Oh hey, what's this? New story tiem? Why yes, yes it is! Tonight, Reily presents you with Tempest. This lovely story is a darkfic, of sorts. It's going to be... twisted and convoluted and that's partly why I'm so delighted to finally begin it after years of it swimming in my head. Being an enormous VaaZel fangirl, it's always bothered me how folks tend to... soften... Vaati when writing him in any context. I do not intend to do that with this story. He is not a sad, misunderstood guy; he's a Zelda villain, and a damn terrifying one when you take into account that he gained his power by his own means (sorta). As such, this will not be a fluffy romantic story, and throughout its course, I will be giving out some trigger warnings.

So yeah, no disclaimer because this is a fanfiction website. It should automatically be assumed that none of the characters, save for OCs, are my intellectual property.

EDIT: So I added an extra part towards the end. I was working on the next chpter when I realized the segment worked much better within this first chapter than the next. So yeah. I feel a bit embarrassed now but whatevs. That's what I get for writing off the seat of my pants. justlikeididinreversal

New readers, be warned, I do not check my work before I submit it. Grievous mistakes are usually fixed within the next few days following the release of a chapter. Without further adieu, here is the first part of Tempest. And trust me when I say the title speaks for the story.

"Princess Zelda, your father's going to get pissed at me." It was the deadpan voice of the extremely disinterested guardsman following the seven year old girl. Because truthfully, if there was anything this young guardsman wanted to do, it was certainly not to babysit a bratty little kid as she frolicked through the woods.

"No he won't," the girl said matter of factly, not at all looking like the princess she was in her muddied peasant dress. Her dirty blond hair was in disarray, falling messily down her face and back, hiding shining blue eyes that peered up at the disgruntled guard as she grinned at him, revealing missing teeth. "Because it's gonna be my job to make sure that place is safe. I should know all about it, so going here, especially with you, is good. I won't even tell him you said a bad word!" And with a mischievous giggle, she ran ahead, leaving the guard to scowl behind her.

"Why couldn't you ask my brother to take you instead?" He whined, his longer strides easily catching up with the princess as he looked down his long nose at her.

The princess paused to pout at him, "Because your big brother's a meanie! He never lets me go out past the garden!" And then she smiled that asymmetrical smile at him, "That's why I like you better, Mr. Poe."

The guard, actually feeling some sort of a blush on his face, simply averted his gaze from hers and scratched the back of his head absently, mussing his untidy black hair further in the process. "Whatever…" It was a typically teenaged answer, all the more fitting since the guardsman actually was a teenager, just barely old enough to be in the Guard Corps.

The girl said nothing, but skipped on ahead through the trees, laughing happily as she led the way to the Four Sword Shrine. Which as far as Poe care, she was perfectly entitled to go to whenever she wanted. As she said, she'd be hanging out there out there a lot in the future. Well, maybe not a lot, but enough so that it wouldn't be weird if she got to know the place a little better. After all, ever since the kid's mom croaked, the seal on that magical sword or whatever hadn't been checked at all. Who knew what was going on with… whatever was in there.

"Huh…" he thought to himself as he absently followed the little girl's wild steps. "Princess, what's supposed to be at the Four Sword Shrine?" He had a feeling he should've known, but he was never into history, however recent it was.

"Oh Mr. Poe, you're silly!" The girl chuckled, rolling her eyes at him. "There's a sword there!"

He paused in his tracks to hold the bridge of his nose and take a deep breath. If he thought the kid was cute a few minutes ago, he was back to thinking she was annoying. "No, that's not what I meant. What's the sword supposed to have?"

Zelda turned around excitedly, smiling broadly at the guard and jumped up and down in place, "Ooooh, I love to tell the story!"

Poe hadn't been looking for a story, but much as he wanted to tell the kid to stuff it, he couldn't. If he made her cry, he didn't even want to think about what her dad would do to him. Not that he had heard of the Prince-Regent doing anything horrible to anyone who offended his daughter, but he didn't want to be the first to find out otherwise. She was Hyrule's little gem, after all; a miracle child born from a minutes dead woman. She was precious to all in the castle… well, mostly all.

With an exasperated sigh, he sat down in the grass and leaned against a fallen log. The little girl plopped down and excitedly began, "When my mommy and daddy were little, they would go to the Picori Festival together every year! And one day, on a special Picori Festival, a mystrous-mystenous-" Her face was scrunching up strangely as she tried to grasp the word.

"Mysterious," Poe drawled a correction. He knew the story; everyone knew the story, but the kid may as well have her fun.

"Mysterious! Yes, there was a mysterious man who won the sword fighting tournament! So he would get to touch the Picori Sword! It was a fancy, magic sword that killed lots of monsters and kept more monsters locked up in a chest! But the mysterious-" Poe took note of the way she drew out the word; he was fairly certain this was her new favorite word, "-man went a broke the sword, and he let all of the monsters out! He was looking for something, but he couldn't find it, and then – then he turned my mommy into a statue!" The way she paused after saying that told Poe she had been looking for a reaction. He didn't give her one.

After a brief moment of disappointment, she continued, "So then my daddy went on a mission to fix the Picori Sword; and then he found this magic, talking hat! And together with the talking hat, he went on all these adventures, beating up monsters and fixing the Picori Sword! And when the sword was all fixed, it became the Four Sword! But while he had been fixing the sword, the evil man pretended to be my grandpa! And he took over the castle and everyone was statues! And then he found out what he was looking for was with my mommy, so he tried to steal it from her! And then my daddy came, and the man turned into a monster, and then daddy used the Four Sword to lock him up inside of it! So, so the monster, um… um, Vaati? Yes, Vaati! He's locked up in the Sword!"

All that chatter just to be reminded of a history lesson. He thought dully. Everyone learned that story in school, about how the late Queen and the Prince-Regent fought Vaati. He'd just never really paid attention in class all that much since he was busy hiding dead squirrels from his brother. As such, hearing that Vaati wasn't dead but in fact sealed within the Four Sword was kind of new. Kind of.

"Well if we're gonna go see that Sword, we need to pick up the pace, Princess. Your father's gonna notice we're gone soon." He said, using his spear to help pull himself from the ground.

The girl shot up immediately and giggled before rushing off and leading the way again. The guard just tried to make out the sun through the tree tops. The sun was beginning to lower on the western front, he thought, and the princess should have been going to her afternoon studies. There was no way they were going to make it back in time. Yup, he was gonna get in trouble. How irritating. But he'd get in even more trouble if he didn't come back with the kid. And since he was going to get in trouble anyways, no use in trying to stop her from seeing the place.

After what seemed like forever, Zelda finally squealed, "It's here!" as they entered the clearing of the Four Sword Shrine. It had been made by decree of the late King to ensure the safety of the Four Sword, as well as the upkeep of its seal. It was an open shrine, with no ceiling or roof and built with three walls and pointless pillars scattered around. On the back wall, carefully place bricks were slightly raised from the wall in the shape of a single, upwards glancing eye. And just before the wall was a dais with a sword lodged upright in a pedestal in the center. The eye, no doubt, was a warning as to what lay within the blade before them and why no one aside from the princess and her father was really allowed in this area.

For a few moments, the princess stood still and looked at the sword with awe. Poe simply stood, as disinterested by it as he was when the princess first came up to him and asked him to walk with her to the Shrine. But disinterest soon turned to alarm as the princess scuttled closer to the sword. "Princess… I don't think you should be getting so close to that thing." There was worry in his voice; he wasn't even going to try to hide it.

"But… I hear something." She said distantly.

Poe stepped forward hurriedly to the girl and took her by the arm with his free hand, his uneasiness all too apparent as he said, "Oh no, you are definitely not going near that thing then."

"But Mr. Poe, someone needs help." The girl was practically pleading as she struggled futilely against the guard's grip, trying to get closer to the Four Sword.

"Don't be stupid; it's the monster! You know, the one you were telling me about!" He said angrily, pulling the girl aside and dropping his spear so that he had the girl's shoulders in his hands, forcing her dirtied face to look at his. "It's the monster; it's Vaati."

The girl bit her lip, her eyes trying to wander towards the sword, but Poe shook her lightly, bringing her attention back to him. "B-but… he sounds so… so lonely. He hurts, Mr. Poe. It doesn't sound like a monster." She said, distressed.

The guardsman looked beyond the young princess to the Four Sword, the stone image of the evil mage's eye looming beyond it making it a menacing image. The beast was speaking to her somehow. He didn't know how; he couldn't hear a thing…

He couldn't hear a thing. There was nothing but absolute silence in this place. Unnatural silence…

The guard looked back to the princess, "Listen to me, Princess; the monster is lying to you. He's trying to make you feel sorry for him, he doesn't mean it." He honestly didn't know when he'd begun to see this brat as something meaningful to him, but he definitely did not want anything bad happening to her. Especially not with a real monster so near…

The princess remained silent for a moment, her eyes lowering to the space between her ruddy peasant shoes. "I… You're right, Mr. Poe."

He let out a sigh of relief, and his grip on Zelda's shoulders relaxed. "We should get going now. Your father's probably going to skin me alive if you don't get home to our studies soon." Hah, that actually seemed so trivial to say now. He let her go and went to pick up his spear, but a flash of dirty blond hair running away from him made his head snap back up, only to be horrified at the sight of the princess stopping at the pedestal of the Four Sword to touch it.

The guardsman grabbed his fallen spear and began to sprint towards the foolish princess, but he was too late. She had touched the blade, and as soon as she did so, a claw emerged from the sword and hoisted the princess upwards. The girl screeched, banging her tiny balled fists against the giant black claw that was squeezing her seemingly to death.

Poe snarled as he thrust his spear at the arm of the claw that was streaming from the blade, only for some unseen force like the wind throw him aside like a rag doll. He fell to the floor face first, pain searing through his head and stars swirling in his vision. The guard attempted to push himself up, but gasped as he had trouble breathing. His face was wet and sticky; he tasted blood in his mouth and he couldn't breathe. But he couldn't dwell on that; he could no longer hear the princess. He gathered his focus and looked to where he had last scene the girl fighting helpless against a giant claw, only to be more horrified as he saw it was no longer just a claw.

It was the Sorcerer from twenty years ago fully returned, a hellish cyclopean, horned bat creature; its great red eye making the stone wall with his likeness look like some failed attempt at true menace. The creature's eye was focused on the girl lying limp within his claw. The guard did not know how, but he could see the hatred mixed with glee at the sight of the thing in its grasp.

Poe let out a blood curdling scream as charged towards the monster. Unarmed as he was, he could not allow this creature to hurt the princess any further! And if she was dead – oh goddesses if she was dead!

Yet the mage's eye only stared in his direction as if bored, and another claw jutted from its spherical depths and went straight at Poe. But the guard did not care; he needed to get the princess! But the claw did not grab him, it only pointed at him. And then Poe realized he wasn't moving. Aside from breathing, he was not moving. He could not move. With a great snarl, he began to yell profanities at the beast, threatening him with all the worst things he could possibly think to say.

"What a foul mouth."

Poe shut up. The words were unpleasant to hear; the words of a demon. He grit his teeth, helplessly feeling the sweat drip down his face and blending in with the blood.

"That's better. I don't much like to hear pointless banter." Vaati said, his eye brimming with malicious contentment. Poe said nothing, though in actuality he wanted to say quite a bit. He just let the hatred in his gaze do all the talking for him. "Oh, yes… Yes, I know your type. I spent a great deal of time observing your breed of human. Let me guess, cats? Cats are always a popular choice if what I observed was anything to go by."

"Go to hell." He spat. Cats… It was just guessing about the cats. Right?

"Oh yes, it would do to have a fellow like you under my orders."

And just as Poe was about to tell the demon spawn to go back to hell, the very tip of its claw touched his forehead.

All of a sudden, the world was upside down, spinning all over the place. Things were… things were different. He felt the rush of the demon's magic flow through him, electrify every single nerve within him. But he felt it most in his brain, as if tinkering this way and that way, changing things… making things… making things better. This demon was helping him see the light, so to speak; showing him that the life of mere guard was meaningless. What was the point when all he had wanted to do was cut things open, take pleasure in the suffering of those he hated – yes, this demon… no, not a demon. It was his Master.

He had full control of his body again. The claw that his Master had pointed to him was gone, retracted back into the unseen depths of a demonic vessel. He looked at the great red eye with wonderment and awe. He knelt down, lowering his head to the beast. "I am at your service, Master." He sounded as if was a million miles away.

Vaati let a low rumble of laughter fill the air of the Shrine, taking delight at the creation of a thrall. Why he hadn't done it before, he did not know! Right now he could tell the pathetic thing to fall on its own spear and it would so without hesitation. But no, that wasn't why he gave the little worm the honor. "Tell me, thrall; what is this disgusting thing in my claw?" He asked, referring to the unconscious girl in his hands.

"That is the Princess Zelda Ione Harkinian, Master. Sole heir to Hyrulean throne; daughter of the late Queen Zelda Harkinian and Prince-Regent Link Smith." Poe explained thoroughly and dreamily.

"Really now?" Vaati mused as he rolled the wrist of his claw, lolling the little girl this way and that. "This little thing is their child?" He honestly wasn't sure whether he should be amused or disgusted. Yes, he had his suspicions given that only the blood relations of the princess or her hero could release hi, but he'd thought this girl was just a mere fluke or something. The Zelda that he had known had probably been no more than twelve or thirteen years old, yet looked as regal as her fool father. But this Zelda looked the very opposite of a princess. But perhaps the most interesting thing about his thrall's explanation… "Only daughter of the late Queen with a Link, you say?"

"Yes, Master." Poe replied obediently.

How interesting, the mage thought. How very interesting.

The mage gingerly placed the girl onto the ground, saying to his thrall, "Take the girl back home. If anyone asks what happened, make something up; kidnappers or some such nonsense. Make that broken nose of yours count for something."

Poe stood and nodded, going to the princess and taking her up in his arms. He looked up to his Master and asked, "What if she remembers what just happened?"

The wind mage scoffed, "Pass it off as a bad dream; the overactive imagination of a child. You can even make it coincide with whatever trash you spout to her father. Whatever the case, no one must know of my release."

"Yes, Master. Shall I go now, Master?" Poe asked, half-lidded eyes still in the highs of his recent enthrallment.

"Yes, but one more thing."

"Yes, Master?"

"Be this girl's confidante; her best friend. This is your mission. It is a great one, and knowing your type, you probably won't take kindly to it – but you shall do it. If you don't-"

"I would never, ever defy you, Master!" Poe quickly responded, the horror in his voice reflecting just how well the enthrallment went. "If that is my mission, I will do it without hesitation!"

Had Vaati had a mouth at that moment, his grin would have frozen the air around him. "Good. You may go now… and you will be hearing from me soon."

With an incline of his head and a "Yes, Master," the guardsman turned slave to Vaati, Sorcerer of Winds, walked off with the young princess in his arms. The mage was satisfied with his work. Not ten minutes after his release and he already had an even more wonderful plan than his original one of slowly killing that hateful child that sealed him in the terrible blade. All he had to do was make sure there was still some presence of himself on this blade…

And then everything would work out just fantastically.

Zelda awoke with a start, sitting up immediately and panting wildly. Covered in a cold sweat and deeply distressed, she silently sobbed into her hands.

She had the nightmare again. The one where she and Poe had gone to the Four Sword Shrine and the beast had grabbed her. With a shaking intake of breath, her sobs stopped. Some part of it, she knew, was real. She and Poe had gone to the Shrine, but there was no beast. Poe had told her that after they had left, anarchists had tried to kidnap her. All she could really remember was the bloody faced guard smiling at her and telling her everything was going to be all right.

There was no monster. And ever since she started checking on the Four Sword, the seal remained strong; and the voice that she thought she had heard those years ago was no longer there.

With a sigh, she lay back down, but she did not try to go back to sleep. That nightmare always deterred her from sleep, so all she did was stare up at the ceiling. It had to have been past midnight, she was sure. She always woke up from the nightmares past midnight; she remembered overhearing the maids speak to her father in concern about his daughter would wake in the wee hours of the morning. And if it was the next day…

It's my birthday. She thought to herself. She was seventeen. That information didn't make her feel any older or wiser. It just made her feel silly for having the same nightmares since she was a child. She turned on her side curled up, wondering to herself if she'd ever be free of the nightmares.

Some notes: Updates shall be sporadic. Fly Away and the parallel story I am working on it for it are my main priorities. As such, this take a back seat to those stories. Rest assured, though; this story will likely be finished way before FA ends. It shouldn't be too long.

For those unfamiliar with my work, Poe is a recurring OC of mine. Often times, he was kind of the buttmonkey of my OCs, very easy to make fun of due to an obsessive fanboyish attraction to Vaati. As I kept developing Poe from the original story he appeared in, I wanted to give him a bigger role as well as explain where this obsession with Vaati comes from. I ended up coming up with a backstory for him that I found fit in very well with what I had envisioned for this story. As such, he and his brother, Gibdo, are actually pretty major characters in this story. In general, though, don't feel too bad for Poe. He was a serial killer in the making already, and some part of him didn't resist the enthrallment.

Also, Link as a Prince-Regent rather than King. Well... I gotta be honest, I could never imagine Link as a king. I doubt he would want to be; he's a very humble guy, probably feels unworthy. He also has no royal blood in the MC-verse. If he married into royalty, he'd be given a title, and not necessarily the title of king upon marrying a princess, though.

... I had more to say, I know. But it's 4:30 AM and I have classes tomorrow.