"Why…" Ruto groaned. "Of all the places I had to end up, why here? It's so HOT! Do you HEAR me?! I'M ROYALTY, I'LL HAVE YOU KNOW!"

The two Goron guards just walked past her cell, ignoring her entirely. Ruto crossed her arms grumpily. How could so many things possibly go wrong in only one day?

"Ruto? Is that you?"

Ruto felt her heart swell with hope as a familiar blue fairy tentatively peeked through the bars at her. "Navi! Oh, thank goodness, a friendly face… unless you've spontaneously lost your mind as well?"

The little fairy perched on her head. "No, not me. I can't believe it though… to think that Darunia would lock you away… What happened?"

Ruto sat down on the floor with a heavy sigh. "Want the long version, or the short version?"

Navi laughed at that, but it sounded strained. "You might as well tell me the long version. You don't look like you have much else to do."

"Very funny. Well, I was at Lake Hylia, minding my own business, when someone decided that some magical landscaping was in order and all of a sudden-"

"Hey, you can skip this part, actually. I mean, I'd have to be pretty blind to not notice that my home is suddenly gone." Navi said sadly.

Ruto gaped. "Seriously? The forest too?"

"Well, there's a forest, but it's not…my forest. There's a huge tree there that looks kind of like the Deku Tree, but it's all hollowed out and it can't talk… and I haven't seen any other fairies either."

Ruto nodded sympathetically. "I know what you mean. I couldn't find a single Zora anywhere… anyways, like I was saying, even though everything was suddenly different, I could see Death Mountain in the distance. I was so relieved that I ran here as fast as I could. Darunia and I were trying to figure out what had happened when all of a sudden-"

"You say "all of a sudden" too much when you tell stories, Ruto." Navi interrupted. "You should come up with some new transitional phrases to make them flow better."

"It happened really suddenly though!" Ruto huffed. "Stop interrupting me, you picked the long version and that's what you're getting! There was this magical explosion of light, and in front of us was Zelda… but not."

"Zelda… but not?"

"Yeah. It looked just like her, but at the same time nothing like her. She looked younger, for one thing. Her hair was a different color, and she was dressed like she was ready for battle. She just appeared, stared into Darunia's eyes, and then disappeared. That's when he went insane and locked me in the dungeons like a common criminal." She sniffed. "The nerve of him."

"You don't think Princess Zelda could have had anything to do with this, do you?" Navi whimpered.

"Queen Zelda." Ruto corrected. "She's a queen now, remember? And no, I don't think she does. It had to have been an impostor, she couldn't have gotten younger. The real question is, if someone has the ability to mimic someone else's appearance, why wouldn't they do it accurately? They could have sown doubt and confusion if they had actually tried harder, but all they did was annoy me."

Navi mulled that over. "That's a really good point, actually. Maybe they were just taking artistic liberties and didn't know that you knew the real deal and would be able to spot a phony. Or maybe it wasn't you they were trying to trick?"

Ruto was about to reply when she heard the sound of footsteps approaching. "Hide!" She hissed.

Navi dove into an empty decorative pot just as the two Gorons that had ignored Ruto earlier reappeared, carrying a limp figure. "Lucky you." One of them grunted as he unlocked the cell door.

"You get a cell mate." The other finished, tossing the unconscious person in.

"You sure this'll be alright?" The first asked. "Shouldn't we just kill him and be done with it?"

"No way. Not until we know what Brother Darunia wants us to do with him." The second replied, slamming and locking the door. "We should ask him what he wants us to do with the noisy fish while we're at it."

"Noisy?! FISH?!" Ruto screeched, grabbing the bars. The Gorons shuffled away hurriedly. "Say that to my face, you rock munching little TOADS! YEAH, YOU'D BETTER RUN!" She breathed heavily as they disappeared from view.

"That was scary…" Navi fluttered out from her hiding spot. "They said they wanted to kill you…"

"Oh please. They're bluffing." Ruto snorted, but she wasn't actually so sure. "What's with this guy's clothes? I've never seen a cloak like this before. Do you think this kind of thing is popular with humans these days?"

"I'm going to try and find help!" Navi decided, ignoring Ruto's attempt to change the subject. "I'm not doing any good just fretting here."

"Okay, please do." Ruto crouched by the unconscious man. "I don't know how to treat human injuries, and I don't want a dead body in my cell." She hesitated for a moment. "And… be careful, Navi."

"I will!" The little fairy flew off. Ruto watched until she could no longer see the blue glow and let out a sigh.

"Was that… a talking fairy…?"

Ruto let out an undignified screech and toppled over. Her cellmate was awake now, apparently.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle…" He trailed off, seemingly staring at her. "Are you a Zora, by any chance?"

Ruto lifted her head proudly. "I am, and not just any Zora, either. I'm Princess Ruto, the shining gem of Zora's Domain."

"That's amazing!" The man cried. "I've never met a Zora before, let alone a royal one!"

Ruto beamed. "Well, it's nice to finally get the respect I deserve around here! And what's your name? If we're going to be cellmates I might as well know."

"It's… Sky." He sounded uncertain, as if his own name was unfamiliar to him. "Um, where are we?"

"Death Mountain, home of the formerly delightful Gorons." Ruto huffed. "But they've gone and gotten themselves possessed or something, and now we're stuck here in this miserable heat."

"The heat bothers you?" His face was shadowed by the hood of his cloak, but Ruto could see just enough to tell that he looked worried. "Is it because you're a Zora?"

"Well, yes. We can live on land just fine, but Zoras are made for the water. It's why we usually don't venture far from our lakes for too long. Hey, what are you doing messing with jewelry at a time like this?"

He handed her a single ruby red earring. "It lets you resist the heat. I'm wearing one, so you can have the other one. It'll only be half as effective, but at least you won't die of heat stroke, right?"

"…Huh." She examined the earring more closely. "It's not really my style, but that's actually very thoughtful of you. Thank you."

He grinned. "No need to thank me, anyone else would do the same. Now, how to escape from this cell?"

Ruto rolled her eyes. "Don't bother, I already tried. If my magic can't break us out, I don't know what can."

Sky had begun pacing about, looking the room over carefully before pointing with a wide smile. "That's because you were only focusing on what's inside the room."

Ruto followed his gaze. "What? Oh, for CRYING out loud…" Growing behind their cell was a large overgrowth of bomb flowers. "How did I not see that? How did THEY not see that?!"

"Well, it is behind the cell. They'd have to be looking pretty hard to notice something like that. As for you, you were stressed. It's understandable that you missed it."

Ruto frowned. "You being nice about it doesn't make me feel better!" She stooped and grabbed a pebble before hurling it at the bomb flowers. They went off in a chain reaction, and the resulting explosion was so loud her ears started ringing.

"We need to run!" Sky shouted, clutching at his own ears and wincing.

Ruto nodded and gestured at him to follow her. "It's this way! Hurry!"

They took off at a sprint, holding their heads and trying not to stumble from dizziness. They had been running quite a while before Ruto felt Sky grab her arm.

"What's wrong?" She realized she was shouting and repeated more quietly, "What's wrong?"

"Nobody's pursuing us." Sky said quietly.

She blinked in surprise and looked around. He was right. Not only was there nobody following them, there wasn't a single Goron in sight. But…

"Do you hear that?" She whispered.

He nodded. "It sounds like a lot of people fighting. We should try to see what's going on, but stay out of sight. The Gorons took my sword from me, and I'm pretty useless without it."

They carefully edged towards the sound and peered over a steep cliff.

"The Gorons are fighting with humans?" Ruto cringed. "The humans have no chance at all. What are they thinking? HEY, THAT'S-" Sky covered her mouth.

"Didn't you hear me? We can't get caught!" He said frantically. "Don't yell!"

She pushed his hand away. "But- but down there! That's Impa! Except…" She stared hard at the figure. "…Not. Just like the Zelda I saw earlier. They're the same but different. What's going on?"

"Hold on a moment." Sky looked startled. "What did this Zelda do?"

"Well, she made the Goron leader Darunia go insane and lock me up, but I think it was an impostor. She looked strange, and more importantly, Zelda is a friend of mine and would never do something like this."

"That's odd. Of all the times that this impostor could have done this to him, why did she wait for the exact moment that you were meeting with him?"

Ruto's brow creased. "So you're saying I was her target all along? But why?"

"Do you have something that she wants?"

Ruto thought hard. "Something that she…wants?" Her eyes drifted to the battle raging below and she froze. "Of course! She wants the temple in Lake Hylia! This is a war or something, right? She'd need a base, and the temple is perfect for that! With me out of the way she'd have free reign of the place!"

Sky eyed the battlefield with trepidation. "Okay, so she's after a temple. Now the question is, should we wait and see if the humans are victorious, or should we try to infiltrate it ourselves?"

A sly grin formed on Ruto's face. "Ourselves? You're coming with me, an almost total stranger, into some crazy war that we don't even know the cause of?"

Sky shrugged. "You seem trustworthy to me."

"That's awfully naive of you… but I guess I'm naive too, because I trust you as well. As for what to do next… You said they took your sword, right? Are you any good with it?"

"I have a lot to learn, but I think I'm pretty decent." Sky sighed. "Now, actually holding onto my sword, on the other hand…"

Ruto snorted. "Do you lose it often?"

Sky groaned. "It's been something of a reoccurring pattern as of late. Where do you think the Goron's would have put it?"

"Hmm… I imagine they'd put it in one of their storerooms… Gorons don't typically use weapons, so they don't have an armory here. I think the closest storeroom to where we were locked up is where we should look first. Come on!" For a moment, Ruto stared expectantly at Sky.

"…What?"

Ruto hid her face. "Sorry, bad habit. My attendants usually carry me everywhere. It's this way!"

They ran back the way they came, past the smoking ruins of their former prison.

"No guards anywhere…" Sky mused. "The humans must be putting up a pretty good fight."

Ruto grimaced, glancing over her shoulder at him as they ran. "It doesn't matter. Humans just aren't as strong as Gorons. They can't possibly win."

Sky sped up so that they were side by side. "Should we help them once we get my sword?"

"It'd be risky! We have no way of knowing if they're people that Navi- that's the fairy from earlier- asked to help, or if they also want to capture us!" They had reached the storeroom. Sky pushed open the heavy door, and there on a shelf was his sword.

"Thank goodness." He sighed. "Twi would kill me if I lost this. Anyways, how about we try to catch one of the humans alone? If they're relieved to see us then they're friends, and if they look like they want to murder us they're enemies. Sound good?"

Who's Twi? Ruto wanted to ask, but they had dawdled too much already. "Works for me! If things get ugly we'll bail and run for Lake Hylia."

They heard footsteps and dove behind the storeroom doors. The woman who looked like Impa burst in, looking around with a frustrated expression.

"Perfect!" Ruto hissed. "She's all by herself! Let's sneak up behind her and-"

The Impa look-alike's eyes snapped to their hiding spot.

"D-Did she hear me?!" Ruto clutched Sky's arm.

The sound of shattering stone deafened the hiding pair, and their vision was momentarily clouded by dust. The woman stood over them, a fearsome look in her eyes.

"Who are you?" She demanded in a harsh voice. "Where is Princess Zelda?!"

Ruto wanted to hide behind Sky badly, but he still seemed dazed from the attack, so she straightened her back and said haughtily, "Are you referring to Queen Zelda? Because that's the only Zelda I know, and the woman I saw earlier was most certainly not her."

The woman looked befuddled. "What are you saying? So you did see the princess?"

Ruto glowered back. "And what are YOU saying? What makes you think you have a right to address royalty while pointing a spear at them?!"

"Actually Ruto, I think that's a naginata." Sky corrected.

"Well, whatever, it's a type of spear, isn't it?"

The woman's eyes widened. "Hold a moment. Did you just call her "Ruto"? As in, the Zora Princess?"

Ruto lifted her chin."I am. What's it to you?"

A look of relief and disbelief washed over the woman's face. "We heard you had been taken prisoner from a talking fairy! How on earth did you escape?"

They both brightened. "Oh good, you're an ally." Sky sighed. "That's welcome news. Fighting off both Gorons and humans didn't sound too appealing."

The woman's sharp gaze turned to him. "And who are you?"

Sky grinned cheerfully. "Just a traveler named Sky who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And you are?"

The woman shouldered her naginata. "My name is Impa. I'm glad you're safe, but the two of you need to stay out of sight. We'll talk later. Wait here." With that, she dashed out of the room.

"H-how rude!" Ruto cried. "You can't just order me around like that!" She irritably turned to Sky. "Come on! Let's go punch some bad guys!"

Sky rose an eyebrow at her. "…Punch some bad guys?"

Ruto flushed. "My fiancée said that to me once when we were kids and we got trapped inside a whale deity together. I know it sounds stupid, but…"

Sky smiled gently at her. "Not at all. He must really care about you."

Ruto felt her heart clench. Wordlessly, she beckoned him to follow.

The two of them ran back to the cliff they had used earlier as a vantage point. "Look over there!" Sky pointed. "The Gorons in that keep are rolling boulders down the mountain on the humans! If we can stop them then the humans might have a chance!"

As they rushed to their destination, Ruto tried hard not to think about Sky's words. It doesn't matter if Link cares about me or not. Zelda sent him away, and that's the end of that. It couldn't have worked out between us anyways. He was a child. I grew up, but he never got the chance. Asking him to stay with me would have been immoral and selfish and perverse. I know that, but… I still miss him…

They had reached the base. Ruto determinedly hid the sadness on her face and winked cheerfully at the startled Gorons before using her magic to send them back with a powerful wave. A bolt of light caught her eye, and she watched in awe as Sky's sword became illuminated with energy before he swung his blade down, knocking the Gorons aside.

"Well, look at you!" She sang. "Full of surprises, aren't you?"

He laughed. "Honestly, I wasn't sure if that would work! This sword isn't mine!"

With all of the Gorons unconscious, the human army surged up the mountain. "Should we follow them?" Ruto asked.

Sky nodded. "Might as well. Getting stuck on our own could be dangerous."

They slipped in with the ranks of the human armies, earning double takes from the soldiers at the sight of an elegant Zora and a mysterious hooded man in their midst, but nobody seemed to have the courage to ask them who they were.

"YOU TWO!"

Sky and Ruto froze as a furious Impa stormed towards them. "I thought I told you to stay put!" She growled at them. "Are you incapable of following basic instructions?"

"Leave them be, Impa." A smooth voice interrupted. They all turned to see a masked woman with a braid approaching. "Without them, we never would have gotten up the mountainside. The Gorons were raining boulders down on us from that keep."

Impa, with an irritable expression, was about to reply when Ruto cut her off. "Sheik?"

The masked woman stared at her. "…That is my name, yes. But how could you have possibly known that?"

Ruto ignored her question. "But if you're Sheik… then that means…" She stared hard at the woman, who shifted uncomfortably. "OH! I understand! I was right!"

Sky sighed. "You lost me, Ruto."

She smirked. "I'll explain it to you later." She turned back to Sheik. "Don't worry, I'll keep your secret! Except from Sky, he's my accomplice."

Sheik looked bewildered. "How could you know about…"

"ARGH!" Impa threw her hands in the air. "This is a battlefield, not a place for idle chatter! Once we knock some sense into that Goron leader I am having a talk with the three of you, do you understand?!"

"Don't worry." Ruto assured Sheik. "She doesn't scare me, I won't tattle."

Sky raised his hand. "Ms. Impa, may I be excused from the talk since I have no idea what's going on?"

Impa gritted her teeth, raised her naginata, and sprinted up the mountain away from them, looking positively bloodthirsty.

"We'd better follow her." Ruto sighed heavily. "No way can she take on Darunia by herself."

"…You shouldn't underestimate Impa." Sheik said quietly.

"I agree." Sky nodded. "She reminds me of a Sheikah I used to know. Absolutely terrifying."

Ruto rolled her eyes. "Oh come on, you wusses!"

They ran into the main room together, just in time for Darunia to tackle Ruto. She shrieked and was about to use her magic when she realized he had tears streaming down his face.

"Ruto!" He sniffed. "Thank goodness you're okay! I'm so sorry, I was possessed! Please forgive me!"

They all turned towards a disgruntled Impa, who shrugged. "I didn't even have to fight him. I just stabbed the Poe that was hiding in here and he reverted back to normal."

"Ruto!" Navi zipped in the room. "And Darunia! Oh, everyone's okay, I'm so relieved! Thank you so much, Impa and Ze-"

Ruto snatched Navi out of the air. "Yeah, thanks Sheik! You were a big help!"

Impa stared hard at Ruto before turning to Sheik, who was now sweating nervously.

"Shouldn't we hurry? That impostor Zelda is at the Zora Temple, isn't she?" Sky said quickly.

Impa whirled to face Sky. "Is that true?!"

"I'm almost certain of it," Ruto agreed. "It's the only reason she would have to make Darunia lock me away. I'm the guardian of that place, after all."

Impa nodded slowly. "…Very well. We'll set out immediately. But after that, you three are explaining yourselves. Understood?"

"Yes, Impa." Sheik and Ruto said glumly in unison. In the excitement of the moment, nobody was paying close enough attention to realize that Sky hadn't chimed in, a pensive look on his face.