 |
 |
|
|
|
||||||||
New Fan Works
Old Fan Works
Zelda Series
Multimedia
Features
Interactive
Site Info
|
“Forest of Revelation”, Chapter 1Forest of RevelationBy: DTaigeHis eyes opened slightly but were forced closed by the cold. Yes, the cold. It was so cold. Again he tried to open his eyes, but again they would not see. “Do not worry, friend.” He froze where he was, listening. Did he just hear a voice? Or was it his imagination? “It is not your imagination. I am a friend. I will not let harm come to you.” He looked around him, for all the good it did to his blind senses. Something was not right. Something was very, very wrong. His movements were sluggish and his limbs felt like frozen logs, numb to the bone. When he opened his mouth to speak to the odd voice that spoke to him, he could not speak. He could not breathe. His ears heard rushing all around him; sometimes louder, sometimes softer. He was blind to all the world around him. “Except me,” said the voice. Yes, he thought, except this voice that speaks to me. Well, he thought, it seems to know my thoughts, so perhaps I can talk with it? “You can try,” teased the voice. “Who are you?” he asked of the ethereal. “You cannot see me. You cannot feel me. You cannot taste me. You cannot know me. To you, I do not exist. Yet.” Why can’t I know you?” “Because you are dieing.” Dying?? How? Think! What was the last thing I can remember? Fighting. Fighting against my friend. No! He was not my friend! Not anymore! Not anymore. We were fighting in the river and he pushed me over the waterfall! Yes! I fell! But where does that leave me now? Heaven? Hell? Or somewhere else? “You are not dead yet. Heaven can wait. But not for much longer.” That is right! I am dieing! Is that why I can’t talk or breathe? It must be. “Voice!” he cried in his mind, “Help me! Please!” He heard what might have been a chuckle and the rushing became louder. It almost hurt his ears to hear. Suddenly, something around him changed and he could suddenly breathe. He could dimly feel his feet and fingers and through them he felt that he was laying on something hard. He did not move but only breathed. And breathed. He breathed like he had never breathed before in his life. It was the breath of mortality. He was alive! “And safe.” That’s right. Alive and safe.
Auldric awoke It was slowly at first, but it soon picked up speed as he climbed upward from unconsciousness into consciousness. He could feel his body around him. He could feel the rocks against his back. He could hear the water near his feet and he could breathe in the wonderful yet cold air. Auldric was alive. His eyes opened slightly and he saw above him a dimly lit rock ceiling. Auldirc tried to move his head so as to see more of his surroundings, but an intense pain engulfed him as he did. “You are awake at last.” Auldric looked around as best he could with his eyes but could see no one. “Where are you?” he croaked, barely more than a whisper. “I am here beside you.” ‘Who are you?” the boy asked. Again the chuckling. “You will find out soon enough. Soon enough. Now sleep.” Auldric
sighed deeply and welcomed the bliss of sleep.
When next he awoke, his eyes were greeted by a blindness of a different sort than before. This as the blindness of sunlight! He had shielded his eyes when he realized that he could now move his arms! He sat up is surprise. He could sit up! He quickly lay back down. He could vomit! “Again you are awake. Better this time?” “I think so,” Auldric said trembling, in a slightly less terrible voice than before. “I can move now.” “Good.” “How did I survive the fall? The waterfall should have killed me.” “In a way, it did.” “In a way? Either it did or it didn’t!” “Then it did, in fact, kill you.” “The how am I here talking with you?” “Because I saved you.” “Why? So that you can play games with me?” “No. How else am I going to leave this pit than to have you take me.” “Ha! Don’t be so arrogant. I don’t need to take you anywhere!” “But you have carried me so far already. Why stop now? Neither of us wishes to remain here for eternity.” ‘Carried me so far already?’ What did that mean? “Look around.” Auldric did as he was told and slowly moved his head to one side and then another to look for his mysterious saviour. He saw no one. “By your hand.” He looked. There was nothing by his hand but the Master Sword. “Yes,” said the voice. “The Master Sword.” Slower than last time, Auldric sat up and peered at the great sword suspiciously. “You are the sword?” he asked, slowly. “Yes. For now.” Auldric picked up his blade and looked carefully at it. “For now?” “Yes. In your current state, your mind would burst should I show you my true form. So I possessed this weapon. This... marvellous weapon.” “What’s so marvellous about it?” “You have not felt it? You have not felt the raw energy flowing through the veins of this blade? The sense of timelessness in which it holds itself? You must truly be a fool.” Auldric spat at the blade, but in his weakened state, he only managed a dribble down his chin. “Remember, whatever you are, you need me to get out of here! So mind your tongue.” He paused. “Or whatever it is you have.” “You are not this sword’s true owner.” The voice said this as a fact, not a question. “Of course I am.” “You lie,” said the voice quietly. “This weapon belongs to another. It is merely using you to return to it’s former owner.” “No one is using me!” cried the young man, his teeth gritted in hate. “I am in control of my own fate, not anyone else!” Chuckling rose again within Auldric’s brain. “Not only are you ignorant to the sword, you are ignorant to the world. I must surely have a cursed fate to have one such as you fall into my lap.” “There is no fate! I control myself!” The boy was shaking in anger and freeze. With each passing minute, his body was recovering from it’s clash with death, and with each passing minute, his mind was becoming sharper and quicker. No one would control him, not anymore; not again. Trine had tried, Link had tried, the wizard had tried. Everyone had tried to control him, but no longer would he be a puppet for the strong! He was in control of his own life, not some ethereal thought. The humour was gone when the voice replied to Auldric‘s unspoken thoughts. “You constantly deny the existence of fate, and yet you are blind to the fact that everything you have ever done has been written out beforehand by the gods. Your claiming the sword; your fall from the river; your meeting of me. All of it. And that man whom you fought. He, too, is guided by the same force. But I sense that he has accepted this. He is happy to make the best of his destiny and he is a much better person for it.” “Link is not better than me!” shouted Auldric, the anger helping to warm him and raise his body from death. “I will kill him and prove that I am the best in the world!” “But you cannot.” “I will.” “You will not. It has not been foretold. You are destined to fail again and again. What then? Are you still in control of your life? Even though you can never better your position? You are a poor, misguided soul, boy. The poorest of the poor. You are the luckless. The one destined to be trodden upon by the greats. Take Link, your friend. He saved your life, and you his. But you can never compare to him. No matter what you do, he will always be better, and your efforts will only propel him further into infamy. You are trapped in obscurity.” Auldric shut his eyes. He would not listen to such things. And from a voice in his head of all things! “You cannot ignore me, nor can you ignore Fate.” Auldric sat back onto the rocky ground and breathed deeply. He was in control of his own life and no one could ever take that away. Never. The voice looked down at the sodden boy and waved it’s hand over his face. Auldric fell into a deep sleep that would give him the energy needed to tackle his monstrous fate. It looked away from its new companion and gazed at the altar near the back wall of the small icy cave. That altar was his own fate, and he had accepted that eons ago. If only the boy could accept his fate, then both of them could continue their lives. |