A few quick notes:

1. This story is rated T due to some very violent content.

2. I intend to update weekly. I don't write that fast, but the writing is all done. I don't like when a story I'm interested in dies without an ending, so I figured I would make sure this story was finished before I posted any part of it.

3. I don't own any Legend of Zelda character or setting. I'm just borrowing them and I hope Nintendo won't mind too much.

4. Thank you so much for reading!

Chapter 3: From Hero to Servant

Link turned left when he got to the shop, heading for the south of town. Zelda glanced behind and saw with some relief that they were gaining on the Stalfos. She decided not to tell Link what, exactly, was after them: he was scared enough as it was. They ran for what seemed like an eternity, although she knew it couldn't be more than a few minutes.

"Link!" She panted. "Ta..take the first... right!"

He didn't reply but when the side street came, he turned.

"Thi...third house on... the left!" She panted again.

Link glanced back for the first time and his heart skipped a beat. What was following them was far enough for them to get into a house, but it was still following, even though they were now in the South of town, and it was a Stalfos. He accelerated, even though he hadn't thought he could go any faster than he already was, and finally stopped in front of the third house on the street.

Zelda already had her key out and she quickly unlocked the door. She ducked inside, followed closely by Link, and slammed the door shut and locked it. The Stalfos started banging against it moments later. Thankfully, it gave up in less than a minute and they heard it rattling away, probably back towards the North of Town.

Link collapsed, falling sitting on the floor right next to the door, shaking badly.

"Stalfos..." He muttered. "They're not real," he chanted. "They're not real. They're not..."

Zelda kneeled in front of him and put a hand on his knee.

"Obviously, they are." She said. "But they're slow. You were able to outrun it even though I was slowing you down."

This had the opposite effect than what Zelda had hoped. Link started moaning and his shaking got even worse. He was hugging his knees and looked and sounded as if he was going to be sick. In desperation, Zelda put her arms around his quivering form and murmured shh's at him, like she was trying to comfort a baby.

It had no effect at first. Link was shaking so badly Zelda was starting to feel sick herself. Zelda kept trying, not knowing what else to do. It took several minutes for the shaking to start subsiding, slowly giving place to an occasional shiver. The moaning, thankfully, also stopped.

"Better?" Zelda asked after a while, when the shivers had all but stopped.

Link nodded miserably. He couldn't understand why he had felt so scared AFTER they had escaped, and at the same time, he felt very close to breaking down again. He raised his head to look at the girl and suddenly realized something that sent his heart into overdrive again.

"I have to go back..." he whimpered, his eyes widening at the thought. "It's going to be waiting for me somewhere out there..."

"You're not going anywhere," Zelda said quickly. The poor boy looked like he was going to start another panic attack. "You're going to stay here tonight."

Link looked up hopefully.

"I can stay?" He asked.

"Yes," She said. "In fact, I wouldn't let you go back if you tried."

"Th... Thank you," Link blabbered. He turned his head back down and took a few big breaths to try and calm down.

Zelda got up and bit her lip. He looked pathetic, but he had grabbed her before running away. He could have left her there and run for it by himself, couldn't he? She glanced at him and saw with some satisfaction that he looked extremely ashamed of his behaviour. Her satisfaction quickly turned to pity, and she opted to get the conversation going again.

"Why didn't you just leave me there and run away by yourself?" She asked.

Link looked up, now looking insulted as well as shameful.

"Something was about to attack us," He said in a tone implying this should have been obvious. "I couldn't just take off without you."

"But," Zelda said. "Weren't you afraid it would catch us if you were slowed down by me?"

Link snorted derisively.

"Like you told the President, I'm ALWAYS afraid. Of everything."

"My point is, you took a risk to save me." Zelda said.

Link shrugged.

"I just grabbed you without thinking."

"I don't think you're a coward at all." Zelda stated. "Whether you thought about it or not, you put yourself at risk to save me, and I'm not even sure you know my name. You were staring at the floor when the President asked me."

"If I'm not a coward, how come I'm afraid of so much stuff, huh?" He asked, glaring. "How come I didn't try to help when I heard screaming last night, huh? We all just sat there! That could have been Odupo! And no, I don't know your name! It doesn't matter: I have to call you 'supervisor' anyway!"

"Did anyone else in your dorm even think of going out?" She asked.

"I don't know! What does it matter? The point is, we heard someone screaming and I never even thought of trying to save him until today!"

Zelda lowered her eyes. She couldn't deny that it hadn't been very courageous to just stay hidden while you could hear someone being murdered. On the other hand...

"If you had gone out, you would only have been killed as well. You don't even have any weapon, do you?"

"What do you care, anyway?" Link asked, shrugging.

Zelda kneeled back down in front of him.

"I told you the President thought you were the Hero," she said. "That is, until everyone started making fun of you and pointing out all your phobias. He..."

"What's a phobia?" Link asked.

Zelda blinked then shook her head. She knew workers didn't have much education, she should have expected Link's vocabulary to be limited. The poor boy could probably not even read.

"It's something you are more afraid of than is reasonable," She explained. "Anyway, I was about to say, the President was right."

Link frowned, then sighed and sagged a bit.

"I know," he said. "But it's not like I WANTED to have the name of the Hero. I know it doesn't fit."

Zelda cocked her head, completely lost. When Link had said "I know", she had thought that her job of convincing him of his identity was already done. But the rest of what he said didn't make any sense. It took her a second to realize Link thought she meant the President had been right to tell him he was a shame to his name and to Hyrule.

"No! Not that!" She said. "He wasn't right to tell you off, he was right when he thought you were the Hero!"

Link stared at her blankly for a moment, then his mouth started to twitch and Zelda could tell he was trying not to laugh in her face.

"I know it sounds crazy," She said. "But I realized it last night. I was attacked..."

Link's eyes went wider than she would have thought possible.

"That's why I'm wearing mismatched clothes," she said, thinking something mundane may take the edge off the surrealism of the whole conversation, and feeling the urge to complain out load about this at least once. "This skirt and this shirt are the only thing fit to wear that I have left. The rest of my wardrobe is too torn up."

Link blinked. He thought that was a typical higher class, complaining about something so trivial in such circumstances. He wouldn't have noticed the shirt and skirt didn't match, but now that he took a good look at them, he could see they were both in rough shape. Like his own clothes, they were patched and sown back together in various spots, which, though it was the norm among the worker class, was definitely unusual for a supervisor. If the rest of her clothes were worse than this, whatever had attacked her must have been downright ferocious. This brought his thoughts back to the fact she had been attacked.

"How did you survive?" He asked. "Nobody survives these attacks."

"I hid behind my headboard." She answered hastily, eager to get to the point.

"That's all it took?" Link said, incredulously. "It didn't look for you?"

"Of course it did. That's why it tore my wardrobe apart. It also stabbed through my bed repeatedly, in case I was under it. But it wasn't doing a good job of searching me," she admitted. "It barely looked in the other rooms. I think it was too frustrated to concentrate. Anyway, the point is, it was Ganon."

She got up again as she said it: her legs were getting cramped. This time, Link got up too and she led him to the kitchen. She sat on her only chair and he sat back on the floor. She saw him glimpse towards the night's food: a potato, a slice of ham and for dessert, a peach.

"I thought supervisors got even more food than that," he commented when he sat down. "We get ham and potato sometimes too, although just half a potato and less ham, and we don't get a fruit. The dorm keeper cooks it, though. You have to do that yourself, don't you?"

Link was blabbering on, trying to steer her away from talking more nonsense. He could not afford to be anything but polite. She was a supervisor, and she was doing him a huge favour by letting him stay for the night. She'd be right to put in an official complaint if he was rude to her, for example by rolling his eyes at her crazy stories.

"You're changing the subject." She said accusingly. "You don't believe Ganon was in this house?"

Link looked away and wondered briefly if he'd be better off going back home after all. This girl, not content with having made the most powerful man in Hyrule positively loathe him, had delayed him going back home and caused a Stalfos - Link still shuddered at the thought - to come after him. And now, she was talking complete nonsense and Link did not think he could take much more of it without losing his manners. He sighed, knowing full well that he'd rather take his chances with the crazy supervisor than with the Stalfos, and forced himself to look at her again.

"What makes you think it was Ganon?" Link asked prudently.

"Well I admit that I didn't ask for its name," Zelda said acidly. "But it WAS a huge man dressed like a King, with a blue pig's head."

Link didn't know what to say, so he just nodded.

"The whole time, while he was looking for me, it felt very familiar. Once he left, I remembered that I had lived similar things plenty of times before. In fact, it seems like in every life I have, Ganon is after me." She said, hoping Link would be too scared to make her angry to refuse to hear any more.

Link kept his eyes fixed on hers to avoid rolling them. She thought she was the reincarnation of the Princess Zelda. And she had said earlier that the President thought he, Link, was the Hero and that he had been right to think that. He considered leaving again, but the image of the Stalfos imposed itself to his mind and he stayed put.

"So..." He said when she didn't continue. "Your name is Zelda, then?"

She nodded.

"I also have the same ears you do," she blurted out, tucking her hair behind them. Link's eyes went wide again, before they narrowed in a frown.

"You're lucky YOU can hide them," he said. "But why were you staring at mine all day?"

Zelda cocked her head, once again having no idea what he was talking about. She'd been looking at him all day, not at his ears.

"Wait..." Link said, interpreting her puzzled look to mean she had not been staring at his ears all day. "Don't tell me you DO like me...?"

Zelda shook her head, as if trying to clear it. "Like you?" She asked incredulously.

"No? Good." Link sighed in relief. The last thing he wanted was to have to pretend to like the crazed woman back. "Wait… I get it. You were staring at me because you think I'm the Hero." He groaned. "You didn't notice I don't even like using my axe? You really think I want to use a sword, in combat?"

"I don't think you want to," Zelda said gently. "I think you have to."

Link's frown deepened.

"Well, I don't think so." He said, his voice trembling with repressed anger.

Zelda sighed. They were getting nowhere, and she was exhausted. Link seemed angry, and she couldn't help thinking that it was the part of him that knew she was right and yet desperately wanted not to have to fight that created that anger.

"All right." She said.

She got up and started on dinner. Link looked at her for a while, expecting her to start raving again, but thankfully, she didn't. He let his thoughts wander, trying to keep his mind from the food: his own dinner was back at the dorm, so he would have to fast tonight. He was in the middle of wondering whether Deku Scrubs really existed, since Stalfos did, when the supervisor called out his name.

"For you," Zelda said once she had his attention. She was pointing at the table, to the plate with her dinner on it. With everything going on, she wasn't all that hungry, and she felt that after the day Link had had, he deserved a square meal.

It took a bit of convincing, but Link eventually accepted to eat and she went to bed, letting him sleep wherever he wanted to.

She found him asleep sitting at the table, his arms crossed on the table and his head atop them. She called on to him and he jerked awake.

It took a second for Link to remember where he was and why he was there, and when he did, it was all he could do not to groan and put his head back on his arms.

"I bet my place at the dorm is going to be gone by tonight..." he sighed. "They'll think I'm..."

He stopped and his eyes widened as he realized that Kariko and Dekussay would think he had been killed. He wouldn't even be able to reassure them until he got off work this evening. He let his head drop back to his arms and groaned.

"You have friends who will worry at the dorm?" Zelda asked.

Link nodded in his arms.

"Where do they work? I can have a message sent that you are alive."

Link's head sprung back up.

"You can? And you don't mind?"

"It's the least I can do, seeing you won't be going back to the dorm." Zelda said.

Link stared at her with a mixture of shock and incomprehension. Zelda gulped, knowing he would not take this well but also knowing she had to be able to spend as much time alone with him as possible.

"High class citizens are entitled to one live-in servant of their choice." She said. "You're it."

Link's face fell.

"You're kidding." He said. "I'm a guy. Everyone will think I'm a 'special' servant."

Zelda reddened.

"I don't intend to make you do any work," she said, keen on driving the conversation away from what this would do to her reputation. "The very reason I don't have a servant yet is that I think it's silly to expect someone to work hard all day and then to serve in the evening and morning. Well... that and I wouldn't want her to see my ears."

Link's expression made Zelda realize that he had interpreted that in the worst possible way: he looked like he couldn't decide between horror, disgust and anticipation. She resisted getting mad and merely rolled her eyes.

"I don't intend for you do THAT, either." She sighed. "I just want you around. We have a lot of things to talk about."

"Do I... have to?" Link asked. "My friends don't work at the shop. If I don't go back to the dorm, when am I going to see them?"

"I'm sorry," She said honestly. "But we can't talk freely at the shop. You can see your friends on days off."

Zelda bit her lip at the face Link made. Thankfully for her resolve, it only lasted an instant and was replaced by a look of resignation.

"Come on," She said. "We need to get going or we'll be late."

The next few days were not among the happiest of Link's life.

Zelda had been true to her word and sent messages at Kariko's farm and at Dekussay's bomb factory. Messages had been sent back - Zelda had been nice enough to read them - that Link's friends were extremely relieved, and that Kariko was going to punch him for scaring her like that next time she saw him.

He couldn't complain about any extra work, either. Like Zelda had said, she didn't make him do any: she even cooked both their meals and had made sure nobody at the shop thought he was some kind of love slave. It wasn't difficult: nobody could believe that a woman would be attracted to him anyway. Link also enjoyed not sharing a room with 16 other guys and having a supervisor's dinner every night.

The only problem, and it was a big one, was Zelda's belief that he was the Hero and she the Princess. She wasn't giving up on it and from the time they got home to the time they went to bed, she in her room and he on the futon in her living room, she would just go on and on about how his ears were a sign and how she just KNEW he was the Hero. Sometimes, she'd start retelling some historical accounts of one of the battles between Ganon and the Hero, apparently hoping that it would make him remember. Once he was reasonably certain she would not punish him for it, he had taken to ignoring her as best as he could, but it was not always easy. She would nudge him, yell, and sometimes, even cry if he did not respond to her at all. The crying was the worst: it made Link feel so miserable that when she did it, he couldn't help but apologize and pretend to listen to her for the rest of the night.

It was getting worse, too. Zelda seemed to be getting desperate: every night, she was more insistent than the one before, and by the fifth night of Link's employment, she would spend most of the evening crying or yelling, accusing him of causing more people to die by refusing to face his destiny. Link didn't know how much more of this he could take.

He wished he could help her, and thus end the nightmare, but he was not enough of a good actor to pretend to believe her or agree with her, and nothing he said seemed to make her so much as doubt her insane beliefs. It looked as though the only thing that would satisfy her would be for Link to genuinely share her madness, which Link figured was only a matter of time: she was literally driving him insane.

Eight days into Link's new employment, the master of the shop shuffled the working arrangements, shifting most workers who had been making shields to swords and vice versa. This happened about twice as year, but Link was always exempt because the first and last time he had been assigned to swords, 9 years before, he had proven to be completely unproductive, incapable as he was of touching the blasted things. He had been punished severely, and had a few scars to show for it, but despite these encouragements, he had barely been able to handle one of the unfinished swords for a few instants before throwing it and begging to be returned to shields. Every now and then, at the time everyone else was shifted, he was ordered to hold a sword and when he could not do it for more than a few seconds, he was disciplined and sent back to shields with a different set of co-workers until the next shift change when his usual team would return to shields.

Link braced himself when one of the supervisors came towards him this time.

"Servant Link," Ejar said, "You are transferred to the swords, just like everyone else. There will be no returning to shields until the next shift change. You are expected to get over your fear of swords quickly."

Ejar turned on his heels as soon as he had given Link those instructions. He had never been able to look at him for long, and even less so now that he lived with Zelda.

Link stared at the departing supervisor's back, horror-struck, until someone grabbed his arm and led him towards a new workstation. He turned his head and saw that it was Zelda, with an unreadable expression.

"I can't do this..." He muttered. "I can't..."

"I'm really sorry," Zelda whispered.

"Can't you do anything?" Link begged.

Zelda refused to answer or even to meet his eyes. She showed him to his station and left. Link glanced nervously at the fire to his left, which was behind a tight grill with a slot opening through which the moulds were slid into the flames. There was a guy between the fire and himself, looking rather amused.

"I'm sliding the blades in and out," He said. "So you won't burn your pretty little hands. Your job is to pound. A supervisor is going to come to train you. In the meantime, just stay out of the way, 'kay?"

Link nodded and stepped as far as he could from the boy and the fire without actually leaving his station. He glanced towards the windows and caught a glimpse of a greyish brown version of a cheerful blue sky, which helped a tiny bit. He let his eyes wander around the shop while he waited to be trained. He supposed he should try to touch one of the swords on the table, but he could not bring himself to it. And Zelda thought he was meant to fight Ganon with one... she really was crazy.

Link frowned, thinking. He was going to have to work with swords, and would not be able to get out of it this time, for the first time ever. This was also the first shift change since one of the sword supervisor, who had also hired him as a servant so she could try and fill his head with nonsense, had taken to believing he was the Hero reborn. She wanted him to go after Ganon, and to use the Sword of Evil Bane to fight him... how convenient that he was suddenly forced to become use to handling swords, no matter how much he was scared of them and how much more productive he was making shields.

He looked for her, and found her looking guiltily at him. His frown deepened and it was all he could do not to snarl at her. Her guilty expression confirmed his suspicions: she had requested him, and for some reason, her request had been granted. Link turned his eyes away from her, furious. He'd have to ask her how she had done it this evening. It was about as close as he could get to telling her off without overstepping his boundaries as a servant or even a lower class. He also resolved not to stop ignoring her when she started crying from now on. He'd be a perfect servant, just one that did not seem to hear anything she said that was not an order. It was her problem if she hadn't hired him to give him orders: if her little fantasies were going to make him work with swords, he was done indulging them.

A supervisor, the same one who had told him he was going to be making swords, showed up after a few minutes and explained what he had to do. It sounded fairly simple, if terrifying: he had to use a hammer to pound the blades of the swords while they were still hot, until they were straight and had the required thickness. Link had no problem with the hammer, but he had to hold the swords in place with a kind of pincer and he could just picture the blade flying out of his grip and straight into his chest, even without his pounding it.

The supervisor was watching him intently, waiting for him to demonstrate he had understood the instructions. Link grabbed the pincer and with it, lifted a sword, red from the heat, from its mould. As soon as the sword was in the air, held by nothing but the pincers, he threw both of them away from himself with a yelp. The supervisor punched him and ordered him to try again.

Most of the day went like that, but late in the afternoon, Link was finally able to hold the sword in place and pound it a few times before he had to drop it and step back, panting. The supervisor punched him just as hard as all the other times, shoved him back towards the sword, and Link picked up the pincers again. He was hurting everywhere, and the sword was looking less threatening than yet another blow, so he kept pounding it, trembling. The knuckles of his left hand were white from gripping the pincers as tightly as he could.

Worried as he was of hitting the sword sideways and sending it flying, Link was particularly careful of his aim with the hammer, which turned out to be a good thing. He finished the sword quicker than the other pounder on the table had been finishing his all day. The supervisor put his hand on his shoulder.

"There. Not that hard, now is it? You better not go back to dropping the pincers tomorrow, or I'll hit a lot harder. Now, put the sword in that bucket."

Link did so, still using the pincers. The water hissed and fumed when the sword hit it.

"Okay. This one is done, so grab another one." The Supervisor said.

Link did as he was told, biting his lips and still trembling slightly. The bell signifying the end of the day rang just as he was putting it on the table, but he couldn't assume he wouldn't have to make up for loss time, so he grabbed the hammer anyway.

"Put that down," the supervisor said. "You can go home."

Link couldn't help but smile in gratitude as he put the sword back in the mould. His smile quickly faded when he spotted Zelda walking towards him. She looked miserable, but he could not have cared less.

"I'm really, really sorry." She whispered.

Link snorted and started walking towards the door. She kept pace with him but said nothing else. She remained silent all the way to her house, and only started talking again once the door was closed behind them.

"You understand why I had to do that, don't you?" She asked in a pleading voice.

Link did understand, but since it fell under that crazy Hero fantasy of hers, he was going to ignore her question.

"Does my mistress want me to cook dinner?" He asked.

"What? Don't call me that! Why do you ask? I didn't even know you could cook."

There was an order in there (not to call her 'mistress'), as well as a question (why did he ask?) that didn't have anything to do with her belief he was the Hero, so he answered, he thought, as a perfect servant.

"Yes, Madam. And I can't cook. I'm just trying to find out what you want me to do. Should I clean something?"

It was a stupid question, and Link knew it. Zelda kept the house spotless and other than the knowledge it involved rubbing things with a cloth, Link was no more qualified to clean than he was to cook. Zelda frowned slightly.

"What are you playing at?" She asked. "You know I don't want you to do any chores, and don't call me 'Madam'! You've been calling me Zelda for days, why are you changing now?"

"I'm just trying to be a good servant, Miss Zelda." Link replied, trying hard not to laugh. "Do you want a massage? Forgive me for saying that, but you look a little bit stressed."

Zelda sighed.

"Link... I'm sorry. I really am. But you NEED to be able to handle a sword!"

Once again, Link ignored the part of what she said that had to do with the Hero of Hyrule and acted like the perfect servant.

"You don't need to be sorry, Miss Zelda." He said. "You own me. You can do whatever you want to me."

"Please stop this," She pleaded.

Link raised his eyebrows in mocked confusion.

"I... I thought you'd take to the swords faster than this. I didn't think you'd get hit so much..."

She collapsed on her chair and buried her hands in her face. She started sobbing, much to Link's satisfaction.

"You can't go on like this!" She sobbed. "Ganon is already after you! I thought if you had to, you'd get over your fear of sharp weapons!"

Link had to concentrate to understand her, drowned as her words were under her sobs. His satisfaction was starting to fade. He clenched his jaw and worked on building it back up. He couldn't let himself sympathize with Zelda anymore. She was becoming dangerous.

Zelda had many more things to say, but she didn't know how to say them or where to start. She was once again losing control of her emotions, and was finding herself crying harder and harder. Getting Link to work on swords had been a desperate move: she had hoped he'd remember holding the Master Sword, or at the very least, that a bit of shock therapy would get rid of his phobia. But instead, Link had been completely unable to handle a sword, even indirectly, with pincers, until he was even more afraid of being hit again than he was of the weapon. Most likely, he would be so bruised tomorrow that he'd still be more afraid of the hits than of the swords, so he would do okay. The next working day, however, could go either way. She could kid herself that he'd get used to the swords after a full day of working with them, but she knew it was very unlikely after watching him today. Instead of curing his phobia, all she had managed to do was condemn him to pure misery until the next shift change, which was not due for months.

Link was starting to lose his battle to stay angry. He shifted on his feet uncomfortably, and was debating trying to console her so she'd stopped crying. If she stopped crying, he could stop feeling sorry for her and go back to hating her. His stomach grumbled and helped him make his decision: he wouldn't be able to eat if she didn't calm down.

"Look, Zelda..." He started.

He stopped. He had no idea what to say. He couldn't very well tell her that everything was okay and not to worry about it: things were not okay and he felt it only fair that she feel miserable for what she had done, however she had done it.

"How did you talk the manager into making me work on swords, anyway?" He said.

Zelda managed to get her crying under control a bit to answer. The answer may make Link feel a little better, so she really wanted to give it to him. When she spoke, her voice was broken by sniffles, but relatively calm.

"I... I complained that... that it was not fair. The best... worker in the shop, and... and he only works on shields. I said... I said it wasn't fair for us sword supervisors."

Link blushed. Zelda, her eyes still soaked, smiled meekly.

"I'm not the best worker in the shop." Link mumbled.

"Yes, you are." Zelda said, calming down now that Link didn't look so betrayed anymore. "Why do you think you got away with being late twice in a few months?"

Link looked away, blushing even more.

"We had a big quota, last time..." He muttered.

"Right," Zelda said. "And it didn't make sense to lose a full day of work from our best worker so you were not injured."

"I'm not saying I'm bad," Link said, still muttering a bit. "But I'm not THE best."

"Well, I don't know if anyone is even better than you," Zelda admitted. "But you are definitely one of the best. Enough for the manager to agree with me that it was high time you started working on swords."

Mentioning the swords was a mistake: Link's face automatically hardened.

"I still don't know what you want me to do, Miss Zelda."

Zelda sighed heavily.

"Well, there is one thing." She said, suddenly getting the idea that if Link wanted to play servant, she might was well take advantage of it. "But will you really obey my orders?"

Link tutted.

"Of course, Miss Zelda."

"You promise?"

"I am your servant. Of course I promise to obey you." Link said.

"If that is how you feel, I order you to have dinner with me - I'll cook - and then, we will have a conversation. It is possible, make that certain, that the subject matter will not please you, but I order you to pay attention and to answer when I ask a question, no matter what the question is about. This order is valid until we both go to bed. You are not to go to bed without my telling you to, and you are not to deviate from the conversation we will have, for example by asking to go to bed. Do you understand?"

Link's expression was priceless. He had obviously not considered that his plan to play servant and ignore the fact he wasn't meant to be one could backfire. He wasn't saying anything, so she repeated her question.

"Do you understand or not?"

Even if Link had wanted to go back on his promise, he would not have been able to. Disobeying a direct order by a supervisor, or worse, by his mistress, was unthinkable.

He muttered a yes and sat down on his chair. Zelda got up and started to cook, satisfied.

When he finally got to bed, Link could not decide which had been worse: the day, or the evening. He was so angry at Zelda that he had half a mind to just run away and go live in the Lost Woods. Even though he had seen a real Stalfos a few nights before, he still didn't believe the old tales that the Lost Woods turned people into StalChildren were true: they were just woods, for crying out loud.

The only thing stopping him was that life as a hermit was even more unappealing than life here.

He lay in bed for a while before he fell asleep, scowling at the ceiling, above which was the house's one bedroom, where Zelda slept. He thought of her bed, which she had patched as well as she could but would never be quite the same after being slashed repeatedly, and smiled grimly. He hoped she slept really badly. The nerve she had...

She had spent the first hour of the evening trying to convince him his ears had to mean something. He had confirmed, because he had engaged himself to answer any question she asked, that his father had had normal ears. His mother having died in labour, he didn't know what she had looked like, but his father had once told him he didn't know where Link got his ears from, so he assumed she had had normal ears as well. Zelda had taken that to mean that he had not inherited the ears through blood, but through his Hylian soul. Link had protested that the Hylians had abandoned Hyrule and their souls weren't likely to come back, but Zelda had countered by saying the Hylians had actually been killed off by Ganon, and had not left at all. Every argument Link had brought up had been countered by something equally nonsensical. She had even suggested that Ganon may have been responsible for the Hero and Princess not being reborn sooner, even though she had also admitted that she couldn't see how he could possibly have done something like that.

For the rest of the evening, she had tried to get him riled up and motivated to go hunt monsters or kill Ganon or something. She had told him many people were killed every night, and told him the bodies were always horribly mutilated. She had used Dekussay and Kariko - Link had made the mistake of describing his friends to her - as examples of how bad Hyrule was. When Link had pointed out Dekussay had been attacked by humans, not monsters, she had snapped back that it didn't make it right and that in a proper place, such humans would be locked up. She had gone on and on about the deaths, injuries, and various monstrous occurrences and at the end of it, Link was not only depressed but terrified.

So now, he lay in bed, exhausted but wide awake. After an evening like that, he was certain the nightmares would be bad. The fact his body was aching everywhere would probably make it worst, so he was almost grateful that the pain was keeping him awake. He tried thinking of happy things, such as the day off they had scheduled the day after tomorrow, and how nice it would be to see his friends and spend a day away from Zelda and her insane fantasies.

Later, a slap jerked him awake after a Stalfos had attacked and killed him. He was in some kind of dungeon, surrounded by ReDeads.

Zelda woke up when Link started groaning and moaning in his sleep. She sighed, and got up. She didn't think she could wake him up - she had tried before and it had proved absolutely impossible -, but she figured if she was going to be kept up anyway, she might as well be there for him when he woke up. She put on her dressing gown, or rather, the clumsily sown together pieces of what had once been a dressing gown, and went downstairs with a lit candle.

Link was lying absolutely still, except for his eyes, which were rapidly moving under his eyelids. His mouth was slightly opened, but despite the moans and groans, which were quite loud, it didn't seem to actually be moving.

Zelda went to sit into the kitchen. She'd know when Link would wake up: he'd gasp, and the moaning would stop, replaced by hard breathing. It seemed to take longer than usual, but eventually, Link woke up with the expected gasp and she got up to join him in the living room. He didn't seem to notice her: he was curled up in a ball, sobbing silently. Zelda bit her lip: his nightmares must have been worse than usual, and it was her fault. She retreated upstairs, choosing to leave Link alone after all: she was probably the last person in the world he'd want to see at the moment.

"I just don't get it, Zelda." Ejar said, putting his tray down with a clang.

Zelda looked up at him and winced. He was looking just as hurt and angry as he did every day since she had explained Link's arriving with her after the first night he had spent at her place by revealing she had hired him as her servant. This bothered Zelda for two reasons: one, she liked Ejar and had not wanted to hurt him; two, the reason he was hurt so much was that just as Link had guessed, most of the shop figured he was a rather particular kind of servant. Ironically, Link had chosen to blindly believe her efforts to prevent this had worked and was completely oblivious to the fact they had not. Zelda was not so lucky, and just thinking of it, like now, was enough to put her in a rotten mood for hours.

"What don't you get?" She said defensively. "You convinced me the other day that getting a servant would be a good idea after all."

"But Zelda... a boy servant? If you are THAT lonely, why did you reject me?" Ejar said. "And why THIS boy? I don't get it! You were making fun of him just like the rest of us when the President visited! You started it!"

"He is not THAT kind of servant!" Zelda said, straining to keep her voice down.

Migo, who had just sat down next to Ejar, snickered.

"What else would he be good at?" He asked.

"You know full well that he's very agile." Zelda hissed. "He's even been doing great with the swords today, and it's only his second day at it."

"That's only because I beat him senseless yesterday!" Ejar cried. "I'm willing to bet anything that in a few days, he'll have forgotten the pain enough that I'll have to do it all over again!"

Zelda frowned at him.

"Speaking of which, you didn't have to hit so hard." She said. "Like you said, you'll only have to do it again in a few days, and I would prefer he NOT be constantly covered in bruises."

"Why's that?" Ejar asked. "Does it interfere with his duties to you? I assure you I stayed above the belt, except for a few kicks in the calves."

Zelda reddened and Migo, tired of sitting with two people practically spitting at each other, intervened by changing the subject.

"Have you heard? They've reopened Ganon's museum." He said.

Zelda's eyes widened and Ejar and his allegations were driven clear out of her mind.

"Have they?" She asked, in a would-be-casual voice.

"Slipping, aren't we?" Ejar said. "Only a week ago, you would have been telling us about it, not Migo. It's like you're distracted by something, lately."

Zelda did not gratify him with an answer and pretended to be absorbed by her meal for the rest of the lunch break. She had an idea, although Link was likely to hate her for it, whether it worked or not.

Link worked wonderfully well for the rest of the afternoon, as expected. He was, however, positively shaking when the day ended. Zelda decided to wait until after dinner before letting Link know she wanted him to spend at least part of his day off with her instead of back at his old dorm. She knew he wasn't going to like that at all: he was already very unhappy that he could only see his friends three days a year.

They didn't talk on the way home, nor during the preparation of dinner, nor while they were eating it. Link was sulking worse than the day before, but after being ordered to participate in the very conversation he had been keen on ignoring the night before, he had apparently learned not to ask for instructions and was just staying silent. Zelda let him be until she was done with the dishes, and then, feeling she couldn't put it off any longer, let it out.

"I know you're not going to like this," she said flatly. "But..."

"You said I could see my friends on days off." Link interrupted her. "You are not going to go back on your word, are you?"

"Well... no." Zelda said after a moment's hesitation. "I want us to visit the museum dedicated to Ganon, but..."

"How is that not going back on your word?" Link cried out, getting up to better stare her down.

"It won't take all day." Zelda said evenly, meeting his stare.

Link frowned, but sat down.

"How long?" He sighed.

"Well, it will take a little while to even get there... we could leave early and be done before noon."

"Do we really have to go?"

"Yes"

Link scowled.

"Why does this monster even HAVE a museum?" He groaned.

Zelda didn't have an answer and didn't think any further conversation with Link tonight would accomplish anything, so she shrugged and pulled a history book off her bookshelf.

Link chose to catch up on some sleep and went to bed, but Zelda retired to her own bedroom long before he finally fell asleep. He didn't die in his dreams on that night, but he kept dreaming of waking up, which, as monotonous as it was, was a welcomed change.

They got up only a little bit later than they usually did, still well before dawn. Since they were not going to work today, their breakfast had been delivered to their door sometimes during the night. Link had the pleasant surprise to find that as a servant, he was entitled to a supervisor's breakfast on days off. He usually had an egg or a piece of fruit for breakfast, but by the door were two plates each containing an orange, an egg and even some bread. To Link, this was basically the equivalent of three breakfasts. Zelda took it all in and pan fried the eggs, much to Link's amazement, who had never had anything else than hard boiled eggs. She showed him to soak the liquid yolk with the bread and Link, happy as he was to have such a big and unusual breakfast, forgot to be sulky right until they left, which they did just as the sun was coming up.

It was a sunny day, and although he had been out on sunny days before, Link still had trouble adjusting to the brightness. He glanced at Zelda and saw that like him, she was blinking and shielding her eyes. They started walking, neither of them saying a word.

Link stayed silent because he was still angry with her. Zelda stayed silent because she was hoping Link would be a lot more receptive after the visit to the museum. She felt a pang of guilt: if her plan worked, Link may not be in the mood to visit his friends after all, and either way, it was a safe bet that he would not enjoy his day off very much.

She had visited the exhibit long before it had been vandalized and closed 4 years earlier. She felt a pang of nostalgia when she remembered that it was the current President, while he was running for Presidency, who had destroyed the museum. He had gotten away with it because one of his supporters had admitted to the crime and taken the fall, and at the same time, he had been elected because everyone knew it was him who had done it. And here we were, not quite four years later, and the same person had had the tribute to Ganon renovated and re-opened. It would have been extremely disheartening if not for the hope it brought her to get Link to finally realize who he was.

Link glanced at her, and wondered if she was thinking the same thing as him: they didn't get to be outside during the day often enough. Despite the fact that the sun could indeed burn things, Link had never been afraid of it. In fact, the very idea seemed ridiculous. They were approaching the museum now, and Link scowled. Why Zelda wanted to come here was so obvious it was irritating: she was hoping that seeing a bunch of stuff about Ganon would awaken the Hero in him, or something like that. This obsession of hers would drive him to madness yet, he just knew it. He could already picture himself banging his head on walls and muttering incoherently. He briefly considered doing it inside the museum to annoy Zelda, but crazy people usually disappeared; all things considered, he was going to hang on to his sanity as long as he could, even if it meant putting up with Zelda.

The museum was decorated with a big banner, announcing the grand reopening. Zelda reflected that grand as it may be, the re-opening was not particularly successful. Nobody else than Link and herself was heading that way. There was no line up to get in, and once they were in, they found the place empty of visitors save for themselves. Zelda looked around nervously, wondering whether she was going to attract the President's attention by being the only visitor to the museum. She forced herself to brush the matter aside. It was not likely they would be the absolute only ones to visit, even if they were the only ones in right now. Furthermore, even if they did turn out to be the only ones to visit the museum today, the President had no reason to suspect that the Hero would do such a thing.

Zelda hardly remembered anything from her previous visit, which she had done as a child, for a school trip. All she had was a vague recollection of a particularly horrible exhibit. She instructed Link to stay with her and started down what seemed to be the intended path of visit.

The first room was dedicated to what was believed to be Ganon's first apparition. Zelda scowled at it: even the quickest look around revealed that the exhibit ignored all the interesting parts of that time period and concentrated solely on Ganon and things directly related to him. Link noticed and out of sheer boredom, decided to break the silence.

"What's wrong?" He asked.

"There's nothing about the sages, nothing about the Sheikah, it's all Gerudo stuff." She growled.

Link shrugged.

"It's a museum about Ganon." He remarked.

Zelda sighed. She looked around, and spotted a replica of the Ocarina of Time. She showed it to Link, who shrugged and said he didn't play any instrument.

She showed him clothes that had belonged to Ganon, and a replica of his sword, with a similar lack of result.

They proceeded to the next room, and then to the one after that, and Link still had no reaction to any of the artefacts. Even the painting of the Triforce in the Dark World left him completely unimpressed. Room after room, all Zelda was getting out of him was the occasional monosyllable answer to her attempts at conversation.

The last room was behind a closed door, marked with a sign inviting visitors to enter and see the final exhibit. Link asked what the sign said, and Zelda read it to him before opening the door. Link frowned and took a step back, not keen on going into what appeared to be an enclosed room on his day off, but Zelda grabbed his arm and he had to follow.

This was the room Zelda remembered from her last visit: it was a recreation of the room in which Ganon had defeated the last Hero. What she assumed was a fake skeleton was pinned to one of the walls with a replica of Ganon's sword, and under his feet were fragments of a smaller sword with a blue handle: a replica of what was left of the Master Sword. Zelda could never entirely forget the room: even as a child, she had found the skeleton to be smaller than herself, as it should be. She had been 7 years old at the time, and the young Link had been 5 years old.

She could not imagine anyone not reacting to that room, and would have preferred not to bring Link here. Since he had not shown any sign of remembering who he was at any of the other exhibits, however, she felt she had to try him on this one. It may not work (in fact she was almost hoping it wouldn't, because if it did, it would be a nasty way for Link to remember his past lives) but she thought she couldn't allow herself not to try everything possible to wake up the Hero.

She changed her mind the second she got into the room. The blood drained from her face when she saw the child's skeleton impaled on the wall with a sword that was bigger than he was. This was a lot worse than she remembered... the room seemed to breathe despair and horror. It smelled of death, and although the room was warm, she couldn't stop shivering. She imagined what had come before the young Hero had finally been killed: a battle between a monster who was more than likely enjoying himself and a 5 year-old boy. Ganon had probably ripped the Master Sword from the child's grasp and shattered it before his eyes, and then what? What was the Hero supposed to do without the only weapon capable of defeating Ganon? How was a weapon-less little boy supposed to defend himself from a monster about 4 times his size? And Ganon, with Link at his mercy... what had he done to him before finishing him off? She would have liked to think even Ganon would not torture a child, but she knew that was a foolish hope.

She turned to stop Link from coming in. She would have to find another way: she couldn't bring herself to make him remember this battle.

Link stepped in behind her before she could stop him and looked around without stepping away from the door. The room was not only closed in, it was barely lit, and at first, he didn't see anything. Zelda opened her mouth to tell him they should get going and he could do whatever he wanted for the rest of the day, but she was not quick enough. Link's eyes widened as they found the room's only feature.

Zelda try to push him out and turn his head, but Link seemed rooted in the spot. He shuddered once and collapsed. Zelda gasped and tried to shake him awake, with no success.

"That sword was too big anyway..." He muttered, in a barely audible voice, higher pitched than his own: it sounded like a child's.

Zelda gulped. It sounded like something the young Link may have said upon losing the Master Sword. She shook him harder, all the while begging him to wake up. She didn't care that he was used to nightmares, she couldn't let him relive this battle and then wake up with the knowledge that it had been real. She didn't think anyone should have to live through something like that, much less live through it twice, and least of all Link, who would be completely terrorized by the experience.