A/N: A new project = too much excitement on my end. I wanted to hold out until I had a bit more of this written but I was just so eager to get the ball rolling that I had to upload the first chapter. As a result, it's a bit shorter than usual as it's essentially a preface. Please do let me know if there's something that you catch or needs to be revised.

A few points I'd like to address before begininng: This story is rated a strong T, mostly for violence and occasional accounts for swearing. Yes, this is a Zelink story, you just have to bear with me here despite what initial qualms you may have. The story line is also of my original creation and is not based off of the ending of any of the games, although many will be mentioned.

Without further adieu!

Ad Infinitum

ˌad infəˈnīdəm/ Latin

adverb

again and again in the same way; to infinity; forever.

Chapter One

In all of the lifetimes that we had spent together, I will never forget the last one. Forever embedded into my memory like the plague of a nightmare that keeps you from the comforts of sleep, forcing you to relive each moment, over and over again.

Yes.

How I remember it all so very clearly. From the look upon your face to the final time I closed my eyes. It was the night that Hyrule fell.

It was the night you killed me.

It had been dark and raining. Every so often lightening would streak across the sky, writhing and crackling with the pain of its existence. It would illuminate the black puddles of water that siphoned through the stoned roads, its light glancing off of the wetness that trickled down the sides of dilapidated buildings that had once been homes. Rubble lay in masses of indistinguishable material. As to what had once been human, I was uncertain.

This hadn't been the first time that Hyrule had become collateral in the great battle between good and evil, yet I had never seen our home in such a horrific state. Never had it been so utterly destroyed and annihilated beyond recognition. Our kingdom, our precious kingdom, had become a grotesque graveyard. Where the market had stood, once filled with the bustling activity of townsfolk, was now a heap of lifeless bodies. Carelessly thrown on top of one another until they piled higher than my head, like a platter at a banquet ready to be served. The tall watch tower that stood near the east side of Castletown, the one where you could see everyone and everything within leagues around, where you would take me to watch the sun rise before the guards knew of my disappearance, now lay broken and crumbled upon the ground. Everything that we had ever known was painted with a red stain and soiled with the rotting corpses of the poor citizens that had lived in it. The citizens we failed to protect.

Wasn't that our duty? To prevent death? To put an end to the suffering and the pain?

I choked back another sob and you pulled on my hand tighter in response as I struggled to make my legs move as fast as yours. The rain threatened my vision and my skirts held promises of sending me sprawling to the ground amongst the blood and the water. So much water. It was all red.

A feeling of unease crept up my neck as I realized that we were the only movement in a deserted war-ground of wreckage. Where were the stalfos? Iron knuckles? Moblins? I fought through them as I had made my way to the castle to meet you but hadn't even been close to eliminating all of them. Everything had been on fire, screams echoing off of decaying homes, explosions sending the ground into a tremulous earthquake. I had watched in horror as babes were ripped from their mother's bosoms, brave men charged forth only to be cut down in showers of blood, and unarmed citizens cowered in shadowed crevices praying to the Goddesses for a blessing that would arrive too late. I tried to save as many of them as I could but it was me against an army and I knew I didn't have time to spare. I would have been killed if I lingered any longer. Now I looked around me to see that the clamor had died with the onslaught of the muffled rain— washing away the screams and the rotting smell of death.

I shivered. I hadn't saved them in time. I failed them.

All of them.

As we sprinted down the motionless alleyways of what had once been Castletown, unbidden memories washed over me like the rain on my face, keeping me awake and from succumbing to an absolute numbness that I knew I would not be able to shake myself from. We took a turn down a crookbacked path and passed through blackened gardens that were nothing but dark ash— the aftermath of wild conflagrations. The rain had turned it into a pasty soot of dirt and grime, I couldn't help but notice how it splattered onto my ankles in flecks of black and red. Red and black.

I blinked once and I saw sun shining down upon us, the blue sky, and felt air that held a comfortable warmth. You pulled on my hand, but it wasn't to prevent me from ending up like the corpses we dodged on the ground, it was because you want to twirl me around in your arms. You pretended that we were at one of those aristocratic balls that we both loathe so much. I was the princess and you were my suitor. Yet you smiled sadly because you knew that no matter how many times we are reborn, you are never my suitor. You are never allowed to be.

You are the unknown hero that never receives the credit you deserve.

I blinked again and the memory faded along with the sun and the warmth and the laughter. Rain distorted my vision once more and I used my free hand to wipe the water from my face. I saw you dragging me along, the crimson on your blue sleeveless jerkin, the grotesque gash that ran through it and the blood that seeped out of it. You wore a burgundy scarf that was wound around your neck, lined with debris, and a deep purple sash around your waist that held an assortment of dirks and knives— weapons I had never known you to use. Your skin was dark. Darker than I had ever seen it before. It's ofttimes fair, yet this time it was the color of sun-kissed sand, bronzed from your time in the desert. But your eyes shone a brilliant blue in contrast— just as they always had. Sometimes your hair is auburn, most the time blonde, once it had been red. Now it was so light that it seemed to glow an ethereal wan blue with each flash of lightening. It hung low to your shoulders as most of it had fallen out of the ponytail you wore at the nape of your neck. Your muscles were more defined, bulked from your arduous lifestyle, and you bore a leever-inked tattoo on your left bicep— the moon and star insignia of the Spirit Temple.

You had been born Gerudo in this lifetime.

You most certainly looked the part. I had rarely ever seen you without a green tunic and your signature matching hood. I was curious to know about your life as a Gerudo and how someone I had known several lifetimes over suddenly seemed so entirely different. But there was no time left for idle reacquainting.

Our meeting in this life had been long coming and it wasn't until the first signs of evil appeared that I first saw you. Dressed in garb that was privy to Gerudo assassins, you stole into Hyrule's golden palace and kidnapped me from my room before I realized what had happened. You see, you had awakened your Triforce before me, regaining all of your memories of our past lives. It had been the first time you'd done so; it was always I who had to seek you out or bide my time until your arrival.

You had tried your hardest to keep me from the final battle this time, you wanted me out of harm's way. Yet once I regained my memories I came after you, I joined you in taking up arms against the reincarnated King of Evil. I remember my shock at seeing the both of you fighting each other. The way you parried his moves with your double scimitars had been so eerily similar to his own fighting style. There was a burning fire in your gaze that I had never noticed before.

For the first time it had not just been the Hero against the Evil King— it had been Gerudo against Gerudo.

A cold numbness brought me out of my head and clouded my mind as if I had been drugged and I squeezed your hand, seeking your comfort to stave it off. My thoughts were lost for the time being and I focused on what still had to be done.

It wasn't over.

We weren't safe.

We suddenly made a sharp left and I saw the familiar citadel appear over brown rooftops that had once been orange. The Temple of Time, rebuilt three times in all the lifetimes I could recount. I let out a deep exhale at the sight of it, nothing had ever felt so much like home in a world that had been turned upside down. Apart from a long crack down side, it seemed untouched compared to the whole of Castletown. For that I was grateful, and it seemed as though you were too because you gripped my hand tighter and raced down the narrowed cobblestone faster than what I could keep up with. I stumbled once but you were there and you made sure I didn't fall before continuing on. I began to feel the dull throb of an ache in my leg resurface, I had used what little energy I had dared to spare to keep the pain at bay with my magic back at the castle. Hissing under my breath I chanced a look down at my leg and through my ravaged cloth of dresses I saw the blood dripping down, mingling with the black dirt. I bit my lip, briefly wondering if we would make it out of this one before telling myself not to entertain such morbid thoughts. Of course we would. We always did.

We had reached the top of the stone steps and you let go when we slowed to a stop at the entrance. I noticed how cold my hand suddenly felt without your fingers intertwining in mine as I watched you throw your weight against the large ironwood doors. A dull creak echoed in time with an earth-shaking thunder and you waited for me to hurry inside before following behind.

I was panting excessively as if I would never taste oxygen again. I remembering thinking that I needed a moment, just a moment to rest, but a glimmer caught my eye and all thoughts on slowing down were lost. Ahead of me was the one thing that we needed to end all of this, the reason why we had narrowly avoided the collapse of Ganondorf's castle and why we traversed through the blood-soaked battlefield that had been Castletown.

The Master Sword.

It glinted with the flashes of pallid light through the tall stained-glass windows. The one constant in the many different lifetimes that we live. I took a subconscious step forward, forgetting the pain in my leg, the fogginess in my head that told me to sleep, and the lack of air in my lungs that caused my throat to burn with each breath.

"Link…" I spoke your name, ready to express the renewed sense of hope I felt at the sight of the sword. I wanted to tell you that we still had a fighting chance now, that perhaps all the lives of the poor civilians we saw lining the streets had not been all for naught. But your name died on my lips as I heard the dull echo of the door closing and I turned around to face you.

Your eyes were shadowed by the alter of the doorway and I couldn't see your face as you stood there in the darkness. I remember the way my heart had begun to beat in my ears instead of my chest or the chill that shot down my spine at the sight of you.

"Link?" I spoke your name again, exuding the anxiety I felt in wasting such precious time.

You stepped forward then and the shadows that were marring your eyes lifted, only to show an expression I had never seen you wear before. It was cold, calculating, and void of emotion. Your foreign garb suddenly struck something inside of me that resembled unease and it left me without valor. I no longer trusted myself to speak.

Your eyes, the one attribute that had been a sense of familiarity to me, narrowed and suddenly the shadows had reappeared.

You raised a hand in gesture to someone or something behind me but I didn't have time to validate with my own eyes before I suddenly felt a searing burn blossom from the back of my left shoulder blade. I cried out and my knees buckled, sending me to the unforgiving floor as something else struck my calf. Then another in my side, another in the small of back. Scorching pain spread through my veins and I fell forward, catching myself with my hands and watched as blood began to splatter beneath me in a multitude of splotches like paint on a white canvas. The red liquid was a sharp contrast on the marble and I stared as the puddles grew, momentarily mesmerized as I gasped for breath, attempting to make sense of the situation.

Moblins in the rafters. I could hear their incessant squalling now that their target was rendered immobile. I had been foolish, in my brief moment of relief I had not sensed them. Oh, how I cursed myself.

I ripped my gaze away from the pooling of my blood and sought you out, naively still concerned with your safety— but you were nowhere to be found. I coughed once, twice, my body convulsing with the pain of the arrow shafts embedded into my skin. It felt as though I was on that floor for hours but in retrospect it was most likely only seconds before I wearily pushed myself back to my knees. Crimson dripped faster and I let out another cry as it felt like my wounds were being torn anew like the claws of a wolfos on my back.

I managed to croak out your name before I succumbed to another coughing fit. I remember seeing the blood on my palm and wondering if that truly came from within my mouth. Then it became very silent.

Why had the moblins not finished me off? Why were they not engaging you?

These questions hadn't crossed my mind in my delirious state of pain. You see, I had several lifetimes, some that I remember, some that I do not, of forming an unbreakable bond with you. One that is only created when you save someone from certain death. When you risk your life for another. When you fight side by side in the name of your kingdom. When you live together, when you die together, when you experience loss and triumph, pain and love as one.

You were my hero and I was your princess.

It didn't matter if you were a Kokiri boy, Hylian, or even Gerudo. Whether you had brown hair or blonde. Dark skin or light. A freckle underneath your eye or a scar down your face. You were always Link.

Link, the hero that would rise up against the evil when everyone else could not.

Link, the hero I could always count on.

I felt you grab my shoulder, tenderly, and I nearly crumbled into your touch, craving your promised solicitude. You were here now. I was safe.

"Link… there's moblins…" I managed before taking another sharp intake of breath. I shuddered as another fit wracked my body and I sought out your eyes but they were shadowed beneath your bangs.

"I know."

Your voice, it sounded distant. It sounded composed.

As if you intended for this to happen all along.

With mounting disbelief, I tried to pull back but you anticipated it and held on with a firmer grip, keeping me in place against you.

"It's time to stop fighting, princess."

Your words instilled a fear in me that I had never known before and dread coiled in my stomach like a snake consuming its prey. Gooseflesh pimpled on my arms and I suddenly felt cold, as if I'd never be warm again.

I now know what that keen feeling had been. In all my years of living life over and over, I had never experienced it to such an extent. An extent where I felt as though every thought that crossed my mind, every word that I spoke, every emotion that I felt, had all been a lie. Our bond that took hundreds of years to perfect, the pain and the loss and the love— lay in shattered in pieces upon the ground, mingling with the splatters of my blood.

But even as I lay collapsed there, supported by your arms, arrow fletchings protruding from my back, my lifesblood draining down my legs, I still believed that you would save me.

Link, the hero that would protect me.

I felt myself involuntarily jerk forward before I felt the pain. Before I felt the blood run down my stomach and bubble in my throat, hot and metallic.

I watched as you withdrew your Gerudo-crafted dirk from my abdomen, soaked in red. Dripping.

"I can't have you interfering any longer," you told me and I forced my eyes to meet your own derisive gaze. Such contempt. Where had that been hiding all these years?

You dropped me then and I fell to the ground with a sickening thud like the flop of a wet fish out of water. Blood everywhere. So much of it. I remember watching it pour out of me like a broken dam and wondering of much would I have to lose before there wasn't enough to keep me alive. Somewhere during that time it became difficult to breathe. I hadn't noticed until I realized the loud hollow rattling of air was coming from my throat, dry and painful.

Your boots stepped into my vision and I wearily lifted my gaze to see you flippantly wiping my blood off of your blade onto your blue jerkin as if it was no more than a bit of disgruntling grime.

"Why…?" I breathed hoarsely. The word almost caught in my throat as hot liquid filled my mouth and I choked, spitting onto the floor next to me.

And you, do you remember what you did?

You smiled.

As if I had told a mildly droll joke.

Then slowly, you crouched down so you could level your eyes with my own and said, "Because there is no justice in the world."

You grinned again with an air of complacency, if I dare to say, and continued, "I am forced to relive my life over time and again with you, of all people. Eternally bound to you and to my sword, defending weak-willed peasants that Din-forbid would fight their own battles, waging a war that cannot be won." You gave a sharp twist of your mouth, "And for what? For the good of Hyrule? So a few insignificant lives can be spared? For you— a spoiled princess who also relies on me to come to your every beck and call when you so desire?"

You cocked your head to the side and I watched that dead look in your eyes transform into something that resembled rancor— frightening passionate retribution.

"Tell your Goddesses when you see them on the other side that I'm done. I'm done playing as their puppet, their chosen hero," you sneered. Reflexively, my finger twitched on the ground, it appeared blurry due to my inability to focus and yet I attempted to fix my gaze on it. Anything to not have to continue to look at your dark skin and blue eyes. Eyes that I had loved with each reincarnation.

"Chosen," You scoffed at the word as if it had been a taste of curdled milk. "You know what I choose?" I felt your hand cradling the side of my face before I saw it. My vision was beginning to dim and with it, the exultant grin upon your face. There wasn't even a thimble of honor left within your little finger.

"I choose to kill you and break the cycle."

Then you let my head fall and my blood splattered onto the side of my cheek.

How could you say those things to me? How could we have fought together against the King of Evil only hours ago?

Had those been your thoughts all along?

For how many lifetimes?

In those last moments as I watched you walk away from me and through the doors of the Temple of Time without the Master Sword in your hand, I made a vow to myself. I knew what I must do. I came to my conclusion all alone in the temple that started it all and would end it all the same.

It wasn't supposed to end this way. It wasn't supposed to be like this, I had told myself.

I felt an involuntary tear slip down my blood-covered face as I stared up at the girder high above me, blearily watching your moblins retreat, their task completed. I focused the last of my energy on the ire I felt at the sight of them. The lies I had believed, the knowledge that you had been the one that would bring ultimate destruction to our homeland, snuffing out its life and single-handedly ending mine.

Yes. I made a vow that night.

That night that was dark and raining. That night I lay alone on the marbled floor of The Temple of Time, in a pool of my own blood.

I swore that I would awaken my Triforce before you in our next life, and I would hunt you down like the monster that you were and take your life before you could steal one from another innocent.

You would not be the one to break the cycle, it would be I. For the first time, Wisdom would fight alone against Courage and Power. I would take you both out and protect my kingdom of Hyrule.

"Traitor…" I rasped with my final breath. I heard my distorted voice resonate against the great cavernous ceiling and echo back to me as if the words had been spoken by a different person entirely.

"You traitor."

A person that I didn't recognize.