Author's Note: Hi! I'm back, two seconds later, with chapter 1! This is where the story actually begins, and you meet Link and his buddies. So, yeah... That's all for now. So, uh, here you go~!


Chapter One: Arrival

Birds cawed in the distance, their feathered bodies hidden behind the summits that surrounded the secluded mountain village of Hophel.

It was still dark outside, the first few drops of sunlight having not yet peeked over the grassy mountaintops in the east. A woman walked outside of her house, watering can in hand, to give her plants a refreshing morning drink. Two children whispered together, giggling madly, as they headed off to begin their morning chores.

Meanwhile, Link opened the door to his house and stepped out. The usual early morning chill greeted him as he began his work for the day. As he closed the door behind him, the sun began its ascent over the peaks.

Link looked away from the sun, his attention focused on a whistled tune he heard somewhere in the yard. When he looked back up to the sun, it was no longer the sun. It was his friend Monta's face, her short, curly blonde hair blowing in the wind.

"Wake-y, wake-y, sleepy head!"

"Gwah!"

Link jumped, now awake in his bed. Monta's face was now attached to her body and hovering above his own. His other friend, Pyorin, was sitting on the edge of the bed, whistling away.

"Ah, great! You're up, Link," Monta said.

Pyorin stopped whistling and looked over to Link and Monta. "Only because you freaked him out," he snickered.

Monta made a pouting face. "You're the one whistling as loud as who knows what."

An annoyed smirk twitched on his face, and he looked as if he were about to say something insulting, but thought better of it. "Anyway," Pyorin said. "You should probably get off of Link."

"Hm? Oh." Monta laughed and smiled apologetically. "Right. Sorry about that."

After Monta got off of him, Link rose from his bed.

"You're probably wondering why we woke you up so early," Pyorin said. "If it weren't for this, we would've just let you sleep in. After all, it isn't every day we sneak into your house to wake you up."

Link frowned.

"Okay, okay! So we do this every morning, big deal."

Monta piped in. "Today, we actually have a reason: Tavyl's come back home!"

Tavyl was like an idol in Hophel. She was the only one who had ever left the village before, the only one who had ever seen the Great Beyond. She made occasional visits back to Hophel, bringing gifts and fascinating stories of the Great Beyond each time.

Link's face beamed.

"Yep!" Pyorin exclaimed. "So, hurry up! Get dressed. We've gotta go see her before all the snot-nosed little kids get all the good gifts."

Before long, everyone in the tiny village of Hophel had gathered around Tavyl to hear her speak.

"It's so great to see everyone again!" Tavyl said, pushing her long, black hair out of her face.

"Where'd you go this time, Tavyl?" someone from the crowd inquired eagerly.

"Oh, it was such a beautiful place: The sea!"

At the mention of the word, "sea," questions immediately spewed from everyone's lips. None of them had ever heard of the term before, let alone seen it.

"The sea," repeated Tavyl. "It's like… water—lots of it. Like our pond, only much grander. There are millions of fish and birds dwelling there. And the sun..." She sighed, reminiscent images of the ocean most likely filling her mind's eye. "It shines upon the water like nothing I've ever seen before. Oh, I wish you were all there to see it with me.

"But enough about the sea. I've brought gifts for everyone. They're called seashells—closest thing to the sea that I could bring you." Tavyl handed a bag to a man standing next to her and told him to pass the shells out to everyone. "If you put them to your ear, you can hear the sound of the ocean." She took a seashell for herself and put it to her ear, happily listening to the waves.

However, before she could say anything more, she frowned, her eyes focused behind the crowd of villagers.

"Who are you? How'd you get here?" she asked suddenly.

Everyone turned around to face a bloodied, disheveled man crawling towards them. His dark brown hair was dirty and untidy, and his eyes had a look of pleading sorrow in them.

"H-help…" he gasped.

Silence filled the air.

Link, Pyorin, and Monta sat in the corner of the large dining hall in the center of the town, made especially for village gatherings. They watched as Tavyl and the mysterious man, who was now patched up, talked on the far side of the room.

"Really, though," Pyorin said, eyeing the man cautiously. "How did he get here? According to Tavyl, there's no way in or out of the village, except by Tavyl's plane. So…"

"You're right. He couldn't have had a plane… We would've seen it," said Monta.

"But no one saw him coming until he was right behind us. And even then…"

Link suddenly felt eyes boring into the back of his head. He looked up from where he was huddled together with his friends and met the eyes of the stranger. They held their gaze until Link finally turned his attention back to his friends.

"This is really fishy. But besides how he got here," Monta added, "who is he? Does Tavyl know him?"

"I don't know, but it looks like they've decided on something or other."

Tavyl led the man to the center of the room and onto the small, makeshift platform stage where she called for the attention of everyone. When she saw that everyone was focused, she let the man take the crowd.

The man cleared his throat and began. "Um, hello, everyone," he said awkwardly. "My name is Kaika, and I come here bringing urgent news." He paused, letting the effect his words sink in. "Um, Tavyl here doesn't believe that this affects any of you in anyway, but, trust me, it really does. And, this may be a bit confusing for some of you, but if you'll please bear with me…"

It was obvious that Kaika was not used to public speaking.

"Um, you see, I'm not from here."

"Clearly," someone said. The comment was returned with a few snickers and chuckles.

Kaika flushed, embarrassed and slightly angry. "Look! This is no joking matter! Lives are endangered!"

The silence returned.

"Thank you," Kaika said, and went back to his awkward speech. "As I was saying, I am not from here. I'm from, um… another reality." He paused again, and, this time, people whispered to each other confusedly. "And, in my reality, we have a prince, just as you all have a princess."

More confused voices.

"However, in your reality, there is an Evil One. His name is Ganondorf, and he… he has, um, bound my prince. And I have a sneaking suspicion—no, a gut feeling—that he plans to do the same to your princess. And… if he does, um, bind your princess, as well as my prince, both of our worlds will be thrown into utter chaos. So, please," said Kaika, finishing up his speech, the pleading sorrow quite evident in his eyes. "Please, help me and my princedom. We must band together and defeat Ganondorf."

The poor man was expecting cheers, maybe an applaud—just something, anything to assure him that these people would join him in the fight against the Evil One and to protect everything they loved. However, what he received was exactly the opposite. Some of the villagers booed, some of them insulted Kaika for disrupting Tavyl's visit, and every pair of eyes looked down upon him, even as he stood over them—all except the eyes of Link, Pyorin, Monta, and Tavyl.

A man got up from his seat and walked over to Kaika. He was same man who had passed out the shells. "Look, buddy. We don't need any of your 'Evil One' crap," he said, shoving Kaika off of the platform. "Do you really expect a peaceful people such as us to help you do something as nonsensical-sounding as that? How are we supposed to know that what you're saying isn't just some made-up bull?"

"How would you know if it isn't true, hm?" Kaika asked angrily. "Oh, I know!" he exclaimed sarcastically. "Maybe it'll be when all your loved ones lay broken, cold, and dead under the ruins of your 'peaceful' village!"

Kaika received a swift, but strong fist to the face for his smart remark. Already weakened from whatever happened to him previously, he fell to the floor. At this, Tavyl rushed to the scene and restrained the angry man from doing any more harm to Kaika, and for someone her size, she was surprisingly stalwart.

She looked at Kaika, who looked absolutely pitiful and helpless, sitting on the stone cold floor of the dining hall, his lip busted and bleeding, his bandages just as bloody, and the rest of him caked in dirt and grime. "I'm so sorry, I truly am," she said, trying her hardest to send her apology through her eyes, "but you should probably go. I don't know how you got here, but surely you can leave the same way. I'm sorry, but it won't be us that will help you defeat your Gandyroof."

Kaika looked truly hurt, but he sucked it up. Once more, he locked eyes with Link with short-lived hopes as Link looked away, uncomfortable. He received no help rising to his feet and left the building, little droplets of his blood remaining behind to stain the ground.


Author's Note: Poor Kaika! They're such jerks! He just wants to save his prince...

Anyway, my gosh. It's really hard writing something where the main character doesn't talk, especially when the thing I write most is dialogue. _ Eh, it's crazy, but I'll just have to deal with it. I can't have Link talking, you know? Only his grunts and screams, guys. Only grunts and screams. I don't know how they do it...

So! Now that that's over, please please please review-good or bad, I need the feedback-and favorite it, if you really liked it. See you next chapter! =D