Notes: Ruto apparently means something to me, even if that something is how my brain misinterprets video games released in 1998. It's really a sisterfic to the other two, but hopefully it can stand alone. Of the lot of 'em, this one probably makes the most sense anyway.

I would like to thank Nintendo for placing Ruto's Crown in no less than two games. When I discovered this six months ago, like a fool, I felt less guilty about everything.

Off note to fanfictionnet : I hate your whole formatting process. Go to hell. There were supposed to be breaks between sections, you asses. And I hate the way you mange the em dashes. What cocks.

Recommendations: 3/4 view is what I would choose to read this is, but this is up to you.

There are three people who get the dedication here. You know who you are. You mean a damn lot to me.

Oh, and thanks for reading. Readers mean a lot to me too.

Queen Ruto

The sound of fountains and myriad trickling falls echoed and resonated through to her boudoir, though it was mostly lost to her Zoran ears. She focused instead on Anso's work; he was painting her limbs with an indigo stain and a horsehair brush. He was talented at this, and as her right-hand man, he had been doing it for many years.

The design was full of complicated knots and patterns, and it covered her calves and forearms and fins. It was a tedious process that Ruto could take or leave, but Anso, having been with her since infancy, enjoyed it immensely and used the opportunity to chatter with her.

"Ever since the day you were born, my dear Ruto, there has been an anticipation of your queendom. I know that you know this, but it's worth repeating because...well, it's just so blessedly historical, yes?"

"I feel it, I suppose."

"I realize that your outlook is your own. You cannot really see it for what it is, because 'it' is 'you'. But we take great pride in our royalty. It's a cultural fixation, you know. And in your case..."

"It is very different, isn't it?"

"Very special circumstances, yes."

Ruto closed her eyes. Anso was speaking of her awakened state as the Sage of Water.

Though the urgent call to arms had since dissipated, Ruto remained sagely. She was frequently aware of a higher level of existence and would carry this enlightenment for the rest of her days. Ganondorf's banishment was a very fresh memory to all of Hyrule, but she had been closer to it than most. Her world had been opened when she heard the call; a greater dimension than she had previously been aware of unfolded before her. Her time in the Temple of Light had been a strange and stern one. She had seen many things that had troubled her, and experienced many moments of critical clarity. But their endeavor to banish Ganondorf ultimately succeeded...through a valiant.

His name was Link. Or, at least, it had been.

Her awakened state was no help in understanding what had happened to him, and this unsettled her. She had tried to push the thoughts out of her mind—at least for the time being— but they continued to fester. Suddenly uncomfortable, she opened her eyes and stared at the moist granite rock above.

Anso's horsehair brush moved in slow circles. "Almost done here. You can't hide your displeasure for this; I know it drives you mad."

"I can take or leave it. But I may as well admit that I do enjoy how it looks once it's done."

"I know you do." He smiled efficiently. He was a handsome Zora, gentle and self-effacing, a good steward of the Zoran aristocracy and yet not too insufferable. Ruto liked him very much, and she always had, even since her girlhood. He knew her well, and she was not opposed to it.

She kept her assistants close. She did, occasionally, require a comforting figure; they had been combination confidants, advisors, disciplinarians. In many ways she had been raised a child of the Zora collective; a figurehead, a precious jewel of Zoran Royalty and, consequently, Hylian politics. Elder priests made comparisons to past queendoms and apprentice mediums studied her ancestry to speculate on her hereafter. A life so thoroughly examined was not lonely, but somewhat removed, above some things. She did not hate it; she recognized it, and that was the most important thing. But this removal made no special exception to her private moments. The secret pain and confusion of life was as real to her as it was to anyone else — and her life, in the grand scheme of things, would be a series of milestones, historical footnotes that would fade in context and meaning as the years spun 'round.

Two days ago, her father died.

It was expected. A lengthy and completely unsurprising illness took him. She had to be honest with herself: he had never really recovered from the lost years of Ganondorf's reign, had remained invalid since the beginning of Hyrule's recovery. She had said goodbye a thousand different times, and so in the end she simply stayed in her chambers and waited for a steward to inform her of his passing.

A good man he was, and to her, an appropriate father. She could not really express the relationship any further than that. His passing was important in the sense that she was the heir to the throne, although in many ways she had already assumed statecraft. What Anso said was unquestionably true, though: they were a very proud people. There was little dissonance in the Domain, and much satisfaction over their own goings-on. The hierarchy of state seemed to please them more than the Hylians' kingdom or the Gorons' patriarchal circles. As a child, they had all adored her; as a Queen, they would value her, idolize her, respect her. She was not above being treated as such; it suited her, and she knew it.

She had known two Links. Firstly there was the boy who ventured to rescue her from the Lord's bowels. This had been greatly offensive to her at the time, though she could not recall why. He was smallish but put together well, a forest boy in green with his own sword and shield. He was an adventurer with his own purpose—one that, seemingly, would not have crossed with hers if she had not held the Zora's Sapphire.

"I was just lonely – only a little!" She had yelled, face awash and full of rage. Not long later, she tried to steal a kiss from him and ended up knocking him into the Fountain. The vision of floating next to him, staring into sun as she drifted with the current, seemed as fresh as yesterday. She asked him what he wanted as a reward for her rescue.

The expression on his face was endearing, a prime example of why she liked boys so very much. He wanted the Zora's Sapphire. She thought she knew what that meant.

"Take it. It is my most precious possession." She pressed the stone into his hands, swam playfully backwards, and disappeared into the water.

The last time she saw him—as a child—she said: "Please don't tell my father."

What happened after that was a matter of history—though it could be viewed from many planes, many angles. As a Zora sovereign, it came first in the form of reports from the field, or the absence thereof; when Hyrule Town fell, word simply ceased coming that way. For the first time in many years, her father ordered soldiers to the far side of Zora's river.

There was a brief time of great unsettledness. Ganondorf's legion was a mysterious thing, horde after horde of cretin moblins and faceless thieves with no perceptible place of origin. The Triforce he wielded—well, that was the crux of the matter. It unleashed something truly horrid in him, gave him power beyond all the armies of Hyrule. In truth he may have been able to crush them all through sheer force, but he was far more devious, and saw that he would have all peoples under complete submission. His goal surely lay in the other two pieces.

He set a malevolent entity on the Water Temple. It blighted the Great Lake and caused the temperate waters of the Domain to freeze solid. By the grace of Farore, perhaps, most of her people would survive the time they spent suspended in the ice.

A Sheikah mercenary rescued her at some point. He put a blade in her hand, a satchel on her shoulder, and sent her, burning with purpose, to her people's Temple of Water. The journey was long but she hardly noticed it; strange feelings erupted from her hindbrain and clouded all her thoughts. This malaise would follow her to and through the temple, not ceasing until she heard the call.

The second Link – now, there was a dilemma. What could she say, other than the truth? He was the valiant. Seven and some years, and they stood facing each other in the clear depths of the Temple. How she had startled him! The surprised expression on his face gave way to a gaping, unbelieving stare.

Perhaps she would have looked that way as well, but she managed not to betray it. Instead, after uttering his name and allowing him time to size her up, she said, "You're a terrible man to have kept me waiting."

He didn't know what she meant; she could see it in his eyes. But she never clarified. She held herself above him, beyond him, and never thought twice about it. She knew it to be absurd, yet she could not help herself. It was a path she traveled with no resistance whatsoever.

Even so, there was something of a partnership between them there and then, as she led him through the temple. She was no expert in the layout, but managed well enough, remarking on archaic booby traps and musical altars that even she as Zoran royalty did not fully understand. But this was all she remarked on. It seemed the natural course to keep quiet and let him think she was truly aloof. Let him work his own way through who she was and what she meant.

Well, she thought. She was aloof. She knew this. Anyone who was quick to condemn the trait simply did not understand that it was a cornerstone of her healthy personality, and if they didn't understand it now, they would not be likely to understand it in the future.

Part way through the trek, he did try to make conversation, to a degree. Something about how intrigued he was by her kind, how––foreign––it all seemed despite the shared Hylian culture. His speaking out twinged at something within her, and she said flatly: "Are you referring to Zora or to women?"

His exact response she could not remember, but he ceased his discussion.

"Her Highness does not attend."

Startled, Ruto turned. Anso stood in the entrance with a servant of the house. "Remis sent food." He motioned toward the platter in his hand and set it beside her.

"Oh! Scallops."

"It occurs to me that you have not eaten today."

"There are too many things to think about," she said, and pushed a medallion of raw flesh into her mouth. The effect was perhaps comical. There were many people who went out of their way to eat with restraint and grace, but Ruto was not one of them.

"It's unhealthy to go without eating, my dear."

She pushed another in and chewed without responding.

Time was a difficult subject on any given day, but time within the Chamber of Sages was a different animal altogether. Or perhaps not. She recalled literally awakening within it, eyes widening with disbelief at the lack of substance around her, the near-absence of a physical plane. Knowledge that she could not have known unfolded within her even before Rauru materialized.

He was a strange fellow. She did not really believe anything he said until she had the assurance of Darunia––who was also strange, but much more amiable, believable, at least to her.

The Temple of Light was real, or at least bound in some form of material reality. She wandered it as if in a dream, though it was too late to pin hope on any of it being fantasy. Darunia had awakened before her, and a Forest girl before that. Those others that came after her shared the easy calm of their enlightenment. It was not a feeling of peace, certainly not –– terrible, weighty things hung in the balance –– but they expended no energy on fretting for the future. They could not. They knew, innately, that it was too important a subject to waste strength on.

Things moved forward––into the future, she supposed––and the Sages would mount their assault behind the Hero of Time.

But the concept of future-present-past made less sense to her now than it ever had, even at the height of their work, even as their valiant went back once and forward again through time. Though the world seemed to have settled, and recovery of Hyrule's people begun, she felt no real assurance of anything anymore––because of him, because of her lack of understanding of what had happened to him.

The Princess Zelda was a keystone, perhaps more important herself than any combination of her fellow sages. She had a very serious countenance about her, was a very strong leader and fit to rule, but she was quite different from Ruto. Where Ruto was more often than not unsatisfied with the answers given her, Zelda seemed quite accepting. It was part of her steadfastness. Nothing appeared to shake her––not even her quick decision to send the Hero of Time back.

Darunia had sent gifts. The Hylian soldier in charge of the livery came and went without much fuss, though he had surely traveled for a handful of days and would spend as much time returning to Kakariko. Goron artisans had fashioned her a gilded breastplate, and though she did not fancy herself a wartime participant, her Brother's message was not lost on her. It was, among other things, his way of saying he would gladly fight beside her.

She set it aside.

Anso's artwork was completed. He had left to handle numerous little details related the the crowning ceremony, but not before suggesting that she get some rest in.

She stared at the whinstone chaise, realized that he knew her too well, and settled into it. The sudden quiet made her feel vulnerable. Turning away from the torchlight, she forcibly shut her eyes.

Her mind raced.

Where was the forest boy with his own sword and shield? What had happened to him? He was as real as she, and yet his timeline had ceased at the hands of the Princess Zelda. No doubt she was very wise, and no doubt she was guided my machinations beyond those that guided Ruto. But––

There is no timeline. No: there is. This is a timeline. I exist, and he exists as well. Her eyes were screwed shut now. She could deconstruct it all she wanted. There was no way of knowing the nature of the thing she grappled with.

There was something else to it, though––something more than just semantics.

Pasts before us, and a future ahead.

Sometimes she dreamed of the future, a distant future, and not always the same one. An endless expanse of water...a land void of any trace of the kingdom she knew...a shadow behind the veil of a lush landscape. What this meant...she couldn't say. Not that she didn't believe in premonition; she did, knew that there were those that had a knack for it, were touched by something otherworldly...but for all her posturing and ostentation, she was too uncertain about too many things.

There was the difference between the Princess Zelda and herself. Zelda was not an uncertain creature. Or, if she was, she wasn't bothered by it. She accepted it.

She's grace incarnate, Ruto thought, and immediately disliked it. Was it jealousy, or contempt? No: that was too simple. The truth was that she greatly admired her, would uphold allegiance to the end, would gladly die in her service, if that was what the world required.

"The world requires many things," She said aloud. Now her eyes were open, without focus. Her voice did not carry. It was a thing uttered only unto herself, and just barely at that.

It was a shamefully simple way to explain it all, but at the moment, there was nothing better.

Her father's throne room was packed with functionaries and a compliment of royal guards. She stood passively on the dais while Anso fitted her mantle over her shoulders. It was weighty, and while flattering, also unfamiliar.

He said nothing as he tugged the fabric into place, and in fact had been extremely formal from the moment he woke her. Ruto marveled at it a bit but then realized that devotion formed from love: love for one's heritage, one's fealty, one's work, and in Anso's case, love for her herself. And again she realized that devotion was how anything got done in the first place.

The world requires many things. So maybe the world required much of the valiant Link. That didn't make it better, nor did it soothe her mind, or put to rest any pain or confusion––but it was true, and it steadied her.

The functionaries fell silent after a rush of finishing touches, and Anso stood to one side, solid yet brimming with ceremony. In this moment of quiet, she sized up the room and thought of the assemblage of her people awaiting her appearance. It felt right, and in this matter, at least, she lacked no confidence.

"Bring me my crown," She said.