A/N: Again, I'm really sorry. This story isn't really a priority for me right now – it's third place out of five. But I will try not to let this happen again. Fair enough? Anyway, I hope this compensates at least somewhat for the LONG wait.

Chapter III

Impani

All of us but Talos had moved into the passenger car – including our stowaway – and were sitting around a table. My mother sat on one side, while Impani sat next to me. I wasn't so much sitting as slumping, if that's possible to do without also sitting down. Now that the fight with the Stalfos was over, the adrenaline rush had faded and I was more tired than I'd ever been before. Wiping the floor with a legendary monster that hadn't been seen in over a century took a lot out of a guy.

Now that Impani had been caught she'd consented to come quietly into the passenger car. Well, she'd acted like she was 'consenting to come quietly'. Frankly, I thought she must be at least a little glad of the opportunity. I know I couldn't have stayed still in a freight car full of coal for seven hours without wanting to get into the same train's passenger car at least a little.

Okay, I'll admit, I probably couldn't have stayed in the freight car at all. What can I say – patience isn't my strongest virtue! …Correction, it's a virtue I don't have at all.

Back on topic, though, we hadn't spoken until now. But at this point we'd gotten settled in the seats, so my mom began her inevitable interrogation.

"Hello, Impani," she said. "I'll get straight to the point. Why are you here?"

"Because I want to go to Castletown," Impani replied instantly.

"And why, pray tell, couldn't you have just asked to come along?" My mom asked. I wondered at the order of her questions – I'd have asked why she wanted to be in Castletown. Did mom know something about Impani, I wondered, that made her almost know the answers to these questions before she even asked them?

"Because I didn't want you to feel responsible for me," said Impani. I frowned – that didn't make sense. "I have my own agenda in the city," she elaborated, "And I don't intend to stick with your group in whatever it is you're going to do."

I winced slightly. Now that was a rejection if I'd ever received one. My mom was giving Impani a look, as though she were trying to figure whether or not she could trust the girl. It was odd – she seemed suddenly to remind me of all the old legends of the Heroes. Her face looked as though it could fit right in to one of them, with that expression on it.

"All right," she finally said. "I think I can guess where you're going to be, Impani, and it's not my place to stop you. You won't welcome us there either, unless I'm much mistaken. Fine. We'll drop you off at the station, and you can head to whatever accommodations you've got."

"You'll hang out with us at least some of the time though, right?" I put in quickly, "Since you're here and we know about it and everything."

"If you have the opportunity," my mom said, glaring at me, "You are welcome with us at any time."

"Well…" said Impani, looking slightly sheepish, "I don't technically have a place to stay tonight. I was going to just find somewhere to stay and start up my business in the morning. After that, I'll probably have a room in the-" she stopped suddenly. "A room provided for me. But tonight in particular would it be possible for me to stay with you?"

"Oh, most certainly," said my mother with a smile – and now she looked like my mother again, rather than my guardian, for the first time since that Stalfos had appeared. "There'll be room, I'm sure."

"Glad to have you on board, Imp!" I cried, using the nickname Talos and I had given her long ago and clapping her on the back. "Hope whatever business you have goes well!"

"I'm confident that it will," she said, with the half-grin she often wore on her face as she looked at me. "But thanks." Then she suddenly sucker-punched me. Hard. "And don't call me Imp."

I grinned, rubbing my shoulder, but my mom stopped me from responding – probably a good thing – by saying, "Now, Link, are you sure you're all right?"

"I'm fine," I said, but just as I spoke all my exhaustion returned with a vengeance. I slumped even further. "Just tired…"

"Of course you're tired," said Mom, reaching across the table and ruffling my hair. "Not many people could have taken out that Stalfos alone at all, and only a trained and battle-hardened soldier would have been able to without being just as tired as you are now. You did great."

I grinned weakly. "Thanks, Mom" Then I frowned. "Have you ever seen a Stalfos before this?" I asked, wondering. My mom seemed to have lived many of the old legends that weren't even supposed to exist, and she seemed to know a lot about the difficulty of killing the undead creatures.

"Once," she said quietly. "Only once. And I don't want another repeat if I can avoid it."

"What happened?" Impani asked curiously.

My mom looked at her sharply. "You have your secrets, Impani, and I have mine. Let them stay that way."

Impani lowered her head, looking abashed, and didn't reply. I frowned. Something was up between those two.

Just at that moment, Talos yelled at us from the engine. "Castletown in sight! We'll be stopping at the station in ten minutes!"

"Thanks, Talos!" my mom called back. Then she looked at me. "Try to stay awake, okay, Link? Sarian's house is only a couple blocks from the station."

I nodded slowly, trying to force my eyes to stay open. "I'll try."

"Thanks," she said with a wry grin. "And I'm sorry to have to ask you to stay up."

"Don' worry about it," I muttered with a yawn. I seemed to be getting steadily more tired by the instant.

"Impani, stay here and talk to him while I go and get everything ready to go," my mother ordered."And don't worry if he… starts acting a little odd." And then I think she left, although after this point things got a bit hazy.

Those ten minutes, I remember, seemed to be the longest ten of my life – although now I can't remember almost any details. I kind of wish I did, since I really don't know what kind of gibberish my loose lips were spewing at Impani. I do recall, at one point, a little bit of a conversation along the lines of this.

"It's blue," I mumbled.

"What is, Link?" she asked in that soft, slightly worried tone that I think she'd been using for about the last five minutes. I must have sounded delirious. Hell, I was delirious.

"The color," I informed her. "It's blue."

"What color, Link?" she asked me.

"The color!" I cried, probably sounding like I was drunk. "The color, Impa! 'S blue!"

"Okay," she said soothingly, holding my shoulder, trying to calm me down. "Okay. It's blue. All right."

"You dunno what I'm talkin' 'bout, do you, Impa?" I slurred. "It's 'cause you forgot. I didn' forget. I remember."

And then I think I went a little schizophrenic, 'cause I can't remember what she said for a while. "Wha' do I remember?" I wondered to myself.

"Everything, stupid!" I said. "And 's golden."

"Thought it was blue."

"Nah. 'S golden."

"No, no, no! 'S blue! T'other thing's golden!"

"Wha' other thing?"

"The thing, stupid!"

"Wha' thing?

"You don' remember either,"

"Course I don'. Wasn' born yet."

"Y'mean he."

"Nah. He's sleepin'."

And I was sleeping. I only learned about the ending of that strange conversation later, through Impani.

Next thing I knew, it was morning. I was in a green room. The bed I was on had green covers pulled up over me. There was a forest-green pillow under my head. The wooden walls were painted a dark swamp-green. The end table beside my head was a bright lime-green. The dresser by the wall was also green – this time in yet another shade, a sort of pale minty color.

I blinked the sleep out of my eyes and sat up, yawning. I just sat there for a moment, collecting myself, and then I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood up. I stumbled over to the dresser, rubbing my eyes, and opened it.

There were my clothes. Someone must have unpacked for me. And there was the formal tunic, too. One was made for each passing member of the family. 'Formal' was a bit of a misnomer. It was plain and green. There were white leggings and an undershirt that went with it, as some leather fingerless gloves and boots. I didn't usually like wearing it, but suddenly I felt an urge to. This was Castletown – the city of kings. This was the place for which my family existed.

But I couldn't. People would figure out my ancestry, and that was the last thing I needed. There was a reason the family had gone into the shadows, after all – if the royal family, or anyone in Castletown, knew about us, then the royalty wouldn't be the first target anymore. Our only safety was in secrecy. That was why there was only one family in the world besides ours that knew our heritage – Talos'.

I sighed and put on instead a pair of loose brown trousers and a loose green shirt – I had to indulge myself a little. When I was dressed I opened the door and stepped out, with every intention of going to find something to eat.

I found myself in a hallway that had just as much colorful variation as my bedroom – which is to say, next to none. The person who owned this house must really like green. Like, really.

Who had my mom said we were staying with? A friend of hers, right? What was her name… Sara? No, but that was close, I was sure. Sarian! That was it. It should be easy to remember for someone who'd studied the story of the Hero of Time as studiously as I had – it was a clear reference to the Sage of Forest, Saria the Kokiri.

All this I thought as I walked aimlessly down the hall in one direction with no real idea of where whatever room I was supposed to eat in was. But for the love of Farore, I was hungry. I'm usually not hungry that soon after I wake up, but I was then. I figured it was probably a side effect of killing a creature of legend. Or maybe a vitamin deficiency.

…That last thing, that was sarcastic. Just in case you didn't pick up on that.

I did eventually find a room with a table in it. I also found a room with food in it. Better still, the two happened to occupy the same little corner of space. Even more fortunate, Impani, Talos, my mom, and a woman a little younger than her in a green dress were all sitting around the aforementioned table, eating the aforementioned food. Although I mourned the loss of the latter, I was pleased at the opportunity to talk with them, and hopefully find out just how bad my delirium had been the night before and maybe even what had caused it.

I pulled up a chair and grabbed a plate. "I hope I'm invited to this little breakfast party?" I asked sardonically, looking around at them all.

"Lunch, actually," said Talos, grinning. "From what Impani's told us, you definitely needed a bit of sleep."

It was lunch. Instead of sausage and scrambled eggs, the plated were piled high with lunch foods – most of them vegetables, for whatever reason. Lucky for me, I liked vegetables. Unlucky for Talos, he didn't. He seemed to have barely touched his food, and just pushed the greens about on his porcelain platter.

I winced. "How bad was I?"

"Bad," murmured Impani. "I thought you were ill. You were everything from delirious to schizophrenic to Ganonically homicidal."

I cringed. "Ouch. Any idea what caused it?"

"Don't worry about it," said my mom. "It happened to me the first time I took out one of the ancient monsters. All of our bloodline that ever face one of them go through it. We sort of… connect with the past. I don't know any more about it than you do."

I blinked sharply, glancing at Impani for a moment before looking away. Imapni was sharp, though, and spotted it. "She hasn't told me a thing," she told me bitterly. "Not a Nayru-blessed thing. She's been talking about it – whatever it is – in front of me to Talos and Lady Sarian, and doesn't seem to care that I don't understand a thing about what she's saying!" By the end she was glaring daggers at Mom.

"Don't try to guilt trip me," said my mother placidly. "And of all things, don't try to manipulate Link to get me to tell you. After all, why should you know his secrets when he doesn't know yours?"

Impani muttered something unintelligible and went back to her food. "Now, Link," my mother said before I could comment on this exchange. "You're the only one who hasn't been introduced yet. This is Lady Sarian, a very old friend of mine. Sarian, this is my son, Link."

"Charmed," Sarian said, smiling at me, and extending a hand. I shook it across the table.

"Lady Sarian?" I asked my mom, trying not to sound too confused in case I was right in my guess as to the reasons for the title. From all I'd heard, it didn't pay to sound like a country bumpkin aroung the Hylian Nobility, and though I could probably trust a friend of my mother's, one couldn't be too careful.

"Oh, yes," nodded Sarian, answering for her. "You wouldn't know. My full name's Sarian Ocria, and I'm – no arrogance intended – of one of the more… affluent houses of the Forest Province."

Figures, I thought.

A/N: I thought that seemed like a good, Linkish ending. Liked this chapter? Want more? Just click the button below this text and tell me so for more! It's free and takes next to no time! So please, review!