Disclaimer I don't own the Legend of Zelda. I also don't own Restoree, Anne McCaffrey does. In fact, I don't even own a copy of the book. Heh…

A/N Just so you know, this story was written as a challenge by Ej Amber. It came about when I challenged her to write something as part of her collection of short stories, entitled "Zelda's Hair Pin and other short stories". Read it and you might understand more, though you probably won't.

Challenge...

Characters: Ruto; Dark Link.

Setting: Water Temple.

Objects: Zora's Sapphire; Water Medallion; Restoree by Anne McCaffrey (it's a book that everyone in the world should read).

A Zora, a Shadow, and Restoree

1.

There he was, finally she had found him after years of searching. Her fiancé stood in the center of the room in the Water Temple, next to a tall palm tree. "Strange," Princess Ruto whispered quietly, "I didn't know there was a palm tree growing in the temple." She shrugged it off, not caring.

Upon closer inspection, Ruto noticed that her beloved fiancé's head was buried deeply in a book, and so was unaware of her presence. She looked down to see the book was entitled, Restoree, and was by a person named Anne McCaffrey. That also puzzled her, as she had never heard of any scholars with that exotic name.

Fingering her Water Medallion, she called out to her fiancé, "Link, it's me, the woman you're going to marry." Her voice could not hold the excitement and so came out as a high pitched shout.

He looked up in surprise to see the Zora Princess standing in front of him. "Marry…?" he uttered in a daze. How could he be getting married to somebody he had never met in his life?

Ruto frowned, trying to figure out why he was so confused. "You know, because I gave you my Zora's Sapphire as a proposal," she explained. Did he forget about it in the five years they had been apart? And what did he do with the Zora's Sapphire anyway? Then it hit her, "You're not Link," she squealed, horrified. "For one thing, Link was not a shadow. And another, Link would have offered me that book to read by now."

Suddenly, Dark Link became more animated. "So, you want this book, do you?" he questioned with a slight smirk on his face.

Ruto frowned, sensing complete evil in him for not giving her that book she wanted so badly. "I'm a princess; you should give me that book right away," she whined, used to getting everything she wanted. Dark Link said nothing. "If you don't give me Restoree right away, I'll have you imprisoned for fraud."

Dark Link stayed silent, not bothered by Ruto's idle threats. After a few minutes of Ruto staring him down, however, he decided to say something. "I'll give you that book," he started with a cheeky gleam in his eyes, "If you marry me instead of Link." Oddly enough, he had some reasoning behind this. He thought that it would annoy the original Link if he stole Link's fiancé off him.

Ruto stood there, horrified. Eventually she recovered enough to slap him, sending the book flying out of his hands. Calmly, she went over to the book, picked it up, and left.

Dark Link rubbed his face, before smirking, "I'll take that as a yes then."

A/N I've corrected all the mistakes I could see, now. It was still written in 20 minutes, though, so don't be too harsh.

Crazymark.