Suddenly, as if some Imaginary puppeteer pulled a switch, the creature dropped his stance, carefully storing his weapon somewhere where it couldn't hurt him, or someone else. It pulled a black gloved hand through his hair, apparently trying to gain whatever calm it once possessed.

When he spoke, his emotional strain was clearly audible, making its low voice tremble with the effort.

"Now there, there princess, is this how royalty treats messengers of bad luck now a days? I expected more of you…"

The being then brought his hand to his hip, self assured as if he had all the right in the world to be offended, as if it hadn't just killed many innocent citizens trust under Zelda's care.

"Is THIS how you treat royalty? Is THIS how you treat innocent people? Slaughtering one's citizens normally doesn't invoke a warm welcome and I wonder why…"

Apparently Zelda was just as quick in wits as she was in combat, and within seconds the fight had turned into one fought by words instead of arms.

"They were useless" the creature countered "I did you a favour by disposing them…And," he seemed to add as an afterthought "enjoy your title while it's still yours to enjoy. Soon you'll be nothing more then the unfortunate people who died here today, dying for a useless cause."

The creature must have noticed the deadly glint in Zelda's eyes for he hastily got on with his business.

"Lord Gannondorf sent me with a message."

It then purposely sought out Zelda's eyes, holding hers with his as if trying to force her to obey whatever would follow.

"I suggest you'd also check the walls if you value your life. Now. I hope you would be so kind to excuse me, for my job here is done and right now, I have more pressing issues to take care off."

And without another glance or sound or clue, it vanished. The shadows lingering in the temple just seemed to swallow it, leaving nothing but a small tattered note in its place.

Baffled, the princess and her guardian stood still for a long time, not moving, not speaking. The eerie quietness continued to feed on Zelda's nerves as she finally brought herself to look at the once sacred white walls. Angry red marks tainted the holy stones, showing a story written in blood.

Yes, Zelda was aware that the creature had used her soldiers' blood to write whatever it had written, but that couldn't put tone down her amazement.

Written on the stones were ancient words long forgotten by anyone but the royal family. Whatever was here today sure did know its ancient Hylian, for it hadn't made a single mistake in what she counted were well over 100.000 words. Secretly, she couldn't help but wonder how long it had taken for the creature to finish the gruesome job.

And why would he leave a note when he had already written down everything she could possibly need to know on the temple walls?

Deeply in thought, she didn't notice Impa picking up the tattered note and thus was startled when said Sheikah laid down her hand on Zelda's shoulder.

"According to this note, we have 21 days to surrender to the King of Darkness before he's taking this country by force."

Neither of them said another word as Zelda continued to read the secrets hidden by the ancient language, and after what seemed to be little short from an hour she whispered:

"Whoever it was that wrote this had knowledge given by the goddesses…"

Impa's eyes widened at this, but it went unnoticed since the great warrior was standing behind the only one who could have noticed it.

"You mean…that you did not recognise the creature?" Impa's mind absently wondered back to the last time she had seen the creature's counterpart, which was when she threw said hero out of the princess 'room.

At this Zelda turned, for the question had caught her unguarded.

"What was there to recognise?" She asked the stoic warrior.

"Never mind, you will find out in your own time, for now it's not important"

"Good…For now, we should tell the others of Gannondorf message."

On the way back to the castle, the silent Sheikah couldn't help but wonder if love truly made on blind.

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"Water, water, water, that's all I ever see around here! And you know what?! I'm sick and tired of it! Look what it's doing to my hair!"

Our ragtag group consisting of an ex-hero, a dessert woman tired of water, a manly Goron shaking with fear for the possibility to drown in the unknown depths of the water temple, a rather annoyed forest sage and their ever so calm guide had indeed entered the water temple….About 8 hours ago….

"Shut up, you live in a dessert for Din's sake, you should cry tears of joy whenever you're near water" Apparently Darunia just couldn't take more, and granted the place he was in, everyone would feel the same.

Link just sighted and sat down, tired of all the hard work he had been doing, seeing as the others gave him little or no assistance. Soon however he was joined by Rutela, who sat down next to him with grace only a Zora could muster.

"Are they always like this?" She asked him before bringing her attention back to the rather amusing sight of Nayla trying to push Darunia into the water, with little success.

"We're there soon…I…just need a rest…"

Link was tired of the temple as well. Tired of the water, tired of the endless doors he needed to unlock, but mostly tired by the memories of this place. It was here that he had fought his shadow, the product of his own dark thoughts.

It was here that he first noticed how strong his darkness could be. He almost died fighting it, and secretly, he wondered if he was lucky enough to fight it again and to pull through a second time.

The voice is his head was strong today and it was giving him a headache. The pitiful fight of his so called comrades didn't really help that much to improve his mental state as well. Tired he just watched until Saria finally had enough and blow up like a thunderstorm in the middle of summer.

An impressive sight to see, yet not one you would want to be a part of.

Link stood again, he wasn't going to get any rest this way. It would be best to continue now that they still had enough strength to stand on their own two feet.

His companions soon noticed his absence and they joined him right when he opened one of the last doors.

The place was exactly the way he remembered it. A small layer of water pooled around the walls and the floor, giving the place the image of a mirror. Which was exactly what it was in Link's messed up mind.

They weren't alone though.

Standing in the middle of the room was none other then his worst memory, the very proof of his weakness.

Dark Link

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A/N :

I'm sorry that it took so long to update this story. My finals start tomorrow, so I haven't really had any time for anything but studying. I did want to get something done, so I sacrificed some of my precious time to write this down (not that it would have left me alone if I didn't but that's a story for another time)

Anyway, keep your fingers crossed because I do really want to graduate :D

~~ destiny's charm ~~