Author's Note: Hi everyone! Thank you for reading and please don't forget to review. This story is written where each chapter is from one character's perspective, so some will be shorter than others. Please also note that Minerva Magnhild and Conall Kavi are my OCs.

Also, I did want to give you a heads up that the first chapter is more of a stage setter. If you really want to get a feel for this story's flow, I highly recommend reading through the second chapter at least (if you read through the fourth, you'll see all main perspectives). I wanted to tell you this because this first chapter is a little deceptive in explaining who the story really is about.

Disclaimer: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is owned by Nintendo. The following work is not intended to add to, promote or distort this game or it's series. This is a work of fanfiction, and the author does not profit in posting. This is simply a writing exercise written for fun.

Chapter One: Minerva

My sweet wards, this is the tale of which I've no longer any voice to give you and must therefore contract in finality this document, lest the opportunity I've prayed for arrives in your time. Please heed my wisdom till your dying breath.

It amazes me that the music of nature eclipses the sounds of man. Nature, a vast and glorious concept, has continuously eluded my kind through the ages, yet we still strive to bring words to it. Definitions and regulations. Patterns and predictions. Yet, on this year of our goddesses, seven-hundred and seventy-seven, I learned that the foundations of true nature are too complex for even the wisest of sages to digest.

And all because of a monster who appeared to be a man... A monster you too must also become.

But I rush ahead of myself in this tale, far too important not to document for future generations... for my wards, Conall Kavi and Minerva Magnhild, most of all. They face the grimmest of fates as result of my actions and, most of all, my cowardess.

I feared the future, and worse, I anguished in light of the past. Were I a stronger person, my sweet Nell and my darling Minnie, you would not be plagued with this overwhelming responsibility... A mission buried deep in the shadows you were raised to call home. I could never call you two my favorite wards, as that would undermine your true significance to me. But I will tell you this, I love you both unrelentingly and dearly and desire that you two rise to the occasion, despite what my mistakes have afforded you.

And so, to assist you, I must start my tale of tragedy from the beginning, hoping beyond all hope that you two, raised in darkness, can right the wrongs I have so mistakenly sewn.

My blue eyes scanned over these words once more, finally pocketing the letter I'd unearthed from the queen's ancient family crypt in Kakariko. In my heart, I'd always known that there was more to my story than the simple tale weaved eloquently by my queen. A tale of tragedy comforting tragedy deep within the halls of the Arbiter's Grounds, a decadent and dangerous foretaste of hell if there ever was one.

This place once had been my home. I'd been abandoned here by the remnants of the desert clans, descendants of the Gerudo, which accounted for my bright red hair, as some sacrifice to the serpent goddess. She was best known as the warring Din, whose ancient temple dwelt in the depths of this shoddy establishment. Yet, somehow, despite the creatures of darkness that roamed these halls, I survived long enough for my queen to find me. To claim me, and Conall, as her wards, and raise me during her own tenure here. A tenure of five years.

As a child, I'd sworn never to return to this place, yet, as an adult, I was compelled to do so. Compelled to unravel the mystery behind the situation holding her majesty captive. My beloved queen mother was in danger, and that was all I needed to know to bring purpose to my footfalls.

So, with double braids of red tied behind my pointed ears, I took a deep breath and pulled my twin scimitars free to check their readiness. I had to go deeper. Surely there was more to this letter.

With my first step past the vestibule, I readied myself for the monsters of my nightmares. "All right, Minerva," I hissed to myself, feeling the trembling of my arms as I recalled just what awaited me in the halls of this asylum of the dead. "You can do this."

Despite their lack of nostrils, the fiends could smell me. The moment I'd wandered just a little too far into my former home, their howls erupted, and small armies of lesser dead stormed me with spears. I ran as fast as I could to dodge them, letting my blades fly in various directions as though in dance. The onslaught barely lasted a moment, yet drained me of many to come.

I hadn't forgotten the obstacles of this place, yet I wasn't necessarily ready to face them alone.

And so, I ran, seeking only leaflets of paper belonging to an old letter from my queen from back when she was trapped in this place, alone and disgraced. I felt once I found these, I would have the answer, yet knew that as soon as the poes of this hovel knew what I was searching for, they would likely hide them deeper still to ensure my death in this infernal location.

So, while in another grand hall, I tried my best to hide my relief at locating another sheet, torn and tattered from mice pulling it into their nests, only to be yanked out as a meal by some redead or another. And I read, my blue eyes struggling in the bleakness of the cavern-like room, even with my small lantern at my side.

Many would say that the start of my struggle began days before my coronation, when, as the common people would explain, 'shadows engulfed the land, and strange howls could be heard through the night.' My people were never truly apprised of the invasion we'd endured, chocking the situation up to the gods being unfavorable to a land so long without a male ruler, but our lives had truly been in danger.

You must understand that an ancient darkness had awakened from our world in another and sought to return home using the greed of the tribe it had found there. Were it not for the princess of that realm, the realm of twilight, and a young man from the forest, we would have likely succumb to a world of endless twilight, and, eventually, complete darkness.

Yet these two heroes remained unsung. This princess, now Queen Midna of the Twili, returned to her world, sealing it off from ours. It was a painful day when that avenue was closed, but both I and the hero from the forest understood the necessity.

This hero I speak of is the one who answered the call of our land, summoning courage and strength enough to save us all single-handedly. Anonymous to all except myself, he returned home to his former life with only a secret title to call his own. This hero was my Knight Hylia, the highest order of knight a monarch could bestow. And, in our lifetime, we could grant it only once.

Yet he was too modest for pomp and circumstance, choosing to forgo the ceremony and merely leave with his emblem of knighthood. The souls of my kingdom understood his internal suffering as much as they'd understood the threat he'd thwarted, and so, he was able to lead a very private life from home. Home, with his herds and friends and family.

But, as victimized as he'd been by our secret war, I too was suffering alone in the wake of it. I found myself seeking contact with kindred spirits and, though he was not the only apprised of the situation, I began to write to him under my guise of Tetra Shiek, 'descended of the shadows.' And he would reply to me as nothing more than the 'Lone Wolf of the Woods.'

Our letters were at first very formal and cordial, but over time a trust developed through this correspondence that made him my key adviser in all things. And, sadly, it was his influence that locked me away in this accursed place. Partly.

The other part had been his sudden death.

A roar to the side of me indicated that a redead had ambled into the space, and so, fighting my own gasp, I prepared to hide myself behind the rocks and let it pass. I was not strong enough to take on this creature on my own, wielding only my twin swords and a few tombs. It was always Nell who could handle these foes with his inherent strength and speed.

So, as I lay low, I waited and prayed to the goddesses for protection. They must not have heard my prayers as the redead inevitably did. It slowly shifted my way and growled in a way that froze me in place, much like a curse. I watched, paralyzed as it raised it's oversized blade to strike, only to gasp in relief when the swift black blade of a shadowed figure brought it to its ultimate death with the ripping of rotted flesh and the crunching of bones.

"Damned thing." came the masked curses of my savior, the third ward of our Queen, Conall Kavi. Soon after, he lowered his facial coverings and glowered at me, "Minnie, what in the hell are you doing in this place?"

I stood up slowly to glare daggers at his blue eyes with my own. He won that contest without a chance on my part, brushing his brown locks out of his eyes as he stepped closer to my lantern. "I could have sworn that we promised ourselves as children that we would not, under any circumstances, return to this place. We swore that to the queen as well." I nodded and turned my eyes to the side.

"Nell, I..." I tried to start, but was soon interrupted by the sight of another leaflet. I skipped across the sand as best I could to recover it, pulling myself onto solid ground shortly after it. Nell had been trained by Impaz as a child, and so he merely ran across the walls to meet me. Many referred to him as the shadow ward, whereas I was the humble thieving ward. Needless to say, we both lacked the most respectable reputations.

"What is this?" He demanded, squatting down beside me as I began to read. I merely passed him the other pages to the letter before continuing on to a truth I had only suspected. A truth that brought tears to my trained eyes.

Author's Note: I hope you enjoyed this! Updates will be infrequent, as Promise of the Past is the one with my full attention. Please review and let me know what you think! I am a huge fan of constructive criticism. Also, special thanks to BunnyoftheMoon89 for beta reading!