A/N: Hi there! Some of you might have seen my Zelda oneshot, A Deus ex Harpa (Second Seal Mix), which is part of my DarkeSword's ReMixes Project, but probably not. Yes, that was advertising, but you don't have to read it. This story is not noticeable related to it. What this story is, however, is my first attempt at a non-crossover, full length fanfiction. Will it be good? I think so. The plot isn't totally nailed down just yet, but it will be soon. The concept is complete. The characters are either made or will be made soon as they're needed. Now some thanks:

First, to Rose Zemlya. I'm not taking anything directly from her story or anything, but her fanfictions in this archive are what inspired me to get this out. Second, to Commentaholic and the other members of the Brotherhood of the Pen, particularly in the Harry Potter chapter. They've all helped immensely with my writing. And third, to Nintendo, for providing a world for me to play in.

I've followed the time-honored Zelda tradition of taking and remixing names from previous games in the newer stories here, as you'll see. Talos, Ilian, Impani, and then of course the directy taken Niko, Alfonzo, Link (duh), and Zelda (see previous parentheses). Also, this story uses my own personal Linearist timelime (in which the timeline didn't split in OoT) and that's displayed a bit in the beginning here, although there's more to it. Anyway, it starts in the Spirit Tracks map, but you don't need to have played it or any other game to read the story.

I think that's about everything, so enjoy!

We Are Green

Being a tale of Heroes, love, hatred, and a very old hat.

Book 1: Destiny Begins Anew

Chapter I

Whittleton

…Long ago, in the land of Hyrule, a boy was born…

…His father was of the ancient race of the Hylians, and so, too, was his mother…

…Yet 'twas in the midst of broiling wartime, and naught but death was given to this family. The father was commander in the armies of the kingdom and right hand to the lord Daphnes himself. Yet when the savage Gerudo came on an offense directly into the midst of the kingdom, the father was killed.

The mother of the child fled with her son from the metropolis of Castletown to the south, to the Kokiri's Forest, where she hoped to find sanctuary, for 'twas said that the Great Deku Tree, Guardian of the Woods, would offer protection to those who had lost that which they possessed.

Yet en route she was intercepted by a party of the evil Moblins who were servants to the Gerudo King, and she was mortally wounded. Her life remained long enough to get to the forest, and so she died, begging the Great Deku Tree to protect her son.

And so it was that the child, Link, lived there for nine years, until he was eleven. By then he had forgotten his parents, and only remembered scraps of that one terrible night. Yet his destiny was not finished. You know this, child. He left the forest, found the three spiritual stones, gained the Master Sword, and – with the aid of the Triforce of Courage – destroyed the Gerudo King, Ganondorf, who bore the Triforce of Power.

Link, who became known as the Hero of Time, married the Princess of Hyrule, Zelda, and they had two children – one boy, one girl. The girl Zelda raised to be a princess, and the boy Link took and trained to be a warrior.

The son one day found a girl in the town of Ordon to love, and there he settled down, and his children lived there and his line was grounded while his sister grew to be a fine ruler and kept her line upon the throne for two centuries.

After so long, the nobility of the Ordonian family was forgotten, and when the family was destroyed by an attack of creatures called Bulblins, none knew what had been lost.

Yet a child survived. Named Link, whether by fate, coincidence, or out of reverence to an ancestor whose name was only half-remembered, I do not know, he became a child of Ordon, born and bred. But one day everything changed. Suddenly, the Bulblins returned, and kidnapped his friends. And then he too was captured, by nightmare beasts, and in their captivity, transformed into a wolf, he met a girl named Midna.

Her homeland was the shadowy Twilight Realm, a place which had been made into a prison for the unrepentant of the ancient war in which the Gerudo King was slain. Most of the Gerudo, all the Moblins who could be found, and many rebellious of the Shiekah tribe were sent there. She was a descendant of that evil, yet she herself was unlike her ancestors, though some malice and bitterness remained. All the same, she and Link worked together and saved both Hyrule and her realm, and fell in love while doing so. She, as it turned out, was the betrayed Princess of Twilight, and her throne had been usurped by the traitor Zant, who paid homage to the ancient Gerudo King.

This ancient evil, whose name was Ganondorf, had used the Triforce of Power to gain some semblance of immortality. He could not be killed, though his body was destroyed, and Link and Midna did it again.

Midna then left for the Twilight Realm to be queen, but by ancient, untested paths, Link followed her and they married, and he was crowned King of Twilight, yet all now know him as its Hero.

Two centuries later, back in Hyrule, Ganondorf rose again, and to counteract him, a Hero was chosen from the bloodline of the daughter of the Hero of Time. This Hero was the prince of Hyrule, and, not having the more recent ancestral power of the Hero of Twilight, nor the Triforce of Courage which was passed down that other line, was unable to stop the flood of evil. He died, and the Goddesses intervened directly. They could not kill Ganon as they would like, however, theirs being the strength of Deities, so he was drowned.

And so was all of Hyrule – buried under the sea. Mountains became islands, and the ancient world hid below.

Yet 'twas not the end. How is unknown, but the ancient bloodline returned to our realm in the form of a young boy, who, like all the previous heroes, wore green, and he, too, was named Link. Raised on Outset Isle, he joined a marauding ship and became a seaman. A pirate, he called himself, though an honorable one.

But then his captain, Tetra, was kidnapped by the spirit of Ganondorf, for she, it seemed, was a descendant of the Princess of Destiny, that first Princess Zelda. He went through a great adventure to find and save her, one for his fathers to be proud of, and he eventually succeeded. They fell in love, and, with the blessing of the Goddesses, found a new continent – a New Hyrule – where they settled down and helped to rebuild the old nation there. Here.

Yet there were natives there. Tetra became friend with one called Anjean, one of the ancient Lokomos, guardians of the Spirit Tracks that were on that continent. Through her, the art of train-building was made known to newcomers.

Tetra's lover was named Hero of Winds, and their line became New Hyrule's royalty. Yet the Triforce of courage was not given to them after that – it was granted to the line of the Hero of Winds' sister, Aryll.

A century after the coming of Hyrule's people to their now home, a new Hero was born, grandson of Aryll, and again named Link. He lived with a friend of the Hero of Winds – now an old man – named Niko. He went to New Castletown one day to be named a full, authorized engineer, for that was his trade, by the new princess, whose name, once again, was Zelda. Yet she was attacked that same day by another native of that – this – realm, one of the Demons of Malladus. Link and she together fought him, and then his master, Malladus, and won. He was named the Hero of Spirits, and he fell in love with Zelda.

And they had two children, and by pact, 'twas agreed that one would be noble, while the other would be kept secret and raised in the south in something resembling poverty.

That child had a child, and so did he, and the line remained, until the Castle-children forgot their brothers and sisters who lived among the peasants.

But the other children have not forgotten… have you, Link?

I met the eyes of the old man. He'd been a friend of my grandfather, apparently, although sometimes it seemed like everyone was friends with some ancestor or another.

I absently rubbed the back of my left hand. I always did when I thought about my predecessors. That was where the Triforce of Courage sat like a birthmark – and about as useful. My mother, who bore the Active Triforce right now, until she died and it passed to me, said sometimes that she thought the Triforce's magic had faded, which seemed to many a plausible explanation; after, all, the Hero of Spirits had never once, in all his story, used it, and nor had Zelda in that age, though Wisdom was in her line. And, after all, Ganondorf hadn't been their enemy, had he? Many now thought that the Triforce's magic had faded, and thus the Gerudo had lost his eternal life and died quietly long ago.

I snorted. It wasn't like it mattered now, anyway. It wouldn't matter unless, by some chance, I or one of my descendants got picked as the next Hero, and frankly, I didn't believe it would happen. I was among those who thought the Triforce had lost its power.

"No," I told the old man, whose name was Alfonzo. "I haven't forgotten."

Like me, Alfonzo was named after an ancestor, his being the guy who'd taught the Hero of Spirits to be an engineer. The man had decided 'to follow his forebears' noble steps,' as he put it, and was a Train Engineer himself; my family's personal one – he drove our train around, and in exchange, we got free rides. Although, now he was getting old, the job was mostly done was his grandson Talos.

"LIIIINK!"

Speak of the devil…

I turned and grinned at my friend, who had just walked in the door. "Hey, Talos."

"What're you doing in here?" the other boy asked. "You've been in here for the past half an hour!"

"Your granddad roped me into another lecture about my ancestors," I said, rolling my eyes. "Again."

"You should respect the past, Link!" said Alfonzo, his voice rising as his well-known 'history fever' took hold of him again. "Those who do not remember the past…"

"…Are condemned to repeat it," finished Talos sarcastically. "I swear, Grandpa, if you say that any more often I won't be able to think anything else!"

The two glared at each other but there was a hint of a smile behind both of their eyes. They both loved each other to death, though Talos would never admit it.

"Oh, go away, and leave an old man in peace," said Alfonzo, and I knew he was about to crack a grin.

Talos smiled widely. "Okay! C'mon, Link! Show me that new bow you got!"

I grinned. "All right!" My eighteenth birthday was yesterday, and for it my mom had gotten me the BEST PRESENT I'D EVER GOTTEN (second to the sword I got four years ago… and the shield the year before that… and the newer, genuine Hylian Shield last year… and okay, so it was just a really nice present…) a bow. But not just any bow – this one had a Hawkeye like the one the Hero of Twilight had had. The thing was beast.

Talos and I headed for my house. We all lived in Whittleton, which was just a day's travel by train south of Castletown. It was in the Forest Province – once called the Forest Realm before the kingdom got fully incorporated – and right smack-dab in the center of it to boot. That wasn't to say it was a big place; far from it. It was just a little trading village in the forest, where most of the income came from the trees, a mine to the west, and, of course, trade. There was a saying in Castletown (I'd been told; I'd never been there, although Mom was hinting that she might take me soon) 'never try to outsmart a Whittletonian with money; you'll get a few dollars, walk away pleased, and then find out they cut your purse without breaking a single law.' Too true – we were all deadly with a few Rupees. Never did anything illegal though – Mom'd kill whoever tried.

My mom's name was Ilian. Apparently her namesake was an Ordonian girl who the Hero of Twilight had once crushed on before he'd met Midna. I had no idea why my family though that was a good namesake, but apparently they had.

Whittletonians were big fans of names like that. My dad, for instance, was named Niko after the guy of the same name who'd known both the Hero of Winds and the Hero of Spirits. And every boy of my bloodline was named Link, in the tradition that no Hero could be named anything else, and after all, all the Heroes of Light before now had been boys. I often asked Mom if the Goddesses were sexist, and she always replied with 'probably, but as long as I don't have to be a Hero, I don't mind at all.'

They said that every girl in the Royal family was named Zelda for the same reason. Oddly enough, my generation was the first time the two had coincided since the time of the Hero of Spirits – something lots of people said was a sign. That had died down when I'd turned about five, though, since that was the very latest any Hero had been orphaned, and none of them had had living parents, and my parents were both still quite alive and breathing, thank you very much.

Now only a couple people still thought I was the next Destined Hero, and while it was kind of flattering, I didn't much like the idea. That was one of the many things my mom and I agreed on; who the hell wanted to be a Hero?

Back to the present, though, as soon as I'd stepped into my house, my mom called, "Link, is that you?"

"Yeah, Mom!" I hollered back. By the sound of it, she was in the kitchen on the other side of the house. "Talos is here too!"

"Oh, good, that makes things simpler," my mom said, partly to me, and partly, it seemed, to herself. "Could the two of you come here for a moment?"

We did, going around the central wall-pillar thing that held up my room. My house's rooms on the ground floor were built in a circle, so that they all went around the center, which contained mostly cupboards and a staircase that led to the upstairs rooms – among them my bedroom.

When we reached the kitchen, my mom was making fish and chips. She was best at potatoes and fish when it came to cooking, and since this was a culmination of the two, it went without saying that it was her very best dish. My mouth started watering before I could even smell it, and when I did, I almost groaned in anticipation.

Talos wasn't unaffected either – far from it. My dad was from the beach town of Aboda, but he'd moved to Whittleton as an adult, since the tourism in the beach resort got to him. Still, he could fish; he was one of the only people who could in Whittleton. And my mom had once gone adventuring, and once had helped the chief of the Yeti in Anouki Village in the Snow Province. She'd gotten her hands on some kind of enchanted ice that never melted, so we could preserve fish for a long time.

Combined the two made for one thing – our family was well known for having one of the only tables that was usually stocked with fish. Talos never tasted the stuff except when he was over for dinner.

My mom knew that, and she smirked as she said, "Help yourselves," dishing the fried fish and potatoes onto a porcelain dish and setting it out on the table.

Neither of us wasted any time, and the food was gone in minutes. It wasn't mealtime, but both of us could always make room for Ilian of Whittleton's famous Fish'n'Chips. It was said she'd once made it for the King before vanishing from Castletown, and that he was even now looking for her to have it again, and that he'd never find her.

Anyway, once we were finished, my mom, looking amused, spoke. "You two know that there's a Royal Proclamation going on in Castletown in a week, right?"

"Yep," said Talos. "Thanks for the fish, by the way, Ilian."

"No problem," she grinned, and then continued. "Anyway, I've had a word with your dad, Talos, and he's agreed. You're taking us to Castletown by train in the morning."

"What?" Talos spluttered. My eyes widened.

Mom laughed. "You heard me, Talos. We're headed for Castletown tomorrow. We'll stay there for five days– I have a friend who I sent a letter to a while back, and he's agreed to give us a place to stay. We'll leave after the Princess' Proclamation."

Talos blushed, as he always did at any mention of Princess Zelda. It was known to all of us who knew him that he was crushing on her, and had been since he'd gone to Castletown last year to get officially recognized as an Engineer. Since then, he'd been looking for excuses to head up there again. "Er… all right," he mumbled. "Tomorrow morning?"

"Yep," my mom said and winked at him. "And in a week Princess Zelda will be up on that big balcony on the castle, and I promise you'll have a good view."

Talos, of course, blushed even redder. Mom and I just laughed at him. "I expect she still hasn't forgotten you," I told him through my chuckles. "I expect she'll see you in the middle of the Proclamation, break off, and say, 'Oh, look, it's Talos, that handsome engineer from last year!"

Talos glared at me. "Shut up," he mumbled. "Don't make me bring up Impani."

Now it was my turn to blush, while my mom's laughter doubled. Impani was a Whittletonian, like us. She was about two inches shorter that Talos and I – we were the same height – had long, white hair (it was naturally white; no idea why) and she was pretty much the prettiest girl I knew.

She was also absolutely deadly. I'd learned long ago (back when I was thirteen and first started to like her) not to try sparring with her; I wasn't bad with a sword, but she was faster than anyone else I'd ever met. Her favored weapons were twin daggers, and I swear, if the Sheikah survived, she would be a descendant. But the Sheikah had perished in the drowning of Old Hyrule, so she was just naturally beast.

"Okay," I muttered. "Truce?"

"Truce," Talos grinned. "And now you owe me a look at your new bow."

I grinned, all quarrels forgotten, and cheered "You got it!"

The two of us rushed upstairs, with my mom calling after us, "You both have to be back here by dinner if you're going out!"

We weren't.

A/N: Blech. Not the best ending, but I couldn't keep rambling forever. Anyway, what did you think? I'd like to know. I'd also like to receive reviews. Good thing the two coincide, eh? Why not just press the little blue button? I don't mind if you press it and talk to me about the various brands of cheddar cheese, but please, just press the button! I'm begging!