Nick stared at the ancient structure in awe as his boat finally made its way to the bottom.
"This is really it..." he repeated to himself in disbelief, "Hyrule Castle... Hyrule didn't "disappear"... It sunk into the ocean!"
He stepped out of his boat and into the small pond that it had landed in. Beside him was a grand, red sailboat that seemed to be designed to look like a lion.
"It really is everything I had imagined it would be..."
After spending so much time learning about this place actually seeing it truly was an extraordinary experience for the young historian. Just the architecture of the front entrance was fantastic from the artificial pond he was standing in to the grand hallway leading into the castle. He prepared to peek inside when he then heard what sounded like somebody running in his direction.
"Crap, I definitely don't need to be seen now! Last thing I need to be is mistaken for an enemy!" Nick panicked as he then pushed his boat into the space to the side of the entrance hallway to ensure that he wouldn't be spotted by anyone who happened to be exiting the castle. He waited in hiding in the corner until the scurrying sound came closer and closer until he finally spotted a boy in a green tunic rushing out of the castle. The boy immediately jumped into the red boat which suddenly turned its figurehead around and seemed to be speaking with him. After some chatter, the boat moved itself into the light from which they had entered from. Nick observed as the pair ascended up towards the surface as the portal disappeared behind them.
"So that was Link the hero huh?" Nick noted to himself, "The one who's going to save us all. but if he just left then... where's Tetra? Quill said she came here with him after all. Either way with that light gone I can only guess that I'm here for the long haul. It's a good thing I came prepared to make the most of it."
Nick then took a moment to reconfirm the items that he had with him: a pictobox (There was definitely a good chance he'd see something worth snapping a photo of), a good deal of documents containing a great deal of the information on Hyrule he and his family had uncovered (highly detailed though incomplete which Nick hoped to alleviate with this latest trip), a bow and arrow (He still wasn't sure what kind of monsters he might encounter here), and the chest he'd "borrowed" from Tetra's cabin (which he still felt some guilt about but was too determined at the moment to care as much as he normally would).
"It's time to see just what this castle has in store for me."
He entered through the main hallway and found himself completely awestruck by what he discovered inside. The castle's main hall was magnificent. A grand statue of the Hero of Time stood before him as a vast array of ancient art and portraits decorated the walls of the main chamber.
"I've hit the jackpot on this one! This is really it! My parents and their colleagues have spent years searching for this place! To think I'd be the one to find it first!"
He immediately grabbed his pictobox out of his bag to prepare snapping photos of the grand room.
Observing the lower floor, he noticed the debris that seemed to be lying around in small piles though nothing had taken major damage
"It looks like a fight broke out here recently," he observed, "but otherwise everything has been preserved excellently. This really is a dream come true!"
He then took notice to the statue of the Hero that stood directly before him facing away. He walked around it to take a good up-close look at it.
"That kid really does resemble the Hero well. If the legends are true we should have nothing to worry about," he remarked snapping a picture of it.
Upon turning around, he could now see the two largest portraits mounted on the room's rear wall. Nick first looked towards the right to see a painting of an old man with a red coat and crown.
"So that must be the king of Hyrule..." He noted with a picture and turning his head to the left to the picture of a young blond girl wearing a pink dress surrounded by a group of men in their finest outfits
"And this must be Princess Zelda... " Nick commented with a third snap of his pictobox, "These men surrounding her. They sort of look like Tetra's crew, now don't they? Another coincidence? That's what I'm here to find out."
Nick continued to roam the main hall with youthful exuberance, but, below him in the basement there was another person who wasn't enjoying this nearly as much as he was.
Down a secret staircase concealed by the statue of the Hero of Time Tetra waited in a hidden chamber surrounded by a shallow stream and various stained-glass portraits of the legendary sages of Hyrule. Only now she was not only Tetra but also the Princess of Hyrule Zelda. As she waited for Link to come back for her the shock of learning her true identity was beginning to overwhelm her. She was currently leaned over and staring at her new reflection in water. Her eyes were filled to the brim with sadness and uncertainty
"Just what's happening to me?... My clothing, my personality, my complexion, my name, none of it's the same." Tetra thought to herself, "Just who am I anymore? Am I still Tetra or did Tetra never even exist to begin with, and why does it have to be me? Why do I have to be the helpless one a time like this? Isn't there anything I can do to help? And Mom! Did she know about any of this? If she did... why didn't she tell me? Can I even face my own crew anymore?"
She slowly began to lose her composure as she noticed her eyes turning red from fighting back her own tears.
"I'm just glad to nobody has to see me like this... Either way I need to get out of here! I can't stay here like this!"
She ran for the exit and up the staircase to try and leave, but found her path blocked by the statue that guarded the entrance.
"Damn it!" she cursed as she pounded the obstacle with her right first before noticing the Triforce of Wisdom now glowing on the back of it, "Wait, if this was sealed with royal magic and I now wield that same kind of magic... that means if I focus I should be able to move this out of my way!"
Tetra took a step backwards and began to focus her energy on the statue blocking her. It indeed took notice of her efforts and began to slowly but surely move out her way.
However, back in the upper chamber...
"Huh? What's up with that?" Nick took note of the moving statue from the upper level of the main hall. He ran back towards the statue in a hurry to check out the passage that was slowly being revealed with this movement. The boy momentarily peered into the new staircase to see where it led only to find himself being knocked back and onto the floor in a flash by a sudden blow to the head. Nick let out a yelp of pain as he suddenly heard a weaker, female voice do the same. He then slowly got up from his back to take notice of the girl in front of him still on the ground, and froze with shock as he took in her clothes and form.
"It really is her..." he whispered under his breath flabbergasted.
"Ow! What did I run into now?" Tetra yelled inwardly on the floor as she removed her hands from her face to get a look at the boy standing in front of her, "Is that... Nick?! What the hell is he doing here?! Oh no! I can't let him realize it's actually it's me! I just can't stand being seen like this!"
"Hey... are you okay?..." Nick slowly offered a helping hand to the girl that had just run into him only to have it promptly ignored as she ran past him and out of the castle's front entrance. Confused, Nick followed her outside to find her on the stepping stones in the lake frantically searching for the portal to get back to the sea above.
"Where is it? Where is it?" Tetra yelled in a panic as Nick only watched in surprise.
"If you're looking for the way out of here," Nick told her, "You can probably forget about it. It's gone. The two of us are probably here to stay until that kid in the green tunic comes back.
Upon taking in Nick's words Tetra fell to her knees in despair.
"Y-You don't understand," she choked, "I just need to get out of here..."
"Just what are you doing locked down here anyway?" he asked politely.
"I was told to wait... until they came back but.. I can't take this anymore!"
"I'm sorry, but I don't know how to get out." Nick apologized, "Now please come back inside. If we're going to be stuck here we should at least hang out with each other while we are waiting."
"N-No I can't..."
"Huh?" Nick asked still unable to make sense of her odd behavior, "Why not?"
"B-because... I can't tell you..."
"You can't tell me..." Nick repeated in his head stunned by the erratic way she was acting, "At this point, Tetra is the only one this could possibly be so why is she avoiding me? If it weren't for all the clues pointing to it I'd find it harder to believe that this girl is Tetra than that Tetra herself is Princess Zelda. I really can't stand to see her like this though. I still need to figure out what happened at the fortress and what caused her to transform, but this is far more important. I'm a friend first and a historian second. If she's pretending to not know me for some reason it's probably best that I don't press her on it until I figure out why. Until then I should just do what I can to make her feel better."
Nick then walked over to the young girl and offered her another helping hand, "Please... get up and come in with me... It wouldn't be proper to leave someone as beautiful as you on the ground like this..."
"B-beautiful... You think I'm beautiful..." she sobbed back finally willing to make eye contact with him. Nick found himself nearly heartbroken by the sad sight of the girl before him but wasn't going to lose his nerve like last time.
"Of course I do with that long, flowing hair and that fantastic dress. Now come on. Take my hand," he encouraged her again.
This time she finally complied and went with him back inside. The two of them took their seats with their backs against the rear wall to the right of the door way directly under the portrait of Princess Zelda that Nick had pictographed earlier.
"Okay, I got her back in here," he said to himself, "Now I just need to take this one step at a time."
"So, just who exactly are you?" Nick asked already knowing the answer but hoping to make some progress in starting a conversation.
"If only I knew..." Tetra sobbed inwardly, "If that old King said I'm Zelda then I guess that's who I am for now."
"I-I'm P-Princess Z-Zelda... apparently..." she responded weakly struggling just to speak a coherent sentence, "A-and who are y-you?" she then asked already knowing the answer like Nick before her.
"Apparently Zelda..." Nick mentally noticed, "and pretending not to know me... So, is this coming from her struggle with grasping her true identity? If so then I guess it's time to give her the chance to feel like the royalty she really is. I've been waiting years to say this after all."
Nick waited moment before surprising the princess next to him by getting up and kneeling as politely as he could in front of her
"I am a historian who's here to learn as much as I can about this castle and the kingdom it belongs to," he introduced himself in a proud voice, "If you say that you're Princess Zelda then I must tell you that I've spent many years looking for you. My name is Nicholas and it's a great honor to finally meet you."
"Honor to meet me..." she repeated to herself, "I'm the princess he's been... looking for?" she then remembered the various times Nick had mentioned his search for an unnamed princess when telling her about his studies, "So all the work he was doing... it was all just to find me... to meet me..." She began to tear up at the realization.
"N-No.. you don't have to... do this for me..." she attempted to tell him.
"But I do..." he assured her, "It's only proper to show respect when you're meeting one of the three people you truly admire in the world."
"Admire... you admire me..." She cried softly, "but... why?"
"Well your ancestors helped saved the world on more than one occasion. Even now I'm sure you're doing something to help protect the people of the world."
"Y-yeah... I g-guess..." she stammered before working up the curiosity to ask another question, "So then who are these other two people that you admire?..."
"Well the first one is the Hero of Time for starters," he began to explain, "The reasons for it should be fairly obvious."
"...And the other?..."
Nick worked up a great deal of the courage he had in him as he prepared his answer. What he was about to say was in fact the truth, but it was right now, more than ever, that she needed to hear it.
"The third person you probably won't know," he started, "But I still hold her in very high regard personally."
"Her?..."
"She's a pirate girl who goes by the name of Tetra," he continued, "She's pretty, bold, brash, and my best friend in the entire world. She sails the seas in search of treasure and adventure and always bravely faces the obstacles before her, yet at the same time is one of the kindest, most caring people I know. Even in her travels she never forgets to stop by and say hello whenever she stops by my home island. As somebody who spends a lot of his time indoors due to his studies she'll probably never know just how much I appreciate it, but most of all is the fact that I trust her. I trust her as much as any member of my own family. Some of the neighbor kids will make jokes about how they think I'm madly in love with her, and that's not entirely untrue. It's just that she's like a sister to me and I love her like one. Someone who I can count on to be there for me if I need her and someone I'm always ready to be there for if she needs me. Even if I have to sail halfway across the ocean to do so..."
Hearing somebody talk about her old self like this for the first time in her life was simply too much for the fragile young girl in her present state of mind. At this point she couldn't help but curl herself up into a ball and begin sobbing wildly into her gloved arms.
"I thought knowing that would be just what she needed to feel better, but now it looks like I just made things worse," Nick sadly thought to himself as her looked at her bawling right in front of him, "But why... What's making her so upset?"
"What's wrong," Nick attempted to ask his crying friend, "Why did you suddenly start crying like this?"
Working up all of her inner pain and sorrow Tetra momentarily uncurled herself just long enough to scream "BECAUSE YOUR FRIEND DOESN'T REALLY EXIST NICK!" before resuming her sobbing in her previous position.
"Because your friend doesn't really exist?..." Nick repeated to himself a few times, "So that's it huh? That's why you're a wreck like this. To think that she was being forced to go through this pain alone. It's awful... How could that Link kid leave her alone in this condition?... I suppose it's up to me now. I guess it also means it's time to tell her how much I really know."
He sat back down beside her and began to gently rub her back until she had finally quieted down enough so that he could talk.
"You know it's funny Zelda..." he began, "but I don't quite remember telling you the nickname I usually go by which you just used."
At this point she fell silent and let out a muffled "So what's your point?"
"My point is that I can't stand seeing you like this... I didn't like it when your mom died and I certainly don't like it now..."
Not taking long to catch what he was hinting at Tetra finally picked her head up again, "Nick do you mean that..."
"Yes...I do mean that, Tetra" he interrupted and finished for her, "I know it's actually you in this dress. I've actually known for a little bit now, but make no mistake about it. I meant everything that I told you earlier, Tetra.'
"Please don't call me that right now, Nick..."
"Why not? I figured if anything you'd get mad if I called you Zelda."
"Because I just don't know right now! The only thing I can say for certain right now is that by some ancient tradition I'm supposed to be called Zelda. It's all I have to go on anymore. The pirate girl known as Tetra. How can I be certain she wasn't anything more than a shallow lie?"
"Because I..."
"Pirate or Princess? Tetra or Zelda? Who the hell am I? Please help me, Nick!" she begged in agony before resuming her earlier sobbing.
Without another word Nick immediately wrapped his arms around the girl and pulled her closer to him. He squeezed her into a powerful hug as tears began to well up in his own eyes.
"I thought I told you earlier," he reiterated for her, "You're my best friend! Always have and always will be!"
Tetra stopped her sobbing in an instant upon hearing his reassuring words.
"I've been learning about this kingdom of Hyrule for almost as long as I've known you. I still swear everything I said about the pirate known as Tetra and the princess known as Zelda is one hundred percent true. I never imagined in a million years that you would be the same person. As such I also can't hope to imagine what you're going through right now. That doesn't mean I intend to let you go through it alone though. I'm no legendary hero. I can't hope to smite evil like that kid Link can. That simply isn't my role here, but if I can help out just by being here for you I'll stay down here as long as necessary. If you really feel like you don't know who you are then I fully intend to expend all of my efforts to figure it out. I promise you that on my life!"
Nick felt Tetra begin to let out more tears into his right shoulder. It was then that she finally returned the hug as strongly she could. For her it was the tightest she had embraced anyone in years. All she could do was cry "Thank you... Thank you..." over and over again.
She continued to hold him closely for a few more minutes before Nick finally let go and finally went back sitting with his back leaned against the wall. Rather than go back to sitting next to him though Tetra instead opted to take a seat right in front of him and rested her head against his chest.
"Uh... what are you doing?" Nick requested to know awkwardly.
"Sorry," she apologized, "I just... I just need to be close to someone right now..."
"It's fine," he calmly agreed, "Have you finally calmed down now?"
"Yeah... but can I ask you something?..."
"Sure, what is it?"
"You said you knew about... this... for a little bit now... how long?"
"About a day or two. It was your last visit at Windfall that gave me the clues I needed to figure it out. Namely that broken piece of a golden relic known as the Triforce that you showed to me."
"The actual King of Hyrule told me all about it," she explained, "He put it back together and it turned me into... well this."
"I understand."
"But wait... If you knew back then then is this really why you tried to stop me from going into the Forsaken Fortress."
"Yes, that's right... That's exactly why though I couldn't bring myself to say it."
"And all I did was shove you out of my way..."
"Don't blame yourself for that. I was the one who choked under the pressure. I deserved it. Quill still managed to get you out of there like I told him to though so it wasn't a total loss."
"Thanks."
"I said I'd be there for you like you'd be there for me, didn't I?"
It was then that Tetra suddenly felt Nick slowly running his hands through her long, open hair.
"Uh... what are you doing?" it was now her turn to ask.
"Oh, I'm sorry about that... It's just that I never knew you had this much hair..."
"I suppose that I do keep it curled up most of the time..."
"Well, it's a good look for you... The dress too... I think these royal clothes look fantastic on you..."
"So, when you said earlier that I was b-"
"I told you earlier, Tetra," he cut her off, "I meant everything I said."
"Look, I know I've managed to calm down," she changed the subject, "but could you please call me Zelda while I'm like this... I'm just... too unsure about things to use my regular name right now. There's just too much I don't understand. I need to be sure about who I really am before I can ever go back..."
Hearing her request Nick enthusiastically rose to his feet in that instant, "Then it's time we start working to find out!" he announced.
"Find out?" Tetra repeated, "but how..."
"It's simple," Nick continued, "This castle has all of the clues that we could ever need! Your problem is that you don't know whether Tetra or Zelda is the real you. What you need to do is figure out how the two connect. We've got a huge castle filled with clues to the past. This is like a playground to a guy like me! If we combine the clues here with the history I know and the memories you hold then we can finally figure out exactly how the Royal Family of Hyrule became the Great Sea Pirates. Once we do that then you can finally figure out who you are and what you're meant to do."
"Do you really think you can do that?" Tetra asked as she took the arm he had now outstretched to her and pulled herself back up.
"I made it this far, didn't I? This'll be a cakewalk!" Nick guaranteed, "Plus it could be a good deal of fun. Now, come on, it's time to get you in touch with your royal heritage!"
To be continued...