In the era of the Four Sword, but not to be confused with the other Four Sword, which came earlier and had significantly more individuality issues, where Vaati is just beginning to plot his conquering of Hyrule. Location - the Palace of Winds, where Vaati has just dug a Dark Mirror out of obscurity:


Vaati was convinced that he was amazing at three things: architecture, interior design, and conquering. He was also utterly oblivious to the fact that it was only the last of those three that he was actually amazing at.

Well. 'Amazing' might have been a bit of a strong word there, but Vaati did make for a pretty decent conquerer. His skill, or lack thereof, in architecture was a problem to be addressed at a later time, when a certain set of Four heroes would make their way into his lair via a very oversized air duct.

The interior decorating misbelief came into play a bit earlier, when Vaati decided he wanted a Dark Mirror as the focal point in his Main Hall.

In all fairness, he was on the right track. He just had the Mirror in a room with terrible lighting, in a place where everybody had to walk around it to get where they wanted to go, and also were too freaked out half the time to work up the courage to walk around it. The reason for that last one, was that the Dark Mirror turned out to contain an impression of the Hero from an age gone by, and it was understandably terrifying for the average minion to walk past what they thought was a perfectly normal reflection and then suddenly also see their most feared foe's reflection standing right behind them.

Vaati, who had in fact gotten the Mirror from a secondhand repair shop, was a bit baffled by this development. It was only supposed to be made with repurposed glass found in the remains of the old Arbiter's Grounds in the desert, he had no idea where that magical imprint was coming from. But, like all great conquerers, Vaati saw an opportunity and promptly twisted the Hero's Impression into something more fit for his own personal uses.

Dark Shadow Link, named such because Vaati couldn't decide on either one or the other, somehow managed to be worse on the minions' nerves than his former incarnation as a semi-sentient Heroic Reflective Impression. This was mostly because he eyed them balefully and gave off the impression that he'd quite like to go for all their throats if he were free of the Mirror.

Given that this was exactly what he did do on the day that he really did break free of the Mirror, the minions felt that their fear had been justified. Vaati wasted no time in leashing Dark Shadow Link to his own will, because any creature that would go for the throat of an 'ally' was most certainly the kind of creature he wanted to be able to point at his 'enemies'.

Unfortunately, this was where another one of Vaati's weaknesses came into play. Along with being bad at architecture and interior design, he also wasn't that great at plans. Sending your Dark Shadow Copy of the Hero after the Current Incarnation of the Hero and not expecting your Dark Shadow Copy to promptly get infected with courage and heroics and decency was an incredibly dumb plan.

Vaati, naturally, decided to do exactly that.

When his Dark Shadow Link turned up again, fully on the side of the Heroes and pulling off a very impressive double-agent act to get them into Vaati's Lair, Vaati decided that maybe that Dark Mirror hadn't been the best idea.

No, he definitely should have put it by the window instead, that would have been a much better place for it.


Link slid his latest book, On The Placement Of Mirrors Dark And Light, over to Zelda, who was becoming increasingly stressed and confused in equal measure as she did her best to help Link organize his thesis research. Link, meanwhile, slapped a sticky note down into the most important chapter and moved on with the efficiency of a person too used to the insanity to be bothered anymore.

He did, however, quickly scrawl down 'Rule Number Twenty-Eight' before grabbing his next book from the pile.


Rule Number Twenty-Eight: My pet monster will be kept in a secure cage from which it cannot escape and into which I could not accidentally stumble.