I don't own Zelda.
Wow. That was the most boring disclaimer I've ever done! ^__^()
* * *
April blinked at this strange girl who had just opened the door. She had dark hair and dark eyes that could have either been black or dark brown. It was hard to tell with the current lighting. She also had slightly tanned or olive skin, which made her look quite different than any other the other Sheikahs she had seen before. But, her facial features and mostly the slight slant of her eyes at the corners told her that she was without a doubt Sheikah. The thing that struck her as most strange, though, was that she seemed in an odd and almost scary way familiar.
She suspected that this girl looked after the house for Impa, but for some reason it surprised her when she said Impa's name.
It surprised her more when Impa replied with, "Hello, Vaiya."
April's eyes widened slightly. She knew that name. It was from the Book, as she had taken to thinking of it as. She, or at least the Vaiya she was familiar with, was a seer, and had lived at the time the book was written. That must have been a time long before the dark haired girl before her was born, however.
While April was lost in her own thoughts, Vaiya had started to smile and walked over to the other Sheikah woman, saying her name like she hadn't seen her in years.
'Well, she probably hasn't,' April thought.
"Long time no see!" Impa said as she embraced the girl warmly. She pushed her back after a moment, still holding her by the shoulders and seemingly studying her. "Look how big you've gotten!"
Vaiya seemed to smile even more. "Surely bigger than the little eight year old girl you left seven years ago."
April again mentally cringed.
"But, how did you know I would be here?"
"You're fifteen years old, nearly a full-grown woman. Being my niece and the only living air to my possessions, I knew you would have chosen to live here eventually. While I was gone, anyway. I'm almost surprised you didn't see that we would be coming here." The way Impa stressed the word "see" made April realize what she already knew, and that was that the girl was the seer Monoka had talked about.
"Speaking of which, why are you back?" Vaiya's face suddenly darkened, and she seemed to answer her own question. She narrowed her eyes and muttered something under her breath which sounded to April like, "Hyrule is in danger."
Seeing that Vaiya obviously had foreseen something about this, she continued. "It was the only place I could think that was safe, at least for the time being. Although, we won't be able to simply stand by and do nothing."
"You knew that she has a part to play yet in delivering Hyrule from this evil."
This comment might not have scared April had Vaiya's eyes not gone out of focus when she'd said this, like she hadn't really been talking, as if someone or something had been speaking through her.
Vaiya nodded slightly, seeming to come back into focus, and then suddenly seemed to remember that there was another presence outside of the door. She glanced down at the Princess.
"Greetings, Princess of Hyrule."
April also seemed to remember herself, and responded with a simple, "Hi."
"You are both tired by now, I know," Vaiya said. "You should come inside and get some sleep. We can deal with this tomorrow, or later."
Vaiya turned first, and lead the other two into the house.
* * *
A bright light shone right into April's face as she begun to wake up. She wasn't exactly appreciating the bright sunlight at the time, however, and she rolled back over onto her side and covered her head with a pillow and muttered unintelligible under her breath.
"Zelda."
Whoever had said this had obvious been right next to her, and she had obviously heard it, but she wasn't willing to get out of bed. She instead retreated further under her pillow and curled up.
The person sighed in an annoyed way and yanked the covers off of her.
"It's nearly noon, you know. Do you plan to sleep all day?"
At this point in time, April really wouldn't mind sleeping all day. But this voice didn't sound like it was going to let her. She nodded, anyway, from underneath her pillow.
"Well, that's too bad. Get up."
April made an annoyed "tch" sound, but moved the pillow off her head to look up to see Vaiya standing there, hands on her hips.
"You're mean," April told her simply.
"And you are incredibly lazy for a princess." She didn't give April a chance to respond however, as she continued talking. "Impa already left some time ago to speak with the Elders again. She wanted me to talk with you. I can't exactly talk to someone who's asleep." With that, she turned around and went back down the stairs, obviously expecting the princess to follow her.
April sighed, dragged herself out of bed, and started followed the older girl down the stairs, at the same time wishing that she had some new clothes.
"If you want some clean clothes to wear, there are some in that old wardrobe to your left," she heard her call from the bottom of the stairs before she could even take the first step.
'That girl is starting to scare me,' April thought, not quite used to people being able to read her thoughts, intentionally or not.
She pulled out some clothes that looked like they would fit her and put them on. They did fit, and she thought that was odd because she knew Vaiya lived by herself and was obviously bigger than she was. They consisted of an off-white peasant-styled blouse and a light brown, slightly below knee length skirt. She didn't bother looking for any shoes. She was nearly surprised to find that not all Sheikah women dressed the way Impa did. Then she remembered seeing Vaiya in something very different just before.
She suddenly stopped thinking too much of this. She felt kind of silly, because she was acting a lot like her old self.
Her old self...
That thought in itself almost immediately scared her because she acknowledged the fact that she had changed at least some from when she lived on Earth. Lately, she didn't really think of herself as that April. It nearly amazed her that she had forced herself to go from one person to a completely different one within the span of only a little over three weeks. She had vowed to herself that as long as she was stuck as this person, she would play that part. Although, she hadn't realized that she was not only playing the part but becoming it.
She shook her head, trying to get rid of these thoughts. Continuing down the stairs, she instead wondered what it was that Vaiya wanted to talk to her about.
She walked into a room with a table and what looked like a pantry. A hall lead out to the living room and a few closed doors.
Vaiya turned around before she heard the princess enter the room. "You must be hungry. Here." With that, she tossed something to the girl coming through the doorway.
April looked down at what she had caught to see some kind of bread. She didn't hesitate in taking a bite of it.
The older girl sat down at the table with a cup of something that could have been tea. She motioned for April to sit, as well, which she did.
"Oh, and good morning, by the way," Vaiya said, once April was seated. April thought that it was a funny time to say it, as she had been awake for a little while by now.
"I know that you must be a bit scared as to what's going to happen from here," she continued, getting right to the point. It was obvious that she shared some traits with Impa in that she wasn't afraid to speak what was on her mind. April also knew that when a seer said they knew something involving things like this, they didn't just know. They knew. But she nodded anyway.
"What we had decided was that we were going to keep you here until we can be sure it's safe to do otherwise. I did know that you would be coming here, but sometimes I forget things like that when they happen, like when I had seen Impa for the first time in so long yesterday. Anyway, I'd had a vision about it and told the Elders. They wanted to keep you here, disguised as a Sheikah girl just in case you should ever need to leave this realm."
April blinked. She didn't know why she would need to until it came time for Link to be released from the Sacred Realm. And even then, she wasn't sure exactly when the two were supposed to meet, and thinking that the Shadow Temple should be damned to every hell she could think of at the same time.
"I also know something about this supposed "Hero of Time," the child you call Link. You expect to see him after the Sacred Realm lets him go. My visions had allowed me to see a rough timeline of about seven years. At the end of which, the reign of the Gerudo man over Hyrule would end. If things go according to plan."
She paused for breath and to also look at the princess, who seemed strangely unaffected by any of this. She had known that the girl knew some things about the legend that was unfolding, but she was surprised at how very much she did seem to know.
"If this is going to happen, you and I both know that you will need to play some part in defeating Ganon. I wish I was a little more clear on what exactly it is that you are supposed to do. Nonetheless, I'm sure that while you are here, we should train you in the ways of combat, in case you role should put your life at jeopardy."
This certainly, to Vaiya at least, seemed like a lot to take in at one time. Although the princess did seem a little weary about the training, she seemed largely unmoved by the rest of it. The princess couldn't have possibly known that much without Vaiya at least knowing the girl had seen it. She shouldn't have been able to see it.
"Do you have anything to say to this, Zelda?"
Hearing her name, and snapping herself out of her half-trance, she looked up at the older girl. "Only that I'm sure you people know a lot more about what's going on than I do, and that I should trust you with Hyrule's safety and my own." After she had said it, she was nearly impressed at how royal she had sounded, putting the country before herself.
"You are wise for your years, princess," Vaiya muttered, more to herself than the girl in front of her. "Which brings me to my next point." Vaiya seemed to lower her voice at this, as if the walls had ears. "I do know about the Triforce. The fact that Ganondorf got the Triforce of Power, you Wisdom, and the future hero of time Courage."
April had known from her last little encounter with Ganon that she had taken the Triforce of Wisdom from him, but she hadn't been aware that Link had gotten the Triforce of Courage. She had never seen the cinema scene from the game which said this, although she had heard it from a magazine once. She didn't know it would work out the same even if Zelda had altered the path of at least part of the Triforce. She was in a way glad that he did, however, as they would have more to use against Ganon when the time came.
"And along those lines, I know it will be able to help you in whatever hardships might lay ahead for Hyrule. Impa isn't aware of it, but I don't need you to worry about that. Let me take care of things with the Elders. " Vaiya almost seemed to pity her, as if having that much power, although not being able to use it to its extent, was something to pity.
"With that out of the way, however, I'd like to say that I think it would be a better idea for you to get familiar with the village before we started your training."
"Okay, then," April said, returning to her carefree girl mode and hopping out of the chair. "I'm gonna go look around."
"And there's really no need for you to be very cautious, seeming as nearly everyone will know who you are by your face."
April blinked. A lot of people in Hyrule didn't even know what she looked like because they had never seen her up close. They usually recognized her by her royal attire. That's why she thought she might at least be safe if she went to Hyrule disguised as a Sheikah if the need arose.
"How's that?" she asked.
It was Vaiya's turn to blink. It was almost like she hadn't meant to say what she just had. She answered the princess anyway. "It's something you will certainly discover for yourself." She left the conversation at that.
April shrugged and shook her head slightly as she turned around and headed towards the door.
* * *
Walking through the town, April discovered that there were several differences to this "dimension" than from the Kakariko she had seen. There seemed to actually be less people, but the atmosphere was friendlier somehow. The village extended farther than Kakariko did in Hyrule...and it ended after that, or so she had heard. She thought that maybe this dimension had come about by some fluke of the Goddesses, but she tried not to think it because she discovered that at least Nayru could read her thoughts on occasion. The last thing she needed to do was tick off some pagan goddess when she had nobody else in this dimension who understood that she was not Zelda.
Trying to tear her thoughts away from things out of her control, she again looked at the scenery around her. She would have to get used to it, seeing as she would become very familiar with it over the next years.
Perhaps paying too much attention to her surroundings, yet not enough to where she was going, she walked right into someone, who obviously hadn't been paying very much attention, either, as they both nearly stumbled to the ground.
"Hey, watch where you're...." she trailed off as she looked at the person's face, realizing that they had had been saying the exact same thing she was. What surprised her, however, was that this person's face looked similar to hers. Although the person was boy, her age, and didn't look 'feminine' in any way, the traits made April think of Zelda's face.
"....going?" she continued, her head tilting slightly to the side. She looked further, noting the boy's dark red eyes, and coming to the conclusion that this was her "mirror."
He seemed to come to the same conclusion. "Oh, so you're Zelda."
She blinked in confusion. This must have been what Vaiya was talking about, that everyone knew her by her face. He obviously was familiar with the fact that they were a similar person.
April nodded. "And you...?"
"...are extremely late!" he said suddenly, jumping backwards. "I will see you later, Princess!" With that, he ran around a corner and out of side.
April continued to stare at where he had just been, mouth hanging open slightly and continuing to blink.
* * *
**GRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!! DAMN EVIL DEMON WRITER'S BLOCK!!!! CURSES!!! AND SCHOOL STARTS REALLY SOON!!! I ONLY HAVE PRECIOUS ONE AND A HALF DAYS LEFT OF SUMMER!!!!!!! *starts throwing a fit and jumping around* DAMN IT TO THE SEVEN HELLS!!!!
April: There's seven of 'em?
SailorZelda: *smacks forehead* SHUT UP, YOU!!!!
April: No more coffee for SailorZelda.
SailorZelda: O.o I didn't have THAT much!!! ^__^()
April: -_-()
Ignore my insaneness, but I seem to have gotten writer's block on this fic. Curses. Which is actually kind of funny, because it should be a lot easier to write on this since it's more inward in the story than it was a few chapters ago and this chapter and onwards is the part of the story that has been sitting stewing inside of my head for the last half of a year. *sigh* Anyway, I hope you enjoyed! Look for the next chapter, I hope I'll be able to get it up fairly soon. Are you people curious about what's gonna happen? I hope so! ^__^()
Thanks a bunch o' crunch for reading!! Please review!
SailorZelda~