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 cannot be!"

Airas had stood up so fast in her chair; she knocked it back onto the floor with a loud "thud," her outburst rattling Malon's summoned courage to a faint memory.

Her hand still held fast to Malon's, yet the woman wished she would let go, the girl's grip so hard it cut off the blood flow.

Thankfully, it was quickly loosened as Airas reached behind her with her leg, using the tip of her boot to pull the chair back up by the seat, sitting back down, all in one quick, graceful movement. Malon blinked in surprise, knowing Airas had not even realized what she had just done.

"You're telling me that my father had an affair with the ruler of Hyrule?" Airas asked. Having been taught by the Deku Tree, there were many things absent in her teachings, yet it became clear he must have known what she would learn on all the way and what she needed to know already. His lessons had been thorough when dealing with royalty, the court and even in politics; therefore being fully aware of the impurity this scandal had created.

"Did neither my father nor…my mother," Airas spat out with effort, "know that it could have caused dishonor to the throne and its morals and cast my mother out?"

"It did for the most part," Malon said solemnly, slightly taken aback by Airas's sudden gain of knowledge. "Queen Zelda almost did not become queen. There was even talk of her being exiled on the day she was to be crowned. Because there was no alliance needed to be made with a marriage, Hyrule at peace with its bordering neighbors, she was able to marry who she pleased, so long as the court and her father, the King, approved."

She sighed and shook her head, shame in her eyes. "I believe if Queen Zelda and your father wanted to be married, it would be allowed even though he was not of royalty. He had been pronounced the Hero of Time, therefore found suitable as the husband to the queen. But things…did not turn out that way."

"Such as I being born, before marriage, I gather," Airas shot out, highly disgusted. Though in a temper, she was gentle in pulling her hand away from Malon's, burying her face in her hands.

"It was not so much as that," Malon said, reaching over to stroke the girl's back, trying to console her. "It was more of the fact he had been engaged to me already, and there was already a child between us. Link was banished from the realm for his dishonor, and his title as Hero of Hyrule removed."

Airas peered through her fingers and was surprised to find Malon smiling; to herself it seemed, with her eyes looking somewhere else, into the past.

"Yet only the court saw Link no longer as a hero. Everyone else saw him no differently, including your mother. In fact, afterward until the King's death, Queen Zelda—princess at the time—was banished to Zora's Domain."

"Zora's Domain…I know of that place," Airas said.

"You should. They were your neighbors, living next to each other with only the thicket of the woods to divide you."

"So eventually, my mother was allowed back to the realm?"

"Only after the King's death, as I said. With no ruler, Hyrule was now vulnerable and weak to attack. Though there were no threats, it is not wise to take risks. Zelda was deeply loved by her royal subjects, hence it was voted among the people she should return and rule as rightful heir, despite her sins."

"And where was my father during all this?"

"Here, at the ranch, with me loving him with ignorance. My father was still alive back than, so he was the one delivering the milk to the castle. I never even heard the rumors of his own sins spreading around the market. Yet my father found out eventually, and I believe it was what led him to an early grave, of a broken heart knowing I had been betrayed. He was too kind to tell me, however…"

Again tears threatened to spill over, Malon remaining in silence for a few moments, regaining her composure. Airas waited patiently, all the while fury building up inside, disgusted with herself and her very existence.

"Even through all that," Malon began her voice barely above a whisper, "it was not what I titled as his betrayal to me. By the time I had learned all this, Cymbra was already three years of age and since the day she was born, and Link was withdrawn, cold, and reserved. He would barely look at me or at his daughter, and soon he became a shadow to us, something like a ghost wandering around the ranch with no purpose…not even a soul it seemed at times. He was always pale and hardly ever ate, thinning until I could count his ribs when he lay beside me at night. And even then, he would never sleep. It was than I began to cling onto Cymbra for the sake of my sanity, knowing I had lost Link, hoping I would never lose my daughter."

She stopped again, breathing in deeply and sighed, continuing in a firmer voice.

"Yet Cymbra and I were happy, being together. She was my whole life after she was born, my joy. It was seeing her face that made me smile and happy to be alive, when Link sometimes made me think I was among a cemetery. No, it was not that he had an affair with your mother that I saw as betrayal. It was when he stole Cymbra from me, away from my arms that I cried against him in pain and hate!"

Airas had been listening intently all the while, noticing the difference from the beginning as Malon's voice steadily began to rise; until the last part was bellowed with such venom that Airas's own fury was forgotten for a moment.

"He took her from you?" she asked in disbelief, gripping the edge of the table.

Malon stood than, not as quickly as Airas had to knock back her chair, but it was a gesture to be taken as a hint this conversation was finished. At least the matter of her betrayal with Link.

She slowly began to pace the room, around the table in wide, crooked circles, sometimes her head in such deep thought she would stumble into a chair.

She whirled back around and for a bleak moment, all her hate and pain was targeted on Airas.

And why not? She was, after all, the living, breathing thing constantly reminding Malon of her parents' sins.

But it washed away from the woman's eyes as quickly as it had came. "Though now that I think of it," she said softly, in a calming tone that was almost eerie with its reserved composure, "I cannot fully hate Link as I did once, for so long."

Airas only stared, her eyes asking the question.

"When Link took my daughter from me, I thought it was so he could go back to his princess and marry her, having both you and him to himself and that—" remembering Airas was present, she chose her words more carefully. "—that woman!"

"Living here, never going to Hyrule Castle unless delivering produce, I did not learn nor care if they did wed or not. When you came to me yesterday, telling me you never left the forest until that day, I doubt that they did. And now I also think…Link had a purpose, a reason for taking Cymbra, if he did the same with you."

Anger had blinded Airas from this, it seeming possible. "He must have been trying to protect us from something."

Malon took her seat again and nodded in agreement. "It is what I had thought since last night. All that I have told you, Airas, is all I know. Now I was hoping you could spin me a tale."

The two spent the rest of the night with Airas telling her story since she had been bestowed a name to the moment she arrived at Lon Lon Ranch. Malon was alarmed of the vision Airas had seen of Link, her hand covering her open mouth.

"The vision…do you think that it is true?" Malon asked after all was told.

"The Deku Tree told me it could be one of two paths. It could have been something that already happened, or it could be something that might happen in the future, and if it is the latter, than there may be a way to prevent it."

Though Airas despised her father now for all she had put this woman through, who never deserved an ounce of it, she knew that the both of them wished it would not befall on Link. Or that it already had.

"All that aside," Malon said, thinking it best to change the subject, "it seems you would have a gift."

"What sort of gift?" Airas asked curiously.

"That you are able to give visions to words, simply by just thinking of them. This can come as a great advantage, hearing a word or name and able to find more about it."

"They are not always clear," Airas pointed out, remembering her last try with fate and love.

"Nothing is always clear," Malon said, smiling. She yawned suddenly, looking out the window and gasped. "Goodness! The moon is about to set and I need to awake early tomorrow to deliver the royal chef's order to him."

"I will help," Airas said, finding herself yawning, yet her voice firm in not asking permission. It was a fact she would.

"I will need it," Malon said gratefully, pulling back the sheets on both beds. "It is a large order."

Realizing than the order would most likely be taken inside the castle, she almost went back on her promise. She prayed she would not meet the Queen.