@A Fairytale In Reality@
ch.5-Flight of Fancy
by:GoldenSilence
dislaimer: Nintendo owns copyrights to Zelda. Obviously.
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A/N=Wow..WOW..*picks jaw up off floor*..just wanted to say thanks to everyone that has reviewed (yes, AGAIN:)). Alot of you have been coming back, reviewing every chapter, some even more than once. ??? (I'll do a great job on the sequel? I think my ego is about to explode from all your confidence in me, hehe. I appreciate it!) , sailorzelda(you think the last chapters were sweet? You had better get out your kleenex for this one:)), L and M forever(Your own Malon/Link story is duper good), meeee(You think a sequel is a good idea too? I'll see what I can do about that.;)), Star Princess Sakura(don't worry, Malon gets a happy ending.) , ya?, Super Saiyan for Trunks (dragonballz fan, I'm guessing!I sent you an email to tell you how to upload that story of yours-which I anticipate reading!), Juan (I've only been writing for a month and a half so far-but I really have tried to put everything into this series. So glad you are enjoying it.) , cythen(here's to hoping you touch your nose all the way to your monitor at the end of this chapter!), sparky16 (Look, I'm writing!) and last but not least, jiyu strife (sorry this chapter took so long to get out. Link saving Malon ahead! Or is it Malon saving Malon and then Link oh so conviently showing up?)
warning:SAP. SAPPPPP. SAAAAAAP. By the truckload. Consider yourselves warned!
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The form standing by the road outside Ingo's Ranch was covered in the dark of the night-unclear and shadowy, the outline of it was but a blur. Still, Malon knew the form was a human's, and she knew exactly whose human's it was.

She jumped off the back of her horse, not shocked or surprised as she had been the last she had seen this person. This time, Malon was expecting them and felt excited and more than a bit anxious. In fact, she hadn't felt such a combination of those two particular feelings since her dance with Link-and what had followed afterwards.

"You ready to do this?" questioned the voice.

"You bet." Malon's voice came out confident. "You won't get caught?" she asked.

The voice snickered. "Are you kiddin'? That old foggy is more likely to run into a tree just tryin' to follow me. I never get caught. It's in my job description."

As it neared Malon and her horse, Ariana, the figure became more and more clear until Malon could discern the white clothing of the gerudos hidden beneath an omnious looking cape that matched the color of the night sky's.

The gerudo stepped up into the stirrups and mounted Malon's horse without so much as asking. She didn't need to. The whole thing had been planned ahead of time. She stared down at Malon's head from her own lofty vantage point high up on the horse's back.

"You won't get caught either?"

What's to say I won't? I could, Malon realized, her stomach twisting into acid knots. I can't guarantee I won't. Everything is at risk.

But it felt good for Malon's world to be at risk, threatening to turn upside down. Lately, the only thing she had taken a risk at in her life was her relationship with Link..though you could hardly call it that.

And wasn't that what life at its fullest was supposed to be about? One risk after another?

"I won't," Malon answered her gerudo friend.

"Good luck." Malon said this half to herself, half to the thief.

The gerudo clicked the reins and rode off with Ariana at a trot. "Yeah, yeah." Her voice echoed from over the hills back towards Malon. "Us gerudos don't need luck. We were born with it."

"I'm beginning to wish I was one," Malon said softly to herself as she took a deep breath and walked into what had once been Lon Lon ranch but was now Ingo's. Not for much longer if I have anything to say about it, thought Malon.

Upon seeing Malon walk through the iron gates of his ranch, Ingo's sharp eyes, so adept for noticing a spot left unclean on the stable walls or a lazy servant, didn't miss so much as a beat in spite of the darkness of early nightfall.

"You!" he called out roughly to her. "Where's your horse?"

Malon tried to arrange her voice into a tone that sounded traumatized and scared. She widenened her eyes innocently.

"Forgive me, sir..but..I..I..but..someone stole it."

"When?"

"Just now. Outside the ranch. I couldn't see clearly on account of the night, but I thought it was a gerudo." Malon was surprised at how easy it was to lie to Ingo. It should be easy, she reminded herself. I've been doing it for years.

"Of course it was one of them thieves."

Ingo rushed past her, wrapping a cloak around himself as he ran. "Bloody gerudo," he swore as he hurried off through the still opened iron gates of the ranch. It was just as Malon had hoped. Ingo, in his greed, could not stand for so much as one of his horses to be stolen-they were too valuable. No, instead, he would run after the culprit to try and reattain his stolen possession.

Malon had no time to congradulate herself on the fact that everything was going according to plan. There was still much left to do. Her escape from Ingo was far from over. Malon made straight for the stables.

Opening the padlock around the double barn doors, she went in and next began opening the padlocks to each and every stable, opening the gates, and leading the horses out methodically one by one.

She watched as the horses, once all out of the stables, stampeded towards the swung open iron gates of the ranch and through them to the land of Hyrule outside.

Malon followed them out the gate, watching the horses all gallop off as a pack in one direction, glad for a chance to run that didn't feature Ingo slapping a whip at their backs. Malon was losing something important to her. But yet she was gaining something important as well. Her freedom.

Besides, Malon reassured herself, the horses could roam wild now, wherever they wanted. They would never be mistreated by Ingo again-and neither would she, for that matter.

But even if she didn't know it yet, Malon really wasn't losing anything at all. Not even her beloved horses. Perhaps fate had decided she had had enough suffering and loss in her life-and now it was time where she could only stand to gain hapiness.

**********

Not even a mile away, Link was walking down the same dirt road that Malon walked or rode over every day-the dirt road that led to the ranch. Taking equal turns whistling and rehearsing the words he was going to say to Malon, Link almost didn't see the horses until they were right in front of him, puffs of air coming from their nostrils.

One look at the brand etched into the flank of each one (the work of Ingo-Malon and Talon never would have committed such an act on their animals) and Link knew that the horses were none other than the ones from the ranch.

He took action immediately. Grabbing the reins of all of them together, Link began leading the horses back in the direction of the ranch.

Link hadn't gone more than a few steps when his path crossed with none other than Ingo's-and a gerudo girl's-the former of which was chasing after the latter.

Ingo stopped in his tracks, panting and out of breath, when he saw Link standing with the array of different horses gathered around him. He reached out his hands as if he expected Link to put the reins of the various horses into them.

"So that thief stole the rest of them, did she? Thanks. Give 'em back now."

Link had made the choice to stand aside and not help Malon once, when he had first come back to the farm at seventeen and witnessed how it had changed. How she had changed. Link wasn't going to make that choice again.

When he spoke, his strove to keep his voice from straying towards the anger he felt. "Why? So you can beat them and Malon even more?"

Ingo, who didn't look even remotely disturbed at the accusation, just shrugged. "It's the only way to make a living."

"Only way to make enough of a personal gain at the expense of others to satisfy you, you mean. No, you know..I don't think I will give you these horses back."

Ingo's face contorted with rage. "Why you little. Gimme.."

He reached out to grab the reins from Link's grasp, but Link saw his move and dropped the reins to the dust before Ingo could grab them, then spun around and gave Ingo a hefty punch to his jaw.

"Sorry. These horses aren't yours. Never were. I'm just going to go return them to their proper owner, and you're going to go straight to Hyrule Castle and ask for work in the stables."

Ingo laughed in Link's face. "Ha! Full of yourself, are you? Why would I do such a thing?"

Link didn't so much as blink. "Because if you don't, I'll kill you. And that's a promise I will keep, no matter where you try to run or hide."

Suddenly, a set of hoofbeats not coming from the horses Link held the reins to could be heard behind him.

Turning around on the spot, Link was face to face with Ariana..carrying not quite her usual rider. The inky shadow of a gerudo grinned down at him and gave an equally infuriating sort of grin towards Ingo (who was naturally looking infuriated.)

"Oh don't worry about HIM, hero of time. I'll follow and watch every step he takes towards Hyrule Castle. And every step he takes after that. I or one of the other gerudo will catch him if he tries to escape from his duties. And if he does, well..let's just say I'm afraid you won't have much of a chance to kill him." Here, the gerudo gave a rather nasty smile and fingered her the scimitar at her side lovingly.

Ingo was about to try and skulk off on his own, but with the gerudo around, he didn't have a chance. Grabbing Ingo by the scruff of his neck, the gerudo threw him into the saddle behind her and rode off towards Hyrule Castle.

***********

Malon was just about to leave the ranch when a figure emerged out of the shadows and tried to walk through the gate-at the same time she tried to walk through, herself.

Malon tried to sneak past him, but it didn't work. The figure obviously had no intentions of stepping to one side and allowing her to past. For a terrible moment, Malon's heart beat rapidly at the thought that the person could be Ingo. That was until the person spoke. And then Malon recognized that the voice was not Ingo's-as well as she recognized the familiarity surrounding it.

"I believe you were missing these?"

Link gestured to behind him and then Malon saw something else just as familiar. The horses from the ranch. The horses that she had set free to save them from Ingo. All of them, their manes and tails flicking back and forth in the wind.

Malon stared at Link, awaiting some explanation.

"You realize you might want to change the name of the ranch now? I was thinking something like, oh, I don't know, Lon Lon Ranch. Has a nice ring to it, don't you think?" Link asked in a teasing tone.

Malon's mouth gave a slight quirk. "I can't imagine where you came up with it. Why did you come here?"

Even in the dark, she could see Link's face turn slightly red. "I came to rescue you," he admitted.

"With my shawl?" asked Malon, noticing the article of clothing Link had rolled up in one of his hands.

"That was my excuse for coming here to visit. Just in case you threatened to throw a frying pan at me or something."

And no wonder. We didn't exactly part on the best of terms, thought Malon, remembering how she and Link had argued in front of the blacksmith's only a few hours before. Why had he bothered to come at all? And to rescue her? But why? If he was engaged, it was high time he said so and stopped confusing her by acting as if he cared. He didn't. Did he?

"I just freed myself," Malon stated plainly.

Link nodded. "I thought as much. Ran into a gerudo and Ingo on the way here. I took the liberty of sending him to work at Hyrule Castle." He tried to meet Malon's eyes even though she was holding her head down just to render that purpose useless. "Can you guess what position?"

"I hope..I hope he has to shovel manure for the rest of his life," said Malon with a venemence she hadn't thought she had in herself.

Link grinned, his teeth flashing in the darkness. "Naturally. Ingo loving hard work so much, I'm sure he'll enjoy himself. Especially with your gerudo friend's keeping an eye on him-along with her sword, I might add."

There was no reason to free the horses if Ingo was never going to set even his little toe in the ranch again. Malon began leading the horses back the barn, Link following beside her.

Finally, after all the horses had been led to their stables and Malon and Link were both once more outside with the cool air surrounding them, Malon spoke.

"You came to free me. Even after all I said?" Malon was speaking of the time at the blacksmith's and of the dance.

"What can I say? I'm determined."

Malon looked at him curiously. "Determined about what?"

Link gave her an unreadable look. "That I'll tell you. But I'd rather talk about it on the way to zora's river, if you don't mind."

Malon raised an eyebrow. "And why, exactly, do you want to go to the river in the middle of the night?"

"To explain things! And to well...I'll tell you that too as we walk there."

Link waited until Malon gave a barely percievable nod. "Alright."

Without further ado, both walked out the gate and began making their way- not following the road, but over hills, bushes, and flowers-to the zora's domain.

"So you want to know what I'm determined about? It's what I've been trying to tell you for two days," Link said after a few moments of silence.

"Oh." Malon, who had just finally had the courage to gaze up at Link's face, dropped her eyes back to the dirt and turned her back to him miserably. Not every one of your dreams can come true in one day, she told herself. You can't fly on your hopes..you'll only end up stumbling and falling.

"You mean that you're going to marry Zelda. I know. I heard."

Link put his hand on her shoulder to turn Malon to face him. The minute she was doing so, he dropped it, but Malon still felt the pressure on her shoulder long after his hand was gone, as if the touch had never stopped.

"You're determined too, aren't you? You and I are also both stubborn to the point of being, how did you phrase it at the blacksmith's? Pigheaded." Link gave a half grin. "The perfect match," he muttered.

"If you've come here to tease me," said Malon in a clipped voice. "I suggest you leave. You don't seem to handle flirting with more than one girl at a time very well. Maybe you should forget me and Zelda and just go for Navi instead."

Link gave a sigh of defeat-and, as it seemed to Malon, a confusion almost matching her own.

He enunciated every word slowly and clearly as if Malon was deaf. "Malon, what I've been trying to tell you for two days is that me and Zelda are NOT engaged-never were, in spite of what rumors said to the contrary. We aren't even considering it anymore. I broke it off with her."

Not yet, Malon thought to herself. Not yet. Been dissapointed too many times. She wanted so desperately to look at his face, but yet...

Malon continued to trace patterns in the dirt with her toe, staring at aforsaid toe with all the intent she could muster. "But she's the right one for you. She's a noble." A noble. The real reason Malon wasn't daring to so much as glance at Link.

"She is not the right one for me. Din's fire, a noble doesn't describe someone's personality, does it? You yourself are not a servant anymore, remember?"

Link raised Malon's chin with his finger to bring her to look at him. It was the same as when he had put his hand on her shoulder. Malon stared vaguely at the tree to the right of Link's head.

"But I'm still a peasant," she whispered.

Link gave a shrug. "So am I. Just one dressed in stupid gaudy clothes." Link suddenly yanked on Malon's arm to stop her from stepping forward. "Ones that I am all too happy to ruin now." Before Malon could say so much as word, Link had taken off his jacket and was laying it across the mud puddle that lay ahead of Malon's path.

He gestured with a mock bow. "Well, what are you waiting for?"

"I'm not-" Malon was about to restate that there was no reason for him, a noble, to do such a thing for a peasant, but Link cut her off.

"You're as good as nobility to me. Better."

Malon stepped over his jacket tenatively. Link's face said he wasn't poking fun at her-it was his way of saying he didn't care if she was a frog and he was a toad. He accepted her anyway. Didn't give a fig for stature or rank.

Link considered her nobility-and he didn't care if anyone else's opinion said to the contrary. Her face flushing, Malon stooped over and picked Link's jacket back up from the muck for him.

"Goodness, I hope you don't do that all the time. You'll run out of apparel." Malon smiled, making Link smile in return. Privately, he categorized the smile into his memory. The way her face lit up and her dimples deepened. Link hoped he would see such a smile again many times in the future.

"That's the point. I miss the old 'fairyboy.'"

Malon looked at Link for the first time on her own account. "So do I."
"I love you." Malon's hands flew up to her mouth, horrified. She hadn't just said that. She couldn't have. It was her imagination. No. No. NO.

But Link's response was not the negative one Malon had feared. Instead, he simply gazed right back at her, his coat still only halfway on. The world seemed frozen all around them and for a few seconds, Malon didn't dare breath or move.

Then, the world seemed to thaw once again, and with it, so did Link. Dropping his coat to the ground once again (it must be in tatters by this point, thought Malon distractedly), he reached out, grabbed the unsuspecting Malon by the waist, pulled her close to him, and kissed her on the forehead.

"You have no idea how long I've been waiting to hear that," he whispered against her skin.

"I doubt as long as I have," Malon said shakily, feeling as if she were in some surreal dream. Soon she was going to pinch herself and wake up and life would be as it always had been..

But the dream didn't end. It continued. And that, of course, was how Malon knew it was not a dream..only the coming true of one.

"You won't doubt for long," Link promised. "Trust me."

Trust Link. For the first time in her life, Malon felt she truly did.

**********

They had reached the Zora's river and Link had walked across from one platform of land on one bank to another piece of land on the other side of the same bank.

"Shall we, my lady?" he said in a tone that caused Malon to give a small giggle, offering his hand from the other side of the river to help her across.

Ignoring Link's hand, she waded across the river on her own, splashing in the water and getting utterly soaked in the process. Seeing Link, who had managed to cross the river and stay dry, Malon gave a mischevious smile and sent a splash of water in his direction.

"I'm afraid I'll never be much of a lady."

Link, now pretty much all the way soaked, laughed, water droplets dripping off the tips of his blonde hair and his nose.

"You're absolutely right. How does 'fairygirl' suit you?"

"Just fine. Though, I was leaning more towards she who got the Hero of Time sopping wet."

Link looked at her warily. "What?"

By the time he realized what she meant, it was too late. Malon grabbed his foot, causing him to trip and fall straight into the river-and right beside her. Treading water up to her chin, she chorkled as she watched Link resurface, stunned.

"I warned-"

But the rest of her statement never got finished as Link in turn dunked under the water, grabbed her foot, and caused her to be dragged under and come back up, her red hair now more than just a little damp at the tips.

***********

The two people were completely visible in the early morning light, both still wearing drenched clothes and lying in the equally drenched grass.

Link rose from his sleeping place beside Malon in the grass and it was not the surroundings he glanced at (which, in the early morning, were a sight to behold) but Malon.

The sun had turned to crystal the waterdrops in her hair; ice chards among fire. To Link, Malon, curled up and still asleep, a peaceful expression on her face, was more beautiful than Zelda in all her jewels and pearls could ever be.

After awhile, Link's eyes shifted from Malon to the small book at her side. He reached over her and picked it up. A diary. She must have written in it last night after he fell asleep. Sure enough, clutched in her hand was a quill. Grasping that as well, Link had an idea. A strange idea, but perhaps a good one all the same.

Link didn't read anymore of the diary than the last page, which caused him to smile. Then, using Malon's pen, he began to write an entry of his own.

When he had finished, Link put the diary back beside Malon, but the pen he clutched in his own hands, falling (or, to his credit, at least pretending to fall) back asleep thus.

The waters of the Zora's domain were steadily turning from the dark blue they had been early that morning to lighter and lighter shades. The sun was now truly rising, almost all the way up in the sky now. Another sunrise, which in Hyrule, were always pretty. But to Malon, just waking up, this sunrise was the most glorious of them all.

From the sunrise, Malon's eyes next turned to Link in a manner similiar to the way he had looked at her earlier that morning-it was all Link could do not to open his eyes and show her that he was awake. He relieved his nervousness by clutching Malon's quill beneath his palm as tightly as possible.

It was only a small matter of time before Malon spotted her diary as she had left it, the pages rustling with the breeze.

Picking it up, Malon was about to close it when handwriting not her own caught her attention. Reading over the words, Malon felt a flux of emotions. Joy, disbelief, surprise, and rapidly following all that, a sense of absolute hapiness.

Will you marry me? had been scrawled across the corner of the page. (There was, of course, much more to the message than that, but Malon kept that to herself. The words were too dear to say aloud.)

It was then that Link opened his eyes and smiled at her as she gaped at him.
He held out the quill between two of his fingers. "Need this?"

Malon took it wordlessly. Words weren't needed. In her eyes, it was reflected what the answer would be. Those eyes that expressed everything. Her pain when she had found Link and Zelda together, her uncertainty and shyness when they had danced together.. Link treasured every different expression.

Especially the one she was showing right then. It was all Link could do not to kiss her right away, and all Malon could do not to kiss Link, but they used self restraint..they had both (especially Malon) learned all they needed to about presumptions.

Malon wrote 'yes' in a trembling hand. As she was forming the 'S', Link, who had been watching over her shoulder, sneaked his hand over hers and kissed her soundly, causing the writing to dribble off the page into oblivion (or the bottom of Link's shoe, which was close enough.)

Link let out a whoop and twirled her around, her dress brushing against the blades of grass and the various flowers, Malon studying his face all the while. A face, that wonderfully, mirrored the expression of her own.

And it didn't matter that Link had forgotten the ring he had tucked in his tunic or that Malon was now stepping on a rock. Nothing matters when you realize you love that other person-not temporary, but will until the end of your days. You see the real them as if for the first time, and have the satisfaction of knowing you will see them in the same light for the rest of your life.

Because love can only be fulfilled by one thing..love in return.

And that is the most essential fairytale of them all.

**************

High in the sky above the Zora's domain, a fledgling bird flew through the air, not faltering and stumbling as had the other baby birds before him, but soaring-in a crooked and zizagged fashion, admittedly-but still soaring, never the less. The bird stretched in flight, free, but yet contained at the same time in the arms of the blue sky that held him.

And somewhere far below, in Link's embrace, Malon opened one of her closed eyes, saw the bird, and grinned.

*************
The end..of the beginning.

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Oh HONESTLY..I warned you it was mushy, didn't I?:)
So how'd I do?