Link and the princess left that morning before the dawn. Yolandae had awakened as Link had gently closed Rue's bedroom door behind him, and it was only she who had bid them farewell in the hours before the sunrise. They rode somberly through the tattered gates and out into the dark, windswept field in search of the grieving Khai. To Link's despair they could find no tracks or any trace of where his brother had ridden and so the two trotted now into the cover of trees that overspread the rolling plain still reeling from the day before and unsure now of what direction to take. They slowed their horses in the rising sunlight and Link looked across to the downcast Zelda.

"So… We have the key now... We should head to the graveyard and find that book… what do you think?" He asked, his voice burnt.

Zelda shifted in quiet reflection in her saddle. The strange lack of control, the same abstract feeling she had experienced near the river again lingered upon her since she had woke, and she tried with what stamina she had left to restrain it. She remained in control and aware of her surroundings but she found now that it made her far more uncomfortable there, in the breaking blush of morning than it had ever before. Her face blanched as she began to feel her skin grow damp. Link noted her distress and watched her with growing concern. Her thoughts seemed to be fragmented, coming in scattered droves from some infinite horizon in her mind. She could feel Link beside her. She had always been able to sense the general aura of another, but this oppressive sensation was entirely different. It felt compacted somehow. The boy's suffering, the living aura of his body, the movement of his blood, they were as vivid in her mind as her own consciousness. Thoughts of former selves and their myriad of recollections fought each other in a furor to rise as Zelda stopped her horse. Dizzy and becoming nauseated with the assault on her senses, her heart thumped heavily in her thin frame. Link abruptly paused at her side as she held her head, her breathing labored as she tried to push the apparitions back.

"Zelda… you okay?" He asked.

The princess hung her head as something that felt like a transcendental door opened within her. A white blindness took her as she jerked like a marionette toward her friend.

"The sword… We must find the sword… it is uppermost." She whispered.

Link regarded her somnolent gaze with apprehension as the princess slumped in her saddle, her eyes the same as they had been upon waking next to him beneath the tree. Zelda's vision filled with the castle library, looking the way it had in the three sleepless nights she had spent within it. She seemed to drift quickly through a wall, up flights of stairs and beheld a great iron door, supernatural blue light permeating through it as if the ore were glass. Moments later, she found herself upon the ground as Link held her by the shoulders, panicked and loudly calling her name. As she came to, she looked upon the pale, troubled face of her companion. His vividly blue eyes meeting her own.

"…Link… I'm sorry, that has never happened to me before…" She said, her voice thin and frightened.

Link breathed a short sigh and helped her to a sitting position.

"You fell out of the saddle… You have no idea how glad I am that we stopped... are you alright?" He asked.

Zelda closed her eyes for a moment, her head ringing loudly with pain. As it subsided, she looked again to Link.

"Yes…" She said softly.

Link regarded her anxiously for a moment, and he sat beside her as she stared into the grass.

"Did… you see something?" He asked.

Zelda drew a deep breath as she fully returned to herself and the world became cogent once more.

"I... I saw the the basement of the castle... It was somewhere near the libary, up a flight of stairs. I saw a large door that glowed with a blue light that seemed to pass right through the iron." She said

Link's thoughts flashed to his dream the day before. A sudden certainty overcame him and the two of them looked at each other.

"The sword... that's where it is... the bottom of the castle. That has to be what you saw." He said.

Zelda stood and looked to the north as Link lifted himself beside her.

"If it's in the castle... then...how did..." Zelda paused.

"Tairyn... he must have moved it with the Shadow Book somehow... pedestal and all... We must retrieve the Master Sword. It will be impossible to defend against what is to come without its power." She said.

Link thought for a moment and then looked to Zelda.

"If the sword is in the castle, how are we going to get to it? Is there a back…" Link paused, remembering the river passage that he, Zelda and Roland had passed underneath.

"…That passageway you took us through, under the castle. If we could find a hole in the floor, where would it take us?" He asked.

Zelda searched herself and her eyes went resolutely back to Link.

"There are drains there, in case the pipes should burst or the water overflow. It would lead us into the sewers, I know there must be doors that lead up from there. We could likely find a way into the dungeon and up into the library. It is a few flights of stairs above from there… I shall know it when I see it." She said.

They agreed to take the same path through the rocky passage that Link and Roland had taken into Lanayru the day they had found the roving princess. They sped on, keeping close to one another as they watched carefully for stalking monsters and any vague clue of Khai's whereabouts. Zelda, the pain in her head still lingering, looked across to the afflicted young man at her side. In the two hours or so since they had been riding he had not said a word. He had only looked doggedly ahead, sighing every so often, the memories of the day before crushing him. As they entered the shady passage, Zelda could read the misery on his face as if it were text. She reined Midge closer to Epona and looked across at the boy; the perfect finger prints of bruises peeking out from the white undershirt on his throat had begun to take on a yellow hue, as had his blackened eye and the purpled abrasion along the side of his face. She felt deeply sad for him, he seemed so lost now. She felt a sense of maddening helplessness as she searched for something to say, some way of comforting him. He sensed her eyes and looked back at her, meeting her gaze as they rode beneath concave earth. The roots of trees twisted through the ceiling of the recess above them. Zelda sighed.

"Link… I know that you likely do not wish to talk about what's happened but… I just want you to know that I am here… and that I... I do care... and I am very sorry." She said.

Link dropped his eyes and drew a breath.

"Thank you… that means a lot to me." He said.

He noticed from the corner of his vision that the princess still scanned his countenance, looking grievously at the marks about his face and throat. He let out another sigh and met her gaze again.

"I should probably tell you about that nightmare now… and what I saw in the Water Temple…" He said and Zelda looked attentively to him.

He shuddered at the memory.

"The night we slept next to the river, I had a dream that I was imprisoned for something that I didn't do… and that I was tortured… It was so real, Zelda... it wasn't like the other nightmares I've had up until now. I felt it... like...really felt it. Later on, when I left you to go to the temple, after wandering around in there for hours I finally found a way to open the door that led to the last shard. But when I touched it… the water shard... it was me, Zelda." He said.

They slowed the horses to a soft trot to better hear one another. The girl's brows knitted as Link spoke, a look of consternation on her face.

"What do you mean that the water shard was you?" She asked.

Link felt his hair stiffen at the thought.

"It was my shadow… or something like that... like a negative version of me, but he kept insisting that he was me. He more or less repeated the nightmare I'd had back to me… He was a part of me once. He said something about how what was left of this demon I fought in my first life made him conscious... I think… during that life… when I accepted the sword we're looking for now… I separated myself from him somehow during the years that I was in the prison... I... I think I was afraid that I would end up like the people I saw around me... I didn't want all the anger and betrayal I felt to turn into darkness... because it would've consumed me... so I just removed it… I split myself off from him somehow... That's why I can wield the sword." He said.

Zelda looked heedfully to the boy.

"So… that is why… I felt it the very first time I stood close to you... your soul is different than others. You are incorruptible...That way, you would not be tempted by the power of the Triforce... you could maintain your gentle heart... and be a killer, all at once..." She averted her eyes from his, something like guilt tightening in her chest.

"It's... really rather unfair… " Said Zelda, her voice compassionate as she again met the eyes of the youth beside her.

Link's mind wandered to the dream. Thinking now of the pale-haired Zelda who had sealed herself in amber, he turned his eyes to the stony road.

"Zelda… Does the name Hylia mean anything to you?" He asked.

Zelda tilted her head.

"The lake?" She asked.

Link gently shook his head.

"No, an ancient Goddess." He said.

Zelda sighed and searched herself.

"Perhaps. Why do you ask?" She replied.

Link glanced back to her.

"I was just wondering if you've ever heard of her."He said.

Zelda shifted in her saddle.

"The oldest writings of the Sheikah people briefly mention a fourth Goddess that Din, Nayru and Farore created to watch over the Hylian people, the White Goddess... but I have never heard of her by that name. It is possible that she is just a myth from the tribal times of our realm..." She said, and she noticed now Link staring pensively at her.

She really doesn't know... We're the same every time, right? If that Zelda was Hylia's incarnation, then so is this one... she has to have seen something.

Zelda raised her eyebrow.

"What? Is there something you wish to tell me?" She asked.

Link dropped her gaze and shook his head, conflicted.

"No… The other me mentioned her, so did Queen Oona. I think she's the one that created the sword... and chose me to use it…" He said.

Zelda uttered a frazzled laugh.

"After all that I have seen, I would believe anything is possible. I would have some choice words for her, should she be able to hear them." She said

Link grinned wanly.

"Yeah…" He said.

The two of them continued on in contemplative silence as they neared the river passage. As they entered the cave, Zelda with a movement of her two fingers, gently summoned the box of matches from the saddle bag behind. They floated into her outstretched hand and she struck one to light the wick of the lantern tethered to Midges's saddle. The boy uttered a small noise of amazement and they each smiled in spite of themselves.

"I don't think that I'll ever get used to you being able to do that..." Said Link.

They looked across to one another as the sunlight grew dimmer behind them.

"It is not unheard of. Many of my grandmothers had been able to call forth this same ability… though… I am beginning to suspect now that I was my grandmothers…" She said.

Link and Zelda laughed stiffly in the dark. They rode in quiet for a time as they traveled on, though the river cave that would take them beneath the palace.

The two stood in the subterranean blackness now, the sound of the rushing water nearly deafening off of the walls of the cave. Above them was the crumbling floor of the Hyrulean castle. Zelda and Link slipped off of their saddles and stared up, searching the cracking mortar and the sides of the cave for the drains Zelda had spoken of earlier. Finally, mostly submerged in the swiftly moving river, Link spied a grating leading back into a stone aperture. To his dismay it was caged with iron bars that looked, from where he stood, too close together for him to squeeze himself through. He held the lantern aloft and pointed down into the water.

"Is that one of the drains?" He asked.

Zelda moved to his side, looking down into the dimly lit stream.

"It is." She said and Link shifted his weight uncertainly beside her.

"…I don't think I can get through there. If I took the shield, the mail and all the rest of it off there's a chance, but I don't think my shoulders will fit." He said.

Zelda rested her chin against her knuckles, after a moment's thought she raised her eyes to Link.

"The bars can be lifted, If I can get in, there is a lever somewhere that opens them. Link, do you still have the mask Rutolla gave you?" She asked.

Link nodded as he turned to Epona and pulled the strange, fleshy wrap from her saddle bag. He handed it uncertainly to Zelda.

"Are you sure you can make it through there? The bars are tight and the current's pretty strong. I don't feel all that great about you going into the castle by yourself either."

Zelda laughed a bit louder than she had meant to, the sound ringing through the cavern.

"I think I have more than proven myself capable." She said.

Link stepped closer to her and held the lamp so that it illuminated both of their faces.

"You have, that doesn't mean I'm okay with you going into a demon infested castle alone."

Zelda smiled.

"I assure you, I will be fine."

She wrapped the mask around her face and met his eyes in the lamplight.

"Please keep the lantern on the spot, I shall be back shortly." She said, her voice muffled by the Zora mask about her mouth.

She handed Link her cloak and took a few paces downriver, then she dove into water as he sat on the river's edge, the flame of the lamp turned up high and bright. Link watched her form glide under the river water, her yellow hair swept about by the current. Zelda gripped on to the bars as the river pulled her to the side, the faint orange light of the lamp glimmering above the wavy surface. She paused there, holding herself against the water as she slowly took a breath and became used to the concept of respiring in such a place. The princess very carefully then contorted her way through the bars, her lithe frame giving only minor trouble as she bent herself around the iron. She swam upwards through the shaft in utter blackness as she felt along its walls. She came to a sharp, horizontal bend in the drain. Zelda quickly passed through it and she could see above her now a dim light. She propelled herself toward it. Finally, Zelda surfaced and stretched her arm up to push back the rusted screen. She pulled herself over the lip of thick grey blocks and into the sewers of her home. The light was faint and blue here, lit by refracted sunlight through a system of mirrors about the walls and ceiling. The sound of running water was deafening as she made her way through the multitudes of stone archways that made up the castle drains, rats scurrying quickly back into the shadows as she passed. She could feel the seething of something vile everywhere around her. It was, to her astral self, as the terrible stench of the sewers was to her physical senses and the foul energy pervaded everything. She found herself choking on it, struggling to breathe as a knot twisted in her chest at its presence. She calmed herself and attempted to focus instead, on a shield around her spirit. She found that this eased the intensity of the climate and she carried on, walking along the furrows of drains in search of the lever. At last she found it, near a door she was certain led to the upstairs. She kicked herself up the side of the wall and pulled the lever down. She froze as she heard a loud thud echo through the vast room and watched as a flood of water rushed through the stone channels. She sighed.

Well, the bars will surely be lifted now. I only hope Link is a strong swimmer…

Zelda hopped down into the cold, waist-high water. She waded her way back through to the drain she had entered from as the torrent began to slow. She wrapped the mask again around her face and slid headfirst into the tunnel, allowing the slight current to take her back to the river. She surfaced at its bank a few yards away from Link who stood now with the lantern. She pulled herself up on to the road, long strands of drenched hair falling in coils on the white brick. She stood, pulling the mask from her face and catching her breath as she made her way quickly to the light and the boy beside.

"I heard something open in there, did you get the bars up?" He asked.

Zelda nodded, pulling her wet and heavy hair behind her shoulders. She looked to Link, examining his garb.

"Are you sure that you will be able to swim with all the weight you carry?" She asked.

Link shrugged and offered her a tense grin.

"I think so, it's not the easiest thing but I did it under the lake… and I don't have much of a choice. I'll be fine, I can swim."

Zelda eyed him and unwound the mask from around her neck. She offered it to Link.

"Please, take this. I do not need it. I'm lighter than you and I know where I am going." She said.

Link handed the princess the cloak as he shook his head.

"Just keep it, I feel better knowing that you have it. If need be, we'll share." He said.

Zelda sighed.

"Stay close to me then. It is a short swim but there is a slight bend in the pipe and it is pitch dark inside. I will go ahead and wait in the mouth of the drain. I'll catch you as you dive." She said as she folded the cloak, placing it in Midge's saddle bag.

They walked together downstream, leaving the lantern and the horses beside the river. Link watched as the princess took a running dive into the water, stroking quickly to the other side of the cave and down into the dark. He stood for a moment, steadying himself and breathing deep. He felt himself calm, and then he dove for the drain near the river bottom. The current took him as he swam downward, faintly seeing the darkly suited, white and gold Zelda as she reached now and caught his arm. She pulled him roughly into the opening and they swam together into what looked like ink. The darkness was profound as Link, his hand in Zelda's, swam along the wall. As they found their way to bend, the current becoming suddenly more forceful, Zelda's fingers slipped from his and he was alone for a moment there, swimming in the dark. He panicked briefly and he pulled himself along the now horizontal wall. His lungs were starting to burn. As he swam hurriedly against the stone he felt a hand grab his sword belt at his shoulder and begin to pull him through the tunnel. At last he could see faint light above him as the two of them surfaced. When they emerged into the flooded sewer, Link drew a deep, intensely satisfying breath as he got to his knees at the lip of the drain. He stood in cold, white, knee-high water and regarded the dimly light room. Link, as Zelda had, sensed a powerful amount of evil here.

"Zelda... This place..." He began, his voice echoing against the flowing water and the curved ceiling.

The princess nodded.

"I know… I am nearly sick with it."

She motioned to him to follow and led him through the stone trough to the door. They climbed up over the wall and cautiously they proceeded through the rusty entrance and up a cracked stone stairwell.

After a short climb through stairs and hallways, they found themselves now at a hatch in the floor of the room above them.

"This is the entrance to the dungeon I think." Said Zelda, as she stepped up onto the iron rung of a ladder driven into the stone.

She climbed up and pushed the braced wooden door open. As she passed through it, she suddenly felt searing heat rip across her arm and she fell backwards from the ladder. The bright and awakened glass eyes of two Beamos fixed on her from the floor above. Link caught her clumsily as she fell and watched as the red beam of blistering heat continued for over a minute at the edge of the hatch. Zelda inhaled sharply and looked to the now burned sleeve.

"There are two Beamos up there on the wall facing the door. They are mechanical and they will not sound an alarm, but they react to motion. I should have expected that this door would have a guard of some kind… I feel like such an imbecile!" Said Zelda, clutching her burned shoulder.

Link brushed her hand away and looked at the wound. It was beginning to blister but it was nothing substantial. He looked back to her.

"How do we get rid of them?" He asked.

Zelda looked crossly at the fire lit opening.

"They have a magically endowed glass eye at the top, it is where the beam comes from. If you can break the eye, it will dismantle the machine." She said, sliding the bow from her chest.

She then angrily strode back to the ladder, an arrow readied as she climbed. She quickly rolled up over the wall and Link could hear the whirring of the beams as the unseen creatures focused their rays upon the girl. He hurriedly climbed the ladder behind her, his shield in his hand as he sprang through the floor. The second Beamos sensed him instantly and focused its incandescent eye upon him as Zelda destroyed the glass in the first stone totem with a small pop. The beam of heat, coloring the room a neon red, refracted off of Link's shield and stuck the Beamos at its base. The machine sat stunned for a moment and as its innards began to whirr again, Link dashed forward and drove the sword into the eye of the stone guard. The room became quiet as the two of them regarded the torch lit atrium of the castle dungeon. Zelda hung the bow back over her chest as she drew her rapier, her eyes flitting warily about the place. At the end of a block of empty cells there lay a door, fashioned like the ones Zelda was so familiar with from the upper wings of the castle. She started toward it

"Come, the library is on the next floor." She said, and they hurried through the door and up the stairs behind it.

The library was utterly enormous, Link thought now, as he walked into the vast room darkly lit with abounding lacy, wrought iron oil lamps built into the walls. He stared in awe at the vaulted, beautifully constructed ceiling. Decorously carved buttresses crossed one another in a rounding, quilted pattern. The tall, innumerous shelves of books inlaid with silver stood with pleasingly carved dark-wood tables between. It seemed to go on for miles and despite the black aura that the boy and the princess had felt upon their entrance, it seemed somehow less here. Link watched Zelda become absently at ease as she sheathed her sword and wandered now through the rows of books. This place was her's somehow, she must have spent a great deal of time here. He could feel her presence echo throughout it. He followed as she leisurely made her way through the shelves. He felt the stifling weight on his heart ease if only a little as he watched the contented smile pull her lips. She was home.

"I have always loved this library… it has been my sanctum since I can remember." She said softly, as she started in the direction of some smaller, older looking shelving further towards the back.

As Link trailed behind her, their footsteps shuffling against the cobblestone floor, he noticed on the wall beside him a well painted portrait hung with a coat of arms below it. The boy stopped to regard it. The woman in the painting sat in a brocaded chair with sumptuous curtains draped behind her, a map spread over the small table beside her and a sword leaning against her knee; her fingers lightly at its hilt. Her hair was a starry, pale blonde, her blue-violet eyes alight with wisdom and mirth. Mounted on the wall beneath the portrait was an elaborate blue and gold scabbard.

Zelda leaned her chin over Link's shoulder as she stood behind him.

"Boo." She said.

He jumped a slight and turned to her.

"That's how you get stabbed, Zelda..." He said.

She laughed and pushed him gently. Both turned again to look at the portrait.

"That is a painting of my great, great, grandmother. That portrait is over three hundred years old." She said.

Link looked fixedly at her as she stepped to his side.

"The resemblance is uncanny…" He said, looking back to the painting.

He heard Zelda clear her throat softly beside him.

"It is eerie isn't it? It used to scare me when I was younger... though I could never figure out why… I felt as if her eyes always followed me when I was down here." She said.

Link cocked his head.

"She's... you, Zelda…" Said the boy, looking again to the princess beside him.

She smiled a tense and wistful smile.

"Yes… I think you are right." She said.

Zelda led Link past the portrait and to the old shelves on the left of it. Muttering to herself, she quickly searched the spines of flaking, antediluvian leather bound manuscripts until she found two books. One was of ancient Sheikah folktales and legends, and the other a thick holy text; a book on the Gods and the Triforce as well as the members of the royal family who had served as its guardians.

"These books should provide us with at least some answers. Though, we will have to decide for ourselves what is fact." She said.

Link nodded, looking at the decrepit gray and brown collection of pages in her arms. He thought for a moment of how natural she seemed now and he imagined what she must have looked like in the days before he had met her; wrapped in velvet or satin, her hair like golden silk against her back, delicately turning pages beneath her castle in this place of shadowy beauty, brightened by hers. He felt his nerves bristle in his chest as their eyes met.

"I think we know enough about who we were now that we can sort it out easily enough… if not then it'll come... eventually." He said.

Zelda's eyes lingered for a moment on his and then went back to her books.

"Yes… I suppose it will..." Said Zelda.

Link watched the girl become visibly tense with the idea and he felt a deep sense of sympathy for the princess. Part of him clamored to tell her of the dream, though he reasoned that now was not the time. As he thought, he found that he was unsure if he could bring himself to speak of it. Some distant and unfulfilled part of him wanted her able to remain Zelda, if only for a while longer. The knowledge of the role she'd had in his fate would grieve her, he knew that much for sure.

"Hey..." Link gently touched the princess's arm

"We have each other. You're not alone... and neither am I." He said.

His words brought her some degree of comfort and the two wordlessly regarded one another for a time in the strange and sacred silence of the library. Then, looking down to the books in her arms, Zelda traced a rune into the dust of each cover. She muttered something in Sheikah and the runes began to glow with a dim, yellow light that spread into a protective barrier around around the tomes. Link watched with wide eyes, his jaw hanging open a slight as he met Zelda's eyes. She smiled.

"For later." She said.

The two gazed at each other for a few moments more and then, seeming to shake herself, the princess pointed over Link's shoulder to an arched hallway at the far end of the room.

"That is where we must go. That is the hallway... the one the vision showed me." She said, her voice becoming unsteady.

Link looked to the place to which she pointed and the back to her.

"Zelda, that's a wall...unless..." Before he had finished his sentence, the girl was already at the stone face of the wall.

She put her arm through it and looked back at him.

"It's another glamouring spell... a poorly executed one at that." She said.

The boy sighed and followed her through the wall.

The two of them made their way through a tall, stone archway. It led first to a flight of stairs and then to a large doorway, leading to the lower wing of the castle. Cautiously, Link cracked the door open, his sword and shield at the ready after the incident with the Beamos. To his relief he found nothing and he pushed the door open with his back as he and Zelda passed through. Link realized now that they walked through an exquisitely adorned though entirely neglected hallway. Even through the dust, the floor was richly tiled and he thought hazily to the night he and the princess had passed a dozen or so halls like this one, blurring as they had ran for their lives. He and Zelda stopped abruptly outside of the huge iron door at the end. Link could sense something divine behind it. Something also, he now felt, belonged inexplicably to him. He laid his hand upon the door.

"It's in there… isn't it?" He asked, his voice hardly above a whisper.

Zelda stood beside him, unnerved a bit as she stood now beside the boy. The ghost in her mind had forced her in front of this very door early that morning. The details of it were exactly as she had seen them. She had never physically beheld it before. In truth, she had never been to this part of the castle, this room was strange to her.

"Yes, this is the place... Do you feel it? I suppose it is likely calling to you." She said.

Link nodded, his eyes not leaving the door. He moved to pull it open but found now that it was shut fast, and locked. He sighed and turned to Zelda.

"I don't suppose you know where we could find the key?" He asked, frustration in his voice.

Zelda shook her head as she brushed past him and knelt next to the door.

"I don't think that we will need one…" She said, her eyes clouding over as she began to focus.

She reached unearthly fingers into the lock, finding its tumbler and with a movement of her hand, she pulled the catch apart. Link heard a thud and stepped forward as Zelda pushed the heavy door open and turned to Link with a self-satisfied grin set about her face. He smiled and uttered a tired laugh, thinking now of the Water Temple and its barrage of locked underwater doors and keys. They stepped lightly into the cavernous room. Tall, angular stained glass windows depicting the Sages illuminated the floor with the first daylight the travelers had seen in hours, two enormous statues, carved to resemble ancient knights, lay grafted into the stone walls beside them. Zelda now cast her eyes about the room in wonder at how she had never known of a room so large in the bowels of the palace. She laid her books near the door.

This must be the old temple…

She thought, suddenly feeling the spirit of some great sorrow lingering upon the room.

There, up a short flight of steps, they looked upon it standing straight from the stone pedestal that held it. The sword of swords. Link felt pulled to it as if by invisible stings as he began to slowly cross the room, an intense light seeming to filter through his frame like the colorful glass above him. He and the princess stopped short. Suddenly, they felt a great rumbling tremor jolt the room as the eyes of the two enormous stone warriors began to glow. They ripped themselves from the walls in a cloud of dust. They stood for a moment, their mechanical nerves firing with an ancient guardian spell. With automated recognition, the towering sentinels started now towards the intruders they sensed.

"Gaurdians!" Exclaimed Zelda, her voice exasperated as she notched her bow.

The stone giants shambled forward and began to fling hard, unfeeling fists toward Link and the princess. The teenagers ran frenziedly about the room, as Link evaded another crushing fist and skidded back to his feet he called to Zelda.

"How many of these things does your family have?!" He yelled.

Zelda ran through the legs of the warrior as it grabbed blindly for her.

"Many! Though none so large as…" She was cut off then as the tip of the beings finger caught her in the side, slamming her into the wall behind.

"Zelda!" Link cried frantically, and both giants now ambled with outstretched hands toward him.

Zelda, groaning and finding it now excruciating to breath, looked up to regard in a panic the two giants moving in upon the boy. She noticed then, the open gears whirling in the warrior's back. Shakily, she got to her feet and began to launch arrows at the open machinery. The sentinel shuddered and turned toward her again, its movements jerking and unsteady as the cogs within it chewed the numerous arrows.

"Link! The gears! They have gears in their backs! That is how they move!" She called.

Link, dashing through the beings legs cast his eyes up and saw the spinning clockwork within the back of the warrior as Zelda had said. He threw his shield to the ground with a clatter and began to climb the carved and bracketed giant. It had just enough ledge in its facade for the boy to cling onto. He scrambled up its leg as it shook and slapped at him. The other sentinel, its eyes glowing brightly, turned from Zelda and began striding slowly toward Link and the other stone warrior. Link held tight to the grooves upon the giant's back. Praying that he would not break Roland's sword, he thrust it forth. The gears shredded themselves against Dioghaltus with a sparking clack and at length they whirred to a stop. The sentinel stumbled forward as Link climbed quickly up its shoulder and flung himself onto the grasping arm of the other giant. It shook itself as Link gripped onto its carved features with all his strength. Avoiding the crushing blows of its huge, stone hand the boy hurried around to its back and fiercely stabbed out the gears that moved it. The second giant crumpled as Link fell with it to the floor, bashing his head into stone and jarring his elbow beside the great pile of felled granite. He lay there for a moment, dazed as the room became silent again. He rolled his head to the side and looked up to regard Zelda standing over him, panting and holding her injured ribs. She helped him to his feet.

"Are you alright?" She asked breathlessly.

Link nodded, dizzy and his head ringing.

"You?"

Zelda drew a painful breath.

"I think I've cracked a rib, but I shall live." She said

The two of them then turned again to the mythic blade at the end of the room. A lull passed, and then Zelda placed a hand between Link's shoulders and gently pushed him forward. He looked back at her, and she smiled reassuringly.

"Go, Link… Claim the sword." She said.

She lingered back as she watched the boy slowly walk up the flight of stairs, his every step echoing through the chamber as the world seemed to pause. He felt an overwhelming torrent of nameless familiarity wash over him. How many times had he stood this way, before this blade?

I wonder if I really ever had a choice to begin with…even that first night… I would've never said no to her. I would've never just gone home afterward… Wouldn't have or couldn't? I made the choice once… but then I broke a piece of myself off and that part of me was filled with so much hate and resentment that it was half alive, wandering around the earth. There are certain things I can't be… I feel like I've been used… and part of me feels like I should be angry but I'm not… I guess just don't understand it … I might die at seventeen going on ten thousand and still not understand it… then come back forgetting everything to do it all again… Why was it me she chose? Why not someone stronger or smarter? Am I doing this because I'm a pawn in some kind of game... or am I doing this out of love, because this is my home? In my heart... I guess I already know the answer… because… if I'm really the only one who can do this... the only one who can wield this sword… if I'm this land's guardian… then that's it. I'll defend Hyrule... and the Triforce... forever I suppose…

He took a breath. Firmly, his pulse quickening, he gripped the hilt in his hands. At first it felt as if the blade and its pedestal were one solid object, unable ever to be separate. But as the warmth of his fingers absorbed into the leather of the hilt, the sword shifted. Link, as time seemed to stop around him, lifted the holy blade from its resting place and held it aloft. A surge of unutterable completeness filled him.

Master…Link… my master…

Said a ghostly, mechanized whisper from somewhere deep within the rush that enveloped him. It was undeniably familiar. He turned to Zelda, now at the base of the steps. The blade felt like an extension of his arm as he gripped it.

"Come, Link… Her scabbard lies beneath the portrait in the library." Said the princess.

The two of them stepped around the crumbled remains of the warriors and exited the room to retrieve the scabbard, then quickly leave the palace to its swelling darkness.

It was dark and pouring now, the bright violet lightening spider-webbing across the sky every so often as thunder boomed behind it. After riding only a few miles, upon seeing the black storm clouds on the horizon, Link and Zelda had ducked into yet another one of the many caves in the Lanayru province burrowed into the walls of rock. After the harrowing events within the castle, both of them had resigned to pass what remained of the day there. They watched the storm together as their soaking-wet clothing hung near the small fire that Link had procured, sitting in their still very damp underclothes. It was quiet then, the only sounds being that of the storm and the crackle of the burning wood. Zelda shifted uncomfortably where she sat, and Link turned his head toward her, noticing the glisten of sweat across her brow.

"Does it hurt?" He asked softly.

Zelda looked up at him.

"I am alright, it is nothing to trouble yourself with." She said.

The boy moved himself a slight closer to her. He smoothed his hair back against his head, wanting to be sure the break was not serious but unsure if he would be making her uncomfortable in doing so.

"...Can I see it?" He asked finally.

Zelda's eyes flitted to the ground and she nodded. Carefully, she laid herself backward beside him, grimacing as she moved. Link turned himself to face her. Very carefully, he lifted the dingy, white linen up against her side. He felt a light blush break out across his cheeks. He couldn't help but notice the softness of her skin against his finger tips as he brushed her fractured bone. Their eyes met for a moment before the boy quickly snapped his own down again to the blue and black wound at her side. Zelda shivered, wincing a little at the tenderness of the swollen muscle. Though, the boy's hands were incredibly gentle and she watched him attentively as he looked her over. He cleared his throat.

"It's not too bad... It's sticking up a little but it should heal just fine." He said, quickly smoothing the undershirt back into place.

Zelda smiled, her face a slight paler than usual.

"Well, I suppose that is good news... I thought perhaps there were more, judging by the pain of it."

Link weakly returned her expression and rose, moving to sit down at the mouth of the cave; watching the storm. He spoke to her over his shoulder.

"No, just one. I know it hurts, I've had broken ribs before. The best thing you can do is just lie down and let it heal..." He said, drawing his knees to his chest and laying his head against his folded arms.

With a small groan, Zelda rolled herself onto her other side. She watched Link's shoulders rise with a long sigh as he stared off into the field. He sat there in silence for a time, watching the rain in a foggy, silver sheet outside. Looking to his side, to where he had set his things, Link reached over and picked the sword up. He held it before him, examining the scabbard before he unsheathed the blade with a soft ring. He stared at the blue, mirror-like steel for a time. Its weight balanced perfectly in his hand. It was almost unnatural in its perfection, looking nearly as if it were brand new in spite of the vast ancientness of it. As the boy looked on at it he began to feel something like an aura, vaguely remembering that he thought it had spoken in the temple.

"... It feels like it's alive." Said Link softly.

Zelda carefully drew herself up, sitting now behind her friend as she watched him turn the blade over in his hand.

"Yes... she commands a presence doesn't she?"

Link nodded, and then gently sheathed the sword once more, wondering now what Roland would have said. He set the blade and her scabbard at his side and drew back into himself as grief ground into him again. Nothing would be the same. Even if he did see his home again, his life could never be as it was. As he watched the storm on the darkening horizon, he could think of nothing else but burned buildings and faces he would never see again. He heard Zelda move from behind, and felt her sit down beside him. She moved herself closer, they nearly touched. Link could feel the warmth of her on his side. Saying nothing, she let her head fall against his shoulder. Zelda looked out into the storm outside. There was nothing she could do for him, and so she simply sat beside him. Link was silent, the warmth and the weight of her comforted him to a degree. He felt the princess sigh as she sat up again.

"... I know that you are grieving... I am as well... though, I wish I had something to say that would ease your pain."Said Zelda.

The boy rolled his head toward her for a moment.

"...It's okay, Zelda..." He said.

The two of them sat that way together for a few moments before Zelda glanced up at Link, still staring out into the darkening field, his eyes soft and contemplative. She swallowed.

"... Link... I want to thank you..."

He uncurled himself and turned toward her.

"For what?" He asked.

She laughed sweetly, layering his hand with hers

"For being you, I suppose...You are of the very few people I have ever known that has treated me as something other than what I am... like I am simply a human... like I'm not an extension of my father... I don't feel separated, sitting here with you... because you're my friend... possibly the only true friend I've ever had." She stopped, feeling suddenly rather awkward.

She slowly pulled her hand away.

"... I... am sorry... I did not mean to say so much... I sound stupid." She sighed.

The boy smiled and gently bumped her shoulder with the side of his head.

"You don't...But, it's alright... I like it when you talk."

She chewed her lip as she turned back toward the storm.

"Do you?" She said. It sounded rhetorical, as if to assure herself as she looked out into the rain.

The boy nodded.

"Mmhm..."

The sat in silence for a moment before Zelda gently poked him in the arm. Link looked to her again.

"Does talking about things make you feel better?" She asked.

Link shrugged weakly.

"... I guess... it kind of reminds me that the world is still solid... everything seems so surreal... like it's not really happening. I don't know... I tend to go quiet when bad things happen."

He sighed, his eyes shifting down to the tiny, white hand scraped and dirty that lay atop her knee.

"I'm really glad you're here though... I don't know what I would do without you right now." He said softly.

Zelda smiled.

"I'm happy to be here."

They were quiet, each watching the sky darken, thunder echoing across the field. The princess turned her head to the boy at her side.

"Link... May I ask you something?"

He met her gaze, stretching his legs out in front to him as he leaned back onto his palms.

"Sure, anything."

"Do you think that... when all of this is over, you and I... could go back to the lake together sometime?" Said Zelda, looking back into the rain.

Link lowered himself onto his elbows.

"You know the answer to that question, princess." He said.

The girl looked back at him in silence, her eyes bright and searching. He smiled warmly up at her.

"...Of course we will, Zelda." He reassured her.

With a weary look of contentment, the princess regarded the boy for a moment as the last of the light disappeared from the horizon. An unpleasant realization gripped him as he looked up at her, her eyes lucid and trusting. He could tell her now, of the vision he had seen. Though he found as he watched her sitting beside him, a girlish smile on her face, her innocence endearing, that his resolve failed him. They were silent for a long time, then he stood to arrange their bedrolls in the flickering light of the fire as the day called itself to a close. Link reclined back onto his palate as he watched another streak of summer lightening illuminate the sky. He rested his head against the backs of his arms; his somber thoughts phantom like as the storm raged outside. He was pulled from them suddenly as he watched Zelda, groaning as she lay, rest her head and shoulders against him. She opened the Sheikah text and began to read as Link stared down at her. After a moment, the princess glanced back at him.

"What? I am tired of lying on the ground. You are unbelievably sinewy but you are much better than a rock to prop myself against... You're warm as well..." She said, feeling the gentle rise and fall of his chest behind her.

A moment passed, and Zelda shifted as Link continued to look for a moment in her direction. She paused, sliding her thumb into the page and looked back to him.

"Do you want me to move? I was only joking…" She said.

Link shook his head with shy smile, and he turned his tired eyes again to watch the storm batter the field outside.

Tairyn swept through the quiet, candle lit hallways of the palace that evening. Through the open windows he could smell the coming storm. As he made his way up the stairs, two soldiers approached him from below. Tairyn turned, and both knights knelt before him.

"My lord, we've received word that the villages to the south have been ravaged by hordes of Bulblin." Said the knight on the left.

Tairyn feigned a gasp.

"Dear Gods..." He said.

"There are so many creatures in the fields now, my lord, more than I have ever seen. We are losing men. Good men." Said the knight on the right.

"Any word of the princess?" Tairyn asked.

"No my lord, no sign." Said the knight to the left as they both rose to standing.

Tairyn nodded thoughtfully.

"Keep serching. We must find her at all costs...the king is deathly ill, I'm afraid. Return to your duties." Said Tairyn, with a wave of his hand.

The two knights nodded and Tairyn turned again to climb the staircase. This wing of the castle had been abandoned for some time now. Lit only dimly by candle light as he pulled open the great, ornate doors of the throne room. He stepped inside, his footsteps echoing loudly on the marble floor. The room which had once been a sight of such revelry and flurry was now silent, lit only by the dim light through the windows. Tairyn smirked as he ascended the steps to the throne. He looked on at it for a moment, touching lightly the well carved dark wood of its arms. With a small chuckle, he sat down, gazing out across the darkening throne room.

I could get used to this...

He thought of the two soldiers. Neither of them suspected a thing, in fact no one did.

Idiots... the longer they search for her, the more loyalists die. Weather they find her, or the Bulblin do, I win. Perhaps now that the forest village has been burnt, the boy will be angry and stupid enough to come here. The princess is still with him, I have no doubt. They will show themselves soon. I have seen to it...If not the hope of revenge, the sword will be enough to lure them here. I just need them all together for a few moments...a few seconds.

It was he who had sent the Bulblin on Ofaria. In the night, he had shown them the face of their long lost king. With a hissing decree from the demon, they had shrieked with excitement at the prospect of burning, killing and pillaging. When the boy and the princess appeared at last, Tairyn would use a spell from the Shadow Book that would reach into the souls of the barers and rip the holy triangles from them. He would at long last recombine the broken Triforce. He could take it for himself then. The demon could be used for that end as long as this charade of loyalty was kept up. He stood, tittering again, the sound echoed loudly through the empty hall. As the sky darkened he remembered that it was time to feed his pet and so he set out for the kitchens below for meat and wine.

Tairyn gave a soft knock on the door, as he always did before he slipped inside. Beside the window sat the hulking and nearly unrecognizable figure of what was once King Daphnes.

"My lord." He said, gesturing with a platter of nearly raw meat.

The figured lowered its hood, and Tairyn tried not to visibly wince at the sight of him.

"The table, Sheikah." He croaked.

Tairyn moved to set the meat on the table and poured a glass of wine for the loathsome creature. In the time since Tairyn had first began the process that would transfuse the vile soul of the desert sorcerer into Daphnes's body, the king had nearly tripled in size. His skin had split along his back, calves and biceps into diamond-shaped wounds that had miraculously produced new flesh as they healed. His once snow-white hair and beard had fallen out and now patches of deep crimson replaced them, his skin dark and leathery. His face had contorted into features that no longer held any resemblance to his former self. The beast that had overtaken Daphnes had proved a truly terrible lord. Though, Tairyn reasoned that his time of service would soon be over. He tried not to gag as the demon tore at the meat with his teeth and hands, guzzling the wine and thrusting the glass forth for more. He obliged, and that was when he noticed the Shadow Book laying in the window sill. His eyes widened a slight.

"I see you have been reading my book." Said Tairyn.

"Your taste in literature is better than your taste in virtue, Sheikah." Said the demon between swallows of meat.

"I did not know you could read my language." Tairyn said, masking the anxiety in his voice.

The figure laughed in return.

"I speak many languages, Sheikah."

He finished his meal and then rose, blotting out the light from the window and towering above the mage.

"What of the forest village?" He asked.

"Ashes, as you have commanded." Said Tairyn with a slight bow.

"Excellent, I..."

The king stopped short as his head snapped to the floor. He could feel an abhorred presence in the lower chambers of the palace. Suddenly a blinding white heat filled his senses as the blade that had he had come to loathe with such ferocity awakened once again. He roared in psychic pain as he turned lividly to Tairyn, who trembled at his wrath. The king gripped his robes and hoisted him into the air.

"I ordered you to destroy that blade!" The Dark King thundered.

Tairyn, full of panic, searched frantically for words.

"It… the blade cannot be destroyed my lord. It is protected by holy power, it cannot be destroyed." He said, and the Dark King threw him to the ground.

Tairyn got to his knees, his eyes wide as he regarded his raging king.

"We ...The Sheikah have never known that kind of power... I… I attempted to guard the blade with a a spell that…" Tairyn was sharply cut off as the back of the king's balled fist struck his face, knocking him into the wall.

"It does not matter if they know where the sword is or not! If it is still in existence, they will find it! You had it here and still, you failed! You do not even know what she is, nor the boy! Mortals are such weak and forgetful creatures, your own history is buried with you and you are none the wiser. How pathetic... your kind begs to be dominated by your betters." Said the Dark King as he threw the heavy black book down beside the mage.

Tairyn brought himself to his hands and knees, spitting blood and two teeth upon the stone floor. He regarded Ganondorf who paused now, and Tairyn braced for more of his rage.

"My Lord, if they are here I... I can send men after them if you but wish it." He said, the groveling tone of his own voice disgusting him.

"No... They have already gone..." The beast seemed to calm and turned from him.

"He will come soon… Though, it matters not, I will have what I desire in the end." He said, and he settled again in the chair near the window, staring with milk white eyes out into the beginning storm.