Chapter
18
Majora laughs, his voice hacking at the back of his throat.
"YOU THINK YOU CAN WIN?" he spits, excited with
rage. "THIS WILL BE FUN! THIS WILL BE FUN! GO ON FIERCE ONE, RUN- RUN-
RUN!"
I ready my sword, a boiling rage that isn't mine consuming me.
Majora pulls out his whips sensually and cracks them at me. I dodge and charge
in. He laughs wildly, wielding the whips with mesmerizing grace. Everything
seems to slow as we move at lightning speed, weaving in and out of each other.
I'd catch him in a lock and we'd stare into each other's eyes like lovers,
lovers that thirst for each other's blood. We break apart and run up the crater
walls. Gravity does not apply to our dance of death. Our minds lift the rocks
around us and throw them at each other, some clashing breaking apart creating
little bullets that tear through us.
Back and forth our weapons lash, licking and biting like serpents.
Majora leaps into the air. I follow. We rocket into the sky and gravity
reverses bringing us to the charred surface of the moon. We dash across it, telepathically
flinging pieces of the broken globe at each other. Majora giggles, tossing his crimson
hair as if to flirt with me. I am filled with a lustful desire to watch him die
in my arms.
We grab one another and fall back to the earth, where we
land on our feet, locked together. Our lips snarl at one another as we try to
break each other's ribs. I breathe his breath and he breathes mine. Majora
kisses me and I grab his hair biting into his lip. We strain in each other's
embrace, woven so tightly we are one.
I feel pain, pain I can't stand. We crumple. Majora is on
top with my own blade pinning my shoulder into the ground.
"Fiirce..." Majora purrs to me. I'm gasping unable
to breath from the agony. Majora hushes me, placing a finger on my lips.
"Fierce One, you are too much of the heart...you love me despite your hate
which is way...," our lips touch, "You will never defeat me." he whispers.
He twists the blade and swallows my scream with a kiss.
I kick him off with both feet. He is laughing arms out
stretched. The Giants begin to strain as the moon presses down on them.
"Come
destruction! COME!"
I yank my sword out, wincing back tears. I
get to my feet and wrath I've never felt radiates from me. My hair grows long
and wild, white as the moon. It writhes with my rage. The crater trembles as my
silver blood hits the stone. Every weapon that lay amongst the crushed army
rises into the hair. Majora looks at me as the thousands of weapons point to
him. The smile hasn't left his face yet.
"Link!" Fi appears! "Link, get a hold of
yourself! He's Maltzar! Majora's Maltzar- don't kill him! Go for the face -the face!"
I don't recognize her. I don't recall the name Link. I am
Fiirce and Majora must die.
All the swords and spears impale him from all sides. He
staggers, but cannot fall, for the shafts that litter his body prevent him. He
hangs there, stunned and straining to breathe. I approach him, cocking my head.
I lift his chin, eyeing his terrified yellow eyes.
"I believe your time is up," I say almost
soothingly. Majora chokes, purple blood dribbling out. "The Dawn of the
Final Day has come to pass for you." All the weapons withdraw and he
crumples.
"Fi-irce!" He pines, his healing ability unable to
put him out of his misery. I raise my sword.
"WAIT!" Fi screams. I bring it down on Majora's
face. My power shatters the mask. The wooden pieces fly form Maltzar's
face freeing him, returning his body to
normal. He lies bloody and mangled, Majora's healing having ceased. Fi hovers
over his body. Her lip is trembling.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!" she shrieks. She turns on
me kicking me wildly, but it feels like nothing but little gusts of angry wind.
Sobbing she falls onto Maltzar, staining her drapes red with his blood.
"YOU KILLED HIM! MASTER, YOU KILLED HIM!" she howls, grieving so intensely
she might come apart. "FEIRCE DEITY!" she turns to me. "I beg you! Heal this man! If it weren't
for him you vengeance would not be satisfied. Please I beg you! Bring him back!
BRING HIM BACK! COME BACK! COME BACK!"
She screams, clinging to him hard, sobbing with no breath having lost it all.
I watch the pitiful sight without feeling. But
intellectually I am thinking a lot.
"You and he...you have the understanding." I say.
Sobbing she glares at me, perplexed. "You mortals call it love- but that
is child's play compared to what my race feels. The understanding runs deeper
than love, so deep that not even hatred can sever it...This and this alone is
the only reason I do this for you." I brush her aside, and breathe into
Maltzar's mouth. Every wound drinks back their blood until the crimson pools
are gone. The skin mends without a scar. His chest lurches and he coughs, very
much alive. I step back and watch Fi fall over him, relieved and crying.
Maltzar pats her, confused. He looks to me suspiciously.
"Were you trying to kiss me?" he asks. Fi laughs
and kisses him. I look to the sky. The giants heave together and throw the moon
back into the heavens, it shrinks away, returning to its place among the stars.
I feel nothing, finally free of my hatred. Singing deeply, the giants depart.
"My time here is done." I salute with my blade and
shatter my own mask with it.
***
I'm lying on the ground, content, having dreamt I saved the
world from the falling sun- or was it a moon?
"Master!" Comes Fi's ethereal voice. I must still
be in the dream.
"Link!" I'm shaken awake. My Zelda is leaning over
me, concern in her eyes.
"Hi," I say weakly. Zelda crushes me with a kiss.
"Well, that was uncomfortable." Maltzar says
loudly. I sit up. Maltzar's kissing Fi's cheek. She is in his lap, snorting
with giggles. I look around and see we are in a crater of crushed bodies. I
remember where we are, and how very un-dream-like it is.
"We did it?" I ask. Zelda laughs and kisses me.
"Now there is only one thing left to do." Maltzar
jerks his thumb over his shoulder. I look to the purple stone of Arski, glowing
brightly and innocently amidst the carnage. "And I swear if this one sends
us running off to another fucking stone I am going to shatter it, personally...with a passion!!!"
Fi shakes her head.
I hand the golden harp to Zelda. We approach the stone.
Zelda adjust the harp on her hip. Quietly she begins to stroke a song, a soft one-
yet full of valour and a kind of beauty that belongs in the clouds. I am
transported to a time when I lived in a city in the sky, with a red bird as my
companion. There is my Zelda, playing the harp. Her voice sings gliding like
the sun, high above the clouds, joyful but determined. The Song of the Goddess
flows forth flooding the crater with hope.
And it all comes back. My lives- every single one. Every
hardship, every struggle, every friend every joy. My soul ages with the wisdom
of my mistakes. I open my eyes, a new man. Arski explodes with song, bringing
the melody to a crescendo. Indigo northern lights shoot out and fill the crater
like layers of curtains. Clouds dusted purple as if in dusk drift around us,
pluming in majestic thunderheads.
Zelda finishes the song and the stone
continues to sing.
Through the music an ethereal voice
speaks, neither male nor female:
"You
have a question to ask of me,
Ask
it now and I will set you free.
Dally
not for my time is short
For
my place is in Hylia's court"
"I am Hylia," Zelda says with no hesitation or
doubt. I smile. "And I demand that you tell us where the Ether Blade
is."
"Demand, eh?" Maltzar nudges her teasingly. Arski
speaks:
"Demise
and Hylia's weapon,
Was
their child and their son.
He
burns with hate and flows with love.
He
is black as the crow and white as the dove.
And
out of the waves he came,
Freed
from storm and rain.
He
walks upon this earth,
Not
knowing of his birth.
And
where he can be found,
I
will decree:
That
he is standing right in front of me."
We stare.
"What?" says
Maltzar.