Ocarina
Part 7
by
Gerudo Valley, Border Between Calatia and Hyrule (Noon)-
"Link, why didn't you tell me before?" Zelda asked.
The spot where Zelda had punched him was starting to discolor like all black and blue marks should. "I was... embarrised. Especially since it wasn't the first time."
"The first time? Link, what happened?"
Link sighed. "They..." he didn't finish. His head bowed, shaking from side to side. "Zelda, please don't ask me about it. Anything else, but please not that." His eyes clenched shut, feriously locking out anything from the outside.
Indesicion was greatly displayed on Zelda's face. On one hand, whatever Link was holding back might be important. On the other, whatever it was obviously hurt him a lot. She ever so slowly relented. "Okay, I won't ask again."
Zora's Domain, Hyrule (Late Morning, August 7, 1999)-
Shortly after Link had returned from a visit to the Gerudo horse corral, Spryte streamed into his chambers, lugging a large piece of gold with three perfect saphires. True to word, and much to the fairy's relief, Link didn't spend a moment there longer than he needed. Long enough to gather his stuff, which included everything he originally had when he first entered the valley, and a few extras that he had aquired. Among the extras was a spring loaded hooked chain, long and powerful- a longshot he had found in one empty chamber while looking for the saphire.
The Gerudos tried to talk him out of leaving, even reminding him that only the Gerudo Glucose they made would subdue the headaches that came with transformation from Gerudo Serum. Link was quite certain that freedom outside the valley was doubly better than freedom in the valley.
One day later, one ticking headache, Link still didn't have doubts about leaving, but he was begining to wonder if only Gerudo Glucose would do the job.
He walked up to the side of the underground lake, the water looked possitivly sick. It looked bad, it smelled worse. The altar where the saphire once rested, and once again would rest, was covered with grime and alagae. After cleaning it out (even he thought it was disgusting), he set the saphire in. He watched, the water of the lake sparkled. The filth seemed to desolve into clean and pure water.
Zora heads popped up. King Zora stuck his head up. Ruto's... came out of the water so close to Link, he fell into the water. "You've come back!" Ruto exclaimed.
"You've saved my people," King Zora said grandly. "You've saved our lives. What can we do to repay you?" Ruto leaned over to him and whispered in his timpanic membrane. King Zora blinked, surprised, then slowly agreed. "Yes, yes that would do! Young man, would you come with me?"
Link glanced from his seat in the mud to where Spryte hovered nearby. "I... Wait here Spryte, I'll be right back." Spryte nodded and giggled... Link was annoyed by that. In his opinion, she was becoming far too attached to him. Did she actually find him good looking? They were't even... the same size! He moved deeper into the water.
Zora pulled him under the water. Though Link expected this, it still was a bit shocking.
Just as his sences registered the water, they were in a separate chamber, accessable only through the underwater tunnel. Link floated between King Zora and Princess Ruto. Link looked around, slowly becoming aware that Zora and Ruto were stairing intensly at him. "What's going on?"
"Would you take my daughter's hand?" Zora asked. Misunderstanding, Link physically took Ruto's hand, partially using her as support to keep his head out of the water (his sword and shield, as well as his clothing, were begining to pull him underwater). "I mean, in marrige," Zora corrected.
Link balked. "Marrige! Wait a..."
"You insult me?" Ruto asked.
"Uh... no!" Link said haistly. "I would never..."
"You do want to marry me!" Ruto seemed to be overly happy.
"But wait... I can't..."
"You back out now, sir?" Zora asked.
"No... wait... I..."
"Well, you cannot very well back out," Ruto said sternly, "now that you've asked me."
"An honerable man would keep his word once he's asked," Zora stiffly said. "I take you for an honerable man, and will marry Ruto. You will be prince, and one day, king! Do you not want to be king?"
"No!" Link immediatly exclaimed, meaning it.
'Of course not," Zora smiled, fishly. "No one who is worthy to be king actually wants to be king. It is a mark of true leadership. You will make a fine king someday."
The headache that was building since he left Gerudo Valley was really begining to bug Link. "Really... I..."
"It is settled," Zora took out a medallion Ruto took hold of one side, her other hand grabbed Link's and placed his on the other side. He began speaking in a tongue not familiar to Link, though not wholy unrecognizable. When Link thought he recognized a word, it turned out indistinguisable.
Ruto's half of the medallion filled with blue blood. Link's half filled with red blood. When it filled, the medallion glowed.
"Havishash!" Zora exclaimed. "It is done! Together in spirit. Together in heart. Together in union. Foreven one and apart." He took the medallion away. "As long as you both live, the medallion glows."
Ruto turned to Link. "Forgive me for this. It is Zora law that no one can take the throne unless they have been wed. The throne is to be passed to me, but not until I have a husband." She blushed bright blue. "You do not need to stay here, it is enough that the medallion glows as proof. You may be on a hundred worlds away, and it will glow. Forgive me."
Thump thump went the ache in his head. He reached up, having to nod to relieve the ache.
"Oh, you do!" Ruto excaimed. "You do forgive me!" She reached over and kissed Link. It was cold and wet, and tasted salty. Done, she pulled Link underwater, bringing him back to the main part of the lake. "I won't forget this," Ruto whispered in Link's ear.
Link climbed back onto shore. Spryte giggled. "You're all wet. What happened?"
I got married. "Uh... she was just thanking me," Link said in a low voice.
Harrierlee, Hyrule (Late Afternoon, August 11, 1989)-
"I can't... think... it hurts too much."
Spryte sighed. It was obvious to even the most dullwitted person that Link was suffereing extream pain. She had already tried her magic. It helped only minutly. "Do you want me to try again?"
Link shook his head. Even as much as it hurt, he felt guilty for having her use so much of her magic on him. He simply remained on Cathrine's back as she plodded her way through the tall grass of the pasture. "Someone take the hammer away from the guy hitting my head," he muttered.
"Link!" Spryte shouted. "Patra!" Eyeballs rose up out of the sea of grass. The eyeballs flapped insectlike wings, speeding right at Link, Spryte, and the horse.
"Oh bother..." Link twisted around to see them. He raised his sword to throw a bolt at them, but simply could not concentrate through the headache. He released on shot, it missed badly. He turned back proper in the saddle, rubbing his eyes. "Blast it, I can't do it. It hurts." He kicked Cathrine's flanks, letting her simply run without guidance.
Spryte practically flew at double time to keep up. "Link! Watch out! There's a warp ahead!"
"Perfect," Link growled. He wasn't sure if he meant it or if he was being sarcastic...
Doctor Right's Laboratory, Megaland (August 11, 1989)-
Doctor Right looked out the window. He wondered if he was seeing things. In a nation where technology was the norm, what he saw was out of the ordinary. If his vision wasn't playing tricks on him then there really was a horse in his front lawn. And a young man lying in near fetal possition next to the horse. And a fairy next to the young man.
He walked outside. The fairy looked up, the young man's eyes were clentched shut. The horse... Doctor Right wasn't able to tell. "Is there something wrong?"
The fairy answered. "He has a really bad headache that won't go away, and it's getting worse. We entered the warp to escape the patras chasing us."
Doctor Right put a hand on the young man, the young man was sweating heavily, just about on the verge of sweating blood. With one flick of his hand, and a press of a button, a gangly robot came out and picked the young man up. He followed the robot back into the lab, motioning for the fairy to do the same.
The robot put the young man down on a table. Machines lowered from the ceiling, one of them washing a line of blue repeatedly over the young man. Right read the readouts it was giving him. "What world are you from?" he asked the fairy, while waiting for the scanner's final result.
"Hyrule," the fairy replied. "Is Link dying?" she asked.
He glanced at the scanner readout. "No," he assured her. "But he is in conciderable pain, which is obvious to the casual observer." The scanner beeped. Right walked over to another machine and typed a few commands. the machine whirred for a couple of seconds, then produced a hypodermic needle filled with blue liquid. This, he injected into the side of the young man's neck. "There, that should do the trick."
"That'll cure his headache?" the fairy asked. "How long until it works?"
"A little longer than it takes for blood to circulate once through the body."
"And how long is that?"
The young man relaxed and opened his eyes.
"About twenty seconds," Right answered. He helped the young man to a sitting possition. "Right as rain then! You're feeling better now?" The young man nodded. "I'm Doctor Right," he introduced himself.
"Link Chance," the young man said.
Yes, the fairy said that, hmmm... "Forgive me, I've never seen an acutal Hylian before," Right reached over to turn Link's head and examin the ears. His hand lowered and Link turned his head to look at him again. "I suppose you're wondering exactly what I've done." Link nodded. "I had my annalizer scan you to see what was causing the headache. It's a complex triple bonded molecule, stimulates axion growth in the brain, making more connections between neurons that there was to begin with. The scanner shows you've had increases in axions in both your cerebrum and cerebellum... but rather randomly. There's huge increases in the centers that control cordination, balance, and in parts of your frontal lobe, where memory is stored. If reflexes were located in the brain, it might have increased axions for that too."
Link blinked. He was rather lost.
"It made your cordination, balance, and parts of your memory better," Right restated.
"Oh."
"Anyway- the same molecules stimulating axion growth is also stimulating the centers in the brain responsible for recieving messages of pain, particuarly those that register pain in the head... headaches. I can't remove the molecules without killing you. Instead, I injected you with a selective counter agent. Because the way the molecule is stimulating axion growth is different from the way it's stimulating the pain centers... the counter agent won't stop the axion growth. The axion growth will slow and stop as your body continues to get accustomed to the molecule. The counter agent will produce the opposite effect on your pain centers from what the molecule is doing, thus eliminating headaches."
"The headaches are gone for good?" Link asked.
"No." Right said. "The counter agent will eventually wear off. It depends on how long it takes your body to absorb the counter agent. But it shouldn't be any time soon. You'll be free from headaches for quite a while."
"And when it comes back..."
"Come back and see me," Right finished.
Harrierlee, Hyrule (Evening, August 11, 1989)-
Spryte looked at Link after they had left the warp from Megaland. "Weren't your eyes green?"
Link adverted his eyes. What should he say? He was wearing colored contacts the color his eyes had been before he entered Gerudo Valley- brown. "Um... no."
Gerudo Valley, Border Between Calatia and Hyrule (Early Afternoon)-
"Intruder!"
Link and Zelda turned to face the source of the voice, on the otherside of the wall, just beyond the door. "What the heck...?" Link began. He glanced at Zelda, then advanced to the door. On the otherside, Link found Resurgam, Tekuiela, and a whole gaggle of Gerudo guards surrounding Hiefie, Kevin, and Mike.
"Did I disturb your pleasure?" Resurgam asked. "Or are you going to try to win the intruders as well as the two prisoners?" Link reached out to push down Resurgam's hand. Resurgam fummed. "How dare you?" After a few seconds, Resurgam seemed to calm down, if only slightly. "Take the others, the women prisoners included, to a cell. I will have a talk with Lusus. Tekuiela, you will come with me."
This trip was turning from bad to worse. There wasn't any doubt in Link's mind that there was nothing on the face of Hyrule that could make it worse.
Resurgam lead the way into an empty chamber. Even before Tekuiela and Link had walked through, Resurgam spun around. "You... I am getting sick and tired of you. And you know what's most annoying about you?" He paused, though didn't expect an answer. "The most annoying thing about you is that you have broken no Gerudo law. You're the perfect model Gerudo citizen, the women praise you, the slaves aspire to you... and you are absolutly annoying."
"I'm sorry we've gotten off on the wrong foot," Link said, absolutly sarcastic.
Resurgam's hand came up to tap his bony mask. "Strange, I've never seen you with your mask off before, and I keep thinking I have seen you before." He strode up, "You are from the castle up north!"
He must be talking about North Castle, Link thought, rather sarcastically. "I suppose I am."
A long blade flashed, it danced in front of Link's eyes. "Why should I not kill you?" Resurgam asked. "After what you did, why shouldn't I kill you like you've killed my family?"
"Begging your pardon?" Link asked. "I've never killed people."
"You lie," Resurgam growled. "Tekuiela has told me it was YOU! Captain of the Knights of Hyrule. You and that evil princess. You wanted my family to take over the world, but they wouldn't help, so you killed them. Why should I let you live, you cretin, when by your own hand an eight year old and a four year old have died?"
Link had never heard Resurgam's voice for so long a period of time. He sounds familiar. Have I actually met him before? "Me? Kill children? You're nuts."
"You lie!" Resurgam dove at Link. Link twisted out of the way, the knife still caught him in the arm. He rushed again, this time Link sidestepped with a bit more grace.
"I'll take you down, but I don't want to hurt you." Why? Because he wasn't Gerudo? His eyes glanced to the side, catching sight of Tekuiela standing in a corner watching with mild interest.
"Shame," Resurgam hissed. "Because I want to hurt you. Distroy my family, I'll distroy you!"
This was getting nowhere. Link pulled out his sword, it's handle swathed in Gerudo cloth, hiding the handle of the Master Sword. One quick flick knocked the knife out of Resurgam's hand, one quick swipe broke the strap holding Resurgam's mask to his face.
What Link saw behind the mask froze his blood.
"Why are you so surprised?" Resurgam asked, his exposed face in full motion. "Feeling guilty?"
"I did not kill your nephews," Link shouted. "They're still alive!"
Resurgam frowned. "You know who they were, I knew you were lying."
Link dropped his sword. He's not going to believe me. If I tell the truth, he'll think it's a lie... "I'm not going to fight you. Maybe only my defeat will convince you that I'm not the murderer you think I am, or that maybe your nephews are not as innocent as you think they are." One punch sent Link reeling backwards. He landed hard, but still did not look up. "I do hope your act may lead you to the truth..."