The sky had begun to take on the dusky blue-gray of early morning as Khai made his way down the hilly path to the stables. The dewy meadow gated and waiting in the rustling breeze for the animals. Khai arched his back and cracked his joints as he trotted atop Starling into the lush green valley of the pasture. The birds had just started to sing again as he began the daily routine. He herded the cows, sheep and goats out into the expanse of hilly grass. It was a task he so often in the past had undertaken with Link, good-natured and joking at his side in spite of the sleep still in his voice most mornings. Khai had waited tensely for word of his brother since the day the boy had ridden into the forest with the runaway princess at his side. Khai had kept busy enough not to allow it to trouble him much during the day though now, in the pale light of the rising sun, he couldn't help but think of him. His absence had been marked by most in the village, and Khai fretfully wondered now if he would ever see the boy again.

I still can't believe he went... I really wish I wouldn't have run my mouth like I did... I didn't even hug him before he left. But...all of that delusional stuff he was spouting...

Khai knew, of course, that it was all nonsense. There were no Goddesses, no demons, no Triforce and certainly no little, blonde heroes who couldn't even grow a beard yet. He thought back to the day Link had carried the wilted princess into Ofaria, how she had slept for nearly forty-eight hours. There was indeed a coup in the capitol. However, it was of no concern to the forest folk. The city could burn and the forest would remain. He mused that they would but have to cut the rope bridge and the outside world would no longer matter. Except that it did now, because Link was out there. The boy had always had this strange innocence about him. He was so easily distracted with his own thoughts and seemed always between dreams. Khai suddenly felt a punch of remorse. He was so hard on Link so often, and he wondered now if that was not perhaps a part of why he had left. Khai knew though, the real reason he had gone was because he couldn't resist a creature in trouble; he'd wanted to the help the pretty girl he had met in the field. To leave though, to be so willing to help strangers, especially strangers as dangerous as the one he had departed with, was foolhardy even for Link. The boy was a very rare sort of kind, and Khai thought now that perhaps this was why he had been so easily manipulated. A pit grew in Khai's stomach as he thought on it. How long had she traveled with him before she'd left him someplace to fend for himself? Had the guard caught up to him? Was he now sitting in the bowels of the castle awaiting execution for treason, or dead in the grass somewhere?

I should've gone with him...maybe I could have coaxed him back home...

With a sigh he pushed the unpleasant thoughts from his mind and hoisted upon his shoulder a great sack of cracked corn and barley for the cuccos in the pen behind the stables. As he passed through the weather faded wooden doorway of the barn, out of the corner of his eye he caught a glow. He turned to regard Mariana with a lantern at her side; a thick shawl wrapped about her shoulders and her hair wavy and unbound along her back. Khai smiled and moved toward her, dropping the bag of seed with a sandy thud.

"What are you doing up so early? You're usually still asleep when I get home."

Mariana set the lamp onto her belt and stepped softly over the hay scattered floor to Khai. She kissed him lightly on the mouth as he rested his elbows on her shoulders.

"Roland told me recently that he thought you've been lonely out here in the mornings. I thought I'd come keep you company… and maybe help a bit?" She said quietly.

Khai lovingly brushed his fingers into her hair, tousling it with a soft chuckle.

"If that's how you want to spend your morning, I could actually use the help. It's not as glamorous as it looks though, just to warn you." Said Kahi.

Mariana smiled.

"Oh no, don't tell me shoveling animal waste is gross or something."

The two continued to walk out toward the pen, Khai scooping the seed bag from the floor as he went. The couple spread the corn and grain out on the ground amongst the now chattering cuccos and Mariana laughed as they dashed greedily for the grainy substance. She went to Khai and nudged him as the sun finally emerged into rain swollen skies from behind the hills.

"So… Talk to me... You've just been coming up here and sulking for days haven't you?" She asked.

Khai sighed as he turned from Mariana and stepped out of the pen, holding the short wooden fence open for her.

"What's there to say really? Link randomly took off with the only heir to the throne. I'm worried about him just like everyone else is… Just the way it all happened really bothers me. The way he was just instantly all about her… I don't know. I guess that's not really important. I just wish she hadn't stolen my brother from me." Said Khai, reaching for the rake that hung behind the door.

Mariana pulled the square shovel from the wall to help the black-eyed boy clean the stables.

"She didn't exactly steal him Khai. Link was pretty bent on going with her, I don't think much could have stopped him really… Have some faith in him Khai, he's a resourceful kid, and the princess herself is pretty smart. I'd say pretty brave too. They'll keep each other safe."

Khai shook his head.

"I don't know... I feel like she put a spell on him or something; like she was using him."

"I don't think so. She seemed very sweet... aloof but sweet. I don't think she would do anything to hurt Link, she was mostly just really concerned about her father." Said Mariana.

The girl made a face as she shoveled the rubbish into a pile. Khai looked over his shoulder.

"That might be true, but still... She's going to act in the best interest of her title and that means Link will be expendable to her." He said.

The red-head shrugged and leaned against her shovel.

"Not necessarily..."

Khai stopped and turned to her, she could see the frustration building in the slant of his thick, dark eyebrows.

"Most likely... That kid is so gullible, I can't believe he would just take off like that... all that stupid nonsence about heroes and Gods..."

The both of them went back to shoveling for a moment. With a little laugh, Mariana turned her head again to Khai.

"You know, if the legends are true, if Link really is like the boy from the fairy-tales then it makes sense. There's always a princess in those stories."

Khai spun around again to face her.

"Yeah I know, I've heard them a million times. That stuff's made up."

Mariana smiled.

"I don't know... I've always wondered... some of the stories are pretty romantic."

"Some of them are really depressing too." Said Khai.

"That's true, but in a beautiful sort of way. All that doomed love stuff... it's kind of...well... beautiful."

Khai rolled his eyes and kissed the girl's forehead.

"You're beautiful... but you're a terrible ranch hand."

She laughed.

"I'm sorry, I really didn't mean to distract you, I just wanted to keep you company. I thought you might need to talk too, you've been so quiet."

Khai snorted and turned, picking up the rake again.

"No... I'm fine. Link's going to do what he's going to do..."

Mariana stepped up beside him, still sensing anxiety beneath his tone. She smoothed his hair back and gently laid her lips to the side of his face.

"Link will come home. Trust him a little bit Khai, he's not a little boy anymore. It'll be alright. " She said.

Khai thought on Mariana's statement as they raked and shoveled. Mariana began to sing something silly in the cloudy sunrise.

As dawn became misty morning and the early chores were finished, Khai led his mare with Mariana atop to the pasture gates. He closed and latched them, then he pulled himself up into the saddle in front of Mariana and hitched the horse forward. As they plodded through the narrow path carved through the hillside, Khai turned in his saddle to the girl behind him.

"Thanks for waking up to do really gross, boring chores with me. I do miss Link but you really didn't have to do all that. It was sweet of you… I love you Mariana... Thank you for putting up with me... I know I'm kind of a curmudgeon sometimes." He said.

Mariana held him tighter as they neared the village.

"You absolutely are, but I love you too Khai. I'm glad I got to help you this morning, it was actually... kinda fun."

The two of them trotted quietly down the path. As they neared the edge of the village, Khai and Mariana could now faintly hear a bedlam of shrill voices. In the damp morning air they could smell the sharp scent of burning wood. Alarmed, Khai spurred his horse forward and they bounded down the path. As they crested the hill, to their horror they saw their village beset by mounted hordes of Bulblin; armed with spears along with Moblin foot-soldiers, armored in bright steel their own foul hands could never have articulated. The hordes rode about setting houses ablaze as the frantic villagers ran from their beds to the spears of the waiting creatures, mercilessly pursuing those who had escaped their flaming homes. Mariana let out a small shriek as she nearly fell from the horse. Khai, panicked, started after her.

"Mariana!" He called, she spun and quickly yelled back to him.

"The twins! Khai, go get Roland! I have to get my brother and sister!" And with that she sprinted down the hill through the field.

In a frenzy, Khai spurred his mare forward. He rode swiftly through the outer rim of the village, toward Roland's home.

Rue briefly awoke to the muted commotion from outside of her closed window. She lay, still half dozing as the sounds of many voices and the soft booming in the distance washed over her. She was finally pulled from sleep when she heard her door creak open and saw her mother come, pale and deadly stern to her bedside.

"Rueliana, get out of bed and get dressed… we must go this instant." Said Yolandae.

She tried desperately to keep her voice calm for the sake of her daughter though dread flooded the girl at her mother's tone. She pulled the blankets from herself and quickly stood, hearing clearer now the tumult outside.

"What? What's going on? What's happening? Mom…" She asked, frightened and hearing now the sounds of explosions from across town.

Her mother visibly jumped at the sound. Yolandae drew a cutlass from the scabbard at her side and looked fearfully to Rue as the girl hastily pulled a dress over her head. She handed her daughter a small broad sword, its casing and its strap. Rue's eyes widened.

"We must go… now!" She said, gripping her daughter's hand and pulling her swiftly through the house.

Rue filled with muddled terror as she beheld her village burning bright against the gray sky, the surviving villagers fending off the monsters with anything from farming equipment to axes and spears. As she stared into the smoke and chaos, Roland and Khai appeared running up from behind the house, heavily armed and pulling along Khai's mare. Rue, frantic tears streaming down her face, turned to her father.

"What is happening?!" She squeaked, as more explosions echoed in the distance.

Roland pulled his daughter into a tight hug, and then he hoisted her upon the saddle of the black and white horse.

"Get yourself to the deep woods and hide there Rueliana, others will come. Please be safe my girl, stay hidden!" Roland cried.

Khai took the Rue's hands and squeezed them, looking quickly into the girl's terrified eyes.

"Remember what I taught you: keep your back straight, keep your head down, lean into your turns and if you have to stab something, don't hesitate... and use your shoulder. Put your sword belt on." He said.

She nodded and complied and then he slapped the horse hard in the behind, sending her flying through the village as a group of squealing Bulblin charged the three of them.

Mariana ran, out of breath and feeling as if her legs had suddenly become lead. She sprinted to her home past the now leveled vegetable garden, pursued by the riders who shrieked with blood lust as she whipped her door closed and barred it. She jumped as she heard them batter it angrily outside. Logon stood outside his room with a blanket still wrapped around him. His sister sat up on the bed, her knees to her chin. The child's eyes were wide.

"What's goin' on sis?" Logon asked.

Mariana flew to him, scooping him over her shoulder and running into the room for Loron. She pulled the frightened child into her arms as the two children resisted, tried and confused.

"We have to get out of here guys, the village is under attack. When we get outside I need you both to stay with me and run as fast as you can okay?" She said, nearly choking on the panic in her voice.

It was then that she began to smell smoke and to her dismay, she realized now that the thatched roof of her house had been lit on fire. The blaze spread quickly along the wooden walls, smoke beginning to billow throughout the room. She hurried with the now sobbing twins in her arms to the back door. As she ran, Mariana suddenly felt the white heat of a blast as the oil tank on the side of her house exploded, disintegrating the wall and riddling her back with shards of steel. She was blown off of her feet, shielding her brother and sister. Bleeding into the dust and struggling to stay conscious, Mariana crawled her way along the floor of her demolished home with the twins beside her. She flung open the back hatch and pushed the two children out into the daylight. They wept and begged for her to come as she began to cough. She could taste blood.

"Run to the woods! As fast as you can!" She cried.

With that the structure of the house gave and in a moment, the girl knew no more.

Rue rode hard past the burning shells of the homes that had once collectively been her town. Everywhere she looked there was fire and the assailing creatures that even now chased her on foot, waving their clubs and spears. She turned her head at the sound of another huge explosion close behind, realizing with mounting terror that the blast had come from the house of the twins. From the edge of the trees, Rue turned to watch the roof of the familiar home fall, her hands at her mouth. She had to do something and so she gathered her wits and tried frantically to remember the sword training Khai had given her that spring. Staunchly, she reined Starling toward the home of Mariana and the children. She could see the twins now, running together horrified through the field. Riding savagely toward them were the two horned creatures that had set fire to their home sitting atop a fearsome boar. Rue spurred the horse forward, putting herself between the children and the monsters. Starling reared as Rue drew her sword and the two Bulblin riders continued to run the great pig toward her, reading their weapons to engage the girl. Their swords clashed and one managed to cut Rue's arm wide open as they passed her. She rebounded and circled after them again as they went now, spears readied, for Loron and Logon. Forcing the horse up beside them, Rue slashed one in the back of the neck and nearly breaking her wrist and ripping her off Khai's horse as the sword stuck flesh. She stabbed the other in the side and they fell from the boar, rolling to a stop in the ash. She yanked Starling to a halt and briskly dismounted, scrambling to set the moaning, terrified twins upon the saddle. She held them both tightly to her as they thundered off into the forest.

Khai fiercely hacked his way through the wave of screaming beasts toward his home in the distance. He had watched the boar and its two riders chase Mariana down the field and he frantically slashed through assailing body after body to reach the now blazing cottage. When he saw the oil storage ignite and rip a hole into the side of the house he and Mariana had shared, a desperate roar erupted from him as he swung his blade harder and faster into the seemly endless melee of fire and clashing steel. He watched the roof collapse as more and more of the creatures surrounded him, threatening to overpower him. He slashed recklessly at them, weakened with building hysteria. He fought for what seemed liked hours. It was like a nightmare. No matter how many beasts he felled, another and then another would replace it. He glanced to his house again. He could see Rue and the twins in the distance and watched for a moment as they fled into the woods. In his distraction, one of the creatures took a hard swing at him, catching him in the upper thigh and flaying his flesh open. Hardly feeling the laceration, he quickly turned and retaliated only to feel the tip of a spear pierce the back of his shoulder and toss him aside. As another band of demon soldiers closed in, he resigned himself to death. It was then that he heard the sound of another explosion and the beasts turned their heads to look, it was something smaller than the blasts of the oil storage drums. Suddenly the surrounding creatures fell around him, shot full of arrows. Khai looked up to regard Link and Zelda driving fiercely through the hordes. They dashed through the village, dispatching the attacking monsters with a sword, a bow and what Khai now realized were the bomb flowers that Roland had brought back so many times from the mountains. From Midge's saddle the princess quickly shot dead a great many of the riders, along with the archers that had perched themselves atop the roofs they had not burned. Zelda glided about the bloodied grass atop the gelding, cutting the demons down with the delicate, needle-like rapier and graceful accuracy. Epona thundered closer as Khai struggled to stand. He watched in a daze for a moment as Link moved about the throng of monsters, dispatching the lot of them with incredible poise. The way he held the blade, his movements atop the red mare, they could nearly be described as elegant.

"Khai!" he called, and he hauled his bleeding friend up into the saddle behind him.

"Where's Rue?!" Link implored.

Khai took a moment to breathe, his wounds burning as he readied his sword.

"I sent her ahead… I saw her take the twins with her into the forest. Let me off, I need to go... I need to get to my house... I need to get to Mariana..." He said, his voice uneven as they tore across the field.

Link glanced back at him, fear cutting through him upon hearing Khai's words. He looked to the crumpled wreck of the house in the distance and then briefly to the dark-eyed boy's thigh. Link could see the yellow glint of bone. He looked back across the burning village, the swarming horde thick everywhere now.

"No, you're wounded, you'll die if you get off this horse!"

Link steered Epona around again and ripped the stem from another bomb flower. He tossed it hard into a group of Bulblin and the blast killed at least three of them as they passed. He and Khai then rode on, slashing and stabbing at the demons from horse back; one with his right hand, the other with his left. Every man and woman still among the living was in the fray now and the bodies of boars and Bulblin littered the fields. A group of villagers had cornered a massive Moblin and though it swung its fists and stabbed with its broken spear, the villagers managed to take it down with a croaking wail and hack it to bits. After the forest folk had felled a countless number of the abhorred horde, the creatures began to retreat in the starting downpour. Link and Zelda followed after them, still launching the arrows to which she had tethered bombs into their ranks. Finally, the three of them stood in bitter triumph at the edge of the village. The last boars disappearing toward the field as the pouring rain began to douse the fires. Before anything could be said, Khai jumped off of Epona and stumbled as quickly as he could down toward he and Mariana's now collapsed home. Link hurried after him. Khai dug frantically through the charred wooden beams and fallen roof tiles as Link ran up behind him. Finally he found a tiny, white, ash covered hand and he pulled the lifeless Mariana from the rubble. Link could only watch in disbelief as Khai held the dead girl in his arms. He sat with her still form in his lap for a moment, looking seasick or something like it before he began to sob. Link despairingly regarded them as his knees threatened to give. He looked on with wide eyes at smoldering remains of his village, suddenly feeling as if he couldn't catch his breath. Stricken, Link leaned down to lay a hand on Khai's heaving shoulder. The young man pulled harshly away, burying his face in Mariana's bright hair.

"Go away…" He muttered.

As shock began to take a tighter hold on him Link backed away from the terrible scene, turning now toward Roland's house; dreading what he would find there. He began to sprint numbly toward his childhood home through the rain. Nothing seemed real. The charred scenery went by as he tried to comprehend what had happened and found that he was unable to, he could only keep running. Zelda, seeing him dart through the field, sheathed her sword and took off behind him. She was utterly horror-struck by the carnage. The bodies of so many innocents haphazardly littered the grass, death like a thick fog about the place. Link arrived at the stone porch to see Yolandae covered in the blood of her husband, crying silently and holding the pale and gravely injured Roland in her arms. Yolandae looked up at him.

"Link… You've come home…"

The boy sank to her side.

"How did you know… that they marched on us?" She asked breathlessly.

Zelda skidded to a stop a few feet from them. The old knight was dying, she could sense it and so she watched despondently from the edge of the porch as Link gently took Yolandae's hand.

"Zelda… she overheard them talking… I tried to get here before they did Yolandae… They rode so hard all night long… we couldn't get around them... Mariana's dead..." Said Link, his voice cracking.

A quiet sob shuttered the lady's frame as she looked again to the battered Link.

"...My daughter?" She said, her eyes pleading.

Link drew closer to them, laying a hand on Yolandae's cheek.

"She's safe…" He said

Roland stirred and looked up at the boy, the two of them regarded each other for a moment before Roland weakly gripped Link's hands. The boy held the old man's fingers tightly as he leaned down to hear his beloved mentor.

"You did well out there lad… From what I saw..." He rasped.

Link, tears trailing down his bruised face averted his eyes from Roland's for a moment.

"I'm sorry Roland… I'm sorry I didn't get here fast enough…"

"Don't blame yourself… You did your best... you always do. You know... I do not think I've told you nearly enough... that you've grown into such a spectacular young man… Your father would have been so proud… as I am… and what a lucky man I've been… to have had such a beautiful wife and daughter… to have had something of sons in you boys… Perhaps… this is my payment… for so great a fortune…Heh... So it goes…" Roland offered a wan chuckle, followed by a phlegmatic cough that splattered red on his bottom lip.

Moments later, he died there on the porch in the arms of his wife. Link lovingly brushed his eyes closed. Zelda sank to the ground, her knees buckling at the sight and buried her face in her arms. She wept bitterly.

By the afternoon, the field that had once been a scene of revelry and life was now filled with the bodies of the dead and the wounded. Men, women and children lay side by side in the torn grass as others who still lived bled dark beside them. The ones who had been able to hold their own against the horde now tended to the injuries of the others who had been laid out among the dead. Slowly, the survivors of the raid began to emerge from the depths of the forest to claim their loved ones. Among them Rue and the twins, who looked upon their blackened, smoldering village and violence below with horrified disbelief. The bodies of Roland and Mariana were cleaned and laid out on makeshift briers in the foyer of the home Yolandea, Roland and their daughter had shared for so long. Rue, dazed and uncomprehending fell into a fit of hysterics when she passed through her door to regard the body of her father and that of her friend. She crumpled to her knees on the floor as her mother went quickly to her.

"This...this can't be happening... Why?... Why our village?" She whimpered.

Yolandae wrapped her arms around her.

"I don't know, my girl... I don't know what they wanted." She said, stifling her own tears.

Yolandae held Rue in her arms like a child as she wept. After a moment, she carried the girl to her bedroom. The two of them laid down together, their heads heavy and unable to bear the unhappy weight of consciousness any longer. The twins stood hand in hand, looking with sad confusion upon their pale sister. Loron instantly burst into tears as she clung helplessly to her brother. Logon squeezed her tightly and Khai pulled them both into his arms. Link sat miserably upon the floor near Khai, Rue's lament stinging him. He knew why they had come. They had come because of him, hoping that they could draw him and the princess out, so the power that lay inside of them could be harvested and exploited by the rampant evil that now controlled the land. He buried his face in his arms, unable to accept the great finality of the moment. The injustice of it gripped his heart in cold fingers. Zelda knelt, emotionally exhausted, near the doorway. She felt the unsurpassed anguish of the household twisting in her like glass beneath her skin. Never before had she seen such bloodshed. For it to have happened here, in this sleepy little village that had so charmed her, to these innocent people, grieved her in ways she could not articulate to herself. She looked through wet, sleepless eyes at the boy curled against the wall across the room, his pain bright above all others in her. Link felt sickened to his very soul and the longer he sat there near his sobbing friend in this house filled to the rafters with death, the more it felt as if the room had begun to spin. It was as if he were drunk with grief. Though every joint and muscle in his body felt terribly weak and loose, at length he stood and swiftly exited the house out into the cold, gray daylight. He felt the overwhelming need to run; run until he was too tired to stand, to fill himself with anything other than the crushing sorrow grinding inside of him. Zelda wearily watched him as he left the house blank faced and ran off toward the forest. Summoning what was left of her strength, she followed him.

She finally caught up to him in a moss-covered clearing a little ways off from his house. He slumped with his back against a tree, his knees slightly bent with his elbows resting upon them. He stared blankly at the ground, the end of hysterical tears sliding down his mottled face as Zelda approached. He rolled his eyes up to her as she knelt softly down in the grass beside him.

"I… I am so sorry Link… I don't even know how…" She began.

Link shook his head.

"Please… don't. It's not your fault. Without you, I would never have even known…" He said. He blinked as tears fell anew down his cheeks.

"It's my fault... they came here to flush us out... They found out that I lived here somehow... and they killed so many people I knew... all to get a hold of this thing…" He said, pointing down to his hand.

"This... thing that makes people violent and stupid with lust for world domination, or immortality, or whatever it is that it does… whatever it is that makes people willing to do horrible things..." He laughed weakly, more tears spilling down his cheeks.

"…I don't understand... Is it all some kind of cosmic joke? Why would The Three put something that powerful in our hands? To watch us kill each other over it? To hand pick two people to wander a sea of blood and death guarding it for eternity? Why? I don't even care about it... I don't have a wish for it... I don't care about it's power… it's completely meaningless to me… and yet I have to defend it because if I don't… the entire world would be ripped apart in its name… wouldn't it?" He asked Zelda, turning wild blue eyes to her.

The princess felt her own mournful and exhausted tears come forth. She had no answer for the boy. All she could think of now was to pull him into her arms and hold him there as he cried silently, shivering against her. She held him tighter as he rested his chin on her shoulder. She felt him swallow as she softly kneaded the back of his neck, his skin hot.

"If we do find it…If we put it back together… Could we wish for it to be destroyed? That it never existed at all?" He asked, his voice raw and spent.

Zelda gently ran her hand up and down his back as they lay against the tree.

"I... don't know, Link..." She said.

Each of them closed their eyes, leaning on each other. Neither could say anything more. Finally their bodies gave to the strain as the world seemed to collapse around them. Within minutes they were fast asleep, tangled together upon the mossy ground beneath the shade of a tall, ancient tree.

He watches in expectant tenseness as the great black and seething portal opens once more. From it emerges the frightful beast of black scales and teeth. He draws his sword, and from above him calls the gruff voice of a scarlet-haired youth as he readies what appears to be a sort of catapult. The beast shuffles forward as the boy rushes after it, slashing at the pustules that seem to support its body. They burst as the beast emits a hissing roar and begins, to the boy's horror, to climb the wall toward the holy temple above. The red-head throws a switch and hurls a bomb into the face of the beast, stunning it. The boy destroys what's left of the doughy sacks at its feet and the creature falls backward as the ground quakes with its girth. He runs the distance to the head of the abomination and with his sword, drives the divine spike back into its skull. The creature wails and begins its slog again to the temple. The two boys batter it with blade and bomb for what seems like terrified hours. Finally, the beast falls again and the boy drives the spike in deep this time. A bright, white light pulses from the monster. Its body shatters into beads of oily refuse as it flies again into the ground from whence it came. The boy hurries to the spot and with a quick motion of the sacred blade, he forces the spike down once more.

Time shifts.

In murky blue-black, suddenly he feels as if he is floating through a tunnel. It is a place where ages have become irrelevant as his heart urges him forward through the dark. He is then shown a room behind a great door of stone. There she stands, finally, beneath a stream of daylight; the girl he has been searching for. The girl he has loved since his earliest memory. She turns to him, and at first her voice seems to be lost on the waves of the vast sea of dreams he now wanders. He knows only that her words are heavy and his hands, so steady in the heat of battle, now shake uncontrollably in her presence. His eyes are wide. He speaks softly to her as she comes forward, continuing her speech though he cannot make it out. The world around him becomes solid as the girl, her platinum hair falling over her shoulders in blue binding, extends her hand for his. He lays his palm in hers and drops to one knee, his hand over his fluttering heart. She blesses his sword, and he feels the great warmth of her light run through the softness of her fingers and into the deepest parts of him. He stands now, and holds his sword aloft as the ephemeral, blue light tempers it once more. The holy runes appear, blazed into the silver blade near its hilt. He regards the sword for a moment, and then shifts his gaze again to the loved face of the girl beside him. She turns from him, her head bowed. She speaks then, her voice becoming intelligible from the shadow of the dreamscape.

"Link, before I say another word, I feel like I owe you an apology. You see, the mark of the Triforce on your hand is the symbol of the greatest power in this world. If you can obtain the actual Triforce, we will have the power to vanquish Demise once and for all. The problem is, among the countless souls in this world, only a select few… those with an unbreakable spirit… can wield its might…" She says and she walks forward, further away from him, to the steps in front of her.

"It's impossible to know the true reason why the old Gods created the Triforce. But I have a theory of my own…" She says softly, her words swelling and ebbing as the world around him began to blur.

"The Gods created the Triforce yet they specifically designed it so that their own kind could never use its power… Somehow I think that may have been their way of giving hope to all the mortal beings of this land… which brings us back to you… To face Demise and give the land hope, the Goddess, Hylia, needed someone with an unbreakable spirit. That someone is you, Link…" She says, her voice becoming wavy again as it begins to sink beneath the sea of time.

"And so Hylia… and so I…I knew that if it meant saving Zelda, you would throw yourself headfirst into any danger, without even a moments doubt…I… I used you."

As the dream dims, and the language they speak again becomes incomprehensible, he follows behind her. He begins to tell her that it doesn't matter, that he doesn't care what decisions she's made against his fate. He only wants her to come home… because being near her, for him, is life's very definition. She then sadly tells him something that incites immediate panic in him. A light engulfs her and he rushes to her side, screaming her name as the amber solidifies around her. He beats against the glassy surface, frustrated tears stinging his eyes. As the dream fades to blackness, he makes out a final sentence.

"…I'm still your Zelda."

Link awakened, sprawled on the mossy ground, the evanescent dream still gripping him, the images painted in stark color on his brain. Stunned, he turned his head a slight to see the sleeping princess curled nearly into a ball next to him, her head resting on his shoulder. Her face was streaked with dried blood and rain. Their foreheads nearly touched. He brushed the hair that had unwound itself back against her head and she tensed, her own dreams holding her in the strange realm of sleep.

Hylia…

Said a tenuous whisper somewhere deep in his mind. He uttered a breathless chuckle and turned his head back to the darkening sky. He mused for a moment on how much sense it made now: the dream by the river of the white wolf and the prison tower, his dark self's words, the supernatural power of Zelda's new-found abilities. He looked across at the pale, sleeping beauty beside him and realized now that the princess was the Goddess that Queen Oona had spoken of. The one who had herself chosen him to bear the fate of the land upon his back. In light of everything else, all of the tragedy of the day, this realization sank in deep and rang true to the deepest part of his soul.

So that's it... that's how all of it started. All this time... my entire life has been building up to this... to fight this battle... And you, Zelda...

The monumental realization of the dream lapped over him like cold water.

Who is this girl... really? Does she know? Has she seen it for herself that she's... a Goddess?

Zelda had seemed as human as anyone, aside from being incredibly beautiful. She was just as frightened as he was, if not more so. The weight of their task, her crown and his sword, so very heavy. They each were caught in an everlasting cycle of death and rebirth. They lived for Hyrule, and nothing more. Their lives, the very breath in their lungs, were not theirs to do with what they wished. Even their dreams were tethered to the quest. His twin had spoken the truth. Link had been honed into a vessel at the behest of Hylia to hold the might of the Triforce within him, and then chained forever to the task of its defense. The boy's soul could not be corrupted. There existed within him no capacity for true hatred nor greed. Link had cast that part of himself from his spirit like an ill-fitting garment. He had been made, in sense, for this purpose alone. He was a weapon... the last defence of Hyrule. He hadn't truly grasped it until now, and he lay there reeling in the grass for a moment before he looked to Zelda again. Wearily, he remembered the sorrowful eyes of the girl in his dream of a time so long ago. Zelda had become very dear to him in the passing weeks. She was his counterpart in this quest and he knew now that she always had been. It was only a matter of finding her again; the bridge between Gods and mortals. The Fairy Queen's words echoed a refrain loudly in his head.

...it is on your shoulders that the fate of this land falls.

He took a deep breath, feeling as though it had been the first he had taken in a long time. He stared into the darkening sky above the trees, the reincarnate Goddess asleep on his shoulder. Zelda groaned next to him, muttering in one of her many languages as she drew herself from the world of dreams. She opened her boundless, blue-violet eyes and regarded Link who looked back at her solemnly. She lay there against him, meeting his gaze with a waxen, ghostly look. Link watched as her eyes became her own again and she rose. She sat beside him holding her head that, as she became fully conscious, split with pain. She had dreamed of nothing but death and fire since her eyes had closed. She turned gingerly to Link, who pulled himself up beside her. There was silence between the two as the physical world bore down again on them. At length, Zelda spoke.

"Link…" She said softly, finding now that words failed her as she looked to the boy.

He stood, offering Zelda his hand and pulled her to her feet. The sky had grown very dark during their slumber.

"… We should be getting back. I shouldn't have fallen asleep here and left everyone at the house…I'm needed there."

As they drew near the burned, decimated village, in the evening calm they saw the glow of multiple fires about the town. Link looked vacantly ahead as they walked on in silence. Both he and the princess knew well the scattered flames. They were the coals of many funeral pyres, of the families that had been severed that awful morning. Link paused to gather his strength as they entered the battered gates of the town. He sighed loudly and they each offered a silent prayer as they surveyed the once thriving village that was now little more than a blackened skeleton. They walked wordlessly to Roland's family hall. In the backyard, they found a handful of other haggard, grief-stricken town members who wished to pay their respects to the fallen elder and the maiden. Beside them stood Yolandae, Rue and Khai; the twins asleep in each others arms on the ground. The two pyres cast a phantasmal glow throughout the crowd. From them a drained and sorrowful Rue, her gashed arm crudely stitched, crept forward as Link went to her. She stopped short and looked dejectedly at him before she whirled back and slapped him as hard as she could in the face. Link did not react, but held the girl tightly to him as she screamed into his shoulder.

"Where were you?! Why did you leave?! How could you leave?!"

He held her tighter as Yolandae looked on in quiet grief.

"I...I'm sorry, Rue..." He said, and it was all the boy could say.

Zelda watched as she forced a lamenting cry deep back into herself. She kept her composure as she walked to kneel between the two blazing pyres. She lowered her head and prayed, first for the dead, and then for all those who now mourned. She felt the looks of the townspeople upon her as she stood, looking out across the many eyes that seemed to search her for some answer. She felt obliged to them to say some word of comfort.

"Kind people of the forest village, please hear me… I am Zelda, Princess of Hyrule..."

She heard audible gasps from the crowd, many beginning to murmur amongst themselves. Zelda swallowed hard.

"Please listen to me. Know that you shall rise from this tragedy with mended wings, and that love endures… Death cannot be reversed, but memory will stay indelibly within ourselves. I come to give my love to the the benevolent man who sheltered me in my time of need; and to the sweet, selfless girl who once braided my hair and offered me words of comfort. I come also to offer hope to those that yet live. Good people, there is a powerful force at work to deliver you from the blackness that ravages the land. One who will stop it at its source, and bring light again to the night that has set upon us. And those who have fallen, their deaths shall be avenged." Said Zelda.

The small crowd murmuring grew louder. After a moment had passed, one sardonic, joyless cackle could be heard among the mourners. Khai stepped unsteadily forward, still armed and full of liquor and heartbreak.

"Oh please, do go on your highness. That was really beautiful considering that you're the one that got the better half of my village killed today." He said, slurring, his voice blanched and scornful.

"Khai..." Link said softly, and Zelda slowly raised her hand to him.

"Let him speak." She said.

Khai scoffed, and smiled derisively.

"I'm flattered, I really am. My friend there, the one in green with the bruises all over his face, got wrapped up in some royal debacle and brought her here... That's why the hordes burned our village today... because they were looking for her. Thank you so much, your majesty, I really feel that I can count on you to avenge the death of my finance and the other dozens of innocent people that you got murdered today." Said Khai, his black eyes alight with contempt as Zelda stoically held his gaze.

At last he turned sharply to his horse, tethered at the side of the house. He mounted her and stared angrily down at the princess who still had not dropped her eyes.

"Get down off of that horse this instant, boy! You are injured and you are drunk, you are in no condition to ride. Please Khai, stop this! Hasn't there been enough today?!" Yolandae called through a raw, strained throat.

Link swiftly joined the lady in trying to coax the young man down from his mare.

"Getting yourself killed isn't going to change anything Khai. Please… I'm here. This is my home too."

Khai sneered, his horse shuffling beneath him.

"Shut up, Link. I would honestly love to break your jaw right now... You think she gives a damn about us... about you?" He paused and looked up at the bleary eyed crowd.

"I don't know what you people are going to do, but I'm going to go get my revenge." He slurred.

With that, he rode off out into the field to where the Gods only knew.

Zelda watched him as he went, seemingly frozen as the confounded villagers turned to look upon her; astounded. Though she pressed it down with all her might, a single tear escaped her.

Link, Zelda and a few of the surviving residents of Ofaria decided to pass the night in Roland's home. Rue had offered the princess her bed which Zelda had graciously declined, opting instead for the floor beside her. She and Link, as they had done in the days before, rolled out their sleeping palates in the girl's room and now, past three in the morning, a drained and battered Link sat on the edge of Rue's bed.

"So you're leaving again tomorrow? After everything?" Rue asked, her voice tiny and meek as Zelda lay on her side facing the wall, the repressed tears now streaming down her face.

She heard Link sigh behind her.

"I have to… if I wait, an army even worse than the one that came here might totally destroy Hyrule. I have to find a way to stop it, Rue." He said

Rue shifted in her blankets, sitting up to hug the bruised, shaggy haired boy beside her. She laid her head to his chest as he held her tightly.

"I think this is going to kill you Link… Whatever you've gotten yourself into… I think if you leave tomorrow, I'm never going to see you again." Said Rue, her voice watery and strained.

Link continued to hold onto her as he spoke.

"Even if that's true... I have to do it. I guess I'm the only one who can... You have to understand that Rue… I'm going to come back, but in case I don't... you have to understand that it was for the greater good... and be proud… okay?" He said, the girl reluctantly nodded.

Zelda heard Link tuck Rue into her sheets and the light squeak of the oil lamp as he turned the knob to dim it. She heard him lie down beside her on the floor and tried hard to keep her irrepressible crying quiet in the dark though the boy heard her anyhow. He stirred and moved closer to her, softly tugging a piece of her long yellow hair. Unwilling to share her tears she did not turn. She swallowed hard as he shifted back on to his own palate and they lay in the quiet for a moment. Then she felt the boy smooth her hair back toward him as he began to slowly braid it. She smiled as the last of the tears fell from her closing eyes and she let the soft, gentle hands in her hair lull her to fitful sleep.