[center][h1][color=darkgreen]Linkle[/color][/h1][/center] [center][color=darkgreen]Location[/color]: Someplace Cold ~ Nowhere Near Good [/center] [center][color=darkgreen][b]Level 8[/b][/color] - (56/80) + 3 [/center] [Center]Word Count: 1422 [/center] [hr] She realized it had been a Linkle Idea the moment the Skull Heart had spoken the word "Almost." In had been the Linklest of all possible ideas, a thought that sped through her brain just before she felt the hateful thing implant itself somewhere in her chest. At first she felt as though she had been punched in the chest strong enough that it should have forced all the air out of her lungs, but that was impossible because she could hear herself still babbling. A cold, nauseous [i]wrongness[/i] settled into her core. Her nerves exploded, sending pins and needles dancing across every square inch of her body inside and out as her blood stopped in her veins. She was saying something, but she couldn't understand what it was. She tried to look up at her friends, but all she could see was red. She had fallen, but the feeling of it was swallowed up in the agony building and building in her chest. It felt like parts of her were falling away, sucked down into some endlessly deep pit in big nasty chunks. It was coring her like an apple. Then, as suddenly as it had started, everything stopped. Nothing moved. No sound came from her throat, even though she new she must be screaming. Was it over? Was she dead? Was that what dying felt like? No. No. The pain was still there, it just wasn't growing. It grew so fast, so exponentially, that even this one moment of agony where it had leveled out was relief to a body that was dreading each coming second. She heard footsteps. A voice. An laugh. That was all she could process. A hand rested on her shoulder, and the red she saw was swallowed up momentarily by flowing darkness. She felt herself cast into the cold of the snow, but it did nothing to numb her. Like an orchestral performance, the dip in intensity right before the end only served to make the crescendo hit all the harder. If inflicting pain was an art then the scream the echoed across this snow laden land was a masterpiece. [hr] The next time she could hear it wasn't a comforting voice the greeted her. She had been hoping for Bowser, Blazermate, even weird Miss Dante or one of those nice skeletons would have done, but when she turned her head from where she lay crumpled in the snow her eyes cast a bloody red trail across the white towards him. It was with some surprise that she realized she could see again, but regretted that the first thing she saw was one of those black cloaks. Regretted that the first thing she heard was his mocking encouragement over the howl of the wind. She had a lot of power now, did she? She didn't feel powerful. She felt awful. To her horror she realized that was the only thing she felt. She was trying to come to terms with that as the black cloak bid her farewell and vanished in that cloud of darkness before she could even decide whether she wanted to kill him or beg him to stay. Left alone on the icy cliff she dragged herself over to one of the walls and sat up against it, tucking her knees into her chest and pulling her cloak tight over them. She didn't know why she did that. She wasn't cold. The drifts of snow around, the biting wind blowing across the mountain face, the snowflakes landing on her face, she couldn't feel any of it. She wasn't sore. She wasn't cold. She wasn't cold! She didn't cry. Heroes didn't cry. They shed tears. They wept with heroic dignity. They did not cry. Somewhere, in some far off corner of her mind, she thought to thank that black cloak the next time she saw him for dumping her somewhere isolated like this. Somewhere no one could see what she wasn't doing. "I even broke my promise..." she said, voice hollow as her chest. Twice. Once when she had gotten herself shot up, and once again when she had make her Linkle wish. "Idiot." She said bitterly, burying her face in her knees. "Idiot, idiot, idiot...," And as she said it over and over again she noticed another voice, saying it in tandem. A dark voice, like the kind you would hear lurking just beyond the light of a dying fire. [b][i]Idiot. Idiot. You are thinking so much. This is what happens when you think too much. Why think? The battlefield is where your legend grows. Your heroic deeds are in the slaying of your enemies. Idiot.[/i][/b] That...made a lot of sense. She had never been good at solving puzzles or finding creative solutions to problems. When she'd fought the big cannon robot she had overthought things and ended up on her back for it. When she had tried to help the bird robot she had just ended up murdering it. When Din had been taken by Galeem she pussy footed around when the correct answer was just fighting her. When an evil glowing skull had offered her a wish she had though she was smart enough to outsmart it. Maybe [b][i]All she was really good for was killing.[/i][/b] [b][i]Maybe her greatest heroic deed would be killing this rotten world?[/i][/b] "Idiot." Linkle said, shaking her head. "Idiot. Idiot." She suddenly raised up one arm and slammed it hard into the center of her chest. "Idiot. Idiot!" Again and again she slammed down. She didn't feel a thing, and was honestly surprised that it didn't beat like a drum. "Idiot! Stupid [i]stupid[/i] skull heart! That's what you want? That's what the big deal curse is!? You put me through this and then ask me to do something I was already doing!?!" It was odd, it wasn't the slap slap of flesh on flesh either. Instead it sounded like the tink tink you get when beating metal. What was that? Was she a skeleton now? Or, what, did it make armor for itself to keep her from trying to dig it out with her fingernai- Oh. Oh no! She threw open her cloak and desperately clawed for the thing she couldn't even feel she'd been assaulting. She wrapped her finger around the string, pulling up the compass that hung around her neck and pressing her nose to it before heaving a sigh of relief when she realized her hadn't accidentally damaged it. Her compass. Granma's compass. She stared at it for a long while, grasping it like a baby as she watched the needle sway this was and that. "You wouldn't lie to me, would you? You would never lie to me." She said, not entirely to it. The needle swayed slower and slower, finally coming to a stop to definitively point in a certain direction. It wasn't north, but she didn't know what. All she knew was that it was a direction. Linkle nodded, took a deep breath she didn't even think she needed anymore, and rose unsteadily to her feet. As she did so the fire of her mind flared up, pushing back the creeping voice of the Skull Heart at least for a time. It was the fire of a dream, an ideal, one clung to with the strength and conviction of a madman. She was going to destroy this world, but not the way this parasite wanted. She was the Hero of Hyrule. She had never heard of any other falling to evil and she didn't intend to be the first. That wasn't her destiny. Her destiny was to kill the sun, and then Ganon. She didn't have time to be a spooky skeleton monster or whatever, she had a job to do! [b][i]All you're good for...[/i] [/b] "Shut up." She said coldly, done with this dumb voice. As mentally prepared as she was going to get for now, Linkle wiped her eyes for absolutely no particular reason at all and got her first real look at her surroundings. Snow, trees ruins, nothing really interesting. The floating rocks made her wonder whether she was anywhere near Eryth Sea, but, no. Black cloak had told her this place still had a guardian, and that she was alone here. Did that mean this was a new region? She walked to the only real landmark she could see, the big glowy thing on the edge of the cliff that looked like it had been encased in ice, and tried to get the lay of the land from where she was. It occurred to her that, if this was a new region, she was ahead of everyone for once. Maybe she couldn't beat this areas guardian on her lonesome but she could definitely prepare the way for when the others got here. Maybe she would even find a way to contact everyone. Boy, wouldn't they be surprised?