Authors Note: Thank you very much for clicking on this story and giving it a chance. This is a novel based on the untold story of the Great War. For once in my life, perhaps I can finish a fan fic, and not get frustrated and quit half way through. Maybe with your encouragement (::cough:: reviews—positive ones—cough::) I can complete it.
P.S. After this prelude, you might be all, 'this fic totally screws up the OoT story line. Never fear, all will be explained in future chapters!
Disclaimers: If I owned Zelda, would I really be writing fan fiction? I think not!
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: The Great War
The Prelude
The dream would never begin the same. Once it began with impish laughter under the midday sun; the next night it evolved under the pale, crescent moon. The leaves would rustle during slumber, or perhaps lightning would fork and crack overhead. However, even if swallowed in the sweaty crowd, he was, in a sense, alone.
Once, he found himself wandering the marketplace, hearing voices, never words. The people possessed faces, but their features were blurred to him. He recognized no one. The laughter, the shouts, the men wheeling their carts...they just stopped. It was a prolonged pause--their bodies frozen in mid-action. And then, slowly, the bricks from the buildings would drip, fine, golden sand onto the awnings. From the awnings the sand would pour onto the streets.
Each unlike origin, he'd hope that, perhaps, this wasn't the same nightmare that had been haunting him these past moons. He prayed that this dream would be obscure, without meaning. But as the peasants melted to sand, that familiar sense of dread welled up within him and at the back of his consciousness a sardonic voice declared that it all made perfect sense to him.
And soon, to his absolute horror, all would have dissipated into a featureless plain of golden sand. In likeness to a hourglass the fine silt had tricked from everything down to the nothing--the great expanse that now met his widened eyes.
He would have screamed, but voices didn't carry in a world of nothing but sand and sky.
What did carry, though, was the wind that whipped around his body, tossing the sand into frenzy. The growing gale stirred the impossibly heavy air. He clamped his eyes shut against the airborne grit that stung his skin.
Swelling under the howls of the sandstorm was the voices that he could both loathe with burning hate or fear with chilling terror. It was wicked, maniacal laughter resounding terribly around him. It was triumphant, it was mocking, it was belittling--it was horrible.
What happened next, he would never understand. His eyes would fall to the floor of sand, swirling between his submerged feet. On the backing of some explained impulse, he fell to his knee, plunging his hand, his left, into the sand. A bright light would expand from his arm and he would find himself writhing in unimaginable pain as his hand burned and blistered beneath the sea of sand. The whistling of wind would cease and the blinding brilliance would envelop the nothingness.
And then it was over. For mere moments, he would find himself in the semi-darkness, examining his blacked hand. Beaming out from the charred skin of the back of his hand there would be a glowing triangle, its power surging through his body. He could ponder it, he couldn't guess, he couldn't wonder, as he felt himself being sucked out of the nightmare and into consciousness.
Kalkin woke with a violent jolt, his limbs thrashing out into the darkness. He refused to yell--lest the ranch hands would here. Struggling to catch his breath, Kalkin lit candle on the stool aside his mattress that served as a bedside table. In the flickering glow, he examined the flesh of his hand. As always, he expected charred, blackened skin, and also, as always, he saw only the normal brown of his flesh.
He let out a sigh, and let his sweaty forehead fall into his opened palms. He had suffered through this dream ever since winter's thaw, three months ago. Then, the dream had been seldom, and Kalkin had convinced it would go away. But lately it had intensified and every night he'd awake just as he had now: the sheets tangled about him and heart hammering in his chest.
As his ragged breath slowed and he was about to reach out and put out the candle, a voice caused him to give another startled jump.
"So he finally wakes".
Kalkin gave yet another start. His head snapped up and his golden eyes flew to the woman sitting passively in the corner. She was tall and dark, her hair reddish—very much like his own. And yet Kalkin recognized her for exactly what she was, something he assured himself he wasn't—a Gerudo. He watched, in disbelief, as she uncrossed her legs and rose from the stool.
"How did--", he began, astonished". W-who are you", Kalkin finally manage to chock.
Her thick lips twitched into a half smile. She took a step toward him." I believe, that is the question you should be asking yourself".
Kalkin said nothing, his face clouded in confusion and his brilliant eyes widened in bewilderment.
"Dressed as a Hylain, speaking like a Hylain, a name of a Hylain--Kalkin, you don't seem to know the correct answer to my question, "she shook her head sadly," Shall I correct you then? You, Kalkin Dragmire, are the King of the Gerudos".
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