Temporalis Procellos
By: mythSSK
Summary: In an age long past, the power of an artifact known as the Ocarina of Time allowed a legendary hero to traverse the tides of time to save all of Hyrule from the machinations of a madman. In this age, a new hero, a Twilight Hero, sets out to find a way to bridge the world of Light and the world of Twilight in the hopes of being reunited with his lost love. Events converge with the Ocarina at the forefront and devastation ensues as two parallel timelines collide. Can Link salvage what little chance he may still have to regain the love of his life, or will he be forced to abandon her in order to save the world once again – this time, from himself?
Special Thanks to Exp.626.Fan for all his support and ideas!
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Prologue
The elaborate tangle of threads dominated the entire room now; it had grown to immense proportions since he had started... how long ago? He couldn't even remember when he had begun. It felt like it had been years. It probably had, for him at least; time moved differently for him than it did in the Outside.
Flickering light from his lantern, sitting atop a haphazardly overturned crate, illuminated the room. The weak light barely managed to penetrate to the far corners, but it was more than enough for his purposes. The network of colourful threads arched over his head and spiderwebbed its way over the rough-cut stone, casting strangely patterned shadows against the walls.
Myriad pieces of torn parchment covered in hastily scrawled Hylian script dangled from knots throughout the labyrinth of thread, bobbing gently when disturbed like dewdrops suspended in a skullta web. He examined several as he paced the length of one wall, noting the events, dates, people and places written upon them.
He ran a finger down the length of a crimson-dyed strand, tracing along where it intersected with one of yellow and then coming to rest where it knotted into a junction of blue and green. The thread was strong and thick, made of stout Ordon wool; it had been so long since he had last seen Ordon village, his hometown, but fear kept him away. Fear of finding out what sort of destruction had been wrought there because of his reckless actions, like in so many other places in Hyrule. He had come dangerously close to breaking down several times recently, and seeing his home in ruins may have pushed him over the edge.
He rubbed his chin thoughtfully while he considered his next move, and was mildly surprised by the layer of coarse stubble his jaw had acquired over the past week. It had been a while now since he had first started needing to shave, but it was something that often fell by the wayside, unimportant and unthought of.
Many things tended to fall by the wayside for him these days. His long blonde hair was unkempt, and the black circles under his eyes hinted at his difficulty sleeping. His gauntlets and boots, once always kept well-oiled and pliable, were now cracked and split by overuse, the once-supple leather faded to a light grey-brown. His belt had all but fallen apart.
The only item of clothing he wore that was still in good repair was the tar-black tunic he wore, the magic woven into its fabric enough to keep it from basic wear and tear. The tunic was cut in a style reminiscent of his old dull green attire, but the dark fabric was so black that it almost seemed to absorb the light from the lantern.
He only knew that the key to his predicament lay in figuring out exactly how the ocarina worked. He strode over to the upturned crate that served as the room's sole furnishing and picked up the small, unassuming piece of ceramic. Once he could determine exactly what made certain melodies affect the magic inside the instrument the way they did, he would be able to puzzle out how to undo the mess he had made and how to reach his original goal. With the combined magics of the ocarina and the sword, nothing was beyond his reach.
Thinking of the sword made him shift the weight of the scabbard on his back uneasily. It had begun to feel… uncomfortable, was the best way he could think to describe it, whenever he drew the blade from its scabbard. At first he had dismissed it out of hand as his imagination, but there was a nagging feeling in the back of his mind, something telling him that the uncomfortable feeling was significant, but he couldn't recall why. He pushed it from his mind – there would be time to worry about that when he had fixed the damage he had caused and returned Midna to his side.
Midna. He sighed audibly. Had he only realised that she intended to destroy the Twilight Mirror before the fact, none of this would have been necessary. He would have been able to talk to her, reason with her. It was so long ago now, but he still remembered how his heart had caught in his throat when he thought that she was going to say to him what he hadn't had the courage to say to her. She hadn't, of course, but maybe she had thought it. Maybe. Maybe she still did. He held onto that thought. If she didn't, then all of the damage he had caused would be in vain.
Another visit to the castle library was in order. Hyrule Castle had been in possession of an impressive collection of rare tomes and manuscripts even before the Temporalis Procellos, but now the twisting corridors folded in on one another in an impossibly massive labyrinth; far larger even than the castle that held it, impossible as that seemed. Twisted into mind-bendingly non-Euclidean patterns, the halls managed to cram in books from a hundred different eras. It was easy to get lost, but he always had an easy way out as long as he held the ocarina – its powers of teleportation had proven useful on a number of occasions so far.
Looking over at the clumped strands of dyed thread held in place with beeswax, he nodded silently to himself. He was close now, he was sure of it. Things were already starting to fall into place. He just needed more time. He smiled mirthlessly at the ocarina in his hand, knowing that he had all the time in the world. None of this changed anything. Regardless of what had happened, he was still and always would be Link, The Chosen Hero, The Saviour of Hyrule.