I ran through the rain, my boots splashing through the mud puddles.
I had to hurry. Take advantage of the mess the Queen's "death" while I still could.
My mind was a mess too.
Voices clashed against each other in my head, screaming on top of each other. Opinions and thoughts and judgements all contradicted each other, and I no longer had a grasp on how to think, how to feel. A headache was starting to pound in my temples.
However, I had time aplenty to try and sort through this confusion later. The Master Sword was my goal now.
I couldn't get sidetracked. The quest was about to reach critical point.
I steeled myself and pushed on.
I skidded across a corner and finally reached the mound of dirt that marked where I had stored my weapons, my equipment. I shoved aside the soggy soil on top and retrieved my knife and everything else. Glancing furtively around to make sure I wasn't seen, I slipped away.
It was easy for me to sneak into the main entrance of the Castle, because in the confusion, nobody was guarding it. I held my breath as I wove through the rush of people. A few eyes were turned in my direction as I pushed past, but I escaped notice for the most part. I turned a corner and looked out from behind a wall at the ocean of heads swarming the halls, whirling right by me.
I was out of the current of people, for now. The dark hallway I was in was deserted because it lead away from the third floor.
I listened to my own breathing for a few moments.
Keep moving.
I ran down the hall, moving in such a way that it completely blended in with the chaos within the Castle walls. I randomly shoved people out of the way, adding my own voice to the shouts ringing in my ears over and over again. I slid through like a fish swimming downriver.
Okay. Time to plan.
The most likely place for the Master Sword to be in was the Sanctum. However, I knew it couldn't be out in the open in the main room or else it would never be tightly kept secret like it was now. The Sanctum was old enough that it was nearly impossible for any given spot to be hidden and kept from the public eye for so long, especially because the widely broadcast ceremonies were always held here.
I racked my brains. Given how devout the Royal family was, that was the only place they'd keep a weapon as sacred as this one. So...
The it came to me.
A foggy memory, clouded over by layer after layer of grief, fought its way to the top of my mind. Zelda's mischievous smile as she raised a finger to her lips, passing her hands over the wall, pressing a button hidden within a crevice of cracked bricks. The wall opening into a dark hole.
We explored the underground of the Sanctum for a while that day until she was due for another trip to the Springs, and we didn't find anything other than a few bats, a couple million insects, and an unholy amount of dust. However, that was the only place within the Castle I could think of that could possibly hold the Master Sword.
We must have missed something.
I branched off to veer to the right. I dashed into a servant closet on the way to the Sanctum, closed the door, and quickly changed in the absolute darkness. I stuffed the field clothes into my pouch.
I recognized the gray cuffs as soon as I stepped back into the light and noise of the hallway. Cleaning staff.
Set. Let's go.
I countered the current of the people, racing down the opposite way from the Queen's bedroom.
"Give me another bucket!" I screamed in the face of a younger servant, who looked startled and scrambled away. When he came back, I was gone, of course.
I turned a corner and was out in the night air. Black smoke billowed from a certain window, the dark of night disturbed by a blur of flames. I sprinted to the back of the Castle, near the docks. Then, catching my breath, I searched for the lines of fracture in a particular clump of bricks. I reached in with my fingers and felt around for the button. A cylindrical lump caught my touch -- the button -- and I pressed it.
For a moment, nothing happened.
My heart was pounding in my throat.
Then, the wall trembled. A crooked hole appeared in the bricks and opened into a tunnel. I breathed out, slowly.
I was racing again, down the dark stone underpass. I ignored the creeping fear that gripped me yet again, my stupid claustrophobia. A blaze of light appeared at the center of my vision and I reached for it, for the hope of Hyrule.
I emerged into a torrent of stale air. My head was spinning.
A stone ribcage streaked along the walls, colliding at the topmost vertex, the whole place glowing a faint blue. My footsteps were muffled by the carpet of dust as I slowly walked to the center of the room.
It was silent. The hubbub of the outside world was choked by the half-sphere that closed over me like an upturned bowl.
I felt like I was standing on the moon. The vastness of space stretching around me in all directions. A sprinkling of stars dotted the walls, sketched into constellations. Circles and arcs spiraled from beneath my feet, crossing and overlapping in a pattern I couldn't decipher.
I could hardly breathe.
I felt the pull, all right. The sense that something not quite of this world slept here. I was starting to understand how Sorrah knew where the Master Sword was even at great distances. It called to me. Whispered in my ears.
Slowly I opened my eyes. The thickness in the air was suffocating.
I spent a few minutes getting a sense of the room. There weren't many places where you could hide a Sword such as this one. The entire place was bare and there were no dark corners to hide behind.
So the only other place that the Master Sword could possibly have been hidden so well for all these years... without being accidentally noticed ever besides holders of the Triforces... was underground. Somehow, somewhere, underground.
And I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that there was no convenient button to press this time. There was no lever to pull, mechanic to trigger. Otherwise, there was no way that no one had ever discovered it.
Zelda. Zelda would have found it.
I had come so far, but if I were to fail this trial, it would all be for naught.
Maybe it was time to take a look at the etchings of the floor.
I unsheathed my knife. I traced the sweeping arcs on the floor, imagining a line of light outlined over the shapes from the tip of my blade. I willed every single fiber of my body into that knife, sketching out a map for myself, a bird's eye view of the open space. Bit by bit, light took over the stone tiles and I saw and I listened to the call of the Master Sword.
I felt the breath. The breath of the slumbering Sword. The anticipation of each inhale, the unrest of each exhale. It knew. It knew I was here to claim it. It knew these hands were not meant to hold its leather hilt. It knew what I was willing to bet in this deadly gamble. It knew the world was teetering on the edge of abolute chaos.
It felt my breath too.
The circles and arcs, meaningless lines and intersections and meetings and partings fell into its place to form the mark of the Triforce, clear and burning and bright.
I stretched out my left hand towards the apex of the half-sphere. The Triforce fo Wisdom pierced through the ethereal darkness.
All this time I'd been running, running away from my birthright. I was ashamed of what was mine, guilty for holding what should have belonged to another, disgusted for who I was.
All this time I'd been afraid.
I slammed my hand into the center of the Triforce written in the ground.
A million beams of light exploded out of the center of my hand, thrumming through the earth, charging the room in thousands and thousands of tiny pearls of gold. Swirls of light closed over me, encasing me in a garden of brilliance. The hum of dormant powers awakening and colliding pressing into my eardrums and I screamed because it was the most painful release in the world.
My hair settled back onto my shoulders. My eyes were running wild, my entire body shaking. It was as though I had just been struck with lightning.
I raised my head. My chest was heaving. Ringing silence
Then a rumble shook the room on its very foundations. I stepped back, startled.
A hole opened into the earth, triangular in shape, a fragile light reaching up to the surface. It grew stronger as the seconds ticked by, then before my very eyes, the Master Sword, emitting an alien glow, emerged into view. It was slowly being pulled up to the Sanctum, almost vibrating in its tightly coiled power.
The Master Sword, stabbed into a pedestal of the Triforce.
Almost subconsciously I gravitated towards it. I wondered how much stronger the allure would be if I had the Triforce of Courage.
If it were this strong with me, of Wisdom, then it must be near irresistible with those of Courage.
My fingers wrapped around the hilt. It felt like a blanket of history.
I closed my eyes, left my fate to the Goddesses. Then I pulled.
Almost immediately, tongues of fire chained my arms towards the blade, pulling tighter, tighter, tighter. I couldn't let go. The Sword and I were fused with fire and steeled in ice. I braced myself against the pain, gritting my teeth, fighting for my life.
You are wrong.
Lava replaced blood in my veins.
You are wrong.
Blood welled up in my mouth.
You are wrong!
A million emotions rose and fell, rose and fell. The world slid in and out of focus.
It felt as though the earth was tilting and I was the only one feeling the tug of gravity. I pulled harder.
Red pulsed at the edges of my vision. I felt weakness spreading at my fingertips, the frost of winter laying an arm seductively on my shoulders.
I was going to die.
I couldn't pull away. I couldn't let go of the hilt and stagger back, away from the sword about to claim my life. I was locked in place. Trapped.
The last thing I saw before the world faded to black was a blinding flash of light.
Then nothing.
A/N: Okay, okay. I haven't updated in *vague noises* days, but here I am. With a massive cliffhanger and a winter break.
The Sword trial will actually finish next chapter and we can get going into the main storyline, at long last. That's right. The *actual* main storyline begins somewhere around next chapter and the chapter after that.
I've actually alloted time for myself to write every day since I'm finally on break, sooooo. Hopefully updates can be more frequent. It's literally been half a century.
Thanks y'alls and cya!