Chapter 1
Four Years Later...
"Get off the road!" Gordon yelled out the window with a fist raised as he passed a slow-moving car on the highway. "The speed limit is seventy! That means you go seventy-five, not fifty!"
After getting ahead of the beat-up old Ford and momentarily scowling at the beat-up old man behind the wheel, he veered his truck back into the right lane and continued on his way.
He passed a road sign that told him he was only ten miles from his destination - Lydia's apartment. His older sister had called him earlier that morning on his cell phone, saying that he had to come to her place as soon as possible. By 'as soon as possible', she of course actually meant 'get your butt over here in thirty minutes or else', but it still took Gordon a couple of hours to actually get on the road. She would probably be irritated when he got there. Nevermind that it took more than thirty minutes to drive from his parents' house to his sister's place.
With a sigh, he rolled down the window and leaned his head back against the seat as the summer wind did a number on his hair. He hadn't seen Lydia in almost a month. Stuff had been going on on his end - wrapping up the school year, a part-time job... He supposed Lydia had been busy with her own stuff. She usually wasn't out of contact with him for that long. Ever since... that happened... Lydia had been very socially needy when it came to her younger brother.
Before he could even stop himself, as he usually tried to, he ended up thinking about all that had happened.
It had been four years since that time. Attempting to get the three of them out of his hair, but still alive for his own purposes, Ganondorf had imprisoned their minds in a make-believe world that was a mixture of the present Hyrule and the past one. However, thanks to Lydia's days under Ganondorf's mind control prior to that, she had a particular resistance to the magic and was able to make a crack in the spell. The three of them all broke free of it, and attempted an escape from the Tower. The Evil King, however, caught up to them. In a desperate fight with Ganondorf, Link had been killed trying to protect Lydia. Immediately after, Ganondorf destroyed the Ocarina of Time, sending them permanently back to their home world. Gordon had been injured in the fight, but he was back on his feet in a few weeks. Lydia had been uninjured thanks to Link's protection... but that was only outside. Inside, she was completely destroyed. The level of her emotional damage almost wrecked her life.
Gordon had been unconscious for it, but apparently Ganondorf made Lydia's grief at losing Link worse by telling her that it was her fault that he was killed. She never got over it. Even though for many months afterward Gordon kept insisting that protecting her was what Link wanted to do, Lydia could never shake the idea that it was all her fault.
Even though Gordon was also emotionally damaged from the loss of Link, a close friend and comrade of his, he handled it a lot better than his sister did. She couldn't be blamed for that, though. She and Link had something much more between them than just comradeship. Gordon couldn't even begin to imagine what it must have felt like for her. Though he dealt with his sadness and did the best he could with his life, Lydia was a completely different story.
After they were thrown back to their world, it was weeks before Lydia slept or ate properly. Not even things she used to love could shake her out of her stupor. She cried more than she didn't. She rarely left her room, let alone the house. She was supposed to start college at the end of the summer, but she never went.
He was trying to do the brotherly duty of protecting his sister's fragile psyche, but what Gordon did that day may have actually worsened things for Lydia, for a short time, at least. For another six months or so after that, since no one was questioning or bothering her, she became somewhat reckless with herself. She could never hold a job for more than a couple of weeks, her sleep schedule was never regular. The madness and self-destruction lasted until about a year after they had come home.
One day, Lydia had a realization as to what she was doing to herself, and proceeded to spend almost an hour crying on her brother's shoulder. She wanted to fix this - she wanted to turn things around, and try to move on. Gordon had known exactly how to seal the deal and get Lydia motivated to get her life back on track. He had asked her, "Lydia... What would Link want you to do now?"
As soon as the next semester was set to start, Lydia went to college. It was a state university in a nearby city, a short drive from home. She had no idea what she wanted to major in, but she was going to school now, and that was enough for the time being. She also got a job - some retail work. It wasn't much, but it also didn't require a lot of effort to do well in; exactly what Lydia needed. After her freshman year, she had earned enough money to move away from home, and got an apartment in her school's town. She was nineteen at the time.
Gordon visited her on and off, and much more frequently when he got a driver's license. His sister's apartment wasn't fantastic, but it wasn't a dump either, and it was in a nice neighborhood about ten minutes away from her school. Her grades in school were decent, and she still managed to hold that same job, so she must have been avoiding screwups at work, too. Gordon was so proud of his sister. Of course, even though she was now moving on fairly well and getting her life going again, she still had her occasional bouts of crippling depression. After all, she still believed that Link's death was her fault. Sometimes she would be thinking of a happy memory with him, which would accidentally move on to memories of what happened to him, and she would be just destroyed for the rest of the day. There'd be no talking to her. She had never been quite the same again after losing Link like that, but she was doing all right overall.
However, just because she was doing her best to live a normal life, it didn't mean that she still wasn't heavily involved in her old life. Her apartment was actually a two-bedroom place. Obviously, she only needed one. The second spare bedroom was littered with spellbooks, diagrams, and research papers. She was determined to finish what Link started. She felt she owed that much to him. She wanted to find a way back to Hyrule and see if she could do anything to help. Personally, Gordon didn't believe it was within their magical power to breach the dimensional borders like that, but Lydia didn't listen to him. She kept insisting that since the Ocarina of Time had that kind of power, she'd find a way to harness the power herself. After all, Maya and Riku had been the keys to creating the Ocarina. The secret had to be there somewhere, waiting for discovery. Lydia spent all of her free time in that spare bedroom.
It had been two years since she started doing her heavy research... and as far as Gordon knew, she still hadn't found a way back to Hyrule. Gordon was now seventeen years old, and Lydia had just turned twenty-one.
Four long years had passed...
Lost in thought, Gordon almost missed his exit, and had to veer off the highway at the last second. Lydia's apartment was right off the highway, so it only took a few minutes to get there. He passed a McDonalds on the way and considered swinging through the drive-thru, but decided to keep driving. Lydia was already going to tear him a new one for being so late.
He pulled his oversized truck into the apartment complex and found an empty parking space. He stuffed the keys into the pocket of his jeans and headed up to the door of Lydia's building. It actually was a fairly nice place, and he felt better knowing Lydia lived in a safe neighborhood. ...Well, it wasn't like she couldn't easily fend off any would-be muggers, but it still made him more at ease that she was in a respectable place.
A few moments after he pushed the button for her apartment number, Lydia's computerized voice came through on the intercom, a little broken, but still audible.
"Hello?"
"It's me."
"What, did you get lost? Come on up."
The door buzzed and unlocked, and Gordon stepped in. Lydia's apartment was on the third floor. His footsteps on the carpeted stairway echoed through the entire building, it seemed. Lydia's unit was the first one at the top of the stairs. The welcome mat on the floor just outside was very typical of her - it had a picture of a cat on it. She loved cats.
He knocked softly on the door. It was his intention to knock three times, as was his habit, but after two, the door flew open. A pair of slender hands shot out from inside, as if to attack him. They grabbed the front of Gordon's shirt tightly and yanked him in before he could even react. The door slammed behind him, and the person on the other end of those arms excitedly slammed him against the wall. Lydia stared him in the eye with a wide, triumphant grin on her face.
Lydia had since grown her hair out again - it hung long, down to the middle of her back. She still wore glasses, having given up completely on contact lenses. She was wearing a denim long-sleeved shirt that zipped up in the front, accompanied by a matching pair of jeans, as well as her usual oversized black shoes. Today, it seemed that her look was supplemented by dark undereye circles and messy hair. Had she been awake all night?
She raised her index finger and pointed it directly in her brother's face. In the most cocky voice she could muster, she declared, "I did it. You said I couldn't, but I so did."
Gordon was confused, and tried to push himself off the wall. "...Did what?"
Pushing him against the wall again, Lydia repeated herself. "I did it! C'mon! C'mon!" Taking a tight grip on her brother's shirt, she dragged him through the apartment and into the spare bedroom. Careful not to step on any of the papers littering the floor, Lydia dragged Gordon over to the desk, stood him in front of it, and pointed excitedly at a particular piece sitting right in the center of the mess.
It was a worn, well-used sheet of paper with all kinds of scribblings and notes on it. It was surrounded by even more sheets of notes - even some entire notebooks-full of them. The walls were littered with diagrams and enchantments. Gordon took a closer look at the sheet his sister was frantically pointing at. At first, he didn't see what she was excited about. He had actually seen this sheet before - a mixture of notes and small diagrams his sister had drawn. ...But when he looked a second time, he noticed something new. There was something written on the bottom page in technical terms of magic... relating to space-time. He read what was written there, and it somehow, as if magic in itself, made everything else on the page tie together and make sense.
Realizing what he was looking at, he looked in amazement at his sister, who was standing next to him with her hands on her hips, wearing an I-told-you-so smile on her face.
"...Don't tell me you..." Gordon muttered in disbelief.
"Yes, young acolyte," Lydia replied, grinning. "I found the way back to Hyrule."
"But it wasn't us that had a hand in creating the Ocarina of Time! Those secrets were supposed to be long lost."
"Oh, ye of little faith, don't worry. I'll tell you all the juicy details over some lunch. I put some pizza rolls in the oven a while ago. Want some?"
"Huh? Um, sure."
Lydia bounced up and down a few times, very pleased with herself, and skipped out of the bedroom and into the small kitchen.
Still in disbelief, Gordon picked up the sheet of paper with bits and pieces of the spell scrawled all over it and took a second look. ...Sure enough... it looked like she really had found the method to make a temporary crack in the dimensional barrier. Those two years of slaving over all of the spellbooks in this room seemed to have finally paid off.
While he was busy being amazed, Gordon noticed another sheet of paper that had been right under the one he now held in his hand. It was a diagram of something that looked a bit like a bird, surrounded by all sorts of notes, and an incantation he had heard before on one occasion.
A spellsheet for the Phoenix Flare.
It was the spell that Lydia had worked on for years after the first time they had been sent back to their world after a battle. Now that Gordon knew the details of the spell, it really had been an ingenious thing to use against Ganondorf back then, on that day four years earlier - the day she finally revealed it. Instead of black magic, as was her specialty, the spell was constructed of pure white magic which borrowed energy from the forces of nature. Lydia's logic was that if you can't fight fire with fire, fight fire with ice. Since white magic was not Lydia's strong point, under normal circumstances, she would never have been able to generate energy of that level. Thankfully, as an unintended consequence of the spell, she had gotten some outside help from Maya at the crucial moment. In addition, since it was white magic, it seemed to have some slight healing capabilities as well.
Unfortunately, two Triforce pieces was simply too much. Ganondorf was too strong. All the spell did was bruise him up a bit. Maybe if the spell had been used against him back when he had only one piece, maybe things would have turned out differently.
Upon a second look-over of the scribblings, Gordon noticed that this wasn't the Phoenix Flare exactly as he had remembered it. A few things had been crossed out and replaced by something else, and some new things had been added. It looked like more influence was being put into the healing aspect of the spell... just enough to almost make it into a new spell.
Lydia hadn't told him about this...
Just then, her voice sailed out of the kitchen. "Food!"
Gordon set the papers back down on the desk and headed out into the living room. Lydia had set two plates of pizza rolls on the ottoman, and had planted herself on the floor next to it, with her back resting against the couch. He sat down next to her and started to help himself to the food.
Not one to waste time, Lydia immediately started to go over the details of what she had come up with, right down to the nitty-gritty of the magical components and details that only the two of them would understand. It wasn't an actual spell, he was told, in that it didn't have a name or an incantation. It was simply the act of mentally concentrating on the dimensional borderline and creating a temporary crack in it by using said methods. It would create a portal to the other side, but it wouldn't last more than ten seconds or so, so they'd have to be quick about crossing over. Their current power level just wasn't enough to buy themselves more time than that.
When Lydia was done with her long, technical explainaton, Gordon leaned back and rested his head on the couch cushion. "Amazing," he whispered. "So complicated, and yet, so simple."
Quickly swallowing her food, his sister replied, "Exactly. So complicated, and yet, so simple that I could teach you how to do it in the span of this very afternoon."
"You need to teach me how to do it, too?"
Suddenly, Lydia's face turned red and she smiled bashfully. "Actually, that's why I called you out here today. Now that I know how to get to Hyrule, I want to go there and have a look around, see what we're dealing with, y'know. That way we won't have to go back without a plan. But, see... the catch is that I don't know how to do the spell in reverse."
"What?"
"Meaning that I'll have to have you here, so that you can open the portal for me from this side."
"Wait, you're going without me?"
"It's the way it's gotta be, though."
"There's no way you're not taking me with you!" The sorcerer started to get visibily agitated.
"Kid, I just said that I was only going to take a look around. I'm not going to do anything. I'll be gone a few hours, tops. Once we figure out how to open the portal from the opposite side, we'll both go, find Ganondorf, and do some damage."
"...All right, all right."
Lydia smiled. "Thanks, man."
As she started to go for another pizza roll, Gordon suddenly asked, "What is that you're doing in there with the Phoenix Flare?"
She stopped mid-reach.
"You didn't say you were working on it further," he continued. "Just to safisfy my curiosity..."
The girl again rested her back against the couch and sighed. "Technically, it's the same spell, but it's a more advanced variation if it. I'll bet you noticed the difference."
"Indeed, I did," Gordon replied, going for another pizza roll. "There was a lot more emphasis on the healing part."
"Right. Instead of drawing power from nature with an emphasis on attacking, I would draw power from nature's regeneration abilities, instead. The incantation is even the same, right up until the end. The same spell... yet with a completely different effect. Instead of using the power of the phoenix to attack, I use its abilities of regeneration and rebirth." She lowered her head, and her hair fell down in front of her eyes. Her voice started to break with emotion. "I think... if I had been able to do that... back then... I could have saved him."
Gordon's heart went out to his sister, and he wrapped his arm around her, pulling her close. She rested her head on his shoulder and tried not to cry.
"Don't worry," Gordon said reassuringly. "We'll avenge him. Ganondorf will be sorry he was even born."
"Okay, do you think you get it?" Lydia asked.
"Yeah," her brother replied, shuffling the masses of papers back into place. "Actually, you were right - there's not a lot to it."
It had been three hours since lunch - Gordon had actually learned how to work the spell a lot more quickly than she had expected him to. He truly was a gifted sorcerer.
"What's the plan?" Gordon asked.
"Hmm... Well, the nice thing about this spell is that we won't need much room. The portal will be roughly human-sized. We can probably even open it out in the living room."
"Just don't let your landlord find out that you're opening dimensional portals in the apartment... There's gotta be a rule about that sort of thing in the lease somewhere."
"Somewhere in all that fine print I didn't bother to read, probably."
"How will I know when you need to get back?"
"You'll know."
"That's nice and vague."
"Trust me."
"Okay, okay... What are you going to need?"
"Just the clothes I'm wearing. I won't be there long, like I already said. Just taking a look around."
Gordon sighed. "All right... When are you going?"
"Right now."
"Now?"
"Now."
Lydia's eyes demonstrated a kind of determination Gordon just couldn't argue against. At a loss, he had no choice but to nod in agreement and follow her into the living room. She positioned herself in the most spacious area of the room and pointed to a spot on the floor.
"There. See if you can open the portal there."
The sorcerer looked at his sister, a bit surprised. "You want me to do it?"
"I want to make sure you can before I go."
"Hmm. Okay, I'll try."
The sorcerer closed his eyes tightly, trying to block out all light in the room. He concentrated until the world seemed to drop away from around him. All he could feel or sense around him were the forces of nature intertwining with each other. This was the border of spacetime.
He heard his sister's voice echo all around him. "Concentrate on your destination," she advised. "The dimensional border will appear before you. Pick a spot and send all of your willpower into it. Break it!"
Back in the apartment, Gordon swung his arm in a wide circle several times. A swirling black vortex appeared in the room, about the height of an average person. Cross winds blew through the apartment, sending any loose papers flying.
Gordon, very pleased with himself, turned to his sister in time to see her flash him a thumbs up. "Great job! No time, gotta run! Be ready!"
With that, she ran toward the vortex, closing her eyes just as she was about to enter.
There was the feeling of speed, the rushing of wind. Her body jolted, as if breaking through something. Almost as quickly as it had begun, there was another rush of wind - this time, it actually felt cold. She opened her eyes.
She was falling. Quickly glancing above her, she caught sight of the vortex in the dark sky just before it started to close again. Remembering that she was currently plummeting to the ground, she quickly caught herself with magic and gently lowered herself down the rest of the way.
The ground she landed on was blackened and broken. There was plantlife, but it was all dead. The clouds above her were dark and forboding, constantly swirling around each other. The wide landscape Lydia found herself in was dotted with dead trees, whose branches swayed in the wind like the fingers of skeletons. The wind was chilly and sailed right through her clothes, sending chills all over her body.
She had no idea where she was.
"Oh, no," Lydia muttered out loud. "This can't be Hyrule. Agh, Gordon, did you screw up? Where the heck did you send me?"
But then the sorceress took another look. There was a building in the distance. It was broken and looked pretty hollowed out, but there was no mistaking in her mind as to what it used to be. Lon Lon Ranch. Judging from it's position, she must be facing north. Looking farther ahead, the outline of Ganon's Tower loomed, darker and scarier than ever before. Tearing up, Lydia turned around partially, looking south. Though it was now supplemented by new cracks in the ground and new cliffs, her Dragon Slave crater was still there for all to see. Hyrule Field was almost completely destroyed. The ground was dead, and it looked as if it had suffered from great earthquakes - there were cliffs where there hadn't been cliffs before.
This... was Hyrule.
Unable to stop herself from crying, Lydia tried to imagine how it was possible for this much damage to have been done to the land in such a short time. The answer immediately came to her. After destroying the Ocarina of Time, Ganondorf must have taken the Triforce of Courage for himself. That would have given him the entire Triforce, to use as he pleased.
If Link had been there... this wouldn't have happened to the beautiful Hyrule.
Then, Lydia had another thought, as she wiped the tears from her eyes and willed herself to stop crying. Ganondorf's aim had been to destroy Hyrule completely, not just mess it up really badly. He had said it himself - he wanted to basically erase it and built it anew, free of human corruption or some stupidity like that. So... why did Hyrule, even in as bad a state as it was, continue to exist? Something must have gone wrong for the Gerudo man - something to mess up his plans.
Maybe they still had a shot to fix this!
The sorceress dried her eyes as a determined smile crawled across her face. She raised her head and said, "Don't worry, Link. I'll fix this. Somehow, someway... I'll fix this." She lowered her eyes again. "...It's the least I can do..."
Lydia walked north the whole time. She considered flying at first, as she normally would, but not knowing the kinds of dangers that were in this destroyed Hyrule, she decided it would be best to stay low. She walked north, flying only when it would help her get up or down a cliff quickly. She wasn't sure why she pressed decidedly north - something in her gut was telling her to check out Ganon's Tower first. Every fiber of her being told her to stay the hell away from that place, but every time she looked at it, she got the feeling that there was something there she needed to see. She was hesitant at first to listen to her gut on this one, but soon after decided that, having no clue as to what would be the best way to start, going there was just as productive as anything else, the hesitation was gone. Real quickly, though - the last thing she needed was trouble. Not before she was ready. She'd get in, have a quick look around, then leave.
She hadn't seen any people along the way.
Even in this wrecked Hyrule, Zora's River still flowed strong. That was a good sign, Lydia supposed, for what little good it did at this point. The gates to the castle Market still stood, as well. Lydia jumped over the river and swiftly walked through the gates, staying close to the wall.
The Market had been ruined for a really long time, even when she was last here, so it was nothing surprising for her. Pretty much the main difference was that the rest of Hyrule was now similar to this. As soon as she was inside, she caught sight of the now-familiar ReDeads that littered the entire area. ...Lydia was horribly afraid of ReDeads, but the sight of something familiar, even this, was comforting, in a weird sort of way.
The best way to get through here without making a commotion was to fly over. That would be best, because it would also be a chance to test and see whether or not that anti-magic field was still active.
Forming her hands into a runic shape in front of her face, Lydia whispered a word of magic, and the ground fell from beneath her feet. Staying close to the wall, she lifted herself higher and higher into the air. As soon as she was at a comfortable height, she took off quickly, sailing right over the heads of all the ReDeads. They didn't even notice her.
Once through the Market, and on the way to where the Tower stood, Lydia smiled to herself. As she hoped, the anti-magic field had since been taken down, or had simply faded away over time. This would be quite helpful. Without bothering to head back to the ground, Lydia continued to fly in the direction of the castle.
The monstrous, dark building loomed over her before she was ready for it to loom over her. It looked just the same as it had the last time she had been there, with the dark tower and the scary clouds and the pit of lava below. That bridge of light the Sages had created back then, when they tried to escape from this very tower, had since disappeared. ...Speaking of the Sages, where had they been during all this? She wondered about the fate of Princess Zelda, and Malon, and Link the Goron, and Princess Ruto, and that guy that ran the Kakariko Tavern... Lydia only hoped she would find some signs of somebody familiar after she came back with her brother later.
Again thankful for the absense of the anti-magic field, Lydia used magic to lift herself over the lava pit and into the entranceway to Ganon's Tower. Before entering, she thought it would be best to check to see if anyone was home, and sent her magic all around her. After several minutes of probing, she couldn't feel Ganondorf's presense in the tower. But she did feel something. It was very faint, but something in this place was alive. Maybe a prisoner? All the more reason to actually go in, Lydia decided. Taking a deep breath, she started inside.
The girl walked through the dark hallways, trying to remember how the tower was set up. It was rather confusing, but the fact that she had been there before helped a bit. It wasn't long before she came to a familiar crossroads. If she were to turn left, she would make it back to the dungeons, where the three of them had woken up after breaking out of the illusion. On the other hand, the hallway on the right led to a rather large room that had appeared to be a throne room of some kind - the kind of place Ganondorf would sit and read a book if he had been into that kind of thing.
Lydia started down the hallway on the left. Maybe whatever she had felt back at the entrance was down this way. However, before that fork in the road was out of sight, Lydia suddenly got the nagging feeling that she should turn around. It wasn't something she could understand or explain, but something was urging her to turn around and go the other way. While she was busy trying to figure out why such a thing would pop into her mind, she had already turned around and was heading back, and into the hallway that lead to the throne room. She didn't notice right away, but the closer she got to the throne room, the warmer the Sorcerer's Rune grew against her skin.
"Hmm?" she hummed when she finally noticed it. She took the necklace out from inside her shirt and asked it, "What's wrong? Am I supposed to go this way?"
As she continued to walk, the Rune grew even warmer in her hand. "...What is this?" she asked herself in wonder. "It's never done this before... It's like, it's leading me or somethin'..."
Before she even realized it, she had started running.
Seconds later, the sorceress broke out into the throne room and skidded to a stop. Large chairs were scattered about, and the walls were decorated with draperies and banners that were in rather poor taste. A minimal amount of light poured in from one of the thin windows that lined the outer walls.
There was something against the north wall of the room that caught Lydia's attention. One of the large chairs was positioned so that it faced the wall there. But it obviously wasn't meant for wall-gazing. Secured into the wall, a few feet off the ground, was a human-sized purple crystal, that gave off a very faint light.
"...What in all the hells..?" Lydia wondered aloud, and started to walk toward it.
As she got closer, it became immediately apparent that something was inside it, also human-sized. Her heart skipped a beat when she realized it was a person. Breaking into a run again, she got closer, and stopped just in front of the chair that was there. One look at the inside of that crystal, and Lydia's entire world stopped. Weakly, she slumped down into the chair.
Link.
The well-preserved body of Link hung on display in Ganondorf's throne room. His head was lowered, and his face looked very peaceful, like he was sleeping. He even still had all of his equipment, save for the Master Sword, which was missing. The purple crystal he was encased in hummed quietly as it radiated a small amount of energy.
Lydia broke down completely just then. She sat in the chair for several minutes just sobbing. Not only had Ganondorf killed him, but then he put him on display like some kind of hunting trophy. The scum probably sat in this very chair on occasion and gazed upon his prize with delight. It broke Lydia's heart that poor Link had been left like this for so long, and the very thought of it made her guilt only further worsen.
It was quite a while before Lydia was able to compose herself again, and even then, tears ran unchecked down her face. Finally, she looked up at the purple crystal with her teary eyes, and smiled at the boy that had sacrificed himself for her sake.
"Hi, there, Link," she said. "Long time no see, huh? ...It's been four years since I've seen you last. ...You look good."
A sob escaped, but she quickly gathered herself again.
"I'm sorry it took me so long to get back. Without the Ocarina of Time, it was a pretty difficult thing. But, I just figured it out. How to come back... And now, Gordon and I are going to fix Hyrule. Ganondorf really messed it up after you died, but don't you worry - we'll make things right again. I promised that to myself years ago, and now that you're here, I'll promise it to you, too." Lydia gathered some well-hidden strength and stood up. "First things first, though. You deserve better than this." She started to walk toward where the crystal was stuck in the wall. "I'll get you out of here."
As she was almost upon the crystal, Lydia noticed something. Link... looked different. He was still the same Link she remembered, but something was off. She hadn't noticed over in the chair, but now that she was closer, it was immediately apparent. His hair was overgrown and unkempt. His fingernails were long. Maybe she was imaging it, but somehow, he looked... a little older than she remembered him.
With a heart-stopping realization, Lydia suddenly thrust her hand forward and put it on the crystal. It felt cold to the touch. She closed her eyes and sent magic into it.
She felt a slow, definite heartbeat.
Staggering backward a few steps, she gazed in shock at the crystal before her. Link was alive. Even though she had been so certain back then and all through the last four years that he was dead, here he was before her, alive. Barely, but alive. She started to cry.
"Not only is he displaying you here," she shouted at the crystal, "but he's keeping you alive?!" She jumped forward again and put both hands on the crystal. "Oh, God..."
Once she was over the momentary shock, Lydia realized what it was she was dealing with. Link was alive. That changed everything.
Filled with sudden and new determination, Lydia clenched her teeth and spoke in a solid voice. "Link," she called out, "I need you to wake up! I don't think I can break this crystal by myself! I need you to wake up and help me!"
She closed her eyes, pushed against the crystal, and released magic into it with all the force she could muster.
It was dark. It was quiet. It was warm. It was safe.
In this place, there wasn't a past, present, or future. It just was. There was no happiness. There was no sadness. There was no fear.
Just peace.
He had been pulled out of this place several times and forced to endure extreme sadness, but every time he came back, all strife and sorrow was immediately forgotten, and things became peaceful again. He wanted to stay in this place forever.
And suddenly, in this place that was normally completely quiet, he heard her voice.
I need you to wake up and help me!
"No," he replied. "It's nice here. I'm safe."
Please! I'm not leaving this place without you!
"Why?"
We have to defeat him! We need you!
"But I don't want to fight anymore..."
... Even if not to fight... I need you just to be here... I.. I don't want to live without you anymore.
"You need me...?"
Please, wake up... Link!
He suddenly became aware of himself upon hearing his own name, something he had since forgotten. A wave of memories came back.
"Wait... Lydia?"
Light suddenly flooded into the darkness. The feeling of floating was gone, and his senses started to come back.
Link looked around. Everything was white. He seemed to be sitting on a ground that was invisible. He wasn't wearing any clothes, but oddly enough, didn't feel any embarrassment from that.
Just as he was about to call out to her, Lydia appeared before him. She was just a voice, and then just a mist, and then she slowly took form. Her face was so happy, and yet it looked like she had been crying for a long time.
The Hylian stood up. Lydia approached him.
"...You grew your hair out again," Link observed with a smile.
The girl giggled. "Yeah, I did. How do I look?"
"Beautiful. Although, from what I can tell, your figure hasn't filled out any more." He put his hands on his hips in a cocky way. "Not very girly after all, are you?"
With a happy sob, Lydia ran forward and leapt into his waiting arms. They stood there quietly, holding each other, exchanging thoughts without words. Lydia cried. Link cried.
"I know you don't want to fight anymore," Lydia eventually whispered. "But... even if just for me... will you come back?"
Link stroked her long hair and whispered back, "Of course. I don't want to leave you alone anymore."
The girl gently pushed away from him. His warm smile was so inviting. She felt so loved at that moment. Without saying anything, she rose up on her toes and gently kissed him.
There was a rush of wind, a flash of light, and then they were gone.
Back in the physical world, the purple crystal Lydia was concentrating so hard on suddenly cracked. Her eyes snapped open as the cracking spread, slowly at first, then quickly. All at once, the crystal shattered. Link limply fell off the wall and into Lydia's waiting arms as shards of the crystal flew all over the room. A few even managed to sail out of the far window.
Link was suprisingly heavy, so Lydia had no choice but to lower him to the ground immediately, as carefully as she could. She sat on the floor next to him, and cradled his head with her hand. He was still unconscious. She quickly grew worried. He had freely accepted to return to the physical world... he should have awakened right away...
Suddenly, Lydia felt something warm and wet soaking into her pants. Looking down, she saw red blood spreading everywhere. Momentarily forgetting to breathe, she gently pulled back part of Link's torn, stained tunic.
She managed to gasp. "That wound... it's still..."
The injury he had sustained from Ganondorf's strike all that time ago, the injury that Lydia thought had killed him, was still there, and from the looks of things, still fresh.
Horrified, Lydia glanced at the purple shards that lay all over the room. "Oh, God," she whispered, "that crystal was what was keeping you alive?!"
The pool of blood continued to spread, soaking his shirt anew. If Lydia didn't do something right now, Link was really going to die this time. And probably in a matter of minutes.
Just as she was about to panic, Lydia remembered the very thing she had been talking to her brother about earlier in that day. Yes, that was the only thing - the new variation of the Phoenix Flare she had created. She created it with Link in mind, but didn't think she'd actually have a second chance to use it on him.
But, she had never tested it before... it was just a spell on paper at this point.
No time to think about it, she quickly decided, scolding herself for hesitating. Gritting her teeth, she rested both of her hands on Link's chest and concentrated hard. She chanted quickly, without hesitation.
"Bird of purity, reborn from flames,
against whom no evil could ever stand..."
"In the name of justice and the forces of nature,
I summon thee from the depths of time itself!"
"Have no pity on the evil that stands in my way!
Enfuse me with power! Let your strength become mine!"
"To wipe it from the face of this Earth,
to deliver unto it the ultimate fate!"
She screamed as loudly as she could.
"PHOENIX FLARE...REGENERATION!"
A pair of great wings grew from Lydia's back as the room was filled with wind and loose white magic. Once again, the great white phoenix emerged from the girl's body. Only, this time, it didn't take off into the air. Instead, it stood behind her, beating its large wings. It let out a loud call that echoed throughout the entire tower.
In the middle of all the swirling magic, Lydia sat on her knees, keeping her hands on Link, her eyes tightly shut in some sort of prayer. She wasn't alone. Maya sat next to her, much in the same way. She reached forward and put her hands on top of Lydia's.
The phoenix beat its great wings once, and then leapt over where Lydia sat. It dove headfirst on the spot where Link lay, and exploded in a rush of white magic.
Magic poured out of each and every window of Ganon's Tower, and lit up all of Northern Hyrule. During the peak of the spell, the clouds above the Tower were forced to part, momentarily letting sunlight through, probably for the first time in about eleven years.
When the spell finally died down, Maya was gone, and the room was dark once more. Lydia slumped forward in exhaustion, but managed to keep herself from passing out. She breathed heavily as beads of sweat ran down her nose and fell onto the cold stone floor of the Tower.
The girl raised her eyes. Had it worked?
The pool of blood was no longer expanding, and Link's breathing had steadied. Lydia reached forward with a shaky hand and pulled back the torn tunic again.
The wound had closed.
A tear of happiness joined the beads of sweat on the floor, and Lydia said, smiling, "...I think you'll be okay now."
She swallowed, then let her head flop back. She took a deep breath and screamed at the ceiling. "Gordon!" she yelled. "I need the portal opened!"
Lydia sat Link up, and swung his arm around her shoulders. Using every ounce of strength she could muster, she stood the both of them up. Her legs shook under Link's weight, but thanks to some handy adrenalin that happened to be present, she managed to stay standing. Just when she felt like her legs were going to give out, there was a rush of wind through the room, and a black vortex appeared before her. It swirled invitingly.
"Good boy," the girl whispered. She worked up some more strength, and walked through.
Back in Lydia's apartment, Gordon watched the vortex that he had created as soon as he heard his sister's voice in his head. It had been swirling there for several seconds, and nothing had happened. She had better hurry, he thought. That portal wasn't going to stay open more than a few more seconds.
Something big stepped through as the portal began to close. Gordon stepped back, a little surprised. Had a stray creature walked into the portal? When the portal closed and the light faded, Gordon saw that it wasn't a large creature, but was two people. Lydia and... Link?!
Gordon's breath caught in his throat as he watched his sister struggle under the weight of Link's body. "L-Lydia, what-"
She looked up with tears in her eyes. "He's alive!"
"But... how can that be?!"
The girl grunted and shifted her weight. "In a minute, in a minute! Help me, he's heavy!"
After taking another few seconds to get over his shock, Gordon ran over and swung Link's other arm around his shoulders, and helped his sister carry him over to the couch. Once the Hylian had been laid down, Lydia went to retrieve pillows, barking orders along the way. "Kid, get those clothes off him!"
There was a lot of hustle and bustle in the apartment for several minutes. While Lydia was busy gathering pillows and getting some washclothes and a bowl of water ready, Gordon worked both of Link's shirts off, as well as his heavy boots and any equipment he was carrying. While pulling a knit blanket up to Link's waist, Gordon couldn't take his eyes off the scar that now diagonally crossed his torso. That had to be the wound from that time... But even though it was closed, it still looked fresh - the skin around it was still bruised. That would mean that the wound closed very recently. How could that be?
His sister returned to the room just then, her arms full of pillows. She tucked two behind Link's head, and fretted over him for several moments until she was positive he was comfortable. After disappearing from the room again, she soon reappeared carrying a bowl of warm water and several washcloths. She sat down on the floor beside her brother and dipped one of the washclothes into the bowl. She squeezed the excess water out, then started to gently wash the dried blood off of Link whereever she could find it.
Gordon was still bewildered, and he caught himself staring at Link's sleeping form in amazement. ...All these years, he and Lydia had been completely convinced that Link was dead. And now, here he was again, very much alive. It was like a miracle.
He glanced over and noticed that his sister, while still attentive to her work, was silently crying. The boy smiled. He felt overwhelming happiness for her.
"So," he whispered to her, "I thought you were just going to take a look around."
With a teary-eyed smile, Lydia paused long enough to accept a loving hug from her brother.
Though he really didn't feel up to it, Link forced himself to open his eyes. His entire body ached - simply breathing was painful.
He didn't recognize where he was. It was a small, yet open room, with white walls and a white ceiling. Some pictures hung on the wall, and whatever he was stretched out on felt soft. Off to his right was a large window that had a curtain pulled in front of it. Though that was the case, some light was managing to work its way in. Judging from the color, it was the light of a very early dawn.
The cool washcloth that was resting on his forehead fell off as soon as he worked up the strength to raise his head and get a better look around. Most of his clothes seemed to be gone, but he was under a warm blanket. More importantly, he wasn't alone in that white room. Lydia was sitting there, with her head resting against the couch cushion, fast asleep. Her glasses had partially fallen off, and her hand was firmly clasped to Link's.
Then... back then... he hadn't just imagined it. He was finally free. Lydia had finally come back, and had freed him from...
He pushed it out of his mind for now. Carefully so as to not wake the sleeping girl, Link worked himself up into a sitting position, as much as it hurt to do so. This place... it must have been Lydia's world. It just didn't feel the same as Hyrule would. ...Not to mention the high-tech gadgets that lay around the room, which kinda gave it away. There was a small box on a shelf that had glowing red numbers on it. Link watched the numbers change long enough to safely assume that it was some kind of clock. According to what it said, it was just after five in the morning.
In the center of the room, against the wall, there was a big black box with a glassy front. Link had no idea what that could be.
Link heard some shuffling in a nearby hallway, and a very tired-looking Gordon appeared. The Hylian was momentarily shocked at how much the boy had grown since he last saw him. The boy stopped mid-yawn when he realized Link was sitting up and looking at him.
Gordon smiled and walked around the couch. His face softened only further when he saw his sister asleep there like that.
"She hasn't left your side all night," he whispered to Link. "She kept on fretting about this or that, worrying out loud whether or not you were going to be okay."
Link felt his throat tighten as his mind threatened to make him start to cry, and forced it back again. He looked back up at his old comrade. It looked like he had been up most of the night, too.
"...How long has it been?" he asked Gordon.
The boy's face fell. "Four years... Almost to the day, actually."
"Four years..." Link's face fell. "Has it really only been four years? I could have sworn it was longer."
"Link... what happened?"
The Hylian looked up again. Surprisingly, he was smiling. "That can wait, can't it?" he asked. "You look exhausted."
"Heh. Yeah, I guess I am."
"Go and get some rest. I'm still tired, too."
Gordon smiled, and quietly walked around his sleeping sister, bending down to quickly hug Link before leaving. "It's good to have you back."
"Thanks."
The boy straightened up again, carefully moved around his sister again, and quietly retired to the bedroom in the back, leaving Link alone again.
The Hylian looked down at Lydia's sleeping form as she rested peacefully. Her grip on his hand momentarily tightened, then loosened again. He gently wriggled his hand out of her grasp, then reached up and touched her face. He whispered her name.
She groggily opened an eye, and mumbled something about not wanting to go to work so early. Then, suddenly aware of herself, her eyes snapped open and she sat up straight. Slowly, she turned and saw Link looking down at her. She started to cry again, and jumped up into his arms. At first, she held him so tightly that it actually hurt him. She kept repeating his name between sobs, burying her face under his chin.
"Thank God..." she whispered at one point.
Link absently wiped a stray tear off of her face. "Are you all right down there?" He felt her nod.
"I thought I had lost you forever..." her quiet voice said. "But, here you are. You came back to me."
"Of course. What, did you think I'd let you beat Ganondorf by yourself and take all the credit?"
Lydia laughed, in spite of herself. "Now you're just making fun of me."
Both were quiet for several minutes. Lydia finally asked, "Why?"
"Hmm?"
"Why did you do something so stupid? You must have known you would get hurt..."
"I wanted to. That's what you do when you love somebody. What would you have done if you were me?"
She was quiet for a moment. "The same thing, I suppose," she finally answered. "But, even so... you were a damn fool for doing that. Do you have any idea what kind of grief I went through?"
"Sorry."
"Don't ever, ever do that again. ...I couldn't bare losing you twice."
"Okay. Sorry."
"Good. ... Thanks for saving me..."
"You owe me one, Lyd."
"Yeah, I do." She chuckled quietly. "Heh, nobody but you calls me by that nickname. ...I thought I'd never hear it again."
"Well, hopefully, from now on, you'll hear it so much that you'll get sick of it."
"I hope so."
Another several minutes passed, and Link said, "Gordon said you've been here all night. You should get some rest."
The girl nodded and pushed away from him. "You're right."
She then threw herself into the gap between Link and the back cushions of the couch, somehow managing to squeeze herself in there, despite how little room there really was.
Link moved over as far as he could without actually falling off the couch and tried to keep himself from laughing. "...That's not exactly what I meant."
"I don't care," was her cocky reply as she made herself comfortable, resting her head on his shoulder.
Sighing in defeat, Link reached up and removed Lydia's glasses, and set them on the floor beside the couch. Clinging to him tightly, she was asleep in minutes.
Link lay his head back on the pillows again and stared at the ceiling. There was so much running through his mind. A lot had happened in the four years that had passed since then... Lydia saw the way he was in Ganon's Tower, and probably assumed he had been asleep the whole time, like the first time something like this had happened. But that wasn't the case. There was a lot he remembered... and lot of mental torture he was put through... There was so much to tell them...
But that could all wait until morning. There was no need to worry the two of them until they've had some much-deserved rest. In the morning, there would be a lot of stories to tell...
Link soon drifted off to sleep, and for the first time in a long time, there were no nightmares of his beloved Hyrule being slowly and systematically destroyed. The four-year-long nightmare was over, and he was reunited with the person he had most yearned to see that whole time. At least for tonight, he was truly at peace.
