Twilight Princess Chapter 5

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: TWILIGHT PRINCESS

Chapter Four

Transformation

*

Come, the kingdom is in danger!

Please, won’t you believe me?

Get out of there...

Deep blue eyes.

Link...

I woke with a start. The woman's voice faded from my mind.

What time is it…?

I groaned, then dragged my hand up to cover my face. My hair tangled in with my fingers. It couldn’t be long before sunrise, could it?

No bothering with getting back to sleep, not now that the night was more of a penetrable grey than simple, sheer blackness. I’d be up at dawn, anyway.

I stood up and stretched, then went to splash water on my face. I looked up from the basin to my mirror. My reflection looked a little peaky, and I felt agitated. What had I been dreaming about? I could never remember. Not the monkeys, not the tree, nothing from the day before...

I stared into the mirror. Blue eyes….

Maybe I had dreamt about my mother.

The wind picked up. Boards and shingles groaned in protest as the leaves rustled against them. A hawk let out a morning call to its mate. I caught a glimpse of the blue and white flower-patterned dishes Sera gave me a year ago, on my sixteenth birthday. That blue...blue eyes, again. Blue eyes in the dark, staring intently at me. I went still, and my long ears listened.

A wolf howled in the distance.

The deep, steady gaze in my mind disappeared.

I dropped the towel into the water. That was it. I shook the excess water from my hands and vaulted for the door, slamming it shut behind me. I had lost the certainty of the night before. All I felt was restlessness. I didn’t want to be troubled with my mother’s ghost this morning. I couldn’t even figure out the one girl - friend - girl who was a friend - still in my life.

Something about that dream still hovered in my mind, bugging me. Was it a sense of urgency I’d seen in those eyes? Pleading? Or had they simply been watching, waiting, knowing...

I needed to walk, out in the pre-dawn light. I needed to get out of my head.


*

“Link?”

Uli blinked at me from her porch, cocking her head to one side to look at me. I must have been an odd sight, distracted and staring at the sky as I lay on my back in the muddy grass by the creek near hers and Rusl’s hut.  A couple frogs and a cuccoo had drawn near to rest with me - that is, if a cuccoo that ruffles its feathers and clucks bossily at anything that moves can qualify as “at rest.” Two frogs hopped along my chest. I thought I felt another nestling in my hair.

“Good morning,” I said. With a croak, the frog hopped from my hair to my face, before leaping to the ground.

Uli smiled. “Good morning to you.” She tottered down to a sitting position on the edge of the porch, her hand on her large, pregnant belly. I sat up in the grass, to a protesting chorus of clucks and croaks.

“If you’re looking for Rusl,” Uli started, “he took his sword and left early this morning - “

“Yeah, I saw...” He had caught sight of me in the grass when he left, not long after dawn.  He must have caught my mood, cause he just nodded with a grunt of acknowledgment and continued on his way. I was grateful. I hadn’t ever been one much for talking. Not about things that mattered...not when I felt like this.

“You worried about leaving today?” Uli prodded. I shifted my shoulders in a half-hearted shrug.  

"...Is it about what happened yesterday?"

Until my stomach jolted, I hadn't the foggiest idea that that was bothering me. "Yeah," I said, seizing the opportunity to fill my mind with something besides dark eyes, my dead mother, and a sense of deep unease.

Uli was shaking her head, her lips pursed in a small frown. "I can't imagine, monsters like that here in Ordon...thank goodness you took care of the kids in time."

I smiled briefly in thanks, but a new thought hit me. An alarming one at that. I would be leaving later that day - with Ordona's sword and shield. "You don't think there are going to be any problems while I'm gone, do you?"

"Oh, Link," she answered with a small laugh. I stared at her, put off by this unexpected reaction. It's a valid concern, I thought, frowning. Uli laid her hand on my shoulder and pat it lightly. "You're a boon to the village, that's for sure, but we can take care of ourselves too, you know."

I dropped my mouth open to respond, my cheeks flushing, but she went on before I could even start.

"Rusl's here," she said. "He never needed his sword to be metal to take care of us. And these ‘grandpa men’ have yet to try to get into Ordon Village. I won't say there's nothing to be concerned about, because that isn't true, but still...you needn't worry. You'll still have a home to come back to."

Her last words hit me harder than the bokoblin's club to the gut. My eyes burned and I dropped my head back into the grass. Uli pretended she didn’t notice and instead became intensely interested in the wood grain pattern on the porch. I swallowed a few times and squeezed my eyes, blinking furiously and hoping I wouldn’t make some kind of whimpering noise. I dreaded making Uli look over. I’d be fine in a second if I could just keep on acting like nothing was happening.

“Thanks,” I said finally, clearing my throat as quietly as possible.

“For what?” Uli asked, still looking away. But she smiled and, with a grunt, stood to go inside. “Farewell, Link,” she bade me, and the door swung shut.


*

I tightened the last cinch on Epona's saddle, then counted the notches to make sure she hadn't held her breath to swell her belly so the strap would be looser. I ran one final check; everything was in order. The supplies for my journey were well-secured in the saddlebags. The saddle’s tooled leather gave off a warm reflection in the light of the rising sun.

"Link!" I glanced toward the pass to the village. Colin ran toward me in a frantic hustle, a package clutched in his hands. "Wait!"

"I'm not going anywhere yet, bud. I've still got to get the sword and shield from Mayor Bo," I reminded him. He hunched over his knees to catch his breath, and held out the package. "Don't forget," he panted, "your birthday present."

"Of course! I didn't forget!" I lied, and took the small box in my hands. Had Ilia been mistaken? This certainly wasn't large enough for a fishing rod. I ripped open the paper and package and paused, confused by what I saw. Clearly part of a fishing rod...but why was the rod itself so short? And why was it in two pieces?

"Dad helped me with it," Colin said with pride, standing up straight now. "See?" He grabbed the contraption from the box and pulled at the tip. I gasped as it elongated, each segment clicking into place as it pulled out until he held a full-sized fishing pole in his hands. Colin then attached the handle, the second piece that had been lying beside it.

"This is a masterpiece!" I took it in my hands, testing the mechanics. It felt sturdy, despite what I would have guessed. "Colin, this is amazing!"

He blushed and looked down. I didn't know how much of this he helped with, but it was clear from the rough-hewn texture that the handle, at least, had been entirely his own. Rusl must have helped him through every step of it, piece by piece. I got down on one knee and took him in for a hug. "Thanks, buddy. I will definitely be using this." The tension in his body melted a little when he wrapped his arms back around me. Poor kid. I hoped the others wouldn't pick on him too badly while I was away.

"Oh," Colin said suddenly, remembering as he pulled back. "Ilia wanted me to tell you she's waiting at the spring. She's got her present ready, too!"

And before I could stop him, Colin ran off that direction, the thought never occurring to him that she might've wanted to say goodbye to me alone. Not that - well, I doubted she had anything to say that she couldn't…

And getting myself unnecessarily flustered by my muddled thoughts, I nickered at Epona and grabbed her lead rope as I followed Colin to the spring.

"I got him, he's right here!" Colin announced to a somewhat flushed-faced Ilia, though he seemed oblivious, pleased to be in what was likely his favorite place with his two favorite people. I led Epona into the ankle-deep water, kind of smiling and trying to make eye contact with Ilia. But she had turned her attention to my horse.

“Hey, girl,” Ilia said softly as she approached her, reaching to stroke her mane. But Epona tossed her head and snorted, not particularly aware or caring that Ilia was clearly seeking comfort.

“So…” Ilia pursed her lips, feeling the sting of the rejection a little too keenly on this morning. “You still prefer your old master to me, huh, Epona?” My mare didn’t respond, but Ilia turned her meaningful gaze on me.

“Hey there,” I said cautiously.

A sheepish grin crept across her face. "Heading off on your big adventure, huh?"

I laughed a little. "Yeah, I guess..."

Ilia shuffled her feet. "I finally finished it..." She looked down to where she had a pouch strapped to her waist. She hesitated to reach in for the gift and give it to me, as if it represented a goodbye longer than she was willing to make.

“Link…” Ilia twisted her hands together instead, looking down at Epona’s hooves in the water. “Can you promise me something?”

“Sure,” I said, not quite comfortable with the seriousness that had come over her about this parting.

“No matter what happens on your journey, don’t do anything…out of your league. Please.” Ilia tilted her head toward me with such a fond smile that I felt a kind of shock in my stomach. It froze my retort – some sort of protest about what she thought my league was, anyway – on my tongue. “Just…come home safely.”

This – this was the moment I hadn’t realized I’d been waiting for. I wished Colin weren’t there. But he seemed to be shuffling to himself in embarrassment anyway, and I didn’t think I’d get another chance.

“Hey, Ilia.”She looked up at me again, her eyes all soft beneath her lashes. Which didn’t help at all. Couldn’t she just catch my expression and say ”okay” and understand what I meant so I didn’t have to make an idiot of myself?

“Well,” I said, tempted to look anywhere but her eyes. My hands were getting sweaty, which didn’t much help. I forced myself to meet her gaze. Her eyes looked so green - too green, and too soft and warm and close to look away from.

She looked between my eyes, little wells of hope growing in her irises in a way I could almost touch.

That did it. I grabbed her hand before I could think too much about it.

“Ilia, will you be my – ”

Colin’s shriek rent the air. My head snapped at the sound. The gate, Ordon’s gate, that had protected our settlement from unwanted intruders for as long as I’d been here and longer, crashed beneath the weight of a giant, raging boar.

The three of us jumped back, gasping as Epona whinnied in fright and reared. And then we saw what rode the thing – Bulblins. Not like the clumsy, barely sentient Bokoblins of the day before. These monsters had green skin, a more intelligent spark to their tiny red eyes, scarves across their faces, and weapons more sophisticated than simple clubs drawn and aimed at us.

“Get back!” I shouted to the others, sweeping my arm out protectively. Little good that would do against the bow and arrow one Bulblin wielded. But I could hear Colin and Ilia cry out as they stumbled and turned. The boar and its riders cut between us. I barely caught sight of one Bulblin pull an arrow taut from the corner of my eye. “Ilia! Watch out - !”

Too late. I couldn’t see it, but I heard her shriek of pain, Colin’s terrified scream, and a splash as her body fell. No. Red filled my vision. An anger like I had never known expanded in my chest. “Ilia!” My throat tore at the strangled sound. Blindly, I charged past the boar – it was just a dark blur to me now, an obstacle between myself and the ones who needed me.

But one of the Bulblins grabbed at my hair, its claws digging into my scalp as it jerked me backwards. “Augh!” I had a split-second view of the monster’s club swinging toward my face. With a burst of pain, my vision went starry – then black.

I don’t remember falling. I don’t remember an exact moment of coming back to a state of semi-awareness, either. Half-submerged in the spring, I merely felt one swollen eye’s pain distantly; felt blood trickling from my nose and water gurgling in and out my mouth with each breath; all as if it had always been that way. And then, still as if from far away, I saw him.

If I had been fully conscious, it would have shocked me. How unlikely could it be, that the creature who had once hunted my mother and me, hunted us over my early years until the day I found Ordon, would come here, now? But halfway in a detached nightmare, it only seemed to make sense. Of course he’d come back into my life. Of course catching mother wasn’t enough to satisfy him. Hadn’t the terrified child in me always known, somehow, that the Bulblin King would come back for me, too?

In that moment, I didn’t care. It was like watching something happen to someone else. His gigantic, armored boar’s hoof stamped near my face, and my one open eye registered the underside of King Bulblin’s green, leathery girth above me. I let my eye fall closed, too tired to fight.

But he paid me no mind.

Instead, I faintly registered a low, reedy horn’s call. It seemed to get quieter…I was floating in s sightless, senseless dark. Nonsensical images floated through my mind’s eye while I lay there in Ordon’s spring, fully unaware of the world around me for what might have been a few blessed moments – what could have been an hour.

A tingling sensation on my right side greeted my return to consciousness. I groaned, reaching up to touch my tender eye. Except…it wasn’t tender. And my nose was unbroken. I coughed, choking a little, then licked my lips. The water tasted sweet. The spring water – Ordon’s healing spring.

I sat up with a jolt. “Ilia!”

The spring was abandoned all around me. Epona, the monsters, my friends…none of them were here. I shot to my feet, feeling more than seeing the blot of darkness in the sky above me. But I didn’t have time to look – Colin, Ilia! They needed me!

I took off through the twisted remains of Ordon’s gate, my breath ragged. Darting across the bridge that led to Faron Woods, I felt a strange twist in my gut. Something was…off. More than the presence of monsters. More even than everything that was going wrong. The world felt warped, somehow, and I knew it inside, like a dark dagger had plunged into reality’s flesh, and twisted.

The sun’s light dimmed around me, shifting to an eerie, orange glow. I skidded to a halt as the canyon passage narrowed and, suddenly, stopped.

A wall of blackness filled it. Living darkness, it seemed, that stretched upward from the ground into eternity. Not just blankness, but not solid, either – an ether of night laced with strange, pulsing orange symbols.

In the center of it, as tall as I was, a figure like a stylized keyhole dominated the pattern. Was it…a door? Could I just…

The sounds of my uneven breathing echoed off the rock around me. There was a beat of silence. And then –

A colossal hand sprung from the blackness, wrapped its claws around my neck and chest, and pulled me into the dark.

*

For a few moments, I was nowhere, and everywhere. I couldn’t see, couldn’t feel anything, except for – whatever it was that had me in its grasp. Then I was in the world again. But it was all wrong.

The massive thing squeezed my throat, and I whipped across the grass like a ragdoll in its grip. My windpipe felt like it was collapsing under the pressure of enormous fingers, but – how? I grunted and struggled to gasp. I finally managed to bring my hands up to tear at the black mass at my throat when suddenly, it came to a stop.  

I hung face-to-face with…some kind of monster I’d never seen before. Black, with a grotesque flat disc instead of a face. Long snakes of flesh billowed out behind it, like living hair. The thing brought me within inches of its dark, pulsating skin, and squeezed my throat tighter. I strained away from it. My neck felt ready to burst. I felt light-headed…the monster swam in my fading vision.  

My hand tightened on the thing's fingers around my throat. Where I used to feel maybe an itch, a strange tingling, now the entire back of my hand beamed with heat. I heard a sound –an unearthly, tinkling ring. My eyes squeezed shut.  

A flash of light flared in time with the ringing, shining so bright that even my eyelids glowed peach. The monster let out a roar and jerked away. I yelled as I flew from his grip.  

My face beat against the ground. I tried to lift myself onto my hands and knees, but now there was a new pain. A tight, gripping pain that rippled through my whole body. Every thought, every semblance of awareness of anything else pushed from my mind in the face of this…this agony. My stomach squeezed, then ballooned. Searing lead poured into it, still swelling. My muscles clenched so hard they shook.  

Something was happening.  

I gasped for breath, paralyzed. That sparkling noise still played in my ear. My arms and legs tautened further, shaking with the effort of hunching, of writhing on hands and knees, of living while my guts were being squeezed out of place from the inside.

My chest constricted. This was it. My face pinched, contorting. I felt it coming, the presence of a new life while mine was going out…a darkness in my body. The pain swelled. “Geh –“  

I arched my back and screamed.  

My vocal cords twisted. The scream changed to a growl. A new body, bristling at every pore, burst from my skin. Muzzle, fur…claw…  

With a weak whine, I sank to the ground.  

Wolf.