Part Three

            Hyrule seemed a pale imitation of its former glory.  Worse than that, it was more like a living nightmare.  The Kokiri had gone into hiding, fleeing the terrible creatures that now inhabited their forest.  Hyrule field was infested with Poes and the nearby ranch taken over by that awful hired hand that no one seemed to care for.  That was as close to the old ruins of North Castle as anyone could get.  The rest of the area was rendered completely uninhabitable by Hylians.  It was overrun with creatures of darkness, serving the new, self proclaimed emperor of Hyrule, Ganondorf Dragmire.

            Up to the north, the mountain range was a total mess.  A dark, red cloud encircled the peaks.  The Gorons had vanished.  They were rumored to be trapped inside of the Fire Temple, offered up as sacrifices at regular intervals to a dragon.  Down south, the waters of Lake Hylia were nearly dried up.  What remained was stagnant and fetid.  Worse yet, the waters of Zora Harbor had been frozen solid leaving the Zora completely isolated and cut off from both Hyrule and the passage of time.

The Sheikah stronghold was another pale imitation of what it had once been.  The Gerudo had burned down the actual buildings several years ago, in a final and desperate attempt to wipe out the Sheikah race once and for all, but the foundations remained.  Over them now were canvas tents, easily taken down at a moment’s notice, making a perfectly mobile fortress in which the remaining Sheikah could meet and discuss the state of things in Hyrule.

            It was in these depressing ruins that Yonah summoned Impa and her young apprentice, Sheik.  When the two of them arrived, Yonah was sitting in the largest tent.  Impa recognized the designs drawn on the canvas ceiling.  Vaguely, she recalled that she had once taken this tent out on a mission, her very first command.  That seemed far away to her now, thrown back into the recesses of her memory, but it had only been seventeen years ago.

            “Hello,” Yonah said softly as she looked up at her visitors.

            “Hello, Yonah,” Impa replied, drawing a fist up to her chest in the traditional Sheikah salute.  “How are you?”

            “Well, whatever’s going to kill me hasn’t shown up just yet,” Yonah remarked wryly.  She turned to address Sheik, bending her head as much as her old age would permit.

            “Please don’t,” the girl said softly, taking Yonah by the shoulders to straighten her out.

            “Forgive me,” Yonah sighed.  “Old habits.”  She shook her head with a smile, examining the young woman before her.  Impa had dressed her up in the most traditional Sheikah garb she could manage, but there was still one flaw in this otherwise perfect disguise.  Sheik’s eyes were still the deep blue shade of a regular Hylian.  No amount of magic could give her red, Sheikah eyes.

            “Why have you summoned us?” Impa asked.  She didn’t need to add in any sort of comment about the dangers.  The Sheikahs, though surviving, were under heavy surveillance.  Every wicked thing that went bump in the night knew that Princess Zelda was still alive somewhere and that the Sheikahs were protecting her.  They were constantly looking for the slightest chink in the Sheikah armor that would reveal the location of the Princess.  It was dangerous for Impa to be seen with the others.  She could hide Zelda with greater ease on her own than in the presence of her people.

            “I’ve just been contacted by Rauru,” Yonah explained.

            Impa furrowed her brow.  “Rauru?”

            Sheik, however, seemed to recognize the name.  “The Sage of Light?  I thought he was dead.”

            “He’s gone into hiding,” Yonah replied.  “Just like you.”

            “What does he want?” Impa wondered, half to Yonah, half to Sheik.  There was no way of knowing which would have more answers.  In the past six years, it seemed that Zelda’s wisdom had increased sevenfold.

            “Well, it appears that Zelda’s dreams about Ganondorf were correct,” Yonah told them.

            “What do you mean?”

            “The boy.  The Kokiri.  He is the chosen one.”

            This surprised Sheik.  “Link?  But I was certain he was dead!”

            “He hasn’t been seen in the last six years,” Impa added.

            Yonah merely nodded.  “It seems that was Rauru’s doing.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “The boy is alive,” Yonah muttered.  “In a way.”

            “In a way?”

            “It seems that he’s been sealed in the Temple of Time.”

            Sheik blinked her big blue eyes.  “The Temple of Time?”

            The old Sheikah nodded.  “Yes.”

            “But that would mean that he’s –”

            “Frozen.  Asleep, if you will.”

            Impa looked back and forth between the two of them.  She felt miserably out of the loop, lacking all information on this situation and barely understanding a word they were saying.  “Asleep?”

            “When someone is sealed in the Temple of Time,” Sheik explained, “they fall into a sort of dreamless sleep until the seal is broken.”

            “Which only Rauru can do,” Yonah added.

            “If Link is the key to overthrowing Dragmire,” Impa started slowly, trying not to sound impertinent, “then why would Rauru do something like that?  Why would he seal off our only hope?”

            “That is exactly what I asked him,” Yonah answered.

            “What did he say?”

            “Rauru said that Link was too weak to face Ganondorf in his present condition.  He’s been sealed in the Temple of Time so his body can mature while his mind remains uncorrupted by the world we have inherited.”

            “Won’t that just atrophy his muscles?”

            “It’s a magic ritual,” Yonah sighed, waving her hand dismissively.

            “Oh.”

            “I wish he had told us this sooner,” Sheik lamented.  “Then we could have had more hope.”

            “Believe me,” Yonah assured her, “I properly scolded Rauru for his actions.  He feels very bad about not telling us.”

            “Well, regardless of that fact,” Impa put in quickly before they could stray further from the subject, “what else did he tell you?”

            “He said that he would be breaking the seal soon.”

            Excitement filled Sheik’s eyes and she clasped her hands together.  “Link will awaken soon?”

            Yonah nodded.  “Within the next year,” she responded.  “Or so Rauru told me.  Seven years is pushing it.  There may be no Hylians left to save if he keeps Link sealed away much longer.”

            “That’s absolutely wonderful!” Sheik cried.

            “Yes, that’s fantastic news,” Impa said, somewhat less enthusiastic.  “But it changes nothing for the present.”

            “It gives us hope,” Yonah corrected her.

            “Hope,” Impa repeated dryly.

            “You must not underestimate the power of a morale booster,” Yonah said. 

            “Morale booster?  Do you mean to tell me that you’re making this common knowledge?”

            Again, the old Sheikah leader nodded.  “I’ve already sent some of our warriors out into the village to spread the news that a hero is destined to rise.”

            “You haven’t used his name, have you?” Sheik asked.

            “No, of course not,” Yonah replied.  “We’re calling him the Hero of Time, the chosen one.”

            “It has a wonderful mystic quality to it,” Sheik said approvingly.

            “I thought you’d like it.”

            “Is there anything else?” Impa cut back in.

            “No, that’s all.  I didn’t want to send the news to you in writing, lest it fall into the wrong hands.”

            “Thank you for telling us, Yonah,” Sheik said.

            “It was my privilege, your majesty.”

            “You mustn’t call me that anymore.”

            “Forgive me.  I’m old.”  Yonah sighed.  “Did you two arrive together?”

            “Yes.”

            “Then it’s best that you leave separately, so as not to draw any further attention.”  She gestured to Sheik.  “You go first.  Return to your safe haven.  I’ll send Impa along in a few minutes.”

            “May the goddesses protect you, Yonah,” Sheik said.  Immediately, she turned around and slipped out of the tent.

            Impa and Yonah stood motionless, watching her silhouette on the canvas grow smaller and finally fade into the day.  “Remarkable girl,” Yonah remarked after a moment.  “You’ve done a fantastic job taking care of her, Impa.  You should be very proud.”

            “I am proud,” Impa replied vaguely.  With a sigh, she turned her gaze to look down at her hands.  Absently, she twirled a small piece of string tied around her ring finger.

            “You lack hope more than most of the villagers,” Yonah commented, watching her.

            “Things have been difficult.  I hope that this Link will be able to restore peace and harmony.”

            “Rauru is positive that if Link works in tandem with Princess Zelda and the other Sages, he can quite literally erase the last six years of misery.”

            “Well, I doubt that.”  Impa paused for a moment then looked up at Yonah.  “Other Sages?”

            “Yes.  Zelda, it seems is a Sage.”

            “I had no idea.”

            “Nor did we.  Rauru’s only just begun pooling information with us.”

            “How many Sages are there?”

            “Reportedly seven.”

            “Have any of the others been identified?”

            Yonah shook her head.  “No.  Not yet.  And that’s probably for the best.  If Dragmire knew about the Sages, he would most likely do everything in his power to keep them away from Link.”

            “That’s assuming he doesn’t already know something that we don’t.”

            “I try to be an optimist.”  Yonah gently reached out to touch Impa on the shoulder.  “So should you.”

            Impa flinched, quickly pulling away from Yonah.  “I can’t afford that luxury.”  Before Yonah could reply, Impa turned and started for the flap.  “I should go.  She can’t be left alone for so long.”

            “Go,” Yonah sighed.  She watched silently as Impa slipped out of the tent.  Her shadow on the wall disappeared much quicker than Sheik’s, but Yonah watched it go nevertheless.  She frowned, her thoughts still lingering on this woman, whose presence still lingered in the heat that filled the air.  Poor Impa:  No one knew how much she had lost in the last six years.  Her heartstrings, like the small bit of twine wrapped around her finger, were fraying.

 

            Six years ago, the first of the Hylians relocated to Kakariko.  Within a few weeks, another wave came.  Soon, the entire population of the town that had once circled North Castle settled down in the Human village.  Of course, they couldn’t bear to live in savage huts of mud and wicker.  With the Hylians, came stucco and wood and brick.  While the Hylians were incredible architects, they couldn’t build very well.  Manual labor simply didn’t suit the talents of the noble and enlightened.  Fortunately for them, the Human population provided a wellspring of laborers with strong backs and sense enough to know that pride was less important than a full belly.

            Kakariko was transformed into a thriving little town, filled with shops and farms and tiny cafes with big umbrellas shading the tables and little umbrellas in the drinks.  Of course, it wasn’t a paradise, but it was enough to call civilized.  Any of the less civilized elements were confined to a small alleyway known as the Human Quarter.  In the Human Quarter, there was a small jewelry store, built on the land that had once been the meeting hut.  Above it was a large empty room.  It was inside of this room that all the Humans assembled when they saw the bluish curls of smoke rising into the air one night.

            The few remaining elements of their old way of life that had survived the rebuilding of Kakariko were tucked away in this room.  There was little, to be certain, only the wicker throne of the Basileaus, a small, stone statue of Joxom, and several ancient bows, but it was enough.  What really mattered were the people.  And they crept in, cautiously in pairs of two or three, wondering with a sense of giddy delight, what the nature of this, their first meeting in five years, could possibly be.

            Leonid picked his way across the room carefully, doing his best to avoid stepping on the small children who sat with their legs folded beneath them on the floor.  Practically everyone in the Human Quarter knew who he was.  After all, those who elected to remain in the Human Quarter, rather than hire themselves out as domestic servants and live in the Hylian homes, tended to stick together.  There was a sense of community, a sense of family.  Those who could still remember the old village recognized Leonid as the son of the old champion, Tully. 

He looked just like his father, back when his father was seventeen.  His long, ebony hair was divided into dozens of dreadlocks, falling over his face at odd angles.  He didn’t care much for grooming and in fact reveled in his untidy appearance.  Like Tully, he had a severe, square jaw, but he had inherited his mother’s cobalt blue eyes.  Leonid’s strikingly handsome, muscular physique made him wildly sought after by the Hylian landlords with large, farm estates, but Leonid remained staunchly by the side of his father and the Basileaus.  He could still remember the village; he could remember the way things used to be.

“Leonid!” one of his young friends called from the crowd.

“Yeah?” he asked, turning around to try and locate the source of the disembodied voice.

“What’s this meeting about?”

“Wait and see,” Leonid replied.

“Where’s the Basileaus?”

“The Basileaus didn’t call this meeting,” a firm voice reported from the doorway.  Everyone turned and swiveled around, trying to see who had spoken.  There wasn’t much doubt, but they still had to see for themselves.

Standing in the doorway was a young woman, a nearly seventeen years old.  Like Leonid, she had a wild mane of dreadlocks, but her hair was much longer, going down halfway to her waist.  It was a mousy, brown color, contrasted severely by her sharp red eyes.  As she walked into the room, the crowd parted around her.  Whenever they looked at her, it seemed like they were looking at a phantom. 

While she possessed many of the traits of their worst enemies, particularly her long, pointed ears, she was still one of them, the Basileaus’ own daughter.  She dressed like a Human, abandoning the gaudy, bright colors preferred by the Hylians.  Instead, she wore a deep purple tunic that only covered her right arm and shoulder, leaving the left completely bare.  Over her left side was a tight, fishnet fabric.  Brown leather sandals climbed halfway up her thighs.  Hanging to one side was an old, rusty sword she had obtained, despite the ban on Humans owning weapons.

“What’s the meaning of this, Shayla?” someone from the crowd barked.  “You know only the Basileaus can call a meeting.”

“Only the Basileaus can call a mandatory meeting,” she replied blithely.  “Anyone who wishes to leave is more than welcome to do so.”

They all mumbled, exchanging weary glances.  True, she had given them leave, but now they were all too curious to know what the meaning of this abrupt breech in etiquette was.  Leonid smirked.  This was something he truly admired about Shayla.  She had such a magnificent sense of the dramatic.  She could keep almost anyone captivated for awhile; himself included.

Shayla crossed the room to the throne of the Basileaus.  She didn’t dare sit in it, but rather stood before it, holding out her arms to address the people.  “The crimes of the Hylians have gotten out of hand,” she declared.  In the past, someone might have rebuked Shayla, pointing out that she was, in fact, a Hylian herself, but no one dared to try that again.  Not after what happened last time.  “Their latest transgression cannot be ignored,” she continued.

“What did they do?” someone asked curiously.

From her satchel, Shayla produced a scroll.  With great ceremony, she unrolled it, holding it out for everyone to see.  “Read this and see for yourself!”

“By order of the mayor of Kakariko,” Leonid read quietly to himself, “all Kludges are hereby ordered to submit to a nine o’clock curfew within the city limits.”

Quickly, indignant gasps erupted from the assembled masses.  “You see how they treat us!” Shayla cried.  “We’re nothing more than animals to them!  Sheep that must be herded in before nighttime!  Kludges!”

“They can’t do that!” someone growled angrily.

“They already have,” Shayla replied.  She looked around at the crowd.  “How many indignations have we suffered at the hands of the Hylians?  What have they done to hinder our freedom?”

“They’ve taken our livestock!” a young Human yelled.

“They won’t let us operate businesses outside of the Quarter!”

“We’ve lost the right to own our land!”

“How many more indignations must we suffer?” Shayla roared.  “How many?  Put a number on it!”

“None!” Leonid shouted.

“None!” many of the others, particularly the young people, agreed.  “None!  None!  None!”

“The time has come to fight back!” Shayla called above the hectic noise, pumping a militant fist into the air.  She had a miraculous gift to make herself heard.  “We must fight for our freedom!  It’s time for us to act!  It shall be glorious!”

“Silence.”

Instantly, the entire assembly fell silent.  All eyes flew to the doorway.  The crowd began to part as Basileaus Leafa made her way slowly into the room, accompanied, as always, by her faithful Tully.  Leafa looked decidedly worse for wear after the difficulties of the last six years.  Her face was worn and tired, the bags under her eyes heavy and purple.  She had finally elected to chop off her rust colored curls, leaving her hair short and severe.  In addition, the Basileaus had lost a lot of weight, giving her a slightly brittle appearance, though she moved well enough and always with the confidence of Basileaus.

“It will be a slaughter,” Leafa said softly as she came toe to toe with Shayla.  “And mindless violence.”

“But Basileaus, the new law is –”

“I’m well aware what the new law is,” Leafa cut her off sharply.  She turned to address the room.  “It’s unfair, that’s what it is.”  She paused for a moment.  “But the second we pick up a weapon, we become one of them.”

There were murmurs of assent from all around the room, especially from the village elders.  Shayla’s face slackened as she realized that she was loosing her audience.  “But what would you have us do?  Submit to servitude?”

“There are ways of working through problems without militant strength,” Leafa answered.  “In the old days, we used to try talking through our problems.”

“These aren’t the old days,” Shayla shot back.

“No, but I’m working on it.”  Leafa scanned the room.  “Go home,” she told her people.  “Return to your lives and families.  This is not he answer.”

With varied grumbles and mumbles, the meeting broke up.  Shayla stood there, feeling like a fool, as everyone left.  Tully approached Leonid, grabbing him by the arm.  “Did you know about this?”  Leonid’s silence was answer enough.  “I’ll have a word with you.”  With that, the two men exited with the crowd.  Soon, Leafa and Shayla were the only ones left.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Shayla said sulkily.

Leafa sat down in her wicker throne.  “Neither did you.”

“I could have rallied them!” she replied passionately, turning around to face the Basileaus.  “I could have made a difference.”

“At what cost?” Leafa asked.  “How many lives would have to be lost in order for you to make your difference?”

Shayla knelt down at Leafa’s feet.  “Mother, don’t you have confidence in my abilities?”

“I have every confidence in your abilities,” Leafa told her, stroking her hair gently.  “What I don’t trust is your anger.”

“It makes me strong, mother.”

“It makes you rash and spontaneous.”

She sighed softly.  “I just want to help.”

“I know,” Leafa mumbled softly.

“I hate the Hylians.”

“You cannot forget that you are one of them.”  Shayla opened her mouth to protest, but Leafa went on.  “Not all of them are bad.  And you aren’t bad either.  But don’t forget your Sheikah heritage.”

“I try to forget,” Shayla admitted, “but I can’t.”

“From the day I brought you home, I made it clear that if your parents came looking for you, I would return you to them.”

“They never came,” Shayla whispered.

“And so I’ve taken care of you,” Leafa continued.  “But I have never asked you to hate your own heritage.”

“But the Hylians –”

“I had friends who were Hylians,” Leafa told her.  “Good friends.  Some of them were Sheikah.”

“So you’ve said.”

“And I haven’t forgotten the kindnesses they showed me.  Some Hylians are bad, but not all of them.  The Sheikah are very good.  You should be proud to be one of them, Shayla.”

“Who wants to be part of a race that’s dead?” she asked bitterly.

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s the truth.”  She looked up at Leafa with her hardened red eyes.  “Everything that was Sheikah in me died that day when I saw…”

“Saw what?”  This peaked Leafa’s interest.  It wasn’t often that she could get Shayla to talk about her past.  The truth was that she knew practically nothing about this stranger she called her daughter; nothing about her before the fateful day when she was found in the blazing destruction of North Castle.

“Nothing,” Shayla said coldly.

Leafa sighed.  Another failed attempt.  “I beg you, Shayla, check your anger.  If you aren’t careful, it’ll explode in the worst possible way and you won’t be the only one who gets hurt.”

Shayla stood up, balling her hands into fists at her sides.  “Well, I don’t care anymore.”

“Shayla!”

“Just, let me be.”

With that, she turned around and stormed out of the room, leaving Leafa alone in her throne.  The Basileaus sighed, running a hand through what little remained of her hair.  There was a certain quality about Shayla that she just didn’t understand.  When the girl left a room, she never really left.  There was always a part of her that stayed behind, smoldering like an ember.

 

The halls of Ganondorf’s glorious palace were bleak and dank and to be perfectly honest, that’s just how he liked it.  As he followed his chief lieutenant, Sarjenka, down the corridors to the dungeon, he listened to the haunting echo of water dripping somewhere out of sight.  This was a sound he particularly enjoyed, although, for the life of him, he couldn’t really say why.

In reality, he was genuinely annoyed right now.  The day had started off on a sour note.  A Sheikah had been spotted spying on the castle, but he managed to escape without being caught.  Ganondorf loathed incompetence, especially from his own people.  He had had the guards on duty executed as an example to the others.  Failure would not be tolerated.  After all, he had done his utmost to have all the Sheikahs in Hyrule eliminated.  He was quite certain there were only a handful left.  Unfortunately, the most important of them had managed to elude his grasp for six years now.

As if that weren’t enough of a nuisance, he had also been informed that the pesky Sage of Light, Rauru, was on the move.  Ganondorf had no idea what the old fool was plotting, but he knew it would spell trouble for him.  He had sent several of his best Gerudo spies to try and find out what the old man was up to, but none of them had returned.  Ganondorf felt fairly certain they had been eliminated.  He would have to remember to order Sarjenka to begin training some new spies.

It was after all of this that Sarjenka had appeared before him, saying that she had news that would please him immensely.  She insisted that he follow her at once.  Most of the time, Ganondorf was disinclined to take orders from anyone, least of all his subjects, but Sarjenka was a special case.  Time and time again, she had proven a vicious and cunning accomplice.  He reserved a special place in his ranks for her.  After all, it had been Sarjenka who had engineered the clever plot by which they had disposed of Nabooru, the Alpha of the largest Gerudo pride, who was adamantly opposed to Ganondorf’s reign.

“What’s this all about, Sarjenka?” Ganondorf asked as they made their way through the halls.

“I didn’t think it was possible,” she replied, shoving a servant out of the path, “but it seems that they’ve finally managed to break Prisoner 5013.”

This surprised Ganondorf more than he was willing to admit.  All the prisoners in his dungeon were stripped of their identities upon arrival.  Instead, they were given numbers instead of their names.  Still, Ganondorf remembered 5013.  5013 had been in a thorn in his side for quite some time now.  “Really?” he drawled.

“Yes,” Sarjenka said with a nod.

“I was beginning to think that nothing could break him.”

“As was I,” she said quickly.

Ganondorf smiled.  Sarjenka knew her place well enough.  “What made the difference?”  He was genuinely curious about this one.  They had attempted every single form of torture they could devise to break 5013, but nothing had ever worked before.  The man’s resolve was like steel, even if his body was like jelly.

“I don’t know, precisely.”

“What do you mean?”

Sarjenka shrugged.  “He was as stubborn as always.  Sapphia was getting bored with her usual methods.  She was planning on instituting some water torture next week.  But all of a sudden, he just…cracked.”

“Cracked?”

“Yes.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well…”  Sarjenka had reached the doorway to the dungeon.  Grasping the sturdy iron ring in the middle of the door, she yanked it open, pulling it aside for Ganondorf to step through.  “See for yourself,” she finished, making a sweeping gesture with her hand toward the door.

“Hmph,” Ganondorf snorted, walking past Sarjenka and descending into the depths of the dungeon.

It was pleasantly cool and dank down there.  Lines of cells ran from one end of the dungeon to the other.  At the front of the lines sat Sapphia crossing names off of a scroll.  She looked up when Ganondorf and Sarjenka entered.  Immediately, she jumped to her feet, drawing the ceremonial blades from her sides and crossing them in front of her chest.  “What is your will?” she asked Ganondorf reverently.

“Sarjenka tells me you’ve successfully broken 5013,” he said.  “Finally,” he added.

“Well, I’m afraid I can’t take all of the credit for it,” Sapphia replied.

“Where is he?”

Suddenly, from somewhere in the depths of the dungeon, the three Gerudos heard an insane wail rise up.  It didn’t really sound like a person, nor did it sound like an animal.  It seemed to be somewhere in between.  “Just follow the noise,” Sapphia told him with a withered expression.

His curiosity peaked, Ganondorf walked down the line of cells, the prisoners with strength left in them rattling the bars and crying out to him.  He ignored their petty shouts, following the sound of the animalistic moaning.  “He’s been doing that all morning,” Sarjenka sighed.

At the end of the cellblock, Ganondorf located 5013’s cell.  As he peered in through the bars, he saw the quivering mass that had once been a proud Sheikah, huddled in a corner, on a small pile of straw.  He cradled his shaved head in his hands, yowling like a wolf.  Ganondorf realized, however, that in between screams, he was muttering to himself softly.

“What’s he saying?” Ganondorf asked, glancing sideways at Sarjenka.

“Stand up, prisoner!” Sarjenka barked.

Ganondorf was about to tell her that this was not what he had ordered, but much to his surprise, the prisoner began mumbling a bit louder than before.  “There are so few of us left.  Everyone else is occupied with royal business.  Kaya’s coming with me.  Give her some credit.  She did help us out of a tight spot during a certain first contact situation.”  He paused to scream loudly before continuing in his mad jumble of word salad.

“What’s he talking about?” Ganondorf snapped.

“Listen,” Sarjenka warned him.

“She’s going to have to stay here with you.  Impa!  You’re watching after one child.”

“Impa?  The royal nursemaid?”  Suddenly, Ganondorf understood why he had been summoned.  “Has he said anything else about her?  Does he know where she’s hiding the Princess?”

“We can’t understand most of what he’s saying,” Sarjenka admitted.

The prisoner went right on babbling.  “Another shouldn’t be too terrible.  And Shayla isn’t high maintenance.  She can feed and dress herself.  Is it so shameful to say that you’re watching after your own daughter for awhile?”

A sly smile forming on his face, Ganondorf turned to look at Sarjenka.  He caught her eyes.  They were both thinking the same thing.

 

To the west of the village, there was an old pass that no one ever went near.  It had been carved through a hill centuries ago by some of the original inhabitants of Kakariko.  Back then, it was a special trap, designed to keep intruding animals out of the village.  Unfortunately, there was one animal it hadn’t entirely been able to shut out.  Of course, the trap had long been taken apart.  The sharp hemlock spiked stakes were gone, leaving nothing but a deep pit in the ground, flanked by smooth walls, carved with an archaic warning.  The Hylians called it the Sheikah Way, after seven Sheikahs who had perished there.

Since no one would go near the pass, it served as an ideal meeting place.  Shayla knew this of course, so when she decided to assemble the militant youths it seemed like the perfect spot.  They arrived in twos and threes, looking around nervously for fear of being seen breaking the new Human curfew.  Leonid was the first.  Of course.  He dropped down into the pit, landing in a crouch with one hand on the ground, the other at his side.  Shayla was already at the bottom of the pit.  She looked up at him with a smirk.  “Show off.”

Gradually, the others began to arrive.  They had been meeting at the pit for many months now, all of them disgruntled with the state of things in the village.  As they arrived, they all seemed to have the same thought on their minds; the disastrous meeting in the Human Quarter.

“Well, that went well,” Jessa said snidely.

“Maybe next time we can do it naked,” her sister Kaylee added.

“Shut up,” Shayla growled at them.

“Leafa really showed you up,” Kaylee continued.

“Stop it!” Leonid called, getting in between the women before Shayla could pummel Kaylee into a fine pulp.  “Clearly, the others weren’t ready to listen to what we had to say.  We knew that was a possibility.”

Kaylee sniffed indignantly, folding her arms across her chest.  “I know,” she mumbled.

“We can’t start fighting amongst ourselves,” he continued diplomatically.  “We have too much at stake.  That would just be playing into the Hylians’ hands.”

“Right,” Shayla muttered.

“She should know,” Kaylee snorted, “she’s one of them.”

“That’s it!” Shayla started. She launched herself forward, nails poised to gouge out her eyes.

“Stop them!” Leonoid shouted.

Instantly, two boys grabbed Shayla’s arms, pulling her back.  Leonid wrapped his arms around Kaylee and pulled her away.  When the two were separated, everyone seemed to calm down gradually.  By the time all the members of the group had arrived, the quarrel was forgotten and Shayla called them to order with her natural, dramatic authority.

“All right,” she said, looking at each of them.  “So we’ve learned that the rest of the villagers aren’t ready to join in our crusade.  That doesn’t mean we need to stop working.  We want to send the Hylians a message and that’s what we’re going to do.  The question is, how?”

“I say we just start writing proclamations dictating their lives,” a young man named Warden sneered.

“They’d just take that as a joke,” Jessa shot back.  “We want them to take us seriously.”

“Which means, we have to do something serious,” Leonid noted.

“Absolutely correct,” Shayla said with a nod.  “We can’t just fight fire with fire; we have to hit them where it really hurts.”

“We don’t actually want to hurt them though, right?” Jessa asked, suddenly growing timid.

“You heard what Leafa said,” Warden muttered, “they could easily slaughter all of us.”

“What we need,” Shayla said, “is a big symbolic gesture that will require minimal effort.”

“Symbolic gesture?” Leonid repeated.

“A public figure,” Jesse said suddenly.

Everyone turned to look at her.  “Huh?” someone grunted from the darkness of the night.

“What we need to do is humiliate a public figure.  It means only doing something small to one person, but it would have massive consequences on the population as a whole.”

“Humiliate?” Warden scoffed.  “I say we kill.”

“No!” Leonid said quickly.  “The second we pick up a weapon, we become one of them.”

Shayla glanced at him out of the corner of her eye.  “Let’s worry less about what we’re going to do and more about who we’re going to do it to,” she told them.

“Who would the people give anything to protect?” Jessa wondered.

“Their Princess,” Shayla snorted.  “Unfortunately, she’s dead.”

“That’s not true,” Kaylee suddenly chimed in. 

At once, everyone turned to look at her.  “What?” asked one of the surprised freedom fighters.

“It’s not true,” Kaylee repeated with a slight shrug.

“How do you know?” Leonid questioned her.

“Well, I was walking through the market yesterday, and I heard some people talking about the Sheikahs.”

“The sworn protectors of the royal family?”

“Yeah.  One of them was saying how surprised she was to see that the Princess’s nursemaid was still alive.”

Jessa furrowed her brow with a frown.  “Nursemaid?”

“Yeah.  Apparently, her name is Impa.  Anyway, they think she went into hiding or something, but she got sloppy.  Someone saw her out and about in the village.”

Warden folded his big, beefy arms across his chest.  “So?”

“So, where there’s a nursemaid, there must be a Princess.”

Leonid raised an eyebrow.  “I’m sorry.  Are you saying that you think the Princess is in hiding?”

“I haven’t finished the story yet,” Kaylee said indignantly.

He sighed.  “Go on.”

“Well, they say Impa’s taken a new apprentice.”

Everyone was a bit startled by this.  Cautiously, Jessa leaned forward.  “So she has an apprentice?”

Kaylee shrugged.  “Well, obviously, that’s got to be the Princess.  What’s a better way to hide something than in plain sight?”

“She has a point there,” Warden grunted.

“I don’t know…” Jessa countered with a slight frown.  “It’s hard to believe a Sheikah could get so sloppy.”

“Anything is possible,” Leonid pointed out.  “I mean, I’m not saying I believe it for certain, but anything is possible.”  He turned to look at Shayla.  “What do you think?” he asked her.

She remained silent for some time, her thoughts clearly jumbled.  Finally, she nodded slightly.  “I think it’s a good idea,” she told them.

Several of the youths let out excited whispers, filled with the prospect of some decisive action at long last.  Leonid seemed a bit disappointed.  “Are you sure?  It seems far fetched.”

“No, it’s a good plan.”  Shayla clapped her hands together.  “Listen up, here’s what we’re going to do.”  She pointed to Jessa and Kaylee, “I want you two to get into the cheapest Hylian part of the village.  Start asking around for two Sheikahs.  Don’t identify them by name; we don’t want them to think we’re looking for Impa specifically.  Just say…say your mistress told you to find her, but you’re completely lost.  Do whatever you have to in order to find their position.”

“Right!” Jessa said firmly.

“Okay,” Kaylee agreed, all thoughts of their earlier quarrel long forgotten in the heat of the moment.

Shayla turned to Warden.  “I want you to prepare a strike team.  As soon as we manage to locate Impa and the Princess, we’ll close in on them.  You take the lead.  Bring as many people as you need.”

Warden nodded.  “I can do that.”

“Now, this is very important:  You must take the Princess alive.  No screw ups.  You can fight as hard as you want, you can knock her unconscious, you can beat her up if you have to, but do not kill her.”

“No killing.  Check.”

Leonid cleared his throat.  “What about the Sheikah nursemaid?” he asked carefully.

Without bothering to look at Leonid, Shayla shrugged.  “We have no interest in her.”

“I suppose.”  Leonid glanced at Warden.  “All the same, you really shouldn’t kill her.”

“She’s going to give you trouble though, Warden,” Kaylee warned him.  “The Sheikahs are tough.”

“They’re tough,” Shayla agreed, “but even they can’t win against steep odds.  Make sure there are a lot more of us than there are of her.”

“Are you sure we should let her live?” Warden wondered.

“Let her live,” Shayla told him darkly.  “Let her live with the humiliation of knowing that she failed in her most sacred duty.  Bring me the Princess.”

 

The rock garden was a far cry from the beautiful courtyards of North Castle.  Instead of azaleas, the ground merely sprouted stones.  Instead of rose bushes, piles of small pebbles slipped and slid from time to time, depending on the temperament of the wind.  Still, it was home, the best that Impa could eek out for her charge during their time in hiding.

Impa sat on a stone, holding a long twig in her fingers.  The moon was veiled by the clouds, cloaking the quarry in nearly complete darkness.  She absently pushed around a few rocks, listening to the clinking noise they made against the ground and wondering what they looked like.  Zelda walked out of the cavern where they had set up their tent, holding a canteen and a lantern.  She had removed her mask, making her beautiful face visible.  “I wish you wouldn’t do that,” Impa said for what was probably the five thousandth time.

“I know,” Zelda answered, handing her the canteen.  “But I need to breathe some fresh air.  Only for a little while.”

“Who am I to begrudge you air?” Impa mumbled good-naturedly, accepting the canteen.

Zelda sat on a ledge, pulling her knees up to her chest.  “You were uneasy with Yonah,” she commented absently.

After unscrewing the canteen, Impa glanced up.  “Was I?”  With that, she took a long drink.

Zelda wasn’t ready to let the topic drop, however.  “You were.  You are almost every time we see her.”

“I don’t mean to be,” Impa replied when she could no longer hold her breath to drink.  She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Of course not,” Zelda added quickly.  “I only meant that it’s something I’ve observed about you.”

“You’re getting very good at the art of noticing,” Impa told her with a small smile.

“I had an excellent trainer,” Zelda answered.

Impa laughed.  “I don’t know about excellent but –”

“Still, I have noticed how ill at ease Yonah seems to make you,” Zelda interrupted.  “Why is that?”

“Well, that’s a complicated question,” Impa sighed.

“Explain it to me.”

“It’s a long story.”

“Well, we’re not going anywhere.”  Zelda glanced around them, at the dismal place they called home.

“I’m sorry it’s so rotten here,” Impa said softly.

“Don’t be sorry,” Zelda chided her.  “You’ve done your best.  I wouldn’t expect anything more than this.”

“You’re a bit too generous to me.”

“And you’re still avoiding the subject,” Zelda sang back.

“What subject?”

“Yonah.”

“Oh.”

Zelda leaned forward, looking Impa in the eyes.  “I’ve never seen you so clandestine before about anything.”

“I wouldn’t hide anything from you.”

“So tell me what’s wrong.”

She sighed.  “It’s just a personal matter.”

“You have personal matters?” Zelda joked.

“Hard to believe, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”  Zelda leaned back on her elbows.  “You barely ever left my side when I was a child.  I had begun to think that you were a part of the castle and that when I went to bed at night, you disappeared into the ether.”

Impa laughed.  “Did you really?”

“Well…no, not really.  But you were certainly an enormous presence in my life.”

“My duty has always been to you.  Even before you were born.”

“Were you there when I was born?”

“Yes,” Impa said with a nod.

“What do you remember about that night?”

She frowned a little, searching her memories for a time, some seventeen years ago.  “I remember…I remember feeling rather nervous.”

“Nervous?”

“Yes.”

“About what?”

“About seeing too much.”

Zelda scowled.  “I don’t understand.”

“I’m not sure I do either,” Impa admitted.

“You were nervous?”

“And excited too,” Impa said quickly.  “Sheikahs…we train our entire lives to serve the royal family.  Back then, there were more of us than there were of you.  At the time, it was the greatest honor imaginable to be named a personal attendant to a member of the royal family.  Most Sheikahs were lucky if they got to meet face to face with one of you once in their lives.”

“How were you named my guardian?” Zelda asked curiously, tilting her head to one side as she used to do when she was little.

“I…well, it was my first command.  A total disaster, but Yonah was impressed with the way I handled the situation.”

“Diaster?”

Impa went on without explaining.  “She came to the site of where North Castle was built within the next few months.  She congratulated me on a job well done and promoted me to full warrior status.  Glas was so happy for me he…”  Impa trailed off abruptly, but it was too late.

Zelda caught the abrupt shift in her nursemaid’s demeanor.  “Glas?” she repeated curiously.

“The healer who was assigned to my team,” Impa said briskly, turning her eyes away from the Princess.

“I’ve heard that name before.  I think I remember him.  Didn’t he come to the castle once to speak with you?”

“Yes,” Impa mumbled absently.  “He did.  A few hours before the attack of the Gerudo.”

A twig cracked.  Immediately, Impa and Zelda both tensed like cats, staring into the air as if it would tell them the answers.  “What was that?” Zelda finally whispered breathily.

Impa didn’t reply.  Instead, she continued to stay frozen, waiting to hear another sound.  Nothing came.  “I don’t know…” she finally admitted.

“It was probably just a Deku Baba,” Zelda sighed after another tense moment or two.

“Probably,” Impa consented.

Suddenly, there was a loud cry from somewhere over the rock ridge.  Before either Zelda or Impa could react, a stampede of dark figures began racing over the ridge to descend on them.  “Definitely not a Deku Baba!” Zelda cried, jumping to her feet and pulling up her mask.  Her sudden and abrupt movement caused her lantern to fall over, plunging the quarry into darkness.

By this point, the dark figures had reached the bottom of the ridge.  Impa had already drawn a knife.  She raced forward to the throng, but there were nearly two dozen of them.  All of them fell upon Zelda.  Valiantly, Zelda began trying to fend them off, using the fighting techniques Impa had taught her.  She whirled around, swinging her left wrist to take out as many of them as possible.  Crouching down, she managed to catch several of them off guard, tripping up their ankles.  About three of them fell to the ground with yelps of surprise.  Another one fell into his comrades, slowing them down just a little bit.

Impa shouted loudly, trying to draw some of them in her direction.  Much to her surprise, they didn’t seem interested in taking her down, even though she was the one with a weapon while Zelda was unarmed.  “Come here, you Gerudo scum!” Impa roared at them.

“Take the Princess alive!” a voice shouted.  Impa’s heart raced into panic.  It was a male voice!  For a split second, she was certain Ganondorf Dragmire himself was leading this attack, but suddenly, the clouds shifted, allowing a beam of moonlight to fall on the scene.  All at once, she realized her error.  They weren’t Gerudos who were attacking.  They were Humans!

Quickly, Impa threw herself into the throng.  She swung her knife expertly at one of the Humans, but much to her surprise, he managed to duck clear of the swipe.  Where had these Humans picked up such great fighting skills?  A second Human caught Impa’s arm from behind, pulling it as far back as it would go.  Impa’s face contorted in pain.  The Human squeezed her pressure point.  She let out a shout and reluctantly opened her fingers, letting the knife drop.

Zelda was fighting a losing battle.  She managed to sock a woman in the jaw, but two more had just dropped from the ridge.  They both grabbed her arm while a rather burly man grabbed her other arm.  With a grunt, Zelda kicked off from the ground, trying to nail a few of them in the face.  Her right left flailed and missed.  Her left leg cuffed one of them in the ear, but that didn’t seem to deter him.

“Stop!” Impa shouted, “That’s not the Princess!  That’s my apprentice Sheik!  Stop it!  You don’t know what you’re doing!”

“Shut her up before she draws attention to us!” one of the girls hissed.  And they were boys and girls.  Impa realized now that the Humans she was fighting against were all Zelda’s age or younger.  None of them would remember her from her first contact with Kakariko.

“Listen to me!  I know Leafa!  Leafa is my –” Impa didn’t get to finish.  One of the youngsters knocked her on the side of the head, right where Hylians were most vulnerable to blows.  She dropped like a rock, falling unconscious before she hit the ground.

“Do yourself a favor and shut up, Princess,” the leader of the Human attack team said.

“Please don’t hurt me.”

“I said, shut up!”  With that, he cuffed her on the back of the head, hitting the same vulnerable target.  Like Impa, Zelda crumpled, but she was unable to fall because so many Humans were laying hands on her.

“You shouldn’t have done that, Warden,” someone said.

“If she kept screaming, we’d be spotted,” Warden shot back angrily.

“Come on,” a third voice said, “Let’s get out of here.”

 

Menteith slithered on his belly, traversing over the support beam, safely engulfed in the shadows of the ceiling.  Below him, he saw several Gerudo guards walking down the hall, talking casually about some new game that was popular in Kasuto.  He watched them pass underneath him, grateful that they couldn’t hear the frightful pounding of his heart as hit thumped against the inside of his ribcage.  One false step and he absolutely knew that he would be wishing for death.

Only a short while ago, he had managed to elude capture by a few sentries.  They all thought he had run back to the Sheikah stronghold no doubt.  About halfway down the road though, he decided to double back and return to Ganondorf’s palace.  His work wasn’t finished and he certainly wasn’t going to return to Yonah without something to show for it.  There were so few Sheikahs left in Hyrule, he didn’t want to let her down.  No, he simply wouldn’t return until he had collected some information on Ganondorf’s movements.

Unfortunately, the problem with collecting information about movement was that it seemed as though Ganondorf wasn’t going anywhere.  For almost two years now, the Gerudo prince had barely stirred from his castle.  Of course, there was plenty of hearsay about what he was doing, but nothing concrete.  Some people thought he was after the Triforce, though he already had a third of it in his possession.  Others suspected that he planned to start an invasion of Holodrum, a Hylian colony that had been settled only a few decades ago.  Still others held the firm conviction that Ganondorf’s desires lay in finding the rogue Gerudo Alpha called Nabooru who had completely vanished from sight years ago.

Whatever it was that Ganondorf was planning Menteith had his heart set on finding out.  As he crawled across the beam, digging his nails into the sides for balance, he tried his best to follow the sound of Ganondorf’s voice.  He could hear the Gerudo approaching, deep in conversation with one of his women.  Menteith peered below, watching the deserted hallway for a sign of shade.  As the voices grew louder, two long shadows began to form on the floor, getting smaller as two figures approached Menteith’s position.

“I think we should just put him out of his misery,” a voice that Menteith recognized as Sarjenka’s said.

“I didn’t ask what you thought,” Ganondorf snapped.

“I apologize.”

There was a moment of silence, filled only with footsteps, before Ganondorf spoke again.  “He may be of use to us yet.”

“How?”

“Din only knows what other bits of trivia he has up in that demented head of his.  We should collect all we can before dealing with his fate.”

“Correct as usual,” Sarjenka fawned.

The figures finally appeared in Menteith’s sightlines, approaching from behind.  His lip curled at the gruesome sight of Dragmire.  Every waking nightmare Menteith had was either about Ganondorf or about a woman he had once known named Nuria.  Sarjenka was a sharp contrast to her master though.  With skin much paler than typical for a Gerudo, her red hair shone brighter, falling a bit past her shoulders in several parts, fastened with ruby barrettes.

Carefully, Menteith began to creep along the beam, following Ganondorf and Sarjenka as best he could as they passed through the corridor.  It was a fairly long hallway, but they were approaching the broad double doors to Ganondorf’s throne room and Menteith knew he would only have a short period of time to listen in before they were closed away from him.

“Of course,” Ganondorf was saying, lapping up the flattery like a cat lapped warm milk.

“What do you plan to do now, in light of the new information?” she asked him carefully.

Menteith’s ears perked up.  New information?  Now he was curious.  “I want to assemble an attack squad,” Dragmire said.

“An attack squad?”

“Yes.  Go town, Sarjenka.  See if you can dig up anything on this mysterious Shayla.”

“I doubt there will be much,” Sarjenka mumbled. 

“You’re probably right.”

“After all, if you didn’t know of her existence until just now, it’s likely that she’s been kept a very well guarded secret.”

“True,” Ganondorf replied, “which is why we need to think in unconventional ways.”

“Unconventional?”

“Instead of looking for a birth certificate or family tree, I want you to look up common things.”

“Such as?”

“Head to the ranch.  See if you can find her name on delivery slips for milk or receipts for horse rentals.  Stick to the most mundane places where someone would sign their name.”

“As you wish,” she answered.  Menteith was certain he saw Sarjenka frown suddenly.  “But why do you want an attack squad?”

Ganondorf chuckled.  “Once you’ve pinned down Shayla’s location, I intend to attack it.”
            “Do you intend to kill her?”

“No, that would be fun, but nowhere near as useful.”

“Useful?”

“This girl has been hidden for a reason.  She has an important connection to the royals.  Find me that girl and we can find Princess Zelda.”

“Do you really think it’ll work?”

“Never underestimate the maternal instincts of a woman,” Ganondorf alleged wisely.

Menteith scowled.  What did that mean?  Sarjenka seemed to understand.  “We’ll find her,” she promised.

“Good,” Ganondorf mumbled.  “Good.”

Sarjenka folded her arms across her chest.  “I wonder if she’ll be able to withstand Sapphia’s handiwork as well as her father.”

“It will be an interesting little experiment, won’t it?”

“Yes.”

Another little laugh escaped from Ganondorf.  “I’ll lay down fifty Rupees saying that she breaks long before he did.”

“Fifty Rupees?”

“And my horse.”

“I’ll take that bet.”

They had reached the door to the throne room.  Ganondorf put a hand on the panel, but turned to look at Sarjenka.  “Get me Shayla.  Shayla’s the key to finding Princess Zelda.  And Princess Zelda is the key to completing the Triforce.  Don’t fail me.”

“Rather than let you down, I would die,” Sarjenka told him earnestly.

“That’s what I had in mind.”

With that, Ganondorf opened the door and marched into the throne room, letting it slam shut behind him with a fantastic crack.  Sarjenka remained motionless in the hallway for a moment longer before turning around and heading back in the opposite direction.  Menteith followed her for a few moments, until she turned and started down another hallway.  Unable to jump onto the support beam going that way, Menteith remained where he was, allowing himself to rest for a bit.

He had gotten his wish.  He had gathered a bit of information about what Ganondorf was up to, but for the life of him, he couldn’t understand it.  Shayla?  That was clearly a Sheikah name, but Menteith had never met anyone called Shayla.  Since there were so few Sheikahs left, he felt fairly certain that he would have at least have known about the existence of this girl.  How was she connected to Princess Zelda?  Everyone knew that Impa was the only person aware of Zelda’s location.  And who was this prisoner they had been speaking about?  The one they had broken and set a wager on?  Filled with more questions than answers, Menteith resolved to return to the Sheikah stronghold and let them piece it all together.

 

By the time Shayla arrived back at the meeting place, everyone was already there, buzzing with excitement.  A small tent had been erected, made up of the old hides that were once used to shield the village homes from the rains, back before the Hylians moved in.  All of the people in Shayla’s militia were standing outside of the tent flap, whispering excitedly.

“Is it done?” she asked, spotting Warden in the throng and immediately crossing over to him.

“Mission accomplished,” he told her proudly.

“Well done, my friend,” she congratulated him, clapping him on the back and clasping his wrist for a brisk shake.

“We shouldn’t all stand around here,” Leonid hissed as he spotted Shayla in the crowd.

“Agreed,” Jessa said.  “We’ll only draw attention to ourselves.”

“The last thing we want is someone kidnapping the person we just kidnapped,” Kaylee said with a laugh.

“Correct,” Shayla said vaguely.

“So?” Leonid prompted her.  “What’s the plan?”

“We’ll take watch in shifts, three people per shift.  One in the tent, one flanking, and a third from the top of the hill.  Leonid and Kaylee, stay with me for the first shift, the rest of you go home and get some sleep.”  Everyone mumbled their assent.  “You should all be proud of yourselves,” Shayla called after them as they began to depart.  “We’ve accomplished the impossible.  Something even Ganondorf Dragmire himself couldn’t do.”

“Now they’ll take us Humans seriously,” Jessa laughed triumphantly.

“Peace and long life to all of you,” Shayla said.

The crowd soon departed, leaving only Leonid, Kaylee, and Shayla behind.  “I’ll go up to the hill,” Leonid volunteered.

“Fine,” Shayla agreed.  “Keep watch for anyone approaching from the ruins of North Castle.”

“Right,” he said with a nod before turning around and vanishing into the darkness of the night.

Shayla turned to face Kaylee.  “I’ll take the inside of the tent.  You flank.  Try and keep yourself out of sight.”

“Okay,” she replied, turning around and walking deeper into the shadows of the old pit.

Left alone, Shayla braced herself, taking a deep breath before she slowly turned around and ducked into the hide tent.  The inside was surprisingly barren; the tent didn’t even have a bottom, it merely stood over the old, blunted stumps of the hemlock stakes that had once been planted on the cavern floor.  A single pole in the middle held up the hides, allowing them to slope down like the sides of a pyramid.  It was to this post that Zelda was tied.

Much to Shayla’s disappointment, Zelda was wide awake, watching the entrance as the girl came in.  She looked quite the same as Shayla remembered, with her long, corn silk blond hair and those irritatingly beautiful blue eyes.  At present, she was sporting a typical Sheikah uniform of gray and purple, with a deep red Sheikah eye sewn into her chest.  There were some bandages around her wrists and many more on the floor.  Dimly, Shayla recalled that sometimes Sheikahs used white gauze for masks, but Zelda was unmasked now.

“Did Yonah send you?” Zelda asked, spying Shayla’s long pointed ears and her Sheikah eyes.

“You’re mistaken, Princess,” Shayla replied icily.  “I’m not here to rescue you.  I’m here to stand guard.”

“You’re working with the Humans?  Oh.  I see.  What do they want with me, then?”

“They want nothing with you,” Shayla said.

“Then what’s this all about?”

“This is about justice.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You wouldn’t,” Shayla sniffed indignantly, pacing back and forth in front of Zelda.

“Do you presume to know something about me?” Zelda mumbled, raising an eyebrow.

“I know much about you,” she snapped back.

“And what do you know?”

“You are the great Princess Zelda.  People would give up their very lives, nay, the very lives of their children for your sake.  You are the figurehead of Hyrule for the Hylians, aren’t you?”

“Some might say that,” Zelda agreed.  “Although I doubt anyone would sacrifice their children for my sake.”

“Oh, ignorance is bliss for you, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Of course not.  That would require you to think about someone besides yourself.  Someone once told me there were no monsters in North Castle.  They never met you.”

“How dare you accuse me of such selfishness?  I’ve given up my life to keep Ganondorf Dragmire from possessing the Triforce.
            “I don’t care about the Triforce,” Shayla said bitterly.  “I don’t care about the Spiritual Stones or the Moon Pearl or the Sacred Pendants of Virtue.  And I don’t care about you.”

“Your hostility seems to prove the contrary.”

Shayla pulled back her hand and slapped Zelda across the face.  “Don’t try to read me.”

Zelda turned her face to one side, taking the blow with dignity.  “You go against your line,” she said softly.

“I am not a Sheikah,” Shayla answered.  “And I do not follow the Sheikah Way.  I care about the lives of my family more than I care about your pathetic existence, Princess Zelda.”

“Your family?”

She gestured out the flap of the tent.  “The Humans.  Or ‘Kludges’ as the Hylians call them.  Your people have oppressed them for far too long.”

“Oppressed?  Kludges?  What do you mean?”

“What do I mean?”  Shayla laughed.  “Where shall I begin?  How about the ten percent tithe?  Or the seizure of our lands?  Or maybe I should begin with the brand new curfew?”

“Tithe?  Seizure?  Curfew?”

“That’s what I said, Princess.”

“I have not been made aware of any of this,” Zelda told her softly.  There seemed to be genuine surprise and concern in her voice.

“Ignorance is bliss.”

“I did not ask to be kept ignorant of this!” Zelda snapped.

“So there’s some fire in the ice after all,” Shayla remarked, surprised by the sudden outburst.

“You have no idea what I’ve had to endure,” Zelda said thickly.

“You have no idea what I’ve had to endure,” Shayla countered.  “And what my people have had to endure, that’s painfully clear to me now.”

“When it’s in my power, I promise you, I will set things right for the Humans of Hyrule again.”

“When it’s in your power.  And how long will that be, Princess?  Ten years?  Twenty?  Perhaps a hundred?  I’m told you Hylians are very long lived, much more so than the petty Humans, your beasts of burden.”

“You must be patient.”

“We’re tired of waiting.”  Shayla wagged a finger in Zelda’s face.  “This ends now.”

Zelda shook her head mournfully.  “I’m sorry,” she said softly.

“Sorry for what?”

“I’m sorry for whatever’s put this much rage into your heart.  You must have suffered something truly awful.”

Shayla backhanded Zelda again, grunting furiously.  “Get out of my head,” she barked.

“I don’t need to read you to know the truth,” Zelda explained gently.  “I can see the rage smoldering in your eyes.”

“Stay away from my eyes.”

“What happened to you?”

“Shut up!”

“It was something awful, wasn’t it?”

“How many more times must I strike you?” Shayla growled.

“It doesn’t matter,” the Princess replied.

“Know your place.  You’re my prisoner now.  And in this world, I control your fate.  It’s not the other way around.”

With that, Shayla spun around, her long dreadlocks whipping around her face.  She stormed out of the tent, the clumsy old sword thumping against her side.  Zelda sat still, watching her go.  Her cheek stung, but she knew that would pass.  What weighed heavily on her mind was the mystery of this Sheikah girl who was leading a Human revolution.  In all her days, Zelda had never once met a Sheikah who wasn’t steadfastly obedient to the royal line.  Something truly horrible must have happened to this one, but Zelda could only guess at what it was.

 

Leafa trailed her fingers along the woven armrest of her wicker throne.  She found it completely improbable that the delicate craft had managed to survive all these years, yet, like the Human spirit, it managed to endure.  Somehow.  Leafa allowed her fingers to fall into the crevices of the weaving, feeling the smooth wicker on her skin.  In the past few years, she had come to be very tactile, but she wasn’t sure why.

Tully was sitting at her feet, staring out into space.  They both knew that something was happening, but they didn’t know what exactly.  The disaffected youth of the Human Quarter had been surprisingly quite tonight.  “What are you thinking about, Tully?” she asked quietly, so the ceremonial bodyguards couldn’t hear her.  They still stayed staunchly at her side, though the traditions had long faded and Leafa wasn’t legally allowed to have guards.

“Leonid,” Tully replied.

She nodded slightly.  This didn’t surprise her.  “You know that Leonid and Shayla –”

“I know.”

“Do you approve?”

“You’ll find,” he told her wisely, “that young men rarely care about the approval of their fathers when it comes to –”

“I know.”  She closed her eyes, leaning back against the chair.  “You’ll find that young women are much the same.”  There was a hissing sound.  Though her eyes were closed, Leafa saw the back of her eyelids light up with a bright green glow.  She opened her eyes to find the dying ethers of a spell, Farore’s Wind, if she remembered correctly.  Standing in the center of the room was a figure out of the past, the Sheikah known as Impa.

Immediately, the honor guards standing around the room picked up their bows, nocking arrows and taking aim at Impa.  Already, Tully jumped to his feet, standing protectively in front of his Basileaus.  “Leafa,” Impa called in a loud, clearly angry voice, “I would speak with you.”

“Kneel before our Basileaus,” one of the guards sneered angrily, indignant at this Hylian breech of etiquette.

“I will do no such thing,” Impa replied angrily.

“You are intruding on the sacred Human meeting house.”

“I’m not the one who committed the first offense.”

“Kneel before the Basileaus!”

“No!”

Leafa sat up straight then leaned forward to look at Impa.  “I once knelt to you as a goddess,” she said quietly.

Their eyes locked for a moment and a certain understanding passed between the two of them.  Slowly, making a face of disgust, Impa knelt down on one knee, never once tearing her eyes away from Leafa’s face.  “State your business here,” Tully ordered her gruffly.

“Leave us,” Leafa proclaimed, holding up a hand.

Exchanging quizzical looks the bodyguards lowered their weapons, filing out of the room with confused looks.  Tully turned to Leafa.  “Leafa I really –”

“You too, Tully,” she said softly.

He opened his mouth to object but then closed it.  Offering her a curt nod, he marched out of the room, closing the door behind him and leaving the two women alone.  At once, Impa sprang up to her feet, eyeing Leafa angrily.  “I demand that you return what you’ve taken,”