Chapter 1
The light flared across the broken clouds beginning to glow golden and fade as the sun dropped below the horizon. It had rained earlier that day, and the air still felt moist, cool and clean. In the Nabooru Town square below, the shops began to close up for the day as a town custodian went through the square bringing the electric street lamps to life. In the center of the town square stood a statue of the ancient Gerudo Sage of Spirit for whom the town was named.
The prince regent of Eastern Hyrule, Talon, watched the calming scene quietly from the balcony of the fortified governor's citadel. His mind had been occupied mostly with reports from the different towns and villages of the half of Hyrule which his mother had entrusted him to govern, but there was also the recent event which had involved only his mother, brother, himself, and the Sages, Hyrule's "religious leaders." He bore no ill will towards his brother. John had been his best friend all of his life. But he did wonder "what did the Sages see in him, and not me?"
People had compared him to his father all of his life. With the exception of his untamed flaming red hair which was his mother's gift to him, he, like his twin brother, was the spitting image of his father, Link, the celebrated Hero of Hyrule who had died saving their land when Talon and his brother John were only five years old. That had been twenty years ago. It seemed like forever and a world away now.
"Your highness," the nasal voice intoned, "surely there has been some mistake, you are the oldest are you not?"
"We are twins, Grima. I am only older by a matter of minutes." Prince Talon responded. Their mother had positioned them both as prince regents of the two halves of their land. John governed Western Hyrule, while Talon had been charged with the governance of Eastern Hyrule which lay across the Hylian Sea from the mainland.
"But certainly your Queen mother wouldn't have elected to choose the younger son, would she?" The older man asked. He had been Prince Talon's chief adviser for only a year now, but he had quickly gained the prince's ear on all things.
"It was not her choice, Grima. It was the Sages who named my brother crown prince and heir to the throne." He responded. The ceremony had taken place in the ancient Temple of Forest, dedicated to the goddess Farore in honor of his father's "mother." It was the first time in the history of the Royal family such a choice had to be made between two siblings to determine the royal heir. When the choice had been made, his brother became the heir, and he the spare, with no explanation as to their choice. "When the Sages speak, even Hyrule's sovereign must bow to their wishes." The prince then attempted to return to his private musings on the subject.
"Why?" Grima asked, and Talon felt like a bullet had been fired at him. The question seemed so innocent, yet the implications of just asking the question were disturbing.
Talon thought for a minute. He had never asked the question. It had always been just a part of his and his brother's life. He then answered, "Because the Sages represent the will of the goddesses to the people. They keep the legends and histories of our people, and guard the entry to the Sacred Realm."
"So then who truly rules Hyrule, your highness? Her majesty, or the Sages?" Grima responded.
Talon said nothing in response, but the question stung and bit at him. He just continued to stare down at the statue in the middle of the square. In the western sky, the sun dipped completely below the horizon, and the darkness began to consume the remaining daylight. "The Sages speak for the goddesses. They know their will and interpret it for us." He said, but even as he said it he found himself unconvinced of the answer. What is happening to me? He asked himself silently.
"Forgive me, your highness," Grima said meekly, "but can a group of mortals really know the will of the gods, or do they merely claim to?"
Talon turned from his view of the town square to face his adviser. He was at least forty or fifty years older than the prince, Talon thought. His long silver hair was tied back neatly in a simple ponytail, and he wore a long, well combed silver beard as well. He was not Hylian, but from one of Hyrule's outlying provinces. Ordon, maybe or perhaps he was from one of the other countries which lay across the sea. He then began to realize how little he actually knew of his adviser. "Where are you from, Grima?" Talon asked him.
"My homeland is a great distance from Hyrule, your highness. I only traveled here shortly before I entered your service." Grima answered smoothly, his words seeming to dispel all interest by the prince in his origins.
"The history of my country is a long and complicated one, Grima. But throughout that history, the Sages have always watched over Hyrule, and been its guardians against the Demon King alongside the Hero and the Princess." Talon said.
"It is not the great Sages of the past, nor the role of your heroic father or royal aunt, your highness, that I question." Grima told him. "But in my experience it would be a mistake to assume those who sit in their seats today are the same as those great ones of the past, or that in such times as these they themselves have the best interests of your land in their hearts and not their own. I have known a great many such guardians of religious truth that when it came down to it were more concerned about maintaining their own political power over the people than the true divine will." He seemed so sincere, so paternal in his concern.
The prince turned this over in his mind, and immediately the thought of the choosing in the temple came back to his mind. His brother had been chosen over him by the Sages alone, and no one had questioned it. "So then you believe their anointing of my brother is a political move; that they believe him a more easily influenced puppet to control to maintain their own power over Hyrule and the monarchy?" Talon asked uneasily.
"That is more than I said, your highness." Grima replied, removing his spectacles innocently and cleaning them with the edge of his tunic.
"Perhaps." Talon said, his mind beginning to fill with thoughts he had never considered before. He turned back to the town square, which was now quiet. The blue uniformed night watch guards patrolled the town's streets, the gold royal crest of Hyrule, the winged Triforce, emblazoned on the back of their long coats, rifles held at the ready on their arms.
Talon's mother, Queen Malon, was a wise, strong, and courageous ruler. She had guided Hyrule through the darkest moments of its most recent history after the death of her sister, Princess Zelda, and the Queen's husband Link, Hyrule's Supreme Military Commander. Their kingdom had emerged stronger for it. She was the one who gave us the new vision for the future, he thought to himself, and guided us back into the arms of the Sages and the old stories. Is she herself being held by old ideas and old systems which don't apply in this new world she led us into? He wondered. How could I not have seen it before?
"What would you have me do, adviser?" Talon asked the older man.
"Perhaps it is not my place..." Grima began to say.
"And if I say it is?" Talon stopped him. "What should I do?"
"You are the prince regent of Eastern Hyrule, your highness. We are all at your command." Grima told him obsequiously.
In another reality worlds away, in the depths of a shining city floating on the sea, hidden from the rest of the world...
"So, you're saying you do make more than me?" Rodney asked indignantly. Atlantis base's chief scientist took issue with its head archaeologist's implication, regardless of the fact that he was the one who brought up their pay scales.
"No, I just said that our paychecks reflect the size of the contributions we both make to the ongoing stargate research, that's all." Daniel said in a quick save. The truth was he had no idea how much Rodney got paid, but he hoped it wasn't the seeming pittance he found automatically deposited into his checking account in the small Colorado bank branch each month by the U.S. Government. Granted, on Atlantis he got free housing and food, but still, with everything he'd given and sacrificed for not just the stargate program, but for the planet as a whole, they could have shown just a little more financial love.
Somewhat mollified, Rodney brushed that part of their conversation aside and continued his investigation of the lab which had been "rediscovered" deep in the bowels of the city, going over it with a notebook jotting down occasional observations. It had actually been discovered and cataloged way back in the Pegasus galaxy when Atlantis had sat atop Lantea's ocean waters several years ago. But when its function couldn't be determined after a few days, it had been quickly forgotten and ignored for more promising and easily understood labs. But now, the Ancient lab was back on McKay's radar for one very specific yet obscure reason which only a few years before wouldn't and didn't turn his head twice. Etched into one of the side walls was a metallic relief of three triangles joined together, two at the base and one at the top, to form a single larger triangle.
Daniel Jackson had agreed to assist him in his research only because he had some downtime right now, and no major projects of his own which he could do anything more with at the moment, and because Woolsey stopped just short of ordering him to. Rodney could be a "difficult" man to work with, and he didn't actually have a huge amount of interest in McKay's "video game research" except that he had personally met two of those characters from the game some three years before at another research dig in an Ancient abandoned city beneath a volcano in the New Mexico desert (that was a research site he wished he was still at, but the Airforce and the I.O.A., the two organizations that actually signed his paychecks, had other ideas). That had been a unique experience, and Link and Zelda had been likable kids all things considered, if you could call them kids.
"So what exactly are you hoping to accomplish in here Rodney?" Daniel asked, his eyes scanning the otherwise spartan and unremarkable room. He wanted to add, and why exactly do you need me here? But he didn't. Years before, Rodney had been ordered to assist Daniel in what he thought was a worthless investigation. That turned out instead to yield a previously unknown secret lab and a wealth of new research and data. Daniel had enough class to keep from whining at Rodney's tangents, knowing and respecting the man's brilliance, if not always the man himself.
"Okay, so I've been trying to figure out the damaged Triforce Shepherd brought back. The description, logs, and notes on it are in the public database, but when I try and search any deeper," Rodney explained, "unlike the key blade, I can't find anything on how to actually build one, much less repair the one we've got."
Daniel folded his arms and stared at the triangle symbol on the wall trying to understand its purpose. He knew it represented the Triforce, or at least a Triforce, the mystical triangles from the Legend of Zelda video game series that when combined together would warp the fabric of reality itself to make whatever a mortal wished for happen. Right now, he sincerely wished for something more interesting to do than listen to Rodney complain and stare at the walls.
There wasn't much else to distinguish the room except for a very few consoles and Ancient computer monitors which were now powered up and spitting out readouts in the blocky Ancient script. The only truly unique part of the room to distinguish it from the rest of the labs in the city was this symbol etched into the coppery metal.
"So what exactly does the Triforce do again that makes it so important?" Daniel asked, continuing to try and understand the meaning of the symbol he had been staring at.
"Essentially, it's a belief amplifier." Rodney explained.
"A what?" Daniel asked.
Rodney stopped what he was doing and looked at him to try and explain it further, "Remember how the Ori got their power from the faith their followers had in them?
"Yeah, I do." Daniel answered. Only too well, he thought. He had been forced to deal with it far too many times.
"Okay, well this device sort of works on the same principle, except it takes the belief or faith of the person touching it and amplifies it to bend the fabric of reality itself around the object of that person's belief. In short, if you wish for something and believe in it, it will make it happen." He finished. "Each piece of the Triforce centers around a specific virtue, power, wisdom, and courage, which amplifies the belief and therefore the presence of that specific virtue in the person who carries that piece. It's when all three are put together that the really big, reality bending stuff happens. The Ancients created it as a defensive device against rogue ascended beings. Kind of like arming us lesser beings with the potential power of an ascended being as a 'mutual deterrent' kind of thing."
"Yeah, we could have used something like that a few years ago." Daniel quipped.
"Tell me about it." Rodney agreed. "Anyhow, if we can repair the Triforce of Power, or better yet, create our own since this one's more or less on loan; then the kinds of things we could do with this city and our research would be practically limitless."
Rodney then came over to stand next to Daniel. "Near as I can tell that's just a wall decoration." He said, gesturing to the symbol in front of them. "There's no writing, and nothing else to mark it as anything else."
"Yeah, probably. I've just found too many walls with decorations that wound up being clues to something bigger." Daniel then reached out his hand to feel the surface of the etching.
Rodney reached out his hand too to trace the lines of the triangle. "Yeah, I wish it led to something like a..." He had begun to say flippantly, though deep down he had sincerely wished it led to the research he was looking for. At the same time, he also wondered how Link's kids and wife were getting along and wished he could see them the same way Colonel Shepherd, Atlantis' military commander had the year before.
The triangles of the symbol glowed with a golden light which became more intense and flashed around them. Then a bright wave of energy consumed the both of them, and the Atlantis lab was empty.
"Danny? What the hell just happened?!" McKay shouted. It was pitch darkness around them, and they were both disoriented and nauseous. "Did the power go out?" He then called into his bluetooth communicator, "McKay to operations, what's going on?" There was no response.
"You try!" Rodney told him. Daniel, feeling like he was going to see his last meal in reruns, slowly spoke into his own communicator, "Daniel Jackson to Atlantic base operations, come in please." He also received nothing in reply.
"Why aren't they answering?!" Rodney shouted.
Daniel hated it when McKay called him "Danny," so it didn't help his mood much. "I don't know!" He shouted back. "Why do you think I would know?!"
Just then a soft blue light began to illuminate the room they were in, and it wasn't the room they had been standing in before. Around them could be seen stone walls, sculpted columns, and a few Ancient computer consoles that were covered in a thick coating of dust.
"I think I know why they're not answering now." Daniel revised his last statement.
"Oh, that's not good," McKay said. "Okay, just let me get my bearings, get a look around and think." He said scanning the room around him. "Oh boy, we're in trouble." He announced shortly.
"Why? What do you mean?" Daniel said, then he also began to look around. "Oh my." He said.
"I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Danny." McKay told him, pointing at a sculpture in the corner of the room. It was of three women holding three triangles in such a way to where they formed a single triangle. Each woman had been carved with a sash that held a name in a script not that much different from Ancient. They were names McKay knew all too well and in their own language, "Din, Nayru, and Farore." He read them out loud.
"You know where we are?" Daniel asked him. "Don't you?"
"Oh god, I hope I'm wrong." Rodney answered. "Because I have no idea how to get us back this time."
That wasn't good news. As far as Daniel knew, much to everyone else's consternation, Rodney was rarely wrong.
"How do you think we got here?" Rodney asked, holding his head.
"Isn't that usually your area of expertise, Rodney?" Daniel answered, trying to move slowly to keep himself from throwing up.
Rodney threw him a dirty look and said, "Just humor me."
"We touched the symbol on the wall together, you said 'I wish..,' the triangles glowed gold and then the whole world around us changed." Daniel said.
Rodney tried to process those facts through his headache. Then a light went on in his head. "Wait a second. Are you telling me Atlantis has had a working Triforce this entire time?" Rodney asked in disbelief. "And we didn't know about it?"
"Well, it's not like anyone ever looked for one before now." Daniel pointed out, holding his own head, and blinking several times trying to get the spots out of his vision.
"Yeah, but still!" Rodney said in exasperation at all the lost opportunities.
"Focus, McKay! We've got more pressing problems right now!" Daniel told him, losing his patience.
"Right. You're right." Rodney said, looking around the room trying to take in all the data it was giving him.
"So where are we then, Rodney? You act like you know this place." Daniel said, trying to take in his surroundings in the dim lighting as his eyes adjusted.
"Well, I would think the statue would pretty well give it away, don't you?" Rodney asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
"Okay, let's pretend I have no idea what you're talking about." Daniel told him.
"You really don't know?" Rodney asked, beginning to comprehend. "Wow. Well, we've got to be in Hyrule. That's the only place I know of that would feature a statue with the three goddesses and the Triforce inside a creepy stone room."
Daniel took a look around. "Hyrule? You mean like Link and Zelda's Hyrule? The video game Hyrule?"
"Yes, the video game Hyrule! Try and keep up will you, Jackson?" Rodney snorted.
"Don't get mad at me if I've had more important things to do with my time than play video games!" Daniel shouted back at him.
"And I haven't?!" Rodney shouted back, looking like he was about to have an aneurysm. "I just had the great luck of having to be stranded here against my will for six years of my life!"
"Okay, okay," Daniel conceded. "I'm sorry. I just never got around to reading the mission reports you and Colonel Shepherd filed when you got back." That was true enough. His own workload was so full, he never had the time even when he had the inclination.
Rodney began to calm down and think. He looked around the room again, trying to get a better sense of it. He then began to snap his fingers and said, "I think I've been here before, actually, in this building."
"You have?" Daniel asked with surprise.
"Yeah, not this room specifically mind you, but this place with Link years ago, or maybe we're here now because of the whole time travel thing. Anyways, we were looking for a linking book back to Earth. I'll bet a week's pay this is the ruins of what they called the Great Palace in Eastern Hyrule." Rodney pronounced. "It was a huge abandoned fortress when we visited it. I think Link once told me it used to be the royal palace in the most ancient of times or something like that."
"Okay. That's a start. So, how can you tell," Daniel asked.
"I can't say for certain, but the design of the chamber kind of looks like it. Each palace tended to have its own architectural style because they were all built in different time periods of Hyrule's history. I guess their taste in interior decorators changed over the millennia. This really reminds me though of the Great Palace."
"Well, that's good then. At least we now have some idea where we are." Daniel said hopefully, "And how to find our way out, right?"
"No, that's bad, I just remembered" Rodney said. "The Great Palace is a maze with no logical order. Rooms don't fit together where they're supposed to. It's almost like there's an extra dimensionality to the place. It took Link and I forever to comb through the place and that was with his 'other memories' as a guide. I have no idea where in the palace we could be."
"Well, then we take a good look around and try to figure it out." Daniel said. "There aren't any windows, so we're most likely in an interior room, or underground. What else can the room itself tell us? Let's start with the carving. You recognized the three women, right? You said they were three Hylian goddesses, right?" Daniel asked. "You said three names. Uh, what were they, Din..?"
Rodney picked it up for him, "Din, Nayru, and Farore. They're supposed to be the three ancient goddesses that first created Hyrule and then left. It's a pretty common depiction in Hylian art, except..." Rodney said looking at the sculpture more critically.
"Except what?" Daniel asked.
"Except they're not usually depicted so lifelike, like real people." Rodney said. "They're usually more streamlined, or more abstract forms."
"Okay, so maybe that's significant." Daniel said, trying to reason it out. "Roman art and Greek art are pretty similar to one another except that Greek art is more idealized, whereas when the Romans started making statues like the Greeks they carved them realistically showing all the flaws of the subject." He walked over to the statue to inspect it more closely. "Rodney, correct me if I'm wrong, I know it's been a while, but didn't Link and Zelda have pointed ears, and high cheekbones?"
"Yeah, they're a real pretty, elvish kind of people, why?" He asked as he also got a better look at the statues. "Wait a minute, these don't look like Hylians at all. Look at the ears, they're rounded like ours, or like the..."
"Ancients." They both said together. Daniel then added, "You said they were Hylian goddesses. Why would a Hylian carve their goddesses to look like a human or an ancient, especially if they'd never seen a human?"
"There are some folks with rounded ears like ours in Hyrule. Out in Ordon province where Link grew up, they look pretty human there." Rodney pointed out, trying to remember. "But that still wouldn't make any sense to make them look so realistically human. Unless..." Rodney's mind started shifting into high gear.
"Unless what?" Daniel asked.
"Unless they were carving images of real people." Rodney said. "That would make this room one of the oldest in Hyrule."
Daniel looked around the chamber again. "Rodney, go stand next to one of those computer consoles for me." He asked him.
"What, why?" Rodney asked.
"Just humor me." Daniel said.
"Okay, fine." He said as he walked the few feet to stand next to the console.
"There, happy?" He asked, gesturing with his hands on his hips. Then the console next to him came to life, and a holographic projection of a computer monitor appeared in the space above the console.
"Oh, wow." Rodney said. "It's responding to my A.T.A. gene. This isn't just an ancient room. It's an Ancient lab." Rodney said.
"Yeah, I was kind of leaning that way myself." Daniel said, trying to keep from smirking.
Ignoring him, Rodney went to work at the console trying to understand what the monitor was telling him. "Hey, would you give me a hand? My Ancient's not as good as it should be." He told Daniel, who came closer to the monitor and began to read the lines of text in front of him. After a few minutes, he pronounced, "well, I think you got what you wished for, Rodney."
"What I wished for? What do you mean? When did I wish to be transported into another reality with you next to me?" Rodney protested.
"You wished to find the Triforce lab. Right before we ended up here." Daniel said.
"I did? Yeah but... but I didn't... I mean... Oh no." Rodney said with comprehension dawning.
"Yep. This is Din, Nayru, and Farore's Triforce lab." Daniel told him.
It's an honor I don't want, John thought to himself, as he lay on the green lawn and watched the stars that night in the courtyard of Hyrule Castle, his childhood home. They were bright through the fast disappearing clouds, and the constellations danced and fought their ways across the heavens for him. He could see his father in those stars fighting the Demon King from ages gone by. "I wish you were here, father." He whispered.
It had been only a few days since the ceremony in Farore's temple. Would it be wrong to consider her his grandmother? He wondered. His father was known as the "son of Farore," so why not? "Why me, grandmother? Why'd you have to tell them to choose me? Talon's the responsible one. And he the oldest." He asked out loud. He received no answer back. He didn't really expect one. She was a goddess after all.
"Your highness?" A familiar deep masculine voice called out. John tried to ignore it.
"Your highness?" The owner of the voice, Hyrule's Supreme Military Commander, came closer.
Fine. John thought. "Yes, Oliver, I'm right here."
"Of course, your highness." The mustachioed older man came to stand next to where his crown prince lay on the grass looking up. Oliver's eyes followed his prince's upwards. "I wouldn't have thought earlier today that we'd be able to see anything tonight. I'm glad I was wrong." He said.
"Care to join me?" John asked him.
"I'm afraid not your highness, I just had these trousers cleaned, and I need to stop in and see your mother, her majesty, before I turn in myself. I only wanted to see where you had gotten to." Oliver's voice then filled with a more paternal concern, "You haven't seemed quite yourself since you returned from the Kokiri forest. Is everything alright?"
John sat up slowly on his elbows. Oliver had been a good man and a good friend for most of his life, in many ways he had been a surrogate father to him. "Why me, Oliver?" He asked him. "Why did they choose me? I don't want to rule. I'm supposed to be governor over all of western Hyrule and I didn't really want that. My brother's better suited for it. He's the one the people really look up to. I would gladly give him the crown."
"I don't pretend to understand the mind of the goddesses, your highness, or those who speak for them. But the Sages must have chosen you over your brother for a good reason." Oliver then crouched down next to the younger, flame haired man who looked so much like the Hero of decades before. "It was a great shock and surprise to me when Colonel Shepherd, a man who had been a hero of mine, recommended me to fill your father's considerably large shoes. For a long time I couldn't understand why when there were braver and better men than me. There are times I still question his wisdom."
"Oliver, you've been one of the bravest, most dedicated soldiers Hyrule has ever known. My mother has often told me how much she has relied on your courage and strength in guiding our land, and how she didn't know how she would manage if you weren't by her side." John told him.
"Yet I have never felt brave, your highness, or strong. I am only a soldier, and I only do what I know the best way I can. The goddesses don't choose those who believe themselves the strongest or the bravest or the wisest. They know better than that. They choose those who are willing, humbly, to serve with all that they have and not give up. Your grandmother, the goddess Farore, or perhaps the Lady Hylia herself must have seen something of your father in you for the Sages to have made that choice." Oliver explained.
"My grandmother..." John repeated, feeling strange at thinking of one of the goddesses of Hyrule's creation in that way.. "Sometimes I wish she would tell me what she wants from me plainly, and not be so mysterious."
"We all wish that, your highness. But then maybe if she did, there would be nothing left for us to learn on our own." Oliver said, then stood up to leave. "Have a good night, your highness. Don't stay up too late. You wouldn't want to miss breakfast again tomorrow. The kitchens are preparing pumpkin pastries."
John chuckled. "And you as well, Oliver." Prince John responded in kind. As Oliver turned to leave, he added sincerely, "And thank you."
The older man gave a more relaxed salute to his prince, and left him to his stargazing to find his queen indoors. The electric lights of the halls seemed very bright to his eyes and he rubbed them vigorously from the sharp pain after his eyes, having adjusted to the dark outside, protested.
There were two, gray uniformed castle guardsmen posted at the entry to the wing of the castle wherein lie the royal apartments. He stopped to ask them of the queen's whereabouts.
"Her majesty has been in her private chapel, sir." One of the guardsmen replied. "She was going there only half an hour ago."
Oliver thanked the man and strode towards the chapel at the far end of the castle wing where the royal residence lay. His own apartments lay in a different part of the palace, but near enough to where he could be present in a hurry when called upon. He paused as he passed the sealed private chambers of the last Supreme Commander, the Hero of Hyrule. He gave a small, personal salute with nodded head. It was his own particular practice of respect, acknowledging that he could never replace the great man who had fallen. He had taken up the role of protecting, and even nurturing where he could, the Hero's family in his absence. It was, in his mind, an unspoken promise he had made to the Hero to take care of them, all of them, not just as a matter of his profession, but also personally.
His silent devotion finished, he continued down the stone hall adorned with portraits of the Heroes and Royal monarchs of Hyrule's long history towards the small chapel dedicated to all the gods and not any one god or goddess of Hyrule in particular as the great temples were.
The chapel was a relatively recent addition to the castle, commissioned by the queen herself not long after she ascended the throne. It was adorned with devout icons and images denoting each of Hyrule's deities including the Lady Hylia, and a small alcove where a portrait of the Hero sat. No electric lights had been installed in it. Feeling that they detracted from the sanctity of the place, the queen insisted that candles be kept lit in honor of the divine presences. Up high and around the walls of the chapel were stained glass images of the stories of Hyrule's creation, the incarnations of the Hero and the Princess Zelda, and of course the Sacred Triforce was etched, carved, or painted everywhere one looked.
As Olive quietly entered the sacred space, he spied the long, soft ginger braid of his queen kneeling at the front altar in prayer. Not wishing to disturb her, he piously took a seat in one of the small wooden pews and inclined his own head to prayerfully gather his thoughts. In the quiet of the chapel he could not help but overhear her words.
"I wish you were here." She said. "It has been so long, and I still miss you terribly. I don't know how to counsel our boys now. They both appeared to accept the Sage's decision gracefully, but I know John. He doesn't want it. Talon said nothing, but he seemed so distant after the Forest Temple. He said everything was fine, and he was content with his position. Maybe it is just a mother's intuition, but something doesn't seem right. Please, my love, give me some counsel on how to speak to them both. Could the Sages have made a mistake? Have you ever known them to make mistakes?"
She continued for several more minutes before rising and turning towards to entry door, the soft glow of the candlelight reflecting off of her face, giving her an otherworldly divine glow. Except for the few silver streaks which now ran through her hair, he could not tell that she had aged a day since her coronation twenty years ago. Great goddesses, she is a beautiful woman, Oliver couldn't stop himself from thinking. Of course it was a sentiment he would never voice openly to anyone, not the way his mind and heart meant it.
"Oh, Oliver! I'm sorry, I didn't know you were there, forgive me, I was just... I was just..." She searched for the words to describe what she had been doing.
Oliver spared her from having to go any farther. "No need, your majesty. I didn't want to interrupt your evening devotions." He said as he rose from his seat to stand in front of her. It hadn't been the first time he had found her like this, though her eyes always lit up in embarrassed surprise when she finally realized he was present. He wondered if it had become something of an unspoken game between them. "I just wanted to check and see if you required anything before I turned in for the night myself."
"You're always so kind to me, Oliver." She genuinely smiled, almost girlishly, and it was his joy to see that smile that he had never seen her show anyone else for as long as he had held his position. She fidgeted with her hands as she spoke to him. "Have you seen John tonight?"
"His highness was in the courtyard watching the stars," Oliver told her. "He was still in a mood about the Sages' choice. I wasn't entirely sure what to say, so I told him the truth, that the goddesses must have seen something of his father in him to make the choice they did." His tone of voice changed, and became more gentle and familiar than he would have ever used had they not been alone. "He will be fine, my queen. He's grown into a good man, as has Talon. You've done well in raising them both."
"We've done well, Oliver." Malon replied. "I couldn't have raised them without you there to guide them. Thank you for that. Thank you for always being there for us. I don't know what I would have done if... if..." She stopped herself, realizing that she stood only inches from him now. She was then surprised to find her hand had gone to his arm in an affectionate touch, and she quickly pulled it away and down, looking confused and furiously fidgeting with her fingers again.
"Of course, your majesty." Oliver said, knowing it would never, and could never go farther than this. That was the pact and the promise he had made. "I will always be here for you... and for the boys." He whispered loud enough for her to hear, and no one else that might be passing by.
"Good night, Oliver." She replied back to him, a small smile still on her lips, but fear and confusion in her eyes. "Sleep well."
"And you, your majesty." He gave a slight bow, taking her hand in a chivalrous manner, gently and chastely kissing her fingers as he did with every other "good night." And then he left the chapel for his own apartments
No one would have considered it an inappropriate gesture. Many of her ministers and avowed lords and knights did the same thing on a daily basis. But as he walked away, her heart felt betrayed and vulnerable. It was uncomfortable, and there were times she wished he wouldn't be so chivalrous. But not once had she ever stopped the brief brush of his brown and silver mustache against her fingers. She didn't know why, and she wouldn't allow herself to examine her own feelings in order to learn.
After about an hour of perusing the files, Rodney pronounced, "Dammit."
"What's wrong?" Daniel asked, after translating a few things for Rodney he seemed to be able to pick up the rest on his own so he took some time investigating the rest of the room. It was relatively small for a lab. It was only about thirty feet by thirty feet by Daniel's estimate. It did house a couple of Ancient computer consoles, as well as a set of devices that looked painfully similar to the ones he himself had used under the Ancient Merlin's guidance to build the sangraal device used to destroy ascended beings. Not that he could use them now for anything. This equipment, he knew, could only be used by someone who was pre-ascendent.
"All the data's here. Everything we need to build a Triforce is right here in this room. We could build one right now and wish ourselves home if we wanted." Rodney said.
"But?" Daniel asked.
"But," Rodney continued, "it requires either a real Ancient or an ascended being to do it. As marvelously evolved as my particular brain is...," he paused, not seeming to want to finish the sentence.
Daniel finished it for him tactfully. "It requires a being who is capable of ascending to operate."
"Yes, thank you. Or someone who's already done it." Rodney added, trying to wrap his head around it. "I mean, if I could just take the data with me and upload it into the device we've got back in Atlantis I could write a program to do it for us like I did with the sangraal jewel, but I've got nothing to take any of it with us except my notebook and pencil, and even I can't memorize every single precise placement of every molecule of this thing. I mean this takes complexity to a whole new level."
"So, no getting out of here by wishing our way back." Daniel concluded.
"What? Oh yeah, uh... no. But," he continued hopefully, "there is a map of the building in the database that should be easy enough to follow as long as we follow it exactly, and don't make too many assumptions about three dimensional space."
"Oh good." Daniel said. He had stopped wondering how he found himself in these kinds of situations a long time before this. "Any ideas of where to go for help once we get to the outside?"
"Well, the only other place I know of that can get us home is the Temple of Time in western Hyrule. We'll just have to hope Impa, or whoever the Sage of Time is now is in a good mood." Rodney said.
"Well, I'm encouraged." Daniel retorted.