A Different Sort of Hero
Prologue: The Worst Birthday
It was dark.
It always had been dark and for the Mudora, it always would be dark. Diadra was his world, more dismal than the shadow realm and darker than the murkiest night. It was a hidden realm from Hyrule, a secret only a few knew about by the time the Mudora made his last entrance. It was probably best kept a secret. This shadow land, or Diadra as the ancient Hylians called it, was infinity. It went on forever, perpetual darkness, except for one tiny figure.
Only one thing truly ever lived for very long in Diadra. No, lived is quite wrong. He merely existed, neither alive nor dead, but watching, always watching. As it should happen, one day he was awakened to his mother, his master's voice.
"Awake, and find the Deity. Our mission must begin anew."
His eyes, often blinded by the power which kept him in existence, released themselves from the coils of force that locked them. The Mudora was flooded with darkness, darkness so unlike the Duty which held him. Another coil unbound itself, and the small one was able to turn his head, only to stare at Her, the Thing that understood his observations, and told him of things that were before She made him.
"I shall do so."
"Do we need to add any more blood, Zelda?" Malon asked. Zelda merely nodded in reply, still looking outside, lost in a melancholy reverie. The red-head gingerly picked up a paintbrush, heavy with goat's blood, and added another streak or two to Zelda's bed sheets, already a gory masterpiece. For a second, Zelda wondered whether deserting the palace, being a princess, and her father would be worth it. And then she remembered how her father had betrayed her, and any doubts of running away instantly disappeared.
That day, she had worn a new silk dress, imported all the way from Termina. The princess didn't normally like wearing dresses –she greatly preferred the Gerudo style of clothing- but it was a very formal occasion, so naturally she had to wear the frilly little thing. Besides, it was probably for the better; Zelda really didn't need half of Hyrule to see her in skimpy, desert attire.
It was her birthday but more importantly for Hyrule, it was the day that the youngest child of the King was nineteen, the time at which she was finally considered an adult by the rest of the world. Zelda had, mind you, considered herself grown for years, but she never could convince her father that she was actually seventeen and not ten. He always looked at her oddly when she told him things like that and told her to go play with her dolls or the like. Nasty little things her dolls were, but that's quite a different story. But now that she was officially of age, the King could announce the next sovereign of Hyrule. Zelda was beset with anticipation; she was going to be Queen like she always dreamed of.
Link and Malon sat by her at the feast, commenting on each and every of the nobles. The young swordsman was, much to Zelda's amusement, still dreadfully uninformed about the ways of the court; therefore, Impa had spent three entire days just teaching him to eat properly in the presence of the upper class. As the Sheikah woman feared, it was to no avail; Link couldn't tell a salad fork apart from a spoon even if his very life depended upon it. As for Malon, it could be said that she was enjoying herself immensely. After all, it wasn't everyday that she convinced the young princess of Labrynna that she was her long-lost cousin!
There was dancing, of course, as there was at every one of the horrid balls her father put on. The princess never entirely enjoyed them, even if she did like to dance very much; they were, after all, cheap excuses to show off King Harkinian's vast wealth. But she could forget that today; it was her night.
The dance went on for a ridiculous amount of time. When the last costumed gentleman and the final bejeweled damsel sashayed off the marble dance floor, a rather large, hunchbacked man of about fifty or so with a grotesquely shaped face shambled to the gaudily decorated podium at the front of the great hall. They said boiling water had disfigured him as a child, but that didn't explain his creamy yellow eyes. They just weren't right for a Hylian, even one like old Swordsby, but as he was jester, clown, a fool of the court, it was to be forgiven. Gilroy Swordsby was supposed to be ugly. It was his solemn duty.
The man made the announcement that the King was going to make his announcement. Zelda grinned as Link asked why that was really necessary, and grinned wider when Malon replied that if that funny old man didn't do that, then it'd mess up the essential order of the universe, and then all hell would break loose. It was, in a vague way, true; if Swordsby or any of the servants didn't announce for the King, then the other countries might have reason to suspect that Hyrule wasn't as great as it made out to be. A war might break out, and no sane King would want that.
King Harkinian the Fourth strode swiftly to the podium. He was a man with power, built like a bear with an attitude to match. His hair was grey like the hardest granite stone, and his face was prematurely wrinkled from days of furiously stomping out his enemies, lengthy meeting with his war-hardened strategists, and private moments of inner agony, moments that he would never share as long as he would live. On this day, the king had another speech to give to his public. It was longer than he would like and at times it seemed a bit flowery, but he would thank the woman who wrote it for him with a bag of pearls –The Sheikah really did seem to like them.
She didn't remember the speech very well, and she didn't believe she needed to. Zelda understood one thing; she was fifth in line for the throne, and thus had no chance of inheriting it without resorting to certain underhand methods. It may had not hurt the Princess so much if the two closest heirs weren't so…so utterly incompetent. Zelda had met her cousin Altzabir on occasion. He was a quiet man, a bit paranoid and slightly neurotic. Normally Zelda thought he was quite nice, but she figured that with the responsibility of being a prince, he'd go batty. But Nathair, the future King of Hyrule? What an incompetent man, an utter shame to the Royal Family of Hyrule! Why was her idiot cousin, Nathair, going to be King? It made no sense.
And thus, Zelda Harkinian was sulking, or as she preferred to call it, lost in a melancholy reverie about sorrow and the unfairness of the universe, while that little scarlet haired girl, her Link's friend, decorated her sheets with a crimson hued painting that only a priest of the death gods could enjoy. Or a madman Zelda thought as a sardonic smile briefly graced her insipid face. Aren't they one and the same?
Impa Shelin Romonev was a shrewd woman, even tough perhaps. She had taken care of her brothers, lived through a war, and happened to be the Sage of Shadow. Nevertheless, dealing with both an enraged and depressed princess was still a daunting task, one that required the utmost patience, even if the aforesaid patience was waning away every second.
"It's simply not fair, Impa! He's a terrible disgrace to our name that doesn't even deserve to rule village! If he had any sense, he'd go and shoot himself." Zelda cried.
"You'll have to be in disguise the rest of your life, Zelda. What form should you wish to take?"
"Why doesn't Father get someone more suitable for the throne? It's ridiculous!"
"I would suggest Sheik, but I doubt you wish to be male. A female version of him, perhaps?"
"I need answers, Impa!" The Hylian girl positively howled, fling a jeweled hairbrush at the nearest wall.
"You should cut your hair. I imagine they should expect to find more signs of a struggle than just blood when they arrive here."
"Is that even relevant?" muttered Zelda. Impa sighed.
"Yes, it is. The fact of the matter, dear, is that you are essentially ending the life you've known. It's necessary for you to change your identity."
"I know Impa. Where's Link? He should have been here an hour ago..." Malon, who was finally putting the finishing touches to Zelda's bed sheets, looked up.
"Oh, he's outside, been there for a few hours. I'd have invited him in, but he'd break things, you know?" She said cheerily, putting down her paintbrush. Impa stared dubiously at the farmgirl, and then rose, a look of utter incredulity on her face.
"Do you realize that the entire purpose of this venture was to break things?" She said, as if talking to a particularly dim three-year-old. The redhead uttered a small 'Oh!' of surprise, and then hung her head. To the casual observer, it would appear that our Malon was quite embarrassed, but for one that was accustomed to the girl's body language they would know that she was simply trying to suppress a giggle. Tormenting Link in every possible way was, after all, Malon's most favourite hobby.
"We should probably meet him, shouldn't we Impa?" At this, the Sheikah looked out the window as if in deep thought, and then very slowly took off her Sheikah-Eye necklace and placed it delicately on the floor, as if it were a precious jewel. She stared at it for a moment and then brandished her sword and severed the metal band in two, placing the sword next to it. Malon looked questioningly at Zelda and then at the princess' bodyguard.
"It should seem like I fell along with Zelda, defending her to the end. Naturally, our bodies were hidden." The Sheikah said slowly.
"They might think you killed me, dear Impa." Zelda smiled.
"No, they will not." The older woman raised a hand, creating a white glow that concentrated near the bed of the princess. Presently, the glow turned into two figures; Zelda with a slit neck, and Impa with a carving knife stuck deep in her head. She studied her handiwork with the scrutiny of an art critic, and then ushered her charge and the farmgirl towards the window, outside of which nothing could be seen but the flickering glow of a young man's lantern, as he waited anxiously for three women.
"I find this morbid. Let us go."
A/N: Finally! I got this done! It's been hard editing this, editing my original fiction, and writing various other things, along with dreaded schoolwork, you see.
Response to Reviews:
Link of the Hylians: Aww, you're so nice! But you've seemed to have disappeared; I can't find you on the search!
Raine Ishida: I'll be continuing this, but at the expense of not updating Attack of Copy Raikua for a while. You see, I have to divide my time between this, my Sailor Moon fanfic, and my original fiction, along with surfing the web for reports and such.
Laura Burton: I'll make the chapters longer, I promise. I've made the original characters and storyline drastically different, even in the first chapter, so when I post the revised first chapter, it will be a bit different.
Anyway, this story is set around ten years after the events of Majora's Mask. Also, I know that choker Impa wears keeps up her corset, but let's pretend in this it doesn't, for reasons you'll understand in a few chapters. And as a side note, pay attention to all the little details in this story. They're bound to come up later, you see.
In the next chapter, Zelda experiences normal life for the first time…And Link's takes a turn from the normal, even for him, as he accidentally harms a strange child. What does this have to do with Impa? Perhaps only time will tell…Or perhaps more likely the next chapter.