A/N: Hello again! Sorry this is so late! Long story short my summer bombed and this semester has been a total gong-show! But now I'm back, and I'm getting super into this, so I hope you all are too! It's been literal years since I thought of Rose and the gang, but I'm super excited to rework the story into something new and awesome with Rose-now-Claire (possibly Rowan? :O) I'm so glad people seem to like it so far! Feedback is my bread and butter, thank you guys so much for letting me know your thoughts on the story!

Without further ado, let's get going!

Updated as of July 17th, 2021

Claire's initial passing through the sleepy village went largely unnoticed, as most were still in their homes, if not still asleep. Not wishing to be gawked at like the oddity she knew she was, Claire could only find herself glad of it when they were invited into the Mayor's home swiftly and quietly.

"So what's the trouble, Rusl?" Bo asked outright, once the door was closed. Claire tried not to jump to any conclusions, going for warm and friendly when his gaze settled on her.

"That'd be me," she spoke up sheepishly. "I'm Claire McKinley, it's nice to meet you Mr. Mayor."

"Ah, you can call me Bo, young miss Claire. We don't stand on such formalities often, here. My daughter Ilia's upstairs, she'll be down soon."

Mayor Bo was a kind man, but Claire was still regarded with visible suspicion in the heavy silence that followed, no one sure where to really start. It only got worse when Ilia joined them on the ground floor, the teen hesitating on the last step as she took in their visitor's appearance, and her eyes narrowed. It rankled, and Claire was burning with curiosity - what in the hell made them so wary of strangers? For God's sake, she was fifteen, shorter than everyone but surely the children, unarmed (as far as they knew) and alone, what threat could she possibly pose to their village?

You're trying to get a bed for the night, maybe don't show how annoyed you are, she thought to herself with a shake of her head. Glowering and huffing about it wouldn't do her any favours.

After short introductions and a general conversation about what had happened to Claire, Rusl and Bo took to the other side of the wide room to deliberate in hushed whispers what exactly they should do. Ilia had huffed off somewhere outside, and Claire had had to force herself to not feel too stung by the clear dismissal from the older girl. It all seemed... askew, from the way she remembered these characters behaving. People, Claire. They're not just characters on a screen anymore. But the fact remained, why were they all just a bit to the left of the way their characters had been written for Twilight Princess?

"...know it could be a risk, but..." Ah, they were still at it.

That the adults were talking about her wasn't in itself too much of a problem, except that they'd been going over it for a good fifteen minutes so far. Claire had long since resigned herself to sitting down against the nearest wall, having run out of random things in the house to study and pretend to be interested in. That, and there were only so many places she could covertly snoop without making a nuisance of herself and damaging her case.

...Well, as much as 'please let me live somewhere in your village for a few days, I'm very small and have no money, so you can imagine the kind of stress I'm under' could be considered a case.

Claire was more patient than her sister, but she was reaching her limit - and honestly? The longer they talked, the more worried she got that they would turn her away. Maybe I should nip this problem in the bud and get out of here... I can survive a few weeks being basically homeless, right? It'll be like camping, just without a tent, or food, or... well. Anything, I guess.

"Hey, um... excuse me?" Both men turned to her. "If my - if my being here is going to cause any problems, I can just... I'd rather leave if it's not... convenient, for me to be here. It's not a big deal." It was, actually, but it didn't really matter. There were plenty of places to sleep outside the village, and it couldn't be that hard, could it? Absolutely delusional.

"Now, now, there's no need for that," the mayor was quick to assure her. "We're just figurin' out the best place for you to stay while you're here."

"How are you with children?" Rusl interjected. Claire knew there were three families with kids in the village, so it made sense to ask.

"Um... well, I lived in a group home with a lot of younger kids for about four years, so I'm pretty used to keeping an eye out and making sure nobody gets hurt. I think I was good at it, I mean, I was never the first person a parent called when they needed a babysitter, but that's also because a lot of them didn't like my parents," she shrugged, realizing her error when the adults shared a look. The mayor mouthed the words 'group home' to Rusl, like a question. Whoops. "I guess they're still called orphanages here," she realized out loud. Double-whoops, and there's the pity I was hoping not to see.

"...Well, that being the case, I'd like to introduce you to my wife Uli to see if she's open to you staying with us. We have one son, and another child due very soon," Rusl continued, looking like her answer had thrown him off balance. He didn't really know how to respond to Claire's flippancy about her circumstances, she supposed, but what else did she have to offer?

"Lead the way," she gestured back to the door. "It, uh, it was nice to meet you, Mayor Bo," she offered awkwardly on the way out.

I'm screwed.

Uli was warm and welcoming within moments of Claire's introduction, and she couldn't say she wasn't glad for it. Being regarded with suspicion from everyone else thus far had been uncomfortable, and Claire couldn't figure out why they seemed so wary of her! She couldn't really look like such a threat, could she? Especially since she'd removed most of her gifted (?) accoutrements, leaving her comparatively exposed in just her tunic and leggings. Hell, most of these people were wearing layers over layers that could conceal a weapon far easier than any clothing she had on her person.

...Either way, being greeted with a pleasant smile was a nice change.

"You have a lovely home, Uli." There were signs everywhere Claire looked, of a hard life lived well. Many handmade tchotchkes, knitted and crocheted throws and covers, little pieces of home. And, obviously, signs of both a child and mother-to-be in residence. "Rusl mentioned a son?" she wondered aloud, turning away from her nosy examination of the front room and back to her host.

"This is our son, Colin," Uli introduced after a moment, gesturing to the small boy peeking out from behind her leg. Claire hadn't even noticed him standing there, he'd been so quiet. He waved, but didn't say anything. "Colin, this is Claire. She's going to be staying in the village until it's time to deliver the royal gift to the castle."

Claire knelt down to look up at the timid boy, making sure her demeanor was open and friendly. "It's nice to meet you, Colin. I hope we can be friends while I'm here," she offered quietly, getting a shy smile from the boy that he smothered into Uli's shirt.

"Alright, dear. Off you go, your father's going to help you work on your fishing rod today. I'll stay to show you around, Claire."

She got the nickel tour, as it were. All Claire could think was that the real home (for given definition of real, since 'real' assumed she wasn't insane) was bigger than it was in the game, boasting a back room that led to a second level, and even a cellar with a trapdoor behind the couch from the game. It was impressive, and made Claire feel less bad about taking up space in their home if she was going to be staying here. It didn't seem like she'd be putting anyone out of a room, so there was that.

"So tell me a little about yourself," Uli encouraged as they settled at the dining table for some kind of sweet tea that smelled of spruce and pumpkin, oddly enough. It wasn't a flavour mix Claire was familiar with from Earth, but she decided not to ask.

"Well, I don't really know if there's much to tell. I lived with my sister and our parents, I went to school every day, and I had kickboxing and jiu-jitsu twice a week. I didn't really have a lot of friends, and the town I grew up in didn't lend itself to... well, doing much of anything, unless you really like fishing or hiking the wilderness," Claire hedged, not quite uncomfortable with the topic but... unsteady. It was perhaps for this reason that she slipped up. Twice, in fact; once in mentioning her extracurriculars to begin with, and again when Uli frowned curiously at her unfamiliar terminology.

"I can't say I've heard of that before. What exactly is 'jiu-jitsu'?" the woman wondered. And this was where Claire slipped up a second time, in that she answered the question.

"Self defense, hand-to-hand combat," she shrugged, realizing her error when Uli tensed, an edge of caution sharpening her gaze. "Only in self defense, I promise," she stammered out quickly after. The last thing Claire wanted was for anyone to be afraid and/or more suspicious of her.

"... May I ask why?" Oh, thank God there wasn't any immediate suspicion in the words, but the pregnant woman had taken up a tense stance all the same.

"I, um... I grew up in a pretty conservative town, with an... unconventional family. I had to learn how to protect myself. My sister looked out for me a lot of the time, but our parents wanted to make sure we both knew how to defend ourselves if anyone tried to start trouble." Port Anderton wasn't the most welcoming place even for 'normal' people, truth be told. Claire could never pretend to understand why Daniel was so attached to the town, with how awfully it treated him even before he'd moved away and come home with a husband.

"That sounds like a challenging upbringing," Uli mused, looking at Claire with - not pity, but understanding.

"I mean... I guess, but I don't have any basis for comparison. It's the only home I remember, just... being how it's always been," the girl shrugged. "Regardless of how I grew up, though, I promise - I promise, I would never do anything to intentionally hurt your family - or-or anyone in the village, for that matter." The longer Uli contemplated her, the more time Claire had to panic and pray that this wouldn't tip the scales out of her favour. She was homeless if she screwed this up!

"I believe you," the young mother reassured her after a long moment, in which Claire was sure she was about to embarrass herself by hyperventilating (or worse, crying). She let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding, sagging back down into her seat. "It's a dangerous world to live in, regardless of where one's home was built."

You don't know the half of it, Claire thought, really not looking forward to the Relevant Plot Events she knew would be coming soon. Twilight Princess was her favourite game, but living it promised to be a whole new can of worms she wasn't ready to open. I have weapons I don't know how to use and absolutely no instructions on what the hell I'm expected to do here except 'this world needs my help'?

I am so, so screwed.

Claire's first day in Ordon Village passed with little fanfare beyond that frightening turn in her conversation with Uli, introductions going smoother as the village warmed to the foreigner in their midst - it seemed Uli's seal of approval was good enough for the other village wives, and the husbands followed their women's leads.

The children were endlessly fascinated with Claire at the mere idea of the stories she could tell, someone who had not lived and grown in the valley like they had. Too bad Claire had to censor most of them of her time on Earth, and curtail even what she knew about Hyrule - however much she knew about the world-state in Twilight Princess, who knew what the reality was?

(If it was reality, but the jury was still out on that one.)

Children were luckily distractible enough, especially once when Claire offered to teach them to play games from Earth - with some modified rules, since there were so few kids in the village. Their favourites were capture the flag and hide-and-seek tag, always classics. Claire still found herself mediating disputes with the rules, changing them as needed when it seemed like any one of the kids was singled out as 'it' too often for it to be fair.

Claire didn't notice she'd fallen under scrutiny, busy playing the 'fiendish dragon' to the kids' brave knights. No, she didn't see until she 'died' dramatically as the kids (besides Malo) dog-piled her, cheering about defeating the dragon. She caught an upside-down glimpse of a pair of sandals, leading into the silhouette of a person that she couldn't quite catch with the sun in her eyes, until whoever it was blocked the light. Mismatched eyes met ocean-blue as Claire blinked to adjust to the change, finally focusing in on...

Oh, good Lord.

"I was wondering why none of the kids came to the ranch to say good morning today," the future Hero of Twilight mused, and Claire was panicking just a little bit because oh my God, that's Link! Did she detect a hint of a cute little drawl wrapping around his words? Oh my god.

"Hi!" she squeaked, pretending it was because Beth had taken a tumble and elbowed her in the sternum. She'd gotten worse sparring with Julie, and Beth was light as a feather in comparison. "I, uh, think I stole your fan club away from you," she gestured sheepishly to the kids with her free arm - well, it was free until Talo pounced again with a little battle cry.

"I can see that," Link didn't quite smirk, but the amusement rolled off him in waves. "And you are...?"

Whoops. "Oh! I'm Claire McKinley. Hi, I'm, uh... I'm staying in the village for a little bit. Nice to meet you."

All Claire could do was hope and pray that her anxious, clipped sentences weren't taken as rudeness. If this plays out the way I think it's going to, my life will be a lot easier if I make friends with Link.

"I'm Link," he said in return, apparently unbothered. "Welcome to Ordon. What brought you to our little corner of Hyrule?"

"When I figure it out, I'll let you know," both teens laughed at the quip, though Link was obviously still curious, and Claire had a feeling she was going to find the answer sooner rather than later. Ordona telling her 'this world needs your help' was foreboding enough without Claire's knowledge of the future (potential future? Should she disregard everything Twilight Princess told her about this era? No, there had to be some truth to the story she was told, right?)

She'd have to keep an eye on just how much of the story held up to the real thing - it wouldn't do her any good to throw the baby out with the bathwater, not when foreknowledge could be super useful, but she had to figure out a margin for error when it came to the accuracy of what she knew.

It cannot be my fault if Link dies. I can't go down in history as some incompetent seer who got the Hero killed because her information was bad!

Claire tuned back into the world around her and realized Link had asked something, and the kids had (mostly) let her free. Sitting up out of the dirt, she found herself staring blankly. What was she supposed to say?

Link evidently realized how lost she was, because he repeated the question. "I just wanted to make sure the kids aren't being too rough."

"Nah, we're all good here," Claire grinned, reaching to tickle at Beth's feet while the girl squealed. "My sister and I roughhouse like this all the time, and she's built like a Gerudo." She sobered when Julie came to the forefront of her thoughts. "Well, we did. But-But, uh, I don't mind being finally the biggest player, even if it means I'm the dragon," she tried to play it off with a laugh that sounded false even to her ears.

Whatever Link had inferred about Claire from their little chat, he gave her a sympathetic little smile at that.

"I'll let you get back to it, then. I'd better get back up there," he pointed back in the direction of the ranch.

"Of course, I don't- I don't want to keep you from your work!" Claire said, immediately standing back up and offering one hand. "It was nice to meet you, Link. I guess I'll, I'll see you around."

Link shook the proffered hand, but he was bemused. Wait, are handshakes a thing in Hyrule? Is that 'unladylike' or something?

"See you around," he echoed, turning back to the path over the hill. Claire couldn't follow with her eyes for long before the kids were calling her back into the game.

Maybe being in crazy-land won't be so bad, she thought, for the first time since waking up in the spring.

A/N: Again, so sorry I said "I'll try for weekly updates over the summer!" and then didn't update until December -_-; I definitely didn't plan for it to turn out that way! The next chapter is underway, I'm not going to make promises I can't keep so I'll just say it won't take me as long to update next time! I got bit by a writing bug, but probably not nearly enough to try for weekly updates again ^^; See y'all next time!