Disclaimer: Not mine, not mine, not mine

A.N. This chapter is dedicated to SS Psycho Link, who wants to know when this'll be finished. The answer is: I don't know yet, I haven't decided, but you will be the first to know.

Chapter 3: Fight!

A heavy snow shower had followed the final of the senior tournament, leaving the battleground covered with a dusting of powdery white snow. Zelda had managed to escape from the Royal Tent and was watching the first fight with Link. Well, she was watching, Link wasn't.

"Aren't you paying attention to this? You'll need to study the opposition."

Link looked over his shoulder at the battle in the arena.

"Tristian is strong at defence but his attack is weak. Aidyn's not even trying."

Zelda squinted at the activity and frowned.

"How can you tell?"

Link shrugged.

"Just can. I know everything I need to know about Aidyn. He's right handed, right footed and flexes the fingers on his sword hand before he attacks."

Zelda looked over at the fight and noted all the things that Link said.

"Hey, you're right!"

Link blew a bit of stray hair away from his face.

"Well duh."

"There's no need to be like that." Zelda retaliated. "I'd never have looked at those sort of things."

"That's why I'm the Hero of Time and you're just a Sage."

"Just a Sage? Aren't you forgetting Sage of Wisdom and Princess of Destiny there bucko?"

Link smiled and turned to face the seething princess.

"Chill out Zelda, you've just missed Aidyn's victory."

His voice was partially cut out by the roar of the crowd. Tristian's sword was buried blade-down the middle of the arena and the loser was staring at it in disbelief. Aidyn offered him his hand, which he shook grudgingly.

"Gods that was quick!" Zelda gasped. "He didn't lose any ground at all!"

Link nodded.

"He didn't want to wear himself out for the final fight. It might not have been anything special, but he's certainly inherited his father's strategical prowess."

Zelda looked at him funnily.

"Link, you sound just like your grown up self when you start to talk like that."

Link shrugged again.

"Here come Horeb and Pebo." He said, sounding disinterested.

"Don't you want to watch this too?" Zelda asked, still surprised at his lack of interest. "'Cause when you beat Yoric you'll have to fight the winner."

Link shrugged.

"It'll be Pebo."

"Pebo?"

Zelda stared at the nervous looking boy who clutched his sword awkwardly.

"Are you sure?"

Link nodded.

"Horeb looks slow and unfit, he'll be stopping for breath once things get a little more hectic."

"Makes sense I guess." Zelda said, chewing her bottom lip. "Who do you reckon will win out of the twins?"

"Too close to call."

"And who's going to win Link versus Yoric."

"Me!" Link said, his eyes narrowed to slits. "I'm going to humiliate him to the extent that he'll wish he'd never been born!"

"Why?" Zelda asked, looking at him anxiously.

"He said that my mother probably deserved to die!" Link yelled, not bothering to keep his voice down. "He'll regret that mistake for the rest of his life."

"I hope you're not going to do anything stupid." Zelda said in a tired voice.

"No, he's the stupid one, not me."

"I can't believe how childish you sound." Zelda giggled.

Link folded his arms crossly.

"Whose fault is that? If somebody hadn't sent me back then I wouldn't be a kid and I wouldn't be doing this stupid tournament in the first place!"

"It's not my fault Ganondorf invaded the Sacred Realm!" Zelda said defensively. "How could you think that?"

"Yeah, but you were the one who made me open the Door of Time!"

"So you think everything's my fault do you?" Zelda asked, looking upset. "Well fine. See if I care. I'll be cheering Aidyn on when he beats your ass!"

Link looked hurt and stormed off, not saying another word and muttering under his breath. Zelda was quivering with hurt and anger, so much so that she failed to notice that Link's prediction came true.

******

Aidyn was busy checking his sword for weaknesses and splits when Link stormed into the tent, his face like a thundercloud.

"I'll show her, the stuck-up, peacock brained little co..."

"Trouble?" Aidyn asked.

Link jumped in surprise.

"I didn't know you were in here."

"What's up?" Aidyn persisted.

"Zelda thinks I'm childish."

"Well she is very mature for her age..." Aidyn said, not liking to hear anyone get a verbal assault when they weren't there to defend themselves.

"Yeah, and she's stuck up, self centered and completely unaware of the wishes of others. She knew how much I wanted to ki... she knew that I didn't want to go back!"

"Go back where?"

"Doesn't matter." Link said simply. "She knew that I didn't want to go and she made me. It's her fault nobody believes me."

Aidyn scratched his head.

"What don't they believe?"

Link raised his eyes to the heavens.

"You won't believe me either, so I'm just going to leave it until I'm old enough to prove to everyone that I am who I say I am."

"You're fight's about to start." Aidyn said helpfully, seeing Voren lift his brother up from out of the snow and dust him off.

Yoric entered the tent, grunting like a hog as he threw down his Wolfos skin cloak.

"So it's you is it short stuff? Not chickened out and run away to mommy? Oh yeah, mommy's dead."

Aidyn's eyes narrowed almost to the same extent as Link's.

"We will discuss your conduct later Yoric." He said icily. "If I were not so keen to see Link defeat you then I would have you disqualified..."

"Just 'cause your daddy's the judge doesn't mean you're the boss of me, pretty boy. I can understand why you'd wanna side with a motherless loser like him, you're part of the club aren't you?"

Aidyn clenched his fists and glared at the bigger youth.

"Link, you'll be late for your duel." He said, not taking his eyes off Yoric.

"Ooh, you're making me quiver!" Yoric mocked. "I'm so gonna love beating you two losers."

Link smiled to himself.

"Whatever you say."

******

"My money's on the older youth." Harkinian said, watching the two boys enter the ring. "Link's a great lad, but he's not going to be able to fell a sixteen year old lad with the strength of an ox."

Olaran shrugged.

"Size doesn't matter. Yoric's a tough one, no doubt about that, but he tends to let his ego get in the way."

Zelda sat in her seat, staring straight ahead and not saying a word.

"Who do you think is going to win this match Princess?" Olaran asked.

Zelda frowned.

"I'd like to say Yoric, but it'll be Link."

Harkinian laughed.

"You've changed your tune since yesterday haven't you?"

"Wouldn't you if a certain someone whose name I won't mention blamed you for something that wasn't your fault?"

Harkinian looked at Olaran.

"Have you got the faintest idea what she's saying?"

Olaran shrugged.

"Not the foggiest. Mind you, I've never had a daughter and Ariala wasn't a conventional woman."

Harkinian leant back against his throne and stretched.

"I think this should be quite a good fight to watch, not for entertainment purposes but purely to see how Zelda reacts when Link loses."

Zelda narrowed her eyes and looked at her father distainfully.

"Link's not going to lose. No matter how much I don't like him at the moment, he's still going to win the tournament."

******

A massive cheer went up as Link walked into the arena, and he blushed as he noticed Darunia, Nabooru, Malon and Ruto leading the cheers and waving flags. Ruto blew him a kiss, and Link turned away extremely quickly.

"What's the matter? Baby too shy for the crowd?" Yoric scoffed.

Link glared at him and said nothing. He had an action plan already lined up for the upcoming two, possibly three battles, depending on how well he was faring. Nobody appeared to notice that he had swapped his sword hand from his left to his right.

"Are you going to stand there like a Re-Dead or are we gonna fight?" Link asked, noticing that Yoric appeared to have gotten stage fright.

Yoric snapped out of his trance.

"A what?"

"Never mind." Link said, realising that Yoric had never seen a Re-Dead and wouldn't know one even if it had jumped onto his back and started sucking the life out of him.

Yoric drew his sword and bowed with a flourish to the king, as was customary. Link almost smiled when he saw Zelda's disgusted look as the youth winked at her, but then remembered that they weren't talking and kept his face deadpan as he bowed.

"Fight!"

Yoric began to circle, waving his sword in front of him.

"That place next to the king is as good as mine! And I get to sit next to the princess too." Yoric laughed.

His voice was muffled by the roar of the crowd. Link rolled his eyes.

"What's so great about that?"

He jumped out of the way as Yoric lunged at his belly.

"Stupid kid. The princess is a babe, and babes dig the tough guy." He said, as though it was about the most obvious thing in the world.

Link saw red and blocked one of Yoric's lunges with his sword.

"She's also ten years old." He retorted.

"Ten years old, never been kissed..."

Yoric had gone of into a little fantasy world which Link quite frankly found disturbing beyond belief. He took his chance and landed three consecutive hits on the wooden blade Yoric was holding. Link frowned, as chips of wood flew. Had he been using iron, that sword would have been toast.

"Nice try, brat." Yoric hissed, charging at Link with his sword at chest height.

Link blocked and forced the older boy back.

"As if you'd stand a chance with Zelda." Link scoffed. "The Royal family don't marry outside their species, and I think you're the ugliest toad I've ever seen."

Yoric yelled and charged, nearly losing his footing on an icy stone concealed beneath the snow.

"You don't stand a chance either, motherless loser. I'll bet your mother was as big a wuss as you are, and that's why she died."

Link gritted his teeth in fury and then leapt at him, his sword raised high in the air. With a yell, he brought it crashing down onto Yoric's sword and watched as it spun out of the boy's hand and landed at his feet. As Yoric reached for the sword, he saw a brown Kokiri boot standing firmly on the hilt and felt something cold and wooden underneath his chin. He looked up into the seething face of his adversary and felt his blood chill as he stared into the midnight blue eyes that were glaring at him.

"You don't know anything about my mother." Link said, his chest heaving and his voice shaking to prevent it from breaking into a rage. "She died so that I could live, so if you've got something more to say about her then just try it, cause I've got a real sword in the scabbard on my back that I'm not afraid to use."

On the back of Link's left hand, unnoticed by virtually everyone, the Triforce symbol burned brightly in correspondence with its holder's anger.

From her seat in the Royal Box, Zelda felt her right hand tingle and looked down at her Triforce mark which was glowing gold. She quickly covered it with her mittens, anxious for no-one to see it. Whatever was going on in the arena, it was getting Link worked up enough to activate his Triforce and that in turn caused hers to respond. It also gave the game away that he was fighting with his weak hand as she distinctly remembered his Triforce hand as being the one he held his sword with. She smiled. Even if she didn't like him at the moment, she had to give him credit for his tactics. Aidyn and his opponents would be drawing up an action plan to defeat a right-handed Link, and in the middle of the fight he would swap to left and take everybody by total surprise and therefore enable to gain him an easy victory.

"That was quite a fight." Harkinian said, applauding eagerly. "I think that your friend will grow up to be quite a fine swordsman, Zelda."

Zelda smiled to herself.

If only they knew...