Notes: There is a VERY long set of notes at the end that answer some important things I've gotten from readers. It's advised you read it first, but not THAT important.

Chapter Seven: Silent Alter of a Nameless God

"You have to know the past to understand the present."

-Dr. Carl Sagan

Link sat on a railing, overlooking a small pond in what used to be a small garden somewhere in the temple's walls. He shifted, watching the water's rippling surface from the light rain falling, trying to ignore the echoing silence around him.

Navi watched the young hero, her wings fluttering slowly, silently as she studied the boy...no, he would be a man now, too old and too jaded to be tied to such an innocent description. A small breeze rustled her and she drifted sidewaise before turning, glancing at her true partner, the faded out image of Kiln watching his kin with a haunting sadness.

Navi fluttered up to her partner's shoulder, resting on the air where the cloth of his green tunic should have been. "The further he gets, the farther you go," she said softly, leaning her head against the barest of flesh that was Kiln's neck.

"He hold my fate in his pocket, and his spirit fuels mine," Kiln said softly before drifting to the edge of the balcony, leaning over slightly to watch the rain fall on the grass. "There were Skulltula here," he said suddenly, reaching a hand down to gently touch the vines pouring over the balcony to the earth below. "And there was a well."

Link glanced down, eyes searching the earth, trying to picture a well marring the pure green grass. He blinked, his eyes slightly out of focus from staring down at such a distance, looking at his ghostly companion.

Kiln was staring out at the wall now, his own eyes distant, seeing things that weren't in front of him. "There was a Deku Baba in the pond...and a chest, up there..." Kiln pointed to a ridge, where nothing but splinters of rotted wood an rusted metal lay. His hand fell weakly to his side, and he blinked, coming back to the present. "So much has changed. Even this temple, the most sacred of all, has fallen to time...the others are buried and forgotten, my temple long destroyed." He blinked again, tears as real as the rain falling down his cheeks like slow, silent mourners. "Your people refer to me as the greatest of heroes, a legend...the great Hero of Time." He turned to look at his hands, relaxing his concentration and letting them slip through the railing, flesh sliding though stone. "And yet they let their past vanish."

Link opened his mouth, trying to find some words to comfort the former hero, but finding nothing to say, the darkness and depression in his heart choking anything that could have helped.

"I have a favor to ask of you," Kiln whispered softly, once more gripping the time worn railing, his knuckles white.

--

"Now, tell me my story." Colin demanded softly, wincing at the woman whom he had learned (though he still had a hard time processing it) was his mother, tended to his wounds.

N'ataya smiled, rinsing out the rag she was using before bathing the wound across Colin's chest, feeding a bit of magic into his body to try to ease the pain of the rough wool brushing across the raw skin. "I met your father a year before you were born. He was...very different from most of the men I had met before, kind and gentle." She finished bathing the wound and set the rag aside, grabbing a needle and thread. "It was, refreshing to meet him and we spent a night drinking and talking. I left in the morning, to return to my home in the forest and never really thought of him again."

"Why? I thought that you stayed with your lover when you found one," Colin said, looking nervously at the needle, knowing what it was for but not really eager to experience having his flesh sewn shut.

"Ah, but I did, Colin." She said, placing a cool hand on his feverish forehead, relaxing the boy with her magic before pinching the wound closed, starting her task. "You aren't the first of the faerie line to love one of their own sex, and I've been with Bethany for many more harvests then you've been alive. When we found out I was pregnant...it was a joy to us, as neither expected to ever have a child. I just wish..." She trailed off, focusing on her stitches, blinking away tears.

"You wish what?" Colin asked, looking slightly sleepy after the magical anesthesia. "That I was a girl?"

"No, Colin. I wish we had kept you. I never imagined that your father could have been the kind of man that would do this to you."

"But he wasn't!" Colin protested, before biting his lip. "At least, he wasn't before. He was a good father, the best I could have imagined. He loved me, I know he did." Colin said firmly, quite sure of this fact, no matter what his father had done to him. "He...he was perfect."

N'ataya smiled, tying off the end of the string, double checking the wound before grabbing the rag to start on another on the boy's shoulder. "I'm glad," she said honestly, carefully washing the wound free of dirt and debris that came from the temple. "I had hoped he would be a proper father, despite the circumstances of your birth."

"Why did you give me up, if you didn't want to?" Colin asked, changing the subject.

"Because it was the right thing, Colin. While we would have loved to keep you and raise you, you deserved a life outside the forest, a chance to grow up, get married and have a family. It's a very lonely life, living as we do, and that wasn't fair to you, to force it on you."

"But, you would have, if I had been female," Colin muttered, feeling depressed at the idea.

"Yes." N'ataya answered truthfully, before setting the rag aside and looking down at her son. "I cannot change tradition, Colin. If you had been a girl, you would have been kept to be raised as the next Great Faerie and your life would be bitter and alone, with no one to help or understand you. Even with Bethany, my life has been one I wish had been different. As a girl, I longed so much to just escape it all, to run away and become a...a goat farmer. But I knew my responsibilities, and I stayed, and you do not know how grateful I was that you were born a male. That you could have everything I couldn't." She gently touched her son's face, smiling at him. "You've had so many things I wanted for you, and you became a wonderful man for it. I am so proud of you, Colin."

Colin blushed, hiding slightly by staring down at his body, wincing at the blood, scars and wounds that covered him. "How can you be proud of me...I'm nothing."

"Nonsense! You are sweet, kind, so loving despite everything...and one of the bravest men I have seen, and I've lived many years." N'ataya said, lightly slapping her son's hand.

"But..."

"No buts, Colin. Anyone will tell you these same things and you know it. Just look at those around you, to see how wonderful you are. Only you could gather such people who care about you."

"What about Link?"

"What about him?" N'ataya asked, putting a salve on the shoulder wound, making a mental note to gather more herbs for the salve, as well as try to get her hands on a potion or three.

"Aren't you disappointed that I'm with him?" He twisted his hands, nervous about his mother's reaction to it. It was quite clear that others didn't accept his relationship.

"Of course not, Colin. I'm happy, that you were able to find someone to love you, someone who will care for you no matter what. Besides, I think he needs you, more then either of you know. I just hope, that you will continue our line. Our blood needs to be passed on, and you're the only one who can do that."

"I am?"

N'ataya nodded, smiling at her son. "I'm long past too old to have any other children, and without our blood, Hyrule's magic will die."

"Oh," Colin whispered, staring at his hands as he tried to wrap his mouth around that.

--

"Are you sure about this?" Link asked, looking at his companion.

Kiln nodded, staring around the clearing the pair found themselves in. "I have seen every inch of Hyrule, not only on my own, but through your eyes as well. This is where I want to rest, for however long I remain."

"Alright," Link said, before kneeling before the roots of an old, gnarled tree. He carefully dug in the rich earth, before dropping an orange medallion into the hole along with the seed of a rosebush that Zelda had given him. He covered the two objects, standing and staring up the tree, just barely catching glimpses of the rotting tree house that had once resided in it's branches.

"Mister!" a voice came from behind him and Link turned, blinking at the small blond child who was looking up at him with a slight smirk on his lips. "The Great Deku Tree said it would see you," the boy said, blinking at the ghost next to Link, before returning his eyes to the hero.

"Can you lead the way..." Link trailed off, realizing he didn't know the young Kokiri's name.

"Fado, and of course," the boy said with a shrug, turning on his booted heal and heading towards the path that would lead to the Great Deku Tree.

Kiln followed Link, staring at the back of the boy, frowning. "He looks so much like him..." he said softly.

Link cocked his head, curious. "Looks like who?"

"Mido. He was a Kokiri boy I knew when I lived here. Rotten little bully, though...he changed the seven years I was asleep."

"Sounds like you miss him," Link said with a grin.

"Strangely enough...I think I do,"

Fado stopped at the entryway to the Great Deku Tree's clearing. "He's just ahead," Fado said, turning to go before pausing and looking back at the pair. "Mido was my father," Fado said before heading back towards the Kokiri Village, eager to get back to his violin.

Kiln blinked after the boy, shocked that Mido had a child. Time really had changed them all.

"How do Kokiri have children?" Link muttered in confusion as he headed for their meeting with the Great Deku Tree.

--

"He's a good man," Saria said, watching the conversation between the ancient forest spirit and the young hero with destiny still resting on his shoulders.

"One of the best," Midna agreed with a smile, before frowning at a spider that thought her shoe was a fun mountain to climb.

"Eh, too weak," Nabooru said, crossing her arms over her chest. "He's ruled by his emotions."

"So was Link," Saria said with a smile, allowing the spider to climb from Midna's shoe to her hand, gently holding the small creature. "He'll do well."

"He's grown, since I left," Midna said, brushing her skirts off as she stood. "I thought he'd have the emotional range of a teaspoon for the rest of his days."

"Do you think he'll survive?" Nabooru asked with a frown.

Saria was silent, studying the young man they were speaking of, turning Nabooru's question over in her mind. "Will any of us?" she countered and Nabooru snorted.

"War turns boys into men, and men into warriors." Midna said.

"And warriors into dead bodies," Nabooru finished. "May the Goddesses have mercy on us."

Notes:

Normally I wouldn't do this, but some questions have come up that needed to be answered before we proceed. Please read them and understand.

1. Someone pointed out that this story seems different then the beginning, as if I am writing a completely different story. The only thing I can say to that, is because it is. That was the beginning, this is not. "Tainted" is set to have four or five plots, mixed together into a whole. While plot A, the boy's relationship is the main theme, the other plots also have their own moments, themes and sections, while still supporting that main theme. This story is still really, in it's beginning, and will be some time until we hit plot C, which is quite a ways off (and comprises the middle of the story an part of the climax).

Think of this story as a journey. Like all journey's, you will never be in the same place as you were when you started, and neither will the characters nor Hyrule. No good story leaves it's characters, the plot or the readers the same...if it does, it's not a good story.

2. Yes, the mixing of Twilight Princess and Ocarina of Time is important, both games play on aspects of the other and this story does so to a greater extent. There will be more parts, and more...legends of the games to be dealt with, including a major aspect of Ocarina.

3. Get used to the magic folks, it's staying around. Colin has his background story for a reason, as he does his magic. No he is not a 'Great Faerie' and no, he won't run around saving Hyrule (either with magic or sword). Remember, foundlings (Hyrule/Faerie mixes) are healers, that is what they do. And have lots of kids to further magic, but we already read that.

3b. For those that were close to notice, all the names in the background story last chapter meant something (The First, The Second, The Last, The King and Magic in order...one of those means something to the other characters, have fun guessing).

4. There will be more to this story then just emotion and overly dramatic drama. There is a battle planned that will be massive (and very hard to write).

5. Yes the boys will have sex, I just don't know when or whether it will be on screen or not.