He took one last look at himself in the mirror: blonde hair, blue eyes and pale skin – that was all he recognized. His head felt terribly empty without some kind of hat on it, and from the neck down…

Well, suffice it to say that this was the most uncomfortable outfit he had ever worn – and that was really saying something!

The only saving grace of the horrid suit was that it was technically green – an almost sickly shade, in his opinion, that was two steps from being either grey or brown. Nothing like the bright, grass-like hue he preferred, but good luck finding men's formalwear in that colour – or, if you did, good luck being taken seriously in it. He'd take what he could get.

Noticing the direction of his own thoughts, he rolled his eyes: who cares? He already looked plenty "sharp" enough, as the current slang went; any more would be pointless unless he was trying to manufacture the slightest of edges in competition for a date, and the only person he was interested in in that way wouldn't care if he dressed in rags.

That is, if she was-

He shook his head, cutting off the thought. He'd been through this enough times – on both sides – for that worry to be groundless: even in the worst-case scenario…

Okay, in the very worst-case scenario he'd have bigger fish to fry, but the fact remained that his first impressions on her wouldn't matter in the end.

Still, societal pressures were hard to resist, so he drew a brush through his hair a few more times before deeming himself ready.

"Thinking of a special someone?"

He blinked, and directed his gaze towards the middle-aged man sitting across from him (whose face was strikingly familiar, and with good reason), who was now smiling at him expectantly.

"Ah, no, just…looking at the city."

"Aw, come on, son; you're 18! Don't tell me you've never looked at a girl and-"

"Da-aad!" The young man interrupted him, eliciting a chuckle.

"Okay, okay," his father relented, and the pair lapsed naturally back into silence.

My family's not much for talking, of course, the young man thought. Some things never change. Others, however…

He looked back out the window, remembering the first (and only other) time he'd been to the city, six years ago. On that occasion, he had spent most of the inbound train ride with his face pressed excitedly against the glass, trying to soak in as much detail of the skyline as possible as it grew in his vision. Now, seeing it with new eyes, he was more sombre, but also even more awed than before. His mind was filled with one simple question, one which he hoped she would be able to answer for him, because he'd had no luck so far:

How?

As the distinguished-looking but still-burly bouncer found their names on the guest list, the young man reminded himself that, technically, he didn't know that she would be at this gathering. But he and she seemed to have a way of finding each other, and if this wasn't a good opportunity for that, he didn't know what was.

So he was entirely unsurprised when, after splitting off from his father, entering the party's main room, and spending mere seconds gazing out across it, he caught sight of her.

He recognized her clothes before her face, but only because she was turned away from him at first. Gold hair fasteners and earrings, white gloves, and a dress which was purple on top and white on the bottom, with more gold patterns and trim in various places; there was no doubt.

Lucky, he thought. She gets to wear her favourite outfit, while I feel like a Thanksgiving turkey!

Then she turned towards him, and his complaints immediately faded away.

She noticed him as quickly as he had her, and as their eyes met, she broke into a wide smile to match the one he had just noticed that he himself was wearing. He loved that smile of hers, lived for it.

After a few seconds, she glanced to his right, then back at him, then gestured subtly to that side with her head and eyes. Following her gaze, he saw a sliding door leading out onto a sparsely-populated rooftop garden. He looked back at her and nodded slightly, then started making his way towards the door.

Once outside, a quick glance allowed him to pinpoint and then claim a particularly empty stretch of railing, where he spent several seconds looking out across the city. At the sound of footsteps, he turned to see her approaching, a drink in each hand. He was fairly certain that one was wine (he couldn't stand the stuff, though he knew she was quite fond of it); the other he was equally certain he had never seen before.

He spoke before she could, tone light with faux-formality: "Begging your pardon, ma'am, but if doing so would not paint me as a fool I would say that, though I know it to be false, I was sure that you and I had met before, in a past life or some such."

She gave a short laugh. "Oh, shut up and drink this." Crossing the final few metres between them, she held out the mystery drink.

He accepted it with a raised eyebrow as she took up a position beside him, and they both turned to face the skyline. "Not going to tell me what it is?"

"I want you to be surprised."

He shrugged. "Alright then." Temporarily switching to a language nearly as old as the land itself, he raised the glass and said, "To a new dawn."

"And the day it brings," she replied easily in the same language, completing their (entirely redundant, in this case) 'secret handshake.' They clinked glasses, then drank.

His eyebrows rose at the taste. "Mm!" He took a second gulp. "Wow. You must tell me what's in this, now. Rum?" he guessed.

She nodded. "The drink's called a 'rum and cola.' I thought you might like it."

"I most certainly do! You know me too well." He took another sip. "Speaking of which, how long have you been fully awake?"

Her smile faded. "Almost a year now."

His eyebrows rose again, and his voice softened. "No way. It's only been four months for me." He transferred his drink to his other hand in order to take hold of hers, knowing that even that simple touch would bring them both great comfort. He had originally intended to hide his apparently-at-first-sight affection from any prying eyes, as usual, but this took priority. In fact, it was only with some difficulty that he refrained from hugging her. To remember, and yet be apart, for almost an entire year…

For a while, they said nothing, content just to be together again.

Finally, he broke the silence. "So, did you get a different name this time, too?"

She nodded. "Xena."

"Mine's Luke."

"Nice to meet you, Luke," she deadpanned. He let go of her hand to give her a gentle retaliatory shove. She giggled.

"Well," he continued, "I'm a farm boy, as usual, but you…" he trailed off expectantly.

She nodded. "My father is the majority shareholder in the company that owns all the farms around this city, probably including yours."

"William Thompson?"

"Mm-hmm, the one and only."

"That's a yes, then." He took another sip of his drink as she went on.

"Indeed; not quite a princess, but probably the closest thing there is in this world." She paused. "Ah. Speak of the devil."

"Hmm," he replied nonverbally. This topic of conversation related directly to the one he was most eager to discuss, but apparently that would have to wait. They both remained silent as footsteps approached; promptly, a deep male voice spoke up.

"Xena, my dear. Would you care to introduce me to your companion?"

They turned, and both immediately recognized the speaker; one from daily interaction, the other from photos.

'Luke' took in the situation at a glance (including the dozen-or-so other partygoers surreptitiously watching the exchange), and decided to take the initiative. He stepped forward, smiling, hand outstretched.

"Luke Davis, sir. It's an honour to meet you. I believe my father Harry runs one of your farms? Small world, isn't it."

Mr. Thompson had intended to intimidate the lad, but was disarmed by his confidence and courtesy. After a slight hesitation, he shook hands.

"Ah, yes…" Then his brain finished parsing the young man's words. "I say, did you say 'Davis?'" According to reports, Harry Davis was among his most reliable employees.

"I did, sir."

"…Well, then." He glanced towards his daughter, then back. Like 'Luke,' he was all too aware of their audience. "I was planning on inquiring as to your intentions, but with you being the son of Harry Davis, it appears that I needn't have bothered."

'Luke' briefly bowed his head in gratitude. "Again, I'm honoured, sir."

'Xena' spoke up: "You are correct, father; Luke has been nothing but a gentleman. I assure you, you may put your mind at ease on this matter."

Mr. Thompson chuckled. "Well, I suppose there's no arguing with that. I'll leave you two alone. It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Davis."

"The pleasure was all mine, sir," 'Luke' answered as the pseudo-patriarch began to turn and walk away. After a moment, he and 'Xena' turned back to the skyline.

"Didn't want to cause a scene?" he guessed.

She nodded. "Exactly. He's not that accepting of you; he just wanted to abort the conversation before he got tripped up. Still, you made a solid first impression." She smirked. "You definitely caught him off-guard, and I don't think he realized that you did it on purpose. Well done."

"It seems that even a lunkhead like me can learn, eh? Slowly, of course." His last words contained a generous helping of sarcasm.

"Of course." Her tone matched his.

He took another swallow, then brought the conversation around to the place he'd been wanting it to go from the beginning: "And on the topic of change, how about we address the elephant in the room?" His voice grew serious, and he gestured to the cityscape all around them: skyscrapers as far as the eye could see. "What happened? How long has it been? Ten thousand years? Fifty thousand?" He shook his head. "I don't think I've felt this lost upon awakening since the very first time."

She nodded. "I know what you mean. And," she took a deep breath, "to be honest, I've spent most of my fully-awake free time working on it and I still haven't figured it out. I do, however, have a few ideas." She took a large gulp of her wine, paused to order her thoughts, and continued: "According to current histories, there was a period, from about three hundred to two hundred years ago, which is now known as the Enlightenment, so-called because it heralded an abrupt, radical shift in social norms. Henceforth, the most socially-valued personal characteristic became proficiency in thought and reasoning, and the most-valued occupation became the use of those skills to uncover new knowledge; specifically, using a variety of techniques that were eventually compiled and codified as "the scientific method." With these techniques, one could – metaphorically speaking – direct questions regarding the nature of reality towards Nature itself, and comprehend the answers one received. And my goodness, did the people ask!"

She took another sip of wine. "Ever since, society's total store of knowledge of the workings of the universe has been growing at a phenomenal rate, and hardly a decade goes by without at least one spectacular piece of technological innovation built on recent discoveries. The taming of steam and electricity, mass-production, automobiles and trains. The germ theory of disease, the atomic theory of matter, the discovery of tectonic plates. Universal gravitation and the three axiomatic laws of motion. The entire discipline of chemistry. Algebra, calculus, probability theory, advanced geometry. Formal logic. The list goes on!" She shook her head. "I'd wonder whether there's even very much left to learn, except that the rate at which these discoveries are being made still isn't even slowing down! It's mind-boggling!"

He took the chance to jump in. "Okay, okay." He had heard some of this before, and she was being overly verbose. "I get it: knowledge is awesome. But-"

She held up a hand. "Wait, I'm not quite finished. What I haven't yet mentioned is that, just before the Enlightenment, there was some kind of catastrophic event. And besides the fact that it hit the entire world, no one knows what it was. No historical artifacts dating from during it have ever been found, and what little there is from soon afterward suggests that even then nobody knew what had happened."

She turned to him. "And there are two ways in which these events are relevant to us in particular. Firstly, you have to understand that the people alive at the time of the Enlightenment investigated all aspects of reality. Everything…including magic. And do you know what they found on that front?"

He had a sneaking suspicion, but declined to voice it. "What?"

"Nothing. All of the stories of magical powers and beings that everyone at the time remembered hearing from their elders…To everyone's astonishment, when they attempted to probe the nature of those phenomena, they found that they couldn't even demonstrate that said phenomena existed. Any person or object purported to have magical abilities was quickly exposed as a fraud, and eventually, the very ideas of magic, gods and goddesses, other realms, and so forth were relegated to children's stories. Now, professing belief in their existence will draw almost as much ridicule as claiming that the world is flat. And can you blame them? All of the information-gathering anyone ever did pointed to that conclusion."

"But…" he began, then held out his hand, palm up. A golf-ball-sized fiery sphere came into existence seemingly out of nowhere in the air just above it.

"Indeed, that was my initial reaction as well." She gestured subtly towards the fireball, and a gold ring appeared around it. Then she gazed into his eyes. "And it brings me to my point: it appears that we are the last."

He temporarily suppressed the enormity of that statement. There was something else he had to get straight first: "The…two of us?" he asked suggestively, while allowing the fireball to dissipate.

"Ah," she replied, banishing her ephemeral ring as well. "Yes, well, on that front, no definitive news. At the very least, he hasn't declared himself yet. There are several people I think he could be, but none of them are showing any of his telltale tendencies. Either he's hiding himself very well, or he's still half- or fully asleep. Or – and you know I don't normally entertain this possibility, but these are extenuating circumstances – the reality could be more…optimistic."

"Meaning, he either accidentally killed himself off for real, or learned the error of his ways?" 'Luke' obviously didn't buy it.

"I know, I know. But it's possible that he was trying to do something big. Bigger than anything even he'd done before, and it backfired massively, enough to completely destroy him and cause the catastrophe that preceded the Enlightenment. It's even possible that we were involved, and for some reason decided to erase our own memories of that entire day."

"That seems…"

"Incredibly far-fetched, I know. I don't believe it myself; I'm just saying that it's possible."

He rolled his eyes. "Alright, fine. And the second reason the Enlightenment is important to us?"

"Remember how I said that there were no known historical artifacts from during the catastrophe? Well, it's actually…a lot worse than that." She looked away, then back at him. "There are…no artifacts from before the catastrophe, either."

There was a pause.

"Wait…are you saying…?"

She nodded seriously. "Yes. The historical record beyond three hundred years has been completely wiped clean. There are almost as many rumours as there are people spouting them, but none even remotely resemble anything I remember." She took a deep breath to steady herself. "Our kingdom – our world – is gone; all knowledge of its existence has been lost to the ages. Not even its name, let alone yours or mine, survived."

Abruptly, he had to cling to the railing for support. After a few seconds, he realized that she had put an arm around him; he reciprocated, his drink forcing him to trade the railing for her shoulders.

For a long while, they just stood there, staring into each other's eyes. Neither one spoke; they knew each other too well, had been together too long, for words to be necessary. They could read each other's faces as easily as letters on a page, and so they both knew that they both knew the pain that this revelation was causing him, and that hers – dormant from how long ago she had made the same discovery – was being brought back to the surface.

And so, as they had many times before, they held each other in silence, each drawing comfort and strength from the other's mere presence.

Finally, as he was beginning to come to terms with the enormity of what he'd just learned, something else occurred to him. "Wait, what about the other races?"

The pain showing on her face increased.

"No…" he breathed.

She nodded, and spoke, voice shaky and barely above a whisper: "I don't know whether the catastrophe wiped them all out, or whether they were already gone, but…as far as the rest of the world is concerned, no other sapient species has ever existed."

His breath caught. He swallowed, with difficulty due to the lump that had suddenly formed in his throat. He took multiple deep breaths.

Then he sobbed a few times.

Now, this was a man who had witnessed far more than his fair share of tragedies in his day, and he always got teary-eyed when the time allotted to someone he cared about ran out (a situation he ultimately had to face with regard to everyone but his beloved), but this…this took the cake. All those lives…Not only the lives that may have been snuffed out by whatever catastrophe had befallen the world, but also the uncountable number of lives over hundreds of generations that had been dedicated to helping build up the cultures and nations in which they had lived. The ultimate result of all of their combined labour, either fallen to ruin or annihilated in a span of time that might as well have been the blink of an eye; and either way, their former glories destroyed so thoroughly that not even legends of them persisted. And for what?

"Why?" he croaked. Then he coughed, downed the rest of his drink, and tried again. "Why?" He stared deeply into the eyes of the one person who would always be there for him, who now had the telltale sign of a tear having rolled down her cheek, and implored her, wordlessly but desperately.

She laid a hand on his cheek, not caring who saw. "I don't know," she said simply. "But…there is another missing piece to the puzzle."

He sniffed. "Hm?"

"Consider this question: why did the Enlightenment happen when it did?"

"The catastrophe?" he guessed. She moved her hand from his face back to his shoulder.

"Yes, it would make sense to suspect that the two events are connected, but that's not what I meant." Despite the sombre mood, her eyes gleamed with excitement. "Even without any catastrophe, why didn't the Enlightenment happen sooner?"

She paused for a response. He stared at her, uncomprehending.

"Think about it," she pressed, squeezing his shoulder now. "What fuelled the Enlightenment? Imagination, creativity, curiosity. Things we all already had! So why didn't it happen earlier? Millennia earlier, even! Think back: there's always been an abundance of people using those skills to create art, but did anybody ever use those exact same skills to actually make our lives better, by – oh, I don't know – inventing things?! That practically never happened. Why?!"

This time, when she paused, his eyes widened as realization dawned. "Oh. Oh. But…what…How…?"

She answered his unfinished questions. "There's only one power I can think of that could prevent something like the Enlightenment for so long without anyone noticing: the Goddesses."

He took a second to sort through the various pantheons – real and imaginary – worshipped by various cultures throughout history. "You mean, The Goddesses?"

"Exactly. Remember how the legends always said that, after the Goddesses created the world, they left it alone except for special occasions when the need was dire? Well what if that wasn't true? What if they continued to wield their influence subtly through the minds of all people at all times, to prevent this kind of intellectual revolution?"

He shook his head. "But that still doesn't answer the question of why they stopped said influence now, plus it brings up the question of why they prevented progress in the first place."

"I've got a guess about that," she replied without breaking stride. "They were initially concerned that Farore might have done too well in one aspect of her job of creating the races: making us too smart. Smart enough to destroy ourselves if we were allowed to move at top speed towards reaching our full technological potential. So they held us back for our own good."

"Then," she quickly continued, not allowing him to speak, "in an event which may be related to whatever the catastrophe was, the Goddesses reversed their earlier decision, for one of several similar but nevertheless importantly different reasons. The simpler cases involve their original judgement of us as too smart for our own good being in error – or at least possibly so – and after all this time they either finally realized their mistake or just couldn't bear to see their beloved people so handicapped any longer."

While hearing this, a small part of 'Luke's' brain noted the oddity of hearing the possibility of divine beings being fallible discussed so casually, never mind the fact that every misfortune that had ever befallen anyone technically constituted a failure on the part of whatever benevolent gods existed. Still, a screw-up on the scale being proposed was pretty far-fetched.

But the not-quite-princess was still speaking. "The other possibility I've thought of is where things get really interesting." She finished her own drink; her eyes were positively blazing now, and the tempo of her speech had been steadily rising over the past few sentences. "Notice that it was only scientific and technological development which were held back; culture was still allowed to evolve and progress. So what if we were held back not because we were too smart, but because we just weren't civilized enough yet. Remember the fake magicians in the early years of the Enlightenment? What I didn't mention is that none of them were lynched. Can you imagine that happening in our first days? Heads would've been rolling left and right!"

She paused to catch her breath, and calmed down somewhat. "What I'm saying is, what if the Goddesses saw us like lost little children at first, and nurtured and protected us accordingly, but this is their way of telling us that, collectively, as a global civilization, we're finally old enough to take care of ourselves?"

Finally finished, she stared at him expectantly.

He stared back, dumbfounded.

Then he exhaled slowly and turned back to the city. "Well. That…would certainly change things." For one, it might mean that the Goddesses wouldn't bail them out anymore.

"Indeed. Indeed it would."

Her tone made him reconsider her demeanour while she was explaining her theory. "You're committed to this idea, aren't you?"

She didn't answer right away. "…It's what I would do."

"…I see." He knew she strongly disliked discussing her very earliest memories, so he left it at that.

For a few seconds, they looked out across the city in silence, each lost in their own thoughts.

"Well," he said suddenly, "you were wrong about something."

"Hm?"

"Our world is not gone." He indicated the concrete jungle all around them. "It's still here, and people still live in it. In fact," he added, turning to her, "if your theory is correct, then that's more true now than ever before. This is our world now; the responsibility for taking care of it has passed entirely to us. Are you up to that challenge?"

She turned to him, beaming. "With you, always."

They clasped left hands.

"So…want to dance a while?"

She grinned devilishly. "Let's give the newspapers something to talk about."

And so, the world's eternal guardians proceeded to take the party by storm. Around them, something about society had changed, and it was never going back; only forward to an uncertain future. But they would always be there, protecting civilization from darkness in whatever form it may take.

Always.

Author's note: Though its gameplay has never been my cup of tea, I've always been a fan of the story of the Zelda series (at least in theory – timelines, yeech). And ever since I was introduced to it several years ago by Magus523's novelizations (check him out, BTW; all his stuff's great), I've been wedded to the idea that the various Links, Zeldas and Ganondorfs are not only reincarnations of past ones but also regain all the memories of their past lives around the time they reach adulthood. (And as a quick aside, imagine how shrewd a political manipulator would get if they were able to accumulate centuries of experience. Mind not blown yet? Imagine that they also held the Triforce of Wisdom the entire time.)

The story idea of "what would they do if, after going through the cycle a couple dozen times, they were reborn to find that the world's Medieval Stasis [see TV Tropes] had suddenly been lifted while they were out?" has been bouncing around my head for several months now, and when it occurred to me that such pseudo-immortals might eventually take to speaking of entire lifetimes as though they were days (and accordingly, giving second meanings to "awake," "asleep," and "half-awake" [that's the period between birth and the regaining of past-life memories]), I finally decided to have a go at it myself lest the ideas be lost forever.

I'm also quite proud of several small ideas that came to me as I was writing this, if I do say so myself. Things like Link and Zelda using a phrase in ancient Hylian as a way to surreptitiously check whether the other is "fully awake" when they meet for the first time in a given lifetime, or how Link's alcoholic beverage of choice is rum because of all the time he's spent on ships throughout his lives (as shown in Link to the Past, Oracle of Ages, Link's Awakening, Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass).

Anyway, I'm pretty happy with how this turned out; what do you think? I don't have much experience in creative writing, and I can't get better if I don't know what I'm doing wrong, so constructive criticism would be appreciated.

Oh, and if anyone wants to take some of my ideas and run with them, please be my guest. Just mention that I'm among your inspirations…and send me a PM so I can read your work ;)