Chapter 2: Chapter 2: When Disaster Strikes
The scorching winds of the Gerudo Desert whipped across sand and rock, burning everything it touched with its merciless heat. Nabooru, the leader of the Gerudo people, trudged across the Haunted Wastelands in a determined quest to the Spirit Temple. As she walked, the strange dream that had come to her the night before haunted her thoughts. She had dreamed of a young girl, no more than four years old, sealed in some kind of amber-looking crystal deep within the bowels of the Spirit Temple. The Spirit Temple...now largely abandoned due to angry spirits within and an influx of monsters over the decades. The Gerudo women knew better than to meddle there. However, being the naturally curious adventurer Nabooru was, she felt obligated to visit the temple to see for herself what may or may not have been real. It was only a dream, a fevered figment of the imagination and yet Nabooru felt the need to see the truth with her own eyes.
After a seemingly endless trip across the perilous sands, slicing away at monsters who dared to leap from their homes in the sand to attack her, Nabooru had finally made it to the Spirit Temple. She made her way inside, wary of the unwaveringly burning torches that lined the walls. She knew that the spirits of this temple kept the flames alive, but she had never seen such things as this. Eternal flames were not natural, of course, and the ever flickering torches disturbed her, making her skin crawl with the feeling of being closely observed. Nabooru walked farther into the temple for what seemed like an eternity, around twisting corridors, up and down massive sets of stairs and solving puzzle after puzzle before finally halting at the end of a long, narrow and dusty hallway. At the end of the hall sat a massive set of stone doors, oddly decorative and clearly out of place in the temple. This was it.
The doors were decorative in the traditional Gerudo way, being encrusted with gold and jewels, but more closely resembled Hylian designs with smooth, carved patterns that snaked their way about the surface of the doors. Nabooru tried the doorknob, but it was locked. It was no surprise for a multitude of reasons. The only issue was the lack of keyhole or puzzle to unlock the door with in the first place. Whatever was behind the door was obviously meant to be hidden, and was intended to remain that way. But that was no problem. Nabooru had a knack for finding things that were never meant to be found.
Nabooru stood back from the door with her hands resting on her hips, puzzling. She was no expert in Hylian history, in fact she wasn't an expert in anything save for thieving and combat, but the designs on this door were incredibly old. Ancient, even. It was likely that this had been built with the temple, not added on in renovations done by her ancestors. Either way, the presence of Hylian designs, and even the existence of these doors in the temple, was beyond odd.
Nabooru sifted through her memories, searching for any scrap of information she could remember from any Hylian scrolls she had snagged. When and where she got the scrolls from didn't matter, though she had a surprisingly large collection from a travelling merchant who dealt with potions and spellbinding and had a particular knack for collecting scrolls and books on the history of magic in Hyrule. There was a point in time when keys were not used, but instead magic seals and passwords intended to keep thieves from being able to pick a physical lock. It was entirely possible that this was the kind of lock these doors had, but what in the hell would the password be? An idea struck Nabooru like a stone to the head.
Nabooru began brushing away the layers of dust and dirt collected on the doors with her hands in the hopes of exposing any kind of clue. Dust flew into the air, obscuring her vision and soaking into every crevice of her skin. It was in her lungs, in her clothes, in her mouth, but after moments of frantic brushing it was finally done. Nabooru had wiped away all of the dust that she could reach and stepped back to observe the doors as the dust settled to the floor around her. No words came to mind to describe what she saw as Nabooru stood before the door, in front of this colossal piece of ancient architecture in awe and confusion.
Yes, the door was in fact covered in markings, many of typical Hylian designs but...that wasn't all. The border of the doors were Hylian design only, but sections of the door were covered in different scripts. Different languages. Some looked like Hylian with some variations...and Gerudo with variations Nabooru recognized from across centuries, with variations she had never seen and languages she had never laid eyes on. This didn't make any sense. Her eyes frantically scanned the door, section after section of script in search of the form of Gerudo she was most familiar with. Nabooru's breath hitched in her throat and her heart began pounding when she finally recognized a single section of text. What did any of this mean?
"Blessed daughter of the heavens
Oh how the gods have forsaken thee.
Power, one legion strong
This burden shall take you.
O wretched one who reads this,
Spare thy breath,
Thou shalt need it.
To the wise and well-rounded
Those who seek true life fulfillment
Understand the burden of her power
Teach her to wield it.
Understand, dear one who reads this
Weakness
Shall have you consumed by eternal darkness."
"What in the name of- what does this mean," Nabooru huffed beneath her breath. She ran her eyes over the text over and over again and carefully weighed the consequences of whatever -or whoever- may lie behind those doors. Would turning away make her a coward, or would it make her smart? But the child she saw in her dream...it had to be. Nabooru thumped her fists on the doors in frustration. They hardly made a sound on the heavy stone.
Alright. Suppose there is a child on the other side of these doors. Why has she been locked away? Is she even alive? Nabooru paced in circles, her mind racing and her heart pumping, adrenaline coursing through her body. She slammed the palms of her hands on the stone and stared down at the two gold doorknobs. No keyhole. And with such ominous text carved all over the door, there had to be some kind of code to unlock it. Nabooru heaved a sigh through her nose and took a step back to study the last line of the scripture.
" Teach her to wield it. "
It was a plea. To open the door she would have to accept, it's the only answer that makes sense. "Gods I must be the biggest fool this world has ever seen…"
"I will teach her…"
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the shifting of the enormous stone doors shook the hall, and nearly knocked Nabooru off her feet. The shaking became so violent she feared the temple might collapse. She couldn't hear anything over the roaring of the ancient stone scraping against stone. The noise consumed Nabooru's thoughts and senses, and she failed to notice a glow like sunlight explode into existence. The doors were soon open wide, the quaking now ceased and Nabooru still shaken. A burst of pain coursed through Nabooru's head as she tried to peer into the room but looked directly into the source of light, searing her eyes and causing Nabooru to cry out in shock and cover her face. A few heartbeats passed and her pain subsided as the light faded to that of a distant flame.
Hesitantly, Nabooru peeled her hands away from her watering eyes to peer inside.
Once the tears of pain had been blinked away, her breath hitched in her throat. This room…it was nothing like anything she had seen before. Intricate carvings ran up the grey stone walls, twirling up and up and up until they danced along the ceiling like they told a story, but the moss and dust of a foreign land covered much of it. Nabooru forced herself to look away from the ancient, whirling carvings and tried to swallow the lump in her throat.
Faint light radiated from the very back of the room, illuminating the dust particles as they bobbed along to a song she could not hear and made them look like flecks of gold.
Vines crawled along the floor, covering the stones and daring her to even try to move forward. Nabooru decided that it was a dare worth accepting.
In the very back of the room, atop a small stone platform stood the child she had seen in her dreams. Tears streaked her face and disturbed the dust collected on the floor as they landed. All around her feet lay shards of some kind of glass, stained a deep honey color.
"I cut my foot…" the girl sniffled. Indeed, her feet were bare and caked with blood and dust.
Nabooru was not one to stand around and gawk but...this was a special occasion. Where in the hell had she come from?
"O-okay, come here," Nabooru stuttered, "I'll carry you." Nabooru held her arms out and shuffled slowly across the room. There was no telling how this child may behave, as young and innocent as she seemed. The warnings written on the doors flashed across her mind. She pushed them away.
Nabooru wouldn't blame the child for being on edge. The child certainly wouldn't be the only one. But surprisingly, the young girl allowed herself to be hoisted into Nabooru's arms. She immediately curled into Nabooru, hugging her tighter than she had expected, much tighter than she was used to ever being hugged, in fact.
The girl's tears rolled down her cheeks and slid onto Nabooru's shoulder as she sniffled quietly, "Where's my mom?" Somewhere in her chest, Nabooru felt an aching tug at hearing the child's words. This was an entirely new sensation to her, and so was the instinct to hug this mystery girl and keep her safe. But considering how she was found, Nabooru couldn't bring herself to indulge these strange and foreign compulsions.
"I don't know," Nabooru whispered, "but there are plenty of strong women where I'm from who will be more than willing to take care of you until we find her." A pang of guilt struck Nabooru's heart after the words left her mouth. It wasn't entirely a lie, but she already knew they would never find her mother. There was a long, painful pause. "...Little girl, what's your name?"
"Celicia." The name was hardly more than a sniffle into Nabooru's shoulder.
"Well, Celicia, let's go get your foot cleaned up and find you something to eat. Does that sound good?" Nabooru's only confirmation was a weak nod against her shoulder. "Let's go home, then."
13 Years Later
Blood curdling screams, alarming yells and cries for help, heart wrenching sobs. The night was filled with it. The sounds of her nightmares plagued her sleep, as they had been for a while now. The dreams were slowly becoming more realistic, more horrifically vivid and forever haunting.
Celicia awoke with a start, the fear that wracked her in her sleep bleeding into reality. Her bedsheets clung to her body like another layer of skin, damp and cold with her sweat. "Another one…" Celicia thought to herself. She could still smell the tang of blood in the air and feel the smoke of burning homes fill her lungs, only remnants of a nightmare but still horribly clear.
Celicia sat up, peeling off the sheets and tossing them onto the floor. Her discarded sheets sprawled themselves in the air before disappearing into the dark, covering the stone floor of her bedroom in a near-silent puff of warm desert air. It was still night. This was no surprise to her, as restless nights had become the norm. She was tired, and the dream haunted her. These dreams had haunted her for many nights now, growing in strength and in clarity to a point that she questioned what around her was real. She huffed and rolled onto her side to stare out the window into that depthless, starless, desert night sky. The night breeze spilled into her room from the window, rushing across her face and body and lulled her back to sleep.
When morning came it was brutal and unforgiving, as many mornings were in the Gerudo desert. Celicia blinked slowly, her eyes bleary with sleep and still heavy with exhaustion. It wasn't a solid night's sleep, but it was something, and something was better than nothing. Though Celicia found it increasingly difficult to believe this as the intensity of the nightmares increased and the quality of her sleep diminished. Who ever had the energy to be positive anyway?
Fabric rustled and metal clinked together in the corner of Celicia's bedroom. As much as she knew she should be concerned by this surprise visitor, she couldn't bring herself to care much. Slowly and without much grace, Celicia sat up in her bed, stretched, and sighed heavily through her nose.
"Ah, good morning. Such a morning person, so awake and alert already! My gods, I envy that in you." A smooth, masculine voice teased Celicia from the corner farthest from her, which was, albeit, not very far. Two strides and the man whomst the voice belonged to dropped himself onto the corner of Celicia's bed, tossing her into the air for a brief moment. Celicia groaned, still bleary-eyed and half awake.
"Good morning, Varin. Glad to see you're still witty as ever," Celicia mumbled and rubbed her eyes.
"Rough night?"
"Yes, very."
"They're getting worse." It wasn't a question, he already knew.
"I still feel like I'm choking on smoke and blood." Celicia was more awake now, unfortunately conscious and able to recall the nightmare. "They've become so realistic, I can't tell if I'm dreaming when I'm asleep or if I'm awake when I'm dreaming. Reality is all," Celicia scrunched up her face and made wild, nonsensical movements with her hands, "jumbled."
"Well, let's start with this. Am I ever there in your dreams?"
"No, I haven't seen you in any of them."
"Then there you have it! If anything like your dreams were to happen, the first place I would be is at your side, exactly where I'm meant to be. No me? Not real. I will always be by your side at the first sign of danger. I swear on my life, Celicia." Varin grasped both of Celicia's hands in his and stared into her eyes. "Got it?"
"Yes… Thank you." It wasn't much, it wasn't an end to her nightmares but it was a small comfort.
"I mean, after all, that is my job. If I wasn't with you in any even remotely dangerous situation, Nabooru would have my head on a spike!" Varin released her hands and flung them into the air, clearly exasperated. He had every right to be, though.
Not long after Celicia was found in the Spirit Temple and brought back to the Gerudo fortress by Nabooru, Varin was found, sickly and on the brink of death in the pass just before the fortress. The Gerudo women were hesitant to take him in for a number of reasons, but Nabooru saw potential in him.
Celicia had taken over Nabooru's life almost completely, turning the fierce Gerudo leader into a doting mother in a matter of days. And in those days, Celicia expressed her gift for magic by lighting things on fire, flinging items across rooms in her temper tantrums, not to mention that monsters from the Haunted Wasteland gravitated towards her. Celicia had proven to be a magnet for chaos and this quickly became very overwhelming for Nabooru, as well as the other Gerudo women. Everyone had a job, who would have the time to care for such a high maintenance child? Temper tantrums were frequent and the women's stress skyrocketed. It took a while for anyone to realize the loneliness that Celicia lived with every day. A fortress full of inexperienced babysitters, one frantic and terribly busy mother, no other children. Then Varin came along.
The Gerudo women took him in and raised him alongside Celicia. Both were trained in combat, naturally, but as the years went by it became clear to Celicia that he was meant to be her guard. Her friend too, of course, but first and foremost her bodyguard. Nabooru made his role clear to him and had him swear to protect Celicia at all costs. After all, that was his only purpose here, and if he refused or failed, there would be severe consequences.
Varin leaped onto his feet and grabbed Celicia's hands once more, pulling her onto her feet as well. "Time for breakfast, lazybones, let's go."
"Fine, fine," Celicia groaned, "just let me get dressed and I'll be right down."
"Deal. But if you aren't in the dining hall in the next five minutes I'm dragging your ass down there." Varin waved a finger at Celicia before turning around to leave her room.
Celicia dug through her dresser and pulled out her outfit for the day. It was nothing fancy, just a loose fitting white dress to combat the heat. Unless Nabooru decided to spring a combat lesson of some kind on her, the dress would be just fine. She slipped out of her night clothes and into the dress before sluggishly stumbling into a pair of sandals. With her appearance mostly intact, Celicia grasped the doorknob, ready to turn it and go to breakfast.
A scream.
A scream so loud it rattled her body, running up and down her spine and filling her with dread.
Celicia dashed to her window, her body already pulsing with adrenaline. Another scream rang out. "No no no no no this can't be really happening," Celicia's thoughts were frantic and messy, both desperate prayers and fear running rampant in her mind.
Smoke. Smoke and fire. The sky was filled with it, smothering the skies and drowning out the sun. Celicia's stomach dropped and her heart stopped. A sob sat in the back of her throat, but Celicia couldn't bring herself to even breathe as she stared into her nightmares.
"No Varin, not real. No Varin, not real." It couldn't be real, Varin wasn't with her and dragging her to safety. "It doesn't matter! Do something!" Celicia screamed into her mind to do something, anything. Grab her swords, grab her bow, something. And she was moving now, the fear and adrenaline pushing her to move faster than she'd known was possible.
Celicia snatched her bow and her swords, slinging the bow across her back and the sheaths on her hips as she sprinted down the stone corridors. Fire roared, women screamed and sobbed. Her heart stopped each time she heard a weapon clang to the ground and a shriek cut short.
Through cloudy corridors and quaking grand halls Celicia dashed, every bone in her body shaking uncontrollably and every muscle tense with terror.
She was outside now. The only way she could possibly know was the feel of sand beneath her feet. The sky had been choked with smoke and some kind of...purple smog. Exactly, exactly like her nightmares. It finally hit her and Celicia choked on her sobs. "Varin! Varin!" Celicia screamed so violently it made her throat raw. It was all around her now, the smoke and the purple haze. She couldn't see, couldn't breathe. Her sobs turned into vicious hacking as she struggled for air.
Spinning. The world was spinning now and she couldn't breathe. Her legs gave out beneath her and she collapsed to the ground. The smog had completely encompassed her now. There was nothing left of the outside world in her frantic mind but a low hissing sound has the smog twisted and writhed.
"Hello dear," a deep, husky voice growled somewhere through the haze into her ear. "I believe you have something that belongs to me." There were no words for the pain she felt the next moment as something was shoved through her back, through her body, her chest.
She screamed in pure agony. She screamed until her voice cracked. She was being pulled apart. Not from the body, but her very being. Whatever force of evil this was, it wanted her soul. Darkness writhed through her and tore her apart, violating her soul. This was it, it had to be, this kind of pain, this kind of dismemberment of her body and her soul.
For as much as she knew, she was still screaming when darkness engulfed her.
~~~~~~~~~
Darkness. Darkness, and the numbing cold were all she knew. Her bones, her skin, even her mind seemed to be frozen. She was heavy, so, so heavy that she wondered if she was made of stone. Was she? There was no way of knowing. Nothing made any sense. There were whispers. Whispers all around her. Low, hushed, insane mutterings that were far too close to her stiff body. Move. Something in the back of her mind screamed to her. Move. Move now.
Celicia flung open her eyes. Wherever she was...it was completely black and reeked of death and decay. The whispers intensified, and Celicia felt a thousand hungry eyes turn to her.
"The key is awake," one voice hissed.
"Awake," growled another.
"Awake…"
"Awake!"
"AWAKE!"
"The key! The key! Awake! Awake! Free! FREE! Grab. Grab! Consume!" Hideous creatures she couldn't see shrieked the words over and over again.
Key, consume, free, grab, consume, free.
The shrieking grew louder, and soon things were moving. She couldn't see them, she couldn't see a single thing but she heard them moving. Heard the scraping of claws against stone, the frantic chatter, mad cackling, low hissing. Every instinct told her to flee. To where? She couldn't see a thing. She hadn't even moved.
But her hands began to twitch, and then her feet, her muscles all beginning to convulse with the desire to run. Soon she was feeling around with her hands. She was in a case of some kind. Glass? A glass coffin? It was without a doubt a glass box of some kind, propped up against something. She didn't know what it was, but it didn't matter.
Celicia kicked.
Glass flew in all directions, cutting her foot, her legs, fileting the soles of her feet as she stood from her glass prison and began to run. To where, she didn't know.
She ran frantically in a random direction, soon running into a cold stone wall and falling to the floor. The hissing and scraping of claws grew louder, growing nearer with each racing heartbeat. Celicia stood up again and tried to run in a different direction. It was too late. One of the unseen creatures lashed out at her as she ran, digging through the flesh on her back and leaving three gaping, oozing, burning slashes. Celicia screamed in agony, and another creature clamped down on her shoulder, forcing another scream from her throat.
Suddenly the teeth released from her shoulder and the hissing ceased. Celicia dropped to the cold stone floor and tried to grasp her wounded shoulder. A smooth, masculine voice spoke somewhere near her in the room.
"Boys," the voice purred, "what did I say? You don't get to touch her until we're finished with her." Celicia could hear the sick pleasure in his voice. The owner of the voice stepped forward, his steps near silent on the cobbled floor as he stood over Celicia. "Look at me," he ordered. Confused and terrified, Celicia looked in the direction she heard the voice coming from. There was nobody there. "No, over here. Sorry, reality is a bit...distorted here. Let me make this easier for you." Purple flames burst into existence in sconces across the room. It wasn't much light, but it was enough to see that she was in a room made completely of stone. An octagonal room, empty save for a single shattered glass coffin propped against the far wall and a single sconce alight with purple flames on each wall.
Celicia looked up, and indeed reality was distorted here. There was no ceiling, just an expansive darkness with floating bits of glass, stone, and occasionally the sick, twisted faces of creatures she didn't dare attempt to see again floating in the void. "Here, darling." Varin sauntered into her view, his figure looming over her.
"Varin…"
"I'm sorry, you must have me mistaken for someone else," Varin's eyes burned a vicious purple, not unlike the flames in the sconces. He sighed playfully, mockingly. "I tease, I tease. Varin was a little...character I made up. And I must admit, I quite enjoyed my time playing that role. Mortals are so...entertaining." He raised an eyebrow and grinned before turning away from Celicia. "Go ahead and finish her, boys. I just wanted to make sure she saw my face." In an instant, he melded into the darkness and was gone completely.
Something inside Celicia began to burn, with what she wasn't sure. Rage? Betrayal? Embarrassment? Undoubtedly, something within her burned and longed to be let out, to burn this room and burn this forsaken realm where reality was distorted.
Teeth sank into Celicia's calf, and like popping a balloon, something inside Celicia exploded one last time and burned everything around her, destroying the room she lay in, melting the ravenous creatures that drooled over her...and pulling her into darkness one last time.
And somewhere back in Hyrule, a crack into the realm of oblivion opened and bled into the sky.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone