AN: VERY IMPORTANT! This is where things start to get a little complicated. If anyone has any complaints or queries, say so in a review or e-mail me or something and I'll try my best to explain it.

Chapter 3: Burning Losses

Link's POV:

Every time I saw her, I couldn't help but feel the warm glow that surrounded my heart. Somehow, that single encounter had flung open such previously forbidden territory between us, and I was a helpless victim to the elation that coursed through my veins. Sometimes she would beckon me to join her for a walk in the courtyards and on nearly every occasion I felt that same tingling sensation in my hands when she reached for it, clasping hers tightly in mine.

But while my days were almost perfect, basking in Zelda's company, my nights were still haunted, but not by the same dream anymore.

When I closed my eyes, the skies wouldn't fade into the pale blue of a summer's morning, but remained the dark, gruesome colour of death and greed. Black storm clouds riddled the sky, just waiting to unleash their torrents of rainfall and their terrifying roars of thunder. The wind would whistle and shriek like a thousand monsters turning over in their graves, carrying with it the stench of their rotting carcasses. I would shiver, freezing in the chilling death-wind as I stood on the broken battlefield, the dust from the fallen rubble and the molten slag in the air irritating my senses further.

But as I turned around, there was one ray of shining hope and light standing there. Zelda would look at me with immortal concern, the shine never dwindling from her beautiful eyes. Then a small voice would call to me from above and there hovered my longest friend, Navi. But that brief calm before the storm would soon be shattered, for the ominous rumble and thud of something amongst the piles or rocks tore our soft gazes from each other, Zelda's echoing gasp ringing through the tense and thick air. It was then that the clouds and nature rebelled in their wake, plaguing the dying remains of Hyrule with their maelstrom of hatred, veiling the entire land with a blanket of darkness.

Ganonndorf burst forth, sending stones and fatal sized deposit flying into the air with a mighty bang, his breathing soon becoming the only thing I could hear in the deafening silence. His eyes glared a lurid and sickly yellow in the festering darkness and a dim light of the same colour would engulf the decaying man, transforming his limbs into a raging, reborn monster of true terror: Ganon. The battle would unfold before me as I felt myself twist and turn in my own sleep, wrestling with the horrid memory as reality called me back to the bright sunshine of the new Hyrule.

Snapping my eyes open, I leaped out of my bed straight onto the floor to dodge one of Ganon's colossal blades that I could see coming with invisible speed toward me. I was breathing hard, sweat beginning to bead on my forehead as I collected myself from the soft carpet, my hands still shaking from holding the Master Sword so tightly.

'I must have dosed off…' I thought, as the last thing I remembered thinking about was Zelda before the skies grew dark.

I splashed my face with icy cold water, cooling the hot nerves that were boiling in my cheeks. If what Zelda had told me was true, then how could time be replaying itself? …How could I have been that wondrous hero?

"Link?" an all too familiar voice called from outside my door. "Can I come in?" Pulling on my tunic and straightening out my clothes in break neck speed, I had completely forgotten to tidy the mess I had made with the bed covers. I opened the door and granted Zelda access into my room. Her face shot up in a horrified anxiety. "Link, this room is a state!" but her eyes relaxed and she grinned at me. "Come on, let me help you tidy this mess."

Apologising humbly to her, I aided her in pulling the overthrown blankets back onto my bed in some reasonable manner. "What happened?" she asked, more quietly than before. I blinked, not really knowing how to explain it. I looked away, fixing my eyes on an interesting spot in the carpet, thinking desperately of the right words. "Link," she was sounding all the more scared with every word she spoke. "Tell me. Was it the same as last time?"

I shook my head. "I was fighting Ganon." I said, earning a wide-eyed stare from the distressed woman beside me.

"It's starting to happen," She mumbled to herself, eyes cast downward. "Time is beginning to change… I saw it in my dreams Link," her head tilted upward and she spoke directly to me. "The Temple of Time, there was a crack all the way down to the Master Sword's chamber. It had broken in two, and I saw myself standing on the other side of the tear…Link, time is being unravelled as we speak. If time begins to shift permanently, we could all be stuck in an ever changing world… Ganon could be freed and then…all of Hyrule would fall." Her eyes had moved elsewhere, contemplating all the possible consequences.

"But Zelda, how do we really know if this is happening?" I questioned, but she didn't seem to have heard me. She now had her back to me, her arms hugging herself firmly. "Zelda?"

No sooner had the words left my mouth did the walls begin to flicker and hazily change colour again. A great earthquake rumbled underneath my feet causing me to lose my balance, and once again the red carpet glimmered beneath me suddenly falling away, dropping me down with an unnerving speed. I cried out Zelda's name, and I saw her banging on a frozen capsule of green glass. But a bright light flashed in my eyes, and before I could shield my face, I landed with a painful thud on something hard and…earthy?

Zelda's POV:

The sea winds brushed their salty moisture against my face as I stared anxiously out on the rolling waves that stretched as far as the distant horizon. I knew that I should never have let him go…I should never have agreed to letting him leave Hyrule…again.

I sighed deeply. Once again I had managed to break Hyrule to its ruin. My first mistake was involving Link in the first place. Had I never met him, I wouldn't be feeling this lonely right now. Ganon had followed Link that night and had stolen the Triforce of Power, bringing Hyrule into the darkest age it had ever seen. But I been foolish enough to send him away, back to his own time, with the entire world along with him. Just after we were married he was called away in a new search for his lost friend Navi. I had let him go out of the love we shared, but I had always been wary that his spirit would soon long to roam the hills and countryside of Hyrule, for he was a born adventurer. It was in his blood. But that was a good twenty years ago now…and never have I once seen his beautiful face yet.

I felt tears prick at my ageing eyelids and I hastily rubbed them away, the wind erasing the remaining droplets as it carried them away with its gentle breeze. The light had long since sunken over the thin line of white surf bordering the world, giving way to the fierce night forces that would soon terrorise the seas in the dead of night. Sometimes I would still lie awake even in the early hours of the morning, listening to the crashing of the waves against this derelict mountain.

"Mama?" a small voice called from behind me. I turned to see my daughter clutching a sodden, stuffed bear in her tiny arms. Stitched onto it's head was a long green cap just like… "Link fell in the water again." She said, her eyes looking down on her companion, causing her blonde curls to fall into her face.

"Well, we'll just have to let him dry out then won't we?" I said, forcing a smile as I got up from my seat by the glass-less window and picked up my dearest little girl in my arms. Our home wasn't much; a dingy corner of a cavern shared by so many other homeless villagers. But being the ringleader of this bunch of survivors, I had been given the most secluded, most private quarters of the cavern to live in with my daughter. "Come on, its way past your bedtime young lady." I said soothingly as I placed her underneath the covers of our bed. Being short on supplies meant that many things had to be shared between us, and that included sleeping space. But I found a comfort in lying with my daughter in my arms, because somehow it seemed to ease the longing in my aching heart for Link to return to me.

She groaned in protest, still holding her wet bear securely to her chest as the seeping water extended to her shirt, creating a spreading circle of moisture in the fabric. "But Link isn't dry yet!" she cried innocently as I draped the handmade blanket over her. Impa had made it for her when she was still just an infant…but even time gets the best of some people, for she too passed away recently, leaving me utterly alone in this world. All I had now was the warmth and love of my daughter…

"Tell me a story!" the small girl said happily, bringing me out of my thoughts. Her blonde hair bounced around her eyes as she scrambled up from the floor and rested her bear against the crackling fire in the corner of the cavern. Smooth pebbles outlined the flickering flames and the dark brown toy was sitting in her lap as she sat down, looking at me with her big blue eyes.

I sighed again, and came to sit down beside her, resting my chin on her head as she climbed into my lap. Wrapping my arms around her waist, I breathed in the salty scent of her hair, closing my eyes briefly as I savoured the wild, natural smell of our surroundings. Wild…just like Link had once been…

"Tell me the one about the Hero of Time!" she said, and instantly I cringed at her naïve words. Talking about Link had always been a hard subject for me to contend with, and even looking at the bear that was perpetually in my sight reminded me of him. I sighed yet again, and prepared myself mentally for the story that she so often requested.

"Ok," I said retaining the weariness in my voice. "Long ago, there existed a kingdom where a golden power lay hidden. One day, a man of great evil found this power and took it for himself, and with it at his command, he spread darkness across the kingdom. But then…just as all hope had died, a young boy clothed in green appeared as if from nowhere. Wielding a blade that repelled evil, he sealed the dark one away and gave the land light. This boy, who travelled through time to save the land, was known as the Hero of Time."

"What happened after that?"

"He saved the princess that the evil one had captured, but then came a day when a fell wind began to blow across the kingdom, and the great evil once again crept forth from the depths of the earth. The people believed that the Hero of Time would again come to save them. But the hero did not appear." My voice was quivering more with every word I spoke, and I lifted my head away from my daughters to glance out of the window, rocking my daughter back and forth like the waves outside.

"Why?"

"No one knows. Some say the holy power given to him by the goddesses was taken away when he left the kingdom…Others say he vanished into the oceans that swallowed the kingdom." But through all these musings, I didn't want to think that my dearest Link had died in some far corner of the world. I wouldn't believe that he had fallen victim to disease or indisposition in some gutter-less road, or had been tossed aside into some ditch where he would rot until the waters buried him deep beneath my reach.

I felt the tears threaten to fall from my eyes once again, but this time I couldn't hold back the cracked dam of emotion, and with a terrifying wail, everything was let loose. Crystal tears streamed from my eyes and I cried aloud, forgetting that I held my daughter in my arms. The droplets of my broken heart splashed down onto the small girl's hair and I pulled her closer to me, hoping that she would ease the horrible pain stitching its way through my chest, and stop the needle of loss shredding every last piece of dignity I possessed. I whispered words that meant nothing to her in her ear, and told her so many things I'd never had the courage to say through my delusion. Usually when I told her the story only a tear managed to leak through the walls I had encased my dying heart in, but tonight the well of my thoughts had overflowed and flooded the soft foundations, tearing away everything that had kept me going through life until now.

My head began to buzz with a nauseating ailment and as the rivers of tears ceased to a mere stream. My daughter, who had been sitting completely motionless throughout this, reached out toward the fire and picked up the drying out bear and turned around in my arms. Her little hands were holding out the animal, and looking down at her with tear-stained eyes I gently received her gift of condolence. But as I looked closer, her eyes too burned with unshed tears and all at once she rushed into my arms, kneeling in my embrace so her head was level with mine. We both cried together, mourning the loss of the father and husband that neither of us had.

"I'll never leave you mama," her tiny voice trembled. "Never ever, ever."

"I know," I whispered. "I know."

Link's POV:

As I opened my eyes I saw trees criss-cross above me, streaming the light in small rays around me. I could feel a bouncy grass lie underneath my back and I could hear the sounds of the wildlife chirp and fidget in the air. I sat up and rubbed my groggy eyes with the back of my hand, wondering where in Hyrule I had been deposited after falling through, what I presumed, was a time shift, for I was no longer in the castle, and Zelda was no where in sight.

My heart began to beat tenfold, and I immediately stood up and listened intently for any sign of life…or danger that may be lurking behind the peaceful façade of the shrubs and greenery. A sudden raspy grunt came from behind me, and I jumped in alarm. Spinning round I came face to face with the darkened muzzle of the chestnut red mare I had been travelling on.

'Wait, I never came here on a horse…' I thought.

"Epona you scared me." I said letting out the breath I had been holding ever since I had woken up.

'Maybe this is in the future,' I thought, as I stroked the gentle horse's neck with my hand. 'But why did I leave the castle?'

Hoisting myself up onto her saddle, we rode together a little further until we came to an abandoned clearing in the middle of the eerie forest. The slithering hiss of the rain began to tear through the sky as soon as we were out into the open, and as I looked up to the sky, the same rumbling black clouds from my dream earlier today were pinned across the stormy sky. Turning Epona's head around with the reins I started back for the protection of the forest, wanting desperately to get out of the barrage of soaking bullets that fell from the heavens. As I looked ahead, I could see Hyrule castle in the distance, standing proudly on the raised plateau as it stuck out of the woods that clothed the entire hillside. But my heart leapt to my throat as I saw even darker clouds hang over the white towers and walls, the driving sleet making it hard to distinguish anything at all.

I held my right hand above my eyes so I could possible see a little clearer, but it made no difference. Besides, there would be no point going back now just because of a storm. I was already too far out of the country, for the river a while back marked the borderlines that surrounded Hyrule.

'I'm out of Hyrule? But what about Zelda?' I thought rapidly. 'Where am I going, and just whose thoughts were these cruising through my mind so casually?'

I walked Epona back toward the edge of the forest so we could both avoid getting a further drenching that need be. But then for a reason unknown to myself, I lifted away my right gauntlet and I stared for a moment at the back of my hand.

Fear then stole away every ounce of feeling that I owned, and my heart burned with worry and distress when I saw no Triforce symbol appear on the scared and battered skin. Not even a glimmer of a shine that would usually glow there on my hand. What could have possibly happened? When did the Triforce forsake me? Maybe because I left Hyrule…

Without a second thought, I kicked Epona hard in the sides and headed back to the border. With the Triforce missing, who knows what terrible atrocities could be happening in Hyrule. But one thought was constantly in my mind, and that was whether Zelda was all right. Question flew through my head as Epona broke into a gallop, the rhythmic beating of her hooves echoing through the empty trees and thudding on the damp soil.

It seemed a lot quicker getting back to the river than it had done coming out and while Epona still cantered on, I held the reins in one hand and checked my hand again, hoping with all possible luck that I might see the Triforce shine. But to no avail, the goddesses were indeed cursing me for ever making the decision to leave Hyrule.

I had only left Hyrule once before and that was on a journey to Termina in order to search for my long since disappeared friend Navi. I had been unsuccessful in my search and had wearily returned to Hyrule. But it was strange. The Triforce hadn't abandoned me that time, so why should it this time? I shook the thoughts away, turning them back to Zelda's welfare, hoping that unlike myself she was safe and unharmed from any trouble.

I cleared the forest, bounding toward Hyrule castle and I galloped across the drawbridge and through the empty market. The darkness was making it hard to see anything at all and I strained my eyes to make sense of my surroundings. The wind came careening down in strafes and rampages, blocking out Epona's rumbling hoof beats on the stone cobbled floor. But even through the whining, I could swear that I heard another horse coming toward me. I looked forward and saw it's white coat gleaming through the darkness, a cloaked figure in the saddle. But with the ever changing winds as I passed the mysterious rider, their soaked hood flew off their face and out of the corner of my eyes I saw long blonde tresses flow in the wind behind them.

Just as I was about to call the woman I loved so much, another horse came galloping beside me, so close that his leg rebounded off my own and a dark invisible arm shoved me out of the way. A whiff of his stench wafted to my nose and I instantly recognised it with a fearful pounding in my chest. H-How was it possible? Before I could even move to pursue my dear wife's attacker, I felt my body being sucked into something behind me, and the growing darkness lifted me out of Epona's saddle and pulled me back into a drowsy sleep as I slumped off my horse, never hitting the floor.

---

A painful throb beat through my head as I awoke for what seemed like the third time today, finding myself back in my room, in the exact position I was before. Zelda too lay unconscious in front of me and I picked myself up, ignoring the annoying pulse knocking against my skull. I shook her shoulder lightly, shocked to see tears ravishing her cheeks as she curled in a human ball, grasping her arms tightly.

"Zelda, wake up." I called softly as not to alarm her. At once she snapped her eyes open and looked up at me, more tears filling her glazed eyes.

"Link," she said breathing my name before encircling me with her arms. We both whispered thoughts from where ever we had just been transported in time, each confused by what the other said.

But once again, that brief moment was not to be as a great explosion ripped through the silence causing us to both jerk away from each other. I pulled Zelda up off the floor and we both hurried out of my chamber to see what the cause of the commotion was. Screams pierced the air and maids and servants began running wildly in and out through doors, crying terrible words that I cringed to hear.

"He's alive! Goddesses save us all!"

"The Evil King has returned!" and at once I froze and pulled off my gauntlet just like I had done before. The Triforce was no where in sight.

Zelda looked at me with wide eyes, and inspected her own hand. On the back of her lilac glove appeared the Triforce, one triangle shining on the material.

"The Triforce! It's broken apart!" she said indicating my hand.

"But how?"

"I don't know." Her voice was subdued amidst the chaos. "Link, play the ocarina! Maybe we can turn back time to before this happened." She said, a renewed optimism burning in her eyes. With fumbling fingers I searched my pockets and pulled out the shining blue instrument. I played the tune like I had done before, holding Zelda to me as we were both taken from this world and lost to where ever time would leave us. I didn't know whether we would go forward or back, through years or small minutes. All I knew was that we were fleeing what Zelda had predicted, and that the breaking of my Triforce somehow had something to do with it.

AN: Wow, long chapter. As I said earlier, if anyone has any questions don't hesitate to ask. This is going to be hopping in and out of various times from now on, so if any of you want an explanation, I'd be more than happy to give it to you. Also I'd like to thank everyone who reviewed again!

MidnightStarfire: You have nothing to envy my friend. You have wonderful skills yourself! Thank you for adding this to your favourites too!

Berlin'sBrownEyes: Don't worry, more fluff is on its way but I'll warn you now, it won't be quite the same as before. And you CAN write good kisses.

zeldaqueen: blushes Yes, I liked writing that part too. Wow, I feel so special; I don't deserve such credit! ; I can't begin to thank you enough. Words like that really mean a lot to me. Thank you! :D

LainieG304: blushes again I try my hardest to make my description good, and sometimes I think I go a little overboard. But if that's a good thing, you've got more of it coming!

anyone: I'm glad you like it!