AN- Sorry this took a while to get out, had finals and all that. But, I'm still super excited about this project, and especially about all the lovely feedback I've been getting on it! I have a lot planned for this, so I really hope everyone enjoys it!

Zelda stared blankly at this "angel" in front of her, in this weird vision. "Trapped? In my ring?"

He nodded. "Yep!"

"Do you care to elaborate?" Zelda asked.

"Oh, uh, right, sorry! I guess you wouldn't know about Palutena, huh?"

Palutena… the word sounded vaguely familiar, like something she'd read somewhere once. "It sounds familiar, but I can't say I know exactly what it is."

"Aww, well, that's okay! You're from the Mortal Realm, after all!"

"Mortal Realm? I beg your pardon?" Something about the way he said that made her feel somewhat offended.

"Oh, is that not what you guys call it?" Pit questioned. "Oh, yeah, it's like, Ert or something, right?"

"Earth," Zelda corrected.

The angel nodded. "Right, right! Earth. Anyways, I'm from the Light Realm! It's… well, I dunno how to say where it is in relation to here. It's somewhere else, let's leave it at that!"

"Like another dimension?"

"That sounds right!" Pit agreed. "Anyways, I'm the messenger of the Queen of the Light Realm, the Goddess Palutena!"

"She's… both Goddess and Queen?" Zelda questioned. "How is she both?"

Pit pouted. "Well if you were a Queen, you'd still be the Human Zelda and a Queen, right?"

"I suppose so- wait, how do you know my name?" She frowned a bit. Was this suspicious?

It seemed Pit noticed her trepidation, as he gulped. "I- I heard that guy you were with call you that! Sorry, I didn't mean to eavesdrop, I was just alone in there for sooooo long, I wanted to listen to everything!"

"Oh… so you can hear things from in the ring?"

"Only if someone's touching it," Pit elaborated. "Which like, no one's done in ages, so it's been a while. Last time was… oh, must have been that Magnus guy? He tried to help me, but…"

Pit trailed off, looking a bit upset. "Uh, well, anyways! I- I kinda need some help getting home? See, when I got sealed in that ring, Palutena and the Light Realm were under attack! It's probably been a long time, b-but I have to know what happened! I need to get back to her!"

"How long ago did you get sealed away, exactly?", Zelda questioned.

Pausing, Pit squinted his eyes shut, as if trying to concentrate. "Uh… I dunno… It's been a while… Probably more than a year?"

"Then, surely whatever happened is long over, right?"

"I… I know…" Pit mumbled. "She would have looked for me by now if it'd ended up well… But, I can't just stay here forever, never knowing for sure! Besides, I don't think anyone but her or Queen Bayonetta would know how to put me back in my body!"

"Queen Bayonetta?" Zelda repeated. "Who's that? Would that be someone who'd more likely still be alive?"

Pit rushed up to her as if about to hug her, but phased through her instead. "Whoa- oh, right, Spirit Realm, oops! But you're a genius! We've just gotta find Queen Bayonetta!"

Zelda laughed awkwardly. "That's great and all, but I still don't know who that is?"

"Oh, right! She's the queen of the Dark Realm!" he explained. "She's the strongest witch out there, and her magic's as strong as Palutena's! I mean, she's not too big on angels usually, but she's good friends with Palutena, so she'll definitely help me!"

"Well, that's good," Zelda conceded. "But, how exactly would I get you there?"

"Just find a portal!" Pit exclaimed, as if it was simple. "Just cast it and- oh, right. Mortal Realm. Uh, well… Plenty of people from the Light and Dark Realms travel here for fun! Find one of them and hitch a ride!"

"Alright… how would one do that?"

Pit beamed. "I have just the thing! Palutena gave me permission to give her blessings to people if need be, and it just so happens that one of her blessings is-"

He closed his eyes and held his hands in front of him, the air in front of him shimmering with a gentle blue hue. Zelda felt a weight around her neck, and looked down to see a bright, brassy compass on a chain, hanging down onto her chest. She tugged it away to look at it closer, and saw the needle wobbling every which way wildly, no matter how steady she held it.

"A compass? But what is it for?" Zelda questioned. "It must be some sort of magical object, right?"

"It sure is!" Pit exclaimed. "It's the Blessing of Guidance! It can allow mortals to use some magic, and that particular Blessing lets you locate other sources of magic with that compass!"

"Oh? That's helpful! Wait, but you gave it to me? How much will that help you?"

"I mean… I kinda don't have a choice but to rely on you," Pit admitted. "I'm sorry to spring this on you but, please, can you help me find someone who can get me back home?"

Logically, Zelda should refuse. This wasn't any of her business, and it would almost certainly be incredibly unsafe. But, Pit was looking at her with puppy dog eyes, not to mention she was very much interested in learning more about this magic stuff.

"Sure," she conceded. "I'll do my best to help, alright? But, I can't make any promises. I don't know the first thing about any of this, and I can't guarantee that I'll be much help."

He was still beaming, and started to rush to hug her again before stopping himself. "Oh, thank you so much! I promise I'll pay you back somehow, alright?"

"It's no problem," Zelda assured him. "Besides, it's not often you-"

The strange, glowing stage around her suddenly vanished, replaced with the view from the bench she'd sat down at. "H-huh?"

She looked up. Link was there, looking at her with concern. "Oh, good… you're awake… I was worried…"

"O-oh! Sorry!" she stuttered out, unsure what else to say. She couldn't just tell him all she'd just seen, right? "Uh, I just… must have been sleepy, that's all!"

He frowned. "Do you want to go home? We can go to the library another day."

"N-no!" The library was probably the best place to research magic, right? So she needed to go right away! "I'm just fine, I just didn't sleep well last night, that's all!"

Though Link looked suspicious, he shrugged as she got to her feet. "Alright. I guess we can go together, then."

"R-right! Together! It's not much farther!" She rushed ahead a bit, hoping to maybe divert suspicions.

Link cast a glance at her and raised an eyebrow. "That compass… you weren't wearing that before," he noted.

"Uh…" Shoot, what could she say? "I… bought it at the shop!"

"Oh. Didn't see that," Link muttered. "It's cool."

"Th-thank you! I thought so too!" She looked at it a bit closer, noticing similar runes to the ones on Pit's ring. "I saw it had the same runes as the ring, so I got it!"

Nodding, Link seemingly accepted her answer. "Makes sense. Probably easier to decode something with more samples."

"Mmhm!" she readily agreed. "So, er… How did the machine thing go?"

"It went fine," Link reported. "Fiora and her brother helped me get it to the house. It seems pretty interesting, but I think I'll ask that other guy who works there about it tomorrow. They said he knows a lot about it."

A guy who knew a lot about weird antique stuff and worked at the store she'd gotten the ring at, huh? Sounded like a decent source. "Oh, that's cool! I'll go with you!" she volunteered.

"Huh? But we'll just be talking about machines and stuff," Link countered. "Nothing interesting. We'd bore you."

"There's nothing boring about learning!" Zelda exclaimed. "Even if it's not something I know about yet, it's something my friend likes, so I wanna know more about it!"

That was a good reason, right? It wasn't really a lie, even, just not the whole truth. And yet, it seemed to leave Link confused. "Your… friend? Which friend?"

"You?"

Link turned away, making an odd sound. "I- I'm your friend… uh, yeah, right. Guess I blanked for a second, sorry."

Zelda smiled. "It's no problem, friend!" she teased. "There's no reason for my friend Link to feel embarrassed!"

He buried his face in his hands. "Why do I feel like I've made a huge mistake, agreeing to be your friend?"

"Aww, don't talk like that! " She frowned, dropping the joking tone. "I'll stop teasing you, I'm sorry!"

"I-it's fine!" Link assured her. "It's just new, that's all. Not used to friendly jokes like that."

He sounded almost bitter as he said that, and Zelda's stomach churned. "O-oh! Well, I promise, all jokes I make will be friendly!"

"...thanks," Link mumbled.

A voice interrupted Zelda before she could say anything. "Geeze, what's his problem?"

She panicked for a split second before remembering it was just Pit. She couldn't really talk out loud with him at the moment, so she just shook her head to try to tell him to drop it.

"Was that mean?" Pit questioned. "It was mean, wasn't it? Uh, sorry! Anyways, er, guess you can't really talk right now, huh? I'll shut up, then!"

She nodded, the best way she could think to non-verbally tell him to be quiet right now. She'd have to figure out a better way to do this whole talking to a voice inside her ring thing.

"Is this the library?" Link questioned, much to her relief. She looked up and let out a sigh of relief. There it was- it wasn't huge or fancy, but it was practically home.

"Mmhm! Come on, let's go in! There's a really great little spot for reading in here I can show you!"

"Well, we need books first, right?"

Zelda nodded. "Let me know if you need help finding anything! Oh, and you can check out whatever you need to on my card!"

"Thank you," Link said as he held the front door open for her. "Um, I'll go look for books. We can meet back up here?"

"That sounds good!" she agreed, before making a beeline straight to the nonfiction section. Now, to find the books about language, or maybe cryptology.

After a moment, she found a fair few books about decoding and ancient scripts, with a few about mythology for good measure! Her arms were totally full, to the point she could barely see as she hobbled back to the front desk. So, it wasn't very surprising when she ended up running into someone.

"O-oh! Sorry!" she exclaimed, craning her neck to see who she'd bumped into. They had short, black hair that almost looked blue in the light, and wore thick glasses. Oddly enough, she didn't recognize them at all, despite looking around her age.

They looked a bit flustered, looking away and down at the ground. "No, it was my bad," they stuttered. "Do you need help carrying those?"

"Oh, I've got it!", she assured them. "Do you live in this town? I've never seen you at the high school…"

"I- I just moved here!", they exclaimed. "S-so you wouldn't have seen me there."

She offered a kind smile. They seemed shy; understandable with having just moved to a new town! "That's great! Smashville is a lovely place, so I'm sure you'll love it here!" she assured them. "Please, let me know if you need any help settling in or finding anything!"

"Uh, thank you. I- I'll be sure to do that," they stuttered. "Uh, wh-what's your name?"

"Zelda! And yours?"

"Lu- uh, Luca. It's Luca," they stuttered. "I, um, I'll see you around. I should get going."

Luca rushed past her without another word, and Zelda smiled. They seemed nice, maybe they'd run into each other again! She really did hope they would, they seemed shy, but really cute…

"Zelda! Zelda, are you there?" Pit questioned a bit too loudly.

No one was around, so she answered him softly. "I am, why do you ask?"

"Your compass!"

Zelda looked down to see a bright glow coming from it, almost blinding her. "What-?"

Opening it up, a glowing arrow pointed ahead, to where Luca had been standing just a moment earlier.

AN- uh did I mention there are gonna be a lot of LGBTQ characters? Cause there's definitely gonna be a lot of queer characters here.