God Games: A Legend of Zelda

The Yiga

They were camped somewhere on Blatchery Plain when Arn finally broached the subject Zelda had hoped he wouldn't.

"You've been quiet since we went to the Temple of Time," he said, voice low and calm. "I realize we've- or, you've -met two goddesses in a matter of days, but..."

Zelda sighed a bit. "... Growing up before the Great Calamity," she said, "I spent all my life praying. My father taught me that all my time was supposed to belong to my training- to the goddess Hylia." She swallowed. "I thought she hated me. I thought she never answered because I somehow wasn't good enough, and I- I was so angry, so afraid and ashamed, that I suppose I didn't let her be good enough for me either."

She looked up at Arn, tears welling in her eyes. "But Arn- she answered me." Tears escaped and ran freely down her face. "She called me her child. And I- I could feel in my heart that she knew me, that she's been watching out for me. For just a moment, I swear I could feel that she loved me, in a way I didn't know she could feel- or that I could feel. I didn't know such love and happiness existed."

Arn thought on that. "Well," he finally said quietly, "maybe that's how it always was. Maybe deep down your father was the one who needed Hylia to speak to you up until now, not you."

"I think you may be right," Zelda admitted. "Arn... I don't know what to feel now that I'm not angry with her anymore."

Arn smiled a little. "Relief," he suggested. "She doesn't hate you. You don't have to carry the burden of that belief anymore."

Zelda nodded, giving something between a sob and a sigh as her shoulders dropped. Arn hadn't even noticed how tense she was.

Something shifted in the darkness beyond the fire, and Zelda was instantly on edge again. Arn narrowed his eyes, standing and drawing his sword.

A mad laugh echoed in the darkness, and Zelda's blood ran cold. Yiga.

"Stay close to the fire, Tetra," Arn said quietly.

The laughing grew closer, and Arn gripped his sword more tightly.

Two Yiga appeared in a burst of fiery orange light and ofuda, and Zelda yelped and ducked behind the log she'd been sitting on.

Arn charged forward in time to engage one of the Yiga, striking swiftly and mercilessly, giving it no time to react. The first Yiga vanished, and Arn dodged two arrows fired by the other Yiga before taking it down too.

The laughter around them intensified, and Arn growled as three more appeared. He managed to down two with a sweeping blow and swipe the last's arrows from the air with his sword by sheer luck, driving it away with a quick slash and swipe at its torso.

He was breathing hard by now, and Zelda was already concerned when the laughter in the darkness deepened in pitch.

"Ohhh boy," Arn muttered as a massive Yiga swordsman appeared from nothing. He growled and ran towards him.

The swordsman made a wide sweeping blow, which Arn parried and used to shove him off-balance. He leaped forward, only for the Yiga to teleport behind him. He swung in an arc as he turned, the Yiga parried, and Arn was forced to dodge a swing of the blade.

It caught his upper left arm, and he cried out, stumbling back. The Yiga teleported again, but this time Arn saw the light and darted in, unleashing a series of swings and disarming his towering foe. He grabbed the downed sword, and the Yiga teleported away.

The forest was finally silent, and Zelda scrambled to help Arn as he flopped down on a log with a groan.

"It looks like a pretty clean cut," she said, surveying his wound, "but it could still get infected- I'll clean and bind it."