It had been a brief and yet incredibly violent fight; something that Zelda didn't want to recall. Ganondorf had put up an amazingly strong defense, but Link pulled through for Hyrule in the end. There wasn't anything Ganondorf could do once the fury of the Hero of Time had been fully unleashed.
And at that moment, she remembered him.
The second she looked away from the dying Ganondorf and towards her savior, she felt the smallest smile playing upon her lips. He looked so tired and utterly spent, but he was still Link. He must have felt her looking at him, because he glanced in her direction as she started walking towards him.
She looked again at the being on the floor in front of them.
"Ganondorf, pitiful man," she spat. "Without any kind of soul, that Triforce he held could not be controlled... No wonder the other two chose not to follow him."
Link didn't say anything in response, but she didn't blame him. Killing another human being, however twisted that being may have been, must have been extremely difficult for someone with the soul she knew he had.
She glanced down at her own hand and saw the Triforce mark dully glowing, at Link's, and finally at Ganondorf's. Slightly surprised that his mark was still glowing, she turned to look at Link. She saw that he was looking in the same direction. This was not over yet, she knew that much. She had known this the moment he "died." That was probably why her mind wouldn't allow her to celebrate just yet. She was about to add something when the castle shook violently.
Catching her balance, she turned importantly towards the staircase leading to the bottom of the castle.
"I thought this was going to happen," she said, eyes narrowed. "With his last breath, Ganondorf is trying to bring us down with his fortress." She looked up at Link and continued. "I know the way out. Follow me."
With that, she turned around and began to run.
'Curious,' the obscure part of her mind that had been April mused, 'that I'm able to remember an exact path through this place that I didn't really think I ever knew, even though it's completely twisted and decayed, now.'
And the Princess of Destiny and the Hero of Time ran through the falling Castle, years of ancient artwork and recent corruption crumbling easily in accordance to the dying with of the King of Evil, until the last of their energy was utterly spent, and they practically threw themselves out of the door and onto a cold, but welcome, dirt path outside.
Zelda heard the rumbling increase, and the moment she looked back, she saw what was no longer Hyrule Castle begin to collapse upon itself. The towers fell, and crashed through windows that were practically no longer there. And when the dust settled, there was only rubble.
She stared into the mess, attempting to stand up. She knew that Link had already stood up, but she pulled herself off the ground in the thick silence that followed the Castle's collapse.
Then, she heard a slight noise from behind here.
"Somehow, I really don't think he survived that."
Zelda tried to work her jaw, finding it very difficult.
"True," she managed.
And the silence increased as Zelda realized something.
'It's over,' a small part of herself said.
And she chose to voice it aloud.
"It's over... It's finally over."
With that, a small smile spread across her lips once again, and she looked to her right, where Link was suddenly standing.
Suddenly, a soul filling joy overwhelmed her, and she let out a whoop of pure happiness, effectively shattering the silence.
"It's OVER!!!" she called into the remains of the Castle, the cry echoing merrily back at her. And then the Princess ran forward with no particular destination, jumping up and skipping a bit as she did so. Her mantra of "It's over, it's over!" repeated several times, and then she suddenly spun back on her heel and said-
"You!"
She ran back in the direction from which she had come, almost colliding with him but stopping herself effectively by throwing her arms around his neck. This, because of her momentum, of course caused them both to go crashing towards the dirt once again.
Not letting this deter her, she, in her happiness, kissed him and then embraced him before suddenly pulling them both back up to their feet, feeling more than a little bit silly.
And she was still smiling with all the enthusiasm she had ever felt.
Then, she suddenly jumped away from a rather surprised Link, looking at him with wide, midnight eyes.
"Sorry. I shouldn't have done that," she said in apology.
"No," Link said, his mouth twitching slightly in a smile. "That's okay."
"Ack..." she muttered, turning around in thought.
Technically, Link was still something of a ten year old trapped in the body of an adult. And though he had probably been forced to adapt to his role as such rather quickly, she knew that he probably didn't even think about her the same way she had thought about him.
But she felt a hesitant hand on her shoulder, and she turned around to meet his gaze. Which, she noticed, looked surprisingly more mature than that of the child lost somewhere within him.
He smiled suddenly, and she followed suit. And it was okay that they simply stood there like that for several moments.
Zelda sighed, and was about to turn her head to look at the damage that had been done to her home.
But then the ground shook.
"No." She turned to look at Link, definitely. "No. Not... Nayru damn it, what is that?" she spat irritably.
"I'd had a funny feeling," Link said, turning to the pile of rubble that had been the castle to look at it.
After a moment of silence that crept its way into the Princess's every pore, a dark shadow crashed through the rubble and hovered in the air, breathing heavily.
"Crap," the Princess said shortly.
Ganondorf didn't say anything, but only held up his hand to reveal the very brightly glowing Triforce of Power. His whole body shook with the force of activating such a strength, and then his head was thrown backward as he cried out in an inhuman voice, transforming into something that wasn't human at all.
The beast that emerged from Ganondorf's flesh was sturdily built, with giant limbs that Zelda though rather resembled trees. It's head was horned with curling, ram-like horns, and it had a snout like some kind of pig. It wore a crude, Gerudo looking outfit, and Zelda could only guess that this was Ganondorf's true form; the very evil which rested inside his soul.
"Ganon," she whispered.
A fight obviously ensued, and Link at first seemed largely outnumbered. A wall of magically fueled fire had sprung up between her and her Hero, but Zelda remained mostly unafraid. Then, she had abruptly thought of something, and had shouted to him that he should use the Light Arrows to slow the monster down.
When that strategy started to become effective, Ganon roared inhumanly.
Something had deterred the fight for a moment, however, when Ganon had gotten close enough to knock the Master Sword from Link's grip.
"Dear goddesses!" Zelda had shouted, looking at the sword that had landed right beside her. But when she tried to even budge the blade to take it out of the ground, it burned the flesh of her hands even through the gloves.
Now, she tried even harder to get it out of the hard packed dirt, but this particular sword obviously did not want to be touched by anyone but the Hero of Time.
"I'm NOT EVIL, YOU STUPID TWIT!!" Zelda shouted at the Blade of Evil's Bane, as she gave the sword one last, defiant tug. Then she crossed her arms over her chest and tried to referee the fight.
After what seemed like an eternity, in which the storm clouds that had gathered and darkened over the pit of rubble where the Castle had once stood, Link was able to gain the Master Sword back after a particularly nasty blow given to Ganon, after which the pig monster was forced to drop the barrier.
And Link had made quick work of the beast after he had the trusted sword back.
The barrier of fire dropped yet again, and Zelda saw her chance.
The King of Evil fell, supported only by his own sword, as Link stood before him, glaring with pure hatred.
The Triforce suddenly spoke through Zelda as she held up her arms to gather its energy and that of the other Sages she was able to channel through herself. She shot the bright, magical energy in Ganon's direction, and the beast was paralyzed.
"Link!" Zelda called hurriedly. "I'm using this energy to stop him..." She ground her teeth together in effort, so hard she thought they might break. "Use that stupid sword to seal him, once and for all!! They won't be able to do it unless the Master Sword completes the seal!"
The air was filled only by the humming of Zelda's white magic, and the heavy breathing of Ganon.
"Are you going to let your little girlfriend tell you what to do!?" Ganon spat in a voice long past being human.
"Yep," Link answered, driving the Master Sword directly into the center of the creature's skull.
There was a terrible, dark silence, and the creature reeled backward in pure agony.
"Six Sages!!!" Zelda called. "Now! Seal Ganon into the Dark Realm!!"
Six different lights came forth from above; green, red, blue, purple, and orange, all driving the creature into a state of shock. One final, pure white light shot out of Zelda's open, shaking hand, before she collapsed to the floor, wondering how she had known how to do that. And with the energy of the Sages, his body disappeared, though his voice could still be heard.
"DAMN YOU SAGES!! DAMN YOU, ZELDA!!!! And damn you, Link!!!"
They tried to ignore it, knowing that the seal was working.
"YOU KNOW YOU'LL NEVER BE FREE OF ME!!! YOUR DESCENDANTS WILL SUFFER BECAUSE OF YOUR FOOLISHNESS!!! AS LONG AS THE TRIFORCE OF POWER RESTS IN MY HAND..."
His voice was gone.
And it started to rain.
When Zelda opened her eyes, she was standing in what appeared to be the sky.
It seemed that, after they had completed the seal, the land they were standing on had started to collapse. And Zelda had almost unconsciously used the only thing she knew of that could have saved the both of them from a rather violent death; the air changing spell. The first magic she had ever learned.
And at the moment, the Princess and the Hero were staring down, far down below to the land of Hyrule.
"This is going to be one mess of a cleanup," Link said, in an attempt at humor.
Zelda only 'hm'ed indistinctly, agreeing completely.
Yet, another force was tugging at the back of her mind, forcing her to address the issue at hand.
Wondering how to being, she said in absolute sincerity, "Thank you, Link."
He looked at her, and she suddenly realized how very tired he looked. "For what?" he asked.
"Saving Hyrule? Sealing Ganondorf? Ring a bell, Hero?" she asked, laughingly.
"Sure, but..."
"We wouldn't have been able to do it without you." And then she stopped, and added, "I wouldn't have been able to do it without you."
Link looked down at Hyrule, far below. "You looked after all of that for seven years. And you had to watch it fall into that kind of a state."
"..." There was nothing to say.
"All I had to do was sleep, and then kill a couple of things."
"Are you really so arrogant," Zelda began. "That you actually believe you had as little to do with it as that?"
Link raised his eyebrows at her. "It sounded an awfully lot like what you just said a second ago."
Zelda rolled her eyes, glancing up.
"Maybe we all give ourselves too little credit. Or, heck, I don't know. Too much of it. But now that everything is said and done..."
She sighed, finding the courage to say it. "We have to go back, Link," she all but whispered.
He didn't seem to hear her, until he turned his head sharply to meet her gaze.
"What?" he asked.
"I have to send Hyrule back to the way it was. Before all of this started."
His eyes widened, but he didn't respond.
"I can't just leave things like this," she said, remembering the few short sights she had seen of the decayed Hyrule, knowing that they were enough to support her theory. "Things have gone to far; to many have died, too much has changed..."
"Yeah, but we can fix it all... I mean, we just saved the..... You can't just turn it back!" he said, growing defensive.
Zelda remembered something she had read in the Book, the day before she had gone to meet him in the Temple of Time.
'The Ocarina of Time, a gift of the gods, a magical conduit, and a weapon of the most dangerous sort, is a boat upon which one can sail through the river of Time. And if the wielder of such an instrument is powerful enough to re-forge events in a future, it will not take much effort for one to change the Past...'
"The Ocarina," she said simply.
"What about it," the Hero of Time asked, unconsciously reaching toward the pocket where it was safely kept.
"With it, I can translate us all back into a past where none of this has happened."
When Link started to protest, she explained. "With Ganon sealed in the Dark Realm, it won't matter that he wasn't sealed until this time. The magic is that strong."
Zelda took a breath, feeling that she hadn't done so in far too long. The clean air almost burned her lungs.
"I can take us back to a better Hyrule, one without Ganon, one without a need for the Sages and Destiny and the Hero. Of course, that will always remain a part of us, but..." She shook her head. "Our work is done here. We can do no more for this Hyrule."
"Think of what we could do for one where this disaster never happened..."
She didn't realize that she was almost crying until she suddenly had to bite back an onslaught of tears.
"Please... understand, Link," she said quietly, feeling that she was asking for an understanding that she suddenly didn't deserve. "I want what's best for all of them... But I can't do it here. Not this time, this place... Hyrule is too far gone."
"So..." Link began, speaking for the first time in a while. "We would all be sent back to the past, with the knowledge only that we were once the Heroes of Hyrule."
Zelda nodded.
He tried to say something else, but finally nodded in defeat.
She smiled bitterly.
"Give me the Ocarina," she commanded, softly. "With it, I can give Hyrule the chance it never had in this Time." After a pause, she added, "I can give you back a childhood that you never had."
He hesitantly looked at the small, shining blue instrument, handing it over to the Princess of Hyrule.
Zelda put her hand over his own, imploring him with her eyes to understand.
The blue of Time met the blue of Wisdom, and the Princess of Destiny and the Hero of Time were locked in a moment of perfect understanding.
However, before she took her hands away, he spoke one last time.
"Why does Destiny rely so much on those she can't even protect from themselves?" he asked her, feeling on the verge of tears, even though he absolutely refused to cry in front of her.
She, however, allowed a small sniffle. But then the laughed slightly, sadly, the tear at the corner of her eye finally falling. "Because that's the way you play the game... Hero."
She removed her hands from his, taking the precious blue instrument with her. The Princess managed the simple, bittersweet twenty-nine notes of the song that would send him back; her song, Zelda's lullaby. She witnessed the blue light as he was taken away from her for the second time, wishing him a heartfelt farewell.
And then she woke up.
April, of Earth, woke up.
Um... ?whistles innocently?