Hello everyone this is Johannes: The Egg Emperor coming to you with the very beginnings of my first idea for a legend of Zelda fic. While I was working on the prologue for my new Pokémon fic, I got this idea in my head and just had to write it down. I'm going to give you guys a warning this fic may end up being really dark and may end up changing around a lot. This prologue will be posted first but the rest of the story is not even thought up save for maybe a few plot points and perhaps an ending. I will not be completing nor adding to it any time soon (December most likely at the VERY EARLIEST).

So without further ado I give you….

The Legend of Zelda: The Nightmare's End

A LOZ Fan Fiction

By Egg Emperor

Prologue: The Dark Truth of The Heroes' Tale

All in Hyrule knew of the Legends, the stories of the Great Hero's: The Hero of The Heavens, The Hero of Men, The Hero of the Foursword (who many scholars now thought were actually two heroes who were close together in time, The Hero of the Minish and The Hero of the Foursword), The Hero of Twilight and Perhaps the greatest ones of all The Legendary Hero of Time and the Mythical Knight of Hylia*.

In this day and age most facts had faded into the mists of time so the common folk were unaware of the greatest of the hidden truths of their Heroes.

Sure some of the more perceptive people often wondered why all the known depictions showed that the Heroes shared an uncanny likeness: hair of golden wheat, skin of alabaster purity tinted with a spring tan, eyes proud as a lions and blue as the depths of the waters and skies, garbed in forest green.

Most just thought that the bards and artists simply took the likeness of the Heroes of Time and Twilight (whom were said to resemble each other) and applied it to the older heroes of the more bygone ages. Only so often did someone acknowledge that some of the sculptures and tapestries predated both of the most recent hero's and therefore could not have been made in their image.

Also as it were some of the more well read and scholarly citizens might have occasionally questioned why history ascribed the same name to all of them.

But only so very rarely did the occasional dedicated scholar or devoted theologian read between the lines, put two and two together and come up with a startling revelation. That it might be- Goddesses forbid- that there were not Heroes of Hyrule but simply, A Hero of Hyrule.

It was even fewer who knew that hypothesis to be the truth. That in fact there was but One Hero of Hyrule. Who over the past nearly 4000 years had been returned to the mortal coil time and time again to defend the Kingdom, nay the world, from darkness. That this singular boy, barely a man, had repeatedly inscribed his name in history over his many lives and countless adventures, as he fought back the Evil who's own presence was as relentless as his own.

And of those few, only one or two understood fully the horrible reality of that truth, what it really meant.

That the Hero this, young man, a boy really, whom only twice had even reached the age of 25, was being forced to endure what some would call torture. Being reborn countless times only to be thrown against an onslaught of evil and madness then when he was finished in returning the light to the land he was discarded, his spirit returned to the ever watchful hands of the Three until he was once again needed. At which he would be tossed back into the fray to repeat the cycle again.

As any novice priest could understand, reincarnation was a dangerous business; ultimately it was harmful to the spirit and could even damage the body. The soul would keep any damage, any trauma that had stained and wounded it in its previous life. One life filled with visions of carnage was bad enough, but to endure eight, such would be madness. And though the memories of the reborn are sealed when the process is complete, should the person begin to remember their past existence or in this existences the mental damage would be incalculable. This was why normally a person had only one life to live before they took their eternal rest in the nebula that the Gods called home, but for the hero it wasn't so.

And yet the Goddesses took this risk, as though it were trivial, without any consent of the young man that they used as their shield and sword. He believed it to be his honor and destiny when in fact he was just a tool, a means of defending the relic that the Goddesses themselves created. This boy, this poor child, was in essence an eternal human sacrifice, whose blood was shed in an endless cycle in order to keep the dark at bay.

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Year: 412 AT (After Twilight)

High above the plains of Hyrule in the heart of the Sacred realm stood the Temple of Light. Also known as the Pyramid of Power , this was from which the Sage of Light ruled as well as was the location of the gathering place of the 7 sages and the location where the Triforce formerly slept before Ganondorf's intrusion nearly a millennium prior.**

At the Apex of the Temple, a place known as Well of Creation where the Triforce once laid, a place even Rauru the sage of the temple was allowed to venture stood a man.

Short cropped snow white hair on top of pale skin, his eyes a steel blue-gray. He was a Hylian, his pointed ears professing his heritage. He wouldn't be considered tall standing maybe 5' 10" and he possessed sharp hawkish facial features. His features would suggest that he was a youth of no more than 25 years, but in reality he was ancient, perhaps the oldest "mortal" being that was still alive. He garbed a tunic-like robe of blues and white, with golden trim and lettering that had not been spoken by men in ages decorating his sleeves.

The robe fell open as it past his waist revealing a pair of ultramarine pants, the cuffs at his boots decorated in the same gilded lettering. The back of his robe fell like a sort of cape and on it was a seal that matched the Zora's sapphire. The same seal decorated the tabard on his chest, the mark of Naryu Goddess of Wisdom one of the creators of Hyrule. This man's name was Neri*** and he was one of the three High Sages, the Sage of Wisdom to be exact; Naryu's vicar and direct emissary to the world.

Currently the Sage of Wisdom was looking down on a small town outside Hyrule Castle town, he was watching with what would appear to be disinterest, the birth of a baby boy. Behind him stood a tall and powerful looking man dressed in a red version of Neri's clothing, this was Leaf the Sage of Power , next to him in a more feminine version of the outfit was a young woman , the clothes she wore were green. She was Ciel, the Sage of Courage, last of the three.

Ciel and Leaf looked towards each other and then at their elder compatriot who was nearly 600 year their senior. Outwardly the normally cold and stoic Neri did not appear different but the other two knew that right now he was nearly consumed with violent rage. Frankly they were terrified, even Leaf who was the sage of Power knew that speak or disturb his friend now would lead to a painful experience.

As Neri watched he saw and heard a woman cry out in a final gasp of pain, her cry was then echoed by the wails of an infant, her son whom she had just brought into the world. As the sage watched he seethed with untold anger, his fists clenching.

Though he served the Goddesses faithfully, in his heart and mind he hated them, despised them with every fiber of his being.

"Damn them, damn them… How dare they do this again!" He thought.

When the newborn, swaddled in a blanked, was brought to his mother the sage lost all composure. The baby's hair was as golden wheat; his beautiful eyes which fluttered were the blue of the waters and the skies.

Neri clenched his fists in such tightness that his nails gouged his palms, as his body quaked with fury crimson blood spilled from his fists staining the white of his robes crimson.

O' how he hated them… the Golden Goddesses, Din, and Farore were bad but Neri held a special place of loathing for his patron Goddess Naryu, for though Naryu was chiefly associated with wisdom there were other areas that the Goddess was associated with as well. And it was this that Neri so hated and so believed made his patron a hypocrite.

"How dare, she … vile creature claim to be the ruler; the mother of Love and Compassion when she commits such an atrocity as this."

The baby let out a soft gurgle as his mother smiling cooed at him. Neri frowned; he knew that she would not be long for this world. Her task was now complete, she had brought her child into the world; she was no longer needed. In fact Neri knew that her continued survival would be only seen as a hindrance to the Three's plans.

Not being able to take any more of this scene, the Sage of Wisdom dissolved the vision of the world below with a wave of his arm and stepped away from the edge of the tower. He walked passed his fellow sages. He anger had faded and been replaced by sorrow. Tears began to run freely from his eyes.

As he passed them Ciel attempted to reach out her arm to comfort her friend only to have her arm grabbed by Leaf who stopped her. She gave the large man a questioning look and the Sage of Power just simply and sadly shook his head.

As Neri passed towards the door from the central hall that would lead to his quarters he had a though repeating over and over again in his head.

"Please forgive me… I again was unable to do anything… I was powerless to stop it … I am so sorry…"

As he passed through the door he finished his thought aloud with a single word as a tear fell to the ground.

"Link…"

Author's Notes:

Wow that was … depressing I'm sorry for just how depressing it was. Ok this is my first little blurb in what may turn out to be a large LOZ fanfic. Honestly I just had to get this beginning piece on (Virtual) paper, before I lost it, this is just the prologue and like I said above this is not going to be regularly up dated or anything for a while, I need to concentrate on Pitch Black. Now to go over a few details

*I include as the first incarnation of Link here, The Knight of Hylia AKA Link 0 from the Skyward Sword manga. From my story's point of view this is the original Link or rather life that link has lived which makes the Birth that takes place in the story Life #8.

** I kind of fiddled around with the time line here a bit. Basically though Ganon was sealed in the future, when Link went back into the past it instead of just splitting the timelines pretty much either merged the present and the possible future or just erased it entirely. This is a liberty that I took to allow me to have most of the Link incarnations in the same timeline. This story takes place 412 years after Zant's invasion in Twilight Princess which I defined as around 500 years after the events of Ocarina of Time, so this story takes pace around 912-930 Years after the Hero of Time.

*** Neri Ciel and Leaf are named after the Spirits from Phantom Hourglass, and while Leaf and Ciel are my own creations and hopefully will not be making too big of an impact on the story Neri is a completely different kettle of Fish. Technically speaking he is not an OC, in fact Neri is not his real name but the Name he took after he became the Sage of Wisdom (which was forced on him by Naryu, which is another reason he hates her.) He is actually a canon figure from a Legend of Zelda game but I will admit that the hardships he has endured over the long ages have changed him so much that he would be considered OOC to the Extreme. His identity will remain a secret for now but will be revealed much later on in the story.

Well I hope you guys enjoy this as for me it's back to working on the prologue to Pitch Black and then bed.

This is Johannes The Egg Emperor Signing off.