"Link?" Zelda called, taking another bite of the apple that they'd taken off some nearby trees.

"Yeah?" he called, popping out from seemingly nowhere.

"Look," she said, pointing to a nearby farm. "They might offer us rupees for work."

Link had peeled off the symbol of Ganondorf from his stolen uniform, and now just looked like a very tragically dressed soldier in distress, though Zelda didn't look much better.

"Okay, we can give it a try, but I'm not in the best shape, both of us are living off of apples, and we've had one decent sleep in quite a while. But we can try."

Zelda gave him a broad smile. "You underestimate my talents, Link."

He rolled his eyes at her mocking voice and followed her to the house, keeping an eye on their surroundings and a hand on his sword.

Zelda skipped off to the side where the fence was, eyeing a middle-aged woman near the fence.

"Hello," Zelda said approaching slowly.

The woman looked over at her suspiciously.

Zelda pulled Link alongside her, wrapping her arm around his. "My husband and I were set upon by bandits in the forest. We lost everything. Do you need any work done? We are desperate for rupees after that incident."

"He's injured."

"I can work," Link jumped in, ignoring Zelda's glare. She knew what he was about to do. "It's just a precaution after I was injured fighting, but I don't need it. I can work."

The woman looked between the two suspiciously before her eyes stayed glued on Link. "A soldier, then? Who did you fight for?"

Link turned to Zelda and shook his head ever so slightly. The wrong answer would either get them killed, captured, or simply turned away.

But Zelda was willing to risk it. She looked around and took a cautious step away from Link and touched her thumbs and index fingers together to form an upside-down triangle, the center of the Triforce, the representation of the Goddess Hylia.

The woman looked around and nodded. "Come to the door. I'll see what work I can offer you. I'm Maryse. You're Mr. and Mrs…?"

Zelda stuttered, turning to Link. Obviously, she couldn't use her own last name.

"Forrester," he said, more to Zelda than to Maryse.

Zelda felt a little guilty that she hadn't known his last name, but then again, he hadn't known hers until yesterday.

It wasn't hard to figure out a mutual arrangement. Link took off his sling and helped with some of the heavier lifting, while Zelda tended to the animals as the day passed both incredibly quickly and slowly all at once.

As Zelda brushed the fine hair of her third horse, she heard someone enter the barn behind her. She spun, frightened at the sudden noise that broke her from her trance, but calmed as soon as she saw a younger girl, perhaps sixteen, standing in the doorway.

"My uncle said you were too pretty to be working in the barns. I think your husband might have threatened him a bit."

"Excuse me?" Zelda asked. "Who are you? Who's your uncle?"

"Sorry," the girl said, stepping closer. "My name is Zelda. I go by Ellie though. You're on my mother's farm. What's your name?"

Zelda grinned as she looked over the girl. Goddess, it took her breath away, but the girl was a spitting image of her sister. From the short blonde hair, to the wide blue eyes, Zelda was sure that Ellie had to be her sister's doppelganger, and at about the same age, too. "My name is also Zelda. No nickname, though."

"Nice to meet you. You two were robbed?"

"Robbed of everything," Zelda muttered ruefully.

"Not each other. That's good, right?"

Zelda smiled. "Speaking of 'each other,' you said my husband threatened your uncle?"

Ellie smiled. "Yeah, but don't worry, it was funny. My uncle is about your age, so it's not weird, but he was making some pretty stupid comments about your looks. He really deserved to be threatened."

Zelda set down the brush and sighed. "I should go see what happened."

"No, I was over there when it happened. It was just words. I'll let him tell you. That's something couples do, right?"

Zelda grinned and picked up the brush again. "How old are you, Ellie?"

"Fifteen."

Close.

"How'd you get 'Ellie' from Zelda?"

Ellie sat down and watched the cuccos in the corner. "Zelda, Zel, El, Ellie. It was an evolution." She stopped and looked Zelda over. "Are you going to be here for a minute?"

"I should be."

"Great, I'll be right back."

Ellie took off and Zelda watched her go, using the moment to peek outside and look for Link. She could see him with something in his lap, like a piece of wood that he appeared to be fixing. Behind him was a young man, maybe just older than they were. Ellie's uncle, she imagined. But neither were speaking, and it didn't appear that there had been a physical fight, so she went back to her own task until she heard the loud return of Ellie.

"Here," the young girl said, holding out a hairbrush. "For your hair. It's a mess. You can keep it; I don't need it anymore."

Zelda took it with a smile and set down the horse's brush. "Thank you, Ellie. I'll admit, it's been awhile."

"Yeah, I can tell. My mother is nearly finished with dinner. Will you two join us?"

"We couldn't impose on your mother," Zelda said, despite how much she wished it.

"She always makes too much anyway, since my brother and my father died, she can't seem to figure out how to cook for three."

Turning to the young girl, Zelda nodded, understanding the loss they felt all too well. "I'm sorry for your family. I lost my sister, too."

"Sucks, doesn't it?" Ellie said with a wry laugh. "But I'm leaving this farm. I won't have to remember."

"You won't be able to forget them. You know that, right?"

"Hey," Link said from the doorway, looking between the two girls. "Hi. Maryse offered to share her meal with us, and offered us a spare room for the night. What do you think?"

Zelda turned to Ellie, who only smiled knowingly. "I told you my mom cooks for too many people. I'll go tell her you'll stay."

She waited for Zelda's approval before taking off, leaving Link and Zelda alone.

Zelda crossed her arms and looked accusingly at Link. "I heard you got into a little spat."

"It was nothing," Link said dismissively.

But Zelda ran the brush through her knotted hair as she spoke, almost smug. "I heard it was over me? You're not close to revealing about my identity, right?"

He rolled his eyes. "No. He said… never mind. I'd have said something to him regardless of who you are."

"Maybe I can get Ellie to tell me what he said, since you're dodging it."

"You shouldn't ask her."

"That bad?" Zelda asked with a laugh. Gossip, being talked about, and being scrutinized in any way were all things she'd become too used to and barely affected her anymore.

Link shrugged, getting comfortable against the doorframe. "I think your little friend considering running off from here next week. Her uncle told me. If she wants to run, she should know what she's running into out there."

"You'd encourage her running away?" Zelda asked, concern and curiosity creeping across her face.

"I did. It's how I became a soldier. Did I not tell you that one?"

"You told me some stories from your childhood and about your time as a trainee, but you failed to mention the in-between."

"I was about her age, maybe younger, when I ran away from home. My parents split up, my mother remarried first, and I hated the man. Then my father was killed, so I was stuck in that house. My mother died 'mysteriously' later that year and all her property went to him. I was about to be sent to live with my aunt and uncle, but I never went. I took off and never looked back. I enlisted, and they became my family instead.

"So, I can't really condemn Ellie for wanting to get out of here, but it's not the same world out there anymore."

Zelda joined Link, leaning against the other side of the doorframe when she'd fixed a good portion of her hair. She couldn't help the soft smile that came over her as she began to retreat into her memories. "She reminds me of my sister. Did you ever hear a rumor that she tried to elope?" Zelda laughed to herself. "It was partially my fault."

"I've never heard that one. What happened?" Link had to admit to himself that Zelda's laugh was refreshing.

"Well, she was sixteen, and in our profession, we aren't allowed much of a social life outside of noble children that we could potentially marry one day. It's all very contrived. My sister had just begun to realize she liked other boys, not the ones she was forced to mingle with.

"When I realized it, I might have perhaps taken her to the training yard where the young recruits who were actually her own age were training. And they might have begun to show off when they saw her."

Link laughed. "So, you were an instigator, and a matchmaker?"

Zelda shrugged innocently. "It's a shame you were never stationed at the castle. There were days when I went down to have drinks with the soldiers. They were my closest friends outside my household, and they're the reason I decided to volunteer."

"For their sakes, or because you met one you liked?"

"I liked one, but he came much later in my story," she said coyly. She could see Link's wheels turning, but not sure what to make of it, so she rolled her eyes and continued. "Well, my sister ended up talking to one of them and they grew to like each other. I found them sneaking around the castle once or twice, and then, one night, I saw them leave. I had to follow her and stopped them just before they got out of Castle Town. She hated me for so long after."

Zelda stopped and her smile fell. "If I'd let her go, she could have survived. Disgraced from the royal family, but who really cares? She could be alive."

Link watched her for a moment, hesitating for a moment before leaning forward to grab Zelda's hand. "If she were half as strong as you, she'd have gone back home as you did, and the predicament would have been the same."

Wiping a tear, Zelda turned to look outside, away from Link. "If I was half as strong as her, I'd have found a way to keep her alive. If anyone deserved a life, it was her." She let go of Link and took out the knife in her belt, twirling it around in her hands. "I'm not a warrior, but I want nothing more than to be the one who kills Ganondorf. I want to get right in front of his face the way he was in mine and watch the life leave him every passing second until he's a shell of a being. And then I want to bury my family far from our crypts because they've seen enough of the darkness in this world. I want them to be in a field, surrounded by flowers and trees and life. And one day, I want to be buried beside them so I can see them first in the Sacred Realm."

"Hey!" Ellie called, running up to them, breathless. "Food's ready. I found you both a change of clothes for the night and something for the morning that you can keep. But you owe me a story. Over dinner, tell us anything. I want to know what's going on out there!"

Zelda glanced at Link with a sly grin, which he returned. "Oh, the stories we could tell you."