Out across the sunlit fields of Lanayru, Link and Zelda had decided to spend the next few days at rest within the cave, due in part to the injury Zelda had sustained in the fight with the stone warriors. Though, the soreness in the hearts of both the boy and the princess demanded time to mend a little as well. For days, the two resided in the safe shadow of the cave. They talked quietly together then, of home, their favorite things and places. Titles seemingly stripped, however briefly; the hilt of the holy sword glinting in the dim light. Zelda had read poetry to the boy from the ancient books, translating the words from the dusty ink after she had recited them perfectly in the musical old tongue. Link had sat beside her, listening with a sleepy little grin hanging on the corners of his lips. She had timidly asked him for stories of his makeshift family and his forest which he obliged her in a wistful, soft-spoken tone. He told her of the time that Khai had accidently pushed him out of a tree fort, breaking two of his ribs. He had felt so guilty that he had practically been Link's live-in nurse for nearly two months when they were twelve and fifteen. He told her of how he and Mariana had pierced their ears with a barn nail she had disinfected in a candle flame, of how Rue had begged them to pierce hers. The princess listened with delight. She sang to him from time to time; sad, beautiful songs, songs in languages he'd never heard. He cooked her dinner. The days passed lazily. He would make her laugh every so often, in spite of her aching ribs, and he would feel something like a light flicker within him. The cold fingers of grief would loosen their grip if only slightly.
On the third day, Zelda had woke some time after Link, and the boy had busied himself throughout most of the morning collecting wood for the fire pit. He had been a slight less melancholy that day. Now as the sun began to sink again into the west, Zelda lay on her back as she finished the book she had taken from the library. Link had borrowed her bow shortly after they had eaten the last meager remnants of the provisions Yolandea had sent along and gone riding into the trees to hunt, and to clear his head. Zelda sighed as another pang of hunger rippled through her and painfully pulled herself to a sitting position. She stared blankly out into the field for a time, mulling over some of the strange and rather conflicting stories she had read within the Sheikah text. She turned her attention then to the holy book, lightly tracing the golden seal stamped into the gray leather. She gently opened the cover and skimmed the pages, her eyes soaking in the black and white engravings resembling closely the images rendered in stained glass in the temple in the castle. She thumbed curiously through the book of kings, queens and Gods in search of a corresponding self; the Zelda that Link had dreamt of beneath the mountain. Near the beginning of the book, written delicately in ancient Hylian, was the tale of a Queen Zelda from centuries past. Along with the lineage of the queen, her date of birth and death, the names of her husband and children, it told the legend of the forgotton Hero of Time. The boy had healed a world that he would never live in. Using the sacred instrument, Zelda had sent the boy back to his orginal time so that he may regain the seven years stolen from him by the war. In doing this, though her intentions were good, she undid all that the boy had accomplished; erasing his deeds from mortal history.
So...that's what Link saw... I sent him back to a world that would not remember him...
Zelda, her chest tight, contiuned to peruse the yellowed pages. The boy had disappeared into the wilderness and in his abscence, a war between the Gerudo and the rest of the realm raged. When the boy returned, he vowed his life to the princess. He became a kight of unmatched skill, freeing territories and weakening the Desert King's hold on the land. Eventually, after being betrayed from within, the Theif King was captured and was held for years awaiting execution as a great prison was built over a temple sacred to the Gerudo. Zelda paused, raising an eyebrow at a passage near the end of the chapter. It told that the Princess Rena, youngest of the royal children, was taken captive by Gerudo soilders. She had been imprisoned somewhere deep in the forest to be held in exchange for the Desert King's release. The knight volunteered himself for the perilous task of finding her. Though the princess returned safely, the knight was never seen again, and no attempt was ever made to recover him. As Zelda scanned the quill marks, the princess could feel the tears of great remorse threatening to come forth. Forcefully, she pushed them back, sealing them behind closed eyes as she heard the sound of hoof beats out in the field. She looked up to regard her friend, trotting toward the cave with the carved and headless remains of a boar along with two pheasants hanging over his saddle. He pulled Epona to a stop and hopped quickly down from her back. He turned to Zelda, his face beaming as he pulled the game down and laid it on the ground. Beside it he sat a satchel filled to the brim with walnuts and raspberries. Zelda swallowed and returned his expression, hoping to hide the churning she now felt in her stomach.
How could I do that to him?
... He has long since forgiven you.
"This should feed us for next few days, I think I'm going to try and dry the pork out overnight but I was going to cook both of the birds so we have breakfast in the morning. Hopefully it won't attract too many animals. I did most of the butchering out in the field." He said, his voice easy and bright.
Zelda took a deep, slightly painful breath as she set the book to the side.
"I am actually famished. I see you've made quite a catch today. I did not know you were such an accomplished hunter, I should have sent you for meat days ago." She said.
Link picked up the stuffed satchel and then sat for a moment down beside her; undoing his sword belt and stretching his stiff arms out behind him, his left shoulder popping loudly. He sighed and languidly offered her a handful of nuts and berries. Zelda took it thankfully as she met his gaze.
"Guess what I found?" He asked.
She turned to him, grimacing a slight.
Link went to Epona, chewing the grass alongside Midge. From his saddle bag he pulled a round object wrapped in cloth. Upon unwrapping it, Zelda could see now that Link held the empty bottle of mead they had taken from the mountains. At the bottom of the bottle, slept a tiny, pink fairy.
Zelda laughed loudly.
"Link, is she drunk?" She asked and the boy laughed as well.
"I think so, there must have been a few drops left in there. I found a creek and I was going to use the bottle for extra water but I found her sleeping in there when I came back for it. I guess there was no point in covering the top with cloth, she didn't even wake up on the ride back." The boy laughed again.
Link lightly tapped on the glass near the fairy's head. Instantly the tiny being shot awake, her glow so bright you could barely make out her features. She flitted to the opening of the bottle so quickly that Link barely had time to put his hand over the top. He felt the little creature crash into his palm and could hear her cursing at him with her tiny voice in her fairy language.
"Hey, hey easy. I'm sorry about that. I'll let you out, but I'd like to ask you a favor." He said.
The fairy folded and unfolded her gossamer wings much like a butterfly as she pressed her little hands to the glass.
"Can you heal my friend for me please? She's hurt. I'll even give you a raspberry if you do." Said Link.
The small creature seemed to consider his words and then seemed to agree. Link uncovered the bottle and the fairy flew out. She hovered in the air above the princess like a humming bird. She danced in a circle around the girl, and bit of her glow transferred to Zelda who watched in wonder as the pink light absorbed into her side. She took the deepest breath she had taken in days. The pain was completely gone. She smiled and thanked the little creature. The fairy fluttered over to Link then, her arms crossed and awaiting her payment. From the satchel aside, Link pulled a single raspberry. The fairy quickly snatched it, and off she flew. Link turned to Zelda, smiling wide. The princess leapt to her feet and threw her arms around the boy. He laughed and wrapped his own around her.
"I guess that means it worked."
Later that afternoon, after he'd finished cleaning the birds and butchered the boar Link walked to the small wood pile he had stacked at the side of the cave. He arranged the logs in the pit he'd dug as he spoke to Zelda over his shoulder. His arms were covered in dried blood.
"So, did you find anything interesting in those books while I was gone?" He queried.
Zelda sighed and tried to remember all of the stories she had sifted through, save for one.
"I have found quite a bit, though I am unsure of exactly what is true and what is fictionalized. There are two stories in particular that I think to be substantial: the story of the Four Sword and the Light Force, which I assume may be the Master Sword and the some facet of the Triforce, and the story of the Minish, who are tiny fairy-folk said to have re-forged the sword." She said.
Link looked back over his shoulder to the princess, his brows furrowed.
"The Four Sword?" He asked and Zelda nodded.
"Yes, does that mean something to you? In the story it was written that when the land was very young, a sorcerer called Vaati appeared and broke the blade in two, releasing all of the evil the sword held contained within a chest and turning the princess to stone. The sorcerer sought something the text referred to as the Light Force that dwelt within the princess. It went on the say that the child hero found the kingdom of the Minish and used four elements to heal the blade. Supposedly, then it became the Four Sword which sealed the sorcerer away within it. The second story told of how another hero was fooled into drawing the sword and was then split into four entities, breaking the seal on the sorcerer and allowing him to go free again, though it was discovered later that Vaati was really only a pawn of what the text refers to as the King of Darkness… who was most likely some incarnation of Ganondorf… Most of these stories come from an oral tradition long before the books were written. Quite a bit of the information might be skewed… does any of it sound familiar to you?" She asked.
Link tugged at the hair behind his ear as he thought.
"It's not exactly familiar… though, I used to have a similar dream when I was a kid… I think… I can't really give you an answer. If I try to remember a particular life, it just kind of... blurs… some things come through way more clearly than others." He said, as he moved to fetch some salt and cooking tools from his saddle bag.
Zelda stood and made her way to the fire pit as Link began to salt the meat
"Yes… this is true. Perhaps, the book we seek will have more information… something concrete that will make the rest seem somewhat intelligible. All that I have found so far has only served to further confuse me... So many different names and origins of things I thought to be familiar… Though, I did find something that seemed to be congruent... both with the legend that was told to me... and with the dream you had under the mountain." Said Zelda.
Link looked inquisitively at her, hearing the hint of distress in her voice as he spitted the two pheasants. He moved closer to her and the fire pit, pausing and looking expectantly at the princess as she turned the words over in her mind.
"Will you help me with this?" He asked.
"With what?" Zelda replied, her eyes cloudy with thought.
Link uttered a soft laugh.
"Will you pour some oil on those logs, please?" He requested.
Zelda nodded, and stood as she dumped the yellow liquid from the container beside over the wood.
"There. Now light a match, you silly boy." She said, and Link obliged her.
Link tossed the match onto the logs the fire suddenly swelled upward and the both of them jumped quickly back to avoid being singed. The fire calmed then, and the two broke into anxious laughter.
The pair ate a meal of slightly over-cooked bird while strips of the heavily salted boar meat hung on a makeshift drying rack over the fire as the sun sank below the horizon. As the stars became visible and the sky faded from indigo to black, Link turned to Zelda, staring hazily into the flames.
"Tell me about the story you found. The one you said seemed to fit with everything else." Said Link, quietly.
Zelda tensed. She tilted her head in his direction, watching the fire for a moment before her eyes moved to his.
"To put it into the shortest context that I can, it explains that the deeds of the Hero of Time had to be documented in writing because history would not remember them otherwise. The princess sent the boy back to his own time... from some distant future that would no longer happen. Though, I believe that somehow through the Triforce, Ganondorf and I retained the memories of it..." She said, dropping her gaze from the eyes of the boy beside her. Link noted the odd tone of fretfulness in her voice.
She stopped there seeming to search the fire for her remaining thoughts and they whispered to her in a soft, broken voice. She felt her skin grow damp.
I sent him back because I could not live with myself otherwise... he was only a child... a child in a man's body... he did not know any better... then... he came back to me in spite of everything... and I could not have him...but I could not let him go... and something happened then... something that should not have... he suffered... and he died young... because of me.
Link had been watching the princess throughout her silence. Upon seeing her glazed expression and the light mist of perspiration on her brow, he gently laid a hand on her back.
"Zelda?" He said, softly calling her back, afraid that she would disappear again into her other self.
She shook herself, pulling her mind back from the whispering precipice. She looked up at him, his face aglow in the firelight.
"You still with me?" Asked Link.
Zelda was quiet for a moment as she steadied herself. It was that voice again. What had it meant? What was it that lingered on the edges of her memory?
"Yes...yes, I am fine... I just...I have this foreboding feeling that perhaps when my ancestor… when I… sent you back… among other damages done... there was a kind of time rift created. There may have been another universe set in motion. One without you in it..." She said, her voiced hushed.
Link thought on her words for a moment, glancing into the flames and then back to Zelda at his side.
"If that's true, then what about the Triforce? I still have a piece and so do you. If the flow of time was split, why would the two of us still have pieces of it? Could it copy itself or did it just cease to exist in that universe?" Link paused, resting his chin against his knuckles.
"Does anyone even really know what it's capable of?" He mused.
Zelda shook her head.
"No… I think not. The only ones who would really know would be The Three themselves, or Hylia I suppose… I keep wondering exactly what she has to do with all of this. I have never even heard of her until now. Queen Oona mentioned her to you in particular… The Fairy Queen is one of the oldest entities in the entirety of the world… and the other you…" She trailed off and Link looked back to the fire.
"He said he never forgets anything… He never dies and wakes up a blank slate like we do...he's like a ghost... and he must have been there... if I was... He told me that I took up Hylia's blade. I'm guessing that's the Master Sword… as it was then at least…" He said, knowing eyes wandering once more to the fire lit Zelda.
She sighed again.
"I wonder… do we do this every time? Is every life we live full of these half memories? The Gods seem so cruel when I think of it… Let's hope that there are some answers awaiting us within the Sheikah Temple… We should both get some sleep, we have quite a ride ahead of us tomorrow, and who knows what the temple will hold." Said Zelda.
Link looked to the princess as the two of them slid down onto their palates and pulled their blankets up over themselves. Zelda shifted toward him. Upon seeing the expression on his face, she offered him a wan smile.
"As you said, at least we are together." She said, very softly.
Link weakly returned her smile before he sighed and closed his eyes. Sometime later after Zelda had fallen asleep, Link lay awake for a time, staring into the dying fire. His conscience clawed at him.
I need to tell her… I can't just keep it from her… Tomorrow, when we camp… I'll tell her then.
He closed his eyes, and after a moment more he fell into unconsciousness.
The castle is crumbling; running behind the slim figure of his ruined land's monarch, they flee. He watches in awe as she rips the metal bars from the doorways as they make their way down through the burning tower. Floor after floor they descend, running until they have passed its threshold and they turn to watch the dark palace fold. She hears a strange noise.
Time shifts.
Suddenly he is standing before her again. They are no longer the battle-worn teenagers they would become, but children. Even his scars are gone. She remembers, only as if from a dream, but even so he is not alone. Nor is she, and so she promises to keep him with her always. He tries for a time, but he cannot stay. He knows that he belongs nowhere now, and so he goes in search of a piece of home; a dear friend. The girl weeps as she hands him the instument that shaped his fate.
Time shifts.
He has returned to her from some far away place. He is taller now, wiser, and he has missed her terribly. The Hyrule he returns to is not the one he left.There is war, the Desert Tribe has decended on Hyrule. The forest has been defiled, the city is ash. His shock is overwhelming, and he will never forgive himself for leaving. The princess...
Time shifts.
He finds her later, in the mountians. She has grown into herself though there is a softness now to her face that had been absent in that other time and she is radiant, as always, and only she remembers. He promises never to leave her again. He becomes a knight, more specifically he becomes her knight. He is the best swordsman in his company and all are amazed at his youth and ability unknowing that he has lived twice. The war inevitably ends, though he stays close to the princess. They exchange looks from across marble hallways, looks that are laden with sweet and heavy things.
Time shifts.
She dutifully marries a foreign prince of her father's choosing, and rebuilds her country with his wealth. Still, he is her knight; her shadow, stealing moments with the queen when they are allowed the time. The youngest princess looks nothing like the king, and every look at the child breaks his heart. He keeps his secret and hers. He suffers in silence. At least they are near each other, as ancient things call their hands together.
Time shifts.
He is in strange armor as he lies against the base of a tree, bleeding dark into the leaves. He stares into the towering canopy. He has come to save his last princess, the child with eyes like his. He knows somehow that she is safe, and that there is a deep wound in his side. He is tired, it will not be long. He knows that it is his own fault and he laughs out loud in spite of himself. He finds now that he is glad of it. He has served his purpose, and he has been forgotten by all save one. He is ready to pass through the veil, to rest. The forest whispers its condolences to him. He has come home, this is where he belongs, where he has always belonged. A figure appears from the surrounding greenery. She is small and pale, a childlike wraith in her translucence. Her hair matches the leaves from which she emerges. He knows her, her face wonderfully familiar. She had been dear to him once. He manages a grin as she stands beside him. He tells her that he's missed her. Her smile is sorrowful as she extends her hand.
"Come with me."
He takes her hand. All else is merciful blackness.
Link opened his eyes. Half awake, in the stifling dark he lay nauseated and unsure of whether or not he should sit up. The dream rolled over him in prickly waves, the feelings scrambled though bright as they teetered on the brink of memory. For a moment, flooded with the sorrow of some distant self he felt very near to tears. As he lay there listening to the sound of Zelda's light breathing, accompanied by his own, the dream began to unravel. He found himself grasping for faces and names though the images had left him. All that remained were the muted feelings of so many lifetimes past. He sighed, and let them go. It was now that mattered. Eyes adjusted to the dark, he looked to Zelda asleep in the stillness of the summer night. She was there, he reminded himself, and so he closed his eyes again. The dream faint as a distant star now, he slept.
They awoke that morning a little after sunrise. After a quick breakfast of the remaining bird, they rode out into the oddly chill morning. They sped the horses on briskly, feeling rested for the first time since they had spent the night within the mountain. Mostly, Link and the princess rode abreast of each other talking leisurely over the wind. Occasionally separating, sometimes racing one another through the sweet-scented field. All the while a nagging dread gripped the boy, even as he and the princess laughed together as they rode over the grassy earth, the truth that he had kept from her was leaden in his mind. It saddened him now as he watched her, though he hid it. He wondered if the knowledge of her divine existence would change her, if the memories of that life and that consciousness would be too much for her to bear. What had she already seen? Suddenly he found that he feared that more than anything else that the sweet, sapient Zelda he had come to know would be altered in some way. She was wonderful the way she was. They rode speedily on into the foothills of the mountain and by the afternoon the two of them stood again in the pass above the graveyard. They let the horses wander the mountain side as they gathered what supplies would be needed. An air of eager anxiety hung above them; finally the book of ancient magic was within reach. The two of them then skidded down the hillside into the deathly stillness of the graveyard. Link helped Zelda over the wooden fence as the two of them looked watchfully about the valley of drooping fir trees and tombstones. Sitting on a tall shelf of rock, at the end of the cemetery, there appeared to be an archway leading back into the hills. The two of them made their way across the gloomy yard to the wall of stone, craning their necks to try and see over the top. Zelda looked up at the edge.
"If you can give me a lift up there I could most likely find something you could use to climb up." She said.
Link agreed and knelt, hoisting the princess onto his shoulders and standing up against the wall. Slowly, maintaining balance, she pushed herself upwards and planted her feet on the boy's shoulders. She stretched her arms toward the top, her hands gripping the edge and she pulled herself onto the ledge. Zelda stood and looked around her. Carved into the side of the mountain was a large archway, behind it a hall that opened into a very large atrium under the sky. Behind the archway, Zelda now noticed, there were torn curtains, held open with a rope that the princess hastily cut loose. Quickly searching for something to loop the braided cording around and finding nothing, Zelda wound the rope around her forearm and dropped down to lay on her stomach. She tossed the rest over the edge and groaned a bit as she shifted to the side.
"Link, I could find nothing to stay the rope with so I am going to have to pull you up myself. It is sturdy enough, climb up when you're ready." She called.
"Where are you? I'm not going to pull you off of this ledge am I?" He answered, his voice floating over the rock.
Zelda told him that he wouldn't and braced herself as Link began to climb. She winced a little as the cord tightened around her arm. As the boy drug himself up over the wall he regarded the princess with a smile. He offered her his hands and pulled her to her feet, thanking her. Then as Zelda hung the coiled rope about her belt, the two of them headed for the stone door at the end of the hallway. Carved of deep green jasper, the huge caliginous entrance bore an engraving of a great eye. The keyhole had been placed in the center of its unblinking iris. The two paused, feeling the immense amount of dark energy radiating from the temple behind. Link reached into the leather pouch at his side and pulled the long sought Elemental Key carefully from it. Slowly, he pushed the thick, weighty key of jewel and gold into the slot and turned it. The lock released with a crack and the door groaned, spreading open as if a pair of invisible hands pushed the stone slabs into the walls. Before the boy and the princess lay a dark stairway. Lighting the lamp and tethering it to his belt, Link drew his sword and looked to Zelda who did the same. Then the two of them then descended down into the blackness.
Down the long flight of stairs and forward through a tight hallway, Link and Zelda found themselves now in a massive shrine-like chamber. The walls were inscribed with Sheikah runes throughout. A large stone wall bearing the eye blocked the passage forward through the tall doorway and now the two stood in the lamplight, confused and searching the walls and floor for some way through.
"Zelda, what does the lettering on the walls say? Is there any clue how to open the door?" Called Link, his eyes scanning the strange writing etched into the stone.
Zelda took a step forward, reading the runes under her breath.
"They seem to be mostly prayers. I believe that this was a holy place as well as a fortress for the Sheikah." She said, and she began to translate the runes out loud.
"Ye who enter the Temple of the Sheikah priestesses, travel with four feet into the dark and hold the light with thee, for the walls have both eyes and ears…"
Zelda stepped along the wall, her eyes continuing to read the prayer as the iron mesh clanked under her boots. Suddenly, she felt the metal give beneath her and with a small shriek she fell through, nearly twelve feet down upon the stone floor below. She landed painfully on her feet and fell sprawling to the side. As she got dizzily to her knees, she could hear the heavy footsteps of the boy above her rush to the hole she had tumbled through. He tensely called her name as his face appeared in the floor, illuminated by the lamp.
"I'm alright!" She cried, standing on jammed ankles and peering in the dim light at her surroundings.
It seemed that she had fallen into yet another hallway. Tomb-like and narrow with large and cracking gray bricks making up the nearly suffocating walls. At either end of the room stood another a stone identical to the one above. Beside the stone, on the far wall, was a kind of dial. She turned, looking up to the lamplight and the restless boy beside it.
"I think I may have found something! There is a kind of wheel here. Perhaps it opens the door." She said, and Link watched from above as she made her way through the aisle of brick that nearly touched her slender shoulders.
Warily, Zelda laid her hands on the dial. Turning it to the left, she heard something like a spring stretch and groan within the walls. Slowly, the stone that had blocked their path both above and below slid to the side, opening the way through to the interior of the temple. Link looked in relief to the now open entrance and then to his dear companion below.
"Zelda, you've got the door open. Now come on, toss the rope up here." He said.
The princess thought for a moment as she looked through the passageway she had opened.
Travel with four feet into the dark…
"Link… I believe I should stay on this level. I see another door ahead. If the rest of the temple is like this room then I should be able to see you through the floor. I shall follow the light from the lantern... if not, then your voice… I am sure these two paths likely meet at the end of the temple." She said.
She heard Link sigh apprehensively above her.
"Are you sure there's not another way?" He asked.
Zelda shook her head.
"I think not… It seems that the temple was made to be traversed this way… I'm sorry. I do not want to be alone in this place anymore then you." She said, and Link held her gaze for a moment longer.
"...I'll try to stay above you the best I can." He said.
He stood then, and began to make his way through the door way. Zelda trailed underneath him as she followed the glow of the lamp above into the darkness.
They walked from room to room in this manner for a spell. Zelda trudging through rooms filled with rats and stagnant water and Link a halo of light above her in the massive shrine. Eyes, birds and chiseled lettering adorned each wall, the ceiling stretching up into blackness. Zelda realized as doors opened to reveal larger rooms under the floor that she had fallen into an ancient crypt; the walls lined with skulls. Always there were dials to be turned or a key to be found on one floor or the other. As gears within the walls groaned and the stone doors slid open to reveal new passages, often they were led to dead ends. They came to brick walls, narrowly avoided pits with jagged spikes jutting from their bottoms or, in one case, into a nest of giant Skulltulas. They had managed to thrive down into the crypt through a crack in the floor, their webs like wet fibers of cotton descending in bands from the ceiling. The boy and the princess each had killed maybe three or four of the massive black and white spiders before they backed themselves through the doorway and Zelda had quickly spun it closed again below. Strands of web still hung onto the loose ends of her hair. She heard Link laugh uneasily above her.
"So... it was the dial on the right then, huh?" He said.
The princess sighed, still catching her breath.
"It would seem so wouldn't it now?" She said glibly, staring up at him through the floor.
They pressed on, deeper into the temple, wary now of its traps. As they neared the center, Zelda felt a presence drifting at her back. A few times, when the lamp light above her had been covered in tile or when Link had strayed ahead, she had caught the flicker of another lantern in the dark. As she passed a tight corridor, she looked over her shoulder to regard in silent fright the hooded phantasm, carrying a ghostly lamp as it hovered in the darkness behind. Though she said nothing, she followed the light above her ever closer. When the travelers had found their way into the heart of the temple, Zelda found herself in a larger room with three identical dials. Tensely, she stepped to the one on the far left of the room and turned it. She looked up through the perforated iron at Link, who gazed across to watch one of three stone doors spin open, though the one blocking Zelda's path did not budge. He knelt, his eyes meeting the puzzled Zelda's.
"There's a wooden door at the end of the hallway that the stone was blocking... Are you alright down there?" He asked.
The princess crossed her arms and nervously shifted her weight as he spoke, glancing around the dimly lit antechamber. On either side of the stone ingress stood tall wooden torches, each stuffed with a cracking, but oiled, wick.
"Yes... go and check that room. There may be some vital element to this temple behind it. There are touches down here, as long as I have a light in this place, I think I'll be fine." She said.
Link looked to the door and then back to the princess below him.
"... I'm scared that if I leave you here alone, something's going to come magic you off…" He said.
Zelda offered him a reassuring smile, her face obscured by the grated iron.
"Toss a match down Link, whatever this temple will yield to us is likely important."
Reluctantly, Link dropped a match through the floor. Zelda picked it up, struck it and lit the torch beside her, illuminating the lower room enough that she could now see the detailed hallway, etched with more runes. She looked again to Link.
"Please watch yourself... I feel many restless spirits here…" She said.
Link stood, looking once more to Zelda.
"I'll be back as fast as I can, I promise." He said, and Zelda watched him disappear above the tiled section of the floor.
As he passed through the door, Link stepped into a small, dirt-walled chamber. For a moment, he thought he had seen motion in the brief second it had taken to cross the doorway and he stiffened, slowly drawing his weapon as his nerves heated with an evil presence. He stood still for a moment, scanning the room. In the corner on the far side there lay a wooden box. The silence in the place took on a voice of its own as the boy cautiously stepped across the earthen floor. The soft scraping of his boots against the dirt and his own breathing the only sounds breaking the ominous stillness. Suddenly, Link felt a hand grasp his ankle in a tight hold. He jerked around to regard the withered, stark-white thing clasped onto his boot. Unnerved, he began to try and cut it away as the overpowering smell of rot filled the chamber. Three more arms thrust themselves from the ground, entangling the boy in their cold grip as he struggled to free himself. To his terror, only a few feet away, from out of the ground rose a pallid, fleshy creature. It contorted, whimpering as it walked. Its joints and bones seemed unfathomable inside its sickly, necrotic flesh. It had no arms, only thin nubs that twitched as it crept toward him, its head wobbling atop what appeared to be its neck. Link, in an up swell of panic wretched himself away from the still grasping hands as the creature continued behind him. It lowered its head as the boy prepared to strike. Beneath hollow black eyes there lay a slacked jaw with rows of enormous teeth, smiling horrifically from cracked and deformed blood-red lips. Its mouth began to yawn open as Link, terrified, struck at the creature's neck with all the strength he could muster. It backed away, sinking back into the ground and the boy felt the hands on him again. The third time it surfaced, Link landed three good blows to the fleshy beings head and the creature, emitting a nightmarish groan finally fell. Its slacking jaw fell open as it lay convulsing on the ground. The hands seemed to dry to bones and slither back into the earth. Very quickly, horrified and vigilantly watching the foul body in the center of the room, Link side stepped to the chest. He heaved it open and took a quick look down. It was some kind of metal object. He briskly picked it up and as walked back to the door, still watching the now foaming and smoldering body.
Zelda sat with her back against the stone eye as she stared up at the now lightened walls of the crypt. From corner to corner Zelda had read nothing but prayers for forgiveness and protection scrawled in Sheikah along the stone. Along with the unseen specter that pursued her, the hushed voices of dark things filled her thoughts, bleeding into a sea of baleful muttering.
There must have been something of terrible malevolence here once. Whoever built this temple… they were trying to contain something…
Zelda thought to herself in the gloomy stillness. She turned around to the door behind her. She wondered now, if she could move it on her own. If she and Link had even really needed to be separated. Rock was quite a bit harder to move than metal. It felt hazy when her ethereal fingers gripped it, so unlike the clear electrical current of ore. Though now, as she pushed her will into the door she found it repelled, as like magnets push apart. She wondered at the magically protected stone as she heard the hinges to the door Link had walked through creek and the door snap shut. She stood and listened pensively for her friend's voice.
"Link?" She called, and to her relief the boy appeared again above her, wide-eyed and visibly shaken.
He swallowed.
"I found something in there…I haven't figured out what it does yet, though." He said, and Zelda raised her eyebrows.
"Are you alright? You seem upset." She said.
Link uttered a frayed laugh as he inspected the strange, and rather heavy metal object.
"I'm okay… I'll tell you about what I saw when we get out of this place... I'm pretty sure I'll be seeing it in my nightmares until I die… or longer." He said.
At that he pushed down one of the triggers in the handle of the object. Immediately, a long coil of chain burst out of its muzzle and struck the wall yanking Link off his feet with a short yelp and pulling him up near the ceiling. He laughed again as he hung there and Zelda hurried to the other side of the room, staring up through the floor to try and see what was happening above her. She heard the chain retract and coil again twice before she heard Link jump down.
"What is that thing?" Asked Zelda, and Link appeared above her again. A wide and slightly crooked grin was set on his face.
"I don't know, but it was completely worth it!" He said.
Zelda giggled and shook her head.
"Well alright then, if you are quite done, I will turn this wheel now." She said.
Tentatively, she turned the dial in the center of the wall. The innards of the temple emitted their low whine and both the boy and the princess sighed in relief when the door below, as well as the one above, scraped open. As Link passed through into the next room, he could hear a scratching sound coming from the unopened door.
Link and the princess made their way through the double layered maze until they came upon a room that for the princess below, seemed to end at a stone wall. There was only a dial, and a long, narrow and completely dark hallway that led nowhere. Link called down to her.
"Zelda, there's a door up here, I think it's the way out. It needs a key though. Do you see anything? Any way I can get you back up?" He asked, kneeling above her on the iron floor.
Zelda motioned toward the dial as she moved toward it.
"There is only this. It seems to be a dead end..." She said.
Zelda spun the dial to the left and from the narrow hallway she heard a grinding sound as a wall spread apart. She froze as she looked down the lengthy hallway. There was no light at all. Surely the one who had followed her thus far had been waiting for a passage such as this. Taking a deep, shaky breath and resolving to move swiftly, she stepped into the dark. Link waited above her, the light of his lantern blocked by the tile floor. As she focused her eyes in the darkness, she felt the cold, malevolent presence behind her and she hurried down the narrow passage. Stopping frantically at the small alcove that had opened in the wall, she noticed first the large chest and behind it, the lever. Quickly, her hair standing stiff, she made her way to the large, rusted handle. Using both hands and all of her weight she pressed it down. With a stony thud, she heard the ceiling at the end of the hallway fall into a flight of steps. She turned, and to her horror she finally beheld the stalking phantom; its rotten face set on hers, its hand outstretched. It whispered words of depravity as its skeletal fingers reached for the princess. Abruptly, the Poe jerked its grizzly face away from the frightened Zelda in a blur of motion as it sensed the light that now descended the stairs. It shrank back, and then forthwith disappeared through the wall as Link swung into the doorway. Smiling irrepressibly, the two of them threw their arms around each other, embracing one another tightly. Both ecstatic to stand again on the same ground. They pulled away and Zelda turned to the large, well carved chest that was reveled when the wall had opened up. She tossed the lid back and pulled from its crumbling velvet interior a large, tarnished silver key; one that greatly resembled the key that had opened the temple.
"That must be for the door upstairs… are you ready? There's a good chance that there's something guarding the book behind it…" Link asked, his eyes wandering from Zelda's to the stairway.
The princess nodded and the two of them ascended into the upper room. Quickly, Zelda slid the large key into the lock and with a clank it split open. The two of them pushed through the heavy doors, and they banged shut behind them as they passed into the sandy room. To their surprise, Link and the Zelda stepped out under the red evening sky in a chamber that seemed to stretch up for miles. In front of them there lay a massive wall decked in brackets and grooved bricking that ran in round and twisting patterns along its facade. Above the wall, there was likely a set of doors and behind them, the book. With a quick glance around the room, guardedly they stepped forward. It was not even really a surprise when the chamber began to tremble. The sand swallowed the only exit as the bricks pushed themselves down behind Link and the princess. The wall on the other side opened a huge, glassy red and black eye as something pulsing and organic shot up from the top of the structure. To their alarm the wall began creeping forward, pushing up sand and unearthing the pulverized skeletons of its former victims. Zelda swallowed.
"The top of the wall... that's the brain." She said, sliding an arrow from her quiver.
Sheathing his sword, Link sped forward as Zelda readied her bow. He jumped up, catching his fingers in the furrows of the bricks. He scrambled up the slowly advancing wall toward the node at the top. As he climbed, the colossal eye rolled its way toward him and the wall shifted the brick, tossing the boy painfully into the sand. Stunned, he got swiftly to his feet and he watched as Zelda launched arrow after arrow into the monstrous iris. Finally, the brick lid of the eye shut as the wall sat motionless for a moment. Seeing his chance, Link tightly held the object he had taken from the temple and aimed for the top row of brackets. With a light clang, the chain uncoiled from the inner chamber and hoisted the boy high atop the wall. From there he climbed the brackets as Zelda watched in trepidation from the ground. The great eye flew open again and to her terror, Zelda realized that it had greatly quickened its pace and had already come nearly halfway across the room. Zelda continued to shower it with arrows, stopping it again as the massive eyelid thundered shut and the boy pulled himself to the top. The wall was motionless for a time, its stone eyelid closed. A moment later however, the wall slowly began to move forward, its eye remaining closed as it gathered momentum and began to crash toward her once again. Zelda stood in helpless fright as she watched Link run along the top of the wall. The red, pulsing appendage stretched and glowed as Link drew his sword and began to slice furiously at it. With its anemone-like tendrils, bleeding a bizarre bluish color onto the brick. It gripped for the boy, wrapping his knee in what felt like needles as it crashed toward the panicking Zelda below. Mere feet from the girl, Link stabbed with all his strength downward, severing the brain of the wall and causing it to stop dead in the sand. The glowing node bled and withered. The eye flew open, coming to rest on the princess as it fizzled into red dust, pouring in a deluge to the floor like powdered blood. All was silent for a moment as Link walked to the edge of the still wall, catching his breath and looking down to the now rather hysterically laughing Zelda. He started a little when he beheld how close it had come to her. Zelda slid her bow back onto her chest as she pressed her hands to her face, wiping the perspiration from her hairline. She drew a deep breath.
"Well now, it seems we are back in the same predicament! You are up there and I am here. How do you suppose we rectify this?" She called.
Link searched the top of the wall for a moment before he looked to the object in his hand.
"Zelda, can you climb?" He asked, loudly.
"Quite well." She retorted.
Anxiously, Link tossed the item down into the sand below. It hit the ground with a dull, sandy thump and Zelda looked quizzically up at the boy.
"The trigger shoots it, the buttons under the trigger pulls you up and down, and if you pull the trigger again it'll release itself from whatever you're hooked into… Be careful Zelda, you almost got crushed by a sentient wall and lived. Please don't fall and break your neck… Hold on really tight, okay?" He said.
Zelda nodded and picked up the object. She braced herself, clenching her jaw, as she aimed for the top of the wall. Gripping its handle for dear life, she felt herself ripped into the air as she swung above the sand; her stomach taking a slight on the way up, and nearly emptying when she glanced below. Cautiously, she pushed the button and began to pull herself upward to the anxious Link above. Finally, she climbed up onto one of the brackets. She freed the chain and carefully she stood up. From above her, leaning down, the boy took her hands and helped her up over the wall. He pulled her to her feet with a sigh as his muscles finally began to relax. She couldn't help but laugh at how flustered he looked as she stood in front of him; his hair damp and disheveled, his neck and face slightly flushed. She laid her hand against his ruddy cheek.
"Calm yourself Link. I am in one piece, as are you." She said.
Link smiled as he dropped her gaze, looking over his shoulder to the doors behind.
"Come on… Let's go get this book." He said.
The room they entered now behind the doors opened into a vastly wide, though short flight of stairs that led up to the great stone plinth. It stood in the center of the room, holding the book the both of them had risked their skins and suffered so greatly to find. Behind the wall opened in rows of pillars to reveal the back canyon of the mountain range, the reddening sky wide open across the misty peaks that rose from the endless fissure that curved around the mountains. The two stood motionless for a moment. The sky was breathtaking from these heights; colored in gradients of blue and orange, the clouds bright pink ice behind the sun-soaked buttes rising from the canyon. As they stared, to their shock an enormous brown and black owl darted through the opening and perched atop the stone obelisk. In its talons, it clutched the remains of a half-eaten Tektite which it quickly devoured as the two took a step backward. Then the owl titled its head nearly around on its neck as ancient yellow eyes stared down at Link and the princess. Each of them quickly readied their weapons and the owl fearfully fluttered his wings.
"Please, do not strike! I mean you no harm!" He said.
The two of them looked uncertainly at each other. Link shrugged, and he and Zelda turned again toward the talking owl.
"It has been quite some time since I have seen the two of you. Quite some time indeed. Do either of you remember me?" Asked the owl and the pair slowly shook their heads.
The giant owl hooted loudly as he adjusted himself on the edge of the stone plinth.
"I am called Kaepora Gaebora, and we have all met... Many times before. I keep watch on the Sky Book, as her highness had requested long ago." He said, shuffling in excitement from side to side.
Zelda raised her eye brow as she walked forward.
"As I requested?" She asked, and the owl hooted again.
"Yes. You asked that I watch over this temple and the book. Also that I would aid the hero should he come looking for the knowledge of the Sky Era. You bid me to explain it to him because he would not remember, and he would likely have forgotten the old language. I did not expect that you would be accompanying him as well, your grace." Said Kaepora Gaebora.
Zelda, her interest piqued continued toward the owl.
"I know not of this Sky Era, kind owl. Link and I have come seeking a cure for my father, and some answers for the great task that seems to be endlessly charged to us. We were in hopes that the book held such answers." Said Zelda.
The owl was silent as he tilted his head again, seeming to contemplate the statement of the princess below him, at length he spoke.
"...I forget that time is so much different for you two. Princess...have so many years passed between now and our last meeting that the tale has become obscured? It seems only a short time ago that the legend was a well-known account by the royal family… and the birth of the first daughter a highly anticipated event. While it is true that these pages hold ancient and powerful rituals, mostly it is a memoir of the origins of Hyrule. Of when the Goddess, Hylia, first walked with mortal feet upon the surface." Said Kaepora Gaebora.
Zelda looked up at the great bird, her brows knitting as Link held his breath at her side. The owl knew.
"Mortal? The fourth Goddess became mortal? How strange…Wise owl, you know of Hylia? Then please, tell us, what is her place in all this? Link has been told by the Fairy Queen that it was Hylia who chose him as defender of this land. Is she truly the one that cursed him... cursed us... to bear the burden of the Triforce? What became of her then?" She asked.
The owl stood silent for a moment.
"You do not know… your highness? You do not remember?" He asked, leaning down so his face was level with the importunately curious Zelda.
Itching for knowledge and becoming increasingly agitated, Zelda shifted her weight impatiently.
"Remember what? Please just tell us!" She implored and Link stood beside her, waiting and now burning with self-reproach.
The owl blinked.
"The last time we spoke… you still recalled, your grace... Princess Zelda, you are the mortal form of the Goddess, Hylia."
Zelda uttered a shocked laugh as she stood stuck numb by his words.
"W...What?" Was all she managed, the blood-soaked vision she had experienced in Queen Rutolla's presence rearing before her like a great, lurid horse.
Link sighed, and lifted his eyes to the face of the reincarnate Goddess.
"I was going to tell you tonight... He's telling the truth, Zelda." He said
The princess looked at him in confusion. Their eyes met.
"You told me yourself… I think back in ancient times... I'm not sure. I saw it in a dream the day that Ofaria burned…" Link said
"...You knew and you did not tell me?" She asked, her eyes flashing a momentary accusation of betrayal.
The boy glanced to the shadowed floor and back to the wide-eyed princess.
"I'm sorry... So much has already happened and I... didn't want to drop that on you too. I didn't want you to have to be anything else... anyone other than Princess Zelda." He said.
Zelda looked, confounded, to Link and then back to the owl.
"… Why then? Why would I cast off my divinity… and abandon the Triforce and the people I was… that I was supposed to protect?" She asked meekly, her voice beginning to crack.
Kaepora Gaebora looked down at her, with his feathers ruffling he hopped down from the stone casing of the book.
"There were two reasons that you gave me once, your grace. One was to ensure that the Triforce could one day be used by the just. If not by the hands of the knight, the vessel that Hylia had ordained, then by her corporal self, as the Gods cannot use it. The second was a more personal motive. As I suspect the boy has likely told you, Hylia's knight was subjected to years of torture and imprisonment. During that time, as the Goddess had foreseen, he purified himself. His soul became unbreakable and able to hold within it the power of the Triforce. Though his fate was known to her long before she had consigned him to it, when the knight fell, and the eternal cycle began, Hylia felt human grief. For the first time in her existence, she mourned the death of a mortal. She resolved then that she could not let the knight wander alone throughout his many lifetimes and so she would be at his side, to aide and to guide him. She then cast her immortality into the wind and crumbled into dust shortly after, leaving only the holy blade and a song with those she had sent skyward. It is all written in the book." He said.
Zelda's head swam with the owl's words. Overcome with emotion as the torrent of images crashed through her mind, tears slid down her cheeks and she turned to sit herself on the stairs, drawing her knees to her chest; dizzy with unanswerable culpability. Link sat beside her, the owl watching behind in silence.
"I'm so sorry... I should've told you...I shouldn't have let you find out this way." Said Link.
Zelda only shook her head and laid her face against her folded arms.
"I am the one who should apologize… So… it was I who did this to us… to you… that is why I've seen the horrible things I have seen… So much death, Link...so much fire and destruction...The most frightening part is that when I'm there...in those dreams... I can't even make out what I'm feeling... She knows things that to me blur the second I percieve them... it's like...a song I can't understand...She's starting to talk to me while I'm awake..." She whispered.
She briefly glanced at Link.
"I… I used you… I let your people torment you... and then I let you die after I had condemned you to walk this bloody, vicious path… I have seen visions of it… She does not think like a human. You and I were both created for a very specific purpose...to play an eternal game of keep away with a demon!"
Zelda burried her face in her arms.
"... I used you... I forced your hand, and despite what you say…it isn't right…"She said.
She heard Link shift closer beside her, but could not bear to look at him now. No matter the intentions of her many selves, her very presence had lured him to some terrible fate on more occasions than she could ever possibly remember. It was a feeling that lashed out at her from the deepest parts of her soul. It all made horrible sense now. In that moment she surrendered to her sorrow, her tears bitter. She felt the boy gently pull her into his arms, holding on to her as he simply let the girl cry. She was unable to resist, and she returned his embrace. Zelda, every sinew tensing, sobbed against his chest. She mourned ever half remembered life, as a thousand ghosts fought one another inside her.
"I am so sorry… I do not deserve your sympathy... I broke you... you would hate me...but I took that from you." She said
Link rested his chin on the crown of the girl's head as he griped her a little tighter. She surrendered fully to the warmth of his embrace, realizing as she lay her head against him that she could hear the boy's heart beating beneath the chain mail. Its rhythm was calm and steady as he held her. He sighed into her hair and she felt him swallow.
"I could never hate you, Zelda... I don't understand why the universe decided to play out this way... but, I can't be angry with you because of something a Goddess did. You had no control over that. Her kind of consciousness is completely out of the realm of my comprehension, and yours now. You're Zelda… not Hylia... and I... I have nothing but affection for you." Said Link, the soft tones of his voice reverberating through his chest as he spoke.
Zelda blinked more tears down her cheeks.
"It isn't fair." She said
Link softly pulled away from her, looking her in the face.
"Do you want to make it up to me?" He asked, smoothing back the slightly damp hair that had fallen across her brow.
She looked up at him, her face ruddy, tears beading in her lashes. His eyes were so blue.
"Forgive yourself…Please? That's what you can do for me... Obviously, decisions were made a long time ago…by other versions of us. But we're this you, and this me, in this life. We're in this together...we always have been." Said Link.
The two of them sat in silence together for a time as the sky darkened behind them. At length they stood and regarded the giant owl, and the stone obelisk. Link and Zelda heaved the weighty stone tablet to the ground and looked down into the cradle of the ancient book. It was titled in the oldest of Hylian dialects, as Zelda noted, the Book of the Sky Sage. Holding the thickly bound artifact against her chest, Zelda turned now to Kaepora Gaebora, seeming to have grown larger in the dark. The owl tilted his head.
"So, children of destiny, would you like a ride back to the graveyard?" He asked.
The two of them nodded fervently in response.
"Yes… if you would, that would be wonderful… I do not think either of us have the energy to go back the way we came." Said Zelda.
The owl started toward the crumbled part of the wall and squatted down.
"Come then, climb atop my back." He said.
The travelers did as they were told and soon they felt the owl lunge into the air, carrying them up over the canyon, and back into the foothills of the mountains.
They made hasty camp that night, emotions looming as they rolled their palates out amongst the rocks. With some distracted effort a fire was lit and then the pair sat close to one another. Zelda hid behind the yellow curtain of her hair, in tense silence. Link somberly stirred the fire, glancing every so often to the troubled princess.
"Truly... do you feel at peace with it?" She said, suddenly.
Link tossed the stick into the fire, he moved closer to her.
"Yeah... I really do. " He said, settling down next to her.
He looked aside to her, her eyes glassy as she stared back at him. Her eyes instantly fell from his, staring ahead into the struggling fire.
"...Part of you must be resentful..." She said, cradling her elbows.
Link thought on her words, absently rubbing the soreness from his neck as he mulled over how to answer her.
"No... it's more that I wish I knew why..." He said.
He looked over at her, thinking again of their time near the lake.
"The same night I had that dream I told you about, the night we camped next to the river before we met Queen Rutolla, I saw a white wolf before I saw the prison tower. I think I was hunting or something, and it stepped out of the woods. I don't remember what exactly it said to me, but I know it wasn't just a wolf... I think that might have been the first time Hylia spoke to me... It would make sense, I've had other dreams about wolves... have you ever seen anything like that?" He said.
Zelda shook her head, her eyes still locked on the flames throwing flickering shadows upon her form.
"A part me of knew about her... I think... They are not exactly memories that I have... more like ghosts of memories... but I know...regardless of who I am or what form I take... throughout our existence, I've caused you much suffering... and for that, I am endlessly sorry." She glanced in his direction, taking a breath as she swallowed her remaining tears.
"...Terrible things have happened to you... because of me." She said, her voice raspy.
"Zelda..."
He paused, searching himself for something to say to her, something eloquent that would ease her. Though, he found as he sat beside her in the fire light that no words of the sort would come. Link sighed.
"...For whatever reason, it's my fate to protect you, and this kingdom... so I will... with my life... whatever happens." He said.
The princess could say nothing, there was only the grinding she felt within her chest as she looked up and caught his gaze, his eyes like deep water in the moonlight. She brushed the lingering wetness from her cheeks and smoothed her hair back against her temples, looking to the freckled sky for a moment before she turned to him again.
"Link... I am exhausted... I'm going to lie down." Said Zelda, hoarsely.
He nodded.
"Yeah...same"
In the dying firelight, their palates nearly pushed together, Zelda pulled her blanket over her as Link lay watching the fire beside her. He propped himself up on his forearms, his eyes distant and thoughtful as the warm wind whistled through the mountainside. When he was sure that she was asleep, finally, with an exhausted sigh he stretched himself out on his own bedroll and allowed his eyes to close. Then the boy and the princess slept, each wandering respectively through the strange and mutable land of dreams.