Gaepora sat at the steps within the Light Temple, his head popping up at the sound of approaching footsteps.

"He has been reborn," Nayru said. "Your son-in-law has been reincarnated. It will not be long before he pulls the sword."

"How long until he will arrive?" Gaepora asked.

"Nine years from his perspective," Nayru explained. "so you have about nine hours. He will then sleep until he has aged enough to undergo the responsibilities of being the hero. You will watch over him and guide him upon his awakening, as you agreed."

Gaepora nodded.

"I understand."

He looked down at the golden compass he held as Nayru disappeared, stroking the edges with his thumbs. He had been given the gift upon his first arrival in the Sacred Realm, when he agreed upon the task in the first place.

Opening the lid of the small relic, he looked down into it. He remembered when he first received it, it looking like no more than a compass and him not quite understanding the significance. Navigation didn't seem the priority here in the afterlife. His destination, the Chamber of Sages, was but a few footsteps away.

Yet it seemed Nayru knew he needed navigation of a quite different manner. When he first opened it and saw the birth of his daughter, the very beginning of his sweet Zelda's life, he was proven very wrong that it was just an insignificant compass.

Gaepora placed the compass on the floor and golden light projected a mist before him. The image was right where he left it, the end of Zelda's life where he could see her no more and the compass' motion had nothing left to show.

Gaepora placed a gentle finger on the glass of the compass, sliding it just a bit counterclockwise.

He had seen it before, but he still smiled.

Zelda was in bed, her face lined and creased with great age and her complexion paled with great sickness. At her bedside was her husband, aged similarly, but pained not with any ailment.

They looked into each other's eyes as they always had. Link's hand, adorned with a singular triangle, held hers.

"Are you ready for another adventure?" Zelda asked.

"Yes," Link said. "Our love is too strong for us to forget it. It will last thousands of years, Zel."

"You wouldn't rather us end up in the afterlife?"

Link shook his head.

"Being reincarnated with you," he said. "I'll find you and fall in love with you again and again. No paradise could compare."

Zelda smiled.

"I love you," she said her eyes blinking heavily and slowly. Link's eyes frenzied with panic, his chest lurching. Link took a shaky inhale as his wife faded from existence.

"I love you, too," Link replied, kissing her hand and tears streaking his face. The image blurred into darkness for Gaepora.

Gaepora took his finger to the glass of the compass again, sliding it in multiple counterclockwise circles, again and again, images flipping in a chaotic manner back the line of time until they settled. Link and Zelda appeared much younger.

"What's wrong?!" Link exclaimed, completely panicked, looking to Greba.

"She's having a panic attack," Greba replied. "I need her to breathe normally."

"Zelda!" Link said, taking Zelda's hand quickly, "Zelda, look at me."

She tipped her head and opened her blue eyes, her chest still heaving with panic.

"You are at term," Link said. "I am here, by your side, and everything is going to turn out fine."

"Link…"

"Remember the feather," Link insisted, hand reforming in hers so that their fingers entangled, "the Loftwing's feather. Remember how it falls, drifts, the wind floats it up and down slowly and gently."

Zelda nodded as her breathing slowed forcibly and audibly. Her hand clamped Link's before she let out a distressed scream, her eyes closing tightly shut.

"Better," Greba prompted. "Just one more big push."

Zelda sat up with one last intense exclamation of pain, her grip on Link's hand tightening so much he feared she might break it.

But he wouldn't care if she did, forgetting everything as the pained screams of his wife melded into the cries of a newly born baby. Zelda's head fell back onto the bed as she panted.

Everything seemed to slow down for Link when he saw a glimpse of their child, skin tainted with blood, but moving and crying, held by Greba's gentle hands. Tears fell upon his cheeks as he tracked the baby with his eyes. Greba and Orielle smiled as they cleaned the tiny life as best they could, eventually swaddling it in the nearest blanket they could find.

"It's a girl," Orielle said as she handed her to Link, who took his daughter gently with a breaching smile. He only knew her a few seconds and he was already completely succumbed by her. Wrapped in the sailcloth of long, long ago, white with a blue emblem stretched across it, he loved this little bundle so much as he stared with adoration in his eyes.

He looked to Zelda with a smile, but her eyes were clamped closed, her head shaking, beads of sweat wetting her bangs.

"Link, I…I can't."

"Zel, it's okay," Link said with a laugh, sitting on the bed she lay with their daughter in his arms. "She's okay."

"She?" Zelda asked, before her eyes drifted open.

With an exhale, she felt a great relief in her heart, her blue eyes crying tears of joy and her lungs expelling joyous laughter.

"Hi," she said. Link could see her fatigue but she didn't seem to care. Her finger touched the soft cheek of her daughter and Link kissed Zelda's forehead.

The images flipped as Gaepora slid his finger clockwise just the slightest bit.

A more well-rested Zelda was holding her baby, the new mother cuddled up against her husband. They looked at their sleeping daughter with a great love and thankfulness. They knew how precious she was, and how lucky they were to be blessed with such a beautiful miracle.

"What are you thinking about?" Zelda asked Link.

Link smiled.

"Your vows."

"My vows?" Zelda retorted. "This is a bad time to rethink marrying me, Link."

"No," Link said with a chuckle. "That's not what I meant. I was just thinking…when we got married. You said something about Hyrule being a kingdom."

Zelda shrugged as much as she could.

"That was just referring to books I read as a child," Zelda explained. "Those large kingdoms, lofty kings and queens. A knight protects and defends his princess, they fall in love even if maybe they weren't meant to, or maybe that means they were. But in the grand scheme of things nothing else matters but their love. It captured my imagination, as those stories are meant to, made me dream of someday living a castle, finding my knight, and taking it all for granted."

"And now?"

Zelda laughed.

"And now I have, I suppose, found my knight and all. But I've grown up as well, knowing that there is no castle, but most importantly knowing not to take things for granted. I don't need to dream about a happy ending anymore."

"If you think about it," Link said. "Hyrule can be whatever we want it to be. We know our people are loyal to us. They chose you as their leader. We could have it be a kingdom, something centralized to unite it. Our daughter could even be a Princess, the first one, Princess Zelda Azalea of Hyrule."

"Princess Zelda, huh?" Zelda retorted. "That sounds so strange."

"It doesn't have to," Link said, stroking his daughter's small, soft cheek with a single finger. His calloused hand was so gentle with his daughter, and yet so strong holding a sword.

"No," Zelda said, smiling at the sight. "It doesn't have to."

"So, what do you think?" Link asked, looking from his daughter to his wife. "It isn't too ridiculous."

"Do you know anything about starting a kingdom?" She asked, looking at Link.

"No, but we'll figure it out together."

"And if it fails?"

"I think you know the answer to that one, Zel."

"Yes," she said, moving her head so that it returned comfortably in the crook of his neck. Their daughter slept peacefully in her parents caring gaze. "Yes I believe I do."

Gaepora closed the compass with a smile, his heart warm. No matter how many times he saw his granddaughter, no matter how many times he opened the compass and saw the family Zelda had beyond him, his heart warmed all the same.

Someday, after this task was complete, he would reunite with his wife, show her the moments beyond her death, what their daughter became, and they would be terribly proud.

Rauru Gaepora stood up slowly, ascending the steps and walking purposefully to the back room. The door closed behind him as he entered the Chamber of Sages.


The End


Author's Note: I told you there would only be one person here at the end of 75 chapters (hello Emily). Normal people wouldn't have the stomach to tolerate me for 75 chapters so I suppose that I'm addressing the few and far between abnormal, if anyone is here at all.

This story was the easiest to write and the hardest to finish. Everything about the plot came so naturally that the writing came smoothly. The relative ease surprised me and thus I take great pride and joy in the fact that I wrote something so large and still arguably cohesive. I love this story and I love my readers for loving it as long as they could. I love how much this story grew from my original vision and I love what I was able to accomplish in putting Skyward Sword to a narrative end and connecting it with Ocarina of Time. As a Zelda fan, it gives me much happiness. But, as I said, this story was the hardest to finish.

This past summer I struggled a lot with mental health. In fact, there was a point in July where this story was finished enough and I was planning to hand my computer over to someone else to finish posting it for the people that matter, which is you guys. You see, at the time I was planning to end my own life.

Now, three months later, I am still around and am doing much better. It was very difficult getting to this point, but I have posted all the chapters as my alive self, and I don't plan on ending my life there. I assure you that I want to live and am doing much better, so this is not meant to garner pity or to be taken as a warning sign. I have a strong support system that includes professionals and medication, as well as people I love and who miraculously still love me. The point of me telling you all this is so you know that when I thank you for your support, I wholeheartedly mean it. When I was in the hospital for self-harm in September and couldn't post the next chapter of "A Moment Beyond", I realized how much I ardently wanted to for you guys, and that was the very beginning of me wanting to get back to my life, and thus wanting my life back. At the end of every single one of my stories I thank my readers, but this gratitude is one I must insist upon even more. Thank you all so much for making it here with me.

That's about all the sappy, sentimental talk I have in me. I bet you are tired of me and just want to leave BUT some of you might be wondering about my next project so…Stay tuned? It's actually coming soon because Age of Calamity makes it time-sensitive. Before November 20th for sure. Until then, I'm doing alot on Tumblr so check me out there if you'd like. Same username.

Until then,

-fatefulfaerie