Now Playing: Part Three of my crossover
Yep, here's the next part! Part one can be found here; part two is here.
Title: The Nutcracker
Fandoms: Legend of Zelda/Nutcracker
Word Count: 1,533.
Rating: PG-13 (for some descriptive violence in this chapter; PG overall)
Summary: For Winternight, a young girl named Zelda receives a most unusual nutcracker, and adventure soon follows...
Disclaimer: The Legend of Zelda and all associated characters, settings, etc., belong to Shigeru Miyamoto and Nintendo. The Nutcracker is from the book by E. T. A. Hoffman and the ballet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The only profit I make from this work of fiction is my own satisfaction and, possibly, the enjoyment of others.
Author's Notes: Nobody guessed both references correctly, so the drabble contest is still going on! Details are in the Author's Notes to part two, linked above.
Chapter 3 - Oratorio
For a moment, Zelda was not quite aware of what had woken her. Her sleep-fuddled mind knew she was not in her bed, but she was comfortable nonetheless, and rather inclined to return to her dreams. Then she heard it again - the sound that had woke her.
The clang of steel against steel.
Her eyes flew open onto a terrible scene. Monstrously oversized mice were all around, surrounding her, all - strangely - wielding swords and standing on their back legs, fighting with armed men who attacked with sudden jolts and oddly stilted movements.
She rubbed at her eyes, but when she reopened them nothing in the peculiar tableau had changed. She stared at the combatants, terrified, pulling her legs towards her and wrapping her arms around them, hoping against hope that none of the fighters would see her. Then she realized that the men battling with the giant mice were not men at all - and that the mice were not so large as she had thought them - for the men were Ralph’s toy soldiers, and the mice therefore quite an ordinary size. She was still in the nursery, but she had shrunk to toy-size, and she was hemmed in on all sides by soldiers and mice fighting to the death. Her mouth opened to scream, but she could not seem to make any sound come out.
Suddenly the head of a toy soldier went spinning away right in front of her. Eyes popping, she looked up to see the soldier’s body crumple to the floor, as a mouse even larger than the others walked carelessly over it. The sword he wielded was proportionally larger as well, and a crown rested on his head. His eyes were a fiery red, and they glinted as they caught sight of her. He advanced towards her, blade pointed straight at her heart.
Zelda did scream, then, a loud wail of helpless horror, pressing herself against the dresser at her back. Before she could think of some way to escape - none of the soldiers or the other mice appeared to have seen her, not that she assumed any of them would help even if they had - a green figure landed between her and the Mouse King, seemingly having jumped down from the dresser high above.
“Ah, the little hero,” sneered the Mouse King, and Zelda’s mouth fell open even farther at hearing an animal speak, not to mention walking upright and using a sword. “Come to save your princess?”
“It ends here, Ganon,” the figure said firmly, a sword of his own clenched in his hand. He used his left, and Zelda noted, by the way he favored it, that his right seemed injured somehow.
The mouse’s eyes flamed worse than ever. “I am the king, boy!”
“Not for much longer,” the green-clad stranger replied, and the two swords met with a clang that seemed to echo over the battlefield.
Zelda watched them with an almost morbid fascination; the Mouse King loomed large over the slender figure dressed in green, but the latter was meeting him blow for blow, though she could tell that he could not keep up with the mouse’s superior strength forever. At that moment the opponents happened to turn enough so she could catch her first glimpse of her would-be rescuer’s face. She had thought she could not be any more surprised, but the familiar features arrested her.
It was her nutcracker prince.
She was sure it was he: the hat, the blond hair, even the sword now seemed all too noticeable, and she was bewildered that she had not known him from the first. Then she recognized the differences: his jaw was no longer overlarge, his eyes no longer wide and protruding. His motions were not the jerky ones of the soldiers. He was - she was certain of it - real now. He gave a grunt as the Mouse King landed a blow to his side with the flat of his blade, and Zelda glanced around anxiously. She had to help her nutcracker!
Her eyes fell on a bow and arrows lying nearby and she leapt to seize them. She recognized them as her nutcracker’s; he must have tossed them aside, unable to use them one-handed. Shaking slightly, she pulled an arrow from the quiver and fitted it to the bow, turning to aim before pulling the string back. She bit her lip; the two were brawling so close together she could not be sure of her target. She thought furiously, but only one solution occurred to her.
“Nutcracker!” she shouted as loudly as she could. He pulled away from his battle, distracted for one crucial moment that she and the Mouse King both leapt to take advantage of. As the evil creature made as if to run the nutcracker through, she loosed her arrow. Her aim was true; the bolt struck the mouse’s shoulder and he shrieked with fury and pain, dropping his sword. Her nutcracker hurtled forward, raising his sword. Zelda shut her eyes tight, but she could still hear when the Mouse King’s howls cut short.
A great screeching rose up all around her, and Zelda opened her eyes to see the mice who still stood casting down their weapons and fleeing on all fours. The toy soldiers sent up a ragged cheer, turning to see who had changed the tide of the battle. Their captain strode towards the nutcracker, who was wiping his blade on the Mouse King’s fur, saluting him with his own sword. The other soldiers bowed deeply.
“The field is ours, m’lord,” said the soldier in a raspy voice. “Our thanks for your timely aid.”
The nutcracker stood, returning the salute with his own weapon before sheathing it. “You are welcome for my help, but the one we both owe thanks to is Zelda,” he said, and she started to hear her name. The nutcracker seemed to notice she was staring at them and walked over to where she crouched, still clutching his bow. He knelt and pulled out his sword in one smooth motion, lowering his head. “You saved my life. I am forever in your debt,” he said, proffering his sword in both hands. Behind him, the toy soldiers also knelt, their own swords held towards her.
She shook her head, eyes wide, dropping the bow as if it had scalded her. “You saved mine first. He would have killed me if not for your courage.” Suddenly she blushed and stammered, “Y-you are my nutcracker, aren’t you?”
He looked up. His eyes were warm and very blue. She realized suddenly how young he looked; he could not be more than a year or so older than Ralph. “I am, Zelda. And you had my arm fixed as well, so I am still in your debt.”
She smiled, feeling herself relax for the first time since she had awoken. “Well, it was my foolishness that led to it being broken to begin with, so I still believe us even.” The nutcracker smiled back, replacing his sword and gallantly helping her to stand.
The toy soldier captain approached them, nodding his head to Zelda. “Forgive me, my lord, my lady, but we must return to our posts. Dawn is but a few more hours off,” he added cryptically.
Zelda’s brow furrowed, but she shook off the oddness of his words. “Of course, captain.”
He bowed once more (Zelda wondered momentarily if all of the up and down motion would hurt his back) and turned back to his subordinates. “Men, take your positions!” he bellowed, and the soldiers scurried back to their normal shelf, two of them seizing the Mouse King’s body and dragging it away. Zelda looked away from them, but watched the others curiously, noting again that they still moved with the jerkiness of… well, of toy soldiers. Were they still toys, then, and not really human? But she could feel the warmth of a living body near her, and she remembered the gentleness of his hands. The nutcracker, at least, was flesh and blood, not merely moving wood and metal. She knew he was. She noticed one toy soldier replacing his own formerly severed head as he ran to join the others. She shuddered.
Apparently the nutcracker noticed, for he gently took one of her hands with his own. “Zelda,” he began, then swallowed when she looked up at him. “W-would you like to see where I come from? My kingdom, I mean?”
Her whole face lit up. “You truly are a prince?” she asked excitedly. He nodded, looking slightly embarrassed. “I most certainly would!” she answered, eyes gleaming happily.
The tension in his face fell away, only to be replaced with an answering grin. He moved to face the dresser and drew a shape on its surface with one finger - Zelda almost thought it looked like a triangle - and suddenly a door appeared before them, with a triangular design glittering on it. The nutcracker opened it before she could study it further. Zelda let him escort her through it, giving the disappearing nursery only one fleeting backwards look before the beautiful land before her captured all of her attention.
“Welcome, Zelda, to the Fairy Realm.”
TO BE CONTINUED