Who IS he? There was no mercy. This was no ordinary Link. This Link fought with such ferocious skill that could only have been culminated through many years well beyond what this child could have possibly lived. True to what Miro Miro had said, he could have looked no older than ten years old. Was this the magical child from the forest that she had talked about, the "son of a witch", the Kokiri?

Rowark felt his curse mark heat up rapidly the closer the boy got. He interpreted the burning pain on his hand as a warning to keep away, but the child harbored no ill intentions towards him. Rowark tried to resist as best he could, but there was no fight left in him. He attempted to lift his sword to keep the Link away, but the kid effortlessly grabbed his wrist before he could put any momentum behind his sword swing. Rather than disarming Rowark, the boy instead guided the curved blade back into its home. Even after slaughtering nineteen seasoned warriors, the Link still had enough strength left to carry Rowark on his shoulders.

Clink!

The loud click of the metal parts unleashed the shothead, propelled by magnetic forces from within the body, into something above. When the reel of rope reached the end of the coil, the reel struck the magneto, a special rock that switched magnetic forces upon being struck, which then rewound the rope with enough tensile strength to launch the boy holding the handle of the ropeshot, as well as Rowark's useless body, high into the air.

When he yanked against the ropeshot, the shothead released its grip from within the wooden frame of the window sill. The boy landed with grace on the edge and dropped Rowark into the empty, dark room. The floorboards proved a painful landing spot for Rowark's injured body, and the mold seeping from the wood was sure to corrupt one of his many cuts. "Sorry," said the Link insincerely, "I only need you alive long enough to get some answers."

Rowark crawled around searching for something to lift himself up off the musty ground, and the first thing his hands grabbed was the bedpost. He wanted to lay in bed and rest, but he felt fury build up quickly inside and exploded outward instead, "YOU!" He had felt anger before, but never like the uncontrollable immolated emotions that currently dwelled in his mind. Consumed by a burning desire to harm the child before him, he toppled onto the floor instead of diving forth as he had intended.

Nonchalantly, the Link shrugged, "Don't worry about me, worry about you."

Rowark screamed with all the force in his lungs as he struggled back onto all fours again, "You murderer!"

The Link looked away from the window and pulled out a wanted poster from inside his ripped tunic, "Really? I just saved your ugly rear from death, and all you can do to thank me is call me a murderer?"

"I'm not talking about the people you just killed today, I'm talking about the people you killed two nights ago! From the fire YOU started!" roared Rowark.

"LINK!" cried Miro Miro.

"Five people died in that fire! Five innocent lives!" Their deaths fueled the rage coursing through his veins, giving him the strength to lift himself back up onto the bed, but no more. Here he had the chance to bring justice to the criminal before him just like he had promised the girl, and yet he could not. "You killed two tailors, two apprentices, and an innocent child! And you made a twelve year old girl an orphan!"

"No," Miro Miro had such trouble wrapping around the fact that he was the very person who started the fire two nights ago, that she began to sob, "How could you… They were good people! They didn't deserve to die!"

"Oh? And how do you know that?" There was no remorse for his victims, as if he had killed too many to care, "You knew them personally?"

"It doesn't matter!" screamed Rowark, "They were innocent!"

"Really? How did you reach that conclusion? How do you know they haven't joined a hanging mob or watched a trial by fire?" Rowark's heart skipped at the mention of a trial, "If they did, would they seem any more innocent to you?"

Silence.

"But they didn't commit a crime!" responded Rowark, "The men you killed earlier could be questionably justified, but the ones who died in that fire didn't deserve to meet their end there!"

"Oh yeah? Well guess what people do, they die! People die everyday in undeserving ways. Get used to it. I have."

"So why do you get to choose that fate for them? What makes you that damn important?"

"What? Is that a riddle of some sort? I'm a Link. A nobody. No one in this city would trade a rat's rear for my soul."

"So because you're nobody, and they're somebody, you have to bring everyone down to your level of morality. Is that it?"

Link's first response was a large sigh, "You're thinking way too deeply into my life. All I want to do is wake up tomorrow."

"You don't have to survive by leaving a long trail of bodies."

"Is that so, watchman?" asked the Link, who startled Rowark since he was sure he had not revealed his profession to the stranger. "Oh don't be all that surprised, I can recognize a Queensman's leisure wear anywhere. So don't try to tell me you've never killed a man before!" Rowark's heart spiked as Link twisted the soldier's beliefs with his guilt, "Come on, you can't hide those eyes of regret. Even though you didn't want to. You got the eyes of a killer. Not because you were told to, but because it was either him, or you."

Rowark fired back, "I don't know how many men you've killed, but I have limited my body count to less than the number of fingers on my right hand!"

"It's not about how many or how little you've killed; you've done it, and now you understand, you gotta put a man down to survive every now and then, right?" Link hopped off the window sill and landed softly with his bare feet onto the musty floor, "My whole life as I knew it was based on this. I dunno me parents, and I dunno where I'm from. All I knew was that I had to survive, to live like other Links until I grew up, got a name, and then found an honest trade. Only trade where the employer never asked about my background was bounty hunting. But I don't like it. I don't wanna kill people all me life. I just wanted survive until I didn't have to anymore…"

The Link sighed and then glared at Miro Miro, "Until yesterday. I thought my purpose was to live until adulthood. And then you come into my life… and you bring all these, memories, back to me, and then I suddenly realized just before I got here that I was going to be a kid forever. That means that I gotta be a wretched Link forever. It means I gotta kill to live forever. And it means I gotta starve all the same forever. I can't even believe it's been so long that I've forgotten that I don't age."

"I-I'm sorry, " Miro Miro apologized sympathetically, "I didn't mean to-"

"'Tis history now. I'm still breathing, so… What I'm interested in, now, is how you got your scar." At first, Rowark had no idea that the Link was even talking to him. He wasn't aware of any major scars that were at least visible to the boy. "You know what I'm talking about. That burning dung stain on the back of your hand."

The sudden awareness of the focused heat exactly where the Link had pointed out suddenly made Rowark's heart race. Images of fire and sentiments of fright flooded his mind; he gulped loudly to contain the terror screaming inside him. How did he know about his curse mark? Did he know that Rowark was… "I-I I don't know what y-you're talking about!" Rowark spilled out as fast as possible.

"Haaaa!" Link's laugh sounded more like the parched cry of a toad, but it nevertheless shut down Rowark's attempt at hiding the truth, "You lie worse than a sheep pleading for its life."

"I-I s-s-still, don't, kn-kn-know what you're t-t-t-talking about." Hiding his curse from an absolute stranger was entirely worth doubling down on his ignorance and breaking the second Golden Law. No one could find out about his curse. Especially the Link. On the bounty, the Link went by many names, such as Cica, Lorelli, and Babuhell, most likely as a means to stay anonymous and mitigate his vulnerability; though, with a face as cut up as the Link's, it was hard not to stand ut even amongst other Links. Rowark, on the other hand, was so vulnerable that it only took one person, Link or otherwise, to spread a rumor that could end up sending him back to the Holy Trial once again.

The Link then peered into Rowark's bright blue eyes, as if to dig the truth out from behind them, "You know exactly what I'm talking about. Your scar, show me."

"Wha-wha… Wha- what are you talking about? My scar? Y-you must've heard wrong."

"Oh come off it! You're clutching the bandages over your right hand!" yelled the Link as Rowark cringed and held his curse mark even tighter as a last measure to safeguard his secret, "Your hand's not hurt, you're just hiding whatever's underneath it! And you know the only reason how I know?"

At first, Rowark thought the Link was asking a rhetorical question, but then the Link lifted his own bandaged left hand and revealed the faint, yellow triangle softly glowing through the wrapping. A surge of blood rushed through Rowark's body in response to his shock. "I did the same thing too. Only you changed your bandage three days ago by the looks of yours. Mine's so nasty it looks like someone pissed straight into my hand."

Is he… "N-no way…" Rowark wanted to ask the Link if he was Queer, but he decided to hold onto the question until he knew for sure, "H-how did you get yours?"

The Link answered with a hesitant sigh and left the question hanging for a long while, "I-" He stopped himself again and hesitated with silence, "I… I killed my best friend. Long ago…" The boy hung his head as if his guilt was a heavy weight attached to the end of his chin. "I guess the Goddesses wanted certainty that I would never forget the sin I committed."

"Who?" asked Miro Miro hesitantly.

… "I don't wanna talk about it."

"Well, you're the one who brought me here to figure out your curse or whatever," reminded Rowark.

"I brought you here for you to answer MY questions. I could make this process a lot more painful if I want," the Link threatened his hostage by drawing a short, woodcarver's knife and pointing the tip at his face. "Now, how did you get yours?"

"I…" an empty breath left his lungs as the memory of the Trial's fire flashed in his mind, "If I told you, it could mean my death."

The Link flipped the knife in the air, caught the blade by the tip and then chucked it at the bedpost. "Not answering my question could mean your death."

"You don't understand! It's just that, the reason I got my curse, if anyone found out, could send me to ."

"Hmph," was Link's only response. He walked to the bedpost and pulled the knife out, "Natural sinner?"

Rowark did not want to reveal specifics but was content with the answer implied by his silence. Though the Link hid a very different secret, both faced the same fate should the Temple of Hylia discover their nature.

Miro Miro chimed in with her own hypothesis, "Could it be that your marks are signs that the Goddesses have chosen you two?"

Rowark and the Link looked at each other with similar, skeptical expressions. Both of them knew that if that if Miro Miro was correct, then the Link probably most closely resembled the amoral nature of the Triforce of Power like King Ganondorf once did. As for Rowark, he knew that the Triforce of Wisdom would never choose a natural sinner such as himself as a representative of the righteous. "For what, being natural sinners?" scoffed the Link.

"I highly doubt there's anyone in this realm even worthy enough to be chosen by the Goddesses," added Rowark. Nevertheless, Miro Miro had implanted a stubborn idea that would linger in his mind incessantly.

"But," Miro Miro pressed on confidently, "the late Hero of Time had that exact same mark on his hand a hundred years ago. I'm certain of that!"

"Yes, we all know from legend, but he was born with that mark," Rowark cursed the day he was given his mark. "I was not born with this. The mark was given to me when I confessed my sin for the first time."

"Even if that were true, why would the Goddesses choose two people that could be hanged publicly tomorrow for who they are?" added the Link.

"I-I don't know," answered Miro Miro regretfully. "It's just, This is the first time I've thought about some of the remarkable coincidences shared between our events and the ones from the legend."

What Rowark's best friend was suggesting sounded almost… heretical. It defied everything that he currently believed. But then he remembered that his hatred for himself was all predicated upon the belief that being Queer was a sin. This was fact entombed within the minds of the people of the realm. Despite this, it was Rowark's deepest wish for the people he served with, lived with, and ate with to see him without the sin hiding within the devout person he promised to be for the Goddesses.

Perhaps Miro Miro was mistaken… How could a creature unaware of the harsh realities of the kingdom understand the difference in worlds between the one they shared versus the one the Hero of Time shared with Navi? Things were much simpler back then. There was only one villain, an embodiment of evil and sin, back then. One hundred years later, with just about every single man with a beating heart embodying a sin without his knowing, who was anyone to judge righteousness?

After a moment of silence, the Link threw up his hands, "I might go with the fairy on this one. It sounds stupid, but she may be onto something. I wish I knew more about the legend though…" Link was searching for the right words to conclude the sentence when something suddenly flew through the window and struck him squarely in the chest. All Rowark saw was a streak of blue light shoot across the room, all he heard was a loud thud of something blunt striking Link, and all that was left was the boy sprawled out on the floor.

The object that had struck him in the chest had bounced off and landed softly on his left hand. Rowark instantly recognized the seeker boomerang by the distinctive small, glowing, blue jewel situated in the center and by its wooden body, which meant it was Deku-made. The nasty weapon was an efficient way to knock a lightly armored man off his horse.

"Urgh," groaned the boy as he sat up and rubbed the point of impact. Once he recognized the boomerang in his hand, he said, "Huh, I was wondering where you went."

"Well, you must have touched it last," Rowark concluded, "since the light on the blue jewel means the boomerang is bound to your hand until someone else touches it." When the Link tested Rowark's theory out, the boomerang's trajectory curved sharply into the hand that threw it, catching the wood handle perfectly every time.

"So then who threw it?" the Link asked a good question. Where did it come from? "Cuz it couldn't have been me."

"Well, it's only bound to a person when one touches it with his bare skin. So I imagine whoever took it from you handled it with a glove."

"How do you know all this?"

"My last deployment was on sortie to the south woods about a season ago. Us scouts had to learn what weaponry we were dealing with before we set off. That was a common weapon used by the rebellion we fought."

The Link continued playing with his boomerang, throwing it and catching it repeatedly, as he muttered to himself, "Huh, which means that someone threw this and probably used it to… follow… and track…" The face dropped when the Link suddenly realized he was trapped in a ploy meant to find him. "Oh dung…" he mumbled before he ran for the window sill.

The Link had his ropeshot aimed upward, ready to fire, when Rowark suddenly interrupted him, "Wait! I got questions for you too!"

"Believe me, I've got a thousand more. But they'll have to wait for another time."

"Then tell me your name at least."

"Link," answered the boy reflexively.

"Your REAL name. A name that I could identify you with," Rowark clarified with a feeling that they would meet again in the future.

The Link looked downward and heaved a hesitant breath. "I am," he cut himself short to correct himself, "I was…" He slipped his cloth mask onto his face, "I am Topah."

Clink!

Once the shothead had caught a hold of something, Link disappeared out the window as quickly as he appeared to save Rowark's life.

"Waaait!" Miro Miro's crying startled Rowark, "Nooo!"

Her sudden outburst shocked Rowark, "Miro Miro…"

Tears were dripping from her floating energy like it was raining, "It's all my fault! I'm the worst guardian ever! I turned Topah into, into… a Link!"

"No!" Rowark did not know how to comfort his friend, but he had to try, "There were many reasons he ended the way he did, but none of them your fault!"

She hiccuped many times, making her sentence hard to understand, "Of course it's my fault! I spent twenty eight years away from him, and now I may have to spend an eternity to turn him back to the way he was!"

"Listen! There are some hard, hard truths about how this world works. I want to protect you and help you, but you are wasting your time with that kid!"

"I want to believe that Topah is still good inside, maybe. Is seeing the good in people wrong?" Miro Miro stubbornly fired back, "I want to believe that if the city corrupted him, that I can uncorrupt him! Is that so wrong of me to believe?"

"You are-" Rowark heaved a heavy breath when realized he was about to call his best friend naïve, but when he heard the loud rumbling of footsteps thumping beneath the floorboards, he went back into fight or flight mode. "Hide!" he urgently told his friend, who did so with equal urgency inside a vase sitting on a hanging shelf across the room.

It was not long before he could hear faint shouts softly filtering past the door. Though his hand shot for the handle of his scimitar, he knew the only way his body would allow him to fend off the attackers was to poke away at them. As the rumbling of heavy footsteps came barreling up the stairs, his heart raced with anxiety. This much was certain, whoever was searching for the Link was going to be in for a surprise.

Once the footsteps reached the top floor, Rowark could hear voices shouting distinctly across the door. Every time there was a sudden, loud breaking of a door, someone would yell in response, "Clear!" which was the watchman's code word that the suspect at large was not in the room. Rowark released the grip on his sword in relief knowing that law enforcement, and not the Zellink Alliance, was on its way to find him.

Nevertheless, when the door burst wide open, and the first wave of spears blue capes pushed through the doorway shouting, "Someone's here!" Rowark was surprised to see Nayru's Judge and a mysterious masked fellow follow them in.

It was an odd sight to see the Queen's personally picked master of the courts working side by side with what looked like a bounty hunter. Rowark had a hard time discerning the gender and age of the person underneath the tight leather chest armor and the black facemask, but the diverse set of tools hanging all over the hunter's personnel implied this was far from his or her first time working for the judge.

"I'm a watch! I'm one of you!" submitted Rowark as he raised his hands.

The old man glared fiercely at Rowark before scanning the dark, empty bedroom. The first watchmen who entered the room started to search above and below every piece of furniture. Impatiently, Sir Mawar asked his men, "Anything?"

The leader of the search party, a tall, thick bearded man known as the lance knight, responded, "Nothing, Sir."

Sir Mawar turned to the bounty hunter behind him, "Are you certain the boomerang flew into this floor?" The masked person nodded. The judge scoffed in response, "Damn! He's as slippery as he is small."

"Who is, Sir?" asked the lance knight.

The eyes of Nayru's Judge scared the knight into submission quicker than an axeman beheaded the guilty. Just when the lance knight turned back to continue searching, the Judge roared, "Leave us." Every watchman turned to him promptly, saluted, and then hurried out the door.

However, Sir Mawar remained in the dark, pacing around the moldy bedroom with a furrowed brow, as if his temper was going to explode at any point, "And WHAT were my precise instructions to you before you decided to throw your life away to the Goddesses?" Rowark looked away from Sir Mawar's piercing gaze. "That was not a rhetorical question."

Against the painful cuts in his body, Rowark defended himself, "I couldn't do nothing while injustice was happening before my very eyes!"

Which did not phase the old paladin one bit, "Answer. The question."

"... Don't be a hero," Rowark capitulated.

"That precisely," Sir Mawar paused to add emphasis to the word, "means do nothing as injustice happens before your very eyes." His answer shocked Rowark beyond belief. How could this man call himself the highest judge of the realm yet hold permissive attitudes towards injustice?

"How can I call myself a protector of the realm while idly standing by!?" Perhaps it was left over from the emotional encounter with Link, but Rowark's disrespectful outburst was shut down by the decorated veteran's downward glare. Only then did Rowark realize that he did not deserve the disrespect Rowark had just shown him.

The old man cleared his throat in response, "I understand your passion," though he sounded more dismissive than he did empathetic. "I was once like you, invigorated with a burning desire for justice," he recalled a happy but distant moment, "When I was appointed to be a Her Grace's guard many decades ago. I was elated and filled with a vigorous sense of duty, anticipating great honor by fulfilling all her personal favors…

"But the former Queen I served under soon showed me exactly what it meant to protect that woman sitting on the throne, as well as the kingdom," reminisced the old man. "Protecting her meant solidifying alliances. Solidifying alliances meant gaining leverage. Gaining leverage…" the Judge sauntered to the one open window in the room, the one Link used to get in and out, and let the dimmed skylight highlight his silver mane, "meant many things. Sometimes it meant helping to rescue important members of the peerage; sometimes it meant arranging for a member of peerage to be eliminated.

"Peace in the realm did not come without a bloodless price, but the greatest lesson I learned from my tenure as a royal guard was this: the order of the Queen's laws, also the Goddesses' laws, has a limit. I'm sure you are aware of this by now. Our armies are scattered all over Hyrule fighting marauders, highwaymen, and worse off, the Horde, so we only have a limited amount of manpower and reserves to protect the city. The courts of Hyrule are so overburdened, I have to install more judges to handle the growing number of pending casings and expand our holding cells.

"The point is not that our justice system is incapable, but that it is more efficient to prosecute cases with the most impact. As mere mortals, there is a limit to how much each of us can help protect the peace in our vast kingdom. Rather than directly intervening against small crimes, we utilize the capabilities of Her Majesty's court system to its fullest potential to enforce punishments and ensure such small crimes are never committed again."

"Before or after almost a score of men have had their way with a widowed wife and her daughter?" seethed Rowark, who was no longer stranger to Sir Mawar's sophisticated excuses for questionable behavior.

Sir Mawar closed the blinds, drowning the small bed room in darkness; the only light let in came in from through the door and revealed the scar hiding underneath his silver beard. "After you become the perfect witness to begin House Praetenmore's downfall," he said remorselessly as the torch light from outside the door illustrated the age behind his faded blue pupils, "I am going to ask you this once. And only once."

Rowark swallowed hard in response.

With both eyes staring into Rowark's soul, Sir Mawar asked him, "Can I trust you to follow my lead?"

Rowark looked downward to hide his visible hesitation, knowing full well what the judge was asking of him. As if his curse had not encouraged him to question the rules of society already, he was now being asked to participate in political subterfuge. "I'm sorry, Sir. I will behave more knightly from now on."

But his answer left the judge unsatisfied, "Can I trust you?"

"Fine! Yes!" Rowark capitulated. The old man smirked as he walked toward the room exit. There were too many unanswered questions surrounding Sir Mawar's very presence in this room to let the old man slip away. Just as Sir Mawar was mid step out the threshold, Rowark managed to slip a question, "I take it you did not come here to lecture me, so what exactly brought you here?"

The old man stopped in his tracks. "I have no obligation to answer that question."

The bounty flashed into Rowark's head. "It's the Link you're after."

Rowark's guess stirred the judge's attention around, "Do you know something I don't know about him?"

The squire merely grinned wryly in response. Topah. The name no one else knew.

The master face reader smiled back, "If you want to play that game, you'll have to learn the rules." His eyes quickly scanned the room's entirety. "Or else," he said once he stepped across the threshold, "people you love will be hurt." He another step out the door and the turned to order the watch squad outside, "Bring Sir Rowark to the infirmary. Then, find the fairy accompanying him and bring her to me. It gives off a pink light. Won't be hard to find in there."

Instantly, Rowark's heart spiked, and Miro Miro popped out of her hiding spot from the shelf. That was why Sir Mawar closed the blinds. She shared a panicked look at Rowark, and then both of them looked at Sir Mawar, who was looking the other way. Without a second thought, Miro Miro flew straight toward his body as fast as she could and managed to slip inside the man's leather, personal pouch resting on his leather sash, just as the blue cloaks marched past the Judge to carry out his orders.

I didn't think of that. She'll be safe, but… for how long? Rowark was only filled with worry and pain as four watchmen picked him up and carried him out the door.