A few quick notes:

1. This story is rated T due to some very violent content.

2. The story is actually completed, and I intend to post a new chapter weekly.

3. I don't own any Legend of Zelda character or setting. I'm just borrowing them and I hope Nintendo won't mind too much.

4. Thank you so much for reading (and for reviewing)!

Announcement!

In a desperate and shameless ploy to get more feedback, I have created a forum to discuss this story. I'm guessing it won't be used, but I'm hoping to be wrong. You can check it out by using the link to my forums in my profile. I'll keep an eye on it and gladly answer any question, as long as I can do so without spoiling the rest of the story.

Chapter 8: The Heroes of Time

"Cute trick, Poe!" The Hero of Time said.

Link looked behind him in a hurry, his heart racing. A Poe? They didn't exist, did they? He did not see anything behind him, and automatically assumed the Poe had made itself invisible.

"Where is it?" He cried out in a panic, getting up and shifting from one foot to another, trying to decide which way to run. "I can't see it! WHERE IS IT?"

"Oh cut it out! I'm talking about you, and I don't think a Poe would be afraid of another one!" The Hero said. "Are you trying to look like me? It's not much of a job if you are!"

Link turned his eyes back on his past self, who released the arrow he had been aiming at him. Link threw himself back on the ground and cried out, dearly hoping that he was wrong and that the insane archer was not himself, and that he would miss him. Link did not feel any arrow hitting him and concluded the archer did miss. He got up with his palms facing away from himself in a peaceful gesture. His past self frowned at him in a puzzled way.

"Please don't hurt me!" Link pleaded. "I'm not a Poe! I just…"

"You're transparent and you appeared out of nowhere." The Hero said, readying another arrow. A yellow light flew away from him and started circling Link. From close up, Link saw it was a fairy and instinctively jerked back and batted at it. The problem of his past self aiming an arrow at him was driven clear out of his mind by the more immediate danger of having a fairy close-by. He didn't even register what the archer had just said.

The fairy circled him a few times, flying right between his arms as he tried to hit it, following him as he tried to back away, and completely ignoring his yelling at it to get away. Link was curled in a ball, whimpering, by the time it finally went back to the Archer.

"I can't see any weak spot. I... I'm not sure it's a Poe. It could be another kind of ghost." It said.

It took all of Link's willpower to look up again. Having a fairy nearby would have been quite enough to scare him out of his wits. Being aimed at with a loaded bow, even before he knew there was a fairy around, had been doing the trick just fine as well - arrows were notoriously pointy and sharp. The idea that he was a ghost was just too much to handle on top of it: ghosts were worst than dead, they were undead. If Link had to pick which one of his fears scared him the most, the undead and the possibility of becoming undead himself would have been it, hands down.

It didn't occur to him that if Zelda was right and his body was still in its own time, he could look like a ghost without being dead.

"G…Ghost? M… Me?" He asked weakly.

The archer's eyes widened as he looked at him, and he burst out laughing, bent double over his horse, who somehow looked amused too. Link forgot to be scared long enough to be insulted.

"What's so funny?" He demanded. "What makes you think I'm a ghost?"

The Hero of Time only laughed harder. The fairy, on the other hand, flew inches in front of his face and pouted at him very sternly. Link backed away, but the fairy, undeterred, started to tell him off.

"Quit it with the denial business! If you are not a ghost, why can we see through you and why did that arrow go right through you, hmm? Maybe if you just try putting it in a bottle right away, Link."

This last comment, at least, made the boy on the horse stop laughing. He suddenly looked very downcast.

"The old witch won't take him." He sighed. "Why can't I find that last Big Poe again? Just one more...!"

The fairy flew back to him and talked low to him. Link couldn't hear what they were saying, but it seemed to work: the young man cheered up.

"Err..." Link said, trying to get his attention.

Now that the fairy was a few steps away and that there were no arrows pointed at him anymore, he felt much better. Even being called a ghost didn't seem as much of a big deal: obviously, the fairy and the Hero were just wrong. Link figured they might have been spooked by his appearing out of nowhere.

"Oh, right." The Hero said, looking back at him. He started laughing again.

Link rolled his eyes and pondered announcing Ganon would keep coming back, just to wipe the smile off the Hero's face. He resisted, barely.

"I need help." He said instead.

The young man stopped laughing long enough to look a bit concerned and to ask what he needed help with. He ruined it, however, by starting to chuckle again before Link could answer.

"Or maybe you just need help to stop being afraid of yourself!" He cackled.

"I'm not afraid of myself!" Link protested. "I'm not a ghost! Wait…" The truth had suddenly dawned on him. "Zelda said my body didn't go anywhere…" He thought aloud. "So I'm just my spirit! That's why I look like a ghost!"

"Zelda?" The hero said, almost falling off his horse. He dismounted instead and walked up to Link. He tried to grab him by the shoulders, but his hands went through him.

"That's strange." Link remarked. "My other past self pulled me out of…"

"When did you see the Princess?" The Hero interrupted him. "Ganondorf doesn't have her? She's okay?"

Link blinked at his past self, completely confused for a moment. He then realized the Hero must be thinking he was talking about the Zelda from this time.

"Oh! No, sorry." Link said. "I mean MY Zelda. From MY time. I'm from really far in the future. Like I said, I'm here because I need help."

The Hero's eyes widened.

"Why do you need help?" He asked. "And who are you?"

"I'm your future self." Link said. "We're the same person, so how about you stop making fun of me, hmm?"

"Sorry. It's just... a ghost who gets all panicky when ghosts are mentioned... it was too funny." He said, grinning. "So, you're my great great great great great grandson or something?"

"No." Link said. "Not as far as I know, anyway. I'm YOU. Reborn. And I'm NOT a ghost!" He sighed. "It's not important. I need to find the Sages."

The other Link raised his eyebrows.

"Why?" He asked, suddenly sounding suspicious.

"I need them to fix the Master Sword. It's broken." Link explained.

The Hero's eyes widened and he quickly drew the Master Sword from behind his shoulder. A quick inspection revealed, of course, that it was fine. He frowned at Link, but then smacked his forehead and groaned.

"In the future." He said. "It's broken in the future, right? You'd think I'd be used to that stuff by now."

Link nodded. "So, I need the Sages." He repeated.

"They can't leave the temples until I defeat Ganondorf." The Hero said. "I'm going to the Castle now, I was just trying to get that Poe one last time. The old witch promised me something good, and I figured it might help against Ganondorf."

Link had no idea what he was talking about, but he did understand that the Hero was saying the Sages could not come with him. He frowned thoughtfully.

"Besides..." His past self started.

Link frowned deeper. He had a feeling he knew what was coming, and he didn't want to hear it.

"Do you really think you can bring them back with you? I mean... you can't even touch anything."

Link's eyes widened. This hadn't been what he had expected, but it was arguably worse. If the Hero of Time had argued it was not a good idea to bring people into the future, Link could have argued back and rationalized that it was the only choice he had left. But if his past self was right (and Link guessed he was), if he could not bring people with him at all, there was nothing to argue. He sighed and sagged on the spot, completely discouraged.

The other Link bursting out laughing again would not have improved his mood, but it would have been better than the disgusted sigh he did instead. Link looked up at him and fantasized again about telling him Ganon would just keep coming back after he defeated him.

"I can't believe we're related." The Hero of Time said. "You're afraid of ghosts, the best you can do when someone shoots at you is beg them to stop, and now you're giving up? What's wrong with you?"

"We're not just RELATED! We're the same person!" Link snarled. "And this is a HUGE problem! Now I'll never find Sages! And even if I did, I don't even know if they CAN fix the Sword! And even if they can, it didn't even work last time! And I KNOW I'm not much of a Hero! It's not like I have a choice! You think I WANT to fight G..."

Link stopped himself just in time. As angry as he was with his past self, he did not actually want to tell him Ganon would never really go away.

The color was draining from the Hero's face. "Ganondorf?" He guessed. "He's there in the future? I'm going to lose?"

"Of course not!" Link said vehemently. "It's not Ganondorf. What's his name again… G... G... Gorag!"

"Gorag." The Hero of Time repeated. "You're sure?"

"Yes. Gorag. I remember now. Come on. I wouldn't ask YOU for help if you lost." Link improvised.

"So, I'm going to win?" The Hero asked.

"Yep." Link said with a wide smile.

The Hero of Time grinned, having obviously decided to believe him.

"Cool." He said. "Hey, what happens after? Do I stay an adult? I find it confusing, but I'll get used to it. Thing is, Saria is going to miss me for 7 years, isn't she? But if I go back, am I going to have to live through Ganondorf doing all that stuff?"

Link stared at him.

"No idea." He said truthfully. "You're a kid? Well, that explains a lot… "

The Hero tutted at him, but he was smiling.

"You should be nicer to me: I have an idea to solve your problem." He said.

Link raised an eyebrow doubtfully.

"Like what?" He said. "I need the Sages and I can't take them with me!"

"We don't know for sure you can't take the Sages with you." The Hero corrected him. "But I don't think you should, anyway. Doesn't seem like a good idea."

Link sighed.

"Yeah, I know, but I don't have a choice! I have to try, but how? I can't even touch them!"

Link sagged a bit more, wishing he could just curl up in a little ball without his past self laughing at him or worse, telling him off again. He didn't like the idea of someone who was basically himself thinking he was worthless, and it was just embarrassing to be moralized by a prehistoric version of himself who was actually a child in a young adult's body. His heroic efforts not to completely give in to his misery went unnoticed: the Hero sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Yeeesh." He said. "There you go again! You think those temples were easy? Nuh-huh. That Water Temple was bad even before Dark Link showed up! And when I first went back home, Saria was gone! And everybody else was hiding in their houses because there were monsters all over the place! And even before that, I saw the Deku Tree DIE! And everyone thought it was MY fault! And Princess Zelda! Just as I find out she's alive, Ganondorf gets her! Bad things happen, okay? You just have to deal with it! I can't believe you're about to cry just because you need to fix the Master Sword!"

Link lowered his eyes, partly out of embarrassment and partly so he didn't have to look at his past self, who was now the one who looked like he was about to cry. He didn't need to understand exactly what he was talking about to get the gist of it, and he could understand why his past self was so disgusted with him: he was a kid, even if he didn't look like it, and he had obviously gone through a lot more than Link himself had, at least in this life.

"What's your idea?" He said, mostly to change subject.

"I've got medallions with the Sages' powers in them." The Hero said, sounding almost cheerful again. "I could hide them somewhere, and you'd just have to go get them in your own time. Think you can manage that?" He teased.

"Yes." Link said. "But you're going to have to hide them really well. And I have to be able to find them, so we need a place that won't change. Not even in hundreds and hundreds of years."

"Hundreds and hundreds? You're from that far away? How do you know I won, then?"

"It's only the Hero right before me that lost. All the others won."

"The one before you lost? What happened?"

"G... Gorag took over." Link said, refusing to elaborate into all the deaths that had followed.

The color drained from the Hero's face again anyway.

"Did he kill anyone? Ganondorf froze the Zora domain, and I don't know if they're going to come back to life when they thaw. He fed the Gorons to a dragon, too, and even though Darunia denies it, I can tell I didn't save all of them. There's a lot less than before. He killed a whole bunch of people in Castle Town, too. Some of them escaped to Kakariko, but Castle Town had more people than that."

Link realized denying any deaths at all had occurred would be foolish: the Hero would never buy it. Still, there was no need to let the Hero know exactly how bad things were and how long they had been that way.

"It's not that bad." He lied. "He kills people who don't obey him, but that's only a few every now and then."

"That's bad enough! Why haven't you stopped him yet?" The Hero demanded. He looked horrified.

"I need the Master Sword." Link reminded him.

"Well, let's get working on fixing it, then." The Hero said, his expression changing from horror to resolve. "Let's see… where to hide the medallions… how about the Deku Tree clearing?"

"I never heard of it. I heard of Deku Scrubs, but they're not even real, so…"

"What do you mean, not real? I've fought some. And I've bought some Deku Sticks from one, once. He ripped me off, too."

Link shrugged.

"Maybe they're all dead, or hiding." He said. "How about close to the Master Sword's altar?" He suggested.

The Hero thought about it for a while.

"What?" Link asked. "Scared to go in the Lost Woods?" He teased.

"Lost Woods? I grew up there, but what does that have to do with anything? The altar for the Sword is in the Temple of Time."

Link cursed. The sword hadn't always been in the Woods? Now what? Unless it hadn't moved, unless it was the Forest that had moved… It was a rather slim hope, and Link half suspected he was imagining things, but he thought he could vaguely remember finding the ruins of a Temple of Time in the Lost Woods, in some other life.

"Maybe the Woods just grew over where the Temple is." He said hopefully.

"You think that's possible?" The Hero asked. "The Temple is in Castle Town, and that's pretty far from the Lost Woods."

"I don't know!" Link sighed. "But I don't know what else than that altar isn't going to change!"

The Hero rolled his eyes.

"Quit whining already! Look, we'll just assume the altar didn't move. If that doesn't work, then we'll try to think of something else. Now, next problem: I can't bury them in the temple next to the altar, because there is a marble floor and it will be obvious there's something buried there if I break a chunk of it."

They both crossed their arms, trying to think of a solution.

"I'll bury it outside and you'll have to count steps from the altar." The Hero said after a few minutes.

"What if I can't find them?" Link asked. "Maybe the altar is going to move, or maybe someone else is going to find them."

"Tell you what. You go back to your time and try to find them, and then you come back here and let me know if it worked or if we need a better hiding place."

Link liked that plan, and they immediately started working. The Hero "helped" him on his horse, and brought him to a town next to the Castle.

They had to dismount before entering the town, because the horse could not manage the broken draw bridge. The Hero continued on foot, but stopped after a few steps and turned toward Link, who was following.

"You're afraid of ghosts, aren't you?" The Hero asked. "I mean, I think it's stupid, but..."

Link frowned at him and his upper lip curled a bit.

"I'm asking because the town is full of re-dead." The Hero said.

Link's eyes widened and he started shaking. The Hero had a strong impression that if his future self had been in his body, he would have fainted at the very idea. He snorted at him.

"Yeah, I figured. All right, wait here. I'll come back and let you know where I'll be putting them."

Link nodded, feeling very relieved despite the embarrassment.

The Hero was back very quickly, too quickly for Link's reckoning.

"100 steps east, 50 steps north." The Hero announced. "I'll bury them after defeating Ganondorf."

Link was taken aback by the delay. The Hero read his expression correctly and explained himself.

"I might need them for the fight."

"Oh." Link said. "But what if they get broken during the fight?"

"Why would they? Don't worry, it'll be fine."

"We don't know that!"

"Sorry. But I can't assume I won't need them. The Sages gave them to me especially to help me fight Ganondorf."

Link sighed in resignation.

"Right." The Hero concluded. "So, you need to come back to see me AFTER I defeated Ganondorf. I don't know if I'll still be this age, but I don't forget anything when I go back to my own time, so even if I'm a kid again, I'll remember you. So, you might be visiting me in the past, but I'll know what happened 7 years later, so it's okay."

Link blinked at him.

"After you beat Ganondorf." He said, repeating the only part of what the Hero said he really understood.

He closed his eyes and concentrated on going back to his own time. When he opened them again, it was completely dark and he could barely make out Zelda kneeling in front of him.

"We need to go to the altar, then go east for 100 steps, then go north for 50 steps. There should be medallions buried there." He summarized.

"What do we need medallions for?" Zelda asked. "Where are the Sages? You changed your mind again?"

Link explained everything to her. Since they could not very well search for the medallions in the middle of the night, they decided to try and rest. They both slept sporadically: there were some particularly close-by screams that night and even in between them, it was difficult to forget them and relax enough to go to sleep.

Ganon was not happy. He had spent the night walking the edge of the Lost Woods near the Hero and the Princess's town, cursing his inability to go into the forest itself. Ever since the last Hero, the Lost Woods had banned him from themselves, and try as he might, Ganon could not even take one step past the dense edge of the Woods.

Therefore, he was stuck outside and his enemies were safe from him as long as they stayed in the accursed forest. Ganon had killed every Hyrulian he had encountered, hoping their screams would draw out the Hero, but the sun was now rising and the Hero had not taken the bait. It hadn't been much of a bait, anyway: hardly anyone ever went near the Lost Woods and Ganon had only found five victims.

Ganon had thought of sending his monsters into the Forest, since he could not go himself, and could not remember any rational reason not to do so. He vaguely remembered shrugging off the idea, but when he tried to think of why he had done so, the only explanation he found was that he found it humiliating that his minions, his inferiors, could do what he could not. Given how important it was, such a reason was not nearly good enough. Ganon could see this clearly now that it was too late.

It wasn't the first time that his mind played such tricks on him: every now and then, he just seemed to become completely irrational, and what's worse, he would absolutely not realize it until later. He'd go about his business, making completely insane decisions and thinking they were perfectly reasonable. Hours or days later, he'd look back and see so plainly that what he had done made no sense that he could not even remember why it had seemed perfectly logical or at least acceptable at the time. Ganon did not think this kind of thing had always been going on. As near as he could tell, it had started some 300 years ago. He had made mistakes before, he had underestimated the Hero countless times, but those had been due to errors in judgment, not to a temporary complete lack of judgment.

Before the Hero had escaped his bottle, Ganon had welcomed those episodes: they added a welcomed bit of randomness to an otherwise very predictable life. Tonight, however, was absolutely infuriating. If his wits had not taken such a badly timed leave of absence, the Hero might be dead this morning. Ganon hissed at himself and resolved to send the monsters into the forest the following night. He would have liked to be able to send them in immediately, but they wouldn't have lasted an hour before disintegrating in the daylight. He couldn't send the Presidential Guards, either, because they were so terrified of the Woods that they would surely prefer to be executed than to go in there. Ganon briefly considered asking them anyway, and executing them upon their refusal just for the fun of it, but he had to give up on the idea. Soldiers, unlike monsters, might unite against him and start refusing all his orders if he treated them too poorly, and Ganon did not need the extra irritant. He returned his body to his lair and sent his spirit back to the President's body.

The sun rising indicated to Link and Zelda which way was East, and from the altar, they took a hundred step, cutting through the forest since the treeless corridor was oriented south. They turned left and walked another 50 steps, to end up almost right next to a patch of wild flowers blooming splendidly despite the tree canopy which blocked out most of the light.

"They have to be there." Zelda said. "Those flowers..."

Link saw nothing special about a bunch of wildflowers, but he started digging. Sure enough, he found six medallions in a bag buried about three feet into the ground. He took them out of the bag and held them out to Zelda, grinning. Her frown erased his smile.

"What?" He asked in a worried voice.

"There should be seven." She answered. "There were seven first Sages. Where is the missing one?"

"Maybe those six will be enough." Link said, trying to sound encouraging.

"They might, but I'm still worried about the seventh one." Zelda said. "What if Ganon has it? That would make him even more powerful."

"I'm going to go ask The Hero if there was six or seven." Link said. He also intended to confirm the medallions had some kind of power with his past self: they looked pretty ordinary to him. "We can decide what to do after."

"Alright." Zelda said. She might as well have not said anything: Link was already gone.

Link, as instructed, was aiming for the victorious Hero of Time, in times of peace following Ganondorf's defeat.

When Link opened his eyes, the age old trees of the Lost Woods had been replaced by a clearing with a single, small tree in it. Link had yet to get used to disappearing from his present and appearing in a different place, into the past, and figured he would always find it a bit disorienting. In the present case, the fact that the tree facing him had a face and seemed to be looking right at him didn't make his surroundings any less alien.

Link stared at the tree, wondering where the Hero was. He was just starting to relax and figure the Hero was bound to be somewhere close when the tree said something, in a language Link could not even identify.

Link literally jumped at the sight of the carved mouth moving and at the sound that came out of it. He baked away from the tree, his heart beating madly and his hair standing on end.

The tree talked again.

Link screamed and backed away faster, practically running backward. He quickly lost his balance and fell. He got up and turned away from the tree in order to run from it faster, only to find himself facing some kind of huge carnivorous plant, stretched towards him and chomping away, in an obvious attempt to eat him. Next to that plant were two other similar ones. Link jumped back with a yelp and after consideration, figured he'd take his chances with the plant that had tried to talk to him rather than with the ones that were trying to eat him.

He turned back towards the tree and slowly walked towards it, while scanning the area for another exit to the clearing. As he had expected, there were none. He started talking in a soft, peaceful voice to the tree, like he would have for a wild animal he had been unable to stay away from.

"Nice tree... nice tree... you don't want to eat me... I'm just skin and bone... I'm not going to hurt you, I just want to get away from these biting flowers there... you don't mind, right? I'm going to leave you alone as soon as I figure out how to get past them. How's that?"

The tree looked at him and listened for a while as Link went on and on. Finally, as Link was once again right in front of him, he talked again, this time straight to the boy's head, since he obviously didn't speak Hylian.

"I am the Great Deku Tree," he said.

The boy gasped and looked around, looking for the source of the voice.

"I'm talking through your mind." the Tree explained. "It's telepathy."

"Wha... what's that?"

"Talking mind to mind without using your voice. It also bypasses language."

"You're talking to my mind?"

"Yes." The Tree confirmed patiently.

"And you're the Great Deku Tree?"

"Yes."

"And... you're... alive?"

"All trees are. If you meant to ask whether I am capable of coherent thought and language, the answer is yes."

"You're alive," Link repeated, desperately trying to get used to the idea. He finally opted for a strategy that would take care of the fact it was a tree talking to him and of the fact the tree was talking right to his brains: he closed his eyes and pretended he was talking to a normal person in a blacked out room.

"Do you know where the Hero of Time is?" He asked, remembering the Hero had mentioned the Great Deku Tree.

"Why should I tell a stranger whose motives are unclear where someone like that might be?"

"Hey!" Link protested. "I'm a Hero of Time too! And I just want to TALK to him!"

"There is only one Hero."

"There's a whole lot of them! A new one shows up each time…" Link stopped himself just in time again. Not mentioning Ganon was harder than he would ever have thought: he had grown up in a world that knew Ganon always comes back, and people talked about the dozens of time he had been defeated without a second thought. "…each time he's needed. I'm one from the future." He concluded.

"A big boy like you, who is afraid of both myself and of the DekuBabas, who looks every bit like he might be afraid of his own shadow, the Hero of Time? I think not. You should leave, whoever you really are."

Link started to answer something less than friendly, but was interrupted by the feeling of something pointy poking him in the back. He yelped and stayed very still, until he heard his past self bursting out laughing. He turned around angrily, and tried batting the stick he had been poked with, only for his ghostly hand to go right through it. He felt it, but he could not actually touch it. He groaned.

"It's okay, Great Deku Tree." The Hero said. "He's armless, and I'm pretty sure he's telling the truth."

The Deku Tree answered in the language Link could not understand, moving his mouth again.

"Yeah, I know. He's still trying though." The Hero answered.

"You can understand what it says?" Link asked his past self.

"Why wouldn't I?" The Hero asked. "Don't you?"

Link shook his head.

"But I'm talking the same language the Great Deku Tree is, and you understand me, right?"

Link nodded. The Hero shrugged.

"It must be because we're the same person." The Hero said. "Kind of, anyway. Remember when we last met, I thought you were my great great great grandson or something? I didn't really understand reincarnation back then. I've looked into it since."

"You did?" Link asked. "How long ago was that? When you saw me, I mean? You look the same age. Wait, you thought you were going to become a kid again, didn't you?"

"I did become a kid again, about seven years ago. I've been wondering whether you found the medallions. I was assuming you would have come back if you hadn't, and I was kind of upset you didn't bother to confirm you did."

"Sorry. I guess I arrived now because I was thinking of you as an adult. I found some of them... how many did you bury?"

"None." The Hero answered with a mischievous grin. He paused for effect, enjoying the face his future self was making, before continuing. "Zelda buried them. She wouldn't tell me why, but she said it was better that way. She would have buried all six of them. Did you find all of them? I got a thing that's supposed to let you talk to her from back then if you didn't find them. It's no good talking to her now, she doesn't remember anything she did before. She doesn't even believe me about Sheik!" The Hero chuckled to himself.

Link nodded, very relieved. He hadn't paid much attention to anything the Hero had said, other than the fact there were just six medallions.

"Zelda thought there should be seven, and that…" Link paused a second, trying to remember the fake name he had given Ganon. He quickly gave up. "…our enemy might have the last one. I still can never remember his name." He finished.

"Ganon." His past self said with a cocky grin.

Link's face fell before he could compose an air of denial. The Hero laughed and waved the matter off.

"Princess Zelda told me we only sealed him, it's okay. And your Zelda is right, there WERE seven Sages. The Princess never created a medallion."

"Wait. You don't even care that he's back?" Link asked.

"Well I'd rather he wasn't, especially since you told me he's been controlling Hyrule for a while. I've seen what he can do in just seven years, and it must have been at least double that this time, since you had to actually be reborn and to grow up, but at least, from what you said, he's not killing much this time around."

The Hero paused. It was depressing and he didn't really like to think about it, but when it came right down to it, there was nothing more he could do about it than help his future self set things right.

"The way I see it, I can sulk for the rest of my life or take comfort in the fact you said you came from really far into the future and that Hyrule will be free of Ganon for a long time before suffering again."

Link swallowed and decided to quickly change the subject before he betrayed how much worse things were than he had led his past self to believe.

"So… the Princess was the last Sage? Zelda? And she didn't make a medallion?"

"That's right."

"And the medallions… they have some kind of powers?" He asked.

"Don't look like much, do they?" The Hero asked, smiling. "Yeah, they've got power."

"Alright." Link said, still a bit unconvinced. "Well, let's hope six will be enough."

"Your Zelda may be able to help too." The Hero said.

Link nodded, trying to hide his lack of enthusiasm.

"Thank you." He said. He then concentrated on his own time and vanished from the Deku Tree clearing.

When Link reopened his eyes, he was back in the Lost Woods, with Zelda looking at him with a puzzled expression.

"I still have them." She said. "Didn't you tell him to hide them somewhere else, that one was missing?"

"There's supposed to be only six." Link answered, sitting up. "The Princess was a Sage and she didn't make one."

Zelda looked down and frowned slightly, obviously pondering what to do with the information.

"We're just going to have to try with the six." Link said.

She nodded.

"I'm trying to think of what we'll do if it doesn't work." She said.

Link tutted at her pessimism, more to fight his own than anything else. He guided her back to the Master Sword, taking 100 steps West and 50 South.

They walked to the altar and stared at the medallions and at the sword for a while.

The medallions did not spontaneously fix the sword, so they piled them on top of the altar and waited.

Nothing happened.

They spread them across the altar so that they touched as much of the sword as possible and waited.

Nothing happened.

They scratched their heads.

"Maybe we have to say something." Link suggested.

"You mean, ask them to fix the sword?"

"Err... medallions...? Please fix the sword?" Link asked.

"Please?" Zelda added.

Nothing, as near as Link or Zelda could tell, happened. In actuality, the medallions glowed very, very faintly.

"Maybe we need to pray." Zelda said.

Link goggled at her. He had heard the word before, and as far as he knew, it basically meant begging to the Goddesses. He had never seen the point: the Goddesses had left Hyrule a long time ago, and they couldn't possibly hear people begging at them from wherever they were.

"It can't hurt." Zelda said, shrugging. "Those Sages may hear us and activate the medallions. Look, I'm out of ideas." She added defensively.

"How is begging the Goddesses going to make dead Sages help us?"

"Not beg, pray. And not the Goddesses, aren't you listening? We need to pray to the Sages."

"You can do that?"

"Why not?"

Link shrugged.

"What do I do?" He asked.

Zelda sighed. She was not exactly an expert at praying herself, although she was at least familiar with the concept, having run across it constantly through history texts: assistance from the Goddesses and from other powerful beings seemed to often be required in the fight against Ganon.

"Just repeat after me." She said. Link nodded.

She took a deep breath, and started improvising something that sounded like a formal request for assistance, addressing it to the Sages who had bestowed the medallions unto the Hero of Time. Link dutifully repeated everything she said.

They were at it for a few minutes, and Zelda was running out of ways to repeat herself with some kind of variety, when the medallions started shining fiercely. She was so stunned that she forgot to continue to pray.

It did not matter. The medallions were soon shining so brightly that it was impossible to look at them without being blinded. The light was so bright, in fact, that neither she nor Link noticed Zelda was glowing too. She closed her eyes, and still had to cover them with her hands and turn her head to shield her eyes from the powerful light. Even then, she still knew it instantly when it vanished.

She looked back at the altar expectantly and let out a cry of joy: the sword was complete again, embedded in the Pedestal and shining in the daylight. She turned to Link, beaming. He was grinning at her.

"You know, at this rate, I'm going to have to stop thinking you're crazy." He said, laughing.

She smiled and gestured him to the altar. He climbed the few steps that were behind it and his smile disappeared as he stared at the sword.

It looked very sharp.

Link could just picture dropping it on his foot: it would go straight through it and only the handle would stay out, and he would bleed to death. Alternatively, it was quite possible that he would just slash his back or his side with it while carrying it, because that blade looked like it would have no trouble cutting through any sheath. He gulped, trying to will his hand to grab the handle and his mind to stop being so silly, but his hand was shaking uncontrollably and his mind couldn't get past how sharp and deadly the sword looked.

He tried to think of Ganon and what would happen if he tried to fight him without the Master Sword, hoping to duplicate the fear of the supervisor that had convinced him to pick up a sword in the shop. Instead, his mind chose to focus on Ganon cutting him to pieces with his own sword and on the Master Sword shard bouncing off the monster's skin. He whimpered.

He felt Zelda's hand squeezing his shoulder. She said something, although Link had no idea what. He tried to focus on her voice, but instead, some of his more violent dreams, where Ganon killed everyone he knew before finishing him off, called themselves to his memory. He swallowed down another whimper, frowned, clenched his teeth and grabbed the handle of the sword.

He immediately felt very proud and very relieved. He took a deep breath and pulled.

And pulled some more.

He pulled, and pulled, and pulled. He was using both hands now, and putting absolutely all his strength into it. Still, the Master Sword did not move. His hands eventually slipped and he fell backward off the altar. He landed on his back and stayed there, feeling like his only hope of defeating Ganondorf had just been yanked away.