Author's note: I have to admit something I've realized. I have a self-created paradox here. In Ocarina of Time, when Link goes into the future and then come back, it's at the exact moment he left, so it's as if he really never did leave. And this would therefore ruin the plot. So, for the sake of the story, I've made a mess of the whole time travel thing :-p

Chapter Twelve: The Missing Link

I couldn't believe it. The most stable thing in my life was gone. Gone, in a flash of a blue light.

How much did I even have left? My mother had joined the Gerudo when I was young, and in turn I'd left my father. Nathan hated me. Link was gone.

But... there was Wolfgang. We'd been together through a lot, maybe he could help me. I waited for a while just to see if Link would come back. He didn't. I trudged to Kakariko, feeling a hole in my heart. How did it come to this? When and why did my feeling get so strong? Maybe someone in the "House of Skulltula" could help.

I hesitated at the door. I supposed now that one of them was human, I should knock. But I didn't want to offend the others, especially Emily who was so sensitive about her current form. Finally I contented myself with knocking once and then walking in.

The first thing I noticed was a tall redhead. It wasn't Wolfgang, though. Not only did he have different taste in clothes, there was just something different about him that you could feel. "Hello, Luther," I greeted, cheerful that more of my longtime friends were being healed by the curse. I felt a pang in my heart as I remembered that no more of them would be freed now that Link was gone.

"Hi," Luther replied, not meeting my eyes. He'd pretty much always been anti-social, at least as far as I could remember, nobody really knew why. It was just his way.

"Is Wolfgang around here somewhere?" I asked. Luther gestured to one of the house's dark corners. I hurried over to find Wolfgang curled up with a book.

"Hey, what's up, Emmeline?"

I sat down next to him and hugged my knees. I wanted to tell him everything that was hurting me, from my mother leaving me all the way up to Link's disappearance, but I choked on the words. Instead, I focussed on just one part of my misery. "You remember that Zora who came with me here the day you were healed? Well, me and him were together." I buried my face in my legs. I didn't know why I had so much trouble talking about this. "We got into a fight over... over someone." I didn't tell Wolfgang it was about him. He would feel really bad.

"And..?"

"Well... well... oh, he really hates me now and I don't think he'll ever give me another chance and I've got nobody left and I hate my life and maybe I'll run off and join my mother with the Gerudo after all and... I don't know."

Wolfgang laughed. "Is that all? Emmeline, what happened to you? You don't need a man, or at least you told me that last year," he reminded me with a forced sort of smile.

I shot him an evil look. "Did I say that? Fine. But Nathan's a Zora, not a man."

Wolfgang gave up on the offensive. That might have gotten me riled up in the past, but even he could see I was changing. He tried again in a much softer voice. "Hey, why don't you head back home? Find something to distract yourself with for a few days. Maybe you'll find you feel better after that."

I rather thought I wouldn't, but I thanked him and left. When I returned to Zora's Domain, I borrowed the book Ruto had mentioned that contained the ways of embarrassing the Zora royalty. It was thicker than my head. I locked myself up with it for three days.

When I emerged I was enraged. I stormed to the Zora shop. Nathan looked up from the tunic he was folding. "We're closed," he said in a flat tone.

"I don't want anything from your stupid shop," I snapped fiercely. "You've been using me!"

He looked nervous. "What are you babbling about?"

With great effort, I held up the huge book. "Subsection 25.08.32c? Zora princeship will be terminated if the Zora in question is romantically involved with a member of another species! For some twisted reason, you don't want to crown, and you though I was a perfect opportunity!"

"Emmeline, be reasonable. There are thousand of rules in that book, look at it! Nobody could follow every one!"

"You disgust me! Why even bother lying! It's so obvious you don't want the crown anyway! Isn't that why you mope around in this store all day?"

Nathan looked uncomfortably at the floor. "Okay, I admit it. The whole idea of royalty makes me sick. Look at King Zora, perched on that waterfall all the time. He's self-righteous, he's paranoid, and he's ridiculous. He makes ridiculous laws, and screens any humans to come through here. I don't want to become that. But Zora royalty isn't something you can just back out of. So I formulated the perfect plan, and dragged you into it. But I made a big mistake."

"What?" I asked, genuinely curious. His plan seemed to have worked out perfectly to me.

He stared with his empty black Zora eyes straight into mine. "I fell in love."

A warm, tingly feeling spread through my body, but at the same time my stomach twisted guiltily as I thought about my unheard words to Link. Before I could dwell on that too long, Nathan went on. "You were so different from the life I knew. You were vivacious, full of life and energy. In my world, that was like a warm spell in the middle of winter. It was refreshing and addictive; I couldn't get enough of it. This probably sounds corny, but I didn't realize how much I needed you until we were fighting."

The warmth inside me grew stronger with every word he spoke. He didn't stop even then. "I wasn't really angry about you keeping things personal... I was just afraid that you were becoming me. I look at you now, at the void in your voice, at your emotions running wild, and when I think about how you were when I first met you... I thought that was my fault. I'm sorry."

I stared at him, and I could feel the walls between us melting. Suddenly we were kissing, fiercely and desperately. I missed him. He missed me. It had only been a few days that we'd been fighting, but it had been far too long.

"I'd help you stop being royalty anytime," I said with a faint smile. Link was still in the back of my mind, but that seemed trivial to me in this moment. Finally, everything had settled down and me and Nathan could have a relationship like normal people.

In the morning, Nathan had a hearing with the Zora court, in which he failed with flying colours. Ruto was assigned to be the first Zora queen when she was old enough. I could hardly believe this. We were both free. He was free from the chains of unwanted power, and I was free from the misery of my old life.

In all ways but one. The image of a tiny Kokiri boy still nagged at me from the back of my head.