The Legend of Zelda: The King's Sword

Part Sixteen: Spirits

A. N. Freestyle! I said I wouldn't, but I couldn't help myself and I was told by one of my friends that they hate Wattpad authors that put months between their updates. Don't wanna be one o' those! Also, school is an interruption. Don't worry! I might even get two chapters out because of the billion hours I'm motivated to write during Christmas break! Only time will tell...allons-y!

Zelda's POV:

    Link sits in the chair left of the fireplace, slipping on his boots. "You sure you're well enough to go into the Ancient Cistern?"
    "For the third time, Link: I'm bleeding, not sick." I saunter out of the kitchen with a cookie in my mouth while I roll my braid into a bun behind my head.
    "Do you insist on eating a cookie each time you walk past the dish?" Link raises an eyebrow at me while putting on his green cap.
    I raise an eyebrow right back and take the cookie out of my mouth, "Do you insist on wearing all of those layers in this blazing weather?"
    "It won't be blazing when we go underground." he stands up and fetches my sword from beside the mantle.
    On the wall left of the furnace, Link has installed weapon mounts for both of our swords, my dagger, and the Hylian Shield. The harp is mounted on the wall right of the back door.
    "It's actually rather cold under the waterfall room," Link partially unsheathes the blade to view its luster before strapping it to his belt, "Where did you get this sword, anyway?" he pulls the loop and tightens it.
    "It's an heirloom from my father, actually."
    "Oh," he chuckles, "It feels like it." he leads me out onto the wood porch where I step into my boots.
    I put a hand on his shoulder for balance, "He said it's the best sword in Skyloft."
    He unsheathes and holds it out so that it points toward the sky, "It's light." he says to the ringing sound the white blade makes.
    "It's unlike all others because it's a saber."
    "It's pretty too," the ringing stops when Link puts the sword away again, "Just like someone I know."
    "Oh?" I giggle, "Come on then, what're we waiting for?"
    Link looks to have a different walk about him today. His sly face has reflected in his spunky amble, arrogant almost. I'm not sure if I enjoy this sight of him or not. He is quietly walking, his smile perfectly paired with the yellow rays of sun trickling through the green leaves above.
    "Link."
    "Yeah?"
    "You know you're cute, right?" I nudge his shoulder.
    "Really?" he jokes, moving his bangs with his fingertips.
    "Could you kiss me before we get there?"
    "Sure," he slowly halts our path, strokes my left cheek with his fingers, and kisses my right, "Why not?"
    "Thank you."
    "Anytime, honey." Link squints in the sunlight looking as happy as a daisy. Just looking at him makes my heart flutter. It's a struggle having a loving husband who is cute, and hot at the same time.
    I feel his fingers on the inside of my palm, finding their way in between my own and intertwining with a squeeze as if my hand were fragile. Link has taken on a fondness for holding my hands.
    We are married for half a year now, and he has clearly forgotten to be awkward. There are still times of exception, of course. His cheeks glow with the yellow light, but he's so adorable when they glow red because of me.
    That was an arrogant thought.
    The trek to the Forest Entry is a short one, as our house is apart from the main woodlands but not far from the Sealed Temple.
    "Here. Babe, let me help you." Link insists on helping me climb up the log's shortcut to Lake Floria.
    "No thank you, honey. I can get myself up just fine."
    "Please-?"
    "No." I step up onto the log and mount half of my body on the grassy ledge. Link, in a possible attempt to show me that I need a helping hand, dashes up swiftly past me. He catches my displeased expression and knows instantly to pull me after him.
    Link smiles, "You know, you should-"
    "Don't. Talk about it." I trot past him into the dark tunnel.
    "Sure you can climb down?" he echoes out back into the sunny waterfall spring.
    "Yes," I growl, "I can." I take hold of the wall of ivy and climb down. When my feet run out of hold, I let go and land on the warm grass. Link sticks a landing next to me and follows onto the ornate stone thrust into the pond.
    "Like I said," I step across the water on the giant lily pads, "the spirit is strong here." The light waves of the water take on circular designs as disturbed by our feet treading across.
    "This entrance has always mystified me," Link's head spins at the sight of the damp, dripping gate, "Even still."
    I lead him down the thin steps that feel like they were made for children, and the descent of waterfalls washes into my ears as gradually as the warm light of the Ancient Cistern. A colossal golden statue is surrounded by the cistern's watery aesthetic. The statue's giant face, of course, can't smile down at us without irises, but I always liked imagining that it could. Its rippling home holds a garden of stone platforms and water lilies.
    The path leads forth into the statue's door, and just as I feared, the spirit beckons to the menacing lower level. As long as Link follows, I needn't tell. We traverse the second hop of lily pads into the statue himself. Only orange dimness greets us inside the tower-like chamber, aside from the fountain spraying into the air, its apex level with the opening in the floor.
    "Wait," Link's feet drag to a stop behind me, "Where are we going?"
    "Underground." I turn to face him.
    "Oh. Well, we aren't going the right way."
    "I should have known."
    "Here," Link pulls my sailcloth out of his pouch, "Glide down to the lowest floor while I lower you down. I'll be back in a few minutes."
    "How did you get this?" I ask.
    He paces back toward the door and smirks, "You might want to hold onto something." Link finally disappears behind the heavy door. When the thud echoes into nothing, only the splashing of the water-spouts are left.
    I step into the air of the room and spread the sailcloth over my head to break my fall, eventually landing soundly on the stone floor. Wait. What does he mean to lower me down?
    The room lurches and rumbles, destabilizing my stance, so I wobble my best to lean on a pillar against the wall. The statue must be descending. Is the spirit approaching, or am I approaching it? The chamber lurches again at the landing on the lowest floor.
    "Where are you?" a silent voice says.
    As the room goes quiet again, I rush to the door, lift it halfway, and slip into the dark cavern below.
    This room is completely different than the pure, warm world above. The little light that seeps in decorates each wall in a violet hue. The sludge that pools in is dark red like poisoned blood.
    "Love?" A word from behind startles me,
    but no one appears.
    "Where are you?"
    "I'm right here," I reply to the voice.
    Nothing echoes back.
    Link still hasn't arrived. Nonetheless, I press on to where my instincts tell me.
    "Are you there?" this is a female energy.
    The spirits are...searching for each other? I must go on. My footsteps sound displaced in the purple caves. When sneaking through the Knight's Academy at night, I would walk on tiptoe to not wake anyone. How does one let spirits undisturbed?
    The dark cavern feels less spacious than I have imagined. I tread carefully on the path leading away from the mouth of a cave. The stone demon smiles in welcome to anyone daring to enter the pond inside its jaws. My heart pounds and forces my head to look away and continue.
    "You shouldn't be here." says my wrongful conscience. Trepidation's energy carries my legs into another purple chamber where another rough demon statue salivates a lake of poison. Another color of mineral indicates that people have made smooth walls down here, now decaying with age. They among the rest of the metamorphic rock are more akin to the Ancient Cistern's upper level....and a pair of rusted, cuffed chains hang from the one to my left.
    "Is that you?" a strong male energy startles a yelp from my mouth.
    The statue's infected waterfall halts its flow.
    Living things don't belong down here.
    The muscles in my legs have gone soft, and I use all of my motivation to halfway jog past four man-carved pillars and over a lily pad footpath across the dead lake to a white marble floor. An incomplete path is here, and a green tree branch reaches over an endless chasm, a rock platform past the wide gap beyond, and a colossal spinning cylinder blanketed in ivy.
    A cold wind blows against my back, and I cannot fight the mysterious force throwing me across the gap to the square of rock against the spinning ivy. I land on my side, the impact on my hip stunning the air from my body. The landing must have shaken the rock below me, as it feels to have lost its safety and quivers under my weight.
    I must not move.
    "Love?"
    "NO!" I shriek as the square of rock I lay on begins to slide down into the darkness. I clutch the edge of the stone as hard as I can and pray that I don't plummet down below. "Please!" I yell to anything, "Whoever you are, I mean no harm!"
    More sediment trickles into the gorge, followed by pebbles that I never hear hit the ground. My boulder finally gives way to the diagonal and carries me in fright into the dark cold.
    My sailcloth!
    "Aah!" the rock crashes into something and crumbles under my fingers, forcing me to tumble over a ledge a few feet onto my back in a soft, sandy pit. I scramble back onto my feet, heaving against my pounding heart. I shake off the dust and dry my sand-littered tears of terror.
    "You've made a mistake venturing down here." my conscience mocks me again.
    I am surrounded by a circle of fluted white pillars, speckled with sand at their bases. They are cracked like the people's walls up there and spaced far enough for two people to fit in between.  The sounds of water droplets hitting the ground echo everywhere I look.
    "Link!" I call toward where I fell from. No one answers. "Link, are you up there?"
    An inhuman snort responds to me in between two of the pillars, and a sliver of purple light goes dark with the silhouette of a tall, round creature lumbering toward me. I shrink away from the side of the circle where the animal sounds are coming from and step backward behind one damp column and peer around at nothing.
    An arm strangles my body as a hand smothers the scream from my mouth, pulling me back into blackness away from the circle's dull light.