A.N Okay sorry about the wait, I've been so busy lately with college and work, but because i personally want to see this through i have been typing my butt of in the two hours i have between classes and writing on paper during. Anyway, this is the longest chapter yet. which is surprising cause i thought it was going ot be short. anyway, enjoy.

Ember found herself crossing the Great Hylian Bridge that ran over Lake Hylia. She was never one for heights. It wasn't the fact of being high that scared her. She quite enjoyed being in a tall place overlooking large areas until they obstruct the horizon line. In fact it's mainly the two largest brides in Hyrule that bother her. The other being the Elden on the west side of Hyrule and the one she is on now. Again it's not cause they were high up, it's because the only support it had holding it up was where they were connected to the ground at each end. And there was no promise that the ground there wouldn't shift and collapse the whole bridge.

The scenario was highly unlikely since the bridges have not moved nor been destroyed since she could remember. There was a time when the Eldin Bridge had a whole chunk missing from it. But that was the doing of the monsters of Twilight. Still, she never crossed that bridge since. Besides, there wasn't any water under the Eldin like there was the Great Hylian. So if for some reason the Eldin fell, and she was on it, there would be nothing to cushion such a great fall.

"eeehhhhhh. I hate this bridge. But the view is worth it." She laid her head in her hand and set her elbow down on the edge of the concrete siding and looked out over the lake and to the desert beyond it. It was forbidden territory. To go beyond the borders of Hyrule was unspoken of. She wanted to go nevertheless. If hero boy could do it then she thought she could too. But getting there would be near impossible and she hadn't the methods of scaling the cliff that separated the desert from the rest of Hyrule.

Ember turned her head to the lake below. "I guess I could go for a swim." She picked herself up and fixed her bag on her shoulder. She headed North to where Zora's domain resided. From there she would be able to ride the river via boat to Lake Hylia.

"Sir Link where have you been? Princess Zelda has the whole Guard looking for you." Sergeant Shoulder Tassels began pestering Link as soon as he came into the castle grounds. His mood went from "life is great" to "Oh for the love of Nayru D= " in a split second. He slumped down low on Epona as if he could get low enough he would just disappear in her mane. At least then he wouldn't have to deal with anything right now.

"Don't call me Sir Link. It's Link. Not SIR Link, not Sire, not hero. Just Link. Nothing else."

"But Sire," request denied initiate facepalm "the Princess requests your audience immediately. It is a matter of importance." Link perked up a bit hearing the urgency in the minister's voice. To him, it ment he was in for something more exciting than roaming around here bugging Ember. The only reason he came back to the castle was because she left and now he hadn't anything remotely amusing to do.

Not waiting for the minister to finish explaining, he put on a brisk stride that almost strained him to do. He didn't run, no he learned his lesson from that. Last time he ran through the castle, one of the guards though he had done something bad and was running from the scene of a crime. It took half a day to get the whole misunderstanding sorted out. Before then, he sat in a cell for what seemed like forever, listening to a distant Drip Drip Drip of the leak in the celling. Nearly drove him mad in such a short time.

Eventually he made his way into the throne room, where Zelda awaited him. She wasn't alone. With her stood what was once a kind of Resistance that had formed while the twilight had shrouded Hyrule. The only ones who weren't there were the swordsman Rustle, who had taught him his basic skills in one on one blade combat, and Telma, who was probably busy running her bar in Castle Town

He approached the group, a look of puzzlement on his face. As he got closer, the group became aware of his presence and they turned to greet him. A young man by the name of Shad, dressed in a scholarly outfit approached him looking excited.

"Link! I'm glad you're here! I've found out more about the sky people! I was looking through a high tech telescope I modified and I saw something distant in the sky. I couldn't tell exactly what it was but it was massive!"

"Really? That's amazing!" Even though Link considered Shad his friend, he didn't have the heart to tell him that he had already been to the sky temple a while back without ever telling him about it or taking him to it. He knew for sure that this wasn't the reason why everyone was gathered. Zelda already had full accounts of where he had been and what went on. To gather the resistance for such a trivial thing would be quite pointless. Because of this, he excused himself to go directly talk to the princess.

"What's this about?" as he asked as he approached Zelda. He had an idea of what was up. Usually the Royal guard takes care of everything within the boundaries of Hyrule. But pertaining to the outer boarders, none of them wish to go.

"There is a disturbance that may or may not be troublesome. Last night, while I slept a terrible vision filled my dream. In this dream there was an army of monsters gathered. They were waiting for Ganondorf's return."

"What? But, I JUST killed him."

"It's not the first time he's died and I'm sure it won't be the last, but it takes him a few hundred years each death to resurrect."

"Do you think the he's already found a way? You know, to bring himself back to life? Last time he used Zant as a vessel, but Zant was destroyed in his madness. What other means could he use?"

"That is why I gather the resistance and had Ampro bring you here"

LInk raised his eyebrow in confusion. "Ampro?"

"The man that escorted you into Hyrule." Link nodded. He thought, not only did the name fit his look, but it even SOUNDED regal. Though for now he'll stick with Sergeant Shoulder Tassels. It's more fun that way. Actually, lets promote him. Make him captain. Yeah, that sounds better. CAPTAIN shoulder tassels. "Link? Do you think this is funny?" Zelda scolded him. He hadn't realize he started to laugh a bit. He cleared his throat and took on a serious face.

Focus Link, time and place to be laughing. Now's not the time.

"AH yeah sorry, I just. uh. . never mind. You were saying?" Zelda shook her head in slight disapproval. She addressed the whole group now.

"I've gathered you all to go on an expedition. Shad, Ashei, and Auru will go to the desert to gather any information you can."

"What about me?" Link was kind of bummed he was left out of the mission at hand.

"If they find any hint that something is up, they are to wait for you. Until then, I ask that you go back to the Sacred Forrest and retrieve the master sword once again. If it comes to a battle, you'll need its power to aid you. The others will await your arrival before continuing."

"Wait wait!" Shad was a bit flustered at the thought of battle. "I'm a scholar, not a fighter! I wouldn't even last two seconds in hand to hand combat, let alone a whole battle."

"I don't expect you to fight. You're going along because of your knowledge of creatures. You know their movement, habits, strengths, weaknesses. It would be unwise to be ill informed. Your intelligence will come in handy when deciding what move to do next. Auru and Ashei will do most of the work, you are the vigilance." Shad nodded and smiled with relief.

"Well if there are no more questions or concerns, you may have your leave."

Link turned to leave but Zelda put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. "Hold on for one second." He turned to face her. Her eyes were worrisome.

"Yes princess?"

"I know you just got back yesterday, and I hate to have ask you to travel again so soon. Don't feel like you need to rush. Take a day or so to rest if you need." He removed her hand from his shoulder.

"You needn't worry about me, I've gone much longer without rest and I've had two days already to relax. If your kingdom is in possible danger, that should be first priority, not my health."

"Yes, you're right."

"I'll be fine." He smiled at her and turned once again to leave. "You just take care of yourself and I'll do the rest."

"No . . no no no no NO CRAP!" Ember tried to steer the rowboat she had taken down the river to face forward before she hit the waterfall at the end. Unfortunately she hadn't the experience or the muscle power to do so. The boat fell sidewise over the edge and flung her out and over the water. A small, startled yelp could be heard before it was cut off by a large splash.

Ember came up with a gasp of air. She pathetically swam over to the dock that had been built for when the ride was over and practically coughed out a lung. The Zora that led the boat could be heard chuckling behind her. Ember pulled herself up onto the shore and sat down with her legs in the water and laid the rest of herself out on the dock, spreading her arms out to either side of her. "That . . sucked."

"uh, here, your bag fell out and got wet." Ember sat up and took her now dripping wet bag from the zora. " It looks like you had food in there, I'll give you a full refund for your trouble." She took the rupees he had handed her. "next time you don't want to get wet you should try Falbi 's Flight by Fowl. You might still get wet, if you fly into the mater but at least you'll have a chance to end up on land."

Ember shook her head "I don't want to dangle from a cucco a thousand feet in the open air." She shuddered at the thought of openly flying with nothing under her feet. It's one thing to cross a bridge that was built dangerously above large spaces, but free flying was completely out of the question. Not to mention it's a semi slow descent so the torture of it would last longer than she would be able to stand.

"It pretty safe really, no one has been known to get injured, but if you say so." The Zora took the boat back up the waterfall and on his way back to Iza, where she rented to boat. Ember opened her bag and dumped it out. All her food had been ruined and a few of her personal possessions had gotten wet, but nothing of utter importance was completely ruined. "Damnit, more money down the drain."

Technically, she thought, It was link's money, but I'll have to go buy some more supplies with my own . . . maybe I could bum off him again. Won't be hard to track him down, just follow the sound of girls excited screams take a left then a right, go straight at the next intersection, past the fountain . . . For the Love of Nayru Ember, quit wasting time.

Finishing her inner monologue, Ember dug a hole in the ground and buried her food. He didn't want to just leave food lying around, ruined or not, it could attract animals. After ringing out her sack and putting the rest of her belongings back into it, she continued on her way.

After trudging through the waste deep water onto a larger mass of land, crossing a few bridges and jumping a few platforms on the water, she came unto a short and stumpy, guy. He looked like a kind of clown, but the way he stood and his facial expression said otherwise.

"Excuse me."

"Hmm? A customer?"

"Uhhhh," Ember looked discouragingly at the large cannon in from of her, sizing it up. It seemed bigger up close and more . . . unsafe. She turned her attention back to the clown in front of her. "No, I don't think so, I was wondering if there was any way to get to the desert without being blasted from a canon to my eminent demise." He was about to speak to her when a haughty laughter interrupted him.

"HAHAHAHA! You want to get to the desert, that's the only way, unless you want to climb." The laughter behind her startled Ember and she spun around to see a trio standing on one of the log platforms behind her. The one that had laughed was an older man dressed in what looked like a scouter's outfit, another was a girl wearing heavy metal armor. The last was a young lad who had more of an educated look about him, wearing a more scholarly outfit. "We're on our way there now if you'd like to join."

"You're kidding. There's No other way? No trail, no . . . hand crank elevator thing? No magical teleportation spell? Not even the dragon Argorok to fly? Well technically that would still be flying but at least it's MEANT to fly. People weren't meant to fly. If we we're Farore would've given us all wings." The group joined her on the canon's platform.

"HAHAHAH!" again with the laughing. "You're a funny lass. No I'm afraid not." Ember noticed the scholar was looking at the canon with as much distain as she did.

"YOU!" She pointed at him and he jumped a bit, coming out of his train of thoughts. "Yes you, with the knee high socks." He looked down at his feet like he was asking what was wrong with his socks. "You don't look like you want to be shot from this thing." She jabbed her thumb towards the deadly machine. "You're willing to go with them?"

"Ah yes, miss . . . "

"Ember."

"Miss, Ember."

"No, Ember, not miss."

"Ah sorry, sorry. But you are correct, I do not wish to partake in such rash actions, but it must be done if I am to get to the desert.. If you'd like, we could escort you"

"Escort? How gentlemanly." She smiled at him and he turned his head away slightly embarrassed. "It's a good offer, but I don't see how one would escort another through the barrel of a canon and through the sky.

"If I may speak?" Fyer, the man who ran the canon, interjected. "It IS possible for two people to go at the same time. It'll be a tight fit, but it's been done."

"There you go, you and Shad can go together." The armored girl spoke. "That way you and him can cling to each other for dear life while me and Auru go on our own and meet you there."

Cling? Isn't that a bit . . . intimate sounding? Does this girl think before she speaks?

"So sorry." The elder man Ember assumed was Auru spoke. "She didn't get much etiquette lesson growing up.

"Oh, was I that bad?"

"Only . . .a lot." Ember stated flatly. "But no worries. Okay, I guess it's worth a shot. Heh, puns. AH but no time for small jokes ." She waved her hand in dismissal and truned to Shad. "What say you my new acquaintance? Shall we plunge into the abyss only to be shot into the unknown?" He looked as nervous as she felt.

"Ready when you are I guess."

"I'll never be ready, but like you said . . . it must be done."

"If you're done discussing, I still need payment for use of my equipment."

Pay? Oh thank the goddesses, an excuse not to enter that death trap.

"Ah so sorry I haven't any rupees on me." She said almost too cheerfully. She'd have to find another way up, but anything other than open air is better. The armored girl stepped up to Fyer and produced a slip of paper from her person and handed it to the man.

"Here, a letter from Zelda herself states free access to anything INCLUDING your canon. We're here on royal decree. Fyer growled. He didn't like being cheated of payment. But he thought maybe he could still get something out of it yet.

"That girl there," he motioned towards Ember. "She's not of your party. She still needs to pay."

It was Shad's turn to step forward. He dug into his side pouch where he kept his money and paid the man. "There, now you have your money." HE said with some distain. "Ember? You coming?"

"Uhhh, yeah, I guess." DAMNIT SHAD! You HAD to be the gentleman type, though not that it's not the big thing I like in a guy, you had to pick THIS time to be flattering. Damn you and your adorable ways. Shit, I think I have a crush on this guy. No matter, the important thing is that I get to the desert.

She stepped with him towards the machine; her fear grew to intense as she passed through the hatch. Ember grabbed Shad's hand with a death grip as the door closed, leaving them in the dark. If it was even slightly light, she would have seen his head turn towards her and blush slightly.

"Uh, Ember?" she made a small whimper like a dog. There was a shift in the floor and in seconds a force shot them into the air.

A.N.

And the plot thickens. Is Ganondorf really trying to resurrect so soon? Did Princess Zelda's dream forewarn her of such events? What's going to happen with this new found crush Ember has on Shad? What about Link where's his Ember action? And why, OH WHY, does she want to get to the desert so badly? All will be revealed in due time.