Helloooooo! I didn't forget today! (Almost did but that'snot important).
Other than that... enjoy? I like this chapter a lot but next I'm really excited because we meet one of my favorite characters, both in game and in this story, hmmhmhmhmhm. *hides face behind hands*
So, enjoy!
A blast of bright light, screaming that was probably from himself, and then--
Hazen slammed into a hard surface, knocking the breath from his chest. He groaned, hearing his friends join him, and rolled onto his knees.
"What happened? Is that supposed to happen?" Tessen staggered to his feet, pulling Saval up with him.
"We jumped through a pair of glowing doors that had no hinges and appeared out of nowhere," Hazen replied, looking around. "I don't know what's 'supposed' to happen in that . . . situation . . ."
He trailed off, gazing around the empty field. The doors had disappeared, and there was no sign of the mask, so Hazen supposed that was good, but . . .
Where . . . were they?
"Is this still Hyrule?" Saval asked, pulling Tessen forward slightly as she looked around. "It doesn't look familiar."
"Where's the castle?" Tessen wondered. "We should be able to see it no matter where we are."
"It's gone," Hazen murmured. "This . . . isn't Hyrule."
That earned a morbid moment of silence as each absorbed the information. They'd been chased by a terrifying mask in the woods, led to the ancient Sacred Grave, fallen through a pair of doors, and were now apparently in some place that wasn't Hyrule.
The field was silent but for the wind whistling through the tall grass, and a heavy forest way off on the side. Hills bordered one end of it, far in the distance, but other than that, there wasn't much to look at. And most worrying, there was no castle.
They exchanged glances, and felt panic begin to bubble up. "Okay, let's just--let's just stay calm," Hazen said, before any of them could really freak out. "We have to find shelter, and people. It looks like there's a storm coming."
Indeed. A glance skyward revealed dark clouds brewing, and a cold wind swept through. Saval shivered, pulling her hair from its knot to fall around her shoulders. "Let's head for the woods," Tessen decided. "It'll shelter us from the rain."
They ran across the field, glancing up more than once at the sky. It was rumbling now, and abruptly all three were reminded of the lightning the mask had somehow conjured. There was no way red lightning was normal, they'd agreed, and so now they kept a sharp eye above. Just in case.
They reached the woods just as the heavens opened, and just barely avoided getting soaked. The rain was heavy and hit hard, splashing against the treeline. A drop landed on Saval's shoulder, and Tessen brushed it aside absently.
"Let's get moving," Hazen said, wanting to keep the group moving. It would keep them warm, and he really, really wanted to find some people.
They trekked through the trees for the better part of an hour, and despite the foliage providing some cover, they still got soaked. Hazen could hardly see in front of him, and more than once he stumbled over a root. After a branch buckled under the rain, drenching Tessen in its build-up, morale was at an all-time low.
"Is this place even populated?" Tessen growled, swiping a branch away so Saval could duck under it.
Hazen didn't answer. He thought he'd seen . . .
There it was again. He peered through the trees, squinting, and was rewarded with a flare of light. It looked like--
"A torch," Saval said, exhaustion making her speech heavy.
"Come on," Hazen said, taking her hand. "Stay together. We're almost there."
They trudged through the mud until the end of the forest appeared, rather abruptly, and found a . . .
"A chicken coop," Saval said flatly.
"Which means there's people nearby," Tessen added, offering a bracing smile. "Come on."
The cuccos--were there cuccos in this place?--clucked at them as they passed, from within their little shelter, and watched the group follow the fence up to a small gate . . . frame.
"Is--Is there supposed to be a gate here?" Tessen asked, unsure.
"What's the point of a gate frame if there's no gate?" Hazen muttered, staring at the structure. There was a moment of silence.
"This place is weird," Saval said.
Hazen opened his mouth, but there was the torch again, and voices through the rain. The group was shivering now, and they waited with bated breath to see who would come along. A few figures appeared, mostly just blurs of black through the rain, and the three instinctively huddled closer.
"Who goes there?"
A lantern flared just before a face came into view, old and weathered. "Who are you?"
Hazen stepped forward. "I am Prince Hazen of the Hylian Empire, and this is Princess Saval of the Twilight Realm, and Lord Tessen of the Hyrule Queendom. What part of the empire is this? Where are we?"
The old man stared at them. "Empire? There's no empire here, son."
Every part of Hazen went cold. "N-No empire?"
Not being in Hyrule was one thing, but if they weren't even in the empire's lands . . .
"If this isn't Hyrule, then where is it?" Tessen asked, stepping up to Hazen's side.
The old man blinked. "Not Hyrule? No, this is Hyrule all right, son."
He jerked, as if just realizing something. "Oh, where are my manners. Come in, kids, and welcome."
He ushered them through the gate frame and into a quaint little village, complete with more cucco pens and squat, simple houses. Fences lined each property and neatly lined pavers made up the paths to and fro. It was buttoned up tight to withstand the storm, and as the old man led them to a slightly bigger house, the three of them felt a new sort of fear come down on them.
"Where are we?" Saval whispered.
Hazen shivered, huddling deeper within the blanket. The fire was hot enough to make the room stifling, but for him and his friends, it wasn't enough. They'd underestimated how cold that storm had been.
"Here you are," the old man said, handing Hazen a steaming cup of tea. He accepted it with a bow of his head, which the old man observed bemusedly before moving on to Saval and Tessen.
"Are you warm enough, kids? Need more blankets?"
"We're fine, thank you, sir," Saval said softly.
Tessen wasn't speaking, too lost in the confusion. Not in the empire, but still in Hyrule. Could they have been dropped in some piece of history before the empire was formed? But how was that possible? Were they in a different dimension? Did the doors have that kind of power? And what about the mask?
He didn't notice Saval and Hazen watching him worriedly, or the old man stand and approach. He jerked as a cup of tea was pushed into his hand. "Rest easy, son," the old man said. "No use worrying yourself sick. It'll be all right."
Tessen very seriously doubted that, but he allowed himself to smile, if only to put the old man's mind at ease. He took a seat, groaning a bit as he stretched his legs, and said, "Now, let's try this again. Why don't you three tell me where you're from."
They exchanged a look, unsure of how much they should tell. Tessen nodded at Hazen; he was the prince. It was his call.
"I think it would help if we knew where we were first," Hazen said slowly. The old man nodded, grunting.
"Makes sense. Well, I suppose the most important part is that this is Hyrule. Specifically, we're in Kakariko Village."
"Have any . . . strange . . . events happened? Recently?"
The old man gave Hazen a strange look. "You mean other than three teenagers appearing out of nowhere and asking about an empire?"
Hazen blinked, surprised for a moment before allowing a rueful smile. The old man returned it, saying, "There was the incident at the castle a couple months back."
He jerked as all three of them leaned forward. "What happened at the castle?" Hazen asked, clenching his cup.
The old man blinked. "Well--the princess was turned into a painting, and then stolen by some freak with red hair, and there's been a boy running about Hyrule, in a green tunic. Calls himself the Hero."
The sudden silence made the old man--Sahasrahla--unsure of what he'd said wrong. The one with golden hair and blue eyes was clenching his cup so hard it might break, the one with silver hair was lost in thought again, and the girl . . . was looking at him.
"We're sorry," she said softly, her white hair falling limply around her shoulders as it dried. "We're just trying to adjust. It's been very strange for us."
"That's all right, miss Saval," Sahasrahla said graciously, accepting the smile she offered. "Take the time you need. Though, I must say I'm curious about your story."
Saval picked up on the subtle cue. "We are not from here," she said. "We are from a Hyrule . . . we're not sure, really. In the past or the future, we can't tell yet. But it's part of an enormous empire, made up of several different lands."
Her story was hard to believe, but the sincerity and sadness in her tone wasn't faked. Sahasrahla, as a lover of history, found himself intrigued. "Oh? What lands?"
Saval blinked, counting on her fingers. "Well, there's Hyrule, the homeland of the empire. Then there's Termina, to the east, and Twilight to the west. That's where I'm from."
Right, they'd mentioned she was a princess, he remembered.
"In the middle is the Waker Sea, and south of that is Lorule."
Lorule. That sounded familiar. Perhaps Link had mentioned it once or twice when he passed through?
". . . east is Labrynna, and west is Holodrum."
"Wait!" Sahasrahla jumped up. "Holodrum and Labrynna, you say? Why, those nations are here, too!"
Saval blinked, unsure why he was so excited. "Well, yes, that--"
"Oh, this is fascinating!" Sahasrahla raced to the living room, too wrapped up in his excitement to notice the boys had been staring at him. They looked at Saval, who shrugged.
"He got excited when I said Labrynna and Holodrum were in the empire," he heard her say from the living room. A moment later, he emerged from his room holding aloft a notepad and pencil. "Please, continue," he waved at Saval, scribbling furiously.
"Umm." Saval glanced at Tessen and Hazen for help, but they were whispering together. She sighed and closed her eyes momentarily. "So . . . my friends and I decided to go for a horse ride. We went to a place called Kokiri Forest. Do you have that here?"
Sahasrahla nodded vigorously. "Oh yes, just north of here. Though that name hasn't been used in very long. It goes by the Lost Woods now."
Saval bit her lip, sending the boys a look. "There's a part of the forest that is referred to as the Lost Woods where we're from, too." She cleared her throat. "After we entered the forest, there was a strange . . . pulse that we felt."
Sahasrahla looked up. "A pulse?"
Tessen nodded. "It happened a few times. When it was over, a mask appeared and chased us through the woods. We made it to a safe place of sorts, called the Sacred Grove. Know anything about that?"
Sahasrahla was staring at them. "I . . . I'm not sure about a mask. Wait just a moment, let me get my books."
He disappeared into the back room again, and the three took the opportunity to huddle. "What were you two talking about?"
"Hazen and I think we might be in the past timeline of Hyrule," Tessen said quickly, one eye on the back room. "All the important places and people are consistent, if a little different. We have a hero and a princess, and a villain, and there's a Hyrule Field, a castle, and the Lost Woods. We just don't know which Hyrule we're in."
"And we think the doors we came through might be the ones from that legend," Hazen said. "From the Hero of Time's story."
Saval did a quick recap of the legend. "But those doors were massive," she argued, hearing Sahasrahla come back. "And they were in the Temple of Time. How can they--"
"What if we were in the Temple of Time too?" Tessen said, face grave. Saval opened her mouth to argue, but Sahasrahla came back, so they all sat back quickly.
He had a stack of books in his arms. As Hazen stood to help him, Saval decided to ask a few questions of her own. "Sir, do you happen to know anything about the Temple of Time?"
Sahasrahla had a pair of half-moon glasses perched on his nose. He looked up at her. "The Temple of Time? Of course, miss. What would you like to know?"
"The Doors of Time, specifically," Saval said. "And the overall history of the Temple's locations in Hyrule."
Sahasrahla blinked. "Oh. Well, that is rather extensive. Let me see here," he muttered, flipping through his books. "Hmm. . . no, that's not quite it . . . ah, here we go."
He cleared his throat and set the book in front of his guests. "The Temple of Time has had many locations throughout history. It was first known as the Sealed Temple. After the first hero and the reincarnation of the Goddess Hylia, it became known as the Temple of Hylia."
Saval studied the image on the book's page. It didn't look like the Temple they'd been chased into, nor the one they'd seen in their own history books.
Sahasrahla flipped the pages. "Centuries later, the Sage Rauru sensed the awakening of a great evil and left the Sacred Realm, eventually leading the Hero of Time to the Temple in that age, like so."
This temple was more familiar. But it still wasn't quite the same. Saval squashed the impatience and tried to make her voice smooth. "What about the Age of Twilight? It was there too, right?"
Sahasrahla was oblivious. "Oh yes, that is perhaps the most famous of the Temples. Rigged with protective measures and tests only the Hero could possibly solve, hidden deep in an ever-changing forest populated by nymphs and spirits . . ." he caught the three kids staring at him and cleared his throat. "Apologies. After the Hero of Time defeated the King of Evil, he was sent back in time by the Princess. He and the Princess exposed Ganondorf before he could repeat the last seven years, and he was thrown into another dimension. He is, in fact, the same Ganondorf that resurfaces in the Twilight Age. However, in the interim, the Hero of Time was left to wander. All of his deeds were forgotten by the very people he had saved, and so he traveled the world."
"Centuries more passed, until the Age of Twilight." Sahasrahla's voice had taken on a distinctive note of sadness. "Hyrule had moved on from the Hero of Time's deeds. His memory was naught but a legend, the Temple of Time having fallen into ruin."
He flipped a few pages and pushed the book towards Saval, Hazen and Tessen, and after a long moment studying it, they exchanged looks. "This is the place," Tessen said. Hazen nodded.
"Can you tell us anything about a mask?" Saval asked quickly, wanting to get as much information from the historian as possible.
"A mask?" Sahasrahla hmmed, a hand on his chin. "Perhaps. It would take some time, though. There might have been one account by the Hero of Time . . ."
He went muttering again, taking a moment to call back to them, "I will research this, but for now you three must sleep. There is a room through that door there."
He disappeared, closing the door behind him, and left the three of them with more questions than answers.
So who can guess which Hyrule they're in now? *gremlin laughs*
Review replies!
StJames1: eyyy, what did Dinsel do to you?? Haha he's a kid, I thought it best to write a kid accurately. And I mean really, what 12 year old boy wouldn't get bored stuck in a castle with a bunch of nobles around, unable to do the things he wants, having to go to classes all day instead of having fun? It's not so far-fetched.
Zelda and Link age slowly since I decided so, when I wrote this. Is that a problem? OO. (The real reason is that I cannot, for the life of me, envision them as anything other than their beautiful 20-year old selves because I suck. (Also it serves a purpose. You just have to get to the end of part two to find out! HAHA. Peace, nerd.)
YES! You guessed it, way back when! AHAHAHAHAHA I TRICKED YOU, YA LOSER.
The sacred grove has a real knack for being *deep inhale* infuriating. At least, that's how I remember it from playing TP when I was, like, 12. And, well, we all know dramaticTM shit goes down in the Temple of Time. Cue the choir music, indeed. ;)
I hope you enjoyed, (and are as excited for the next chapter as I am ;)) and I'll see y'all on next Monday! Thank you all for reading and favoriting/following/reviewing! It always means a lot :')
Don't forget to review this chap as well, pls, I love seeing your feedback! See ya!