“I’m just wandering around, letting my feelings guide me. I don’t really know, ya know? Maybe I’m looking for something important, maybe I’m looking for nothing at all.”
--Vale
Chapter Eight
“Trigger Happy”
Vale bursts into the room. She gasps as she sees Saria lying on the floor across the room from her.
Vale rushes forward, ignoring her feelings which told her that this was an obvious trap.
She knelt beside Saria’s body. Saria had her hands crossed over her chest. Vale stared at her mother’s emotionless face. Vale’s hand slowly reaches out, afraid to touch the cold hard truth.
She slowly places her hand on the side of Saria’s face. A tear fell. In the back of her mind, she knew Saria was dead. But in her heart, she prayed, she wished, she hoped that Saria still had an ounce of life in her.
She ran her hand down to Saria’s neck to feel for a pulse. It was then that her dreams were crushed. Her neck was broken.
The tears began to fall faster now; a single tear fell on Saria’s face before Vale leaned forward and buried her face in her mother’s chest. She cried and sobbed.
“How sad...” Link’s voice echoed from behind Vale. Vale ignored this and continued to cry against Saria’s chest, “How do you like it, Vale? Do you like this feeling? It’s called the ‘Pain of Loss’. I myself have experienced it far too many times. I’ve been let down too many times to even care.”
Vale, with her face still against Saria’s chest, opened her eyes, she whispered, but Link could hear, “...How could you...?”
“How?” Link laughed, “It was surprisingly easy. Can you believe that the last thing she said was ‘Link!’? Yes, she cried out my name before I snapped that neck of hers. It’s ridiculous, calling out for your own killer to save you.”
Vale leaned her head away from Saria, but continued to stare down at her. She ran her hands through Saria’s hair and spoke, “...She...loved you...she really did. Everyday, I’d hear her pray to the gods for a way to bring you back...for a way to have you be normal again. She never lost faith...I looked up to her, I wanted her strength.”
“Don’t bother wanting her strength, because it didn’t help.” Link responded sharply.
Vale continued, as if she didn’t hear a word he said, “She told me about...how strong you were. How you can always tell right from wrong...how you’d always cheer her up when she was down. She spoke of how much of a hero you were. But, the thing she always made clear was the fact that she loved you not because you were a hero, but because you were such a good person on the inside. She believed in her heart that you’d change...she wanted that more than anything else.”
“Well, I guess I let her down, huh?” Link said with a faint smirk, but anyone could tell that Vale’s words were drilling into him.
“How dare you...how dare you kill such a great person?!” Vale shouted, “She is so much stronger than you! She believed when everyone else doubted! She’d give it all away without a second thought...just even to have a chance of making the world a better place.” Vale stood up, “I’ve learned a lot of things from her...things I don’t think anyone else could teach me.”
She reached over her shoulder and pulled her staff from behind her back, she twirled it, “I’m going to make her proud. I’m going to follow in her footsteps.” She turned around and looked at Link with fierce eyes, “I’m prepared to give it all away and send you back to hell!”
Link clapped, “Very touching speech, my dear. Unfortunately, you have the same big mouth as your mother. I always found that quite annoying.” He lazily drew his sword, “I’ll do myself a favor and render this Clandestine of Dusk extinct. I don’t need you alive; I just need that Sapphire around your neck. Then, I’ll send you to Saria. It’s...the least I can do. I am a hero, after all, a legend. Don’t forget, Vale, I’m immortal, you can’t kill me.”
Vale knew this, but she still held firm to her goal, “...I don’t care...I’ll find a way!”
“Well, then.” Link got into his fighting stance, “En guarde!”
Another gunshot rang out, closer this time. That was their cue, at the thunderous sound, both combatants ran to meet each other.
Link’s sword slammed into Vale’s staff, the staff held firm. Link smiled, wanting to test out Vale’s skills, “You’re quite skilled, I can tell already. Don’t disappoint me, Vale. I want to see everything Saria’s little daughter can do!”
Vale pushed Link off of her with her staff and used her left hand to draw a thin sword. The sword was the length of her forearm. The hilt was actually a crescent moon. It had scriptures written on the blade. Her right hand twirled her staff. She was dual wielding two completely different weapons at once.
Vale ran forward and sliced at Link, but Link blocked. Vale then spun clockwise and swung her staff, striking Link on the cheek, knocking him away once again. Link kept his footing. There was no way he would suffer the embarrassment of being knocked off his feet by someone like Vale.
Vale rushed forward again, she spun her body clockwise, swinging with her staff this time, Link ducks under the blow. Vale continues the spin and extended her sword arm, Link blocked. Vale smiled, and hooked Link’s blade in her crescent moon hilt, she spins back counter clockwise and trips Link with her staff.
Link gets knocked off his feet and lands on his back; he quickly rolls to his feet and stares up at Vale in rage. This was the first time he encountered Vale’s fighting style, Vale spoke, “My mother taught me this style. She developed it herself and passed it onto me.”
Link replied sharply, “I don’t give a damn!” he ran forward again.
The blond haired girl with the revolver bursts into the library. She starts blasting rounds on the unsuspecting moblins inside. Six bullets dropped six enemies. The others charged. The girl counted, “...Thirty-three.”
She took her time loading the bullets into her revolver, pausing for five seconds after each bullet she slid in. It was a game she invented to make things interesting. If she encountered a large group of foes, she’d reload her revolver very slowly. If the enemy reached her before she could completely reload, she’d make a promise with herself to only use that many bullets to take down the entire group. In this case, she only managed two.
She ducked under an arrow and snapped the chamber shut, “Two bullets...this should be fun.”
