Endless War

XXII

"Only the dead have seen the end of war."

-Unknown

"We have gathered here today to pay our final respects to Luo, Lai, Yan, and Bai, who served their country..."

Link had heard it all before, and while he wasn't paying attention, he was profoundly focusing on avenging his fallen comrades.

He had seen firsthand what the Yiga had done to his country. He remembered how they had killed his mother and sister, robbing him of his support. He remembered the Great Bombing, in which 30,000 civilians - innocent people - died in a single day. The only good thing out of that, he thought, was that the armed forces had been strengthened, and the number of attacks like that had gone drastically down.

Now he saw what they were doing to this country, the corruption, the chaos they were stirring up, the fear that permeated the air here. Besides, four of the most remarkable men he had ever served were six feet under, and who knows how many before Team Metal were now resting in peace. At least, he hoped. He hadn't seen a dedicated cemetery here in Lorule like Arlington back in Hyrule.

He looked up to see Hilda giving the usual speech of gratefulness, delivered effortlessly. That was saying something about how much practice she got. And then, next to her right was his father, looking grim. Probably calculating where to send us next, he thought. And then, on his father's right side was Zelda.

Link had wondered what she was here for as soon as she got here, but now seeing her presence here, it was probably to strengthen ties with Lorule. They had been too busy catching up earlier to ask why she was here; he was too grateful to see her again to question her presence. But if she was here to soothe her cousin's ego, why did they look like they wanted to kill each other? Had they discussed something in private?

Had they discussed...him?

There was one reason alone why Link disliked Hilda and one reason alone. And that was because she always looked at him hungrily like he was a snack. What was his thing with women anyways? Why did he have like a zillion fangirls? Yuri was far more handsome, and Reznov may have been a bear with that bristly beard, but he was still a lady's man. What he was most afraid of right now was that Hilda would try to instigate some new disaster to keep him in Lorule. Not only was that calamitous on a personal level, but it was also selfish on a national level. Some ruler she would be if she did that. But Link didn't think she'd do something like that.

All too soon, his thinking time was interrupted by the next part of the funeral, which he dreaded most: having to walk past the empty coffins.

For him, it was a personal sign of failure. First, that he had failed to return his men home safely. Second, having failed the first objective, he had been unable to get back their bodies for burial. He knew that Hilda had forbidden any further adventures in the diamond mine, but still, it was worth a try.

Slowly, at the head of the five other men of the Noble Team, he brushed his hand against the oaken coffins and paid his respects.

....................................................................................................

Shepherd looked down at his elite team passing by their brothers' coffins from his perch next to the princesses.

He rubbed his mustache. It was hard to accept losses, he had learned over the years. Let them take your mind over, and you start losing faith in what should have been the logical, tactically correct choice. Emotion only called out more feelings. So, cancel that emotion out and get the job done.

On his inspections in Hyrule, he had drilled the lesson home enough: Screw up, make a dumb mistake, and some of your soldiers don't make it back home to their moms and wives, and that would be a burden on your conscience forever. The last recorded civil war may have been hundreds of years, but the war against monsters was eternal—those damn blood moons.

They had been rare, but he had his fair share of funerals under his belt, mostly standing next to the King as he gave his speech or maybe Zelda if the King was ill or traveling his kingdom. His job was to do nothing and look pretty. He was only there as a symbol of the high command expressing regret for the soldiers' deaths.

Yeah right. That's why we keep sending them back in day after day. But it's necessary. 

Then there was another thing that was bothering him. Hilda and Zelda, distinguishable only by their hair and dresses (and eyes if you were close enough), seemed ready to kill each other, most likely barehanded. He knew they had discussed...something. But what? What had they debated? His son? The invasion? How they brushed their hair?

It was too much to take in. They had been friendly at the beginning. He had seen it with his own eyes.

But then again, diplomats lied all the time. He had seen it often enough with some corrupt mayors and chiefs who visited the King. It was funny how quickly their demeanor changed from smug to terrified when he approached their settlements and asked for progress on their great project. Usually, these people were stripped of their titles and booted from power. Others demanded extreme measures, the kind that nobody liked to talk about.

It was the reason why he had lied. Hyrule might have a King and Princess, but it still had a bureaucracy whose only purpose was to delay essential things. He had needed a cause for action; simple pleas to increase funding for his army weren't enough. No, he needed a crisis to scare those wimps enough to give him the funds he needed to forge a better military.

He hoped that his deceit was worth it. He had seen enough funerals for a lifetime.