Chapter Two

December 11th, 2010

Year of Farore's Wind

Soldier's Log: Link

Day 365

This is horrible.

This is insane.

Why, just why?

Pit's news was greeted by silence. Pure, stony silence. This was possibly the worse blow we've ever faced, the most horrid thing anyone could ever do to us. We've been planning this for months and months, counting down every minute, every second, until we could finally return home.

And they took it away from us.

Ike's reaction was one of violence. He's been officially dealt with. He is to scrub the toilets with his own toothbrush until we go out for battle. If they are not spotless by the time we are rolling, he must scrub them again tomorrow.

Marth's going to need a new bed…

Who could blame him? He had been going on for months about how he would visit Mist's grave, prove to her that he was still alive even after all of this horrible bloodshed. He had even picked out exactly what he would wear and exactly what flowers he would bring with him to honor her loss. And there was even talk among the soldiers about a woman…

Marth's reaction was, in many ways, calmer than Ike's. I suppose that it doesn't come out as a surprise that this happened. He is, after all, considered the more mature of us three.

He fainted.

That's all there is to it.

He fainted, right then and there.

I honestly cannot say what I did. It's mostly because I don't remember a thing of what happened. One moment, I was staring at Pit. The next, I was lying down in my bed. It had been morning time already.

Did I faint like Marth or was my reaction violent like Ike's?

Today marks one full year since I've been sent here… since I've been sent to war.

Today marks the first battle we must fight during the week we were supposed to go home for Christmas. Today marks another day where I have every chance of dying. Today marks another day when I may never see my family again.

I still haven't told them about the change in plans…

Why, just why?

The shrill notes of the trumpet rang throughout the camp. Link looked over his shoulder once before quickly saving the entry. He stood up along with his fellow soldiers and saluted as Sergeant Mario entered the room. Like many of the veteran soldiers, Sergeant Mario's face was rough with scars of battle. He had only recently been promoted from Private to Sergeant and though he was of higher class than the Privates, he still treated them more kindly as compared to the other army officers.

As of late, he had taken to speaking privately with a few of them at times during the night. That was another thing about him that many of the new recruits liked. He was also social as well as kind.

He should be the one in General Ganondorf's place…

"Rise and shine, boys!" he shouted. "We have another battle today, so let's get moving!" Link's sharp Hylian ears were able to pick up something else in the Italian's voice. It was just the barest hint of sadness, as if he too was feeling the pains of General Ganondorf's orders to stay.

It was a well known fact that Sergeant Mario had a younger brother at home. Before being enlisted in the war, he had promised Luigi, his brother, that he would return and they would open their own pizza parlor together. However, though he had been out on the battlefield for over twenty years already, the dream was yet to come true. Now, at forty five years old, the promise was an even longer ways off.

"Are you prepared for yet another battle, soldiers?" Sergeant Mario barked.

"SIR, YES, SIR!" they all shouted back in unison. Link felt his throat dry up as he remembered that though he was here, his family was still back in war wracked Hyrule. They were still poor, still starving, still vulnerable…

Were they all safe?

"Are you prepared to look Death right in the face and spit at him in the eye?"

"SIR, YES, SIR!" Link's voice cracked slightly at the end. Now a new question popped up in his head.

Who would tell them if he did die today…?

"Are you prepared to serve your country well and fight the forces of Prime Minister Tabuu with everything you have?"

"SIR, YES, SIR!"

Is that how he was to die?

"Are you prepared to hold your gun and shoot every enemy that gets in your way?"

"SIR, YES, SIR!"

An unknown soldier in an unknown land?

"And are you prepared to die for your General, your President, and your country?"

"SIR, YES, SIR!"

Would there be nothing to stop him?

"Now go forth and do your duty, men! Go forth!"

"SIR, YES, SIR!" twenty nine voices chorused at the same time. In a single large group, they charged out. But it was Link's that was the one voice that was never heard.

His throat had dried up with every question that ran through his mind. His heart was racing in his chest like a jackrabbit. His world was spinning.

Fear was the one thing he felt.

"Hold on just one moment, Private Link."

Link stopped and turned around, saluting as Sergeant Mario looked up at him. When the Sergeant gave the "at ease" command, Link relaxed his arm, but his shoulders and the rest of his body were still tense. There was just something in the Sergeant's stare that was strange and completely unlike any other commanding officer Link had ever encountered in his year long military career.

Sergeant Mario sat down on an immaculately made bed, sighing in content. The bed creaked slightly under the rather plump veteran's weight, but it still held. The Sergeant then looked up at Link and gestured for him to sit down next to him. The blonde hesitated for just a moment before sitting down upon the bed opposite, his shoulders still tensed.

"It has been a very, very long time since I have last sat upon these beds…" the Sergeant murmured wistfully, petting the bed he was sitting on. There was just the slightest note of sadness in his voice. "It reminds me of when I was a new recruit, just starting out…"

Link made not a sound, fearing that one wrong move would invoke the Sergeant's anger. As if sensing the Hylian's plight, Mario immediately stopped his stroking and met Link's sharp blue eyes with a steady gaze of his own. There was just something in that gaze that only veteran soldiers ever had. It was the shadow of exhaustion and mental drain, the eyes that saw Death millions upon millions of times in war.

The eyes of a life torn by blood.

"Do you fear me, Private Link?" Mario asked quietly.

Link immediately shook his head. "Of course not, Sir! I would never fear you!"

"Your eyes show the signs of fear… and yet you say you do not fear me? Well then… is it death that you fear? Are you afraid to die on the battlefield today?"

Link's throat went dry at his words. Death. Death had been his playmate ever since the day he had been born. Death was there to take away his mother when she birthed him. Death was there again to take away his step mother when she gave birth to Aryll, his one and only sister.

And Death was always there on the field of battle, waiting for him to come play again…

"… I…" Link swallowed. "… I… I cannot say…"

The look in Mario's eyes was questioning. "You cannot say?"

"I cannot say… because I am both unafraid and afraid of dying at the same time…" Link admitted quietly. His shoulders finally stopped tensing up and his hands drooped to his sides. There was a weight in his stomach now, as though what he had just said was sealing his fate out there on the battlefield.

"… You are afraid and unafraid all at once?" Mario asked. "An… interesting dilemma, Private…" he placed a reassuring hand on the Hylian's shoulder. "Please, continue…"

Link's hands trembled slightly as he spoke. "… My family… I have a family back in Ordon… I'm the eldest of four children… and my father earns little for a living… even the wages I send home to them that I earn in this war is only just barely enough to sustain them…" he buried his face in his hands.

The hand upon his shoulder tightened. "You fear… you fear that your sacrifice for your country will not be enough to sustain the family…?"

Link shuddered. "I joined the military camp by telling myself that I would help both my family and Hyrule… that it was a rewarding job and would make my father proud…" he could feel the sting of the red hot tears as they ran down his cheeks. "But… but what will happen if I die? Who will help sustain the family…? Who will tell them…? Am I truly to die all alone in a land that I do not know…?" his breath caught as he went on. "I'm asking myself now… did I merely run off to join the military for personal glory…? To stay away from my own family…? Am I truly the man I think I am or am I just another monster…?"

Mario sighed. "… Whether you are a man or a monster… I cannot say… that question is what you must decide as your life moves on… Link, you are only 23 years old… such a young age… such a young age to see so much death…"

Link shook his head. "… I was freaked out about it when I was a new recruit…" he said quietly. "But now… I don't know… Death… Death has been walking with me for so long… leading me down the road of life… waiting for me at the end…" his voice cracked. "He's waiting… waiting until I am completely alone… alone and forgotten…"

Mario gripped his shoulder tighter. "Link… you are never forgotten… no matter where you are, someone will remember you… no soldier dies an unknown soldier in an unknown land… it is through the course of the war and those that they love that their deeds and prowess are forever recorded down in history…" Mario stood up. "… Come… it is time for battle…"

After so long, his weapon was still foreign.

The gun in his hand was a weapon.

This was a war.

Playtime was over.

He dived behind the defensive wall, dust clogging up his nose and eyes. His ears were ringing with the great blast of the rifles as bullets rained down on him. His skin was scared white with every dreadful little bullet that had bitten into his skin.

Was that Death waiting for him…?

Was he being taunted…?

The ground beneath him was painted red. The sharp cry of the bullets escaping their guns rang through the air. All around him, his comrades had fallen onto their backs, stomachs, or sides.

Dead or sleeping…?

POW!

A strange pressure in his chest…

A searing pain throughout his body…

A sharp cry torn from his lips…

Blackness…