A/N: this would have been the 2nd half of the chapter that went up last night, I guess I could have waited until I finished it tonight, but the first half was written 6 months ago, while this part is new (read: written in the last week). I was afraid they wouldn't flow together all that well. Anyhow, this effectively ends "Part 1" of my (supposed) 3 part story arc, ( i wish i had finished this 6 months ago, i could have justified the sabbatical!). hopefully you'll like where we (royal we) go with this.

Chapter 14: Under a Green Sky

The sun rose red behind Link as he dropped into the garden with a silent grunt. He blew Zelda a kiss as she dropped the rope down to him, and he buried it under the statue of Queen Amelia. With one more look up to the balcony, he turned down the garden path. Darkness crept in around him as he went deeper into a maze of hedges and ivy covered walls, the early morning sun not yet high enough, but he had not trouble finding his way.

Zelda's disturbing dream lingered in his mind as he padded barefoot over dewy grass and stone. She had walled off their connection when she entered her bath, a mental modesty, but the darkness of her presence weighed on him. Predictably, she had been inconsolable, while Link himself had just been in shock. The girl in her dream had certainly been his daughter, an image that Zelda had gleaned from Alysa when they had first met apparently. Whether the dream was prophecy or simply a dream, even Zelda could not say.

As he turned the corner in the middle of the garden, Link noticed an odd violet flower he had never seen before. It seemed to bend and turn on the wind, its petals blinking, and Link bent in for a closer look. As though sensing his presence, the flower stretched toward him, its beautiful petals blooming outward. Suddenly is sprung forward, somehow growing large enough to envelope him, muffling his cry for him. Link struggled to throw it off as a strange golden dust filled the dark canopy shrouding him, but his strength quickly failed him. He felt his knees buckle, and he landed softly on the carefully manicured grass as the petals opened again, and he golden dust floated away like the fairies into their forest shelter.

Link awoke on his back in the clearing of the Forest Spirit, Saria's green eyes staring at him intently. She smiled sweetly, but did not speak as she offered her tiny hand to help him up. Though he had been doing so for years, it was still odd when he found himself towering above her, her skinny arms stretching out of her green dress to brush the leaves and grass from his back. Link tried to look for familiar faces among the other Kokiri children, but they appeared merely has smoke and shadows, wispily floating through the forest, while their fairy partners shown more brightly than he remembered. The air was filled with the strange golden dust from that had put him to sleep, and the sky beyond the tree tops was no longer blue, but instead a pale green, like lily buds before they bloomed.

"Saria, how did I get here, what is this place?" He wondered aloud, but his dear little friend simply smiled and pointed past him.

"I have brought you here Link." The booming voice of the Great Deku Tree was unmistakable, reverberating in his mind. "This is a realm between the Hyrule you know, and the Sacred Realm of the Goddesses. This is the true home of the Children of the Forest; a home for the souls and spirits of all the trees and flowers, and home to the Soul of the World, with whom all plants are joined. Take Saria's hand, for if your spirit is lost here, even I might not find you. Right now your body sleeps in the Lakeside gardens, to which soon you shall return, but first I must show you something."

Link dutifully engulfed Saria's hand in his own, and the forest melted away before he could turn around. Link found himself standing before the awakened Triforce housed in the Great Hall. Its once familiar song had changed, the beautiful woman's voice replaced with the sounds of a hundred of thousand leaves on the wind, with the unquenchable roar of the world's rivers as the carved out of the earth, and the creaking groan of millions of trees, as they struggled and strove to add another ring. Where before the Triforce of Wisdom's light had danced and played with the great marble columns in the Great Hall, now it illuminated the beautiful golden dust that Link supposed was as air in this world.

He paced around the Triforce, listening to its organic orchestra, soaking in the unique beauty of this world. Link wondered what other mysteries there were to discover in this world when he noticed what else was different about the Great Hall in this world. Along the walls, hanging from the balconies, beside the doorways, there were people of all different ages and sizes, still as statues. It was hard to see them through the thickness of the golden dust, but there skins and hair were all different, rich dark greens, and pale calming yellows, vibrant purples and soft pinks, and they weren't wearing any clothes! Link walked to the closest one, pulling Saria along with him, trying to call out to them, but he chocked on the thick dust, and said no more.

Each woman or man had their lips puckered as though to kiss, with their heads tilted slightly back, but as he drew closer, Link noticed they were blowing out the golden dust from their lips. He waved his free arm in front of one of them, a woman as tall as himself, with wild curly green hair that stretched another two feet high, still she took no notice of him. Puzzled, he walked around her, and the great column she stood in front of, when suddenly it dawned on him. She's a plant! There's a tree here in the real Great Hall. Thinking it through, he looked down for the first time, and noticed that the woman was standing dirt and a pot. They're all plants! I guess that is what the Great Deku Tree meant about spirits of trees.

He turned to face Saria, who had remained so silent he had almost forgotten she was there, she held tight to him, even as he tried to grasp this strange. Covering his mouth, he asked, "Saria, what is it that I am supposed to see here."

She smiled and pointed again, back to toward the rushing Triforce. Smokey man-sized figures, like the Kokiri he had seen earlier, were standing around it. This time Saria pulled him towards the Triforce, the melody had suddenly taken what Link could only describe as an angry or violent tone. It raged inside his mind, to the point that he could not hear or distinguish the voices that spoke in whispers. This close he could count three separate figures, all larger than himself, but their faces and feature were lost in the dust and wispy smoke that made up their bodies. The Triforce song continued to scream defiance against the figures, quieting only as they turned and left the Great Hall.

Link and Saria attempted to follow them, but they disappeared into a wall of darkness up a servant's stairwell. Link tried to follow, but Saria wouldn't budge, and slight though she was, her small frame held him firmly in place. Pointing to the only visible plant-person at the bottom of the stairs, and then at the darkness, her tiny eye's willed him to understand. "I get it; you can't go beyond the plants. Very well, where to next?"

Saria simply shrugged a bit, and suddenly the hallway melted away. They were back in the forest, before the Great Deku Tree, who was not, in fact, a tree at all! Before Link sat a massive dark-brown skinned man, thankfully clothed in a light green robe, with the kind patient face that Link always imagined when he heard the Forest Spirit. His eyes were lightening blue, made up of millions upon millions of beautiful fairy spirits, and the golden dust that had streamed out of the potted plants in the Great Hall poured like rivers from his nostrils and mouth, cascading over his chin before getting caught on the wind. Link could see the man would be three or four times his own size standing, much smaller than the Great Deku Tree that Link knew from Hyrule, but larger than any man that walked the earth.

They sat in silence for a bit, the venerable Forest Spirit silently observing Link with his penetrating eyes. A surge of defiance had suddenly welled up inside Link, though he could not find the words to express it, so he sneered at the fatherly face before him. He knew he was acting like the adolescent children he had observed in the cities, but he couldn't find the strength to stop himself. The pain at finding out who he was, from a virtual stranger instead of the only person in Hyrule he thought he could trust, it ate at him as he started at that calm countenance. "I had a right to know!" He wanted to scream it at the top of his lungs, but a childhood of respect held his tongue.

Saria stood behind Link, playing with his hair, plucking wild flowers and placing them behind his ears, tying braids with the long grass as she had done when they were children, seemingly unaware of the tension that boiled inside her friend. Then, silently Saria gripped him from behind is a tender hug, wrapping her arms around his neck, pressing her lips against his straw like hair, a single tear falling onto his bare neck, and he felt the anger melt out of him. He craned his neck to smile at her, to thank her, but she was gone, her body transformed to smoke, and floating away like the others.

"I have returned Saria to her slumber in Hyrule's world Link. Though this is her true home, it is not yet time for the Children's awaking here. Soon enough though, soon enough. And now I suppose you want me to answer the question which has caused you so much pain." The deep, calming voice still comforted Link, and he shook his head, no longer interested in acrimonious recrimination.

"Until just now, for the past month I wondered why? Why didn't you tell me? But what good would it have done if you had. It changes nothing if I knew or did not. I actually prefer it this way, I think. I have seen what the weight of prophecy has done to Zelda, I don't know if I would have been as capable of handling it as she. At least this way, I felt like it was all my decision, as if it was completely within my own control. To have those years, free of anything, I wouldn't trade that now. It was a gift, and I thank you for it. No, there is no time now for what is done. The only question that remains is who those men in the Great Hall were. The Triforce itself cried out against them. I can't believe there could be traitors in the castle, but what else could it be?"

"That is why you are here Link. I do not know. A magic greater than any I have felt since the dawn of Hyrule walks the land. I was born to give witness to the history of this world, a duty which I have performed faithfully, but I can no longer see what I once could. A shroud of mystery covers the entire city, what you saw was the last event that I witnessed. It happened one week ago. I brought you here to warn you, the Princess is in grave danger. Whatever power this is, it is strong enough to shield its activities from Me, which means that even the Princess might not sense the danger until it is too late. Watch her closely this coming week Link; do not let your guard down. Heavy though it is, the weight of Hyrule's future now rests on your shoulders. We here in the forest have faith; go forth knowing you are not alone. Return to your body my child, for now you know all that I have to tell you, and my place in this tale has come to a close. I shall not see you again until you have walked among your lost Brothers, and you bring me a Queen to bend my knee."