Chapter Text
Big, Beautiful Words
by ctj
Devoted, you said, and Eternal, and Fervently Yours…
so many big, beautiful words, warm whispers
against the back of my neck that ran like water
down the length of my spine and sank into my bones.
They dwelled there until my skin felt your promises
so deeply that they flowed within me, flowed like vital
chemicals that my body had left out at birth.
If you’d spoken of a ship just over the horizon,
I’d have waited on the shore with a frozen heart and lungs
for those crisp white sails, swollen with wind,
to burst forth from the sea.
Big, beautiful words—that’s all they were.
I knew that, and I believed them anyway.
Part I.i
Her
THE SUN, despite its splendor, refuses to be forgotten. The horizon tries to fight it, a hazy golden strip against a sizzling blanket of blue, but the heat washes the faint line away with everything else in a blur of sand and sweat. The dry, weathered bluffs are dusted over with rocks and dry scrubs, and in the middle of it all—this sunburnt earth, this blistered desert—a lone figure lies flat on her stomach and peers out over the edge of a jagged cliff, a spyglass poking out from beneath her hood. For a long while, she merely breathes long, quiet breaths, observing the fringes of the desert, where the spires of a fortress glare back at her…
She is jolted by a series of footsteps at her back, and then a low, rumbling voice.
“Commander, I fear that you will fry like an egg if you remain out here much longer. These sands prey on wanderers—take it from somebody who knows.”
The hooded figure draws up into a kneeling position, and in reply to the newcomer the pretty mouth under the hood curls into a smirk, its owner’s spyglass collapsing shut with a click.
“Did the desert burn you once, Kaepora?” she asks.
“Like flames, Commander.”
“But you survived.”
“Clearly. I was very young, and I learned quickly. The unbridled sun makes for quick discipline.”
“How did you survive?”
“That,” he replies, “is a story for another time… Commander Zelda, I come bearing a message.”
The hooded girl presses her lips tightly together. “From Impa?”
“Who else?”
Zelda rises slowly, brushing off sand as her long limbs unfold. Beneath the cloak that keeps out the sun, her Sheikah garb is unforgivably tight, with sweat pooling in every crevice. She tries desperately to adjust it, to make it somehow comfortable, knowing full well that it is futile, that there is no escape from this wretched heat. Beside her, she envies the older and more experienced Kaepora, whose Sheikah clothing is like a second skin. The arid desert gale, so hot and dry in the young commander’s face, seems not to touch her companion.
“What is her message?” Zelda finally asks, rolling the spyglass between her palms. A nervous habit.
“You are to meet her in your quarters as soon as possible,” Kaepora replies.
“Do you know why?”
“If I do, Commander, then I am ordered not to say.” There is a glimmer of amusement in his garnet-colored eyes, so full of life that they lend youth to a face that seems prematurely devoid of it, dark eyes that stand in stark contrast to the close-cropped, pearl-colored hair.
“And here I thought that I was the one in charge,” Zelda quips, but she does not fight it, not any more, not when there is an actual war to fight and she is meant to be leading it. With one last glance at the distant fortress, she begins to return to her camp—and stops when Kaepora does not follow. Turning, she sees him gazing out across the desert.
“And what of you, soldier?” she asks the man peering out at the horizon. He turns and bows low.
“I must take my leave of you now, Commander. I am off to scout the surrounding lands until dusk—or did you fail to notice that I was armed?” he jokes, raising his arms to reveal the twin knives at his hips. In the sun’s rays, they emit a deadly twinkle akin to the one in their bearer’s eyes.
Zelda surprises herself with a full-fledged smile. “Only a true Sheikah could fool me so,” she teases, and it is only half a joke. Among the Sheikah, trickery is an infamous art.
Kaepora laughs deeply and warmly, then bows again. “Gods guide you, Commander Zelda, Queen Regent, Hands of Hylia; I will see you again at evenfall.”
The spyglass stills briefly enough for the commander to hold out an empty palm. “Good luck out there.”
They clasp hands; where it is not bandaged, Kaepora’s skin is browned and leathery from the sun’s rays. “And to you.”
When they have parted ways, Zelda begins her descent into the camp. It is a bustling array of crisp white tents organized neatly into rows, and an oasis of life in this overwhelmingly dead wasteland. Zelda’s Hylian soldiers shuffle about their midday tasks—sharpening swords, polishing armor, shaving—and stand duly at attention as she passes, bowing low when she comes close—Your Majesty, Your Majesty. Interspersed among them are her Sheikah soldiers, silent as shadows and lethal as quicksand. They, too, show their own form of respect as she passes, resting two fingers just beneath their right eye as if to wipe away a tear…
At the center of the camp, a splendid white tent with azure trim towers above the rest—Zelda’s quarters. Banners flicker overhead in the sunlight. One bears the golden emblem of the royal family on a brilliant blue background; beside it, the Crying Eye of the Sheikah clan bleeds red on black.
The Eye did not always cry, Zelda recalls as she examines the inky banner of the royal family’s oldest allies. The teardrop was added when the Sheikah betrayed the royal family to their enemies… treason, she thinks darkly, the most evil crime.
She stops outside the tent just long enough to relish in her momentary solitude—it is hard to come by these days—and then pulls back the flap of her tent and ducks into the cool darkness. An oil lamp is burning atop a round table in the center of the tent, where a tall and slender figure bows over a map. The woman glances up upon Zelda’s entrance, sweeping a long strand of white-blond hair behind a muscular shoulder. Her eyes, vibrantly red and almost feline in the intensity of their angle, scrutinize the princess deeply. Zelda feels her cheeks go pink with irritation.
“I received your summons,” Zelda says stiffly. She stands with her best posture, shoulders thrust back. It is something she does subconsciously these days, rooted in a feeling of rigidity around Impa that she can’t quite explain.
Impa hesitates. Clicks her tongue. Then, finally, she stands at full height. Her long limbs move gracefully; her silence is elegant. In the flickering light of the lantern, she is like a flame herself—or, Zelda thinks, perhaps more accurately, she is not like a flame, but rather like the shadow that flames throw against a wall. Her presence is inspiring, and it is fatal.
“Yes,” she finally affirms. “That I did. Remove your hood, Zelda.”
Zelda. Impa references the commander and queen regent by her first name—and is one of the few who can get away with it.
There has only been one other who ever called me Zelda, the commander recalls almost wistfully, and her stomach does a painful somersault, a pain that she has yet to grow numb to. But he was part of a different life, she reminds herself, as if it will change anything. That was seven years ago—seven years …or seven lifetimes?
“Zelda. Remove your hood.”
Obedient to a fault, the commander, commanded only by one—this one—does as she is told, and her hood falls back to reveal lovely but sunburnt features. The pretty eyes and lips are like a doll’s, but the brows, long and dark, betray a rough edge to her nature that does not befit the poise of her features. And in spite of her garb and years of training, it is clear with her hood down that the commander is no Sheikah—her skin is too pale, her hair too dark, her eyes too blue.
“Much better,” Impa decides, and beckons Zelda in her direction. “Come and take a look; we need to talk. Desperately.”
The map depicts the desert in all of its desolate glory. Gerudo Valley is inscribed elegantly in the cartographer’s hand, the text hovering over rolling dunes that crash like waves into a sudden range of jagged, unforgiving bluffs. Among these bluffs, two camps are clearly labeled, one in red ink—Gerudo Fortress—and the other, Hylian Camp, in blue. The Hylian camp is draped over the side of a mountain as it arcs towards high ground and the sky. Many miles away, visible only with the help of a lens, the impenetrable (or so it seems) Gerudo Fortress is isolated by plateaus on all sides.
“What is it you wish to discuss, Impa?” Zelda finally asks, looking into the slightly older woman’s face.
“For many months now, we have tried—and failed—to gain entry into the Gerudo Fortress, but none of our attempts have worked.”
“And you think that I haven’t noticed?” Zelda snaps. “If anything, I know better than you. I was at the vanguard of the last attack; we had to fall back before we even got within miles of the walls. They spotted us coming from the hilltops—even when we tried again that night, it was like they could hear us coming…there is no fooling them, Impa. I know that now.”
The slightly older woman is silent for a moment, and still as stone. When she speaks, her deep voice is unwavering.
“So we will never be able to take them by surprise.”
“To attack the fortress head-on would be foolish,” Zelda acknowledges, “and yet we cannot wait for them to come to us. Altitude is our only advantage; beyond that, we have nothing to defend. We must work our way past their defenses somehow; we must… oh… attack from the inside… but that could take a miracle,” she admits.
Impa’s eyes are narrow. “I would sooner rely on a lame racehorse than on miracles,” she finally says, and when she speaks, her voice is cold and hushed as frost. Then she turns away, her long hair falling in her face and hiding her expression. “This whole damn war is a fool’s fight,” she finally states. “To die fighting for this barren wasteland, all in the name of religious fanaticism… I cannot imagine a more pointless death.” She pauses. “Stop doing that.”
Zelda glances down at her hands, where she has begun to roll the spyglass between them again. With a huff, she slips it into her belt and curls her fingers tight against her palm. A fresh pool of anger is boiling in the pit of her stomach.
“Well if we don’t protect the Triforce from the desert king, then who will?!” she snaps. Impa’s head whips upward, eyes flickering dangerously.
“We have fought for four long years, Zelda, and to no avail—we have lost more brave men and women in the name of this relic than would ever have been lost at the desert king’s hands! Half of this camp thinks that you’re a madwoman, and the other half just hasn’t been here long enough to find that out.”
“A madwoman, you say?”
“We should surrender now, before we are left with nothing but shame! Or worse—before we lose you.”
Impa stretches out a hand, and it only takes the brush of her fingertips for Zelda to recoil as if she has been poisoned.
“Speak of surrender again and I will see you dismissed from my service,” Zelda threatens.
“You would have little luck—I swore to your father and mother that I would protect you from the day you were born.”
“My parents are dead,” Zelda reminds Impa. “They took your promise with them to the grave.”
“Promises,” Impa insists, “never die.”
A horrible memory floods Zelda’s mind—suddenly, she is submerged in it, she is drowning—
“YOU PROMISED! YOU PROMISED!”
He is being dragged away from her, his hair matted down with sweat, tears brimming in his swollen blue eyes. There is fresh blood on his face—he thrashes in the grasp of the guards—she can almost feel his heart pounding, beating and beating as though to set itself free of his ribcage—and he is screaming, he is howling—“YOU BROKE YOUR PROMISE!”
She shakes herself free of the vision, breathing hard. Her fists close, then open again.
“So then, Impa,” she utters, “it appears we shall agree to disagree.” She holds her head upright. There is no crown atop it, and she is very conscious of that fact. She tries not to let it bother her. “If you have called me here to convince me to surrender,” she continues, “then I fear you are wasting your breath. It has been four years, and we have made it this far—we are mere miles away from the enemy capital. To surrender now would be to stop a racehorse with the finish line in sight.”
“This is not gambling, Zelda!” Impa insists, slamming her hand on the tabletop. “We have no way of winning! This is nothing but reckless!”
“This,” Zelda clarifies, “is a holy war.”
Impa’s mouth tightens into a firm line. “Your holy war,” she finally grunts.
“Yes,” Zelda breathes, leaning in close. “Mine.”
There is a long, long period of silence, and then Impa draws back with a sigh. “I still think—”
“TAKE COVER!” an urgent voice sounds from outside, muffled by a building gale. “TAKE COVER! EVERYBODY TAKE COVER!”
Zelda recognizes the cry immediately—it is so routine, after months in the desert, so ordinary that she barely bats an eyelash. A sandstorm. She dashes to the opening of the tent and throws the flap open just in time to see a massive shadow overtake the sun—and her heart stops. This is like no sandstorm she’s ever seen before…
It’s monstrous.
“TAKE COVER!” a man continues to cry, more panicked than before as the storm only continues to grow in size. A colossal shadow, the storm blocks out any remaining light, and the winds, unforgivably powerful, snap the cords holding down a nearby tent. Zelda watches as the white tent cover takes flight and disappears into the darkness, like an angel succumbing to the void.
This is dangerous, she realizes, the screams only growing in volume. And that’s when it hits her. Kaepora.
She’s taken two steps out into the storm when Impa lunges forward and grasps her around the waist, dragging her back into the tent and drawing the flaps shut. The wind, muffled now, only howls harder, and the walls of the tent shake violently all around them.
“WE HAVE TO GO OUT THERE!” Zelda shouts over the growing chaos. “Kaepora is out there—he’s out scouting—Impa, he’ll die of exposure in this storm!” She tries to break free, but Impa is the stronger one, and her grip is like steel.
“Kaepora can take care of himself, Zelda! You cannot go out there—you are invaluable!”
The commander only continues to struggle. “Impa, listen to me—Impa—LISTEN TO ME! IMPA, HE’LL DIE! HE’LL DIE!”
But even as she struggles, even as she screams, she knows it is fruitless. Kaepora, her friend, Kaepora, whom she loves…
No… she thinks, and her heart gives an awful shudder, one that resonates throughout her entire core and escapes through her skin. Suddenly drained, she draws still in Impa’s arms.
“He’ll die,” she repeats one last time in no more than a whisper—a horrid realization, a vile truth—“he’ll die… and for what?”
When the storm dies down and Zelda emerges squinting into the sunlight, the camp is still intact—but Kaepora, her soldiers inform her, is nowhere to be found.
Him
“Mr. Link.”
He stops sharpening his sword just long enough to look up. Silent, expectant. There is a sharpness in his glance that is like the point of a knife. When the slave boy in the doorway remains silent, he grows impatient.
“Can I help you?”
“It’s just…”
“Don’t twiddle your thumbs like that, Fletcher. Put a broom between them if you must.”
“I’m sorry, it’s just—”
“—don’t apologize—”
“—sir, I only meant that—”
“—and don’t call me sir—”
“Mr. Link, pray let me speak!” the boy cries. Link smiles and leans back, arms crossed.
“Now that’s more like it,” he says with a broad smile. “Alright, then. I’m listening.” He doesn’t dislike the boy; he only wants to instill some fight in him.
“I just… wanted to ask you something.”
Link raises a single eyebrow—a talent of his. “Go on.”
Fletcher, rosy-cheeked and barely scratching the surface of adolescence, steps forward timidly. “I overheard you talking to the lieutenant captain this morning,” he admits, wringing his hands together again. He is trembling, and massive splotches of sweat are seeping out from his underarms. Gods, he is nervous.
“And what did you hear?” Link asks, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. Beside him, the sword lies forgotten.
“Only that on your last mission, you saw the desert king with your own eyes,” Fletcher admits. “I’m sorry!” he squeaks immediately. “I’m sorry for eavesdropping—I was meant to be mopping but I just—I just—”
“Get it out, Fletcher.”
“Is it… true?” the boy whispers. “Did you… did you truly see King Ganondorf?”
Link’s expression relaxes into a smile and he beckons the boy forward. “Come here,” he says. “Closer.”
When the boy is close enough that Link can make out the odor of sweat, he leans in close. “I didn’t just see him, Fletcher,” he whispers. “I spoke to him.”
Fletcher goes pallid. “How?”
Link chuckles quietly. “Well, Fletcher, they don’t call me the Creeping Beast for nothing. I am a stealth specialist, after all. I can speak to a man face-to-face without him realizing I’m his enemy. That is my special talent.”
“Even more than sneaking into castles and all that?”
“Into castles—and back out again. That’s the most important part.”
“Where’d you learn to sneak so good?”
“Well, Fletcher. I sneak well. As for sneaking, it’s…” Link pauses. For half a heartbeat, he is surrounded by white castle walls, a vine crawling up one of them, a vine to her window—“…an old pastime,” he finishes. The castle walls vanish, and he is back in the armory at Fort Courage, Fletcher gaping at him openly, the shame gone from his expression.
“But King Ganondorf…” the boy continues.
“Smart as a whip,” Link promises Fletcher, “and he stings like one, too.” He leans back in his chair, a rickety wooden thing that he dragged over to the grindstone he’s now forgotten.
“Was he scary?”
Link considers. “He didn’t scare me,” he finally decides.
“Does anything scare you?” the boy asks in utter disbelief, causing Link to falter.
“Once… yes, I was scared of something happening once.”
“What do you mean, once? What were you scared of?”
“It doesn’t matter what I was scared of. What matters is that I’m not scared of it anymore.” Link stands while he speaks and takes up his freshly sharpened, suddenly remembered sword. He tests its weight in his hand, admiring the glint of the blade in the pale light.
Fletcher’s gaze is quizzical. “Because you realized it wasn’t going to happen?”
“No. Because it did happen,” Link answers, and swings the sword with a sudden whoosh. To his amusement, Fletcher ducks, even though he swung in the other direction. He smirks at the boy and twirls the sword in his hand as if it is weightless. Smiling down at Fletcher, he offers him the pommel of the sword, which the boy rejects.
“I—I can’t,” he says timidly. “I’m just a slave.”
Link hesitates to answer. What is he supposed to say in reply? With a sigh, he sheathes the sword in the scabbard at his belt. “Take care of yourself, Fletcher,” he finally says, and makes for the door. The boy’s jaw is agape.
“Where are you going?” he asks. Link is strolling away from him—out of the door and down the corridor. The narrow windows cast long stripes of white light down his torso.
“Wherever the captain sends me next,” he answers nonchalantly. “I do as I’m told. So do you. That’s how we get by.” He pauses, and turns. “Let me tell you a secret, Fletcher,” he says, and kneels down. The boy comes close, and Link gazes up at the plump, innocent face. For a brief second, he considers saying nothing and telling the boy to forget about it. What he is about to say, it almost doesn’t seem fair—but then again, is anything?
He rests a hand on the boy’s shoulder; it tremors beneath his fingertips.
“I’m a slave, too," Link says. Fletcher’s lips form a little o.
“A slave to what?”
Link stands. “To memory,” he replies. The castle walls flash into his mind again—the vines, crawling up the tower—her window—her face, white as the moon behind the glass, pushing it open, stretching out her warm bare arms and pulling him into that beloved darkness…
“But that’s not real slavery,” Fletcher insists, and Link’s face darkens.
“At least,” he reasons, “you didn’t put the chains on yourself.”