Offspring

Chapter 8: Calumniation

So...Link was right. He had been right in his thoughts about Murdoch. He had been right in his skepticism regarding Murdoch's activities. He had been right in his worry when it came to Murdoch's safety. He had been right in his insistence to seek out Murdoch after consulting Dento for the trident repair. He had been right to assume that Murdoch's stability was falling...or, at least...that it might've been low in the first place. Sometimes...it sucked to be right.

Link was a very humble character, and as such, he rarely acknowledged his own physical and instinctual superiority. However, he had to admit that he was, indeed, considerably observational. He had an unprecedented ability to read the opinions and motivations of others based solely on their tone and body language, as well as exterior context. Those factors had feverishly swirled together with Murdoch over the course of their acquaintance the last few hours, and, combined with Murdoch's natural, inherited display of some of Link's character traits, they had been sending strong, alarming signals to him prior to his retreat to Veiled Falls.

On the other hand, he couldn't shake the feeling that his nagging desire to go locate his son had involved a bit of...divine intervention. Recently, his mind had been wandering back to Mipha from time to time, especially earlier, during the recovery of his latest memory. Although Mipha had had no prioritized connections to any one of her particular children, Link was sure from his memories that she had undoubtedly had an undying and passionate commitment to the safety and well-being of all three of them individually. Therefore, he thought that, perhaps, his intentions to find and protect Murdoch had not been formed by merely his own lone thoughts. Perhaps...a bit of Mipha's spirit was acting within him.

Link stared at Prince Sidon with an intense look on his face. Sidon didn't directly return the favor, as his own gaze was blinking between him and the twins. He waited impatiently for any of the three of them to respond to his urgent announcement. The unsettling silence hung amongst them all for a disturbingly long time as each of them thought differently about the new information. Eventually, something was finally said.

Mira stepped forward with a sad expression, which was also akin to Noelani's at the moment. "Oh, Dad...I'm so sorry. Lani and I...we...we didn't think that Murdoch...would..."

Link put his hand up to silence her mid-sentence. "Don't worry about that now. That's not our concern at the moment."

Her attempted apology was actually well-deserved, Link thought to himself. After all, Murdoch was now on the brink of doing something irreversible, and if it hadn't been for Mira's insistence on ignoring him earlier, Link would've surely hunted him down and stopped him before this point could've been reached. He had trusted her judgment based on the assumption that her greater amount of time with Murdoch would've translated to a greater understanding of him compared to Link's. However, in choosing to trust her judgment, he had also chosen to ignore his own gut, and by doing so, perhaps he had also ignored Mipha's subtle signals...in a way.

That needed to wait until later, however. At the moment, there were more important things at hand.

"How long ago did he leave?" Link asked bluntly.