Author's Note: Yeah, it's me again. Yep, I'm finally finished writing those chapters I said I was gonna write. I had planned on waiting 'till Sunday to start posting, but for some odd reason, I can't use the desktop version of this site anymore. So I'll have to update using the app now. I don't think I've ever done it before, so better to learn now, then wait. It's a lot easier than I thought, though. Whatever. Enjoy.

Chapter 5

Preparations

Two years later...

Malon closed the door behind her, sighing in content at being done with her chores for the day.

"Daddy!" she called, "I'm done with my chores!"

"Malon!" her father called back, "C'mere for a second!"

Malon slipped off her shoes before heading to the end of the hall that led to the back door she entered from. At the end of said hall was the kitchen and dining area, where her father sat at a table, along with another man.

"Oh!" Malon began. She bowed respectfully as she greeted, "Hello, Mister Dozla."

Dozla was a Regional Lord, the current head of one of four families whom were given their estates and riches back in exchange for them offering a mate for the prince or princess of Hyrule to continue the Royal Family's bloodline. Originally, there was one Regional Lord for each province, excluding Central Hyrule. This, of course, was before the death of the Regional Lord of Eldin, and the entirety of his family almost two years ago. Dozla was the Regional Lord of Lanayru.

"Hello." Dozla greeted back with a wave and a friendly smile.

"Dozla and I were just talking about your birthday tomorrow."

"Really?!" Malon asked with a widening smile.

Talon nodded, "Your mom an' I have been so caught up with work, we haven't had too much time to get ready for your party. We haven't even taken you to choose your partner. But that's where Dozla came in."

Dozla waved again.

"He's payed for all the expenses for your party, and he's even offered to let you pick which of his family members you wanted as your husband!"

Malon froze. "Uh-... Daddy, it's okay... I don't need a husband, yet."

"Now, Malon, you know we're supposed to have a child after we turn sixteen. It's the same thing I had to do when I was your age. And your grandfather before me. It's law, and we've gotta follow it. Understand?"

Malon's gaze fell to the wooden floorboards beneath her, "Yes sir..." she barely spoke.

Talon continued, "Just wait 'till tomorrow night when we get to Dozla's place. I'm sure you'll find someone who catches your fancy. Now run along - we got some surprises planned, and we can't have you hearin' any of 'em."

Malon turned and proceeded toward the front door without a word, when she passed her mother.

"Hi, Mom." Malon greeted, sounding dejected.

"Hello, dear. Done with your chores?"

"M-hm."

Malon's mother saw her off to wherever she was leaving to, then joined Dozla and her husband in the kitchen.

"I was listening in while you three were talking." she said, "Malon seems pretty sad."

"Yeah." Talon agreed, "She must really not wanna get married."

"Really?" his wife asked, "Sounds to me like there's someone else she's interested in."

Talon and Dozla looked at each other.

"Nah." they both disagreed.

"She never goes anywhere other than the space around the ranch. Who else could it be, anyway?"

"Link!" Malon called, jogging to the apple tree.

The boy in question peeked around said tree, answering her call.

Malon sighed in relief, slowing her jog as she neared him, "Sorry I'm late!" she told him.

"It's fine." Link told her as she moved to stand over him.

"My parents gave me a few extra chores today. Probably so I wouldn't hear them talking about my birthday party tomorrow."

"Ah." Link nodded.

"They're making such a big deal about it because I'm turning sixteen. You know what that means..."

"What?" Link asked.

Malon looked down at him, "You don't know? When someone in my family turns sixteen we have to get married."

Link looked up at her, "'Married'?"

"M-hm."

"To who?"

"I don't know. After the party, my parents are taking me somewhere to pick one."

"Then why do you sound so sad?" Link asked.

"Because I don't want to get married to someone I just met." Malon began to twiddle with the handle of her basket, "I'd rather fall in love first."

"Have you?"

Malon looked at him again, then back down at her basket, "Um...maybe?"

"Who is it?"

"I-I dunno."

"Tell me!"

"No!"

"Why not? Don't you trust me enough by now to tell me?"

"You should talk - you won't even tell me about your sister!"

Just then, a sudden silence fell between the two.

"...Sorry." Malon told Link.

"It's fine."

"...I'll go pick some apples."

Link sighed as Malon started up the tree. Despite his unwillingness to talk about his sister, he missed her dearly; being separated from her ripped a hole in his very being.

Though, the closest thing to filling it...was Malon.

Link and Malon had grown close over the last nearly two years. At some point, Malon formed a habit of teasing the boy, for what reason, he didn't know - or care, frankly. This behavior greatly annoyed Link, and, had circumstances been different, he would want nothing to do with her. Along with this behaviour, however, Malon would often feed him, mostly apples or leftovers, and she would tend to whatever new wound he got from Thomas. To say he didn't appreciate her would be an outright lie. The two served as each other's main sources of conversation, entertainment, and the two were each other's shoulders to lean on whenever they needed one. However, Link still had yet to fully open himself up. And Malon...

"WAH!"

Wasting no time, Link sprung to his feet and caught the farm girl before she hit the ground.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

Malon straightened her hair, "Y-Yeah..." She tried her best to hide her reddened cheeks as Link set her down. "Thank you." she told him.

"Sure."

"I guess I lost my footing." she said as the two sat at the base of the tree, "The apples are much bigger this time."

"Yeah, I've been meaning to ask about that. Why're they so big?"

Malon giggled, "'Cause I've been taking care of them, duh! I needed some excuse to keep coming to see you! The least I could do was follow through! I can't lie to my parents."

"Oh."

Silence ensued as Malon moved closer to Link, so that she could lean back onto the trunk of the tree with him.

"Hey," she spoke suddenly, startling Link, "I just realized something!"

"What is it?"

"I've never asked you about your birthday before!"

Link looked over at her.

"Well?" Malon continued, "When is it?"

"In about two weeks."

"When exactly?"

"Uh...sixteen days."

"How old will you be?"

"Sixteen."

Malon froze as an idea crept into her mind.

"Sixteen..."

"What?"

"Er-, nothing! I just realized this means I'm older than you!"

"So?"

Malon nudged Link with her shoulder, "Soo, this means I get to boss you around!"

Link frowned, "You wish!"

The red-head burst into laughter. And with another glance at Link, she noticed...

"What's that?" she asked, her laughter halting abruptly.

"What?"

"On your arm."

Link rose his right forearm. On the face, was a bruise, clear as day in contrast to his pale skin.

Malon took his arm, pulled it closer, and frowned. She didn't need Link to tell her where the bruise came from. She ran two fingers over the discolored patch. "Does it still hurt?" she asked.

"A little."

"Hey," she began as she released Link's arm, "what do you want for your birthday?"

Link turned to her, surprised, "What?"

"What do you want for your birthday, Link?"

"Uh...can you get me away from Thomas?"

"No...sorry."

"Hm...I dunno."

Malon leaned towards him, "Want me to pick?"

"Sure. What're you gonna get?"

She smiled at him and winked, "It's a secret! Still, though, it'd be pretty cool if we had the same birthday."

Link shrugged, "It'd be pretty cool, but I don't know how much use it'd be."

"Still, though. I wonder if there's anyone out there with the same birthday as me."

Linkle sat upwards in bed, her eyes fixating on the silver rays of light pouring into the room through the window.

It was still nighttime.

She looked across the room at Epha. Her birthday was tomorrow. She and her friends had spent that last few days preparing for her party in secret.

"'Friend'?"

Linkle's body jolted, startled as a figure manifested where the moonlight hit the wooden floor. In appearance, the figure was a spitting image of her brother as he appeared when she last saw him, and sounded like him when it spoke. Only, unlike her brother, the eyes of this figure were as black its very soul. If it even had one.

"Are you really their friend if you're keeping secrets from them?" it asked.

The words sucked any hope of joy from Linkle's very being.

"Of course," it continued, "if you told them, they'd want nothing to do with you. And can you blame them? Your brother didn't even like you."

The figure approached the foot of Linkle's bed. It continued to speak to her in its usual belittling, almost dehumanizing tone.

"You weren't thinking of celebrating that girl's birthday with the rest of your 'friends', were you?"

Linkle's gaze fell to her sheets.

"Of course you weren't. We both know you're better off not celebrating with them. And why is that?"

Linkle could feel the figure's gaze on her. It was almost parasitic as it ate away at her, beckoning the very same rhetoric it had fed her for nearly two years.

"Because I'm worthless." Linkle finally answered, "I'm a terrible person. I don't deserve friends."

"And?"

"...And...everyone would be better off if...I was never bo-."

"Linkle!"

The girl's eyes flew open.

"You were talking in your sleep again." Falla told her, "Are you okay?"

Linkle stared up at the ceiling, lit by the light of the afternoon sun. Her heart sunk over having been dragged back to reality. Even dreams like the one she had just woken from were preferable to having to live with the sins of her past.

"...I'll always look back at my life with you and Mom fondly. And as long as I can do that, I'll be fine."

That was what she told her brother before they were sold away. And she had fully intended to use those memories to fill the void left by their separation.

But the more she thought back, however; the more she reflected on her life with her brother, the more she began to overthink their interactions, or lack thereof, in the years they were together.

She remembered when she tried to cheer him up after the passing of their mother.

"It's supposed to make you feel better."

"Well it's not going to." he had answered.

She remembered whenever she tried to sleep closer to him.

"What are you doing?" he would ask.

But the one that hung over her head the most was their last interaction - when she tried her hardest to keep him from feeling as horrible about their separation as she did.

"Stop talking." he told her.

Never once had he shown her affection. Never once did he tell her he loved her.

Eventually, as time went on, her encroaching doubts began to distort the truth of these events. Now, Linkle felt that Link wouldn't do these things because that was how he felt about her; he wouldn't show her affection, because there was no affection on his part to show. When he would tell her to "go away", or not to sleep too close to him, it was because he didn't want to speak to her, or even be near her.

In her mind, the reason he never told her he loved her, was because he didn't.

This "revelation" broke her heart; it tore it asunder; it lead to an unhealthy habit of overthinking everything - always coming to a negative conclusion each time. She, for days, she questioned what she did that made him feel that way.

Then, it hit her.

"They may need you, but they don't need your sister!"

That was what that odd girl from several years past told Link as they attempted to make their escape.

After remembering this, it all made sense to her.

He hated her. He hated her because she kept him from escaping his life as a slave. All she was to him was extra baggage. By simply being born, she was the bane of his hopes for escape, for freedom, for a life devoid of the pain and suffering they endured as slaves.

That was when the nightmares started.

How cruel was it that the manifestation of all her insecurities, of all the sins she felt she committed by simply existing, was an image of he whom she committed these sins against?

The figure that appeared in these dreams reinforced her feelings every chance it got. It reminded her that she was worthless - that she didn't deserve friends because of how terrible a person she was...

And that everyone would be better off had she never been born.

"I don't know why you even waste your time with her." said Shyla, a girl who was brought out of her own shell over the last two years, out of anger at the repeated failures by the girls to find out why they were brought to James' estate.

"Shyla!" Epha reprimanded in a hushed voice.

Linkle's diminished self worth would even effect her daily life. She couldn't even bring herself to look her peers in the eyes, because, in her mind - they would hate her if they knew enough about her. Which was why she refused to open up.

"Hey!" Falla called to her with a friendly nudge, "I was gonna go out back and play with the flowers! Wanna come?"

"U-Um..." Linkle stammered, "That's okay. I-"

"Oh, don't be like that." the girl told her as she grabbed Linkle's hand, "Come on!"

Though, in reality, most of the other girls were nice to Linkle, Falla was the only one who still made an effort to befriend her, mainly on the basis that the two of them were the youngest out of all their peers. From the outside looking in, it was as if Falla had "adopted" her in a way.

"C'mon." Falla whispered to Linkle in the hall, "Let's make some more corsages for Epha's birthday tomorrow! And besides, we need to burn off some energy so you'll stop staying up so late!"

Elsewhere, James, the owner of the estate Linkle lived in, was sealed away in a room on the second floor in the west wing with his advisor, a man named Charles, and one of his employees, who he was having give an overview of their situation.

"We're getting a pretty good amount of income thanks to some, uh...faithful customers from the village to the west," the employee reported, "but, again, we're sure to see more profit after we're done training the girls in the east wing."

"How are they coming along?" James asked.

"Their morale seems to be fine, and they seem to be developing well. We're gonna need some new clothes for some of them, though."

"Alright. Have their caretakers go and ask them what kind of clothes they'd like."

"Oh, and back to the topic of their growth, their seems to be one who isn't showing much progress."

"Which one is it?"

"It's Linkle. One of the others say she's as 'flat as a cutting board'. Should we start feeding her more fattening food?"

"No. If we give one something, we'll have to it to the others, too."

"I wouldn't worry about it." Charles told James, "Hyrule's a big place. I'm sure there's someone out there who's into young looking girls."

James spoke again, "There are still about two years left until she's sixteen. She's probably a late bloomer."

"Onto the next topic," the employee continued, "I've been getting complaints from the girls in the west wing about the head of our security. They say he's been looking at them in a way that makes them uncomfortable."

"As long as he doesn't touch any of them, he's fine. Just tell him to stop staring when you catch him." James instructed.

"What's with the sudden interest in how we're doing?" the employee asked, "I thought we were waiting until most of the girls in the east wing turned sixteen until we hit the ground running."

"Apparently, a wealthy man in Castle Town has heard about us," James announced, "his name is Frederick, and he wants to help us through this development phase of ours in exchange for a piece of our profits once we start growing."

Silence filled the room for a moment.

"That sounds a little strange." Charles said, "Why is a wealthy man in Castle Town so interested in us? How did he hear about us? I mean, compared to other brothels, we're just some backwater hole in the wall. No offense."

"Does it matter?" James asked rhetorically, "This is what you would call an 'investment'."

"And since we're new," the employee added, "he knows he doesn't have to pay us much. And since he's rich, throwing away a few Rupees would mean nothing to him."

"It may not be much to him," James continued, "but with what we're being paid, we can start renovations on one of the two buildings just outside. And then there are his connections."

"What connections?"

"He's an acquaintance of one of the Disciples of Dragmire, so he's an extremely influential person. If we can get him to come here, and get a good review out of him, word of us will spread like wildfire. We'll be well off before we even start using the girls in the east wing!"

"Well, I guess now's a good time to give you some good news."

"What is it?" James asked.

"One of the girls in the east wing, the oldest one, is turning sixteen tomorrow."

"We know that already."

"...Oh."

This plan that was unfolding in James' estate had taken many years to finalize and James and company took care to ensure that nothing on their end was going to hinder it's progression.

However...there were elements at play that none of them knew of. And they would make themselves known very soon.

Two years had passed since Thomas promised Philip he would "tame" Link. And since then, he hadn't gotten so much as a single step closer to accomplishing that goal. It didn't help that he was visited by Ganondorf, and threatened to not inflict any permanent harm on the boy, which frightened him into changing whatever method he had meant to go with initially. This, coupled with his obligations with the other slaves, as well as running his own school, was wearing away at his mental stability.

"Hey, man." greeted a friend, Franklin, as he sat beside Thomas at the bar they were visiting, "I haven't been seeing much of you. Everything going alright?"

"No." Thomas answered, "It feels like I haven't had free time in years. I'm seriously at my wit's end with all this. I haven't even had time to keep up with the news. Did you know Lord Ganondorf finally replaced the sixth Saint that died all those years ago?"

Franklin paused for a moment, "Thomas," he said, "that was almost two years ago."

"And if it wasn't that, there's that brat I bought from some preacher in Faron."

"Giving you a hard time?"

"Damn straight. He's the most stubborn son of a bitch I've ever seen. I've never taken this long to tame an Elf before." He sighed. "Maybe I'm losing my touch."

"An Elf who won't quit, huh? Too bad you can't make any money of 'em."

Thomas paused, "Huh... Now that sounds like a good idea!"

"What?"

"Using that brat to make me some money! I mean, at least that way I'd benefiting some way for putting up with 'em." He tapped Franklin on the shoulder as he laughed, "Of course, I'd have to pay you royalties for the idea!"

"I have no idea what's going on right now."

"What's going on is that we're about to use that sorry Elf to make us some money!"

"Oh, okay. Well...how do we do that?"

"Just follow along. I got this."

To be Continued!

Author's Note: Yup. I'm still alive. Yaaay... But man, the world sure has changed since the last time I uploaded, huh? Guess that's what happens when you take over a year to update. Anyway, I don't ever plan on taking this long to update again. I'm sitting on a ton of chapters right now (relatively speaking), so you should have to worry about that anytime soon. From now on, I plan on uploading a new chapter every Sunday. I should at least be able to keep that schedule unless one of these winter storms knock the power out, or something along those lines.Anyway, if you're still reading, there's a bonus chapter for you all under this note. It probably sucks eggs like the chapter you just read, but you should read it anyway. Enjoy.

Bonus Chapter

Backstory; Part 1

"Mommy!" Link bounced excitedly, "Mommy, look! It's Dad!"

The little boy dashed excitedly into the downpour outside, where his father approached the toolshed in which they lived, along with some other slaves.

"Hey there!" Link's father greeted with a chuckle as he lifted the boy off the ground on his way inside.

"How was it today?" the boy's mother asked.

The father sighed, "It's been worse. Where's Linkle?"

The girl in question stumbled over to her father, as if in response to his question. "Up-up." she said, tugging at the leg of his pants. He set Link down, trading the boy for his sister.

"Hey," he said to Link, "the rain's calling for us! Let's go do some dancing!"

Link burst into laughter as he chased his father outside, into the rain.

The first four years of the boy's life was filled with nothing but happiness and love for his family. But that would soon change tomorrow, when he began his first day of work as a slave. His parents knew this, which was why his father decided to play with his children in the rain, despite the physical pain his daily life was putting him through. It was the strength he showed that earned him young Link's adoration. His father seemed to always light up their home whenever he returned from work. He was very popular among the other slaves too.

Someday... Link hoped to be just like him - strong, fun to be with, and loved by all those around him, just like his father.