SOUL CALIBUR II FROM LINK'S POINT OF VIEW
Chapter 2
Talim watched the stranger walk over to her, and raised her Elbow Blades into a defensive position. If he attacked, she would be ready. The stranger walked right up to her, and she saw the alertness in his eyes and his posture.
"Mellon or umellon?" he said, confusing her. Seeing this, he looked thoughtful for a second before speaking again.
"Are you friend or foe?" he asked. It was a second before she guardedly replied.
"It depends on which you are." she said.
"I sense an evil aura about you." he said. "But you do not appear to be so. Tell me, child. What is your name?"
"Give me yours first."
The stranger laughed a little.
"My name is Link." he replied. "Might I ask also if you have ever heard of a sword called Soul Edge?"
"My name is Talim." she said. "And no, I have never heard of a sword called Soul Edge."
"Then what is that fragment of metal in your pocket?" Link asked, sheathing his sword and putting his shield away. "For I sense in it the same evil aura of the sword I seek to destroy. May I see the fragment for a moment?"
Talim hesitated for a moment before pulling the piece of metal from her pocket. Link studied it for a moment, a frown creasing his forehead, before he nodded and she put it away.
"That is definitely a fragment of Soul Edge." he said. "If you'll trust me, we can sit down and I'll tell you why I am here, in this strange world."
"So you were the cause of the blue light that I saw earlier?" she asked as they sat down on the side of the road, away from the remains of the bandits. Link nodded.
"Yes. I hail from a land called Hyrule." he explained, and pulled a strange blue thing out from under his shield. "The land itself and its inhabitants are peaceful. However, a few weeks ago, that peace was shattered by the arrival of several disasters. The calamities brought dark, ominous clouds that shut out the sun. Surprisingly, a magician was to blame for the disasters. I defeated the magician, and the clouds cleared and the sun came back. However, it came to light that the magician responsible for the disasters was in fact controlled by an evil sword called Soul Edge, which existed in another world. And, to make things worse, the fragments of Soul Edge were gathering together in this other world."
He held up the strange blue thing.
"So I came here, using this Ocarina, to destroy Soul Edge and prevent its resurrection. At all costs." he finished his story and put the Ocarina away, then got up and stretched. They suddenly heard voices from around the last bend in the road, and a second later a group of people rounded the bend. They carried various weapons ranging from a staff with a blade at the end to a short sword and small shield. They had obviously heard the clanging of Link's weapons on the bandits' swords, because they walked warily, as if expecting an attack. When they saw Link and Talim, they stopped.
"Who are you?" the girl in the front of the group asked. She had blond hair and carried a short sword and a small shield with an odd design on it. Link was about to speak, but Talim stood up and spoke before he could even utter a word.
"I am Talim and this is my friend, Link. And who are you?" she asked, bringing her Elbow Blades up into a defensive position.
"I am Cassandra." the girl, Cassandra, replied. Before Talim could speak again, Link stepped forward.
"Have you ever heard of a sword called Soul Edge?" he asked. Cassandra's expression turned to one of mixed emotions, and so did the faces of her companions. She nodded.
"Yes. We seek to destroy it." she said. Link's expression turned to one of relief and Talim put her Elbow Blades down.
"Wedo too." he said, relieved that they all had the same goal. "I am trying to destroy it to save my homeland."
"And I am trying to destroy it so that the world will be at peace again." Talim said, stepping up next to Link. Cassandra nodded. She stepped back among her comrades.
"Then why don't you travel with us?" she asked. Her companions echoed her question. Link and Talim nodded.
"Alright, then. How 'bout it?" they said at the same time. The company in front of them nodded.
"Welcome to the party." they said in unison. A man in strange armor and a woman in a skin-tight suit with two swords stepped forward.
"I am Mitsurugi." said the man, Mitsurugi.
"I am Taki." said the woman, Taki. They stepped back, and a man with short black hair and a woman with a thin sword stepped forward.
"I am Maxi." said the man, Maxi.
"I am Xianghua." the woman, Xianghua, announced confidently. Lastly, a woman- the one with the staff with a blade on the end- stepped forward.
"And I am Seung Mina. Pleased to meet both of you." she said. Link and Talim nodded.
"Pleased to meet you all, too." they said in unison. Then the rather large group started to walk eastwards again, talking and laughing, but always on guard.
The group halted their walking at night, when it grew too dark to see where they were going. While Taki and Mitsurugi built a campfire, the others all rolled out their bedrolls. All except for Link, that is.
"Hey, don't you have a bedroll, Link?" Talim asked as she rolled hers out next to where he sat, examining his shield. He looked over at her and shook his head.
"Nope. Don't need one." he replied. By now Taki and Mitsurugi had gotten a nice, large fire blazing in the pit they had dug out and ringed with stones, carefully clearing away the brush and dead leaves. Considering there were few trees about, there was a lot of dead leaf litter, hinting that the place in which the party was now camping had once been a forest, or at least a glade surrounded by trees. Link stood up and walked to the very edge of the firelight, looking up into the heavens. As the rest of the party sat around the fire swapping stories and telling tales, he thought of Hyrule and of Zelda, whom he already missed like the day misses the night. He continued to gaze out to the stars until he faintly registered someone calling his name.
"Link… Link…" the voice said. He turned towards the rest of the party. They were all starting to settle down for the night. Talim was calling his name and beckoning for him to come over to her. He walked silently over to stand next to where she was laying.
"Link, you need to get some sleep." she said, looking up at him. He smiled a little.
"You need it more, Talim." he said. "Don't worry. I'll go to sleep when it comes to me, but for the moment it eludes me."
"Ok, but if you don't get enough sleep tonight, don't be all grumpy in the morning." she said, and turned away from him, lying on her side. After about 15 minutes she turned back over and looked up at him.
"Can't sleep?" he asked. He was looking up at the stars again, and didn't look down at her as he spoke.
"No. I can't seem to even close my eyes for 5 minutes without them springing open." she replied. "I'm so tired I want nothing more than to just fall asleep for as long as possible, but I'm so excited at the same time. I just can't go to sleep."
Link listened to her predicament as he watched the stars. When she was done speaking, he looked back down at her and then around at the rest of the group. They were all watching him. He sighed.
"Same problem?" he asked all of them. Every one of them nodded. He sighed again, then bent down over his shield where he had set it, leaning it against one of the scant trees that grew where they were camped. Slowly he withdrew the blue Ocarina that he had shown Talim earlier, then he straightened up again and stood next to where the 15-year-old was lying.
"What is that?" asked Seung Mina. Her question was echoed by more than half the party, who had never seen an Ocarina before.
"This is the Ocarina of Time." Link explained, sitting down with his back against the tree. "I've used it many times before. It has magical powers, like the Fairy Ocarina that I left with Zelda, my wife. I guess I'll play you a song to help you fall asleep. Zelda's old nurse, Impa, used to sing it to her every night as a lullaby when she was a child." And with that, he put his lips to the mouthpiece and blew. A sweet note echoed softly through the campsite. He moved his fingers across the holes, raising a couple of fingers and pressing others down, and the notes changed pitch to become entirely different notes. The song that he played sang of sleep, sang of good dreams, of the comfort of a home, of a loving person watching over you. It spoke of nobility and power, too, and yet gentleness and tenderness and a soft heart. The Ocarina's soft sound played for several moments, and then it died and Link looked around at his companions. They were all fast asleep, having been lulled into sleep and dreams by the Melody of the Royal Family. By Zelda's Lullaby. Link smiled softly to himself, then looked at the Ocarina in his hands. He reached out toward it with his senses, and felt the magical power in the instrument. He concentrated on it, causing it to well up and become active. He put his lips to the mouthpiece and blew again. He played Zelda's Lullaby again, not just as a lullaby this time, but to contact a special person. His wife, Zelda.
He felt her become aware of his calling, felt her mind focus on his.
Link? Is that you? she asked him mentally.
Yes, Zelda. It's me.
Are you alright? You sound sad. Her mental voice held a lot of concern in it, and Link could picture her face clearly.
I miss you. he replied wearily. And I can't sleep. He heard her chuckle sadly.
I miss you, too, Link, but you have to be strong. As for the 'can't sleep' part, I think we can fix that. He felt her concentrate harder, and a mental image of her formed seemingly in front of his eyes. The mental image leaned forward and kissed him gently. When she pulled away, he was asleep.
Goodnight, Link. Have sweet dreams, and do not tarry long on your quest. she mentally told him. He vaguely nodded his head, and she herself slipped away, being lulled into sleep. In his sleep he gently clutched the Ocarina of Time in his hand, holding it to his chest, holding it so that it was touching the Master Sword's scabbard belt, which was still strapped around his chest.
Link jerked awake. At first he didn't know what had awoken him, but when he listened very carefully, he was able to discern what it was. There were people moving around the camp, surrounding the party. He silently drew the Master Sword and picked up his shield, and woke Talim, covering her mouth as he did so.
"Link? What is it?" she whispered, feeling around for her Elbow Blades.
"Someone's surrounding us." he whispered as she took a hold on Syi Sarika and Loka Luha, the Elbow Blades. He closed his eyes and listened as well as he could as Talim slowly, silently, crawled over to wake Taki and Mitsurugi, who were nearest. He heard a rustling in the bushes behind him and brought the Master Sword whistling down, its broad side smacking into something. That something shouted 'OW!', and the rest of the camp awoke, all reaching for their weapons. Link quickly reached out and grabbed whoever it was by the shirt and shoved the person up against the tree he had been sleeping against, holding the tip of his sword to the strange man's throat. At the same time, an old man leapt out of the bushes on the other side of the camp, startling Cassandra, Seung Mina, and Xianghua into all holding their blades- staff blade, for Seung Mina- to the man's throat.
"Who are you?! Why were you surrounding us, and how many more of you are out there?!" Link asked the young man in front of him. The young man had reddish-brown hair, and carried a one-handed, curved sword, which was wrapped in cloth. Link suddenly felt a hand on his left forearm, and he looked over to see who was touching him. It was Seung Mina, and she was glaring at the young man before them. She looked up at Link.
"Put him down, Link." she said, and he complied. The young man looked relieved for a second, but that relief was banished when Seung Mina held the tip of her Zanbatou to his throat.
"What's the big idea, Yunsung?!" she shouted at the boy. "First you steal White Storm, and then you try to attack us?! You're acting like a bandit and a thief, you little kid!" she continued, her fury echoed in her voice.
"Hey! I'm not a little kid! I'm 18!" the boy, Yunsung, exclaimed indignantly. "And for your information, I couldn't see you all that well in the dark! I was checking to see if you were friends or enemies!"
"Well, it still doesn't give you the right to stalk us!" Seung Mina shouted at him. Her Zanbatou's blade pressed into his throat, causing a trickle of blood to run down his neck and soak into his red shirt. Link put a hand on Mina's shoulder.
"Let him be, Mina." he said firmly. She turned to look at him. Her glare would've caused lesser men to cower, but Link was no ordinary man. He held her glare until she turned away and withdrew her Zanbatou from Yunsung's neck.
"Just don't do it again, you hear me?" she said, bringing her staff blade up to brandish it in his face. "Otherwise, you might not be as lucky next time." He gulped and nodded, and she withdrew her blade from his throat. Then she turned to the old man, who still had his hands up in a defensive position.
"And who are you?" she said to him.
"My name is Heihachi. I was traveling with Yunsung to find a sword called Soul Edge. You know something of it?" the old man, Heihachi, replied. Link and Mina nodded.
"Yes. We seek to destroy it." he said, putting his sword and shield away. "Why do you search for it?"
"I personally want to destroy it, but Yunsung wants it so that he can protect his country." Heihachi explained. There was a hiss of a sword being drawn out of its sheath, and Yunsung suddenly found the Master Sword at his throat again.
"You want to use it?!" Link hissed, his teeth gritted, his face six inches away from Yunsung's.
"Yes! What's wrong with wanting to use it to help protect your native country?!" the young man shouted. Now Link's sword was pressed up to Yunsung's throat hard enough to draw a trickle of blood.
"Have you any idea what that damned sword does to peoples' souls?!" the blond haired, Elf-like man hissed, barely audible. Yunsung shook his head a fraction.
"It devours them!" Link whispered, his voice harsh in the silence of the night. "It destroys the soul of its wielder, burns their soul until they lose all conscious thought, and then it causes them to murder. To murder innocents to feed Soul Edge's never-ending desire for souls to consume." The whole camp was silent, listening to this tale, this horrid description. None of them, save a few, had ever heard of what Soul Edge truly did to people.
"Do you really think you could save your country- your people- when you don't have a soul yourself?!" Link exclaimed. "Instead of saving them, you'd destroy them! Wielding the sword, you'd be practically invincible, but that would only mean you'd go on killing forever, unable to stop, unable to slake your lust for fresh souls." He ended, and let the silence stretch out until it became unbearable. He put his sword away and released Yunsung's shirt from where he'd gathered it in his hand, pinning the young man up against the tree. Link stepped away from the young man and looked around at the other members of the party, his eyes blazing.
"That's what happened in my land." he exclaimed, narrowing his eyes. "Soul Edge was controlling an evil magician from far away. The man didn't know what he was doing because he didn't have a soul. He used his magic and caused several disasters, and killed many, many people. I can only imagine what happened to the souls of those innocents, and even then, I don't want to. Because if I do, I always remember the sights that I saw. The bloody, mutilated corpses of people that were my friends in my younger days. The destruction..."
Everyone was silent, and Yunsung turned his head away so that he wouldn't have to look at Link's back. The man in the green tunic suddenly whipped around, drawing the Master Sword, and threw it, seemingly at Yunsung. He yelped and held up his wrapped sword to block the thrown blade. However, the blades never clashed against each other. There was a loud 'THUNK!', and Yunsung looked above his head to see that the Master Sword was embedded up to its hilt in the trunk of the tree, impaling a snake that had been slithering down to bite him. He looked back down at Link, his whole body trembling. Yunsung reached up and took hold of the Master Sword's hilt, and pulled as hard as he could. The sword didn't budge an inch. He tried again. Still it didn't move. Seung Mina, Heihachi, and Talim came over and tried pulling it at the same time as Yunsung. It remained stuck fast, sealed in place by the tree's ancient wood. Everyone in the camp except Link came over and tried to pull the sword out, but to no avail. Link covered his mouth with a hand, trying to hide his laughter.
"What're you laughing at, you pointy-eared freak?!" Yunsung exclaimed at Link, his temper rising as he tried to pull the sword out. Link frowned and said something in Hylian.
"Alright. Step away from the sword, all of you." he then ordered. They all looked at him as if he was crazy, then stepped back. Link walked up to the tree, reached up, and took hold of the Master Sword's hilt. He pulled a little, and the sword slid free with a scraping sound. He sheathed the sword and turned to see the rest of the group staring at him, wide-eyed. Yunsung got over it the fastest, though, and crossed his arms as he closed his eyes.
"We just loosened it for you is all. You wouldn't've been able to get it out otherwise." he said, huffing a little. Link growled and said something in Hylian. Even then it didn't sound nice.
"You want to bet on it?" he challenged, his voice a low growl.
"Bring it on!" Yunsung replied, always one to accept a challenge, and Link drew the Master Sword and his Hylian shield as Yunsung unwrapped his sword, which faintly glowed in the moonlight. Then he charged at Link, and the others all jumped away as the two men's swords clashed together, the sound ringing out into the night. Yunsung struck repeatedly, Link blocking every strike with either his sword or his shield. Suddenly they locked blades, their faces inches away from each other.
"I must say. You're pretty good. For a little kid, that is." Link said, and Yunsung growled. He broke the deadlock and tried to strike Link again. He parried with his shield and brought the hilt of the Master Sword bearing down upon Yunsung's head. A dull 'thump' could be heard, and Link stepped away from Yunsung, who was now rubbing his head in pain. He stopped after a second and blocked a strike from Link, and the two continued to fight. Link suddenly held his sword out to his left, a little behind him, and a split second later, it started to glow a bright blue. Talim saw this.
"Everyone back away! He's using a very powerful attack!" she shouted, and everyone else shot her curious glances before starting to back away. She backed up, too, until her back hit a tree. By this time, Link's sword was glowing a bright golden, and he spun around, so fast that his sword left a blazing afterimage behind it. The sword's radius was so large that the golden, slicing light almost hit Cassandra, who was nearest Link. Even so, the earth in a ring about three feet out from Link in all directions was scarred, scorched and burned by the blow. Yunsung, thanks to Talim's warning, had jumped up into the tree to avoid the attack, and Link looked up at the young man as he jumped down, wide-eyed.
"What the hell was that?" he asked breathlessly. However, Link didn't answer. He watched Yunsung, waiting for another attack, which the young man provided in a second after seeing that Link was in a guard position. Yunsung attacked in a flurry of lightning-fast attacks, all of which Link parried or blocked easily. Suddenly he knocked Yunsung back a little and attacked with a jump attack. Yunsung held up his sword and blocked it, but Link quickly recovered with a powerful horizontal strike. Yunsung tried to block it with his sword, the White Storm, but Link's strike was more powerful than Yunsung's grip. The White Storm went whirling off to Link's right, and he pointed the tip of the Master Sword at Yunsung's neck, the young man holding up his hands in surrender.
"Do ye yield?" Link asked triumphantly. Yunsung nodded, his sweaty face glistening in the rekindled firelight. Link smirked. He wasn't out of breath. He wasn't even sweaty. He took the Master Sword away from Yunsung's neck.
"You are pretty good, I have to admit." Link said as the young man wiped his brow and retrieved his sword.
"Good. Now that you two've stopped fighting, you think we could get some more sleep?" Cassandra said agitatedly. "It is the middle of the night, you know." Link and Yunsung blushed a little, and mumbled something, nodding their heads. Then, grumbling, the company went back to bed. Thankfully, Link's and Yunsung's fight hadn't disrupted the camp (except for its inhabitants), so they all went back to their beds and laid down. Yunsung and Heihachi, however, followed Link to the tree where he'd been sleeping before they showed up. Link looked up at them as they approached.
"What's up?" he asked.
"Do you think we can travel with you?" Yunsung asked, looking around at the rest of the group, who were still temporarily awake, and Heihachi nodded in agreement. "I mean, we all have the same goal, here."
"Sure. I don't see why not." Link said after the rest of the group nodded in consent.
"Thanks, all of you." Yunsung said to all of them, and they all murmured, "No problem." or "It's ok." Then Yunsung and Heihachi smiled and laid down near where Link and Talim were. Then everyone fell asleep. A few minutes later, Link woke up again and looked around to make sure everyone was ok. Everyone was asleep, except for Talim. She was looking at Yunsung, a glazed look in her eyes. Link smiled to himself.
She thinks he's cute… he thought as he observed the 15-year-old girl. He pulled out the Ocarina of Time again and played Zelda's Lullaby. Talim immediately fell asleep. Then he himself fell asleep, the Ocarina again gently held in his hand, resting on his chest.
The morning dawned cool and clear, and the party rose early to pack camp. They quickly packed their things after a cold, hurried breakfast, and started off early. Link walked in the front, his long ears twitching occasionally, listening to everything around the group. His sharp blue eyes scanned the road in front of him, looking for any signs of danger. At noon they stopped and ate a little, then they continued walking. This time Yunsung walked next to the Hylian.
"So how old are you again?" the young man asked. "I mean, I heard Talim say that you were married, and…" Link looked over at Yunsung, a small bit of annoyance in his eyes.
"I'm 17." the Hylian replied, and Yunsung gaped at him.
"That's a year younger than I am!" he exclaimed, and Link clapped his hands over his ears. In a second he uncovered them, and glared at Yunsung.
"Did you have to shout?" Link asked, his voice a low growl. "Great. Now my ears are ringing…" He grumbled something in Hylian about obnoxious little boys. Yunsung just looked bewildered, but kept walking beside the aggravated Hylian. In a moment Link's ears stopped ringing, and when they did, he heard something he really hadn't wanted to hear: the stringing of bows and the drawing of swords, coming from either side of the group. He stopped so suddenly that Xianghua, who was walking right behind him, ran into him from behind. Yunsung stopped when he noticed that Link had stopped, and looked back to the younger man. Link's eyes were darting from side to side, and his ears were twitching as he listened. Suddenly he heard the sound of an arrow firing and shouted,
"Get down!" as he blocked the arrow with his shield. Everyone hit the deck as a barrage of arrows leaped out from the trees and bushes on either side, Link joining them. As soon as the first barrage was over, bandits and assassins leapt out of the bushes, swords drawn. There were a lot of them. The party quickly drew their weapons and started to fight to defend themselves. It was a hard fight. Link, Talim, and Yunsung fought back to back, while Mina, Xianghua, and Maxi fought the same way. Cassandra, Mitsurugi, Taki, and Heihachi were in another group. All of a sudden a bandit dropped down on Link, Talim, and Yunsung, and they had to break their formation, lest they be squashed. By now the bandits numbered about 10, and they were starting to flee. Link got up from where he had jumped out of the way of the falling bandit and turned around to see him attacking Talim. Link started towards them, but was surprised when another bandit kicked him hard in the stomach, sending him flying backwards into a tree. The bandit that had kicked him bore down upon him like a wildfire, raising his sword to stab Link through. However, the bandit was run through by the Master Sword before his blow could land. Link withdrew his sword from the bandit's belly and started to get up. But fate, it seemed, had a different idea for Link. The bandit, though dying, raised his sword one last time, still continuing to walk towards the Elflike man. He took two stumbling steps, then fell forward, bringing his curved blade forward to rest in Link's stomach.
Link's blue eyes widened with shock and horrendous agony as the bandit's blade went through his green Kokiri Tunic and his flesh, embedding itself in the tree behind him. The bandit that the sword had belonged to slumped over next to Link, dead. Through clouding vision, Link saw another bandit approach Talim from behind while she was preoccupied with another. Raising his arm one last time, Link threw the Master Sword as hard as he could, and it drove itself through the bandit and into the tree behind him. Then Link's head fell forward onto his chest and he fell into blackness, slumping against the tree he was pinned to.
Talim stabbed the remaining bandit through the chest, then wiped Syi Sarika and Loka Luha clean. She looked around at the battlefield. Then, seeing as everyone was done fighting, she called,
"Is everyone ok?" A chorus of voices called, 'Yes!' back to her. However, Link's voice was not among them. Talim looked around, confused, before a glint of metal at the corner of her left eye caught her attention. It was the Master Sword, she saw, and it was embedded up to the hilt in a tree, glowing brightly. A dead bandit was lying at its base, a hole the size of the sword's hilt through his chest.
Link wouldn't leave his sword in a tree like that… Talim thought, then looked to the other side of the road. What she saw made her blood run cold.
"LINK!!" she shouted, and ran over to where he was, slumped against a tree. When she knelt down next to him, she saw that his hand was limp on his shield, and his head was bowed to where his chin touched his chest. She heard a startled exclamation from the rest of the group, and Xianghua was suddenly kneeling next to them.
Link's blood had already stained his tunic crimson, and the sword that had done it was also embedded in the tree behind him. Talim pulled on the sword's hilt, and it came free, causing even more blood to gush from the mortal wound. Jolted from unconsciousness by the sudden removal of the sword, the Hylian cried out in pain. His eyes opened, but Talim didn't notice, her hands clamped over the wound, trying to staunch the flow of blood.
"Talim…" he said weakly- even speaking took a great effort. Her gaze snapped up.
"Link! It's ok! You'll be fine!" she said in an effort to reassure him. He shook his head, then put his hand on her forearm.
"I should've died a long time ago at the hands of Ganondorf. Let me go." he whispered hoarsely, and she stared into his clouded eyes, disbelieving. Suddenly finding a small amount of strength in his muscles, he pushed her arm off of his stomach. Xianghua put her hands on Talim's shoulders and led her away from Link's dying form. However, Yunsung soon moved towards the younger man. He knelt down next to Link, whose eyelids were drooping over his clouded, veiled eyes. His head was nodding, and it soon hit his chest as he again lost consciousness. Yunsung looked to where the Master Sword was still in the tree. The sword was still glowing, but the light that came from the blade was fading slowly. Shaking his head, Yunsung got up and walked over to Talim. He put a hand on her shoulder, and she turned and embraced him suddenly, crying into his chest. He was surprised for a moment, but then he embraced her back, trying to comfort her. Xianghua walked up to the Master Sword and took hold of its hilt. She pulled on it, and it slid out as if sliding through water. She looked amazed, but then realized that the sword had helped her get it out of the tree. It had wanted to be with Link. She gingerly held it in both of her hands and started to walk back towards the dying Hylian. However, she stopped in her tracks when she heard a sound. It was the sound of an Ocarina. The Ocarina of Time floated out from under Link's shield, glowing and playing of its own accord. The song it played was one that none of them had heard before. The melody spoke of time, its never-ending flow. It spoke of endless, warm, summer days, and short, cold, winter nights. It sang of births and deaths, of love and sadness, of good times and bad. The Song of Time. The Ocarina glowed even brighter, and a blue light shone down from the sky. A person came down in the light, and her feet gently touched ground next to Link. The blue light soon faded, revealing the woman that had descended from it. She wore a pink dress that was ornately decorated with gold shoulder plates. She had long, blond hair that trailed down her back in waves, and she also had big, blue eyes. She knelt down next to Link's motionless form and hesitantly, gingerly, touched his wound. She pulled her hand back when more blood blossomed out of the gash, her face pained. Then she pulled something out of a pouch at her side. It was an Ocarina similar to Link's, but this one was a pale peach color, with green at the mouthpiece. The strange woman put the Ocarina to her lips and blew, a sweet melody echoing out from the instrument. She played the Song of Time, but it was strange and unfamiliar to everyone's ears. It took them a second to realize that the woman was playing the song backwards. Suddenly, the clouds in the sky slowed their movements to an almost crawling pace. The birds that were flying flapped their wings slowly enough to follow with painstaking sluggishness, but still stayed airborne. Even the wind in the grass seemed to slow to barely a whisper. The woman's song had slowed time. In fact, the song had nearly stopped it. Except, Talim and the others could still move normally, as if the song hadn't even been played. When she felt time slow, Talim looked up from where she had buried her face in Yunsung's chest, and looked around.
"What's going on…?" she murmured, then saw the strange woman kneeling next to Link, playing the strange song. The blood from Link's wound had practically stopped flowing, and he almost seemed to have slowed with the inverted Song of Time's magic. The woman bent over the unconscious Hylian, and Talim saw that the woman also had long, pointed ears, similar to Link's. However, when the stranger reached behind Link to move him, Talim leapt forward and in between Link and the stranger.
"What are you doing?!" the 15-year-old asked fiercely. "He's dead! Can't you see that?!"
The woman looked up at her for a moment, then smiled reassuringly.
"Child, he is not dead." she said. She had a sweet, melodious voice, and somehow, Talim trusted her.
"Please stand aside. I will not harm him."
Talim hesitantly stepped out of the woman's way, still wary of the stranger. The strange woman gingerly touched Link's wound again, and then put her Ocarina to her lips again. This time she played a song that the group recognized. She played Zelda's Lullaby. Its sweet notes echoed out into the world, but then they seemed to direct themselves towards Link. In a moment, his face contorted, and he blearily opened his eyes and looked down at his wound in wonder. It was healing right in front of their eyes, the blood that had soaked into his tunic withdrawing into the wound. The gash itself was quickly knitting together, and within a second, there was no gash, and the hole in Link's tunic had repaired itself. He gingerly placed his hands on the ground and pushed himself into a sitting position from where he had been slumped on the ground. Then he looked around. His midnight-blue eyes were no longer clouded as he looked around at his friends and listened to the sound of the Ocarina. The song soon ended, and he looked to its player to see her smiling. When he saw her, a large smile spread across his face, and he pulled her into a gentle hug. Then he pulled away from her and looked around at his friends, an arm still around the woman's shoulders.
"Xianghua, your mother says, 'Hi.' The same goes for Mina's brother and mother, Maxi's crew, and Mitsurugi's and Taki's immediate families." he said, and they all grinned. Talim stared at him, bewildered.
"But…! You… died!!!" she stammered, and he looked at her and nodded slightly.
"Yes, I did. Well, sort of." he said, looking thoughtful. He smiled weakly. "I would've gone past the Shadow Lands if it weren't for…" he trailed off, and his face became troubled. He looked to the woman who had played the Ocarina.
"How did you get here?" he asked her, his brow creased.
"The same way you did, Link." she replied. She smiled softly at him, and he returned her smile. After a moment, he cleared his throat and shakily got to his feet. He put his shield on his back again, and looked around at everyone, then stepped slightly away from the woman, withdrawing his arm from around her shoulders as he regained his sense of up and down. Then he spoke words that stunned all of them.
"Everyone, this is Zelda, my wife."