Since I am going on a two week trip with my family, and its very questionable if I will have any internet access, I may not be able to update for two weeks, but in the meantime, please continue to read and review, I promise there is much more to come… (Especially with Nabooru)

The area surrounding Ganondorf's dark castle appeared vastly different. Not because there were several more boulders strewn across the rocky ledges, but because there was an iridescent bridge connecting the entrance to the floating wonder and the ruins of the old Hylian gate. The long and thin bridge displayed colors of the rainbow much like a spectrum. Michael stood on the ruins right at the bridge's foot, marveling over the rainbow road, and how bizarre such a bright bridge looked in contrast to the dark castle, floating above a barely glowing pit of molten rock and beneath a dense blanket of charcoal clouds. He dropped his arms to his side, and focused his gaze at the large stone mansion. Taking a deep breath, Michael took one step forward, putting his feet on the bridge. He was shocked to feel that the bridge, though transparent as light, felt as solid as the stone cliff right behind him. Rather than test the strange bridge's durability, Michael quickly paced across the bridge, without looking back until his feet were once again on stone. The stone floor of Ganondorf's Castle.

Michael sauntered into the first chamber, to find two identical statues depicting giant eye balls atop some kind of stand. Michael shivered at the sight of them. Between them, an elegant blue carpet lead the way straight ahead to a door. Michael took a few steps along toward the door, but froze when he noticed the eye statues beginning to rotate towards him. Both stopped upon their pupils facing Michael. He could feel the hair on his legs stand up to brush against the inside of his jeans. The eyes blinked. Michael stood motionless, staring at them, without blinking. Both statues emitted a thin blue beam, which traveled at a downward angle in the direction of Michael's feet. Michael took a step back. The beams grew thicker as they advanced towards Michael. Smoke rose from the intersection of the beam and the carpet. In a panic, Michael quickly stepped back all the way to the entrance. The beams vanished. Half a minute later, Michael regained his ability to breathe. He put his hand on his chest to measure just how fast his heart was beating. "Good God," he gasped. The winded man began to whisper to himself. "Ok, the door is over there, and those statues are gonna fucking brand me if I so much as get close. So what now? Come on, Michael, think. This really can't be too hard. That silly kid probably accomplished it less than hour ago with no trouble." Michael studied the statues, then looked at the forbidden door in the distance. "This better work." Michael took off running toward the door. As he neared the statues, they fired their beams, but Michael's speed was too great. By the time the beams hit the ground and were thick enough to damage the carpet, Michael had already passed between the pernicious sculptures, and was almost at the door. The beams pursued, but with no success. Michael quickly grabbed the door's knob, turned it, and proceeded to the other side.

The next room was huge. Michael looked up to see a thick stone structure in the center, going through the lofty ceiling. On the walls of the cylindrical room were several doors, each having a colored circular symbol on top of them, as well as a metallic barb pointing towards the center of the room. The cylinder in the middle of the room had identical barbs pointing out to each of the barbs on the wall. A wooden bridge connected the center cylinder to the ledge near the room's entrance. Michael, after turning himself around trying to study the circular room, stepped onto the bridge. Before he even made it half way across, a violent quake shook him off balance. Michael fell backwards; flat on his rear. "Fuck! My tailbone!" he growled. Small rocks came crashing down from the ceiling. Michael quickly got up and ran back to the room's entrance, under a sturdy stone archway. Placing his hand on the door knob, he turned back to notice the stone rain was worsening. He opened the door and sprinted back past the sculptures, and to the main entrance. The rainbow bridge was gone, and the stone island supporting the castle was now actually connected to the main land. "What the fuck is happening?" Michael shouted before darting all the way to the remains of the old gate.

(Joanne/Link)

"I met Michael toward the end of my quest," the hero began. "I went to the castle on a side quest to help break a curse on a family in the Kakariko Village. I saw a figure wearing a black jacket over a white shirt and blue pants laying down next to a large rock. When I went closer to see who it was, I noticed that it was a man that I had never seen before. He was bleeding from his forehead. I could see that he must have hit his head on that rock. I went over to check on him, and he woke up. I took him to the Kakariko Village where I left him in the care of someone who would be able to look at his head injury."

"So that's the first time you met him?" Joanne inquired, her eyes fixed on Link.

"Yes," Link promptly answered.

"Ok. I have talked with a lot of people who encountered Michael at some point in his stay in Hyrule, especially Malon. In the past week I have investigated this thoroughly. What I don't know is what happened when he went west to the Gerudo Valley and what happened between you and him. From what I understand, you and him were friends! He respected you! No one I have talked to understood why that changed so suddenly. I tried to go to the Gerudo Fortress and ask Nabooru, who Michael supposedly knew pretty well, but I was unable to find her there. I know that after your quest, he obtained ownership of this house and you lived here with him for a short while. Am I mistaken?"

"That's right."

"All right. Now, explain to me what went wrong between you and Michael."

Link took a deep breath. This inquisition wore away at him in his state of exhaustion. How could she be so persistent? Mild tints of yellow were acid in her brown eyes. "Michael was generous to me. He shared his house with me when I had no place to live, but he was so reclusive. He avoided going to the Hyrule Town Market as much as possible by trying to harvest some crops himself. He was pleasant to me, but he always seemed to prefer being by himself. He treated his book like a treasure and made me promise never to touch it. I never understood why he was so reclusive and resistant to talking about his past. Toward the end of my stay here, he became closer with Malon from the ranch and Nabooru, the leader of the Gerudo thieves. There would be days where he would not come back here at all."

Joanne nodded. "So, was that the problem? Where you upset that he didn't seem very open to you?"

"It bothered me. He wasn't like anyone I had ever met. I wanted to be able to understand him better, but he held me at a distance when we talked to Malon and Nabooru. It kind of hurt."

"Link, he was doing you a huge favor by letting you stay with him. I'd say he was respecting you. What did expect from him?"

"I don't know. I guess I thought he would be more open and friendly. That wasn't what turned me against him, though."

"Michael has never been a very open person as long as I have known him, which is thirty years now. Do you think that he had an affair with Nabooru?"

"He spent a lot of time with her, but he hardly said anything to me about her."

"So, to interrupt your story briefly, where is Nabooru now? Where could I find her?"

Link paused. "She's dead," he whispered.

Joanne blinked. "What? I was told by some of the Gerudo women that she was out at the Spirit Temple."

"She's dead," Link repeated.

"How?" asked a very confused Joanne.