Disclaimer: I, the author, do not owe Legend of Zelda®: Ocarina of Time™ or any of the game characters used in this story. Original characters are owned by the author of this story. All Rights are reserved.

That evening the two sat quietly at the table up in Malon's room eating dinner that consisted of eggs, milk, and dry smoked meat served with buttered bread. More of a morning meal, Airas was told, but since there was not much time to eat breakfast on a ranch, the meal was served at night instead.

Airas had been silent since she had returned from the stables, dining on her meal quietly, her eyes downcast the whole time. Malon suddenly felt nervous being around her.

"Would you like some more?" Malon asked quickly, before Airas could even set her fork down on a clean plate.

"No, thank you." Her tone was even more chilling than earlier. Malon sighed, and hoped what she would say would not intervene with anything drastic.

"Airas…I know earlier you were asking…" she stopped, her voice suddenly becoming unsteady, knowing what she would say. She placed her fork and knife on the table and held her hands in her lap, out of sight as they began to wring at her apron strings. She looked up to see she had Airas's full attention on her. For a moment her gaze was caught in the girl's bright blue eyes that held a depth to them impenetrable. It was nerve wrecking.

Malon cleared her throat and tried again, keeping her eyes on her hands. "I know you were about to ask of your father, before Keihs came here today, and I am sorry to say that I was actually grateful for his interruption. Truth is, I really do not want to talk about it, but I have no right to keep the truth from you…to keep your father from you."

Airas said nothing, not daring to interrupt now. This could be the only time Malon would open up. At least the ranch woman hoped it would be the only time she had to.

"To explain my outburst from yesterday, of not wanting to speak of him…well…the reason why I said I had tried so hard to forget him was that…I was in love with your father."

Now Airas had to remember she told herself before she left Kokiri Forest that there were many emotions and feelings she had never experienced herself, therefore was unclear of what they were or meant. This word…love…was even harder to determine its meaning than fate had been, already swimming around in her mind trying to decipher it.

"In love?" she quietly whispered, with a slow tongue as if the word were hard to pronounced. "What does that mean…you were in love?"

It must be something shameful or embarrassing, as Malon's cheeks flushed bright red.

"Well…it's how you feel about someone very close to you, someone you care about deeply."

For a moment only a blank gaze was on Airas's face, than slowly it cleared to a somewhat knowing expression. "I cared deeply for Saria and all the other Kokiri folk. Is that what you mean?"

"Ah, that's how it is at first," Malon tried to explain. "Like friendship. You know that, right?"

"Yes."

Malon sighed in relief. "Good, otherwise this would get ridiculously confusing. Well, sometimes this friendship can develop even stronger bonds between two people. You go through strong emotions being with them, or just seeing them from afar. Your heart can start to beat rapidly on its own without even moving your body, and your stomach feels like its in knots, and you blush for no reason at all. These are some of the universal signs of being in love with someone. You feel like you want to spend your whole life with them, forever and ever. Its like a dream you hope you never awake from."

Malon stopped, feeling as if she had been carried away with her own meaning of love, and when she remembered why she was explaining all this, her cheeks were aflame. She built the courage to look up at the daughter of the man who she had been expressing her love for, to find Airas's eyes wide, blinking rapidly, absorbing still.

"You felt all that with my father?" Airas asked, resting her chin thoughtfully on her hands.

"Well, yes," she decided to admit. It was the truth after all. "I was very deeply in love with your father. But…he betrayed me."

"Betrayed?"

"Er…went against me. Broke a promise."

Airas gasped, leaning in. "What did he do?"

"Well…fact-of-the-matter is, Airas…Link had another child, before you were even born."

Not realizing the full deceitfulness of this matter, Airas's face beamed brightly. "You mean I have an older brother of sister?"

Malon felt some comfort seeing it pleased Airas, unlike the despair and unfaithfulness she had felt when she found out. "Yes, you do. An older sister."

"Oh!" Airas exclaimed. "Where is she? What is her name? What is she like?"

Malon could barely hold a giggle in, bemused by Airas's childish excitement that betrayed her age. Clearing her throat instead, Malon shook her head.

"Her name is Cymbra, named after my mother. The last time I saw her she was only three, but she seemed to be a happy child. She is much like you, I can say; interested and amused by everything easily. And where she is…I've wanted to know myself for a long time."

Bowing her head down, Malon was too late in shadowing her eyes, tears already spilling forth in a silent stream.

Airas could say nothing; only sit there agape, learning all at once she had an older sister that had been lost long ago.

Than she began to dwell on it; her father, Malon, and her missing sister. She looked nothing like Malon, just taking the woman's name, she was a person not intertwined with her own self. Malon was not her mother as she had thought happily at the moment she heard she had a sibling. This was the betrayal Link had caused her. He was father to her with a different woman as her mother.

And now her she sat, in this woman's home who had let her stay and fed her, even riding a magnificent horse without asking anything save to help her with chores. Chores Malon had to do all alone for a long time, while Airas brought on memories of torn loyalty and a broken promise.

I am the child of Link's betrayal.

She could have sworn she only thought it within her mind, yet she must have been mistaken when Malon shot her head up, quickly wiping her tears with her apron.

"No, no," Malon whispered, reaching over to take hold of Airas's hand. The girl shivered feeling the woman's touch had become cold like ice. "Do not think of yourself in that way."

"What other way is there to think of myself as?" Airas asked somberly. "I never even knew my father, living in ignorance all this time, and here I come, asking for your aid when I only remind you of a past full of sorrow."

Malon sniffed back the rest of her tears, her grip suddenly becoming like a vice. "No. To see you, you reminded me of the good times before all that happened. You look so much like your father, and behave like him exactly. I would like to think my daughter grew up just like you."

Moved by her words, Airas slowly smiled and squeezed the woman's hands, warming them. "I thank you for all you have told me. I will ask you for nothing more."

"And watch you go mad with even more questions building up in your mind?" Malon asked, chuckling. "No, let me tell you all I know. I owe it to you."

Airas nodded and leaned in again to listen, the two not bothering to depart hands, whether because they simply forgot, or because they sought each other for remembrance of a man one had known and the other wanted to know. Malon began from the beginning.

"It was after your father had fulfilled his destiny—which you should hear tales of from your mother—that he came back to my ranch, uncertain and lost of what to do with his quest complete. He stayed here than, with my father, our secondhand man, Ingo, and myself, starting a new life on this ranch with us. We became very close friends, having known each other since our childhood, and soon our friendship began to develop beyond that."

"Into love," Airas whispered, smiling.

"Yes," Malon said, the familiar tint of redness covering her cheeks. "It was on my twenty-first birthday that we told each other of our feelings, and that following night, your father proposed to me."

"Proposed?" Arias asked, hating to interrupt, yet not wanting to get lost in the story.

Malon smiled in patience. "A promise to get married. Your father asked if I wanted to marry him." When Malon saw Airas's still blank face, she continued. "Marriage is when a man and woman become husband and wife, telling everyone that they are together, in love. It is proven by wearing rings on your left hand. Sometimes a ring is given before the actual marriage, called an engagement ring."

Malon than lifted up her hand to show her left hand, and on her ring finger was a silver band with a sapphire stone. "I wanted a color stone that matched his eyes." She placed it beside Airas's head and nodded. "It matches."

"So you would have two rings," Airas said, observing. "You were never married?"

"Unfortunately, no. I myself do not know the real reason why we never did, but I believe it was because Link was too guilt-ridden to marry me after his affair with your mother."

"Affair? You mean the betrayal of breaking his promise to you with another woman?"

Malon would have expected Airas to be hurt to speak of it aloud, but it seemed the girl was more angry and ashamed rather than to take pity on herself.

"Y-yes…" Malon stuttered. "That's what he confessed to me, right before Cymbra was taken away."

Airas stared in shock.

"It's true. And there is one thing you should know before I go on."

"What is it?"

Malon breathed in deeply, once again summoning the courage and grace to carry a steady, firm voice.

"Your mother…is Zelda, Queen of Hyrule."