Hey everybody, I'm back. So yes, I cheated and split the final chapter into two parts just because it was sooo extensive. Everything took a lot longer than I thought it would, and then I had to factor in the flashbacks and yeah, I just decided to split it. I'm verrrry very close to finishing the second half, so the more people that give some good feedback, the more motivated I'll be :)

So, since I cheated, I decided to sneak in a little bonus song. So this chapter, Chapter 13 Part I, is named after the beautiful song "Angel" by Sarah Mclachlan. This song has seriously been one of my favorites for YEARS. Literally for like ever.

Oh! About the revelation of the baby. I'm guessing no one, except my confidant Zelda-Fanatic121, knew that was coming. However, after reading these last two chapters, I'm sure you'll see that this wasn't just a random idea I had, this was something I'd planned since the beginning, and I'd strongly encourage any who liked the story, to go back and re-read it once it's finished. I'm sure you'll find many little foreshadowing details that could easily be overlooked if you didn't have that concept in mind.

PrincessMidna: Glad you think so! I really hope you like the ending :)

Mel: Thank you for your compliment, it means so much to me.

Princess Aleada: I do understand where you're coming from. I hope you enjoy the final bits.

Synea: Indeed, I'm glad you picked up on that little detail. The reason Malon said that was because she feared losing another child, and so she's decided not to try and have children. Which is very unfortunate for Link :(

Hoenn Master96: haha for you I share this quote "Everything will be alright in the end. So if it is not alright, it is not yet the end."

dippychick16: Thank you! I'm glad you liked the bit with the little girl named Sol. I really enjoyed imagining her back story and incorporating her into the story.

Last thing, I just want to remind people that this is a fictional story, set in a fictional world, so if things aren't how they would be in our world, they're not supposed to ;)

"Let's go home," I murmur into my horses ear as I pat her neck, placing my foot into the stirrup and hauling myself onto her back.

I press my heels gently into her side, urging her forward into a steady walk on the uneven banks of the lake. It won't be long after I get home. Link will be back soon.

Despite my initial plans, my desire for him to never have to live in a world where he believes he has nothing, I'm glad he finally knows. It had hurt me to keep it locked away within my own consciousness, but I felt as though there was nothing I could do. Like every time I touched his arm and looked into his eyes, a confession on the edge of my lips, those swirling blue irises would silence me. The silent storms that I knew housed years worth of torment.

I look towards the castle on the horizon, the one he must be at by now and something deep within my heart clenches. I know that his is a wasted cause, that he won't be able to save me like he has so many others. I whisper quietly towards the castle, wishing he could hear my apology, "I'm so sorry, Link–"

I'm cut off abruptly as my horse jolts forward, not like she's taking off, but like she's lost her footing. She stumbles as a low rumbling echoes below us, stopping my heart for a brief moment and then causing it to hammer.

And then even louder, like a crack of thunder as lightning strikes, the ground shifts beneath us. She whinnies and though I try to maintain my grip on her reins, she bucks me off and onto my back. I hit my head hard on the ground, the air being sucked right from my chest as my eyes grow dark, my body still trembling as the ground quakes beneath me.

"Will you tell me everything?"

He grins, "I'll tell you the best parts."

I nod, "Okay."

I sit with my legs crossed underneath our tree, the big one out by the side of the house that covers us when it gets too hot, and he tells me about being swallowed by a giant fish. I wrinkle my nose, this adventure sounding a bit more disgusting than the last.

But I still don't say a word until he's finished, I still want to know every detail. Even about the Zora girl that he had to rescue. He blushes the tiniest bit when he talks about her, I wonder why he's embarrassed by her.

"It looked like that," he says after a long while, he'd been drawing a picture of a giant octorok for me. I'd never seen one, I'd only ever seen pictures of regular octoroks.

"Ew!" I squeal, his depiction is grotesque to say the least; oozing tentacles, lifeless marble eyes, and a slurping mouth.

"You're lucky the picture doesn't smell like the real thing," he says, grimacing down at the drawing before he flips the paper over, carelessly doodling on the other side as he lays on his stomach.

I lay down beside him, watching over his shoulder. "I didn't notice that you wrote with your left hand," I tell him.

He looks at me, his eyebrows pulled together. I nudge him with my arm, his face is so close to mine that I can feel him breathing on me. "What do you mean? What hand do you write with?" he asks me as he shifts over an inch.

I hold up my right hand. He smirks, taking up the challenge immediately and swapping the pencil into his right hand. We giggle as he attempts to continue his drawing, though his lines are crooked now, his hand fumbling over the paper. "What's that supposed to be?" I ask, my cheeks red from laughing.

"It's my home," he says, "it's inside of a big tree."

He trades back to his good hand, making the lines sharper so that the picture makes more sense.

"Do you miss it?"

He shrugs a shoulder. He doesn't give any other answer.

Instead he shows me the boomerang that he found inside the great fish, explaining how to throw it to make it return into my hands. When he lets me try though, it ends up bouncing off the ground. He smiles and I push him, frowning at his attempt to hide it. "I'm sure you didn't get it your first try," I pout.

"Here," he says, that stupid grin still on his face. He picks up a rock and puts it in my hand, "Maybe you should practice throwing with something a little less fragile."

I growl at him, "I can throw just fine!" I mutter as I hurl the rock towards one of the high stone walls, though it slips off my fingers at the last second, spinning to our right towards the barn.

I gasp as we're met with the shattering of glass.

Rumbling... distant rumbling. It's the first thing my conscious mind can process. I blink a few times, the blurriness in my eyes receding. Snow falls from the sky still, prickling against my skin. The cold seeps through my cloak, chills running over my body. I sit up, trying to gather as much air in my lungs as possible as I do so. The ground shifts beneath me though, and I find it difficult to regain balance on my feet, especially on the slippery earth. I hold a hand out in case I need to brace myself as I stumble towards my panicking horse, just a few feet from where I landed.

I can barely stand still from the pounding in the back of my head, but the random quaking in the ground makes it that much harder. I lay a gentle hand on the horse's face, quieting her nervous whinnies as I whisper a few soft words to her.

"Let's go home, let's go," I say as I hoist myself onto her back.

She eases into a careful trot, the trembling in the ground far less violent now though she still stumbles once or twice as a quake rolls across the land. I look towards the castle and find that it's still standing, breathing a sigh of relief to know that Link is okay, but there's dust rising from the town, a growing stain against the white clouds, buildings collapsing.

But the ranch... is it still standing? I don't know if my dad and Ingo are safe.

My hearts starts to thump hard, as I try to coax my horse into going any faster. The quakes are fewer and further apart now, she takes confidence in that as she begins to gallop towards our home.

I stop breathing in anxious anticipation as I round the corner up to the ranch. My heart is still beating erratically, though I breathe a sigh of relief. One of the outer walls of the barn has collapsed, the windows to our house are cracked or shattered, and part of the roof has caved in slightly. But nothing detrimental has happened, the house is still standing.

I open the door, finding that it sticks from the shifting walls and door frames, and settle my eyes upon a relieving sight: Dad and Ingo sit beneath the table, shock and joy touching their eyes.

"Malon!" Dad shouts, escaping from his safe haven to crush me into his arms. "I was so worried."

"I'm alright," I murmur into his shoulder, scanning the room to find toppled over furniture, broken plates and glasses on the floor. "Are you guys okay?"

He nods, stepping back and looking at my face, taking my chin between his thumb and index finger, analyzing my condition. "I haven't felt an earthquake in Hyrule since I was a child, and even then it was just a slight rumble," he murmurs.

"As long as everyone's safe, we're going to be fine," I mutter, removing my hood and allowing my damp hair to spill out around my face as I look towards my bedroom. I wonder the kind of condition it's in from the collapsing roof. I begin to wander towards the staircase, my father watching me wearily.

"Malon, don't go up there, it's dangerous," he warns.

"Don't worry," I say quietly, finding that the upstairs door swings open easy enough. The corner by our bed is covered in dust, wood bent out of place within the walls, splinters ripping through the wallpaper. Our dresser is knocked over, it's contents spilled on the floor, including Link's picture he drew me and the letter he left beneath his pillow. I'm glad now that I'd tucked it away... if it was still on our bed it could be buried there.

And then I find what I'm looking for; the moonstone necklace lays amongst a scattered lake of frosted glass on the floor. The ground beneath me shakes ever so slightly as I crouch to pick it up, snow lazily drifting through the broken window and dust settling on my head and shoulders. I wait, fearing the movement of breathing as it passes over, the house ceasing it's motion once more.

I hold the moonstone tight in my palm, slipping it safely away into a pocket, and turn towards the pieces of paper laying on the floor, the light breeze that seeps through the broken window causing them to flit across the wood slightly. I press my fingers to the picture, trapping it against the floor, and lift it into my hand, a memory of the tears I had shed for it returning to my eyes.

My eyes pause on the child's hand in the picture, holding onto the fingers of an adult that reaches out to them. The moonstone necklace is strung over the larger hand, so I'm sure that he intended for it to be mine... and for the child's to be our daughter's. Sometimes I imagine her holding my hand like she is in the picture.

I put the letter away into my pocket too, keeping it safe there.

These are the only things in this room that matter enough to me.

He did come back, just like he said he would.

Daddy fixes his hand. It's all red and bleeding and he tries not to cry when Daddy cleans the blood off and wraps his hand in white bandages. My dad makes me leave the room after a while, it upsets me when Link begs Daddy to stop.

He goes to sleep in my room that night, and we make a bed for me on the ground downstairs. I can't sleep though, because I can hear footsteps from up in my room.

I tip-toe out of bed, climbing up the stairs and open the door. Link is standing by the window, his fairy resting on the window sill. He doesn't turn around as I walk up behind him and look out the window to try and find what he was looking at.

"I don't know what to do now," he whispers after a long time.

I glance at him, he looks confused. "What happened?" I ask, shifting my gaze to the club of white bandage.

"I burned it," he whispers.

I nod, looking back out the window. My fingers tingle, aching for his pain. There are no stars out tonight, the world is grey. "I have an idea," I say.

I can see him watching me from the corner of my eye, waiting for an answer.

I don't look at him but I say, "You can stay here until you know what to do."

When I finally look at him, I think I see him smile. I've never seen him smile before.

He stays while his hand gets better. It still looks awful, all scabbed and blotchy, but he says it feels better. He helps me do my chores, and we talk and laugh and play games. We play with sticks and pretend that we're knights. Link doesn't play with the sword from his home, and sometimes I forget that he actually does fight monsters.

He tells me all about his journey. He tells me about the Great Deku Tree, and how he was killed by of the evil inside of him. He tells me all about the gorons and how they gave him their ruby for defeating the dodongos. He tells me about the Princess and an evil man they're trying to stop.

He has two stones already, and he says he has one more to get. He stays at the ranch for a week while his hand heals.

We play in the barn while it's raining one day. It's cold outside, so I wear a thick sweater, though my feet are still bare, my toes cold. Link wears long pants and a long sleeved blue tunic, clothes my dad has still held onto from when he was young. He looks so different in these clothes, I've become used to only seeing him in that green tunic and hat. He looks like any other boy I might see at the market. Daddy is asleep in the house and doesn't want to be woken, but we can laugh and talk in here. The cows don't like it when it rains. They get restless, and want to be outside. Many of them are skittish, and while I know to keep my distance when they're like this, Link doesn't.

I lean against one of the posts of the stalls while I tell him about the festival that comes to Castle Town every year, and show him the broach I got from it last year. It'll happen again in a few months, during the fall. I tell him to come with me.

He listens intently while he sits on one of the low bars of the stall, resting his chin and dangling his arms over the middle bar. He's so close to them I don't have time to tell him to move when one of the cows acts up and jerks her leg at him, catching him hard in the side. I gasp as he cries out in pain, rolling onto his back as he's knocked off the stall. He clutches his side, small gasping sounds coming from his mouth, ragged breathing, like his lungs aren't working.

I panic, and leave him there just long enough to drag my father in to help him, explaining what happened in a terrified rush.

"Is he dead?" I ask my dad while he leans over Link's body, no sound coming from his mouth.

"No Malon," he mutters. "Link... try and take a deep breath... that's it, good boy."

I jump, a tear falling from my eye straight to the ground when a horrible sound comes from Link's mouth, a combination of him gasping for air when he can finally breathe, and pure agony. His heels dig into the floor, his hands clenching and unclenching by his sides as he cries out, my dad trying to lift Link's shirt up so he can see the damage.

There's already red and purple bruising on the right side of his ribcage, and my dad is careful not to touch it. Link doesn't look at it, his head rolls to the side, his tears trailing over his nose though he manages to keep quiet now, his lips twitching and his forehead scrunching when my dad gently prods at him. I wonder what Link is looking at.

He lays in bed for a few days after. Dad says that he probably has a broken rib, and he wraps a bandage tight around Link's upper stomach where the bruising is. Sometimes when he's resting I go up and lay on my bed beside him and wait for him to wake up.

The only time I fall asleep beside him, he's gone when I wake. The bandage from his hand lays in a crumpled heap on my dresser.

I hug my knees to my chest and wait through the rainy days for him to come back. Dad tells me he will. He believes in him—sometimes I'll catch him listening as Link tells me stories over the dinner table while Dad cooks us something to eat. He'll watch over our shoulders as Link draws pictures of the places he went and the creatures he saw.

After two days the clouds break, the sun drying the ground enough that I can play outside. I don't think about him as much when I'm outside. I sit underneath my favorite tree, humming songs and drawing pictures. I can't draw as good as Link does.

After two days of rain, he comes back to me. He sleeps inside, his eyes look so tired, shadowed by violet circles as he dreams. I sit on the bed beside him, reading a book silently to myself, shifting my gaze to him whenever he readjusts.

We don't play when he wakes up, he's still tired, but he isn't hurt. I'm glad.

The tree that has become our favorite place shades us from the sun one morning while Dad is still inside. He leans his head against the tree trunk, his eyes closed. Those purple circles haven't gone away yet, but there's a small smile on his lips. He looks happy again.

"Did you get the stone?" I ask him quietly, knowing by the way his breathing sounds that he's not asleep.

He nods, his eyes still closed.

"Will you tell me everything?" I ask. He opens his eyes and turns his face towards me. His eyes look like a spot of blue sky behind dark grey clouds.

He grins, "I'll tell you the best parts."

The tremors have finally ceased. Dad and Ingo check on the cows and horses to make sure they're alright inside the barn. Some of them are injured, but nothing serious. They tend to them while I take my few possessions reclaimed from my room in hand, and pad through the snow to our tree.

I find the hollow spot in the tree where a branch had once grown, a branch that snapped and broke off during a major wind storm when I was sixteen. I fold up the picture that Link drew of our hands, the one he drew before he left, and nestle it inside. The wind and the snow won't reach it in here.

Then I unfold Link's note that has become worn from all the times I'd folded and unfolded it, reading those words I've almost memorized, the ones I've read over and over again to hold onto him. I open it one last time and trace my eyes over the words that have become a comfort to me:

Mal,

I hope you find this after I've left. And I hope you can forgive me for leaving. It was selfish of me, leaving you alone here. I know these last few months have been so very hard, I know it was only in June that we lost our baby. But I don't think she ever really left. Sometimes I dream of her, holding my hand and saying that she'll be alright. Her voice is so beautiful, Mal. She sounds just like you did.

I know she's above us right now, and so if you're scared or alone, tell her to wake me, and you can know that I'll stay up until you fall asleep.

I love you, and I know she does too. Sometimes I think that sleep is the time where we can go to the places they live. So if you can find sleep tonight, know that you'll be safe there with our baby. Nothing will ever touch you.

I smile, touching my lips to the soft, weathered paper, and tuck it into the hole in the tree beside the picture.

Last, I hang the necklace, the one with the moonstone on one of the branches. It catches the cold blue and glimmers in the filtered light. Her birthstone, carefully dangling above the place where she sleeps. Where she'll sleep until Link and I find her again. I wipe a cold tear that has managed to slip down my cheek away with the back of my hand.

She should be warm in my arms, not sealed in the cold ground.

I take a step back, remembering standing in this exact spot, holding her frail body, wrapped in white cloth as Link dug a grave amongst the roots of the tree for her. She was almost small enough that Link could hold her in one palm. Link held me on our bed for the rest of the day, the night, and the day after while I cried. I got to feeling hollow in that time. Sometimes I didn't know if it was real, if I was crying or not, if I was awake or not.

Dad watched from a distance. He watched while I sat in a chair, a blanket draped over my shoulders as I gazed with a blank, glassy stare through the window, waiting for Link to come back when he left. It's hard to admit how broken I was.

Link went away to escape it, I escaped inside myself.

I could see the change in the set of Dad's shoulders when I began to speak again, eat dinner at the dinner table. He was so... relieved that I was doing better, he did everything possible to hold onto that. I could see why his attitude had changed. I could see in the mirror that I was coming back.

Link never really did. He was just better at hiding it.

He was the one that wanted her so badly. I was always afraid that my illness would be passed onto any child of mine. I had tried to be careful, I told Link about my worries, and though I could see how much pain it brought him – the knowledge he might never have a child – he respected it.

He came home from some time away in January, Dad and Ingo had been away on a delivery. He came through our front door with rosy cheeks from the cold, snowflakes still in his hair. It was late, I was just in my nightgown with a blanket wrapped around me. There was something afraid in his eyes as he laid down in bed beside me, something so unsure about the way he touched my leg. His fingers trembled, like he thought we was going to hurt me. I put my hand over top of his, and moved his hand up to my thigh. I felt his breath hitch as I brought my lips to his, missing the way his skin felt against mine.

It wasn't the first time since we'd been married that he had touched me like this, held me with nothing between us. But something felt so desperate about it. After, when I lay curled around his body with my face nestled in the hollow between his shoulder blades, I felt afraid that something was wrong.

I woke alone the next morning, my clothes still on the floor, though his were missing. I began to cry with my hand covering my mouth to keep the sounds silent, even though there wasn't a single other person in the house. In our haste we hadn't been careful.

With every day that passed I knew that something had changed within me. And after a few weeks, I was certain. When I told Link, I cried, I covered my face with my hands until he took mine in his own. His eyes were red, tears gathered in them, but they were happy. His lips quivered into a smile and he embraced me, all my fears ceased. Every time he would kiss my stomach, talk to our baby, unconsciously settle his palm over the bump on my abdomen as we spoke, I felt a little more brave.

I miss Link when I sleep that night, on the floor in the kitchen because of the caving roof upstairs. I vaguely think that he should be home already, but know that because of the earthquake he was probably forced to stay in Castle Town. He was probably helping the people there. But I don't think about it too much, the sore spot where I'd hit my head when I'd fallen today pulling away any thoughts other than the presence of a dull throbbing.

I wake up in the night with a sore throat, the exposure to the cold from the day making my chest ache. I make myself a cup of tea, trying to keep quiet enough that Dad and Ingo don't wake. I don't let the water boil, the kettle whistle. It is only lukewarm when I drink it, but the mint leaves soothe the burning in my throat. I look out the window as I settle my empty cup on the counter, finding a lone star in the midst of passing clouds. I send a prayer to my daughter, telling her not to wake Link, that I'll be alright, but telling her I love her. Telling her to let him know I love him too.

I fall asleep again, dreaming of white shores and violet skies that watch a blazing sun disappear. I wonder if this is the place where our daughter sleeps. If this is the place Link spoke of.

"And what's your name?"

His eyes find mine, "Link."

Link. He has such blue eyes, they remind me of that color in between the morning and the evening sky, the blue we don't see very often.

Dad lets him stay over night, letting him sleep by the fire until it stops raining. He asks Link if his parents will be worried. Link just shakes his head.

When Dad tucks me in that night I explain to him about Link's parents, or, the fact that he doesn't got any. Daddy looks confused, but he doesn't ask any questions.

I wake up to the sun shining in through my windows, the song birds chirping over the sound of water dripping from the tree tops. It's quiet, Daddy and Mr. Ingo are still sleeping. But I creep out of bed, perching at the top of the stairs and searching down towards the bed Daddy had made up for Link. Instead I find his blankets and pillow folded in a small pile against the wall.

He hasn't left yet though, he's in the kitchen, looking through our cupboards and taking out pieces of dried meat and fruit and stowing them inside his bag. I tip-toe down the stairs, watching as he spins around when I step on a creaky floorboard.

"What are you doing?" I whisper.

"I have to go," he whispers back. He puts the apple that had been in his hand back, "I'm sorry... I shouldn't be taking this."

"Take it," I tell him, putting the apple back in his hand.

He doesn't wait for an explanation, just puts the fruit inside his bag.

"Where are you going?" I ask him as he stands up and pushes gently past me to the door.

He pauses with his hand on the doorknob. "I'll explain when I come back, alright?"

"You will come back then?" I ask him.

He turns to look at me once more and nods, his eyes falling.

I don't know why, but I have to tell myself not to cry when he leaves. I don't know him well, in fact, I hardly know him at all.

But I worry for him. I worry for him above all else.

The boy without parents, without a real home. The boy with the fairy.

The boy who wants to keep me. And maybe... I want to keep him too.

For two days I think about the boy that stayed here, Link. I say his name out loud to myself when I'm alone, just to make sure that I remember it. I don't know when he'll come back, but I know that when he does, I'll be happy. I think he and I are friends, I like having a friend. It's like having a responsibility.

He stumbles into the ranch almost three days later, cradling his hand against his chest. There are streaks down his face, dirt on his cheeks. For a second I'm terrified as I rush to his side, his hand covered in blood. But then I know that he's going to be okay, and I know that when he's better, he'll be here.

He did come back, just like he said he would.

"You used to sleep wherever it was convenient at the time. I can't believe that after one night on the ground you're in so much pain."

Dad waggles a finger at me, his other hand pressed against his lower back, "I am not as young as I once was."

"I still don't think you were young enough to fall asleep against a crate of milk while your poor daughter had to fend for herself," I joke. I'm glad I can joke again.

"That was one time," he defends, "and who knows, if I hadn't fallen asleep, you may have never met Link."

I pause, chewing on the inside of my lip as a shy smile quirks about my mouth.

Dad grins, his eyes narrowed, "No need to thank me."

"As sentimental as this is, there are still cows to milk and cream to churn," Ingo interrupts, pushing past Dad with an armful of blankets he's stowing away in a closet.

"Alright, alright," Dad sighs, "Mal, if you're not feeling well, come get me before you have to think twice, got it?"

"Dad, do I look like I'm sick?" I ask, hands on hips, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Well... no, but–"

I take his wrist in my grasp before he can continue, pressing the back of his hand to my forehead, "Do I feel sick?"

He rolls his eyes, "No."

"Then I'll be fine for a few hours. I'll tidy up as best I can around here," I assure him.

"Don't go upstairs," he reminds me.

"I won't."

"Alright, sweetie. See you in a little while," he murmurs, leaning forward to press a firm kiss to my forehead.

I return to the table after he's left, finding the tunic Link had discarded there, the one he was trying to mend. I pick up the needle and thread and sit down, working quietly. I should have this finished for him by the time he gets back. Which I hope is soon.

It should be soon.

I'm finishing the last few stitches when I hear a sound that makes my heart stop for a moment. Heat rushes to my face, excitement and relief battling each other for control of my emotions as I hear hooves against the ground outside. I wait planted in my seat, debating on whether I should greet him at the door, or wait for him to come wrap his arms around me at the table.

Yes, feign nonchalance as I patiently await him at the table, I decide with a smirk. Let him do the work. I grin to myself as I wait, the needle trembling in my grasp to the point where I can't make it find where my mind wants it to go.

In just moments he'll be back for good. In moments I'll be holding him tight around his neck, feeling the warmth of his body against mine. Maybe the doctor will be wrong, and I'll get healthy again. Maybe I'll be healthy just long enough to see him happy.

The door doesn't swing open like I expected, instead there's a knock on the solid wood. I turn around in my chair and stare at it with furrowed brows. He knows it's open, why doesn't he just open the door and come back to me?

The knocking persists, this time with more desperation.

I stand up, wiping my palms on my skirt before I tread carefully over to the door, wondering why he would be doing this, and interrupting a third knock as I twist the doorknob carefully in my trembling grasp.

But I don't find his face when I open the door, I find a very different one altogether. Their wide, crystal-blue eyes full of panic, though the rest of their face is like porcelain, and refusing to show any emotions.

I'm too shocked for formalities, I do not bow, I do not wait for her to speak first.

"Zelda?"

She blinks only once before she says in a curt tone, "You have to come with me."

I open my mouth, though no words dare to pass my lips, my feet planted to the floor as I glance past her. She's alone, only her snowy horse behind her.

She reaches towards my wrist and takes it in her gloved hand. "Please, we don't have much time," she murmurs urgently.

Before I can possibly begin to think about what I'm doing, thousands of thoughts swirling through my head about what she could be doing here and why she would be wanting me, I wrench my hand away from her. "Tell me what you want," I demand, fear resounding clearly in my voice.

"Malon, I will explain on the way," she says quickly, her eyes still a flurry of panic though her face barely changes. "We must make haste–"

"Wait, what's wrong? Why... why are you here? Where's Link?" I ask, retreating a step back into my house to avoid her grasp once more, my heart pounding.

She swallows at the mention of his name, a small gesture that makes my stomach drop. "He's at the castle," she begins, "he's why I'm here."

It's then that I notice the quavering note in her voice, the one she'd never held when we'd spoken before. She is afraid, maybe as much as I am though she's better at disguising it.

I feel tears begin to form in my eyes, my chin trembling, "Is... h-he alright?"

She clenches her jaw and diverts her gaze to the floor. My heart clenches inside my chest as she shakes her head once.

"No... no, he's not."

If you want to see the picture Link drew, it's on the website! leavenodoubt1432 dot tumblr dot com

Also, as this story is drawing to a close, let me know if there's a specific pairing you'd like me to write about in my next story or if there's a certain game! Pm me or leave an idea in your review :)