Legend of Zelda: Reconciliation

by Rose Zemlya

Sequel to The Legend of Zelda: The Return. Based loosely on A Link to the Past.

7. Chapter 7 and Interludes

The Legend of Zelda: Reconciliations

Hey all;

Right, so, sorry for the lag, as per usual, but it's a very long chapter and I technically haven't even accomplished everything I had planned to in it, but it's getting sort of out of hand and it would be impossible if I'd covered everything.

If the plot exposition somewhere in there is boring or confusing, I apologize ahead of time.

Speaking of apologies, I owe Silka a huge one for consistently shirking my promise to her with the last few chapters. All I can say is that I've been busy and out of it and my brain just hasn't been where it's supposed to be. –Sigh–

On another note entirely, I've been all over the internet looking for the correct spellings of Aghanim and Sahasrala as some of you have suggested that I've been spelling them wrong, and I suspect I may be as well. So far what I've found is that people have a consistent urge to spell both those names fifty million different ways. So if anyone out there has the game and can access it easily (I have lost the cables for my SNES unfortunately and I don't own a GBA) please let me know the proper spellings.

On yet another note, I tried posting in my bio this time about why the update was taking so long, but I've no idea how effective that was, as there's no way of knowing I've done that (H7, for the record, I haven't forgotten you but my mail is down ATM. A reply will come once it's back up. :-) ). Then KA pointed out to me that we have a forum on our website that's designed for exactly that type of thing. So, if you guys are interested, I'll start a thread for this story on it and let you guys know how the updates are coming (or you can ask me if you start thinking I've disappeared off the face of the planet) and whatever else. There's a link off of our main site (www . fengs-shui . com), or you can just go directly there at www . fengs-shui . com/fsconnect/. [EDIT: I love how I can't even put up links anymore. –Grumbling– Well, whatever. Just delete the spaces and you'll have the addies]

Before you all rush there, however, KA just renewed her claim on the domain, so everything to do with the site (my e-mail, the website, and the forum) is currently down while the DNS does something-or-other with itself that allows us to continue owning it. It should be back up soon, so if you're interested just keep an eye on it. And if you've sent me an e-mail since Friday you might want to resend it after everything comes back online as it likely bounced back to you.

A note about formatting: quick edit will not accept my usual asterisks or even any of the other marks I've tried (including a plus sign for God's sake) so I've had to replace my usual asteriskasteriskasterisk with xxx. I'm sure you're all capable of realizing and understanding this but I felt like I should explain the change.

I think that's about it for now, so as always I hope you enjoy the read and that it was worth the wait!

Rose Zemlya

[UPDATE (July 27, 2004)] You know what I love? How despite triple checking and editing the formatting on this damned thing it still managed to delete half of my Italics and it would appear there's nothing I can do about the spacing. It never used to be this complicated. HOPEFULLY I've managed to fix up the Italics at least. Sorry for the confusion guys.

On the upside, Feng's Shui is back up and running so I'll go and start a thread for next chapter updates.

Thanks again, guys, and sorry!

"Sir, I admit your general rule,

That every poet is a fool,

But you yourself may serve to show it,

Every fool is not a poet."

– Alexander Pope

xxx

A Brief Interlude

With much grunting and groaning Karun forced himself straight, throwing the snow off him with one final effort. He put his hands on his knees for a moment and tried to catch his breath as Rue struggled up out of the snow as well.

"What in the Goddess' name was that?" She demanded shrilly. There were sounds of her fumbling in the dark and then flint being struck and the next second a torch was lit, illuminating their surroundings. Rue was shivering badly. Her hat had been lost in the avalanche and her scarf wasn't nearly as tight as it should have been.

"Avalanche," Karun answered, casting a look around. "Snow builds up on the mountain tops all year long. Sometimes it gets too heavy and tonnes of it – and I mean that in the literal sense – will just break off and tumble down the mountain, running over everyone in its path. It's kind of like a tidal wave, but you've probably never seen one of those either." Rue was shaking the snow out of her hair.

"I've seen a waterfall," she answered. "Is it like that?"

"Close enough," Karun replied with a dark frown. They were in a cave of some sort. The avalanche had pushed them through its mouth and then subsequently blocked it off. Icy stalagmites and stalactites glistened in the torchlight all along a tunnel that led deeper into the mountain. Rue's torch didn't give off enough light to see very far down it, so Karun turned instead and surveyed the pile of snow behind them. The exit was effectively blocked, though Karun was confident it was nothing he couldn't get through. A rolling start and he could barrel through the snow like it was water, but that would likely destabilize the whole pile and send it collapsing around him, and if he hit something half way through or it went further than he could handle? And besides, that still left Rue and Brayden trapped in the cave.

He straightened abruptly.

Brayden!

"Rue," he gasped, whirling around again. "Where's Brayden? Did you see him?" Rue blinked in surprise.

"The Sheikah?" Her next breath came out as a hiss. "Dammit … no, I didn't. It happened too fast." She stared at the snow. "Could he be in there?"

"He might be," Karun said helplessly. "I don't know. He may not be. The avalanche may have taken him somewhere else, depending on the landscape where we were hit."

"Well we'll have to look to be sure then," Rue said, tightening her scarf. "There's nothing for it. I can't go back to the desert without him, Link will never forgive me." Karun took the torch from her and moved a bit away, forcing it upright between two close-knit stalactites.

"Agreed," he said.

They set to work.

xxx

"Now what?"

All three of them stared up at the building in consternation. As far as they could see there was no entrance. They'd all been around it at least twice, and Neesha was currently on her third round. Darunia scratched his head.

"Well," he said, "I could try and bash us an entrance. Or maybe burn us one. But I don't really think either of those will work." Icy silence greeted his statement. Dune and Acqul had once again fallen into a sullen silence. Darunia really didn't know if he was grateful for this or not. On the one hand, at least they weren't at each other's throats. On the other, silence was silence was silence, and Darunia had never been one for silence.

He fervently wished for a brief instant that they were both Gorons so that he could just take them, knock their heads together and beat some sense into them.

Unfortunately, they were not. And he was pretty sure that Zoran and Sheikan heads weren't designed to be bashed like that.

So instead he just shook his head and rolled his eyes and heaved a sigh, making a mental note to complain to Ruto and Impa about it and let the two of them do whatever passed for head bashing among their own races when people were being so frustratingly near sighted.

"All right, let's go get—"

He was cut off by a sudden high-pitched cry of pain.

"Neesha!"

All three of them were off like a shot. Darunia curled up mid-run and had outdistanced the two the next second, rounding the corner of the tower at his top speed, skidding to a stop and de-balling the next instant, staring in shock at the scene presented to him.

A giant serpent of some kind was coiled near the tower. It reminded Darunia in a very unpleasant way of a yellowish-green, rattle-snake – at least as large as Volvagia had been, though with decidedly less intelligence shining from the unfriendly black eyes. For a half second he was transported back to his fight with the great fiery dragon and remembered with a lead feeling in his gut that he hadn't done so well against it. Giant snakes were not really his forte. If it hadn't been for Link …. The thing stared at him, then hissed unpleasantly, and the next instant all thoughts of Volvagia and failure were driven from his mind in a rush of horror when he caught sight of the struggling figure trapped in its maw.

"Neesha!" He bellowed a furious battle cry and rolled up again, off like a shot at the creature just as Acqul and Dune finally caught up and rounded the corner. Darunia took advantage of a sloped section of ground and launched himself off of it, wicked looking spikes extending from his form as he did so. Darunia struck the serpent and bounced off again, violently enough that when he hit the ground he landed on his feet, but was no longer in a ball. Acqul's fins snapped out and went rigid and he crossed his arms in front of his face, then ripped them down and to the side. The fins flew like boomerangs, grazing the side of the serpent and sending a shower of sparks into the air, but doing no further damage.

"The tail!" Neesha shouted, her voice barely audible over the odd rumble that had filled the air since Darunia had rounded the corner. "Go for its—ah!" Her face twisted with pain as the creature tightened its grip on her. It began to uncoil and move away from the tower. The three on the ground immediately redirected their attention to its segmented tail, the hilt of a Gerudo scimitar just barely visible between the ridges.

"You two, go!" Darunia shouted. "I'll catch her. Make it let her go!"

The next instant Acqul's fins were slicing through the air again and Dune was rushing at the tail, a rapier in one hand and a dagger in the other. They each hit and the creature reared up suddenly, opening its mouth wide and giving a furious hiss of pain. Neesha reacted the instant she had a chance. She wrenched her arm up – Darunia couldn't see why – and then threw herself out of the serpent's mouth, closing her eyes and waiting to hit the ground.

Darunia was faster than that, though.

He slid beneath her, catching her before she could hit anything, and immediately back peddled before the snake had time to fully comprehend what had just happened and do something about it.

"It's dead!" Neesha was hissing, her face pale as she clutched at her arm. "Goddess damned … piece of … I'll kill it, I swear!"

The snake, having just realized what had happened, looked for a brief instant as though it would strike down at Darunia and Neesha again, but the next saw Acqul and Dune closing in once again on its bloodied tail and turned instead with one last hiss and fled.

Acqul moved to chase it, but Dune caught him, holding him back.

"No!" She cried. "Let it go! We can—"

"What?" Acqul shrieked, shoving her off of him. "Let it go? It just tried to kill Neesha!" He moved to chase it again, but she intercepted him again.

"Would you use your brain for once in your life!" Dune cried. "That thing obviously came from the tower! It's leaving a trail of blood now, it'll lead us right to its lair." Acqul narrowed his eyes and directed his attention to the serpent which disappeared over a ridge as he watched. He realized Dune was right, but this did nothing for his mood. He turned a malevolent glare back on her.

"What is it with you and defending monsters?" He demanded venomously.

"I'm not defending anyth—" Her voice died off and her face went pale when she realized what he was referring to. A part of him quailed under the sudden rush of hurt in her gaze and immediately wanted to take it back, but another was remembering the night Laruto had been stolen from him, and who had been the thief and he crushed the urge mercilessly. Her eyes narrowed and her fists clenched and she started to tremble with rage.

"My son," she hissed, biting off each word, "is not a monster." Acqul was shaking now too.

"If your son's no monster," he hissed, "then my daughter is sitting safe at home in her bed."

A cry from behind them broke their glaring contest just before it could erupt into violence. They both turned to look at where Darunia was gingerly trying to roll up the sleeve of Neesha's winter coat to look at her arm. Her face was twisted into a grimace of what might have been pain, but was more likely embarrassment that she'd cried out at all.

"If that thing comes back for her, and anything happens to her," Acqul hissed under his breath, "I'm holding you responsible."

"Oh I'm sure she'll be just fine," Dune responded caustically. "After all you're here to protect her, aren't you? Everyone knows you did such a wonderful job defending your own daughter from a boy who's hardly lifted a sword a day in his life. A fifty foot snake should be a snap after that." She put on a burst of speed before he could reply. "I hope he breaks your neck next time instead of your arm." She muttered it, but Acqul heard it all the same.

Darunia looked up as they approached, taking in the pale faces and clenched fists. Intense irritation flickered across his face and he frowned at them.

"Which one of you has the first aid kit?" He demanded. "I need to clean this out before we do anything else."

"Dune does," Acqul got out between clenched teeth. Dune glared back at him.

"Sorry, Acqul, but you were supposed to bring it."

"What?" Acqul cried. "You were the one who was supposed to—"

"CUT IT OUT!" Darunia shouted suddenly, getting to his feet and glaring at them. "For Nayru's sake, could you put this petty fight behind you long enough to get Neesha healed up? Do either of you have a first-aid kit?" Dune and Acqul were both staring at him in shock. They shook their heads mutely. "Then get out of my sight!" He roared.

They did.

He turned, still fuming, back to Neesha who was trying to get to her feet. He pushed down on her shoulder and forced her back onto the ground.

"I'm fine," she growled.

"I don't doubt it," Darunia returned, dropping to his knees beside her. "If everything I've learned of Gerudo so far is true I'd be surprised if this would stop you. But it still needs to be bandaged up, and I'm worried about poison."

"I'm not poisoned," Neesha responded. "It wasn't trying to kill me. I don't think it even really meant to bite me." Darunia raised an eyebrow as he pulled his scarf off and started wrapping it tightly around her wound as a make-shift bandage.

"How do you know?" He asked. "You can read the minds of snakes now, can you?"

"It's not complicated," she responded, making a face. "If it wanted me dead, why didn't it just swallow me? Especially after I'd stabbed it's damn tail. It was angry, I'll tell you that much. Why didn't it bite me harder? Why didn't it use its venom?" She raised an eyebrow at her. "I didn't spend that long in its damned mouth, impaled on one of its teeth, just to get out of it with no more than a flesh wound because it wanted me dead." Darunia nodded quietly – it made sense (except the flesh wound part. It went a bit beyond flesh wound, but that was a Gerudo for you. If they weren't dead, it was just a flesh wound), though he couldn't begin to guess why the serpent wouldn't have just killed her. He squeezed her arm gently, watching for some sign of pain on her face to see how bad it hurt. Her face didn't change, but he could see pain dancing behind her eyes so he released the pressure with a shake of his head. It was definitely worse than she was letting on.

"Are you all right to fight?" He asked her.

"It's my bad hand anyway," she said flatly. "I don't need it, and I can use it I have to." Darunia frowned doubtfully, but didn't bother fighting with her. He'd seen enough of her on his own, and heard enough other stories from those who knew her better, to know that there was no point.

"All right then," he said, offering her a hand up. "Let's go collect tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum and get this show on the road."

xxx

"He's not here," Karun said finally, sitting back on his haunches and staring grimly at the snow in front of him. "Or if he is he's dead by now from the cold." His hands were numb from the digging. Rue looked worse off than him. She wasn't used to the cold, but she hadn't complained once. She narrowed her eyes at the snow and let her breath out in a hiss.

"Nayru," she breathed, tucking her gloved hands beneath her arms in a futile attempt to warm them. "Farore and Din." For a second they sat there in silence.

"Do you know where we are?" Rue finally asked.

"Not a clue," Karun answered. "But we haven't got much choice but to find out, I suppose."

"You said it's possible that Brayden was carried somewhere else?"

"Yes."

"So he might not be dead?"

"It's a possibility," Karun said cautiously. "But … the odds are slim."

"Well," Rue said resolutely, getting to her feet, unable to hide a wince at the ache in her joints as she did so, "one way or another we'll find out if he really is Link's father." Karun blinked at her as he got to his feet as well, no less achy than she.

"Come again?" He asked. She flashed him a mirthless grin.

"If he is, then the odds shouldn't matter to him." She turned to pick up their torch. "Because they've never mattered to Link."

xxx

Chapter 7

"Well, I left the desert to find me a man,

For we're all women there, do you ken?

But my quest, it would seem, was doomed as it began,

For Sheikah they aren't really men."

"Don't do this, Nabooru," Hunter says. "I'm warning you …"

"For men are so wonderfully muscled,

They can give it as well as they get,

Always they're up for a tussle,

A real man you won't soon forget."

"Stop now, or I'll be forced to respond in kind!" Hunter says warningly.

"But Sheikah, they're weak and they're sickly,

Sheikah, they're all skin and bones,

With Sheikah it's over too quickly,

And if you've met one, t'other's his clone."

"Ohhhh, this means war," Hunter growls at her. "You're crossing so many lines."

"Is it just me," Zelda asks, "or are they getting worse?"

"So if it's a man that you're after,

You had best find a young Hylian,

A Sheikah, he's good just for laughter,

Since, Sheikah, they aren't really men."

"They're getting worse," I agree. "On every level. Verse and, uh … the level of bawdiness."

"Oh you haven't seen anything yet," Nabooru says with a wicked little smile. "If you're little Sheikan friend insists on pursuing this war of words to its conclusion he's going to find out just how bawdy I can be."

"Hmph," Hunter says. "I'm not surprised you're proud of that," he says. "But regardless, it won't be me who looses, Nabooru, darling. Not to a Gerudo I won't." Nabooru threw him a smile that held every ounce of confident superiority she had in her. I wince for Hunter's sake. I don't think I've ever seen her lose when she's wearing that face.

On the other hand … Hunter's got no shortage of confident superiority himself and he's returning the look in kind.

"We should break that up before we're forced to listen to more goddess-awful songs," Zelda says, making a face. I nod and we split up, she slides silkily between Hunter and Nabooru and immediately engages Nabooru in a discussion that has nothing to do with anything, leading her away from Hunter, who crosses his arms and rolls his eyes at me, knowing full well what Zelda and I are doing.

"You guys our babysitters now?" He asks, raising his eyebrow. I smirk at him.

"Actually I think you're mine," I respond. "And you're setting a very bad example, you know. I'm easily influenced. Impressionable young mind and all that." Hunter snorts and falls into step at my side.

"Most five year olds are," he returns, then immediately ducks under the swipe I take at him. As he moves I catch a glint in his eye that means he's got me right where he wants me and has been waiting for an opportunity just like this. I hate that glint. I try to recover from my swipe in time to defend myself, but Hunter's quicker, grabbing my arm and twisting it behind my back then pushing me up against the wall.

"Bastard!" I snarl. I should have seen this coming. Nabooru and Zelda both whip around at my cry, then raise incredulous eyebrows at us. Hunter throws them his best smile.

"No worries, ladies," he calls. "The King and I need to have a little chat is all. Carry on." Nabooru frowns and looks at me and I sigh against the wall.

"Just go," I grumble. "Whatever he wants to say he'll just catch me later and I'll have to go through this again." I can't see Zelda from behind the suit of armour between us, but I can hear her give an irritated little sigh and then she and Nabooru continue walking.

"Don't go far!" Hunter calls as an afterthought. "Just wait for us around the corner! Last thing we need is to get separated!" Hunter makes a face at something I can't see past the armour. "Vulgar woman." He turns back to me and opens his mouth, but I've acted a half-second before he realizes I have, twisting my arm out of his grip and whirling around to grab him. He tries to dodge, but he's too late and the next second it's him pinned between the suits of armour lining the walls.

"You're very nosy," I tell him pleasantly. "And you know for a fact it's none of your business." He struggles in my grip, turning his head so I can see half of his smirk.

"You know you want to talk about it," he says. "I was just initiating the conversation."

"By pinning me against a wall?" Hunter raises a foot suddenly and places it on the wall, pushing off with all his strength. We stumble back and I strike the other side of the hallway, my grip going slack for a half a second – it's long enough for Hunter. He rips out of my grip and whirls around to face me, feet in a relaxed ready stance, and hands raised. I take up my own ready stance and try to grin at him. It must look half-hearted because Hunter's expression softens a bit and he lowers his hands, crossing his arms instead and shifting his wait.

"Sometimes I have to pin you down to get you to talk about anything," he replies. "You bolt more often than not if it's a touchy subject, and there aren't many subjects in your life touchier than Zelda."

"You know you once told me you hated heart to hearts," I point out with a sigh, lowering my hands as well and leaning up against the wall.

"I do," Hunter answers. "When I'm the one who has to confide in someone. I like my secrets right where they are."

"And I don't?"

"More like I don't care if you do," he answers. "You said it yourself, I'm nosy. And you're awful when it comes to dealing with people in anything resembling a tactful manner, and I don't know if you noticed, but Zelda is not only a people, she's a tactful people."

"I believe Zelda is a person, and not a people. If she was a people, that would imply more than one of her, or that she was a nationality of some kind. As in, I am a Zelda, from the land of Zeldor. See that? Get it straight or Nabooru really will beat you at your war of words."

"Want to know what I believe?" Hunter asks, ignoring my jibe entirely and raising an eyebrow at me in a way that suggests what I want is more or less not on the list of things he cares about.

"No," I respond anyway.

"I believe that when I turned around at the door to his damnable tower I caught a glimpse of your face and you were wearing that irritating stony, stoic expression that doesn't suit you at all and looks so out of place on your face that it screams that something is desperately wrong with you. I also believe that the only reason you ever get that face is because there is something you really don't want to talk about. Furthermore, I believe that there are very few things you ever try to hide, especially from me, and one of those things is usually Zelda – or more specifically, some sort of rejection involving Zelda." I glare at him, angry suddenly.

"Maybe because those are very personal things," I respond hotly, "and maybe I actually have a right to keep them to myself if I don't feel like talking about them." Hunter's expression is carefully neutral – which only serves to incense me further, which, of course, is exactly what he wants, but there's no helping it.

And he knows it.

"Why do you care anyway?" I demand, glaring at him. "It's none of your business. It doesn't involve you." He raises an eyebrow at me.

"You're going to mope about it," he says bluntly. "You're going to mope, and sulk, and leave me alone with Neesha and the rest of the crazy Gerudo. I'd say it involves me."

"They're not crazy," I snap.

"They willingly follow you," he returns easily. "I stand by my assessment."

"So do you," I respond angrily.

"I don't follow you," Hunter responds calmly. "I tag along because I generally enjoy your company and because someone has to watch your back and you have a tendency to take on so much at one time that it'll take more than just Neesha to do it. That's generally what friends do, Link. Watch out for each other." Here it comes. The clincher. I've lost this argument before it even started. "And that's all I'm doing now. You're not the type who deals well with repressing things, Link. You generally don't, nor should you. It doesn't work for you. So let's just have it out now, so you can move on with your life." He gestures an invitation to start walking with him again. I glare flatly at me without budging, but his face doesn't change, and I eventually accept it – grudgingly.

"You repress things," I respond sullenly, pushing myself off the wall and moving down the hall. "You repress everything. All the time. Why can't I?"

"First off," Hunter replies, "the instant you even suspect that I'm repressing something, you're all over me to drag it out of me. Forgive me if I return your lack of respect for my privacy. Second off, I told you; repression isn't good for you. As in you in particular. Your personality isn't suited for it. When you spend 24/7 wearing your heart on your sleeve, it'll only do more damage if you suddenly hide it, all right?"

"Hmph," I respond. "If my heart's on my sleeve where's yours?"

"Locked up in a cast iron box and cast into the bottomless sea of my soul where it can shrivel and blacken for want of the sun," he answers with a grin. I roll my eyes at him.

"If you can be dramatic, can I be dramatic?" I ask.

"You're not very good at it," he says, "but sure, why not. Go ahead and be dramatic if it'll make you feel better. Anything is better than you being all sad and quiet." For the briefest of instants he drops his usual nonchalant mask to let me see that he really means it before he puts it back up again.

If there was any fight left in me … it left with that. I sigh.

"I'll leave the dramatics aside for now," I say heavily. "Haven't really got the energy for it, to tell you the truth."

"And why is that?" Hunter asks. I frown but don't meet his gaze.

"You're telling me you can't guess?"

"I'm telling you we'll both feel better if you say it yourself." I sigh again.

"Fine. So … I might have proposed to Zelda."

"Again?"

"Yes. And … she might have said no."

"Again."

"Yes."

"How many times is this now? Five?"

"Seven." He blinks in surprise and I suddenly feel ashamed, like I've done something wrong not telling him about the other two. "You were in Kakariko," I say by way of explanation. "And I was gone back to the desert before you got back to Castletown." Hunter doesn't seem to care. He's shaking his head.

"Seven times," he says slowly. "Sorry, man." I shrug his sympathy off.

"It doesn't matter," I answer with fake lightness. "I wasn't expecting her to say yes. She never does. It was a long shot anyway."

"Still," Hunter says, "it can't get any easier to hear."

And there it is.

No useless words of comfort, no empty optimism, no false, offensive hope. Just a simple understanding of the way things are. He doesn't feel bad for me, he feels bad with me. Not sympathy, but empathy. I cast a glance at him out of the corner of one blue eye and he returns it out of the corner of one not-quite-green-not-quite-blue eye and we both smile.

That brief, half-a-second glance is all either of our testosterone will allow before we both clear our throats and direct our attention ahead again.

"Let's catch up with the girls," Hunter says.

"Good—" I freeze in my tacks, ears perked up suddenly.

"What is it?" Hunter asks.

"Do you hear that?" I ask, casting a glance back down the hall we've just come down. Hunter freezes as well and strains his ears.

"Banging," he says. "Yeah I hear it."

"It's getting louder." Without another word we both draw our weapons, tensed, ears straining, trying to pinpoint the location and source of the noise.

"It's familiar," I murmur, the steady thumping rhythm tickling something at the back of my brain. I run through the mental bestiary in my head, "but I can't—" the end of my sentence is cut off by the loudest bang yet – loud enough to shake the whole hall and send dust showering down on us. Hunter and I tense in the impossible silence that comes after, stretching unbearably.

"It's stopped."

"Maybe it—" A creaking from above us cuts through the silence like a bolt. Hunter and I both turn our faces upwards at the same time in what would no doubt be a comical fashion if not for how hard my heart is thumping in my chest.

"You know," Hunter says nervously, eying the ceiling – in which spider webs of cracks are starting to spread – as we both start backing up. "We've been in the tower for about a half-hour without seeing hide nor hair of a guard or anything."

"So?" I demand, following him back.

"So if they were going to spring an ambush on us, now would be the—"

An all-too-familiar shhhhhhhhk sound from behind us cuts him off and we turn around. I am unsurprised to see a series of iron bars now barring our progress down the hall.

"Dammit! Nabooru!" I shout, trying to keep my panic out of my voice. "Zelda! We need—"

Before I can finish a noise akin to an explosion assaults our eardrums as the roof suddenly bursts apart in a shower of shrapnel and dust, and a large hulking something falls through it.

"Link!" Hunter grabs the back of my tunic and hauls me bodily backwards, throwing me behind him and into the bars as the thing falls through the ceiling and hits the floor, smashing through it as well. I catch sight of a vaguely humanoid shape and the rough texture of stone before it disappears, taking half of the floor with it.

"Hunter, watch out!" I cry as the floor beneath him starts to give way. His eyes widen and he scrambles to his feet, but he's not fast enough. The floor gives out underneath him and before I quite know what's happening his head has disappeared. "Hunter!" I shout.

"Link!" Someone shouts behind me. "Your hookshot!" I react instantly, ripping the aforementioned item out of my pouch and throwing myself on my hands and knees on the edge of the ragged whole in the floor, ignoring the fact that it still doesn't look all that stable.

"Catch!" I shout down the hole, releasing the catch and propelling the grappling hook downwards, praying desperately that I won't hit him. Hunter and the hook both disappear into the darkness for a heart-wrenching instant I'm convinced I was too late but an instant later there's a wrench on the hookshot and I could cry with relief as I brace myself against the sudden pull. I feel something in my shoulder give, but I don't care.

"Hunter! Are you all right?" I shout.

"Besides the fact that I'm hanging over what appears to be a bottomless pit in the middle of an evil tower with nothing for my life to depend on but your girly arms?" He shouts back, his voice weak and trembling from the near-miss, but grateful all the same. "Yeah. I think I'm all right. Be better if you'd pull me up though." I laugh despite the insult (which isn't to say I don't make a mental note to show him just how 'girly' my arms are later) and my gut unclenches.

"I don't know if the mechanism is strong enough to pull you straight up," I answer him, "and I don't want to break it, so I'm gonna have to do it the old fashioned way."

"Is Nabooru there?" Hunter calls back up. I cast a glance over my shoulder and notice both Zelda and Nabooru standing on the other side of the bars looking as relieved as I feel.

"Yeah, why?" I ask.

"It's just that her arms are so much more manly than yours I think she might have an easier time of it."

"You could drop him, you know," Nabooru suggests.

"I could drop you, you know," I tell Hunter. There's a laugh from down below and in response I start backing up as quickly as I can manage while keeping two hands on the hookshot. I don't want to stand up just yet – the floor's not very stable – but a sudden jerk on my hookshot and a startled shout from below force me to freeze again. The weight on my hookshot increases.

"Hunter!" I gasp, straining against it. "Hunter! What's going on?"

"There's something else down—" Before Hunter can finish telling us what's going on my hookshot is violently ripped from my hands and disappears down the hole.

"Hunter!" I cry. There's no answer. There's a little gasp followed by a faint pink glow and another shhhhhhhhk from behind me and the next thing I know Zelda and Nabooru are dragging me back from the edge which has begun to crumble a bit again and helping me to my feet. "Dammit!" I hiss.

"What happened?" Zelda demands.

"Something's got him!" I cry, gripping her shoulder tightly. "We've got to get down there!"

"How?" Nabooru demands, worrying her lower lip and staring at the hole. "You want us to jump?" I blink, the panic in my brain clearing just long enough for a solution to present itself.

"Yes." I answer flatly and grab them both around the waist before they can react.

"Link!"

"Wait!"

"Nayru's Love!" And before the blue shield is completely done forming I've leapt down the hole and into the dark, dragging the two sages rather unceremoniously with me.

xxx

A Brief Interlude

"When a person comes to after having been knocked out in any kind of violent fashion, the general consensus is that they wished they hadn't. Come to, that is."

Brayden tried to force his eyes open but found he couldn't just yet. He wasn't entirely sure he was disappointed. He had a vague impression that the throbbing in his head would only grow exponentially should he spontaneously expose his poor battered brain to any kind of light.

"I think it's likely a combination of a headache and a desire to not have to remember what knocked them out in the first place, myself. I can't imagine it would be nice to come to and the first thing you remember is that."

Avalanche. There had been an avalanche. Blinding, suffocating white.

"As your awareness returns to your brain, it'll gradually return to your body too and then you'll start to feel whatever injuries you sustained in whatever situation it was that got you knocked out in the first place."

His shoulder, his lower back, both his knees, one elbow and one ankle, his chest and his left side all ached suddenly, as though on cue. Too many different types of aches to place them all. Something was cut, something was bruised, something was broken. He couldn't tell what yet. The pain all kind of merged into a general hodgepodge of hurt with no identifiable source or location. Brayden groaned and forced his eyes open at last. The aforementioned exponential growth of the throbbing commenced.

"And last but not least, the feeling of disorientation as you try to remember where you are and why, and, in some cases, most likely yours as well, you can't."

"Who's—" He winced as the sound of his own voice drove needles into his brain, but he pushed on anyway. "Who's there? Karun? Rue?" It certainly didn't sound like Karun or Rue, but he was pretty sure he'd been knocked around and who knew how badly damaged his head was.

"I'm afraid not," the voice answered. A kindly old face inserted itself between the light and Brayden's eyes and smiled benignly down at him. "Were they with you with when the avalanche hit?"

"Yes," Brayden croaked and tried to sit up. Gnarled hands on his shoulders pushed him back down, the strength in them belying the brittle appearance. "I have to find them," he protested weakly, unable to fight the old man at the moment. "I can't … Karun'll be all right, but Rue … Link will … never forgive me if she's hurt … she's practically … practically his grandmother." The old eyes were suddenly interested, keen in their intensity.

"Link?" He inquired. His voice gave nothing away but curiosity, but not even the bruises and cuts and fractures could completely override Sheikan training, and suspicion immediately danced with the pain in Brayden's eyes.

"Who are you?" He demanded. "Where are my companions? Where am I?"

"I mean you no harm," the man said, nothing but warmth and comfort in his tone. "I'm just an old hermit who grew bored with the ins and outs of life in the city and decided to take up residence in a cave in the mountains. You're currently lying on my bed in said cave. As for your companions … well, to be honest with you I haven't the foggiest idea."

"Hermit?" Brayden asked, wishing it didn't hurt so much to talk. "Are you … Sahasrala?"

"Sahasrala?" The old man said, raising an eyebrow. "What do you want with that old coot?" The hermit asked him. "Never mind," he said suddenly when Brayden opened his mouth. "What's important now is that you rest. Open your mouth and swallow this, it'll speed up the healing process." Debating the wisdom of swallowing anything a crazy old man who lives a cave wanted him to, and burning with irritation that he had managed to find an old hermit who lived in the mountains and it was not, in fact, the one he had been seeking, Brayden opened his mouth anyway. Whatever it was it tasted awful. "Sorry," the old man apologized. "Had to make it with stale ingredients. Winter time and all that. And I've been out of sugar to take the edge off it with for weeks."

"What is it?" Brayden demanded between coughing fits which sent pain screaming from his chest as he did so.

"Healing potion. Sort of," the hermit answered. "Not a great one, unfortunately. Like I said, old ingredients, but it'll be enough to get you moving again, and that's something."

"Thanks," Brayden managed weakly.

"Well, I don't get visitors often so I can afford a little hospitality here and there," he answered. "Now, tell me what your friends look like and I'll see if I can't find them for you."

"Are you sure you should—" The old man made a tutting noise.

"I know these caves like the back of my hand," he answered. "If I can't find them, boy, they can't be found."

Brayden briefly wondered if the flash of irritation he felt in his chest at being called 'boy' was what Link, Hunter and Neesha went through when they were referred to as 'kids.'

"Karun's a Goron, kind of hard to miss. He's got a stiff leg and he limps on it, and his fair share of scars from the war."

"Which war?"

"Take your pick."

"Ah. And Rue?"

"She's a … woman," Brayden said, just managing to choke back the Gerudo. If the old man had been up here for as long as he looked like he had he may still be prey to the old prejudices more strongly than most. "About 80. Long grey-hair. Narrow eyes. Usually looks unimpressed no matter how impressive whatever she's looking at."

"Rue, eh?" The old man said, his eyes cunning. "An interesting name indeed." Brayden frowned at him, but the cunning was gone, replaced with a sort of friendly befuddlement. "Well, I'll see if I can't find them for you. In the meantime, just lie there and don't hurt yourself more than you are. The potion should kick in shortly. It'll fix most of you up, but I'm afraid your ribs are going to be bruised for a while – potion's not strong enough to mend them completely I'm afraid. Not with all your other scrapes and bruises." And with that he was gone. Brayden stared after him and frowned, the impression that the old man was a lot more than he was letting on gnawing away at his brain.

He sighed after a moment and forced himself up with a grunt and a loud groan. It hadn't hurt as much as he'd thought it would – the potion must have definitely been kicking in – but a dull pain in his chest told him the old man hadn't been lying about his ribs. He quickly took stock of his surroundings.

The cave was small, but warm and homely. Round in shape and decorated with simple wooden furniture and a single, lush carpet spread out in front of a fire place carved into the back wall (how the old man had managed to carve a fireplace into a wall of solid stone was beyond Brayden). Knick knacks covered just about every inch of free space, glittering merrily in the firelight – some looked expensive, some looked cheap, but each and everyone of them screamed of importance in one way or another.

Sentimentality and power.

The whole place was filled with both.

Brayden suddenly wondered if there really were two old hermits in the mountain after all.

"Old coot, indeed," he muttered, getting slowly to his feet and testing his weight on his knees. They stung like a son-of-a-bitch but he gritted his teeth and forced them to move anyway. He could just see the three kids if they saw him hobbling around. The old jokes would never stop. They'd go on and on about it until he was forced to kill them all.

Regrettable, but justifiable, he was sure.

The urge to snoop tickled at his brain as he peered at the scattered shelves and table tops. It was part training, but mostly it was just him, and he'd never been one to resist the urge for long. And besides, the old man didn't seem willing to answer any questions, so he'd have to find the answers on his own.

He wandered around the small room, touching things carefully, smiling at some and frowning at others, careful to disturb nothing, until he came to a small, silver mirror placed upside down on one shelf. It caught his attention for some reason and he stared at it with a small frown. He raised his hand towards it, but stopped half-way, uneasy for some reason.

It was just a simple mirror. A little hand-held thing, probably used by some woman who had mattered to the old hermit at one point in his life. Intricate engravings laced around the silver and down the handle. The symbol of the Sheikah graced the back of it. It was beautiful, but at the same time it frightened him a little. He frowned, growled, and forced his hand forward before he could doubt his motives.

His fingers wrapped around the handle and he winced despite himself, waiting.

Nothing happened.

Breathing a sigh of relief, though he wasn't sure why, Brayden lifted the mirror and turned it around to glance at its surface.

What greeted him, however, was not a set of forest eyes and blonde hair touched with grey. What greeted him was a set of blood-red eyes set into an ebony face that looked frighteningly like his son. He didn't even get the chance to register the Sheikan inscription, written in the old tongue, carved around the glass, or the small, round depression just above the glass, before he swore violently and threw the mirror away from himself, sending it clattering back onto the shelf and scattering the other objects around it. He stared at it in shock, too horrified to bother straightening the things around it to cover his tracks. He felt weak and small suddenly. He didn't want to touch it. He didn't want to get near it. He wished he'd never seen it.

Dark Link.

That had been Dark Link.

The eyes … the grin … the malevolent, obsessive hatred glaring in every line of his face …

Brayden resisted the urge to bolt out the door and made his trembling, pale way back over to the bed and pulled himself up onto it, leaning against the wall and staring at the mirror, rigid and unmoving … fighting not to succumb to the nightmare memories that threatened to overtake him.

It seemed an eternity before he heard noise in the hallway outside. He didn't bother to move his gaze until the door swung inward and the old man entered, two familiar figures shuffling in behind him. He frowned at Brayden and followed his gaze, thenheaved a fantastic sigh.

"I suppose I should have warned you not to touch that," he said, shaking his head as Karun and Rue walked in behind him. He moved over to the little shelf where the mirror still sat and began straightening out the knick-knacks around it. Brayden glared flatly at the back of his head which was currently blocking his view of the mirror.

"It would have been nice," he said dully. The old man offered him a dry smile.

"However I can't help but think if I'd said, 'Brayden, my good man, while you're snooping through my personal belongings, please make sure you give that little mirror in the corner a wide berth, or you may be in for a nasty shock,' you'd have been twice as compelled to touch it."

"Brayden are you all right?" Karun asked, looking the Sheikah up and down. "You look awful."

"Oh I'm just peachy," Brayden said, schooling the tremble out of his voice when he noticed Rue's piercing gaze on him. "Who wouldn't be after being caught in an avalanche, fed some god-awful old potion – not that I don't appreciate it, sir – and then looking in a mirror and seeing the one thing you prayed with all your heart you'd never see again?"

"What are you on about, Sheikah?" Rue demanded, frowning at him and cutting off Karun who had been about to profess his relief that Brayden was, at least, alive and they had found him. In answer, Brayden turned to look at the old man who had finally turned from his shelf and was watching them with a neutral expression on his face. He met Brayden's gaze evenly.

"You," Brayden said stiffly. "Are Sahasrala. Though why you lied—"

"I never lied," the old man interrupted quickly. "I never said I wasn't. I said Sahasrala was an old coot and asked you what you wanted from him. I didn't lie."

"But you are Sahasrala?" Brayden demanded. Rue gave a soft snort from behind him.

"You can't feel it off of him?" She asked, narrowing her eyes at the old man. "Hermit. Bah. Mage is what this man is. He reeks of magic." The old man rolled his eyes in a very un-wisemanish gesture.

"Hadn't counted on her being a magic user," he said with a frown. "I generally don't admit to being who I am right off the bat when people come seeking me, not until I've found out what they want anyway, but this one decided she was having none of it and proceeded to threaten me with all sorts of nasty things if I didn't quit playing around and just be straight with her." He raises an eyebrow at me. "She's a Gerudo if I ever saw one, Brayden, so you can quit trying to hide that little tidbit from me. Relax," he added, shuffling over to the fireplace. "I've no issues with the desert folk. Or the mountain folk, or the city folk, or the water folk, or the forest folk while we're at it. You'll find no prejudice here. Hatred grows cold when you've lived as long as I have. Now," he pulled an enormous black kettle from beside the fireplace and lifted it with a benign smile, "who wants some tea?"

xxx

"Some temptations are best resisted, Neesha," Darunia said sagely, squeezing her shoulder and dragging her away from the object of her attention. She glared, but didn't take her eyes off the little pearl, glittering brightly on its scarlet pillow.

"What if it's—"

"Trapped?" Darunia asked. "Cursed? Deadly? Well, I'd imagine you'd have a very unpleasant experience."

"I was going to say, what if it's important," Neesha responded in irritation. "Why would Aghanim put it in this blasted tower if he didn't want to keep it away from us?"

"To lure foolhardy teenagers into trying to steal it," Darunia responded easily, still firmly leading her away. Neesha made an irritated noise but allowed herself to be turned.

"I'll just steal it on the way out," she muttered to herself, then cast a paranoid look at Darunia to make sure he hadn't heard. He either hadn't, or was ignoring her, and either one suited Neesha just fine. She'd be damned if she'd let an opportunity like this go. A pretty bauble like that? Even if it wasn't important to Aghanim, it would be worth a pretty penny, that much was sure. And Solstice was coming up, and despite the fact that she had never even heard of the holiday and its inane gift-giving tradition until her first winter with Link and Hunter three years ago, she didn't like the idea of them giving her presents – as she knew they would – without giving them something in return, no matter how many times they explained that she was missing the point. It was a very stressful time of year for her, as they were right, she really didn't understand the point, but she understood that it was important to them that they celebrated it, and it was important to them that they included her in it, whether she wanted to be or not, and as much as she hated the stupid holiday it did have a certain sort of charm, and there was a certain sort of niceness about the presents and Link and Hunter acting like the whole damn world was perfect and honest and innocent and it was amusing to watch if nothing else, but she never had any idea what to get them, or what was appropriate, but no matter what she decided, to do anything about it she needed rupees (seeing as apparently the first rule of Solstice is that you can't just steal the present, it needs to be obtained legitimately, but they'd never said anything about stealing the funds required to obtain the presents legitimately had they?) that pearl would put her one step closer – and if it happened to hurt Aghanim in some way, well all the better then, wasn't it?

And as though the goddess herself was listening to her train of thought and sympathizing with her annual solstice pain, an opportunity to get at the solution to a large part of her problems presented itself not more than an instant later. As she and Darunia rounded the corner, they came upon Acqul and Dune, who were once again arguing over something. Neesha wrinkled her nose and frowned at them.

Was that what she and Link looked like when they were fighting?

Darunia heaved a heavy, irritated sigh and released Neesha's shoulder to jog forward and find out what the problem was this time, muttering darkly to himself, and Neesha froze in the act of following him to cast a surreptitious glance over her shoulder.

That pearl …

Solstice aside, there was something about it …

She glanced at where Dune and Acqul were both trying to talk over each other to explain to Darunia what the problem was, then grinned.

She'd be back before they knew she was gone.

And besides … Goody-Two-Shoes Link and his sidekick Captain Righteous weren't here to stop her, now were they? She might never get another chance like this.

She slipped back around the corner and prowled her way over to where the pearl sat. It was against the wall on a pedestal set into a floor that was independent of the rest of the room. Large, wide gaps surrounded the little patch of floor on all sides and when she leaned over Neesha could see the other floors they'd climbed through beneath them. She briefly wondered at the fact that Aghanim had built the towers this big and then filled them with nothing but a pearl, a medallion, and a great, ugly snake.

Then again … how much more of a guard do you need for something than a great, ugly snake?

Still, it bothered her. The fact that there were no guards – be they Hylian or moblin – in the tower set her nerves on edge. It made very little sense. If the pendants were that important shouldn't it have been harder to get to them?

Unless of course the towers hadn't been designed to guard the pendants.

Which made its own sort of sense. Who built a whole empty tower for the sake of guarding one little pendant? What if putting the pendants in the towers had been mere convenience?

But then why build the towers at all?

She frowned and made a mental note to take the subject up with Hunter. She had the vague impression whatever it was it had to do with a level of conniving that she just wasn't capable of working at.

Hunter on the other hand …

She snorted as she dropped to her stomach to scan the platform for traps. She found it ironic that Hunter had the nerve to call her dishonest when all she ever did was steal things. There was nothing dishonest about that. It you couldn't properly defend your things, then you really didn't deserve to have them, did you? And yet Hunter – who could be two-faced and talk out of the side of his mouth and tell lies easier than he could tell the truth sometimes – had the gall to call her dishonest?

She grinned a bit to herself when she spotted the odd little floor tile on the landing with the pedestal. It was raised just a bit higher than the rest of the tiles. A pressure plate. She glanced at what was keeping the floor in the air. Two little L-shaped fixtures held it onto the wall. She could just barely make out the small hinges on their joint. Her grin widened. Simple, but effective. Someone would jump across to get at the pearl, hit the pressure plate, and the floor would drop right out from under them. She doubted the drop would kill a person, but if you weren't expecting it and landed wrong you could get seriously hurt. It was still a far ways down. She frowned and considered her options.

If the floor dropped like that, there had to be something holding the pearl to the pillow, otherwise the pearl would just fall with the thief. Likely whatever it was would prove to be another trap once broke, but Neesha couldn't see any other trip wires or pressure plates or obvious contraptions that looked designed to be painful. She'd likely have to get a closer look.

The shouting from down the corridor had quieted to a murmur. She was running out of time.

"Only one way to find out," she grunted, getting back to her feet. She took a few steps back to give herself a running start, then threw herself across the gap, careful to keep her feet wide of the pressure plate. The platform trembled a little under her landing but didn't give way. She nodded to herself and crept towards the pearl on the platform, tensed for action in case something should happen.

Nothing did.

She frowned down at the pearl, and was immediately forced to wonder if it really was a pearl at all. It resembled one, to be sure, but Neesha had seen a lot of jewels change hands in the fortress, and no shortage of them pearls. If it was a pearl it was just about the most valuable one she'd ever seen. For starters it was huge for a pearl – at least two centimetres diameter – but more than that it was … perfect. Perfectly round, perfectly white, it reflected a perfect reflection back at her. It almost seemed to glow with something that went a little bit beyond lustre.

Magic, she decided instantly. It's magic. She'd spent enough time around Rue the last few years to understand that things of this level of perfection were often used for spells and other things, but though she thought that might be close to what it was for, she didn't quite think that was it either.

Abruptly she shrugged.

Whatever its purpose, she didn't intend to leave it there for Aghanim to make use of. She'd give it to Rue, or maybe Nabooru to figure out, and if it really was just a pearl then it would be hers to do what she would with it.

She bent over to study the pedestal it was seated on. She couldn't immediately see what was holding the pearl to the pillow – and as such suspected some kind of spell – but what she could see was a tiny little nozzle which blended almost, but not quite perfectly into the carvings around the pedestal. She grinned to herself. Gas of some kind then. Creative. Maybe it was deadly, maybe it would just knock her out, but she had a brief mental image of someone getting hit in the face with a cloud of gas and falling over onto the pressure plate that made her grin.

Shaking her head at the mental image she pulled her scarf up over her mouth and nose and held her breath for good measure before reaching out and snatching up the peal in one fluid motion. As expected there was a small click the instant she touched the pearl and green smoke billowed out of the pedestal and into her face. She snorted in contempt at it and turned to go, but movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention.

Thick, iron bars slid into place along the edge of the floor on the other side of the little landing she was standing on, trapping her on it. She gasped in surprise and then scowled, immediately searching the floor where she'd stepped to see if she'd missed something.

"It wasn't you," said a familiar voice from somewhere in front of her. Neesha's face hardened as she raised her head to glare flatly at the two young women separating themselves from the shadows.

"It was us," added the second.

"Bel," Neesha said flatly. "Mel. I was wondering if you two would show up." She cast a surreptitious look around. "Where's Thomas?"

"Gone to the other—oof!" Bel elbowed her sister in the stomach to stop her from finishing her statement but it was too late.

"Gone after Zelda again, has he?" Neesha said flatly, suddenly wishing fervently she had some way of warning the other team.

"Zelda's there?" Bel said in surprise and this time it was Mel's turn to elbow her in the stomach. Neesha raised an eyebrow.

"It doesn't matter," Mel said flatly. "I'm really sorry about this, Neesha, but you're under arrest."

"I'm not at Castletown," Neesha responded flatly. "You have no authority here." She edged forward.

"Aghanim's Prince Regent of Hyrule," Mel answered dully. "And he's given us authority wherever we want it."

"Please don't fight us, Neesha."

"Just throw your weapons over here."

"Me?" Neesha demanded, glaring at them as she inched forward again. "A Gerudo? Throw my weapons to you? Two rogue Sheikah who haven't even got the honour to face me in actual battle?" The scorn in her voice was hard and sharp and acidic. She took another half-step forward. "Think again." And before they could react she reached out with a foot and pressed down on the pressure plate. The landing dropped out from under her and the last thing she saw before she fell out of sight was Bel and Mel's stunned, horrified expressions.

She landed like a cat and was off just as fast, bolting for the stairs back up.

If she was lucky she would get up them before Bel and Mel got their heads together and headed down them.

And if she wasn't then Bel and Mel were dead. It was as simple as that. They had declared their hostile intent. They had allied themselves with Aghanim, who was the enemy.

There was very little room for mercy in the Gerudo mentality.

Hunter and Link would forgive her in the end …

xxx

Thomas stared in horror at the jagged pieces of wood and the curled pieces of wire on the floor.

"No," he whimpered. "Oh no, oh no, oh no!" He could feel his face go ashen. "I'm dead. I'm so dead!" Bel and Mel gave simultaneous, sympathetic shakes of their head.

"You're right," said Bel.

"You're dead," agreed Mel. Thomas gave a little wail of dread and dropped to his knees, trying to pick up the pieces of what had once been a guitar.

"Help me!" He gasped. "We have to fix it before he finds out!"

"Before who finds out what?" Asked a new voice from the doorway. Thomas gave a small shriek and whirled around, one piece of wood and one metal string in his hands.

"H-Hunter!" He gasped. Bel and Mel stared at him with wide eyes then simultaneously shuffled a step or two away from Thomas. Hunter raised an eyebrow.

"What? What is it? What did you …" His voice died off when he spotted what Thomas was clutching. Suddenly Thomas' face wasn't the only ashen one in the room. "Is that my … did you break …"

"I'm sorry …" Thomas managed through a dry, painful throat. "Hunter, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry … it was an accident … we … we were just … just roughhousing and … and I fell and … I …" He trailed off and watched Hunter's face. It's color shifted from grey, to red, to a sick sort of green, to a deep shade of purple, and right back to grey again. This is it, Thomas thought to himself. He's going to kill me now. And I can't say I blame him. I just smashed his favourite thing in the whole wide world into a million pieces and now he's going to do the same to me, and I deserve it. I'm just going to sit here and take it. Take it like a man. But the truth of the matter was Thomas was not a man. He was an eleven-year-old boy who did not want to die, especially because he had the vague impression that even if Hunter did kill him, it was still he who would get yelled at by his mother and she would just ground his corpse. Nobody would blame Hunter. Nobody blamed Hunter for anything any more, not since Bruiser had left. All the adults seemed to feel sorry for him, and on some level, Thomas supposed he did too. He couldn't imagine what it would be like if his mother moved away to take care of some other boy who wasn't him. But another part of him thought they were all being foolish. At least Hunter still had a Dad, and it wasn't like he didn't get to see him. Thomas had never known his father – killed by a Gerudo in the war – and nobody saw fit to not blame him for everything. Everything was always his fault, whether or not he'd actually done it. How many times had Bel and Mel framed him for things? How many times had Ketari blackmailed him into taking the blame for things she'd done? How man times had Hunter blamed him for … for …

He paused.

Hunter hadn't ever blamed him for anything.

He wracked his brain, trying to find an example, anything to let him continue feeling sorry for himself. Sometimes if he managed to look suitably sorry for himself, other people would feel sorry for him too and let things go. But there was nothing. Hunter never blamed him for anything.

Instead what sprang to mind was several times Hunter had taken the blame for things Thomas had done. Even now, in Hunter's face, Thomas could read the instant forgiveness.

He suddenly wanted to spare Hunter the trouble and just kill himself.

"I'm sorry," he whispered again, holding out the wood and string as though that could somehow make it better.

"My Mom's guitar," Hunter said thickly, all the rage bleeding out of his body as he took the proffered pieces from Thomas. He cast a heart-broken look down at the rest of the mess and suddenly looked very close to tears. "Dad … he gave it to me when he left. He … he said … said it was special. Special to her … special to him … he told me to practice … so I could play it like she could. How … how am I supposed to practice … how am I supposed to tell him …"

"I'll fix it," Thomas swore, desperate to make it better. "I'll get it fixed. I'll … I've got fifteen rupees saved up."

"I've got ten!" Bel chimed in.

"Me too!" Mel added. "You can have that. That's thirty-five!"

"But … but it's smashed …" His voice was thick with tears he wasn't willing to shed. Thomas knew Bruiser had told him not to cry. Bruiser had told him to be tough. He felt a painful surge of sympathy for the other boy and suddenly understood why maybe everybody felt sorry for Hunter.

"Ketari will know what to do," he said, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt. "Ketari can fix anything …"

"Hunter …." Thomas struggled with the memory for a moment. Struggled with that tiny part of him that remembered those things with such clarity. The tiny part of him that assaulted him with these thoughts and these feelings and these images whenever it could. The tiny part of him that Aghanim's tainted magic could not touch.

At his feet lay the source of the memories this time. Limp, unconscious, maybe dead. Thomas didn't know. Didn't really care beyond the fact that he needed him alive, though that tiny part of him did. That tiny part of him railed and screamed and wept at the sight – at the sight and at the thought of what would happen to its old friend once Thomas handed him over to the Wizard. It knew. It had seen what had happened to the others. It had railed and screamed and wept for them as well.

Thomas didn't care, though. Didn't care about the others. Didn't care about what the Wizard had done with them. Didn't care what he would do with Hunter.

And yet …

He couldn't help himself …

"Did you fix it?" He asked, peering down at the dark-haired youth at his feet, but addressing that tiny part of himself that he no longer recognized as himself. Or even as a part of himself. It was a separate entity. To be humoured if he was in the mood, but otherwise ignored. "Did you fix his guitar?"

Why do you care? The little voice demanded sullenly. Why don't you just kill him now. You've already killed his father. Thomas waited. There was no point in answering these jibes. He's going to kill you, you know. You don't know Hunter like I do. He'll never forgive you for it. Never. If he gets the chance he'll put a knife in your ribs before you can blink, and when the time comes I'll help him. I'll do whatever it takes to make sure you die, because you deserve it. He waited for the inevitable conclusion to this rant. He always did. And so do I for letting this happen.

"He forgave you for the guitar," Thomas pointed out. "Why is this different?"

That was a guitar! The little voice shrieked. It was bits of wood and metal and wire! It was a symbol of his parent's love. Just a symbol! You didn't take a symbol from him. You took his father.

"Did you fix it? Did Katori—"

Ketari, the voice snapped. And don't you ever, ever mention her name again. You're not good enough to talk about her, you understand me?

"Fine," Thomas said, rolling his eyes. "Was she able to fix it or not?" There was a stubborn pause and for half an instant Thomas didn't think he'd ever get an answer. Then:

No. It was smashed too badly. There was no fixing it. For some reason Thomas was disappointed. Some unspoken something tickled at the back of his consciousness. This was important for some reason.

"Really?" He asked. "You couldn't fix it? He must have been upset …"

He was, the voice answered, some of the heat going out of his voice at the memory. He cried over it finally. Right there in the store, too. Hunter doesn't cry. Not like that. That's the only time I've ever seen him do it. Thomas dropped into a crouch and stared at Hunter's face, relaxed in unconsciousness. The tickling got worse.

"He doesn't look that tough," he commented. "He doesn't look like that kind of person."

He's unconscious, moron, the little voice said caustically. Nobody looks tough when they're unconscious. Thomas was so engrossed in trying to identify what the tickling had to do with Hunter that he failed to notice the barest flicker of movement from the other side of the body. Thomas didn't notice, but the voice did. Don't think he's tough, eh? It said smugly. Well strap yourself in, because you're just about to find out how tough he can be.

"What?" Thomas demanded in irritation, but before he was even done forming the word Hunter's eyes snapped open and he twisted violently, slamming a small knife into Thomas' thigh. Thomas cried out at the unexpected attack and fell backwards, his wounded leg giving out. Hunter wasted no time, scrambling to his feet and throwing himself bodily on top of Thomas. He pulled his fist back and slammed it into Thomas' face. Thomas snarled and caught his fist before it could slam into him another time.

"That," he hissed, narrowing his eyes, "was a mistake." Hunter's face was a mask of fury and hatred.

"I don't make mistakes," he hissed back, raising his other fist. Thomas was vaguely aware of a thud from somewhere behind them , immediately followed by a blue flash.

"Hunter!"

"Over here! It's Thomas!" Hunter called, driving his fist downwards. Thomas raised his free arm to block and moved to grab Hunter's free hand as well, but before he could he heard the oddest sound.

Someone was playing the Ocarina …

xxx

Chapter 7 (cont.)

Time rearranges itself into a linear fashion with it's all-too-familiar sickening lurch and I stumble back into its flow. Tatl is flying in a slow, dizzy circle and looking like she's going to be sick. I feel a vague sort of smugness. Navi was never sick after travelling through Time …

I blink slowly a few times and stare around at my surroundings. I'm back in the basement of the clock tower. I raise my hand to my face and feel the near-wooden snout still sticking off my face and have to fight back a wail of disappointment.

After all that … I'm still a deku scrub.

A deku scrub.

It's suddenly very hard not to give in to the childish urge to drop to the ground and cry my eyes out. I've never been this frustrated in my life.

No wait, that's a lie. The WaterTemple was more frustrating than this. The day I find something more frustrating than that damn temple is the day I kill myself because life just isn't worth living any more.

But this is almost as bad, and in an entirely different, sprit-crushing, resolve-breaking, heart-rending sort of way.

I've got my Ocarina back, but I still don't have Epona, or Navi.

I'm trapped on another plane of existence, with a fairy who isn't my partner and who hates my guts and is likely just waiting for the opportunity to turn me over to her psychotic skullkid friend, in a body that isn't mine, or even remotely mine, or even my species, not to mention I'm a bloody kid again. Trapped in the state of an eleven-year old. Somewhere out there, in the real Hyrule, I'm living out the worst year of my life.

Though this one is starting to run a close second for worst year ever.

I lost Navi on a routine trip back in time, I have no idea where she is and all my attempts to find her have come to nothing.

I've lost Epona to a crazy skullkid who's probably ridden her to death by now – she's just a foal for Nayru's sake!

I almost lost the Ocarina of Time, which I don't even really want to think about.

And I've once again crammed my not-quite-twenty-year-old mind into an eleven-year-old body that was subsequently turned into a deku scrub.

And I get the feeling this adventure is just getting started.

At least that crazy mask-guy isn't—

Crazy mask-guy's frozen smile inserts itself into my view.

"Well hello there!" He says brightly, paying no attention when I scream and stumble back, tripping over myself and falling to the ground, little deku heart beating a frantic tattoo in my chest.

"Farore!" I gasp, clutching my chest and falling limply onto the ground. "Don't do that. For Nayru's sake, don't do that!" Tatl laughs above me and I glare murderously at her. Do deku scrubs even have expressions? Can she even tell I'm glaring?

I grab a nearby piece of debris and throw it at her, just to be sure. She dodges easily and glares down at me with a pronounced "Hmph!"

"Ooo!" Says the Mask-guy. "The Ocarina of Time!" My brain immediately returns to the important issues at hand when I realize two things.

One, the Ocarina is not in my hand. I dropped it when the mask-guy scared the living daylights out of me.

Two, the mask-guy is reaching down to pick it up.

"No!" I shout, scrambling forward and snatching it back before he can touch it, clutching it again my chest and scrambling backwards. I glare at him. "Don't touch!" For a brief instant something terrible flickers behind the mask-guy's eyes but it's gone the next instant as he straightens.

I don't like him.

I don't like him one bit.

That frozen smile doesn't go all the way to his eyes, and that's never a good sign.

I clutch the Ocarina possessively and back up a few steps, keeping space between me and he.

"Well," he says jovially, "I can see you don't trust me with that, and a good thing too. I can't say I blame you, that is certainly a precious little item. Powerful magic exists in that Ocarina, powerful magic indeed." His smile stretches grotesquely. "Powerful enough, even, to reverse what that wretched little skullkid did to you, I think, if you knew the right notes." My breath catches in my throat.

"What?" I demand. "What are you saying?" The mask-guy continues to smile at me.

"I know a song," he says, "powerful magic in its own right. It's called the Song of Healing, and played on an instrument like that there's no telling what it could be capable of …"

Please let this work.

The notes slide silkily from the Ocarina – eerie, and haunting, and beautiful.

I've seen this song do so much …

I don't even need to think about the notes. My fingers know them off by heart.

Mikau, so much like Acqul. Not so much in the physical sense (Acqul would have a heart attack if I even suggested he get tattoos), but in other ways. The lovesick way he felt around Lulu was identical to the way Acqul acts around Ruto. The quiet faith he offered when I'd put on his mask. The inherent trust … this song let him die peacefully.

Thomas gives a startled shriek beneath Hunter, but I continue playing mercilessly.

Darmani, all Karun's seriousness and warmth. Fatherly, responsible, willing to sacrifice himself for his people if he was called upon to do so, and he was. This song gave him rest when nothing else could.

"It's working," Nabooru breathes in astonishment beside me as we run towards Hunter and Thomas. "I can feel it working …"

Even the little Deku Scrub, who's story I don't even know … this song gave it rest as well. Gave it the power to help me, and I know it wanted to, whoever it was.

Please … please … it could do all that … please let it do this too …

Thomas cries out again, but Hunter's pinned him to the ground and won't let him go.

My song ends, the last few notes fade out. Nabooru, Zelda and I slow our approach.

There's a long, painful pause, before Thomas breathes out heavily.

"Hunter …" He shakes his head slowly as we approach. "What … what happened … how am I … where did he … no … NO! Hunter get back! Get off!" Nabooru, Zelda and I exchange a startled look and start forward again, speeding back up at his shout, but before we can even understand what's going on, we're too late. Blackness erupts from the floor under them. Thomas' eyes go wide. "No!" He shouts again, trying to shove Hunter off him. "Hunter! Go! Run! He's after you!" Hunter's eyes widen and I can see him starting up to throw himself backwards, but it's no good. The shadows around them swirl up and over them both.

"NO!" I shout, lunging for them, but all I manage to touch is the floor where they had been. I stare at the spot in disbelief. "Damn!" I shout, punching the floor and lurching to my feet, whirling around to meet Zelda's horrified expression and Nabooru's grim one.

"We have to find them!" I say.

"They're not here," Nabooru says, her eyes distant.

"What do you mean they're not here?" I demand. Nabooru frowns darkly at me, her eyes refocusing.

"I mean they're not here. There's not a single living thing in this tower except us."

Right. Sage of Spirit.

"Then where—"

"Castletown," Zelda says grimly. "Where else?"

"Fine," I say, furiously, "then I'll just—" But before I can even finish my sentence Nabooru has deftly snatched the Ocarina from my grasp and retreated behind Zelda.

"Link, I know you don't want to hear this," she says, keeping herself firmly out of my grasp, "but it's likely already too late for Hunter."

"That's bull—"

"Link, listen to me!" Nabooru snarls. "When Saria was taken we reacted instantly, do you understand me? Instantly! Impa and I were both at the castle when we felt her presence jump from the Lost Woods to there, and even the two of us weren't fast enough to save her! Within a few moments of arriving, her presence was gone." She snaps her fingers to demonstrate. "Just gone. As if she'd never existed." I stare at her shaking my head. She's telling the truth, but I don't want to believe it. "Link, all you'll do, if you go running back there now, is get yourself caught, do you understand me? Caught, and likely killed, and then where will Hunter be? Where will Thomas be? Where will the rest of us be?" Her expression is hard and cold and Gerudo. "Our best shot at stopping Aghanim and rescuing everyone, Hunter and Thomas included, is the Master Sword. We can't use the Master Sword without you, and you can't get it without the pendants. So calm down and let's do what we came here to do."

"Calm down?" I demand. "Calm down?"

"He's not calming down," Zelda notes, though she doesn't look all that calm herself.

I hold out a hand to Nabooru, trembling with rage.

"Give me the Ocarina," I say flatly. She frowns darkly, but it's not a request, and she has no choice. She places the flute in my hands. It takes every ounce of willpower I have to put it back into my pouch and not immediately play the Prelude to Light. I ignore the flicker of relief in Nabooru's eyes. "Understand this," I say, voice low and harsh. "Aghanim is marked with the black." Nabooru blinks in surprise, taken aback as she always is when I take part in or ask about some Gerudo tradition she wasn't aware I knew about. "For me, you understand? Make sure the whole damn fortress knows it." She nods slowly, then bows quickly.

"Done," she says. "Aghanim, Prince Regent of Hyrule is the King's Black Mark. None shall touch him save you."

The Gerudo Mark can be used for a variety of different things. It's not an actual, physical mark, but it's ten times as potent. When something is marked by a Gerudo it becomes theirs, in what way depends on what color. There are any number of colors for any number of things, but the two most popular are yellow, for a lover a Gerudo doesn't want to share with her sisters, or black, for an enemy a Gerudo doesn't want to share with her (or his in my case) sisters. Now that Aghanim has been marked black, and the mark has been acknowledged, I am the only Gerudo with the right to kill him.

If I get nothing else out of this goddess-forsaken situation, I'll have that much at least.

"Let's go."

However, yet again the Goddesses prove how much they truly, truly love me. As though my words were a silent cue there is a harsh, grating sound of stone on stone immediately followed by a deafening crash. I whirl around on my heel and all three of us stare in shock at the massive armos statue, glaring balefully down at us, trembling with the mockery of life in its glowing eyes.

So that's what fell through the roof …

"Um…" Zelda says hesitantly, "guys …" There's a flash and she's transformed into Sheik. Never a good sign on the best of days, and today is definitely not the best of days. I raise my head to follow where he's pointing. All along the walls of the room we're in, are duplicates of the armos statue in front of us that's already preparing to leap again.

And all of their eyes are starting to glow.

It's touching sometimes, how much the Goddesses care for me.

Nayru, Farore and Din … if you girls can hear me … the feeling's mutual.

xxx

A Brief Interlude

"… so that's pretty much the current state of things," Brayden said with a sigh, leaning back against the wall and pulling one leg up onto the cot with him. "We've got four missing kids – one of them a Sage – one dark wizard who fancies himself sitting on the throne of Hyrule, an indisposed Master Sword, and not a clue between us." Sahasrala's face is grim.

"Things … have progressed further than I thought," he said, passing a hand over his eyes for a moment and going silent. Brayden watched him.

"I've been all over Hyrule, scouring it for mages and magic-users of every walk of life. Anyone with any kind of knowledge in the arcane arts," he said slowly. "They weren't able to tell me much. They said there were all sorts of reasons why a black-magician might want children, though why those specific children was beyond them, or that maybe it had something to do with nobility and/or the Sages, but then Malon was kidnapped and has disappeared as well and she is neither a child, nor is she a noble or a Sage." Brayden's face was a grim. "She's a farm girl. A farm girl of tremendous personal importance to a lot of people, but nothing more than that."

"Malon, daughter of Talon and Reeda, is more than just a farm girl," Sahasrala said with a sigh, "though few know it and it is generally preferred this way for reasons that will soon become apparent. How Aghanim found out, I have no idea."

"Found out what?" Rue demanded impatiently, but Sahasrala paid her no attention.

"You all know, I'm assuming, the story of the Great War?"

"We've all fought in it," Karun returned dully. "We were all a part of it. Yes, I'd say we know it."

"Then you all know that during that war is when Ganondorf finally gained access to the Sacred Realm and the Triforce."

"He gained access, touched the Triforce, it rejected him as its master and left him with only the third that most represented him. The other two pieces found carriers which best represented them. Link and Princess Zelda," Brayden supplied.

"He made the Dark World with it," Rue added, biting her lower lip in a rare display of emotion, slight though it was. Her gaze was far off and troubled. "I remember the day he brought Moblins to the fortress …"

For a brief, uncomfortable moment, Brayden, Karun and Rue were all reminded that they had been bitter enemies during that struggle.

"Some things," Sahasrala said, refilling Rue's tea cup and pushing it back at her, "are best not dwelt on."

"But Ganondorf didn't make the Dark World," Brayden said with a small frown, bringing everyone's minds back to the subject at hand. "Not really." He looked at the other two. "You know the whole story about the Goddesses, right? They created Hyrule and then left to do whatever it is that Goddesses do, but when they left they left behind the Triforce." Rue and Karun both nodded. "Well, it's generally believed that the Triforce is actually a remnant of the Goddess' powers, which is why so many people want it. If you managed to get all three pieces, you'd be unstoppable. As good as a God, or Goddess," he added with a nod at Rue.

"What does this have to do with the Dark World?" Rue demanded.

"Well, the Triforce rests in the Sacred Realm," Brayden said, animated suddenly as he lost himself in the myths and legends. "Or it did at one point, until Ganondorf touched it. It judged him and found him wanting, so it's defence mechanism kicked in and it broke itself up. Ganondorf kept the piece that best represented what was dominant in his heart, and the other two found carriers who represented them as best as possible."

"Old news, friend," Karun said wryly. "We've all seen the marks on Link and Zelda's hands."

"True enough," Sahasrala answered, and they all turned to him with a blink. "But that's not all the Triforce did." He paused for a brief moment, then continued. "The Triforce has no concept of reward or punishment. It doesn't care about mercy or justice. What it does care about is cause and effect, because in essence, that's what creation is. Causes and effects. And it is, essentially, distilled creation in physical form. When Ganondorf touched the Triforce, it did what it was made to do, and changed the Sacred Realm – warped it into the Dark World."

"Why?" Rue demanded.

"Because whoever controls the Triforce, controls the Sacred Realm. The Sacred Realm is merely a reflection of its master. Or of it's master's heart, if you prefer. When Ganondorf touched it, it was intact, and for the briefest of instants he was its master, so it reacted accordingly. The Sacred Realm is a manifestation of the Triforce's power, and since Ganondorf touched the Triforce first, it became a manifestation of Ganondorf." Karun frowned.

"Couldn't the Sages have done something?" He asked. "Isn't the Sacred Realm kind of their home territory?" Sahasrala shook his head.

"The Sages weren't awakened," he answers. "Only Rauru was aware of what was going on. He did what he could, but without the other six sages, it wasn't much. He managed to preserve a tiny little corner of the Sacred Realm and hold it against Ganondorf's onslaught, but that was all, and it ultimately cost him his physical form. He's as trapped in the Sacred Realm, as Ganondorf is in the Dark World."

"You will forgive me," Rue said quietly, none of her usual irritation in her voice, but instead a vague kind of apprehension, "if the fact that we are discussing Ganondorf, who is trapped in the Dark World with no hope of escape when in fact our problems lie with Aghanim, who is very much in this world and has, to the best of our knowledge, nothing to do with either Ganondorf or the Dark World is a touch disturbing. If this is merely a topic of interest for you, old man, I suggest we speak of what's really important. Otherwise, I suggest you make your meaning clear and you do it quickly. We haven't the time for sophistry or for beating around the bush."

"Gerudo rarely do," Sahasrala remarked wryly, then sighed. "The fact of the matter is, I suspect – though suspect is perhaps not strong enough – that the kidnappings have everything to do with the Dark World – and therefore with Ganondorf – due to the nature of the people being kidnapped. What I am proposing is that Aghanim is Ganondorf's agent. He is not acting on his own. He never has been."

"Go on," Brayden prompted, a lead feeling in his gut suddenly.

Would they never be free of that monster?

"Well," Sahasrala says slowly, "it's safe to assume that Ganondorf's ultimate goal is the domination and/or destruction of Hyrule, correct? But in order to do that he'll need a considerable army, and what better place to get one, than the Dark World?" Karun frowned.

"But he can't. You can't really travel between the Dark World and this one. Not any more."

"There are … ways," Sahasrala answered evasively. "But there are certain, strict conditions that must be met, and Ganondorf doesn't meet any of them. But … as you've pointed out, whether you meant to or not, these conditions are a recent addition."

"Come again?" Rue said.

"Once all the Sages had been awakened, they used their powers to, in essence, cut the Dark World off from our own. Ganondorf used to be able to travel back and forth freely between the two, and so could other people if you knew where to go." He shook his head. "I think every race in Hyrule has lost more than a few of its best and brightest to the quest for the Triforce."

"If Ganondorf could bring things back from the Dark World, why didn't he?" Brayden asked. Rue rubbed her head tiredly.

"Where do you think Moblins come from?" She demanded. "They were a gift from the Triforce of Power to Ganondorf when he touched the Triforce. An army of monsters."

"Granted," Sahasrala adds, "the Moblins we know today are less dangerous than those of the Great War. I'm sure you can all attest to that." There was a general shudder around the room in agreement. "They're descendents of actual Dark World Moblins. They haven't got a long lifespan, and inbreeding and other issues have dulled much of their previous power. When the Sages closed the portals to the Dark World, some of the Moblins were trapped here and we've been cursed with them ever since."

"This still doesn't explain why he wants the descendants of the Sages," Rue pointed out, unwilling to let the conversation get off track again.

"Use your head, Rue," Sahasrala said chidingly. "You of all people should know how important blood and bloodlines are when it comes to magic. If the Sages closed the portals …"

"Then Ganondorf can use the Sages' blood to open them," Rue finishes grimly. "But it can't be that simple. The Sages' magic isn't exactly a simple thing to unravel, now is it? And their relatives might have their blood, but it doesn't mean they have their power." Her mind was moving quickly, running down the possibilities in her head. "Wouldn't he need the Sages themselves?" But Sahasrala was shaking his head.

"There's absolutely nothing Ganondorf can do with the Sages to unlock the portals," he said. "They'd have to do it willingly, and we all know that that's not happening. In this case they're actually too strong for Ganondorf's purposes. Their will is too strong for him to use their power properly. However, there is a certain type of power in purity, especially in a place as corrupted as the Dark World." Rue was nodding thoughtfully.

"Maidens," she murmurs. "I suppose with the right spells …," she shook her head then turned to Brayden and Karun to explain. "A large number of black spells require the use of maidens in one way or another," she said. "Whether it's their blood, a piece of them, or a whole maiden varies from spell to spell."

"That's sick," Karun said darkly.

"That's black magic," Rue answered simply.

"But Link isn't a girl," Brayden said, frowning. "Goron Link, that is. At least, I don't think so. So wouldn't that …"

"The word is older than the definition you are using," Sahasrala answers him. "With regards to magic, 'maiden' means virgin, not girl. A male could be a maiden as easily as a female." Rue's expression was annoyed.

"It is folly to associate virginity with purity," she scoffs. Everyone in the room rolled their eyes. Virginity had a much different meaning for the Gerudo than for most other races. In a race comprised entirely of women it had to or procreation would become complicated.

"The definitions of purity are old as well," Sahasrala said consolingly, "nor is virginity the only type. That would be sexual purity, obviously, and one of the most potent types. But you might also be pure if you've never killed someone. Or you might be considered pure if you've devoted yourself to the Goddesses. That type of thing. It all depends on what you mean and what spell you're using."

"So basically," Karun sums up, "Aghanim is working for Ganondorf and he is planning on using the people he's kidnapped, all of whom are related to the sages to open the portals to the Dark World, thereby freeing Ganondorf and unleashing a Dark World army on the world again?"

"Precisely," Sahasrala agrees. "Or at least, this is what I suspect."

"Great," Brayden said, "except that Malon is not related to a Sage, now is she?"

"Ah," Sahasrala said. "Well that's the thing, isn't it?" He paused for a moment. "What would you say," Sahasrala said slowly, "if I told you that the Great War you all fought in was not the first … not even close to the first? Or that this isn't the first time Sages and a Hero have been called upon to protect Hyrule?"

"I'd say any Sheikah over the age of ten knows that," Brayden replied.

"And if I told you that long ago, far enough that I have since lost track of the years and decades and perhaps even centuries, when the first Sages were awakened, and the first Hero, my brother was among their ranks?" He raised an eyebrow at them. "It's a story you all know well, having lived it yourself at one time or another, though perhaps with happier endings. A great evil had arisen, and the Hero, my brother, and the other Sages did what they could to keep the evil at bay. In the end, they succeeded, but at great cost. So many dead, the Hero destroyed, and half of the Sages dead with him. My brother was one of the survivors, as was I, but we came away from the ordeal with very different outlooks. We both had families when the war started, wives and children. My own child … my son …," his voice trailed off and he looked at Brayden with pain and grief and understanding. "Let's just say," he said, his voice hollow with old grief, "that I know what it is, to be the father of the Hero." Brayden blinked in surprise, then slowly nodded.

"I … am sorry for your loss," he said thickly. He could imagine what it had been like. What it must still be like. He was terrified of losing Link to the same duty …

"At any rate," Sahasrala continued, drawing in a deep breath to steady himself, "by the time the war was over, all we had left between us was his daughter. Both our wives were dead, and my son as well. I retreated to the mountains, overwhelmed by grief at my losses, and jealousy that his child had survived where mine had not, and I lost myself in my arts." He shook his head. "The reason I am still alive today. My brother went on to do what he could for Hyrule. His daughter moved on and had a family of her own." He trailed off, lost for a moment in memory. When he finally spoke again, it was with a different tone, brisker, more businesslike. "That family line lives today, as do I, as does my brother, though he and I are the only remnants of that time now."

"Your brother," Brayden said, "is Rauru." It wasn't a question.

"Correct," Sahasrala agreed. Rue made an irritated noise.

"And this has what to do with the Hylian girl?" She demanded. Sahasrala grinned suddenly, mischievously.

"What if I was to tell you that back before age finally caught us unawares, both Rauru and myself had hair as red as yours when you were sixteen?" He asked her.

"Malon is descended from Rauru's line," Brayden said, eyes growing wide suddenly. "Of course! That's why he needed her!" The gears started to shift in his head. "But if that's the case, then there's still hope. Hope and time. He won't have killed them. He can't have killed them. Not if he needs all seven."

"He won't kill them," Sahasrala said. "He'll need them alive for the portals to work. For the seals to be suspended. They're no use to him dead."

"But don't you see, this is perfect!" Brayden gasped, getting to his feet and starting to pace. "He's still short three! He's got four, there are seven Sages. He's still missing someone related to Nabooru, Impa and Zelda." He paused for a moment. "Except that Zelda probably falls into the maiden category, like Saria does. I don't think she and Link … so he could just take her. And he's tried it once already." His mind was spinning with the possibilities this presented. "If he hasn't killed them, we can still get them back. All we need to do is find the other two, Nabooru and Impa's descendants … or more than two if there's more than that that fall under the maiden category. We find them, we hide them, and that buys us the time we need to get the other four back." He paused again. "Except that Impa's never had children and the Gerudo don't keep track of whose children are whose." He slumped, defeated by the unexpected road block.

"But that's perfect, isn't it?" Karun asked. "If Nabooru's had children but nobody knows who they are, then Aghanim can't really take them. And if Impa's never had children then he's thwarted right there. She has no descendants for him to use. Unless, of course, she's a virgin herself." Brayden cleared his throat uncomfortably.

"Ah …," he said, "she's not. She had a lover once, a long time ago, but …."

"The Great War?" Rue asked. Brayden shook his head.

"The hunt for the Triforce," he answered instead. "He left to find it and never came back. Listen, this is a very personal subject. Not many people know about it, and she'll likely kill me anyway for even mentioning it …"

"We won't breathe a word, Brayden," Karun said. "And she would understand the necessity." Rue nodded. Sahasrala sighed.

"I would like," he said, "to be able to say that that's an end to it, but unfortunately, I cannot." Brayden blinked and turned to him.

"But … Impa has no descendants and can't herself—"

"The … magic involved does not require direct descendants of the Sages," Sahasrala said. "Understand that the Sages themselves are descended from the Sages prior to them, and the Sages prior to them, all the way back to the first Sages. Anyone in that line will do, though the closer in relation to the current Sages, who are, after all, the ones who put the seals on the Dark World, the more effective they will be." Rue cleared her throat and all eyes turned to her.

"You give us very little credit," she said quietly, "when it comes to our children. We pay little attention to blood ties, it is true, but … we keep aware of who is related to who in order to prevent inbreeding and other problems that could arise from a complete obliviousness of blood lines. And … Ganondorf suspected that Nabooru was a Sage. He knew who all of her children were, and if he knows, it's a safe bet that Aghanim does as well." There was a long pause as everyone considered the implications of that.

"All right, then," Karun said finally, "the original plan is still good. We just find all the people who Aghanim could use and keep them away from him." He looked at Brayden. "Can you think of anyone who would—" But Brayden was way ahead of him.

"Hunter," he breathed. He leaned his head back against the wall with an expression of utmost frustration. "It's Hunter. He's the only one close enough to her to matter and whose still a virgin, though I suppose there's no guarantee of that." He looked as though guarantee or not it may as well have been a sure thing.

"His girlfriend was taken as a maiden," Karun said heavily, looking troubled. "It would suggest strongly that he is as well. Has he had any other girls?" Brayden shrugged helplessly.

"Wasn't around when he was growing up," he said with a sigh. "Sorry. Can't help you there. At any rate, I'm guessing the answer is no."

"But wouldn't that make Link related to Impa as well?" Rue asked. Brayden shook his head.

"Hunter's Impa's great-nephew. Her sister was his grandmother on his mother's side. Link would be related through marriage, but not through blood, and it's the blood that matters in this case." Rue made a face.

"How the Hell do you keep all that straight?" She demanded. "The Gerudo system is much better."

"Only because it isn't a system," Brayden returned with a frown. "And is in fact a lack thereof."

"What about Nabooru?" Sahasrala cut in before the fight could degenerate from there. "Has the Sage of Spirit any offspring?" Rue frowned thoughtfully and paused to think.

"She has given birth to two children," she answered. "Some women have more, but being pregnant never really sat well with Nabooru."

"Do you know if they could be considered maidens?" Karun asked and Rue nodded.

"I do," she replied, "and only one of them could. The other has already had a child herself and is currently working on a second. The one I am thinking of, though … she's of the age to have lost that, but given her … situation I doubt she's had the chance."

"Are you going to tell us who she is or not?" Brayden demanded. Rue gave a wry, humourless laugh.

"I doubt you'll believe me," she answered, but several things had already clicked in Brayden's head.

"Farore," he breathed. "You've got to be kidding me, Rue."

"I am not," she replied evenly.

And as much as he wanted to deny it, now that he thought about it, it made a certain sort of sense and he was floored he'd never noticed it before. The eyes, the smug expression she had, the rebellious streak … Karun had apparently come to some conclusions of his own as well for he was swearing under his breath.

"Well," said Sahasrala, "I'm glad you've all realized who it is, but would you mind filling an old man in? Some of us have lived in a mountain for most of their lives and aren't really up to date on the family relations of Gerudo."

"It's Neesha," Brayden answered. "Neesha and Hunter are Link's best friends."

"And the Princess Zelda is his lover," Rue added, then frowned. "Though if she's been targeted as a maiden as well, then perhaps lover is too strong a word." Her frown was flat and unimpressed and carried the distinct promise of a chat that was likely going to make Link terribly red and terribly uncomfortable. Sahasrala, however, looked unsurprised at the news that the Hero of Time's best friends were targets.

"The destinies of those who call the Hero friend are often irrevocably tangled in his own," he mused softly to himself. "Such is the way of things." He shook his head. "It is of little enough import whether he loves or hates them," he said at last. "What matters is that we know of who they are and can hide them from Aghanim." Brayden cleared his throat and exchanged a chagrined glance with Rue and Karun. Sahasrala raised an eyebrow at them and Brayden rubbed his head tiredly.

"It would seem," he said with a tired frown, "as though was have sent Aghanim exactly what he needs all wrapped up in a neat little package …"

"You don't think they'll … I mean, they've got Sages with them," Karun said. "And they're very capable youths. We don't give them nearly enough credit."

"I think," Sahasrala said, understanding enough of the conversation to be able to jump to his own conclusions, "that if you have chosen a headquarters for yourselves you had best be getting back there. And I think, perhaps, that I should be going with you." He shook his head with a dark expression. "Though we can't go anywhere until the storm lets up, unfortunately."

"What do we do in the meantime?" Karun asked.

"We pray."

xxx

He had expected a lurch, really. At least insofar as he had had any time to expect anything. But there wasn't even a tug. There was no sense of movement at all, just a vague kind of impression that although you had been here, you were now there and that was all there was to it. And then the blackness dropped away and the vague impression was confirmed. He was indeed there. Wherever there was.

"I'm sorry," Thomas whispered. "I tried … you wouldn't listen …"

"After everything you've done," Hunter hissed back at him, finally managing to disentangle himself from the other youth and throw himself backwards and away from him, "why should I listen to a thing that comes out of your mouth?" The nightmare image of an arrow slicing through his father's chest danced within his mind. He struggled with the sudden over-powering urge to rip out Thomas' throat with his teeth.

It wasn't Thomas. It wasn't Thomas. It wasn't Thomas. Thomas seemed to shrink under his gaze, all the cruel superiority that had stained every line of his body the night Bruiser died reduced to nothing. Farore Thomas, please tell me it wasn't you … prove Link right … please … I'll kill you if he's wrong ….

"It wasn't him," said a dry, raspy voice from behind him. It was deep, but hollow, and just the sound of it was enough to make Hunter's mouth go dry and his blood run cold.

"Aghanim," he forced himself to snarl it in order to stem the tide of defeated thoughts that threatened to overwhelm him. He turned around slowly and tried not to choke on the sickening power radiating off the man. How he'd never felt it before he didn't know. The wizard stood before him, his frame huddled beneath thick, voluminous robes that were of no style familiar to Hyrule. They hid his actual size and build, but the could not hide the way he leaned on the gnarled staff in his hands. He was old. Old and ravaged by time and the force of the arts he'd surrendered himself to. But he was not weak. Not by a long shot. Hunter wanted to quail but clenched his jaw and refused to let himself show it. His father wouldn't have shown it, and wouldn't have wanted him to show it. "Link was right," he managed, drawing himself up to glare flatly at the mage. "You are a snake." Aghanim gestured and Hunter heard a sound behind him. He reacted instantly, jumping to the side just in time to avoid Thomas's attempt to grab him and narrowed his eyes. The cruel edge to his features were back. His eyes were once again dead and devoid of life.

He was at once relieved and furious.

Link was right. Thomas was being controlled. It really hadn't been Thomas who had killed his father. It had been Aghanim. Aghanim had used one of his oldest and best friends to kill his father. Used him like a tool, and discarded Bruiser like a toy.

And at the thought the slow burning fury that had been eating away at him since Bruiser had died flared up in full.

If he was going to die, he'd be damned if he'd go down easy.

Before he could move, though, Aghanim spoke again, his words silky and his tone dulcet.

"No one is going to die tonight, young Sheikah," he said. "Not tonight. You're worth more alive and you'd never be able to kill me. I think you know that." He did. He frowned darkly and scanned the room. There was only one door and Aghanim was between he and it. He returned his eyes to the wizard.

So this was it then.

This was how he was going to die.

He lowered his head. There was really only one thing to do. He couldn't let Aghanim use him against Link and the others the way he had Thomas. There was no other choice.

Sen quis lodanan sen vennan.

The quest before the conquered.

Even if you were the conquered.

So be it.

"If you think you'll do to me what you did to him," he gestured at Thomas, "and use me against my friends you've got another think coming." He produced a dagger from his sleeve with a small flourish. The Wizard raised an eyebrow. The dagger wasn't for Aghanim and they both knew it. Hunter tightened his grip on it but before he could follow through the wizard raised his hand and spoke a sharp word and Hunter suddenly found he couldn't move his hand.

"I can see you're going to be uncooperative," Aghanim said flatly, all traces of silk gone from his voice. He gestured again and Hunter felt his hand wrenched open and the dagger clattered uselessly to the floor. The next instant his knees went weak and he sank to the floor with a gasp. "If it consoles you at all," the wizard commented, "you won't be used against your friends. At least not in the way you think." The wizard gestured once more and Hunter felt his grip on consciousness slip from his grasp and everything went black.

"Take him to the ritual chamber," Aghanim said flatly. Thomas immediately moved to do as he said and the mage lowered himself down into a nearby chair, glaring at the two youths. Thomas avoided his gaze much like a guilty dog avoids its master's when it knows its done something wrong, and it was likely a good thing. Though he appeared calm on the outside, Aghanim was fuming on the inside.

The Hero had somehow managed to shatter his control over the boy for that brief time. It was a simple enough thing to put back, of course. Thomas was weak against it to begin with, and the longer subjected to the spell the easier it was to fall to it again. The point was that it had been broken, and that it had taken very little time to do it at all. He had expected the Sage of Spirit to be the problem, not the Hero. But not even the Sage of Spirit could have broken it that easily. There would have been a contest of wills, his own versus hers. The Hero had somehow bypassed that.

Thomas, once his best agent, had been effectively rendered useless. He could no longer be sent after those he required since the Hero would simply break the spell again.

And if he was of no use, then there was no point allowing him to live. He had become a hazard more than anything. A weak point in his chain of power. If the Hero somehow managed to get hold of him again, there was no telling how much he could and would reveal of Aghanim's own plans. The twin girls he had kept in the dark – he could only maintain one of that particular mind control spell at a time, and the threat of Thomas's own death should they betray him had been enough to keep them in line anyway – and so could ruin nothing, and were easily enough disposed of anyway. But Thomas …

His train of thought trailed off as a new one took over. He frowned thoughtfully and played the new idea over in his mind, looking for holes or weaknesses. At this point, there were none …

A small smile pulled at his shrivelled lips.

Perhaps … perhaps there was a use for the boy after all.

He'd just have to wait and see.

But in the mean time, he had a spell to perform.

He got to his feet and moved towards the door, chuckling hollowly to himself.

Soon … Ganon would free.