Author's note: Yay next chapter! Thanks to TheLoneWolfe90 for the review! Please enjoy!
Chapter One
It was the same dream as always. No matter how long it had been, she would never forget it. Her mind would forever replay the two worst moments of her life: first, when the Hero of Time being stabbed by the Dark Lord; second, when the Hero of the Ocarina was slapped mercilessly at a smoldering building wall by the same Dark Lord, collapsing onto the blood soaked ground.
Her pain, her grief, her longing for the horrid scenes to simply melt away forever: all these feelings and more raged within her as she commanded herself futilely to wake.
But it changed. The visions of the two men she loved over the course of her life being brutally battered by the Dark Lord vanished. For a moment, she was relieved. Thank the goddesses those dreams were over for now.
Her relief was short lived.
A monstrous moon hung low over the great kingdom of Hyrule, an unnatural and creepy grinning face glaring down from the moon. And, it seemed to be getting closer and closer to the surface of the earth, its grin becoming nastier and nastier.
Then she heard a voice.
Three days. End of the world.
The scene changed to the view of the top of a tower, where two short figures could be seen. One couldn't be identified, but the other seemed to be a creature from deep within the forests. This creature wore a mask...
The voice spoke up again.
If unsuccessful in three days...
The creature rose into the air, calling to the gigantic and frightening moon with a high-pitched screech. It began to lower, crashing into the tower. Flames engulfed the kingdom, and life was no more.
"NO!"
Zelda sat bolt upright in bed, in shock from the dream. Beside her, Rinku, startled from sleep, fell from the bed, tangled in the blankets.
"Zelda, what happened?" he asked with worry. His wife didn't answer him. She covered her face with her hands, shaking. "Zelda?" Rinku asked again. There was a knock on the bedroom door.
"Your Majesties, I heard a scream. Is everything alright?" a guard called from the other side of the door as Rinku managed to untangle himself from the sheets. He stood and went to the door, opening it.
"Everything's fine," he told the guard.
The guard nodded and bowed, hurrying out of sight to resume his post. Rinku sighed and closed the door, returning to the bed to comfort Zelda.
"Zelda, love, was it a dream?" Rinku asked. Zelda barely managed to nod. She was pale and shaking hard, her eyes wide with fear. Rinku held her close. "Calm down, it's not like it was real. Don't worry."
"It was real," Zelda managed to say, looking up at her husband. "It was one of those dreams."
"What dreams?" Rinku asked.
Zelda took a deep, shaking breath. "The Triforce of Wisdom occasionally grants me prophetic dreams," she said. "I see the dangers to come..." She shook her head, covering her face once more. "It was awful," she murmured. "Oh, dear goddesses, it was unbearable." She peered at Rinku again over her hands, fear in her eyes.
"What was it about?" Rinku asked patiently.
Zelda shook her head once more. She was slowly coming out of shock, but tears were streaming down her face now. Rinku took her hand, trying to provide some amount of comfort. "There was...a hideous moon," Zelda began. "A creature of the forests. Three days before..." Zelda's face went pale once more.
"Before what?" Rinku asked.
"The moon comes crashing down." She jumped out of the bed. "I have to be sure," she said, going over to the windows while Rinku watched silently. Zelda drew back the curtains and peered outside toward the sky. She sighed with relief, rubbing a hand over her face to dry her tears.
"Are you sure you weren't just dreaming about the story I told last night?" Rinku asked. "The one about that mask?"
"I know it was a prophetic dream," Zelda answered as she returned to the bed. Rinku studied her for a moment, noting how she still shook. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. "I forgot how terrible they were. These dreams," Zelda muttered.
"When was the last time you had one?"
"When I was ten. Predicting Ganon's rise to power." She sighed. "My father wouldn't listen to me when I told him Ganon was an evil man. I wonder what would have happened if he had listened."
Rinku smiled. "You always ask yourself these questions. There's no way to know what could have happened. You just have to be satisfied with what is."
"Even if it means watching you scare our children with apocalyptic stories?" Zelda teased, though the effort was half-hearted.
Rinku shrugged, laughed softly, and they were silent. But he could still feel her shaking. After a few minutes, he kissed the top of her head. "Calm down, now, my love. If anything does happen, I will be the first to try to fix the problems. So, don't worry and try to get some sleep."
Zelda sighed. She laid her head on his shoulder, but it was a long time before sleep claimed her again.
It seemed like she was only for just a few moments when she was startled awake once more, this time by Link and Zellie.
"Mother! Father! Wake up! Today's the festival!" The bed shook as the two children jumped up onto it. Zelda opened her eyes and saw their grinning, excited faces. She glanced out the window and saw the sun shining through the curtains, barely over the horizon.
"Why are you awake so early?" she asked. Rinku grumbled in agreement.
"It's the day of the festival!" Link replied. The eleven-year-old was nearly trembling with excitement, as was his thirteen-year-old sister.
The festival in question was a celebration that took place at the beginning of spring in Castle Town. It was a welcoming of the warmer weather and commemorated when the goddesses created Hyrule. Each individual town had its own customs. While Castle Town celebrated the Spring Festival with a carnival-like celebration three days before the actual day, which was very solemn, Rinku's home town of Dresdem celebrated the event four days afterward with a big feast fit for a king. One year, just before Zellie had been born, Rinku and Zelda had gone around to each of the festivals. Zelda herself had never partied so much, but she still had to say that her favorite celebrations were those of Dresdem and Castle Town. And it seemed, like the Castle Town celebration was the favorite of her children's as well.
Zelda now looked at her son with a smile. "Link, it doesn't start until noon."
The boy paused. "Oooh."
"But still," Zellie said. "We have to be ready for when it does start!"
Zelda smiled and took a moment to study her children as they began to talk excitedly about the festival. Zellie, named after her mother, was almost like a mini version of Rinku. She had inherited his brown hair and green eyes, but many people had said that she was quite a bit like Zelda in her mannerisms, but Zelda had to disagree. She saw a lot of Rinku in Zellie. Link, on the other hand, was blond, his blue eyes matching Zelda's. His personality was a mix of both his parents: he had Zelda's quietness – most of the time – and that heroic sparkle in his eyes that Rinku also had.
"Alright, alright," Rinku said, cutting off Link's and Zellie's eager descriptions of the festival as well as Zelda's thoughts. "Calm down. Your mother's had a bad night. She needs her sleep."
"I'm fine," Zelda protested.
"Yeah, right," Rinku replied. Zelda noticed he had one of his many ocarinas in his hands.
"And you're going to serenade me, aren't you?" she asked.
"Play us a song, Father!" Zellie begged.
"Please?" Link asked.
Rinku nodded, placing the flute to his lips. With practiced fingers, he began to pick out a melody that had both good and bad memories. Zelda recalled fondly when Impa, her nursemaid back when she was young, would hum the tune as the princess drifted to sleep. But she also recalled when she had played the song on the Ocarina of Time for the Hero of Time as his dying wish.
Either way, the tune was enough to make one feel sleepy. After a few moments, Zelda spoke up. "Rinku, the whole point of preforming is to..." she paused to yawn. "...To not put your audience to sleep."
Rinku paused to grin at her. "Or perhaps that's my goal."
Zelda sighed. "Sure it is." She slipped out of the bed as Rinku continued to play his ocarina, though he played a different tune this time. Zelda walked over to the window and peered out once more, breathing once more a sigh of relief when didn't see any trace of her dream.
"You are so paranoid," Rinku said, pausing once more.
Zelda rolled her eyes. "So you may think." She huffed a sigh. "I'm going to get breakfast, if anyone wants to join me."
"I will," Link said, slipping off the bed. Zellie nodded and followed her brother. They hurried out of the room to get ready for the day.
It seemed, to the children, that noon couldn't come fast enough. But finally, it was time.
Link looked around the festival, grinning. It was his favorite holiday, this spring festival. All around there were booths of food, games with prizes to win, puppet shows, exotic goods not usually displayed for sale. In the middle of the marketplace, a band was playing music, and people were dancing.
"Link, let's play one of the games," Zellie exclaimed.
His and Zellie's parents had given them each some rupees to play some of the games.
"Which one?" Link asked.
"This one! It's my favorite!" Zellie led her younger brother over to a game. It was a ring-toss game, something Zellie seemed to excel at. The goal was to get one of ten rings over the different-colored bottle, which was surrounded by other bottles of the same height. Link sighed, but he would play anyway. Who knew? Maybe he would be better at it this year.
"Ah, your Highnesses!" The man running the stall smiled at the Prince and Princess. "Are you here to play a round?"
"We are," Zellie said. She and Link each handed the man five of their rupees in exchange for ten rings each.
"You can go first," Zellie told her brother. Link nodded and carefully tired to aim at the target bottle. But, like all the other years, he wasn't able to get it.
"Oh, tough luck there, your Highness," the man running the stand said. "Would you like to try again?"
"No, thanks," Link said. "I'm no good at it."
The man laughed cheerfully. "Some are better than others, like your sister there." He pointed to Zellie, who had just managed to get three of the ten rings over the target bottle. "Well, done!" the man congratulated. "Pick a prize."
Zellie chose her prize and the two siblings thanked the man, going off once more in the crowd. "Where to next?" Zellie asked.
"There! The archery booth!" Link pointed.
"Aw, I'm no good at archery."
"And I'm no good at ring-toss."
"True. Alright, let's do it."
Ten minutes later, they came away from the booth with varying degrees of success. Link had won the grand prize, hitting all of the targets, while Zellie had only been able to hit one. And for the rest of the hour, they played as many games as their rupees allowed them to before they had to meet up with their parents. At one point Link looked around for one of the stranger booths run by someone he and Zellie called the Mask Man, because he always had the funniest – and strangest – masks for sale. But it seemed that he wasn't here this year, which was odd. The Mask Mas was always here.
Fifteen minutes after one o'clock, Zellie and Link were hunting the crowds for their parents.
"Where were we supposed to meet them?" Zellie asked, looking around.
"I wasn't paying attention," Link replied. For a moment, the young Prince felt a prick of worry. What if they couldn't find them at all? But he shook his head. That was silly. They would just go back to the castle and wait there. No problem.
"What's that?"
"What's what, Zel?"
"Sounds like..." Zellie stopped with a gasp. Link looked up at his sister, but saw what had stopped her. A horrendous moon hung in the sky, a glaring face sneering down at all of Hyrule. And in that instant, he realized that the sound they were hearing was screams.
"Is it getting closer?" Link asked. But he didn't get an answer.
"We have to find Mother and Father!" Zellie said urgently, grabbing Link's hand. They ran through the panicking crowd, trying to find their parents.
Suddenly, someone ran into Link as he and Zellie passed the Temple of Time. He felt his sister's hand leave his as he fell to the ground.
But the strange thing was that he kept falling. Through blackness and through...who knew what.