Isn't it amazing what listening to a soundtrack can do for your inspiration?
Four years ago, a hero came out of nowhere and sealed Ganondorf away in the Sacred Realm.
Then he disappeared, never to be seen again.
--
Link sat on the castle steps, the rain plastering his hair to his head. A roll of thunder startled him from his reverie, and he looked up to see a bolt of lightning iluminate the form of a messenger.
"Hoi! You, there! Give this le'er to the king!"
Link grabbed the letter, and the messenger spun around and took off towards Castle Town.
--
Daphnes read and re-read the letter, his brow furrowing.
"What is it, father?"
That was Zelda, Link's secret (according to the two of them) girlfriend.
The king gave the letter another read before passing the parchment to Zelda.
"My king," she read aloud, "it is with deep concern that I must once again inform you of the flooding of the lake region. Five hundred Zora have already been driven out of their homes by the flood, and I fear that, if no action is taken, the Great Forest may follow suit. Please, my king, I am begging you, send aid. Yours, ever faithfully, Saria, Sage of Forest."
Zelda folded the letter up and looked to Daphnes.
"What do we do, father?"
The old king sighed and stroked his beard, deep in thought.
"Link, get parchment and ink, and take this down. To all citizens of the kingdom of Hyrule..."
--
"My king!"
The guard ran in, dripping water everywhere.
"My king, the Lon-Lons have arrived at the gates! They say the floodwaters threaten the cliff their farm is perched upon!"
Zelda gasped. "What about the Kokiri? If the waters are threatening the Ranch, then the Forest mst have been flooded already!"
The guard held up a gauntleted hand. "Fear not, milady. I have it on good authority that, despite their beliefs, the Kokiri were evacuated to Kakariko in time. Barely," he added as an afterthought.
Link frowned. "The goddesses appear to be angry with us. But for what reason, I'm not sure."
Daphnes nodded his head. "The floods are the work of this blasted year-long rainstorm we're in. I'll give it two days, and if it doesn't show any sign of stopping, I'm ordering all citizens to make for Death Mountain."
--
Four days had passed since the Lon-Lons arrived at Castle Gate. Much of Castle Town had been emptied, and its citizens moved to Kakariko.
Link ran through the town square, checking all the buildings for any remaining Hylians.
"Hello!? Is anyone in here!? Hey! Hello!?"
There was a loud splash and a dull thud.
"The waters," Link gasped.
He hopped on his rain-soaked mare and took off toward the castle.
--
"The waters are at the gates!"
Zelda looked up, startled at the soaking young man running up the stairs.
"The waters have hit the drawbridge. I heard themsplashing, and I could have sworn the water I was standing in got higher. Anyone left here is stranded. There's no way out now."
Zelda let her tears flow.
"Hey, princess. Don't you think we've got enoug water to be worried about?"
A soft hand wiped her tears away.
"We'll make it through. We always do."
Zelda tilted her head into his warm hand. "Link, I'm afraid," she whimpered. "I don't want to die. I don't want to fall victim to the Three's wrath."
Link kneeled down in front of her and gently pressed his lips to hers. "I promise. Neither of us will die. I promise."
"Link, I--" she paused, "--I want to see the town square. As a girl. Just this once."
Link looked into her eyes.
"Okay."
--
Fifteen minutes later, Zelda stood in the Town Square, the rain plastering her dress to her arms and legs.
"Link, it's beautiful. I've never been down here by myself before..."
Link leaned against a building, his cloak drawn tight about him, and laughed.
"Having fun in Hyrule's time of darkness?" he asked, jokingly.
There was a sudden,violent gust of wind and a loud crack.
Link loked up at the castle path and saw rock rolling down the hill towards them.
"Zelda! C'mere!"
He pushed open the nearest door and motioned for her to run inside. He followed suit, not a moment too soon, as the rocks flew over the spot where he had just been standing.
--
"Link? What is it?"
Link grabbed any cloth he could find and pushed it into the cracks between the door adn the frame.
"We're stuck here. Castle Path is blocked, and the Water's at the gates."
Zelda sat down on the bed and sobbed.
"Hey, none of that. We'll be fine. I promised, didn't I?"
"The promise of one man can't hold back the violence of the Three."
Link sat down next to her and held her close.
"You're right. It can't."
He kicked up his legs and pulled the princess down to lay next to him.
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
--
In the far south of Hyrule, a violent wind picked up.
A wind that the land hadnot seen since its creation.
Farore's Great Breath.
--
Link-Goron pounded his fists against the great drum. Dozens of Goron took up the call.
"Everyone! Up the mountain! A Great Wave is coming! Up the mountain! Quickly!"
Startled citizens dropped their possessions, grabbed the nearest children, theirs or not, and hurried up the mountain pass to Goron City.
--
Zelda shivered in Link's embrace. He pulled the bedsheets over them both. He felt her moving under the sheets and stuck his head under.
Her response was to throw her sodden dress on the floor beside the bed.
"Link, I don't want to die a-- well, you know."
Link's ears went red.
"Are you sure?"
She nodded.
"As I'll ever be."
Link pulled off his own tunic and pulled the covers higher.
"Take me, my sweet hero."
--
Daphnes kneeled before the statue of the Triforce.
Please, goddesses, spare me and my people.
He repeated the same pray over and over again, and just as he was about to giveup hope and wait for the end, a faint voice echoed back.
"We hear your plea, Daphnes Nohansen Hyrule, and will spare your people on the mountain, as well as yourself."
As if saying "But that is all we shall do," the statue shattered into tiny pieces and scattered across the floor.
Daphnes trudged slowly back to his throne and looked out the open doors. In the distance, he could see the great blue wave drawing closer to the city.
--
Link held Zelda close. She murmured in her sleep, but he hushed her back to her own fantasy land.
Off in the distance, he could hear screams and crunches and cracks.
He pulled Zelda close and closed his eyes.
"I'm sorry, my love."
--
Darunia and Link-Goron hauled the giant stone doors of Goron City shut in the nick of time. Water spurted in through tiny cracks, but was quickly stopped by the Gorons' hands. Sixty-ten Hylians were safe.
Over ten-hundred had come up the mountain.
Seven days and seven nights, they waited in the near-darkness of the city.
On the eighth day, they heard birds squwking faintly outside the stone doors. Slowly, Link-Goron pried them open and stepped out into the sunlight.
Water as far as the eye could see. Islands, too. No sign of the castle, of the city, or the Forest.
No sign of the other forty-ten Hylians who had climbed the mountain.
Darunia let out a roar of agony. "Bring me the king, the princess, even!"
The call went out, and less than a minute after Darunia asked for the royals, he heard the news.
"Neither of them are here, Great One."
"Link, then! Bring me someone who was royalty or close to it!"
Another minute.
"No sign of Link either, Great One. The only other royalty is you."
Darunia howled with grief and looked out over the water.
"Rest their souls, the fools."
He tore a stone off his back and tossed it out into the ocean as far as he could.
"Rest their souls."
Over the next several days, the Goron and Hylians went about carvng what little wood they could find into makeshift paddleboats. The Hylians could resettle on the various islands. The Goron would keep their destination a closely guarded secret.
No one knew what became of the Zora, or the Hylian Royal Family.
--
Far above the world, Link sat up. He looked around at the white stone, and at the blond-haired angel lying in the bed next to him.
Zelda stirred.
"Link, where are we"
"The Three heard your father's pleas and spared you from the world of death."
Link and Zelda turned to look at the red, blue and green figures.
"Why? Why did you flood our lands? Why did you kill innocents?"
"The Three have seen that the land has never truly healed since Ganondorf's evil reign."
"So? You didn't have to wipe it clean and start over! You could have saved some," Link spat.
Zelda tugged at Link's arm and pointed downwards.
"Link, I think they did."
Link looked down and gasped. Dozens of islands were scattered among the waters, and from one of them..
"Boats? Then there were survivors?"
"Goron and Hylian alike."
Link sighed and sat down on a chair he could have sworn wasn't there a second ago.
"Will we ever be able to go back and live a full life?"
"The Three will grant you that wish when the time is right. However, you will be returned without any memories of your past life, or this place. We will return when that time comes."
The three figures faded and left Link and Zelda watching over the Great Sea.
"I wonder what will happen to them. The survivors, I mean."
Zelda sat down next to him and gently stroked his cheek.
"They'll learn to live with the water."
He smiled at her.
"Link, why do you think we're here, in this place, to live as long as we want?"
Link smiled. "I promised, didn't I?"
--
Far below the waves, Daphnes Nohansen Hyrule sat on his throne, a look of fear on his frozen face.
--
So, that's that...
I'm not really sure where this came from...
At the time of writing, I don't even have a title for it...
1569 words marks this as my longest one-shot ever (that I'm satisfied with).
I was listening to "Hymn to the Sea" when I wrote this. Fitting, yes?