THEYEARDECEMBERED / KITTY.
It is fear that rises to meet her. It feels like it is just crawling up her throat and then clasping around her neck, a collar as cruel as the circlet of scarring there that makes visible the former presence of one. It is fear as she watches the bandages unwind and the scent, the scent enters her nostrils that is a bit like always, the bit that scents of queen zelda, she is sure— rose water is what it reminds her of. Roses are beauteous and dangerously riddled with thorns. Roses are always the truest form of honest affection. Rose water is light, sacred and true in what she believes. A scent that is not a scent at all. The more she realizes it the more her stomach churns and churns and her beating heart makes it very clear that she has—
—she has tried to hurt that which she has pledged her life to. She has broken her own pact— with herself, with the queen, with this country that has so chosen to allow her within its boundaries for as long as she is in service to her highness. She has done the inexcusable. Now the feeling in her stomach is no longer a feeling but a burning that seems to twist up everything into terrible knots. The back of her neck is suddenly warm. An eye is wide open in surprise, both eyebrows risen helplessly to appear just as exclaimed as the responding roar is.
She feels herself, tremulous, wide-eyed, listening to the queen’s words but feeling only shame, rage, and guilt. It is a tremble and a tremor and a shake in her hands now. She forces them behind her, clasps. Her claws burn, and she imagines what it would be to simply rip them out. (Would they come back?) what if she had killed her? What if what if what if what if it was you again and you knew nothing and it was not you who knew anything at all and what if you cried and you screamed until you couldn’t breathe anymore what if what if what if you begged with every word you never spoke and gasped for breath until her blood soaked your knees and what if she was yours again, a person who had seemed so small in spite of themselves because you had been their end you you you what if you tore her apart what if again what if AGAIN—
She realizes she is watching the queen’s mouth speak but it becomes difficult to hear over the sound of the flashback and the thoughts. They rudely barge in, but she puts the pieces together in a haze and drops her hands to her sides. There is a marble sort of glassy gaze to that dark green eye, and she feels a defeat that is not defeat at all. She is walking in nothing in this moment. This world has laid itself upon another, and she can hear herself— coward, traitor, monster, TRAITOR.
“Zhur. Khurrt kherr whurr khutaii. Khurrt turek ghehut lahn kruteese.”
(“Yes. I have great shame. I will not ask mercy.”)
Age-old ixian falls from her lips without so much as a warning to her own mouth. It is somehow so much more fluid, easier to speak, clicks and purrs that fall into place, tongue easily flitting over teeth, hitting them rhythmically, throat a harsh growl.
The sands do not drag her from the reverie. With every inch and step she takes forward the image of shimmering gold tainted in red is so familiar it is all she can see. Nothing else matters, nor does the passage of time when she steps onto cobblestone weathered by the generations. The queen’s knight walks through the encampment, bloodied by the sands all flesh has been left unprotected by, and no one says a word. (She forgets the horse and allows her legs to guide her and guide her. The walk will take longer, but she is the only beast of burden to be had here.)
It is the drawbridge she might see first, when she wakes again. The guards look at her apprehensively and more mouths move to ask her things, but she slogs through the quicksand of memory with too much difficulty. How can she attend to the need of others when they are not there? How can she hear voices that are not real? How can she live in a world that does not exist? The voices fade to the rustle of scarlet carpet underfoot.
It is the greatest anticipation that curls beneath her once she makes it into her chambers— as though she is falling into a pit of her own making. There is fear still behind her eyes, but it returns actively, and she realizes then she is on the cold floor with gloves off looking tiredly and detachedly from the clusters of damage. No palm to read. No fingerprints to store away. Only nails, so true their only purpose is harm.
She rakes three long, diagonal dashes across each palm, and then tugs gloves back on in spite of the stinging pain within them. It never seems to reduce, and she does not think it ever will. The hatred she has of them, how she wishes they were not there at all.
Time stands still and moves forward as she sits on the floor. Scratches turn to smooth scabbing in the interim, aching under leather as a constancy of a reminder. Treasonous, it is what you will always be. Her door opens and her head flies up swiftly.
An eye widens when she is summoned. The queen asks after her. Her insides churn. Treasonous coward. She can only remember that sight, still so bright and clear behind her eyelids and how she hates it. She imagines this will be either punishment or banishment, and she will deserve either of the options. She would compose something to vouch for her desperation, but she has proven herself wild, has she not? Dangerous. The opposite of what it is the queen Zelda wants. And yet there she had been. Untrustworthy and threatening.
She bites the inside of her lip with sharp canine teeth, trying to compose a response. Her brain is thrashing about inside her head. She wants the god to explain herself and there are no explanations to be had. The gardens usually are where she ducks to think and be amongst the flowers, but now this quells nothing within her. She feels like somewhere in here this is a trick. She doesn’t know how to explain herself.
Her mouth opens and it closes like it is about to begin the process. She has not spoken since she has returned, and has not gauged the extent of that voice in her throat. Has not tried to check whether or not that voice is still capable of its own use. She has not screamed, has not roared in so long. And has not spoken in so long.
She has to drop her eyes quickly and then inhale deeper and take a stuttering breath to regather a voice that crackles like bones.
“—uh’s scayuhd a’cause i gottup an’ y-y-y-yuh were-uh— uh— g-gone.” The words come forth with the wobbling uncertainty of a frightened beast. The pain is light— she can withstand it without a bat of an eyelash— but it is the crushing standard she is afraid she has not reached. She can feel invisible hands breaking her words into pieces cruelly and then strewing them about. Fingers tearing viciously until all she has are useless scraps of paper with burnt lettering. What is she supposed to do with this?
She does not know if the idea of meeting blue eyes is even remotely possible. She does not think it is, because it will bring upon her a flood of yet more fearful shame. That is what is drowning her, is it not? Utter, complete shame. It always has been.
An insular god without full understanding of a voice.
“Scayuhd first. Scayuhd askin’ errybody but nuhbody could tell me nothin’. Scayuhd, went, asked-uh… t-town. People? Sahnds. People’uh sahnds. Scayuhd’n— afeared yuh was dead. Scayuhd’n a-a-a-a-a-afeared yuh was dead’n i—”
The god stops in speech. It is here she realizes she does not have an explanation for what she wishes to convey. She does not know the words for so many of these things as far as speech because… how does she formulate these into ideas? They feel intangible. Emotions slip through her fingers like sand. She cannot grasp them, and in this moment there is a painful, embarrassing clarity to that.
Now the shame feels so tangible it is waiting to spread wide inside her body and burst out the seams of her changeable flesh. She is sure that it will erupt from her skeleton and walk around like a caricature of her. A phantom, or something she already resembles. A ghost of a memory that refuses to die. She blinks and feels nothing but the brief trickle of wet that falls down her cheek and how it embarrasses her even further but she will not succumb to touching it, will not push it away. Her hands clasp harder behind her back. Her palms ache harder still, and she finds the sense of discomfort allows her doubling vision to single out if she squeezes. She looks up, but it is only to glance aside and to ask with her voice thick inside her mouth and so quiet—
“What’uhd ya ‘ave me do?”
What would you have me do. How will i make this up. What can i do to make amends. Will you hurt me, or will i hurt me? Please give me an answer. I’m choking, please give me an answer—
She had almost killed her.
if it took all night for her guard to find the words, she would wait. time seemed to slow as she watched how kitty floundered, mouth gaping, only to snap shut, as she wracked her brains, & zelda could not help but wonder if she searched for truth, or scrambled so desperately for a lie that the queen could not see through. she had thought much of it over the day, & came to the chilling realization that she knew precious little about kitty, really. oh, she knew of her prowess in battle ( her back ached, still, from where the guard had launched herself at the queen, & she had heard the gasp of her handmaiden as she had requested a bath drawn, to wash away the last of the sand. she knew, without seeing, the garden of bruises that bloomed there. ) but what else ? almost nothing but her name, & that stoicism was in her nature. she was supposed to have learned from her youth. she was supposed to have left her foolishness behind. she had taken her general at his word & allowed him to place kitty as her bodyguard, & she had almost paid the price.
still, she listened attentively as at last, kitty found her voice, as harsh & broken as it was. golden brows came together in confusion as she professed to fear at her absence - of all the things she could have guessed at, kitty being scared for her had not once crossed her mind. throughout the garden, benches of carved marble had been placed, that inhabitants of the castle might take their leisure among the blooms, & it was in to one of these that zelda sank as kitty continued with her tale, hands crossed in her lap, unable to tear her gaze away from the other woman, even as she noted the tear which fell from her only good eye.
she was scared for you, she thought, & she did not know whether she should feel flattered at how much care kitty seemed to have in her, or frustrated at the lack of faith she found. she would not be the first to doubt her. the few lords who remained after ganondorf’s reign, the ones who had welcomed their princess back with open arms, had taken to sniping against her in meetings, their lack of belief in her rulings made abundantly clear. others in the court, newer lords & ladies, also made their disagreements with her frequently known, & there had been many nights she had spoken to kitty about it, the arguments & the undercutting, & the frustration she felt, that it seemed so many had so little trust in her. she had thought that, knowing this, she could have counted kitty amongst the few who understood & supported her, who trusted her to stand on her own feet & forge ahead with her own decisions.
it stung deeply ( & so much more than expected ) to find she was wrong.
what would you have me do ?
the sigh which came from her was a deep, tired exhalation as she bowed her head a moment, both hands coming up to shield her face. she couldn’t make a snap decision about kitty’s foolishness, not when she knew just how valuable she had been as both a guard & a confidant, but although her offence was her first, it was undeniable how close she had brought the kingdom to catastrophe. a thousand ways to die at the others’ hands had been burned into the back of zelda’s mind since the moment her blood had risen, & she could not discount that because of the fondness she had felt for her.
❛ i would have you take your leave of me, ❜ she decided, eventually, hands returning to her lap once more. ❛ this has been a stressful day, & i can see that you are not yourself. i will tell the general not to expect you back for three days, & you may go to the treasurer, & collect your wages, ❜ she looked up, then, but still, her eyes did not meet kitty’s own. still, she dared not. ❛ your quarters will still be your own, but you must need a rest after this morning, as i do. consider it a holiday of a sort, ❜ long enough a time that she might stop trembling. long enough a time that zelda might feel that the chasm which had opened so quickly between them might be bridged. ❛ three days for you, & you may report back to me at the dawn of the fourth. but before you go - ❜
she stood, folding her arms across her chest, turning away from kitty once more, just slightly, that she did not have to see her face as she answered. ❛ i need you to tell me honestly, after all you have seen - why do you not think me capable of looking after myself ? i have trusted you enough to let you become a part of what should be a private life. there are days i think that you are the one who knows me best in the world. i have survived the death of my parents, the fall of my kingdom, the reign of a tyrant. i have lived through the end of the world, & walked clean amongst the ashes, & you have walked with me. one day, one morning, where i take time for myself, & you have me murdered in your head. why don’t you trust me ? ❜
