origination
n. the time or place at which something begins
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Zelda screamed as Link was knocked clean off his feet and tumbled backwards into the malice.
The horses spooked and Catherine tore across the terrain. All it took was one hoof to hit malice before her knobby legs buckled beneath her and she collapsed with a splash. Zelda yanked Storm's reins to steady him as he rose up on his hind legs with a frightened scream.
That projectile was like a stream of water that had blasted through the air, splattering against Link, and as it mixed with the pools of malice it hissed and fizzed into a fine mist at their feet.
Link grunted and rolled like a Goron patriarch back to the grass, droplets of pink and black flying off.
"Link!" Zelda, still fighting for control, cried out.
"I'm fine!" he shouted back. "Go!"
Horseback riding had been another mandatory lesson for the princess, and Zelda knew that to redirect the nervous energy of a spooked horse she had to get it moving. Storm whipped his head back and forth and flared his teeth, fighting his restraint.
Another stream of water flew by their flank, and the enemy revealed itself. Two lizalfos, one blue and one black. The lizard monsters scampered from the trees, weaving in and out of each other's path in a double helix pattern.
Link, back on the grass, drew his windcleaver and flicked it to send the blue one sprawling with a gust of wind. And as the other startled, Link used its distraction to rush in and attack it with the blade.
Zelda got her stallion's four hooves back on the ground and urged him forward, which he did with no shortage of objection. She wasn't sure this got them out of Link's way, but at least a moving target was harder to hit.
The blue lizalfos recovered and Zelda witnessed it spit the stream of water from its angular mouth. It missed both her and Link, but the water fizzled on the malice and made more mist at their feet. To Zelda's horror, the ground was becoming harder and harder to see. She had to keep her horse moving, but she couldn't risk steering him into his demise. Thinking of the only thing she could, she had Storm walk in large circles around the pool of malice she knew was at their feet. With this repetitive path, she was able to watch Link fending off both lizalfos with just his windcleaver.
She searched for Catherine next, but with the rising mist she nearly overlooked her brown ears poking through. The creature wasn't moving, but her head had to have been raised to be visible above the growing cloud, so at the very least, she was still alive.
She hoped the poor thing wasn't—
"Princess, run!"
The black Lizalfos was targeting her and rapidly closing the gap between them with great leaps, completely clearing the puddles of malice that otherwise served as nominal protection.
Zelda spurred her stallion forward, only daring to go as fast as she could assess the ground in front of them. But it wasn't fast enough. Horn tilted lethally forward, the lizalfos leapt the remaining distance.
Pa-shing! Pa-shing!
The monster sprawled awkwardly on the ground before her, much to Storm's terror.
Link, who had hastily donned his bow, picked up his windcleaver and turned just fast enough to slice the blue lizalfos into halves of magenta and black. Then he swapped back to his bow and fired another arrow at the black lizalfos, just as it rose again before Zelda.
She was struggling to calm her horse and keep him clear of the malice at the same time.
Link, in a whirlwind of bravery, or perhaps stupidity, took a direct path towards the princess. Through grass and malice, Link rolled, pausing when he was upright between rolls to loose another arrow. With each somersault the black and magenta collected on his clothes and flew off again in droplets.
The lizalfos had turned its attention back on the knight and his arrows, but was otherwise left in no billet to fight back.
Without another water attack to renew the mist, the ground was slowly revealing itself and Zelda again had an escape route.
Link finally reached them, using his last roll to trade back for his windcleaver. It gave the lizalfos enough time to stand and swipe at him with its bladelike horn, but Link dodged and drove his weapon into its side. With an awful screech, the monster burst in a cloud of magenta smoke, leaving behind nothing but its horn.
"Are you okay?" Zelda and Link exclaimed in overlap. Zelda maneuvered her horse in a wide berth around the malice, snaking back around the puddles to Link, who was jogging to meet her.
"We're fine," Zelda answered first, bringing Storm to a stop beside the knight. "What about you?"
"Fine—"
They had the same instinct to check his horse next. Catherine was still lying in the malice several yards away.
Link was able to reach her reins without stepping into the malice himself, and with grueling effort, the mare hauled herself out of the deathly magenta. To Zelda's surprise, Link was able to brush the remaining malice off with his hand, but the great creature swayed on her feet. The knight tugged on the reins and the horse let herself be led, albeit sluggishly.
"Is she going to make it?" Zelda dared to ask.
Link's reply was somber. "I don't know."
But Catherine continued to follow Link at a snail's pace as they wove their way through the swirling magenta pools.
For the most part, the thought at the forefront of Zelda's mind was concern for their horses, which surreptitiously warded off concern for herself. She didn't worry about eradicating the malice from the fields. She didn't worry about proving herself to her Father or thwarting Ganondorf. She just focused on her boots meeting the grass.
Although Catherine lagged and swayed, she was moving, and Zelda's mind began to settle on their present situation again. She may not have had to seal away the malice during that altercation, but it sure would have saved them a lot of trouble. Link wouldn't have had to put himself at such a big risk taking a direct route to her through the malice if she had just removed it. Perhaps Catherine's movements wouldn't be so effortful if she had rescued her sooner.
It was a dangerous line of thinking, one that Zelda went down more often than she cared to admit, and she needed to stop it before it started. "How did you and Midna meet?" she asked out of the blue.
Link seemed somewhat taken aback. "Uh," he started, "the training yard I guess."
"Okay..." For some reason Zelda was scared to look back over her shoulder. Maybe his face would reveal how much he detested her uselessness, too. "Well that answers where..."
He let out an exhausted breath through his lips. "It'd have to've been seven-ish years at this point. I dunno."
Zelda nodded to herself, lower lip quivering out of his sight. Was she really going to cry right now? Just because his answers were so dismissive? He'd always tried to talk to her before, did she finally disappoint him one too many times?
"Sorry," Link said behind her, as if he read her thoughts, "I'm having trouble thinking. I'm... worried about Catherine." Zelda finally glanced over her shoulder. Link's hand was rested gently on the horse's nose, which was dripping thick snot. "I don't do well with animals hurting."
Her breathing was as labored as her heavy steps.
It's my fault, she thought.
"Um," Link continued before Zelda could say anything, "let's see... When I first joined the Hylian army, the older knights made fun of my height. I was the shortest one there until Midna showed up. Then they started picking on her instead, not just for her height but for her Gerudo background too.
"Being the two outcasts, it made it easy for us to team up. We weren't the odd ones out anymore. We became sparring partners, did our chores together, and had each other's backs during the downtime. We were still targeted by the others of course, until we got good enough at fighting to back our words up with actual action.
"Then, the more fights we won, the more I think people started to respect us. Even those who didn't at least started being nice to our faces. The rest is history I guess."
"Why did Midna join our army at all, if she's Gerudo?"
He didn't answer right away. "I think that's her story to tell."
"She told me to ask you about it."
"Of course she did," Link laughed, a tired sound. "Well in that case, her family was kinda a shitshow. She was the product of a fling between her mom, wandering from Gerudo and her dad, a Hylian from Castle Town. Her dad wanted to make something of it all but her crazy mom stole her away to Gerudo where her dad couldn't follow. Her mom struggled with her own demons, so Midna was more or less on her own there, even before her mother died.
"She fell in with the wrong crowd and became a pickpocket, learning to live in the shadows. That's why she fights the way she does. As far as she claims, no Gerudo ever found out she was the one swiping their things. Eventually she figured there'd be bigger fish to fry in Castle Town, so she left, and by some weird miracle her dad found her and recognized her. He took her in without hesitation, knowing nothing of her thieving past and showed her a different way of life. She fell in love with the other half of her heritage, and as a result, wanted to make amends with her Gerudo side too, though she never told him that. He never knew. Her dad was super loyal to the crown and always wanted to join the army, but he was crippled and couldn't.
"When he passed suddenly from an illness his weak body couldn't overcome, Midna decided to do what he couldn't and join the army. We were still just kids at the time. That said, I think she would have been fine without me. She would've handed the knights' asses to them for sure, but I don't think I would have gotten through all the torment without her."
Zelda had always been under the impression that all the knights joined the army voluntarily, but Link spoke as if he hadn't had a choice. If so, what had led him to join the knights?"What is..." Link started, then reconsidered. "No, nevermind."
"What is what?"
"I was just wondering what Mido is like when he's with you. Like, just you."
The fact that he had hesitated to ask the question at all told Zelda everything she needed to know about his opinions on the Knight Commander.
"He's marvelous, of course," she huffed, already feeling the need to defend him. "Just as intrepid and magnanimous as he is in the training yard, I'm sure."
Link nodded. Then after a beat of silence, he asked, "Just to be sure... those were both good things you said, right?"
"Yes," she said with a scowl, spinning so Link could see her offense at his need to confirm. "Mido is a good man. He brings me flowers and asks about my day. I can talk to him in a way I can't talk to anybody else." Link nodded again, and Zelda frowned. "Stop that."
"Stop what?" Link asked, genuinely taken aback.
"Stop nodding like you don't believe me. I know you think he's a jerk. Why do you hate him so much?"
"I don't hate M—"
"Are you jealous of him? Is that why you belittle him with epithets like carrot-top? I mean, really, you'd think after being disparaged for your height all that time you'd know what it's like to..." she trailed off, realization hitting her like lizalfos' spit. "Oh, Gods. It was him, wasn't it?"
"No, no," Link quickly refuted, "it wasn't any one person. And besides, people change." His focus shifted back to petting his horse's brow. After three long strokes, he added a bit softer, "I'm glad there's someone you feel like you can talk to."
Eventually the sun began its descent behind the trees, and with it came a fresh chill to the air. Summer was ending.
Link and Zelda walked until they were out of the malice field, just as the last sliver of sun extinguished behind the pines. Although, out was a bit of an overstatement, as the terrain was still speckled with malice, but there were much broader clearings among the trees to safely set up camp.
Link pulled out a large sack of granola they'd procured from the Gerudo stable and handed some to Zelda.
Then after a rather quiet meal, Link left Zelda alone to give the horses their feed. Despite the fire, the silence and darkness crept its way into Zelda's heart, and she felt her pulse rising. Her incompetence had caused so much trouble today. She couldn't even bear to look at Link and the horses without feeling like she was somehow sitting in a pool of malice herself.
She launched to her feet and skulked away from their camp, to a small puddle of malice, far out of sight of Link.
Then, wearing a mask of determination, she dropped to her knees before it, hands outstretched, and reached inside for her power. She dug for hope, and for confidence. This horrible substance before her would not steal any lives if she failed. She could fail a hundred times right now and no one would suffer because of this little puddle.
Yet after a hundred failures, she was suffering after all.
When hope didn't work, she dug for her anger. When anger failed, she dug for sadness. She dug for her faith. She dug for her despair. None of it worked.
Link found her some time later. "Princess? What are you doing out here?"
"Go away!" she exploded through a sob.
He lingered a moment, eyes flickering as if to assess the potential dangers, then he turned, whispering, "Yes, Your Highness."
After his footsteps receded, the rest of her came undone, and she wept until she ran out of tears.
Link was asleep by the fire when Zelda finally returned to camp. She laid herself beside him, tucking an arm beneath her head and bringing her knees up to her chin.
"Link?" she asked softly, facing away from him.
"Mm?" Although drowsy, the response was immediate. Maybe he wasn't sleeping after all.
Zelda thought of his horse. She thought of the woman in the amphitheater. Of her mother. The lives she could and can save if she could only reverse the malice.
"I want to go to Kakariko."
In the silence that followed, she couldn't see Link smile to himself. "Okay."
"And I want you to teach me how to fight."
The grass rustled as he rotated towards her. She turned just enough to read his face, and her heart leapt into her throat. It was akin to the expression Mama and Papa had worn when she brought them a storybook from the library and read it to them word for word, despite having never been read it before. That was the day she learned she loved books.
"It would be my honor, Your Highness."
In the dying firelight, Link's hair seemed a lot less sandy, and the blue of his eyes was deep and inky. Or perhaps his dilated pupils had chased away the usual cerulean. With the long sidebangs spilling off his soft jaw, she noticed his pierced ears for the first time. A little metal ring, sapphire blue. One in each lobe.
All the while his gentle smile remained steadfast, and when she realized this, she feared what he might be thinking. Was he studying her, too?
Lover. Bedded.
She became acutely aware of the fact that they were lying together in the grass.
Her stomach twisted. She mimicked the action with the rest of her body to disengage from whatever was transgressing between them. Just because the fire disguised his hair color didn't mean it wasn't that sandy hue she hated.
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Oh shiiiiiiit, could she be catching the feeeeels??
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