, I'm going, sheesh!"
Somehow this was going to blossom into a beautiful romance.
...somehow.
King Bulblin was not having a particularly good day.
Running into Princess Zelda of all people out in the middle of a field was a surprise he did not see coming. First of all: what were the odds of him just happening across her just like that? Secondly, what in Demise's name was Ganon's precious hostage doing out of her cell?
He naturally assumed that she had somehow managed to escape, and promptly decided to recapture her and take her back to his master. The reward from Lord Ganondorf could have been substantial given how much he wanted that woman in his captivity...for whatever his reason was. He never really saw fit to share that part and King Bulblin knew better than to ask.
...only, somehow, the little princess had managed to slip right through his fingers, and King Bulblin had allowed his own fear of magic to give her a head start, one enough for her to completely vanish from his sight...and following her trail only led him and his minions directly into a Lizalfos pack.
Though he emerged victorious once the battle was over, having personally decapitated the Lizalfos alpha with a single swing of his mighty war axe, prompting the rest of its pack to flee once they knew they were outmatched...it was a pyrrhic victory, as the Bandit Lord lost his left horn, twelve Bulblins and four Bulbos...and nothing to show for it.
Zelda's trail took them as far as the gooey remains of a dead Morpha, but after that, her trail simply vanished, with no clue where to even start if he wanted to find her again.
So...with no other options available, he decided to at least inform Lord Ganondorf that his hostage had escaped and were loose somewhere in the Monster Wilds, and given that Ganon's Tower wasn't far from where he was, it wouldn't be a long trip.
...except when he got there, he was shocked to see that Ganon's Tower, a great monolith of malice that all the monsters in the wilds feared and respected...was no longer standing, having been reduced to a pile of rubble and debris.
"What the-?" one of the Bulblins voiced, as he and the other monsters tried to process the sight before them.
"What happened to the tower?" another asked.
They chattered and bickered, scratching their heads at this unexpected development...while King Bulblin simply stared vacantly at the remains of the tower, not sure what to do.
Was his master gone? Could this destruction have something to do with why Princess Zelda was running around unsupervised? What should he do now? These questions plagued his thoughts while the others talked and speculated in the background. He did not listen to them. He rarely did.
That's when a massive shadow was cast on the Bulblins from above, followed by a gust of wind strong enough to send a few of them tumbling off their mounts...and that was followed by a giant dark purple shape flying past the group and over to the rubble in front of them at incredible speed.
It appeared to be some kind of creature, but none that King Bulblin or the rest of his bandits had ever seen before. It had bat wings...four of them, moving in a rhythmic pattern to keep the being aloft, and as it turned around and circled the ruined tower, he could see that the monster's face was a single red eye surrounded by a golden frame and ending in two majestic golden horns much grander and beautiful than King Bulblin's own.
He was a bit jealous, he had to admit.
The one-eyed creature appeared to be searching for something...and also seemed to be very angry over not finding it (whatever 'it' was), using what looked like really powerful telekinesis to lift pieces of rubble and toss them around like someone fumbling to find a specific object in a pile of trash.
"ARGHHHHHH! Where are you!? Show yourself!" the creature muttered in a dark booming voice loud enough to be heard even by King Bulblin and his men, who were standing hundreds of metres away.
Seeing how obviously powerful this strange and likely dangerous creature was, King Bulblin wisely decided that now would be the right time to leave, and turned his mount, Lord Bulbo, around and tried to lead his minions back into the forest from where they came.
That's however when the giant eye spotted them, and with absolutely ridiculous velocity for something so huge, it closed the distance of at least seven-hundred metres in only eight seconds and placed itself directly in their path, stopping the whole lot of them in their tracks with a gust of wind and its mere presence.
For the first time since meeting the great Ganondorf himself, King Bulblin felt his heart struck with fear as an eyeball the size of a house stared him down, scrutinising the group of lowly monsters that dared to be in the eldritch being's line of sight.
"King Bulblin," the creature said, apparently recognising the one it was staring at. The recognition made the bandit lord even more frightened than he already was...which was kinda ironic considering he invoked the same reaction in Zelda when he called her by name earlier that day.
"You...know me?" King Bulblin asked, his voice betraying his fear despite his best efforts.
Without a mouth or any facial features other than a single eye and eyelids, the creature somehow managed to look smug after hearing that question. "I do," he replied, his voice becoming slightly less loud and booming, sounding almost human. "You're Ganon's little attack dog, aren't you?"
"I follow the strongest side...and that is Ganondorf...but I'm not little nor a dog," King Bulblin replied, not wanting to provoke this monstrous creature, but also wanting to maintain his dignity.
"Mmhahahahahah...oh no, that's where you're wrong, Bandit Lord," the creature informed, sounding very amused by the Bulblin's audacious statement. "Ganon is not, and have not, ever been the strongest. I was the one who brought Hyrule to its knees, who unleashed the monsters upon the world, who touched immortality and became like a god...all before that pig from the desert was even in diapers. He is nothing compared to me!"
One particularly bold (or stupid) Bulblin crossed his arms and commented, "Pah, as if! There is no one more powerful than Gan-"
Before the smartmouth could so much as finish that sentence, the creature turned his massive eye in the little goblin's direction and with nothing more than a glare transformed him into a lifeless stone statue, now forever stuck in the disrespectful pose he was in.
The Bulblin next to him gasped and accidentally pushed his petrified friend off of their shared mount where he shattered into pieces and gravel as his stone body hit the grass.
It was fair to say that none of the other Bulblins dared to say anything even remotely rude after that terrifying display of power, not even their leader. The message was very clear: Do not disrespect the eyeball.
That said, King Bulblin at least had enough bravado left in him after that to ask, "Then who are you?"
"I am Vaati the Wind Mage...and your new master," The monster declared in a tone that made it perfectly clear that there was no debating that statement, and no choice in the matter. They would serve him loyally or perish. Those were the only options these demonic bottom-feeders were going to get from the great Wind Mage.
In truth though, the Bulblins didn't quite know what to make of this Vaati creature, and looked at each other, confused. None of them had heard his name, and none knew what his intentions were...but given what happened to their packmate, now reduced to gravel and stone pieces, they knew better than to ask.
"Oh, and before you start giving me grief about your previous loyalties, Ganondorf is dead. I killed him myself. And the source of his power..." in the gap between Vaati's horns, the mark of the Triforce lit up, with the top triangle, the mark of Din, the Goddess of Power, glowing brighter than the other two pieces."...is mine."
Having seen first hand how overwhelmingly powerful Ganon was, King Bulblin had a hard time believing that anyone could best him, but that mark between Vaati's horns did not lie, and if he was powerful enough to defeat his old master, then the bandit lord knew better than to oppose him.
King Bulblin also didn't know that Vaati was lying about being the one to kill Ganondorf, as it was, in fact, the mysterious hero in green who did that...but then again, why would someone like Vaati ever give that boy credit for something as monumental as that?
After thinking through the situation thoroughly, King Bulblin eventually asked, "What is your bidding...Master?"
If Vaati could smirk in his current form, he would have done it at the last word in that sentence. "Tell me, have you guys seen a certain blonde lately?"
Surprisingly close by, just a few kilometres West of of Ganon's demolished tower, where Vaati was scheming with his new minions, said blonde was travelling South with her new Sheikah companion in order to reach this Hyrulean outpost that was apparently there.
Impa travelled through the woods swiftly and silently, like a lynx hunting in the snow, able to cross impressive distances in a short amount of time while being stealthy enough to avoiding detection by any monster who happened to be watching or listening, and she did it so naturally too, like it took her no effort whatsoever...and even after several hours of this pace and relative silence, the Sheikah showed no evident signs of fatigue so far.
Princess Zelda on the other hand...well...let's just say that she wasn't travelling quite as elegant.
She constantly had to stop for breaks, constantly panting and wheezing, constantly sweating, constantly making noise...and, of course, constantly complaining...much to Impa's growing infuriation. There was a reason she preferred to work alone.
"Please, stop...I need...I need another break!" Zelda panted out as she leaned her body against the nearest tree she could find. Her voice came out as hoarse and ragged thanks to her painfully low stamina and exhaustion.
Impa let out a groan, but allowed it nonetheless, reluctantly stopping in her tracks for the fifth time in the last hour. She turned around and took a few steps back to Zelda while crossing her arms and raising her right eyebrow. "You know, princess, you'll get home a lot faster if you'd stop...well, stopping."
"For the love of Nayru, cut me some slack! I am not used to this much...walking!" Zelda replied indignantly, her feet burning from all this constant standing up and trekking...while stuck in uncomfortable high heels not meant for this kind of terrain at that. "Isn't there a stable nearby where we can get a horse or something?"
"The closest stable is the outpost we're already going to," Impa pointed out, sounding incredibly frustrated at this point. "Though I suppose we could ask the Bulblins nicely for one of their boars if they don't kill us on sight first. You know how to ride one of those, right?"
"Ha-ha. Very funny."
While she was stuck here anyway, Impa decided to at least make something out of it and hunkered down to pick some berries from a nearby bush. Rule #1 of wilderness survival: never turn down food if you can help it, as you'll never know when you'll find more.
"That wasn't entirely a joke," Impa clarified while gathering as many berries as she could fit into her pouch. "The 'asking nicely' is out of the question, of course, but if we managed to steal one from them, that would be helpful. It's risky, but maybe it would be worth it...if for nothing else than to at least get you to shut up and out of my hair sooner."
Zelda responded to that snide remark with only a glare. As much as she understood and sympathised with Impa's frustrations, she too was herself getting equally frustrated by how uncompromising and impatient Impa was to her.
There was a moment of silence that stretched on for nearly a minute. Impa had finished picking berries, so she had nothing else to distract herself from the unwanted escort mission she had been forced into nor the snobby princess she was stuck with.
The two women could do nothing more than glare at each other right now, the tension between them so intense that it could almost be felt in the air.
...No, not that kind of tension...yet.
"I was wrong earlier," Impa eventually remarked, letting out a sigh and crossing her arms again.
"About what?"
"I said it would be a three days walk to get to the outpost. I was wrong. With how often you need to stop to rest, it will be more akin to...five or six days, possibly more if we run into trouble."
"Oh for goodness sake, Impa, do you have to?!" Zelda whined, pushing off the tree to walk up to Impa's face. "It's not my fault I don't have the stamina of a postman or the survival training of a...a...someone that's good at survival in the woods. I'm doing the best I can, okay!?"
Impa stared her down, but said nothing in response, her red eyes quite intense as they met the princess' defiant pout. Though she wouldn't admit it, especially in her current mood, Impa couldn't help but find that face to be kinda...cute.
Then Impa said something Zelda did not expect her to say, nor in the tone of voice she said it.
"I think you're underestimating yourself, Zelda," was what she said, with no hint of anger nor sarcasm left in her breath.
That surprising statement made Zelda's angry pout fade and be replaced with a face of confusion. "Huh?"
Impa simply turned away from her and continued walking, not really caring if Zelda was fully rested or not right now. "The mind can often lie about your body, how much you can do, how much it actually needs to rest...to slow down. You'll never get stronger, more durable, if you never test your limits. Try to push yourself just a little more and I promise you'll find out you're not quite as weak as you think you are."
Zelda didn't really have anything to say to that. She did finish her little break and continued to follow Impa though, even as she picked up the pace a bit.
She was thinking about what Impa just said, in that perhaps, Zelda really was underestimating herself and what she was truly capable of. Funnily enough, that was also what Ganondorf thought about her, that she had the potential to be so much more than what she currently was, greater than him even.
She looked down at her left hand, where the mark of the Triforce sometimes lit up. For the longest time, Zelda had assumed that the sacred power of the old gods came to her solely because of her bloodline, a bloodline that went all the way up to the original Zelda, the founder of Hyrule itself...but perhaps there was another reason? After all, not everyone born in her bloodline have actually received that particular gift, even with the royal blood in their veins. Her father never had it in his many years of ruling, and yet it lit up at the back of Zelda's hand for the first time when she was only twelve years old.
Maybe...it specifically chose her because she was meant to actually do something with it?
The Triforce of Wisdom. One day Zelda promised she'd figure out a good use for that infernal golden triangle...instead of it being little more than a glorified 'kidnap me' sign in bright golden letters. So far, it's caused her nothing but grief, but that could always change.
If Ganon and that mysterious one-eyed beast both wanted it so bad, perhaps she could use it for all it was worth?
Zelda clenched her fist and sucked in her petulance, opting to follow Impa as long as she could actually manage, rather than just how long her imperfect mind wrongly believed she could manage.
However, even as the pair journeyed across forests, rivers and hills, occasionally bickering about something or other along the way as had started to become the norm, they had yet to notice that their party of two...was actually a party of three.
A shadow, nigh imperceptible, silent and subtle, followed the pair wherever they went, flitting into and out of existence as it pleased, the only visible sign of its presence being a pair of green eyes that could occasionally be seen if you looked at just the right time.
"Hehihihehe...and so the games begin..." it whispered, unable to contain its excitement.
Impa heard only the faintest hint of that whisper, but it prompted her to stop and turn in its direction...and saw nothing. Her eyes lingered on that one dark corner of the forest, suspicion sitting at the very back of her mind.
"What is it?" Zelda asked, following Impa's gaze but not seeing anything either.
After a few seconds of blank staring, Impa shook her head and replied, "Nothing, let's just keep going."
Only after she turned away did those green eyes flicker in the dark. It, or rather he, didn't make a sound this time. No need to risk being discovered so soon, at least by that one. Impa's perceptiveness could become a problem to his plans.
What those plans were, or what they meant for the princess and her Sheikah ally, remained to be seen...but just as he said, the games had begun...
...the games of the Trickster.
Author's Note:
You know what's annoying? When you spend several hours writing a big chunk of the chapter and then forgot to save properly and then have to redo it all over again.
Well, that's me and the last third of this chapter. If it wasn't for that, I would have published it two weeks ago, but oh well. Better late than never.