Chapter Two
The Unknown Arrival
Several weeks had passed since the nightmares and Zelda noticed that Links mood had improved immensely, almost to the point where he had forgotten about them altogether. The day after the second dream, she had told Impa about it and together they had researched the Book of Mudora to see if it had any insight into the dream.
"There is no such reference to what Link had dreamt." Impa began as she scanned the pages. She stopped and pointed to a paragraph on one of the pages. "The closest thing I can find is this…" she read as she started to read aloud the passage that she had found...
"…and the Hero of Time shall be joined by three. One of evil, who will be his enemy continually., One of Wisdom, who will forever by bound to the Hero, and one in which the fate of the rest shall be forever intertwined. Together, all will battle, two will fall, two shall rise, and one their sought revenge find.
A wish made shall undo the past as the wishers dreams shall come to pass.…"
Zelda had not told Link about what Impa and her had found in the book or that she was worried about him. She understood the part of the Hero of Time and guessed that the One of Wisdom that was spoken of might by her. The part that she worried about was when the book spoke on how "two will fall". In his dream, the man spoke of how he had killed her. She shuddered slightly as if a cold breeze had just blown through a window. If Link was to find out what was written in the Book of Mudora and connect that to his dream, he would never leave her side again, not that she would mind that. It was just that he already bothered himself enough always helping her out with problems and most everything in her life.
She sometimes found herself yelling at him to quit worrying and let her solve some of her own problems. After every fight though, her love for Link would force its way to the surface, and she would run to find him to apologize. Usually she found him as he would be looking for her to apologize as well for being too involved with her life. She smiled at how deep their love for each other went. He was more than just a caring husband to her; she was only person in her life that she trusted with all of her worries except for this one. She would not tell Link of what she had found in the Book of Mudora for she feared if she did, Link would create a fortress of protection around her, and they would never have a moment alone again…ever.
She stared up at the heavens, watching as the clouds slowly meandered across the sky and remembered how she was sitting in the garden where Link had first met her when they were children. Link had somehow snuck his way into the castle and had found her as she was spying on Ganondorf. She had been startled at first but then found a common bond between them and she had asked him to help her with her plans to save Hyrule from Ganondorf. Link had then embarked on a quest to find the three spiritual stones so he could retrieve the master sword and banish Ganondorf to the Sacred Realm. He had gone through countless perils and had injured himself in almost everyway imaginable, all to save Hyrule and its people, people who would have no remembrance of it after all was said and done.
She turned her attentions away from those memories of her past and instead focused on the garden, trying to dissolve away her thoughts and cares. The flowers were just beginning to blossom. She sighed staring at the beauty that was her and Link's special spot. Her cares melted away as the beauty consumed her thoughts…
"Excuse me, princess, the king is waiting for you."
Zelda was startled by the sudden interruption in her daydreaming.
"Ohh, what? I'm sorry. I wasn't paying attention…" Zelda said sheepishly to the servant who was now feeling guilty for interrupting the princess in the middle of her thoughts.
"The King is waiting for you. Link is already in the throne room waiting for you as well. He said there was something that you would like to see."
"Thank you; tell him I'll be right in." The servant turned around and walked off towards the throne room. What was so special that her father had sent a servant out to find her when there was nothing planned for that day? She released that thought and decided she had better get going soon; she didn't want to have Link wait around for her but then again… If he knew that he would have to wait for her to arrive before her father would tell him, he would be driven insane with the wait.
"Maybe I should stall just a little and see what his reaction is." she said smiling to herself. She thought of Link pacing around the room, waiting in anticipation and annoyance at the delay. He hated waiting. She laughed at the thought…yes; she would wait a few minutes since Link always looked cute when he was impatient.
A few minutes later she entered the large throne room. As she entered, she smiled as she saw that Link was looking incredible annoyed and was pacing back and forth asking the king where Zelda was; just as she thought he would do. She started to laugh but caught herself so she could catch Link by surprise who had still not noticed her. She noticed that her father was wearing the most regal of attire. Strange, she wondered…he never dressed this formal except for when he would entertain the royalty of Hyrule's neighboring kingdoms. She quickly looked at Link again and was relieved to find him in his normal dress, his green tunic and cap. She let out a sigh of relief and walked up to the throne, the gentle tapping of her heels echoing across the hall. The sound caught the attention of Link who looked over to Zelda in both surprise and annoyance…
"Finally, you're here. I was wondering where you were," Link said as he walked quickly to Zelda and gave her a quick hug and a kiss. "The servant said you were just leaving the garden and that was over 15 minutes ago. I was going to go out to look for you…"
Zelda put her hand to his lips and smiled mischievously. "Link, don't you realize that you look so charming when you're worried."
Link smiled when he realized what she had done. "So that is what delayed you." Link asked. "Well, maybe next time the king decides to have us attend a meeting I should just stay in our room for an hour and let you wait for me."
Zelda gave Link a sharp poke to his side. He flinched a little. "What was that for…" he asked with a fake expression of hurt on his face.
"A good husband must never keep his wife waiting, its common law didn't you know?" They both laughed at that and walked back up to where Hyrule, the current king of the lands was sitting.
Looking a little annoyed at the delay the king interrupted the pair, "Ahh, Zelda, nice of you to join us finally. It may be good to keep the husband waiting, but you know it is not good to keep the king waiting" he said as he walked up to Zelda and gave her a hug.
"Yes, that's true," Zelda said, "Although, since I'm your daughter I can do whatever I want." She said as she hugged her father again.
Hyrule chuckled, "Well I guess you are right, although I think we have both kept Link waiting long enough and a Hero usually the one who we both wait for." They both glanced at Link who was tapping his foot in exasperation as Zelda and the king laughed.
"I think it is time for both of you to know what this surprise is." Link looked relieved to see that his waiting was almost down with. The king hurried on, "While you too were off wandering about Hyrule yesterday, the guards found a man wandering about the castle garden yesterday armed with a sword and dressed in chain mail. He said he was looking for you two and had an urgent message he wanted to relay to you." Link looked on a little bewildered while Zelda cocked her head to the side wondering why she wasn't told of this sooner.
"What were his intentions?" Link quickly asked, "What business did he have concerning us?"
"He didn't say what his intentions were. When he heard that you were off visiting friends he simply said 'thanks, then I'll guess I will have to come by again tomorrow…" Hyule could tell that they were both confused about what was going on. Link furrowed his brow, deep in thought, wondering who this new visitor was who needed to speak to him and Zelda.
"I'm hoping that you arrested him or at least questioned him about all this." Link asked hoping to talk to this man personally.
The king simply stared at the two of them. "No, the guards didn't detain him. Before they could arrest him for trespassing he had disappeared in a flash of light. They didn't have time to ask about his intentions and the only description the guards have of him is that he seemed troubled about something. I ordered a search of the entire castle for him and only found this note nailed to the main gates addressed to both of you. Hyrule held up a piece of paper which Link quickly grabbed and read what was written. With a look of shear bewilderment, he handed the paper to Zelda who took it and read it aloud…
"It is my sincere regret to have missed you and Zelda yesterday. I have a message of great urgency that I wish to speak to you about and have traveled very far to give to you. A message about a threat that might soon be visiting your land of Hyrule…one that could utterly destroy everything that you know and love. I will be expected to meet with you tomorrow. I cannot afford any more delays. I do not want to have to search for you…"
Who was this man who needed to urgently meet with them and what was this threat that he spoke of. Link was still perplexed as to what this message meant. If he had such an important message for them, why did he randomly disappear and not wait around for a meeting between the three of them? Link couldn't make sense of any of this…
"Do you have any clues on when this person will be arriving?" Link asked the king in a somewhat anxious tone. If he was going to come again today as the letter had stated, he could appear anytime and since the guards said he was armed and seemed to be troubled, Link wanted to know if this person meant them any harm.
"No, I'm sorry to say we don't. We have had no reports of anybody seeing a man matching his description since he disappeared yesterday. The only clue that we have receive thus far is this letter and by the looks of it…"
All three were suddenly blinded by a bright flash that filled the entire throne room. Link was the first to recover and saw a man standing in the center of the room. He was slightly shorter than Link and wore a standard pair of brown pants and a blue tunic over the top of what appeared to be a chain mail vest. He had short tussled brown hair, not much unlike Links. It was the strangers blue eyes however that unsettled Link the most. They were filled with an urgency and panic that could only come from something that had caused much pain in this person's life. Link could tell just by how this man was dressed and how he held himself that he was a trained warrior. One who was trained in delivering death. Link quickly drew his sword. He motioned for Zelda to stand back, in case this stranger decided to do anything rash. The intruder watched as Link drew his sword. He raised his hand in the air and Link watched as some sort of orb had started to appear in his hands. Link wasted no time and charged at the man. Whatever he was doing, he wouldn't finish it. The king ordered his guards forward and they joined Link, charging the intruder in their midst.
Twenty feet away from the stranger Link felt a tingling sensation start to ripple through his body and collided with something in front of him. He felt a jolt of pain shoot through his body and was blown backwards, skidding on his back. He got back up, shaking his head as he did and saw that the same thing had happened to the other guards. Some of them however, were knocked unconscious when they hit the walls of the throne room after they were blown backwards by this strange barrier that protected this stranger. Link cautiously walked forward this time. He charged his sword with energy hoping to destroy whatever barrier was between him and the intruder. The stranger, watched Link, started forward with a look of concern on his face and spoke something that Link couldn't hear. Link let loose the energy and performed a spin attack, hitting the barrier with as much force as he could.
When his sword came in contact with the barrier, he felt a more powerful shock than before. He felt as his muscles seized up and as he was flung backwards with far more force, knocking his shield and sword out of his hands and causing him to slid all the way back to the throne, finally stopping at Zelda's feet. The guards who had finally recovered from the initial shock jumped forward and attacked again, only to have the same fate befall them. Several dropped to the floor unconscious, knocked out by seemingly impenetrable barrier. Zelda and the King were now starting to become worried. If Link and the guards were having this much trouble with this man, how much did they have to fear from him…
"You won't be able to penetrate this field, Link. Please for your own sake, stop attacking," the stranger said in a concerned tone as he walked forward towards Link.
Link watched in astonishment as the stranger took off his sword and shield, placed them on the ground and slid them off to the side of the throne room and when was within a few feet of Link, offered his hand to help him up.
Link was surprised by this sudden show of benevolence; however, the urge to defeat this threat to his wife and father in law was stronger than reason at this point. He quickly leapt at the man, tackling him to the ground. Link tried to grab the intruder's arms to hold him down but before he could, he felt as pain shot through his body again. He shot backwards, hitting the wall behind the throne with a sickening crunch and crumpled to the floor. Zelda ran to where Link lay crumpled in a heap on the floor. A look of shock passed on the intruders face and Hyrule heard him whisper "Oh no…what have I done…"
The stranger ran up to where Link lay, and right next to Zelda who was in complete hysteria now, trying to shake the unconscious Link awake. When she noticed the stranger holding out his hand towards her husband, energy starting to form in it like before, Zelda grabbed the mans arm and then punched him as hard as she could, knocking him backwards.
"Murderer! You killed him! You killed my husband! I don't care what message you have to say, you will die for what you just did!" She screamed in pure anger towards the stranger who was now backing away from her. Zelda was completely past reason as she grabbed Link's sword and started towards the intruder, swinging madly at him. She had been trained with swords by Impa and knew how to handle them, but with the trauma of the past few minutes, she had forgotten all of it. The stranger quickly dodged Zelda's blows, stunned at the ferocity of her attacks. Between swings, the stranger grabbed the sword out of Zelda's hand. He held up his hand again and Zelda felt her body go numb. The stranger, who was now out of breath from the exertion of dodging Zelda's madness, tried to calm her between gasps of breaths.
"I did not come here… to murder anyone princess... Look over to Link now; you will see that I did not murder him as you had accused me of."
As Zelda turned, she saw the stranger walk towards Link, holding out his hand to Links chest. The same orb of energy she saw earlier appeared. She watched in horror as it started to grow larger, completely engulfing Link's body. The stranger backed away, looking completely exhausted by what he had just done.
Zelda heard a noise and saw that Link was moaning. She felt her body being released from what held her and she ran towards Link. Link moaned again and tried to get up into a sitting position. Zelda quickly helped Link up and placed him in a chair next to the throne.
"He is alright Zelda…he will just have an incredibly bad headache for the rest of the day. Now please; listen to me before attacking me again. My name is Cimar and I have come from the kingdom of Turalis to warn you of a terrible fate that is heading towards Hyrule even as we speak."
Zelda nodded her head slightly; still shocked at everything that had just happened.
After it appeared that Link had recovered, Cimar began apologizing to Link and The guards who had finally gotten back to their feet and were told of what Cimar was there for. They seemed to welcome the fact that he was a friend or at the least non-threatening, since they were not looking forward to fighting with him again at the moment. After a few brief introductions Cimar formally introduced himself as Cimar, head of the Royal Knights of Turalis. The king introduced himself as King Hyrule VII, with his daughter Zelda and her husband Link, captain of the king's guard and Acting General of the Hylian army. Cimar with an urgent expression on his face, asked for permission to deliver the message he was carrying and when the king waved his hand for him to start, he did so without pause or delay…
