Link stood before Princess Zelda in the middle of the Sacred Temple. The wounds he had recived from the Demon Lord Ganon still bled, coating the chainmail armor he wore and staining the fabric of his green tunic.
"Thanks to you, Ganondorf has been sealed inside the Evil Realm! Thus, peace will once again reign in this world... for a time. All the tragedy that has befallen Hyrule was my doing...
"I was so young... I could notcomprehend the consequences of trying to control the Sacred Realm. I dragged you into it too. Now it is time for me to make up for my mistakes..." Zelda said with a heavy heart looking away from link who was now sitting bandaging a long, shallow that bled profusly along his shoulder.
Taking a deep breath Zelda spoke, "You must lay the Master Sword to restand close the Doorof Time. However, by doing this, the road between times will be closed..."
Links head popped up as the Princess said this.
"Link, give the ocarina to me... as a sage, I can return you to your original time with it." Zelda said sorrowfully as a tear slowly slid down her obscured face.
"No." Link said in his deep southern hylian accent, "Princess, that is something i just cannot do."
Zelda stood shocked at his responce. Never in all the ninteen years of her being princess had anyone defied her. Though shocked, she was also puzzled and so asked, "Pray tell why you will not give it to me?"
Link slowly got up, standing a head taller than her and looked down into her blue eyes and smiled saying, "As the Hero of Time, I have been blessed by the godesses to be bleto traverse time. Thus I have seen what awaits for me if I hand you this ocarina. Would you like to know what awaits?"
The Princess looked down and nodded, She had to know what awaited.
"If I give this ocarina Princess, only pain and suffering awaits. I will be thrust back into time with the knowledge of you and everything that has happend. Everyone I have met will forget who I am and will have no memory of any of the events that have happend, And eventually Ganondorf will return to take his revenge on you, and I will not be here to stop him this time, And that is one thing I cannot live without, You. " Link said as he lifted Zelda's face up gently, catching her eyes with his.
"But... why would you want to stay with someone who took away seven years of your life? someone who took away your childhood?" She said as tears welled in her eyes.
"Because, " He said wiping away a stray tear that rolled down her cheek, "You gave me the chance of a life time, to meet people I never would have met otherwise. You allowed me to touch so many different people that to me it just seems wrong to take away from them the memory of a random, selflessact done by aperson they have never met before. Do you understand? I dont say 'no' for myself, but because I belive it is wrong to affect someones memory without their consent."
Zelda smiled, and closed her eyes as link wrapped his good arm around her waist gently. Even now he was putting the saftey and wlbeing of an entire nation above his own. Taking a deep breath as she stood hold Link she said, "If that is your choice then I will not try to stop you."
Link smiled and let go of her after a little longer, useing his good arm to caddle his wounded one he said, "Now let us close the Gate of Time and return to our world. There is bound to be Celebrations across the land now."
"Yes, let us go." Princess Zelda said as Link placed the Master Sword back in the pedestal a returned to their world and time after the defeat of Ganondorf.