Nintendo created all the characters and places and stuff. I just made the story up. The cover was done by Zeliga of DeviantART.

Chapter One - One Of Our Walls Is Missing

The Tower of Spirits made a pencil thin shadow across the Grass Land, the wind calm as it brushed across the emerald blades of grass, it sounded like the rattle of a snake yet remained calm and peaceful to the people of the land. A few birds twittered in a nest made of stray sticks and straw stolen from the cuccos while waiting for their mother to return with a juicy worm for them.

Zelda smiled at the hungry babies through an arched window, the glass blocking most of the sound from their mouths but yet, the featherless creatures were still a nice break from stacks of parchment upon stacks of parchment. She turned her gaze to the feather quill in her dainty pink-gloved fingers for a moment, fiddling with it before replacing it in the black ink pot, stirring it in almost a dreamlike state.

She was bored. So very bored.

Ever since returning from her adventure as a ghostly being she had been brought back into this mundane and dull princess-to-be-queen malarkey and dear Din, there was mountains of paperwork involved. Her companion and best friend Link had got it much better; yes he was free to leave the castle at any time without escort or help when gathering materials or just fancying a trip out; he never got any backlash for it.

She sighed and leaned back in the chair, her arms outstretched over the sides; she could see Teacher, an elderly man that had been in the castle when her parents ruled licking his thumbs to turn a page in a newspaper almost as big as himself. He was a tall man with stubby little legs and feet that were not built for running; a beard that was jagged no matter how straight he wished to cut it and grey balding hair that ran around the sides of his head, he had lost most of his hair when Zelda went 'missing'. He wore a long brown shirt and darker jacket that was tucked in under his collar and a pair of glass rimmed spectacles were sat precariously on his petite, little nose.

"Are you alright, Your Highness?" he asked lowering his paper after noticing her slouching on her chair.

"Bored, Teacher." Zelda replied sitting up, taking a good look around her at her guards, each one wearing a fuzzy green hat that could be mistaken for a small bush, she wondered if the guards could even see under them. "Aren't you?"

"Your Highness, my dear, I've had enough adventure when you vanished, with Master Link downstairs, I'm surprised we have a dull moment." the man chuckled "Don't worry, Your Highness, the paperwork is only a formality."

"Then why am I doing it?!" Zelda shouted standing up from her desk so sharp the chair scraped on the floor, revealing the proud and stubborn young lady in a long light pink dress, the colour of apple blossom with a thick golden belt that was more decoration than holding anything up; she had dark almost wine coloured straps on her shoulders holding her dress up and matching gloves across her arms with the elbows stained black due to leaning on wet ink from the parchment. Her white blond hair was loose and past her shoulder blades; it was touching her waist and made a very good curtain; her ears were shell like and small, just being able to hold up the metal crown with a pink jewel in the middle to show her regal background.

The elderly man flinched a little, even for a princess, she had the potential to get angry faster than the phantoms that stalked the halls in the Tower of Spirits and according to her; she had been one at several points.

"Your Highness, the paperwork must be done, however once done, it is done for good." Teacher quivered, his knees almost knocking together.

"I mean look at this bit!" she shouted slamming her hands on the desk so that everything shuddered, the guards took a safe step backwards as Zelda lifted a piece of parchment up for the near sighted man to see. "I solemnly swear as queen, blah, blah, blah, that I am to enter competitions held by the townsfolk to demonstrate my need for fairness and kind attitudes! What is that?!"

Teacher sighed and folded his newspaper. "There is more to being queen than just ruling a country, my dear."

Zelda grunted and walked to the window, the birds on the tree were being fed by their mother, a beautiful blue bird, with black eyes and a white breast. Yes, Hyrule was made of four lands, Grass, Snow, Ocean and Fire with a bit of desert thrown in. It was all hers for the ruling. But where was the adventure in that?

"Don't you think we should expand the lands?" the princess asked, watching the bird fly away.

"At the moment, no." Teacher mumbled pouring tea into a small china cup. "You aren't a queen as of yet and have no army to do so."

Zelda gave a disappointed sigh and sat back at her desk, drumming her fingers on the surface before picking up her quill and started to write on the parchment. The guards let out a quiet sigh, their shoulders relaxing from their otherwise tensed position.

Teacher took a sip from the cup and settled back in his chair, reading the headlines on the folded newspaper.

There was a moment of silence. Only one moment.

Bang!

Everything jolted; the mountains of papers came crashing down like an avalanche in all directions, the guards had made a defensive circle around the royal for their only being four of them and every bird in the vicinity had escaped into the clouds.

"Oher." Teacher coughed, his spectacles fallen into his tea.

Parchment flew into the air. "This is why I hate paper work!" Zelda grumbled pushing the papers back with the help from the green uniformed guards having being half covered in it themselves.

"What was that?" Teacher trembled placing the cup on the table and cleaning his glasses on a handkerchief.

"You said there wasn't a dull moment." Zelda chortled walking towards the doorway, to find the sheer force of the sound had managed to open the door a touch. He must have been in the courtyard. "You are relieved of your duties protecting me, men, I suggest you gather some buckets in case there is a fire."

The guards saluted, clicking their heels together before rushing outside with their spears on their backs. Zelda folded her arms with a gleeful smile, there was no way Teacher would catch her after breaking into a run. With the elderly man occupied with his glasses, Zelda took the opportunity to escape from her duties and tore down the hall as fast as her heels would let her before coming to a rather dusty and smoky corridor.

A guard, once in green uniform, peeled himself from the wall, leaving a Hylian shaped stamp on the wall. Now, the only part of it that wasn't covered in dust from old cement or the odd grey brick. Zelda took one look at the coughing guard as he got his bearings back and then peered through the giant hole in the wall, or walls as is more appropriate.

Some kind of explosion from a small side room had managed to tear a reasonable sized chunk in the wall and neighbouring room; coupled with a small fire that had sparked on the desk thanks to it being sprinkled with papers like snowflakes and all the walls were plastered in black soot, excluding anything that had unfortunately been in the way of the wall.

"Just…wow." Zelda coughed stepping over some bricks "I knew it wasn't a mistake putting him in the basement, we'd have the whole castle falling down potholes! Where is he anyway?"

The guard dusted himself down a little and pointed upwards with a gloved hand. "Up there, Your Highness."

Zelda followed his finger up to the ceiling where a young man of about sixteen hung over a dusty brass coloured pole sticking out from the wall, the bright red flag that had been attached to said pole was wrapped tightly around the young man's left ankle.

"Good morning, Your Highness!" he cheerily called from the flag pole.

Zelda's jaw nearly hit the floor. "How in Nayru's name did you get up there?!"

"I'm honestly not sure myself! But hey, at least my hard hat stayed on this time!" the young man shouted tapping a dented metal hat that was clinging onto his head. Clearly his indoor voice must have gone with the explosion, Zelda thought.

"Link…" Zelda sighed rubbing her temples with a gloved hand. "Couldn't you have caused a distraction that wasn't so…violent?"

"What?!" Link replied scrambling on the flag pole as the guard tugged on the cloth of the flag. "Sorry, Your Highness, I can't hear you properly, the ringing in my ears is really loud!"

"Stop shouting!" Zelda screamed up at him as Link hauled himself over the pole in an attempt to pull his ankle from the knot it had found itself in.

"What?!" Link yelled back glancing at her for a moment.

"I'm sure you're going deaf." Zelda sighed to herself, folding her arms as she did so.

Link scrambled for a moment before losing grip of the pole entirely, leaving him swinging at the feet of the princess. He took off his hard hat and gave it a little shake then replaced it on his thick crop of bright blond hair, or at least, that's what it would have looked like if it wasn't covered in a layer of dust, soot and a few puffs of smoke like the end of a cigarette.

Zelda stared at him blankly for a few moments. When she first met him, almost four years ago, he was a simple engineer's apprentice with a quiet life of exploration from one station to the next ahead of him; yet now, he was employed at the castle as a fully qualified engineer with a…destructive…hobby of inventing.

If hadn't been covered from head to toe in soot and smoke, he would have been wearing a pair of navy blue overalls with the shiniest of silver buttons and little dove insignia on the spanner sized pockets. His feet were often in thick leather boots that went up to his knee and upon his head was a small cap, again with the dove insignia stitched onto the front, and possibly a sandwich hiding underneath.

However, at this moment, Link was not clean, presentable or the least bit tidy. Dressed in an oak coloured hard hat which was strapped around his chin and ragged, dirty overalls that had witnessed many an explosion were hanging off him.

Zelda crouched beside her friend and pulled a handkerchief from her right sleeve and wiped Link's stained face.

"Oh, so you do have a pair of eyes!" she exclaimed watching him frown behind the soot. "And what's that, now? I think I see a nose!"

"Don't patronise me, Your Highness." Link sighed in a low voice as Zelda let him clean his hands with the handkerchief. Zelda merely rolled her eyes and untied the knot around Link's ankle; letting him flop down on the dusty carpet.

Zelda leaned over him. "You seem fine." she muttered folding her arms again "Excuse me, Guard?"

"Yes, Your Majesty?" replied the dusty guard, saluting with a white-now-sandy-coloured glove.

"Can you send a message to Teacher telling him that I have been unavoidably detained?" Zelda asked turning to look at the guard in his dirty green uniform made up of a grass green tunic and thin leather belt with a brass buckle. However, he was covered in a layer of orange and grey dust; thanks to the wall crashing down on the carpet.

It was somewhat amazing how no one had been hurt.

Link picked himself up and offered Zelda her handkerchief back, which she politely refused; the guard bowed and dashed off to relay the message leaving Link and Zelda alone.

"So what caused this? This is probably your biggest explosion I've seen this year." Zelda asked kicking a small piece of brick out of the way.

Link beamed. "I've got something to show you, Zelda

00000000000000000000

YES! OH YES! I AM BACK!

It has been over a year since finishing A Flame's Theft and due to college, work and other commitments; I have been unable to sit down and write properly; this idea has had so many changes (Mostly the title and the plot and just everything) since it first popped into my head last year, but I only started writing it a few weeks ago. Regardless, I hope you enjoy this one as most of you have enjoyed my other works. This one will be uploaded every two weeks (Don't hurt me!) as my education kinda has to come first; but we'll see.

So what's this story about? Well, if anyone can guess the refrence without using Google in the chapter title then I will give you a cake. But this story is based in the world of The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks which is Nintendo's work all the way back in 2009, it was my second game in the series I played; but it get's a lot of backlash for well, trains. THE CLUE IS IN THE NAME!

Chapter Two due on 29/09/15