A/N: When I refer to Sheik in the third person, I'll say "she" since Sheik is female. But if someone else is thinking about her or addressing her, they'll think of her as a man. I know, confusing.

Legend of Zelda: Mists of Time - Part 1

He remembered his name. He remembered the last person he saw. He remembered being surrounded in a cloud of white, and then nothing more. Hadn't there been a beautiful princess? Why couldn't he remember anything else? What had he just been through? The bright light wouldn't turn off...

"Link? Link, wake up." A calm, low voice shot through the piercing silence he had just been through, and he hesitantly opened his eyes. The light faded away, leaving him at the edge of a ruined castle, an enormous crater billowing smoke and flames high into the air. Charred stone and wood lay strewn about just the same way he had apparently been strewn, haphazardly flung onto the edge of the crater. Black, thick clouds filled the sky near the crater, swirling in the same direction as the lava flow beneath, the sickly twist making his gut clench. Where had that come from? Where was he now? He turned his head in the direction the voice had come from, trying to see the one that somehow knew his name. Even so, who was he? What was happening?

She bit her finger in frustration, looking down at his seventeen year old form before her. There had been suspicion that this current form would not disappear, even if part of his soul had gone back in time and started anew. This was the reason she had become Sheik again. He wouldn't know her even if she had used her own form, but somehow she just felt more comfortable this way. Now that there was so little left of her kingdom anyway, it wouldn't matter if she stayed away from it. For now, she just wanted time to think, time to go over what went wrong. Why hasn't this world changed? She had played the ocarina just right, she had focused all of her power to send him back. Why? Why hadn't the power of the triforce of wisdom, combined with the ocarina of time and his own triforce of courage, been enough to reverse the damage? That was the purpose of the ocarina... right?

She drew a quick breath in realization. No, she hadn't changed this particular dimension, she had only changed another. Then this... this was a dimension meant to have a lasting malignant presence? This was meant to become the dark realm in Hyrule? It was a stretch, but it was possible that things were meant to end up this way. Not only that, but he had no memories. In a strange way, although this form had been left behind, he could still start over. She crouched low, inspecting his face cautiously. No damage, just a few scrapes. "Are you alright?" She kept her voice low, still keeping up her disguise. Somehow she felt anonymous when she was Sheik, it was so much different from having hordes of adoring fans as the princess.

Link didn't know how to respond, didn't even know who the strange man was. Heck, he didn't even know where he was, where he was from, or anything from before the past few minutes. He managed to nod. "I... I'm alright. You... who are you? Where am I?"

Behind her mask she bit her lip, hating to tell him a lie but knowing that everyone else was suffering the same mind erasure as the rest of Hyrule. Only she and the sages would ever know what had happened. Now Ganondorf would remain as a mere fairytale until he escaped again. "The castle exploded and you were thrown from the wreckage. Rebels attacked, but you're safe now."

He remembered a battle of some sort. Then there was a sword... Then he had put the sword into a pedestal but nothing had happened. After that... What happened after that? There were clouds, and a bright light but... then what? Was this what amnesia felt like? "Who are you?" Somehow he felt familiar, like a person from his past, but he just couldn't wrap his mind around who the stranger was.

She held out a hand to help him up. "I am Sheik, last of the Sheikahs. Do you remember me?"

That name sounded so familiar... but he drew a blank, shaking his head. "I... no. Not completely." He averted his eyes as he took the stranger's hand, somewhat recalling how thin and frail the hand felt under his own. Strange... it felt like he had done this before. His body doubled over as he coughed, trying to recover from the great fall he must have taken. What exactly happened? Rebels couldn't have left such an enormous crater like that... could they? Maybe, for all he knew.

Sheik stood suddenly, nodding at him curtly. "We need to get out of here. I may have killed the last of the rebels, but more may come yet. Come, quickly!"

He stood on shaky legs, feeling every ounce of weight on him. There was a heavy metal shield on his back, along with the sheath of... a sword. His eyes slowly widened as he drew the blade out, his arm accustomed to the weight and feel of the blade but his eyes finding the object completely foreign. Near the hilt, a small triangle had been etched into the flat of the blade. The blade seemed to pulse under his touch, as if it knew him, but he knew nothing of it and placed it back into the sheath, not tempted to think on it for the moment.

There was no possible way he could have found anything on his own, not to mention he was still intrigued by the strange man leading the way. Tall boulders crawled all the way to the sky it seemed, the long, narrow passage between them being the only outlet into what appeared to be a town. However, once they neared the large town, he could see that every building was heavily damaged and inhabited only by monstrous, undead creatures. It felt wrong. Nothing about this entire world felt the way he thought it should. He paused completely in his tracks, eyes wide. "Sheik? What is this place?"

Though he didn't catch the sorrow in her averted gaze, her cold tone was easily distinguished over the hollow sounds of wind through debris. "Nothing more than a ghost town. Come on. We have to go." Without even a backward glance at him, she increased her pace, not even waiting for him to follow. This place should have reverted by now... or at least those horrid redeads should have left. What had happened to the power of the triforce? It felt so latent even though she still held it on her hand, the power almost felt expended.

He stopped abruptly. "Wait, where are we going?"

She only glanced back long enough to respond. "Anywhere but here." With that, she turned back into the shadowed marketplace, red eyes gleaming as she glared in front of her. Somehow, she would solve the puzzle as to why this world had been left behind.

A/N: Just a little prologue. I tend to do that... heh. Anyway, let me know how it is so far.