— Chapter One: The Storm —

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314 A.C.

— link —

Nothing, then—

A voice. Voices.

"...back..."

"...Malice..."

"...Code Yellow, you heard me, we've got a Code..."

A blur of light. Color...

"...Reid! Captain Reid! The Scabbard's active!"

"Somebody get the docs down here, stat!"

A face swam in the air above him. A young man. Blue-green eyes. A smile, white and neat teeth.

The man spoke: "Welcome back to the living, Hero."

His limbs were invisible. They—they didn't exist. He struggled to move, but the man pushed him down, gently. "Easy, there."

He was on the floor. His—why was—where—what was going on—

Feeling fizzed at the tips of his fingers, white noise filling his limbs. Wetness beneath him. Sharp pieces of—glass? Above him the room flashed red. "Wh—" He tried to speak, but his voice was raw, broken.

"Easy, Link," said the man, gentle. Then, all of a sudden, loud: "I need a medic over here! Scabbard takes priority!"

He winced at the sharp noise. Link—that was his name? He was Link? He wasn't—Hero? Who—

A woman in white appeared at the man's shoulder, a syringe in hand. "Captain," she said.

"Don't you worry," the Captain said to him as the woman bent over him. "This won't hurt..."

A pinch. Darkness flooding his body, turning him invisible again.

Wait, he said, or maybe thought—

He was shattering, bits and pieces of him spiraling away into the dark—

He was terror and tiredness, he was flame and fury—

He was—

Link, he thought desperately. I am Link.

Then—

Nothing.

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3 years later – 317 A.C.

—zelda—

She was being kissed.

This should have been reason enough to suspect something was off, something was wrong—but she couldn't bring herself to think, not with these lips on hers, these hands on her waist. She was hungry, so hungry for this; impatient, she bucked her hips forward, trying to grind against something, anything, to appease the want—and the hands were between her legs now; she knew they were there, right there yes perfect, but it wasn't perfect, she couldn't feel them, they were so far away, why couldn't she feel them, why couldn't she—

In an instant the world crashed back down around her, and Zelda was awake.

A dream, she realized. It had been a dream.

Then she thought: Of course it had been a dream.

And: Of course that had been her dream.

Scowling, she scrubbed the sleep from her eyes and removed the dreamkeeper from her head, as though removing it could stop it from capturing the lewd things she'd imagined during the night. It was to no avail, of course—the dreamkeeper captured dreams as they happened—but still, Zelda had to feel like she was in some control over the matter.

The dreamkeeper had been invented many years ago, during the childhood of her grandmother, Queen Zelda Kerrington. There was an old sepia picture in the family album featuring the old Zelda, perhaps twelve years old, a prototype dreamkeeper of wires and metal fitted over her head; she was smiling from ear to ear, proudly displaying her missing right front tooth. The caption read, Princess Zelda II cheerfully models the new dreamkeeper device. Nowadays the device was smaller, more comfortable, more discreet—but that didn't make it any less embarrassing when it captured your wet dreams.

Its real purpose was to record the dreams of the eldest princess in order to prevent the forgetting of any important, prophetic dream—apparently eldest princesses were the most likely to be chosen to receive Nayru's Gift, also known in certain circles as the sacred sealing power, or the Triforce of Wisdom, though that name was archaic.

With the Gift came dreams of the future—dreams that even today, as she turned eighteen years old, Princess Zelda III had yet to receive.

There was a part of her that had been hoping the Gift would miraculously present itself today, on the day she came of age—and yet she felt nothing, no indication that she was any wiser or any more capable of sealing a centuries-old evil than yesterday.

"So much for a happy birthday," she muttered, and rolled out of bed.

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"You look lovely, Your Highness."

Zelda met Maripaz's eyes in the looking-glass and forced herself to smile in agreement, though inwardly she wished she could believe her maid's kind words.

She looked—well, like everyone at her birthday party would be expecting her to look. An actress playing the part of the beautiful princess, bedecked in jewels and silk and about a hundred hairpins. She could smile for the crowd, speak a few pretty words, be the leader her father expected her to be. But inside—would there always be this crippling doubt, this fear that she'd never live up to their expectations?

She pursed her lips, making fierce eyes at her reflection. Behind her, Maripaz fiddled with a hairpin. "I do wish you hadn't cut your hair, Highness," she said. "Makes it so much harder to style."

"But so much easier to manage," Zelda pointed out, glad for something else to think about. She rather liked the way her hair looked; just two months ago she'd decided to chop it off at her chin, tired of her old waist-length haircut. It had looked just like her grandmother's hair when she was her age—and Zelda was tired of trying to live up to her grandmother.

"I suppose," Maripaz murmured, only half paying attention to the conversation. Zelda took advantage of her distraction to stare more openly at her maid's reflection. Maripaz was twenty years old and had served as her personal maid for three years, replacing her governess, Elena, when she retired. Maripaz hailed from Lurelin Village to the southeast and had the brown skin and dark hair typical of natives to that region. She was a terrible gossip, quick to speak her mind, and always willing to fetch snacks from the kitchen at odd hours—and Zelda was hopelessly enamored with her. Still, there was something different about her today—something calmer, more mature, almost as though it were Maripaz who was coming of age, and not Zelda.

"You're awfully quiet today, Maripaz," Zelda began. Maripaz jumped and removed her hands from Zelda's hair. "Is there something the matter?"

"Well, Your Highness, since you asked—yes."

"Well then," Zelda said briskly, rising and walking to her bedside table to fetch her earrings from her jewelry box, "we're friends, aren't we? You can tell me."

"Your Highness," Maripaz said slowly, carefully, "I'm afraid I have some unfortunate news for you."

Zelda forced the fear from her face at those words and carefully began putting one earring in. "Yes?" Her hands were trembling.

"I'm resigning as your maid."

Zelda stumbled and turned to look at her, dropping the other earring and knocking over the picture of her mother on her bedside table. "Wh-why?" she stammered, then amended, fumbling with the picture, "That is, I wasn't expecting—"

Maripaz hurried over and picked up the fallen earring, pressing it back into Zelda's hand. "I know," she said, apologetic, "and on your birthday, too. But—I couldn't just leave it for someone else to tell. The thing is, Your Highness—I'm getting married."

Something within Zelda shattered. Slowly, she put down the earring and forced herself to choke out, "Con—congratulations."

Maripaz picked up the earring from the table and leaned in close to Zelda's face to put it in for her. Zelda stilled, very much aware of her maid's closeness, of the warmth of her hands on her earlobe. Maripaz said, "He's my best friend from Lurelin—Camren." She made as if to touch Zelda's cheek, but stepped back at the last second. "Oh, Your Highness, you'd love him, I know you would. He's so kind, and gentle and brave—I just wish I could stay. But you understand"—her smile was sad—"don't you?"

"Yes," Zelda whispered. "I understand."

"Zofia will be replacing me. You know her, don't you, Your Highness?"

"Yes," Zelda murmured. She raised a hand to her ear, feeling the earring dangle against her fingertips. "Thank you, Maripaz. That will be all."

Maripaz looked hurt for all of a second before bowing. "Yes, Your Highness." Still bowing, she ducked out of the room, closing the door behind her.

Zelda turned back to her jewelry box, staring at its contents. Her hands shaking, she removed her earrings and replaced them with a different pair, a pair of glittering sapphire studs that used to belong to her mother.

She no longer had the luxury of acting like a girl. It was time she accepted her role—as princess, as leader, as woman.

Steeling herself, she closed the jewelry box and went to face the world.

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— sheik —

A storm was brewing in the sky above the forest at the base of the Great Plateau. Thunder rumbled in the distance, a storm wind screaming through the leaves of the trees through which Sheik of the Sheikah was leaping. Behind him wood cracked, and he froze, clinging to a branch as it bobbed under his weight. Movement flashed in the corner of his eye and he narrowed his crimson gaze, readying himself. Half a second later, a figure crashed through the leaves toward him.

"Kateri, what part of stealth mission don't you understand?" he asked mildly as his twin sister landed on the branch beside him.

Kateri cursed and swatted his shoulder, her dark braid whipping behind her in the wind. "That doesn't count," she complained. "The wind moved it at the last second."

"A Sheikah moves with the wind," he murmured, just barely audible over the shushing of the leaves. "You have to anticipate where the branch will be before you jump."

Kateri lowered her cowl to stick her tongue out at him. "It's kind of hard to do that when it's thrashing all over the place," she returned, then sighed. "Let's just face it—I'll never be as good at this as you are."

"Giving up?" Sheik taunted, leaping to another tree.

"Hey!" Kateri protested, and followed him. She landed roughly, sending leaves spiraling down beneath her to be snatched away by the wind.

Sheik sighed, "Kat, if not for this wind every monster in the area would have heard and seen that."

"Okay, I get it," she muttered. "You're good, and I'm not. Clumsy Kateri, that's me."

Sheik rolled his eyes. "That's all you'll ever be if you don't take these practice missions seriously. The only way to improve is to make mistakes and learn from them."

"Yeah, well, I'm making the mistakes you made when you were twelve."

"That'd be because of your poor attitude." He began to climb to a higher branch, and Kateri followed, squawking, "Well, aren't you Mr. Holier-Than-Thou today!"

Sheik angled himself between two branches and froze abruptly. "Kat, shh."

"What?" She reached up and hung from the limb to his right, craning her head.

"Up there," Sheik breathed, and nodded at something in the air above them. "See him?" A figure was gliding from the Tower above the Great Plateau, his shape tiny and dark against the gathering storm clouds.

Kateri's eyes went wide with interest. "Ooh, it's the Hero."

"Finally out," Sheik agreed. There was a flicker of movement at the top of the Tower: the Armory Guard, no doubt, keeping an eye on their charge. The other Sheikah patrols had reported increased sightings of the Hero and his guards on the Plateau: hunting wild animals, fighting the monsters that had begun to crop up during the last few years. Today, it seemed, the Hero was getting more experience gliding in windy conditions. The Armory Guard hadn't wasted a moment in the past three years in preparing the Hero for the coming fight with Malice—though when Malice would manifest itself, no one could tell. The signs of its impending arrival were clear enough, however, and even Impa had her worries.

Sheik watched the Hero glide above them and told Kateri, "Why don't you head back and tell Aunt Impa about this."

"Already? We just got here!"

He leveled a gaze at her. "And now it would be prudent to get out of here. You don't want them seeing us, do you?"

"Right, right." Even now, 18 years to the day after the public denouncement of the Sheikah by the royal family, there was still a considerable monetary reward to anyone who brought in intelligence about the potential whereabouts of the remnants of the Sheikah tribe. Kateri began to clamber to a lower branch, then paused and looked up at her brother. "You coming?"

Sheik nodded, his gaze flicking back to the Hero. "I'll be right behind you"—he raised an eyebrow, half smirking—"though I doubt you'd notice if I wasn't."

Kateri quirked a reluctant grin. "You're probably right," she admitted, then leaped off.

A moment later, several panicked birds exploded out of the next tree, giving away her failed landing. Sheik cursed and cast a gaze to the Tower above, but at that exact moment the wind picked up, becoming a mighty gust—a gust that tossed the Hero across the sky like a leaf.

Sheik watched in horror as the Hero struggled to keep hold of his paraglider, but in an instant it was ripped from his hands and sent whirling away on the breeze. Mid-fall, the Hero tried to angle himself back toward the Plateau but was too far from the edge now; as though consigning himself to his fate, he went limp and allowed himself to fall. He was close enough now that Sheik could see the hair whipping around his face—a face that was undeniably, impossibly, looking right at him.

"No," he breathed, horrified for two entirely different reasons.

He'd seen him.

He was going to die.

There was no way he'd survive that. No one could survive a fall that far. The impact would shatter bones, crush organs—

For a fleeting, endless instant, the two locked eyes, and Sheik could have sworn the Hero—smiled.

Something within Sheik flared to life, a flame suddenly ignited deep within his chest.

He recognized that smile.

—a boy in green, clutching a sword, a ball of light bobbing around his head—the same boy again, but it wasn't him, he was darker, sharper, had different eyes, wilder eyes—again it was him and not him, he was shorter, lither, his hair longer—but it was him—they were all him—they were always him—and Sheik—though he had never met him before in his life, Sheik knew him—

Link, a phantom memory murmured. Link.

"Wait—" Sheik gasped.

Then the instant was over.

With barely a noise, the Hero hit the ground.

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A/N: Broken hearts and broken bones? Business as usual.

I'm in the midst of my toughest finals, but I managed to get this churned out for you all. Next chapter might not be available for a while as I recharge after a taxing academic year. For now, enjoy the cliffhanger!

Special thanks to A Horde of Axolotls and shnarf9892 for reviewing. This one's for you.

Thanks for reading,

godtierGrammarian