If you do not like mature things, skip this chapter. Something happens here that is borderline not-allowed on wattpad. It is not depicted in the story, nor is it graphically shown, but it is implied to happen by context, reading between the lines, and subtext.

-Zelda-

Zelda was in a particularly poor mood. Sarah was late. It was bad enough that Impa was absent with whatever-her-mysterious-errand was, but Sarah was absent too? Sarah was perhaps a bit clumsy but she wouldn't just forget something like this. Not when she had already been Zelda's favored for a few years now, visited regularly at the royal's behest, and never missed a date.

Even if Sarah forgot, the Harem wouldn't. If there was perhaps one singular sliver of a positive trait anyone could ever construe from the miniscule relationship she had with her mother, the woman kept her end with professionalism and wouldn't allow such a mistake.

Unless it wasn't a mistake.

Zelda stopped just in front of her door as the thought struck her. Her door was slightly ajar and the guards stood on either side. Just through the crack she could make out a hint of vibrant and dressy clothing. They nervously rotated their weight back and forth between their feet while saying nothing.

Zelda breathed in and felt stress climb into a comfortable place on her shoulders. Few people would be allowed in her room, and fewer still had an appreciation for such a rich dress. Then among the final few, only one would ever dare to push her so far as to do it unannounced.

"Is no place left sacred for me?" Zelda whispered to herself. She eyed her guards briefly and said louder, "We will speak of this later."

The guards nodded, a hint of fear and guilt in their eyes. Zelda sympathized. If it is the woman she thinks it is, then they technically have no legal ability to resist her. Not until Zelda says something... which she didn't think she would ever have to do until now.

Sighing, Zelda entered the door and said, "I trust there is a purpose for this unbidden visit so late, Mother."

Her mother. Bi Ki. The woman sat in a chair beside the fireplace stroking what looked like a white fox. Zelda recognized it as being the same kind of creature as the one depicted in the mask Link had given her, and that she had temporarily transformed into by a stroke of luck for a day. There had been a rumor that such a creature had been sighted in the palace the last few days, but she had not witnessed it until now.

Bi Ki herself was as beautiful, as terrifying, and as fake as the day Zelda fled Zhao. The woman was the shining jewel of the Ki family, their most prized concubine selected by Ryo Fui personally to meet the king. She was a dancer rumored to have been blessed by the wind spirits, her songs brought the sirens to jealousy, and she gave such an aura of sexuality as to make the eunuchs sweat.

Once she may have been, but Zhao changed that. Zelda did not hide her scars with makeup. It looked like Bi Ki did. It was faint but Zelda could see the scars and difference since she knew exactly where to look. The faint scar on her finger conveniently with a ring over it, the cut with a necklace crown over it from her hairline, the damaged ear with hair over it. Bi Ki was a cracked jewel. It wasn't just in her looks, but her composure. The smiles did not reach her eyes, the way her cautious eyes either darted to men, to doors or were sharper than any knife, the micro-expressions where she would flinch or clench just a touch too much. Most wouldn't notice, but even after years apart Zelda knew her and what to look for.

It was like looking in a reflection right down to the cold eyes as they looked at each other. The differences between them were small. Bi Ki was a touch thinner and wore colorful clothing and makeup. She looked more mature, but if they were to wear the same clothing no one could tell the difference. They could pass as sisters or even twins if they tried hard enough.

Beside Bi Ki stood a figure in black robes with a black veil over his head. He had a sword on his hip and a sack dropped at his feet.

Bi Ki stroked the fox again while looking at the fire burning. In her eyes was a fire and dark memory that burned fiercer than the flame behind the cold and haughty lids.

"I came across this fine creature while waiting for you," Bi Ki said, soothingly. "It is a curious beast. So beautiful and graceful, filled with majesty, yet wild as any other with the ferocity and cunning of its kind. It seems to have taken residence in your home and is doted on by some of the staff."

"Why are you here?" Zelda repeated.

"We are allies, my dear. Am I not allowed to meet with my allies?"

"You are allowed to request a meeting, not to place yourself in my private quarters nor to dictate my agenda. I am the heir apparent."

"And I am the Queen Mother, so unless the laws have changed, you would be in regency if I wish because you are too young."

"I know the laws," Zelda replied promptly. She immediately shut down any idea of her mother reigning over her, and whatever nightmare that idea might bring to the surface. She would not be made a fool of in her own home. "I may not old enough to be king, but nor am I so young as to qualify for regency. Ryo acted as my reagent for the first year I was here, but that law no longer applied when Prince Kyou took the throne. Chancellor Ketsu's civil war was timed for a reason."

Her mother chuckled lightly, "So it seems you do know the laws, at least in that area. It is adequate."

"Are you claiming there are laws I am ignorant of?"

"Ignorant of? Who is to say," Her mother shrugged. "You are breaking some every day, and I suspect knowingly. After all, you do employ my faction but not for its intended purpose."

Zelda narrowed her eyes down at the woman. A part of her suspected what her mother was getting at, but with her constant evading it could be anything. "What is this about mother? You have yet to answer me on why you are here or give a valid purpose as to your presence so late."

At last Bi Ki rose from the chair and turned to face Zelda. The woman was slightly taller, Zelda suspected because of her shoes, and the princess refused to blink as they stared at one another. Zelda felt a chill rise up her spine from the cold look in her mother's eye. Yet still, Zelda squared her jaw and waited an answer.

"I'm here for you to encourage you to do your duty that you have been failing at," Her mother finally said. "You have shown yourself to have grown into a young woman, and you have a harem at your disposal, yet you do not use it for its intended purpose... of producing heirs."

Zelda couldn't restrain herself in time to keep from flinching.

Visions played out in Zelda's mind. Scenes she still remembered vividely from Zhao. Heirs meant being pregnant. Prengancy meant sex. Sex meant the brutal animalistic fuckery that was whatever-the-realms her mother engaged in from the men that would ravage her because of her beauty and harlotry.

Zelda gulped, breathing out, "No."

"The kings before you started when they were even younger," Bi Ki reasoned.

"Father didn't start until he was twenty and King Shorlin started even later," Zelda answered. "It was King Aou who started when he was barely little more than a child, and my half-brother hadn't yet received entertainers. I know the writings."

"Yet even so, it seems you choose to place your kingdom is a volatile situation. Do not get me wrong, my dear. I didn't come to ask."

Zelda narrowed her eyes. So that was the tone her mother wanted to have with her? So soon after becoming allies, Bi would dare make demands and terms to force ultimatums on her?!

"You have the guards fooled into thinking that being my mother gives you some kind of power and privilge, but that power does not extend to me. If you choose to taint our future dealings with demands, you will find my answer equally rigid."

The woman stared down at Zelda for a long moment, not rising to the challenge immediately despite being rebuffed. Zelda hoped the woman would get the message and just leave. She had hoped their dealings would be... better, even neutral. Yet it seemed her mother wished to make things difficult quickly after meeting again.

"I was afraid of this. You get your stubbornness from your father," Bi Ki sighed. "It is unfortunate that so many just can't cooperate."

"So many?" Zelda wondered outloud. This was an unusual choice of words. Bi Ki looked to her eunuch and nodded. The man leaned down, pealed open the sack next to him, and pulled out a bloody cloak. A hole was torn through a part of it.

Zelda's breath hitched in her throat. It was Sarah's favorite! Her eyes locked to it, her eyes wide, as the man flung it onto her bed. The blood seemed to seep and drip from the remnants. It touched the bed... where they had talked and laughed. Here where Zelda could have a single sanctuary to have a hint of something she never had. The love of a sister.

"Unfortunately the fair thing broke the laws. She tried to leave the harem without permission." Bi Ki's voice interrupted Zelda's horror. "A penalty that the law says is to be paid for generations."

Sarah's family!

"No!" Zelda exclaimed. Her composure broke and for the first time in a long time, she couldn't stop the emotions playing out on her face. Tears welled up. All she could see was Sarah. "They have done nothing!"

"She was allowed to visit them and it seems they got it into her head to leave for, what I must presume, is another lover but you. For one who claims to know the laws, you know what this means."

Zelda stared, wided eyed and terrified, at her mother. She did know the laws. Such terrible laws she had overlooked and never considered changing invoked the death penalty on entire households for interfering with the royal family's production of heirs and security. Sarah's entire family would be executed, lawfully. And in a kingdom that numbered in the millions, then approximately twenty people wouldn't be noticed.

There was no proof of what her mother was claiming, but Zelda couldn't think straight anymore enough to formulate an idea of how to counter it. There had to be a loophole, some bylaw, some precedent she could use, but none of it came to mind. All she saw was Sarah's face covered in blood, blood Zelda had covered her in with her bloody hands by merely associating with this woman.

Why didn't Zelda try and get Sarah out? Why didn't she request for Sarah to be a palace servant instead of remaining at the harem? Millions of answers and excuses could be given, but at the end of them all was the same conclusion: she was afraid. She didn't want to be in the very position she was now, staring at her mother feeling naked and exposed and vulnerable.

"And there it is," Bi whispered coldly. "That look. That is what I want. For you to realize who you are and what your place is in this unforgiving world. I was once like you: full of hope and dreams, and like you I had to learn my place. Now it is time for you to come to the same lesson. To experience... for a single moment... what I have experienced every moment for years."

As she spoke, the eunach beside her started to undress, and Zelda trembled. The man wasn't really a eunuch.

"Please..." Zelda whispered. "Don't kill them."

"That depends on you, my dear. Will you do your duty, quietly? After all, if the others hear, they might think you weren't so... cooperative."

Zelda gulped. Her felt felt clammy and chilly sweat covered her as every nightmare turned to life at once. Every horror and terror she envisioned turned real.