The air crackled with electricity and magical energy, casting an otherwordly violet sheen across the pale stones of Hyrule Castle's pale walls. The tendrils of magic formed and converged slowly, twirling softly as they began to meet upon a central point.
A sentry, dressed in decorated armor, snapped his attention to the strange sight as it began to hum with growing intensity. His eyes narrowed in confusion and suspicion; he knew some things about magic, and therefore recognized its signature glow. However, he'd never actually witnessed it in action, and that was what, inevitably, killed him.
A sudden sizzling sound split the air as the dark light found a life force to devour. The sentry didn't even have time to feel fear properly before the magic had used his body's energy for its own purposes. The colors ceased to exist and became the absence of light, a black, amorphous mass that gyrated upon itself in a similar fashion to that of the fabled Like-Likes of the mountains. The mass did not make a sound, but its movements suggested that it was in some sort of pain; it writhed upon itself piteously upon the ground, confused and desperate to find definition.
A tall, cloaked figure slid from the darkness of night to look down upon the unholy creature. The man's expression and face could not be seen, for his hood was up and the shadow lay across his features. He waved a black-gloved hand impatiently and a single hair, blonde in color and short in length, landed among the quivering waves of the creature's body. This made it freeze and vibrate rapidly before wrapping in upon itself, twisting its own shape and solidifying into something else. The man watched impassively as the creature morphed into a more defined form, a body.
Its eyes were pinpoints of glowing crimson, its mouth gaping with warped teeth; limbs pointed in skewed directions, and ribs jutted out of its forming torso like a grotesque version of a sculptor's unfinished work. The blackness of it began to melt away, first turning sanguine, then fatty yellow; finally, a light flesh tone. The thing panted with its new lungs and blinked with its fresh eyes. The transformation was finished.
The thing stood up, naked as a newborn babe. It locked its gaze forward, now the image of beauty and perfection.
"Master," it murmured with a man's lips and smooth tenor voice.
The sorcerer made no comment, but turned away from the man born from darkness to melt into the shadows once more. The creature followed obediently.
He was doing this for his village.
Link Forester swept a hand through his messy blonde locks to swipe a bit of the sweat from them, a crude but effective sword gripped between the fingers of his left hand. Worn fingerless gloves adorned his hands and went up his forearm, the leather scarred from numerous practice sessions such as this. He was in the castle sparring grounds again, allowed in as an open invitation to all who wished to compete for the princess's hand in marriage.
Marriage-to some woman I don't know, let alone love, he thought bitterly.
The young man's brows furrowed over intense cerulean eyes. This exact thing was what had been bothering him for several weeks now, since his village had begged him to go try out in the tournament to 'win' Princess Zelda as a wife and to become the steward King. Rumor had it that it was the Princess's idea, since the stuffy advisors and royal staff kept trying to press frilly princes as husbands upon the recently coronated Zelda. She couldn't be called 'Queen' until she married, however... a very old-fashioned and sexist idea, but tradition nevertheless.
It was the fact that Link was competing for her under false pretenses that bothered him so badly. If it wasn't for the village... if he didn't desperately need money and commerce for the people he loved and saw every day, he wouldn't have competed at all.
Link grunted as he sat heavily upon a stone bench, ignoring the clanging and shouting around him. Sure, nearly everyone wanted to marry the princess just to become king, but Link would never feel right about it. He hadn't told anyone, but he believed strongly that marriage was about finding a good, kind woman that he could fall in love with, court, and marry, upholding promises to her and having children that they would raise up to be honest and just. Competing for the hand of a woman he'd never even seen in person was crushing his heart very slowly. He would be forced to resign to this woman, this frilly monarch who probably couldn't even look at a grubby dog without fainting.
He snorted in amusement, trying to imagine a dainty woman (he truly had no idea what Zelda even looked like, so he substituted in a girl from his imagination) putting a gloved hand on her head and falling backwards as a cute, muddy puppy looked up at her with adoring eyes.
Feeling disgusted with himself and the whole situation, Link angrily sheathed his sword, cursing under his breath. He pulled off his gear with the intention of visiting the royal stables when movement above him caught his eye.
A woman stood upon an ornately decorated balcony, the stone carved out of alabaster or something similar. The wind blew her long hair away from a delicately sculpted face, revealing the fine features of a lovely female. She had full lips, slanted, dreamy eyes full of intelligence, a dainty nose. Her ears were Hylian, of course, with pointed tips that poked out of her hair. She was leaning against the balcony siding, her hands unconsciously gripping the edge. Her dress hugged her slender figure and hid her legs from view, though the tips of small feet clad in slippers were visible. She seemed to be thinking about something as she stared off into the sky, perhaps something important or troubling. A tiny line formed a frown between her brows and made Link want to march right up there and make her smile for him.
The wind changed direction slightly and moved to reveal a golden tiara atop her head, and suddenly Link felt his stomach turn to ice. He absently remembered that one of the boys from Ordon told him that Princess Zelda was rumored to be the most beautiful woman in Hyrule, though he'd dismissed it at the time. Link knew now that this was no exaggeration.
Warmth surged in his heart; first, from the realization that he'd be fighting for a woman he admired, and second, from the heat of battle-lust and determination. If anything else, he wanted to know exactly what lay beyond that serious but beautiful face and those mysterious eyes.