Vitanre and Link walked back outside, blinking as the bright sunlight assaulted eyes used to darkness.
Wasting no time, Vitanre hurried to Haka and quickly saw to her cuts and scrapes, then mounted the horse and wheeled him around just as Link was pulling himself onto Epona’s back.
Without a single word to Link, Vitanre kicked Haka forward, racing ahead to disappear into the trees. Link, seeing that he was about to be left behind, urged Epona after the stallion and it’s rider, letting the horse choose her own path and trusting her to choose a safe one.
After a few minutes of riding, with fleeting glances of Vitanre just ahead of him, Link judged that she was heading for Merilarmes at an angle; her current route would more than likely lead her to the very spot where the mysterious horsemen had knocked her senseless. He’d see if his guess was right in another day...even at a hard gallop, it would take them at least that long to return to the village.
‘That is, if nothing waylays us,’ Link thought ruefully, images of syrins briefly flashing through his mind.
Soon enough, it was dark. Link didn’t realize just how far ahead of him Vitanre had been, until he caught up to her later that evening. She had stopped in an ideal spot; it was a small clearing, with a pond at it’s center, ringed on all sides by tall trees. It appeared like she’d been there for a while already...Haka was already unladen and was grazing near the pondside. Vitanre herself was sitting silently beside a small fire.
Link allowed Epona to move to the pondside and stood there, listening to the horse drink noisily. After a moment, Link moved to sit beside the fire, next to Vitanre. She remained silent, but nodded at him as he sat.
For several minutes, the only sound was the crackle and pop of the fire and the teasing whisper of a gentle breeze through the trees. Finally, Vitanre shifted and turned towards Link.
“You...will not think badly of me...if I exact punishment from those that took Darian?”
Link shook his head slowly. “...I’ve always believed that slaughter and death can not be the only possible answer to evey problem, yet time and again I am forced to kill my foes. I’ve come to understand that...sometimes no matter how hard I try, death is the only way to stop evil. In some ways, evil deserves it because of the wrong it commits.” Link paused, staring at the fire. “No...I would not think badly of you if you kill those who kidnapped your brother...because then, I would have to think less of myself, because of all those I myself have killed in the past.”
Vitanre nodded, turning her gaze to a small twig she held in her hands. “I fear...that I shall have no choice but to kill.” She sighed, and snapped the twig in half, then threw it into the fire. “You know...until now, I’ve never actually seen true combat.”
Link looked up at her in surprise. “Truly? I had thought you mentioned you took care of bandits in the woods around your home?”
“Ha, those fools? They were ones who ran at the first sight of a drawn blade...” she snorted bitterly. “Marl...was the first I’ve ever injured, let alone killed.”
“You’ll find that ending the life of a living being does not get easier the more you do it, but eventually you learn to not let it get to you. Destroying those creatures that would cause harm for the sake of causing it, that is no true problem...but it’s different with inteligent creatures...” Link said, his brow furrowing as he picked up a twig himself and studied it. “I guess you would call it a curse...the numbing that slowly develops, to keep you from crumbling beneath your emotions when faced with death and battle.”
“I suppose so...” Vitanre replied quietly.
Link flicked the twig into the fire, giving her a small smile. “With luck, perhaps you will not be forced to-what is that?” Link was suddenly on his feet, staring off into the dark woods. A low rumbling, roaring sound was coming from somewhere to their left...from the direction of the sea.
“I...it sounds strangely familiar...” Vitanre said, squinting off in that direction. Between the brief break in the trees, there was a large splotch of sky where no stars showed...that seemed to stretch across the horizon. Realization dawned, and Vitanre’s eyes grew wide.
“Oh gods... RUN!” she turned and ran for the horses as the roaring escalated into a deafening thunder. Link was on Vitanre’s heels, the horses just infront of them, when the source of the noise became apparent.
A wall of water crashed between the trees, mowing down or moving around everything in it’s path and bearing down on the two fleeing hylians faster than either could ever hope to run. Their fire was swept away, plunging the woods into darkness as the sudden flood swept over and buried Vitanre and Link.
Link felt himself dragged under the surface and he tumbled head over heels in the relentless flow. He slammed up against something, a tree trunk most likely, and half his breath was knocked from him as his vision suddenly exploded with stars. The force of the water held him there, pinned. His lungs began to burn, and somehow he summoned the strength to shove himself off (it WAS a tree trunk after all, he felt the bark beneath his fingers) and was swept away again, bumping along what he now knew was the ground.
Timing his rough tumbling, he shoved off and felt his face break the surface. Gulping in air quickly, he was dragged back under water within a matter of seconds. He painfully bounced off what had to be another trunk, and then another, and then he suddenly felt something snag his shoulder and haul him up. Link’s face broke surface again and he choked on a mouthful of water as he was hoisted slightly higher, the water swirling around him and threatening to pull him back under once more.
Gasping, he looked up to see Vitanre clinging to a tree branch with her legs, both hands gripping the shoulders of his tunic. Her face was twisted in a grimance, arms beginning to shake from holding Link up and fighting the flow of the water.
“Hurry...swing to the branch...” she bit out. Link pulled himself up her, she obliging by forming a stepping place with her hands, and then Link hauled himself up onto the branch. Vitanre took a few moments, hanging there, her head mere inches above the raging waters, before she too swung herself up and seated herself on the branch beside Link.
The two sat and listened and watched, the water rushing by beneath their feet, and thought about what would have happened had Vitanre not pulled first herself and then Link from the flood.
“Where could this have come from?” Link asked then, grimly wringing out his hat.
Vitanre wiped at her face, water dripping off, hair and clothing plastered flat to her body. “The sea, obviously...but what could have possibly caused something like this...I...I just don’t know...” she said, meeting Link’s gaze before staring back down at the water.
They sat there perhaps an hour, and still the water did not cease it’s furied rampage through the forest. Vitanre shivered slightly; being soaked completely through, both hylians were beginning to feel a chill in the air. Link was leaning against the trunk, straddling the branch they sat upon. He was beginning to feel wearied, as well as chilled, and he found himself wanting to nod off. Vitanre too was exhausted, and both wondered how they would possibly stay secure in the tree if the flood below should get any worse.
Finally, Vitanre pulled her whip out of her belt. “Unhook your belt,” she said simply, tying a secure loop in one end of the whip. Wordlessly, Link did as she bade him to, unhooking his belt and then watching as Vitanre threaded the loop over the belt and then threw the free end of the whip around the tree. It took her two tries, but she caught the end, and then slid the handle of the whip into the loop and pulled it tight.
Link nodded as he rebuckled his belt, and Vitanre threaded her own belt through his and secured it; even if the water should get higher and catch them unawares, (for even now it was apparent that they both needed to rest,) Link was tied to the tree, and Vitanre to Link. They would remain fast to the tree as they slept, and all Link had to do was unbuckle his belt to release them both.
Link, having to stay with his back up against the trunk because of their safety tether, sucked in a breath as Vitanre leaned back against him gently, pressing cold wet clothing against his skin.
“Not the best place to spend the night,” she said wryly. “I only hope the horses are okay...Haka should be fine, he was brought to Merilarmes by boat...”
Link didn’t reply...he wasn’t exactly sure how Epona would have handled herself in such a flood.
Before long, both hylians fell asleep, their shared body heat helping to keep off the worst of the chill from the cool night breeze. At one point during the night, Link awoke. He had shifted ever so slightly, and the Master Sword’s sheath was digging into his back. Beneath him, he noted that the water seemed sluggish, not as rushing as it had been earlier...and then his sleep-and-cold-fogged brain woke up a little bit more.
Vitanre had shifted during the night as well; she was laying fully against him, her back flat against his chest. Her head was resting on one of his shoulders, her forehead just touching his neck. What part of her hair that was dry blew about gently in the slight breeze, tickling the bottom of his chin and just below his ear.
He suddenly began to breath shallower, not wanting to disturb her...then feeling slightly foolish, as he had been breathing normally up until the point when he’d awakened, and she hadn’t been bothered by it then. Then, embarrassedly, he realized his hands rested around her waist, and her hands ontop of his. Carefully sliding them out from under hers, Link rested them on his thighs (after ever-so-carefully wriggling a hand up behind him to shift the Master Sword out of his spinal cord.)
He turned his head from Vitanre’s, settling his chin awkwardly on his opposite shoulder, and shut his eyes. Dawn was not too far off, and he’d need the few more hour’s sleep. He drifted back off, and unconsciously, his head turned until his chin rested ontop of Vitanre’s head, and both slept on peacefully.
Meanwhile...
The man laughed as the boy squirmed, and delivered a rough kick to the captive.
“Yer’s jus’ a pup...donno why the master’d want sumthing a’ scrawny a’ ye,” the man drawled.
Darian stared up defiantly, blinking his own sweat from his eyes, sounding a lot more braver than he felt. “My sister is going to find and kill you all,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady.
His tormentor laughed outright. “What? Ye’s hear tha’ un, boys?” he called back to the others, twelve in all (the rest were on patrol duty) sitting around a small table, playing dice. They all paused and turned to regard their fellow and Darian. “This un sez his bi’ sister es gonna kell us all!”
Raucous laughter came in reply, one or two men even throwing their dice at the glaring boy. Darian stared steely up at them all, growing bolder each passing second.
“She will! And I’ll be there to watch you all beg her for mercy!”
The first man stopped laughing and grabbed Darian’s chin roughly, forcing his neck back so that Darian was staring right up into the man’s face.
“Now ye listen gud, boy,” he growled, squeezing hard. “I’s saw Kurde here take ‘er down meself. Ye’s ain’t got a sister no mores,” he said, grinning nastily. The one called Kurde chuckled and stroked the club stuck in his belt, playing with the dice in his hand.
“You lie,” Darian said evenly, hoping that no one had noticed the sudden quaver to his voice.
The man pulled a slightly rusty knife, a skinning knife from the looks of it, and ran it down the left side of Darian’s face, outlining the boy’s jawline. “I’s dun lie, boy,” he hissed. “Now, tomarrow, we’s wait fer the water to go down, an’ then we’s taking ye to the master. Ye ‘sister’ can’t help ye now either way, so go abot pretendin’ she’s aliving, it’ll keep yer little mind busy-like.” He slid the knife away somewhere inside his clothing and then walked over to join his men at dice throwing.
Darian sat alone in his dark corner, shivering with renewed fear. He didn’t know why the men took him, he didn’t know where he was going...and now he didn’t know if someone was coming after him or not. Grinding his teeth together and morosely rubbing with bound hands where the man had kicked him, Darian shut his eyes and tried to blot out the entire situation.
