Here's the first official chapter! Woop! Just a few things I forgot to mention in the prologue:

As a warning, this story does contain some language and sexual content. If you're uncomfortable with that but you still want to read the story, PM me!

Next, the story itself is divided into four parts. I'll label them as such :)

ALSO, a note about the rate of updates. Since the story is completely finished, I'll be updating every 1-3 days. So there won't be too much waiting time in between chapters.

Read on, beautiful people! Read on!

PART ONE

THE UNDERGROUND

Chapter One

Boy without Memory

He had fallen asleep on that pile of hay again—the twenty-two year-old stable boy with no memory of the first fifteen years of his life.

He often found himself asleep on that pile of hay. Or, rather, other people often found him asleep on that pile of hay. He wasn't generally a tired person, or a fatigued person, or a lazy person. In fact, he was the furthest thing from every single one of those character traits. He was energetic, alert, often extremely active. It was just that sometimes, after a long day at the stables working with the riled horses and herding the indignant goats, the hay looked so comfortable. He would tell himself only a minute, just to rest his aching butt (from all the riding, obviously), and then a few hours later he was suddenly wondering how long he had been asleep.

"I swear ta Din almighty...Again, boy?"

That day, he was awakened by a gruff, booming voice that made even the horses shuffle their hooves in their stables. But he heard the voice as if it were in his dreams, and instead of sitting up, he turned onto his side and hugged the strands of hay like a pillow. A bristly, rough pillow that would undoubtedly leave marks on his sun-bronzed skin and nestle in his tangled, sandy locks. A pain to wash out later. A soft snore drifted from his open mouth while a drizzle of saliva slid down his cheek. He was as asleep as one could be on a pile of hay.

"Git up, ya useless sack o' horse shit!"

The man standing over the boy, his long head as red as a tomato and his yellow teeth clenched together, kicked the pile of hay. Then, feeling as if he were suddenly falling into oblivion, the boy jerked up. He flailed his arms for a moment, looked around with a dazed, surprised sparkle in his sapphire eyes. When his gaze fell upon the man's flushed face, he relaxed a bit and stretched out his arms. He was, in fact, very comfortable, though he wasn't sure he enjoyed the look on his employer's face.

"Morning, Fado."

"Don'tcha 'mornin' me, boy. Ya know damn well it ain't mornin." As if he hadn't heard him, the boy with no memory of the first fifteen years of his life put his hands behind his head and leaned back against the pile. "How many times are ya gonna do this, Link?"

"Do what?"

"Fall asleep on the job! Yer s'posed ta be brushin' up them horses!"

"I didn't fall asleep," he yawned. "I was just resting."

"I should fire ya right here."

Link didn't respond. He merely gave his crooked smile, the one that for Fado meant, "You should fire me, but you won't." And Fado understood it perfectly. He shook his head, albeit somewhat reluctantly, and put his hands on his hips. His tall body cast a shadow on the spot where Link lay, the frown on his mouth was overwhelmingly grumpy, but Link didn't truly mind it much.

"I wish ya weren't so damn good with them horses," Fado continued. "Otherwise, I'd've fired ya within the first week."

Without a word, Link jumped to his feet and leaned back, felt a relieving sting run through his spine. While Fado watched him, he pulled his hair out from the small ponytail holding it together in the back of his head, and it fell in all-too-thick tendrils to his broad shoulders. Uneven, messy, but nice and luxurious in its own humble way. Then, with Fado still watching, he tied as much of it back as he could. Which wasn't a lot. His was not the type of hair that appreciated being tamed. Most of it jumped free and fell in tangled waves around his eyes, but he had grown accustomed.

"Ya know what, I should lower yer pay this week, ya sunovabitch," he grumbled.

Link chuckled softly to himself and wandered around the stables, hands in his pockets, knowing that Fado would never do that. Fado was a grouch, a temperamental bastard who liked to hear his own voice, but he was fair. And though he tried to hide it with the desperation of hiding a dark secret, Fado had a soft spot for Link. After all, he had been working in his stables for seven years.

"Listen, boy, just git them goats in from the pastures, feed them horses, and haul yer ass outta my stables. I'll see ya bright an' early tomorrow."

"Don't forget my paycheck tomorrow, Fado."

"Yeah, yeah, git outta my sight."

Still mumbling incomprehensibly to himself, as he always did after long days dealing with Link, Fado marched down the stables. The horses whinnied when he walked past, bobbing their heads, as if giving him a ceremonious exit. Link smiled after him silently. Once he had slammed the large doors behind him and Link was alone in the stables with the horses, he walked to the stable at the very end of the barn. As he walked, he let his hand—his left hand, the one on which he always wore a leather black glove—brush the muzzles of the horses he passed. Each one gratefully pressed its nose to his palm, bobbed its head lightly until he gave them an affectionate scratch. They whinnied for him, too, but not in the way that they whinnied for Fado. The way they whinnied for Link was more of a friendly whinny, more of a loving whinny.

Finally, Link was at the very last stable. He had a couple sugar cubes hidden in his pocket, which at that moment he took out and fiddled with in his palm. There, poking her head out of her stable, was the most beautiful horse in all of Hyrule—at least, that was how Link saw her. A rusty metal plaque hung beside the door of the stable, and it read, "Epona." A name he had given her himself.

"Hey, girl," he whispered. "Hey, Epona."

He looked into her huge brown eyes for a few moments, reminding her of who he was. Why he was there, how he felt about her. Once she reared her head, he brought his hand up to her cheek and began stroking, gently, until she leaned forward. Then their foreheads were touching and he could see every detail of her majestic face, could feel the power coursing through her veins and into his. She was a graceful creature, with copper hair and a mane and tail whiter than anything he'd ever seen. And she loved him, he knew. He loved her back, of course.

"You're my pretty girl," he gushed. He held the sugar cubes to her mouth, flat-handed, and she sucked them up within a single moment. She chewed, the sound reverberating through his ears as he held her closer. "You ready to finish up for the day, Epona?"

She brayed, as if she had truly understood what he'd said.

Rope in hand, Link opened the stable and led Epona out. It was their ritual at the end of every day—become like one single entity, finish the work.

And, of course, after all the goats were herded, Epona would help Link train.

He kept his sword hidden in the same pile of hay upon which he often fell asleep. It was a sword that he couldn't remember receiving, but had always had in his possession. He guessed that he had gotten it (one way or another) within his first fifteen years of life: the era of which he remembered nothing. The blade, which had lately begun to dull from years of use, had markings etched into it that Link couldn't understand, but thought were beautiful anyway. Perhaps Ancient Hylian, perhaps something completely different, perhaps just meaningless doodles. They ran from the tip all the way down to the silver hilt. He had wrapped the hilt in brown cloth when he was sixteen, to make it somehow seem like the sword truly was his. Because ultimately, he didn't know whose it was. He had just woken up one day at fifteen years old, on the streets, with nothing but a name and a sword.

At the end of every day, when Fado had gone home and all the work was done, Link retrieved that mysterious sword, headed out into the pastures, and trained until he was nearly drowning in his own sweat. First he would jump with Epona, swinging his sword while she leaped over rocks and fences. Jump, jump, jump, until he was confident that she had worked hard enough. Then he would dismount, let her relax in the pastures for a while, and battle imaginary enemies that surrounded him. Hylians, Sheikah, Gerudos, Zoras, Gorons—enemies of all races rushed at him, and he cut down all of them. His imagination ran wild at the end of the day. And all the while, he honed his skills with his sword.

Link was determined to become the best swordsman in Hyrule.

And, more importantly, the training was absolutely necessary.

How could Link do his assignments at night without such training?

For at the end of every day, after training and returning Epona (reluctantly) to her stable, the sun set and darkness fell.

With that darkness, Link would discard his identity as a stable boy and cloak himself in his identity as the most skilled mercenary in all of Castilia.

Hands in his pockets, sword slung over his back, and a piece of licorice (stolen from Fado's stash) hanging idly from his lips, Link walked toward the city of Castilia. And even though he had no memory of the first fifteen years of his life, he could have walked this same path with his eyes closed; it began unpaved, overgrown with green wilderness leading away from the stables about a mile outside of the city border. But as the path grew closer and closer to the grand, metal gates of the city, dirt faded to cobblestone and the sounds of Hyrule's capital city filled the air. The gates themselves seemed a force to be reckoned with, adorned with a rusty history and meticulous, ornate designs. The first time Link had seen them, he had been breathless. Now, he hardly spared them a passing glance. He simply shivered as he walked into the shadows that they cast across nearly every inch of Hyrule.

Guards stood, alert and covered from head to toe with armor. Zelda's Iron Warriors, they had been christened by the disillusioned citizens of the queen's kingdom. There were rumors that they weren't even human, but mechanical creatures, built to maintain justice and order (as they were defined by the queen, of course). But Link knew from experience that there were real people beneath the helmets, the chest plates, the hidden chainmail. There were real people holding those spears in their hands. Real people carrying out heinous orders and terrorizing people all across Hyrule. As he approached, Link sucked on the licorice and looked up into the eyes of the guard standing in the center of the gate. At least, he looked to where he assumed the eyes were. For there was nothing but a slit in the helmet, and darkness. It was almost enough to make him smile every time.

"Papers," said the Iron Warrior. He could tell from the gargled voice that this one was a woman. With his unwavering gaze, Link pulled a few wrinkled parchments from his pocket and handed them over to her. He wondered how she looked underneath all that armor. Beautiful, ugly, skinny, fat. In between.

She lifted the papers up to the slit in her helmet. At the end of the day, there were countless people running in and out of the city. In fact, at that moment, there was a long line of people behind him waiting for their moment to enter the city. And a few meters to his left was a line of people leaving the city. Link glanced around—two Iron Warriors stationed on the ground on each side, two more in the towers at the top of the gates, and another one stationed to check the papers of those exiting Castilia. Ten total. Impossible to defeat single-handedly, he decided whimsically.

"Link?" she said.

He nodded and sucked on his licorice.

"Where do you work?" she asked. He wondered why she cared and knew that the information was already written on his identification papers, but figured it wasn't worth his time (or any broken bones) to be smart with her.

"The ranch a mile out. Just a normal stable boy," he shrugged.

"Every day?"

He nodded.

"Why do you have a sword with you if you're just a normal stable boy, eh?"

"The grass gets pretty long out there in the wilderness," he replied with a grin. He liked coming up with a different answer every day—because he knew that every day they would ask him about the sword. Today he used the grass as an excuse. Whatever that meant.

"The grass?"

"The sword is registered in my papers," he pointed out. He was no longer in the mood to play games.

She glanced back down at the parchments. Then she paused, as if she were about to say something else. But apparently, she thought better of it. Link knew there was nothing in his papers that would warrant an arrest, but...

Anything could happen with Iron Warriors.

With a single, dismissive nod of her large head, she handed him his papers and allowed him to pass through. He crumpled the parchments into his pockets and walked by. He didn't spare the Iron Warrior another passing glance, and he stopped wondering what she looked like. He just sucked on his licorice and began his trek through the winding streets of Castilia.

His boots echoed off the ground and just walking along it made him feel a more civilized person. These streets were built with human hands, by women and men hundreds of years ago upon whose sweat he now tread. He walked on the curb, passing beneath the awnings of shops and houses, a single person in a sea of others. A sea of Hylians, of Gerudos, of Gorons, of Zoras. There was even the occasional in this crowd, this ocean. Link was just another Hylian. In the central streets, carriages in which the wealthy sat and horses upon which they rode passed by one another, leaving their marks in the gutters. Screaming at one another, claiming the streets as their own territory. Since it was the end of the day and the sun was beginning to set, the streets were flooding. Some people going home from their jobs, some people heading out to the capital city's plethora of pubs and taverns. Link didn't like how crowded it was but, of course, he had grown accustomed. And even better, he had learned all the shortcuts.

After about five minutes of walking, bumping shoulders with people and being nearly thrown to the ground by a Goron or two, he made a sharp left turn into a narrow alleyway. There, as ironic as it was, he could breathe much more easily. He was able to enjoy the taste of the licorice just a little bit more. There were no lanterns to light alleyways like this, so he was essentially walking in darkness, but he didn't mind. He knew the paths by now, after seven years of walking back and forth along them. For Link had a very specific destination in mind. He was heading to the largest, loudest, most famous inn of Hyrule—placed in the central plaza of Castilia. He was headed toward Telma's Inn. He turned, he twisted, he squeezed through alley after alley after alley.

He was already tasting the warm milk and honey on his tongue when suddenly, someone jumped from the shadows of the alley. Of course, he had known that the person was there as soon as he'd turned the corner. He stopped in his tracks, but did not draw his sword. He simply stared at this ambiguous, cloaked figure, offering itself before him. Link could make out only the shape of the silhouette. Slender—unbelievably slender. Narrow hips, shoulders broad in comparison. From the shape of this person's body, Link would have assumed at first that he was a man. But then the person stepped closer, and Link saw the very clear outline of the person's chest. And he was certain that she was a woman. But the cloak still hid her face. The rest of the alley was completely deserted.

"Link," she said. "Leader of the Fierce Deities." Her voice was smooth and piercing, like the bells that rang out from the Temple of Time at the north end of the city. Link spat the remaining stub of licorice to the ground.

"How can I be of service, milady?"

He was no longer surprised about people he had never seen before knowing his name. That tended to happen, since he and his team were the most well-known mercenaries in Castilia. Perhaps in all of Hyrule. In fact, their reputation depended upon that happening. If nobody knew who they were, then there was no point. Though, he had never been worried.

Words spread like wildfire in the underground world of Hyrule.

"I need your help," she said. "I have an important assignment for you." She lifted her thin arm and, held in her delicate, breakable little fingers, was an envelope. The wax seal closing it was huge, dramatic, unfamiliar to Link.

"Let me see your face first." He raised his eyebrows, as a silent refusal of the letter. With a small, obscure sigh, the woman lowered the hood of her cloak.

For a moment, Link was taken aback. Her face was breathtakingly beautiful. Her bones were outlined as if the pale, nearly white skin of her cheeks had been painted on, her cheekbones high and her nose light and pointed, her lips thin and her eyes sunken. But there was something haunting, something chilling about her features. As gaunt, as slender, as cold as her face was, it was like a dream. Her eyes were deep brown, so dark that her pupils were completely hidden. The most startling part to Link, though, was her hair. It was yellow. Not blonde. Yellow. But it was not shiny. It was smooth and it looked soft, but it did not shimmer. It was all drawn back from her face and pulled into a top-knot that sat like a fixture on her head. Long, pointed ears jutted out the sides of her head. She was a Hylian, he could tell. But a strange one.

"There," she replied. When she spoke, the movement of her lips didn't match the words that escaped them. He paused for a few moments, just let the silence hang between them. Link had had many encounters like this. But something about this woman was more intriguing than anything else—there was adventure in the envelope she held in her hands. That much, he knew. And that was enough for him.

"All right. As long as you can pay," he shrugged, whisking the envelope from her fingers with his gloved hand. She looked startled. "And as long as you keep your mouth shut."

"My mouth shut?"

"We can always shut it for you."

"But...th-that's it?" she stuttered. "You'll trust me just like that?"

"Tomorrow, go to Ikana Road at noon exactly. There, you'll find a man in glasses. Give him five thousand rupees. If you do that, forty-eight hours from now, the assignment will be done. I'll collect the rest of the money after it's over. And, of course, stay quiet."

"I-Ikana Road?! But that's where all the crime syndicates are, the black market, the gangs—"

"Uh-huh."

Before she could even respond, Link walked past her, continued on his path to the inn. He waved the envelope as he walked, but did not look back.

"Oh, and by the way, I don't trust you at all," he laughed. "I'm just very intrigued."

But the woman had already disappeared.