Choices

Author's note: I love the four Links from Four Swords Adventures (the manga; they don't exactly have much personality in the games), as many fangirls like me do. I also support the pairing LinkXZelda, and believe that the manga has a few hints that could favor this pairing, but I won't go into them here. Instead, I present this oneshot, which takes place in a post-manga AU in which the Links remained separated. Oh, and Shadow's here too, for no reason except that he's fun to write. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I own nothing except copies of both books from the Four Swords manga series.

"Hey, Zelda!"

Zelda looked up to see Green walking towards her cheerfully. She wondered for a moment why he was here; he was supposed to be in guard duty in town. After a moment, however, she dismissed her question. This was Green she was wondering about. Even though his quest to rescue her from Vaati had made him a better team player, he'd still retained Link's independent streak. Of course he'd still skip guard duty every once in a while.

"Do you want to stroll through the garden with me?" he asked as soon as he got close enough.

"Oh…umm," Zelda stammered. Talk about forward, she thought to herself with a small sigh. It wasn't as though she didn't like Green. In fact, she held him in very high esteem, as she held all four Links. Even so, she'd never been propositioned like this before, by Link or by anyone else. She had no idea what to say.

"Hey, Zelda!"

She turned around to see Red coming from the opposite direction holding a bouquet of flowers. He thrust it into her arms with a bright smile.

"I picked them for you myself!" he chirped excitedly.

"Th-thanks, Red…" she smiled weakly, a little taken aback by this sudden display of affection. Not quite as unexpected, coming from Red, she thought to herself. The red-clad hero was known to do such things rather often. Even so, the flowers were just a bit too nice to be just a gesture of friendship. Maybe it was just a coincidence. She certainly hoped so.

"Zelda!"

Blue appeared from behind her.

Now, this can't be a coincidence, she realized. She'd observed that the four Links were often on the same wavelength, often coming to the same conclusion at the same time. She'd spent quite a lot of time breaking up squabbles which inevitably emerged as a result, with one or both or however many insisting (just as an example) they'd been there to buy that shield first. She still didn't know how their father remained sane. Then again, the man had been through a great deal at the hands of Shadow Link. Perhaps four bickering boys were nothing to him in comparison.

"Come spar with me!" Blue cried, interrupting her train of thought as he grabbed her free hand and pulled her off the bench she had formerly been sitting on. "I don't know a better way to spend time with you!"

"Oh dear…" she trailed off. Was one afternoon to herself really too much to ask for?! Well, with at least two Links wanting her attention and a third presenting her with flowers, she supposed so.

"Zelda. Exactly who I was looking for."

She turned from Blue to see Vio, who'd just walked up from the direction of the library. Of course. Since three of the Links were already there, it would only stand to reason that the fourth was just behind them.

"Want to come with me to the library?" he asked in that eternally calm tone of his. To Blue, it could be mocking, but it always held the utmost respect when he spoke to her. "I know a book I think you'd like."

"Um… I…" she fumbled with her words. She couldn't exactly lie, could she? While that sounded rather nice, actually, she was feeling a little tired of the Links right now and wanted a little alone time.

"Hee hee hee! If it isn't my favorite princess!"

Shadow Link was suddenly standing next to her. His appearance made her nearly jump out of her skin. For Nayru's sake, he'd kidnapped her! Of course she was going to be mildly frightened of him.

"Want me to kidnap you again? We could have all the time we want together!" he said with an impish grin. As if she wanted the opportunity. Next time he tried anything, she was going to be on her guard.

Zelda just sighed as the five Links realized they had competition and rounded on one another. Apparently Link had had a crush on her before he was split. Great.

Just as they began to argue, she took the opportunity to slip away. Right now, she had too big of a headache to want to deal with any of this mess.

Author's second note: Yes, I published pretty much the exact same fic under my Zelda12343 profile a little over two years ago. However, I just wanted to repost a slightly updated (and hopefully improved) version here on my new profile. I think I've improved as a writer since the original version went up.

Specific improvements:

1) Changed 'the four Links' to 'the five Links'. What was I thinking when I did that? Did Shadow disappear again?

2) I tried to tone Vio from a clone of Spock to a clone of Link with a slightly calmer personality. As my reviewer Firefly Fairy in a Bottle pointed out, I overdid him last time. You know, he's actually the most difficult Link to write, for whatever reason. Hopefully he's better this time around. Let me know if he is!

3) I added a bit more reflection on Zelda's part on each Link, and hopefully gave her a bit more personality than last time around. Though Firefly mentioned I did perfectly last time, so let me know if I deviated a little too much this time.

Last time, this fic was 381 words long. This time, it's 1079 words long (plus authors' notes in both cases).

As always, please let me know what you thought! I really appreciate constructive criticism, so that my work may be better next time.

Thanks for reading! Zell out!