Chapter One.
One year. Three hundred and sixty five days. That's how long Link had been missing. Zelda was worried. Big time. Link had gone places for a while to be alone before, but never this long and never without telling someone. The search party she had sent out consisted of Rusl, Renado, Shad, Telma, and Ashei. Zelda herself would have liked to have gone to, but being the princess, she kind of had a kingdom to rule. Shortly before Link went missing, her father had passed away, which left her to rule the kingdom all by herself. Would these misfortunes stop?
"Quickly!" yelled Rusl. "We have to go fast! I don't know how long he will last!"
The group ran through the cave, dodging falling rocks, and stalagmites. They had found Link just a few hours ago. They found him in a large hollowed out part of the cave, lying in a puddle of his own blood, with only his pants on. They still had no idea what had happened to him, but he looked starved, dehydrated, and probably had some type of internal bleeding because the teen kept coughing up blood.
They cave had then started to shake and rumble, and Link obviously was not going to run anywhere, so Rusl threw him over his shoulder and started running just as the cave started to collapse.
"Where are we heading?" Shad yelled to Rusl, "If I know where we are going then I can use my map to get up there."
"What is the closest place to us?" Rusl asked
"It looks like Snowpeak Mountain!"
"Then we are going there!" Rusl threw a quick glance at Link who didn't look like he was getting any better. "Stay with me lad," he murmured. Link was like a son to Rusl. When Link was about 10 he had just shown up on his and Uli's doorstep, with a note from his real mum that said she couldn't take care of him anymore and had heard that Uli was a good mother. He and Uli could not resist the poor lad. They had immediately taken him in. At first he wouldn't talk to them, he seemed to be very shy, but as he got to know and trust them, he talked more and more. For a ten year old boy he was strangely well behaved, but he did get into mischief once and a while with Colin. As her grew older, Rusl taught him all he knew about swordsmanship, and Link was a surprisingly fast learner. By the time he was 14 he could easily beat Rusl in a sword fight, and because of this fact, Rusl wondered how someone managed to hurt him this badly. He usually could get out of the fight with his skills.
"Rusl!" Telma's voice broke him out of his thoughts. "Were here!" The search team ran into the giant house of the Yeti's and Telma yelled out to the Yeti's that they were here with a very injured Link. Yeto and Yeta immediately allowed them to stay while Link was injured. Renado set off to go inform Zelda that Link had been found.
Renado got there one day later, and ran into the castle building. He told the guards that he had to see princess Zelda because of matters involving Link. They let him through without further questioning. He ran up to Zelda, bowed, and started talking.
"We have found Link, but, well, he is severely injured."
"Take me to him," was all she said. And that he did. It took them only one day to get there, because they did not make any stops.
Link was like a brother to Zelda. He always had her back, but would always tease her. She also liked him because he never spoke to her like she was the princess, but was never rude or disrespectful. She nearly cried when she saw him lying on the couch completely still, bloody and bruised, with his wrist and leg bandaged, and very pale.
"Can't you heal him?!" She cried out.
"We have tried everything, I'm sorry Princess," Rusl informed her, "also….we found something you might want to see."
"What?"
"It's his back m'lady," Rusl said with a long face.
"Can I see it?" Zelda asked. Rusl nodded then gently flipped Link over. Zelda gasped when she saw it.
"What happened to him!?"
"Well," Rusl said slowly, "it seems as if someone whipped him, as in a type of torture."