It's early!

"Who are you?" Link's head still ached as he sat upright, but it was, blessed be Farore, receding. A blue-haired woman sleeping with her feet up on his cot jerked awake, grabbing for something at her waist.

Tears leaked from her eyes, to Link's bewilderment. He looked down, somehow embarrassed, and asked his blankets, "Did you bring us here, wherever we are?"

The young woman– not much more than a girl, really –wiped her eyes with her sleeve. It left purple streaks on her pale face, as if she had applied too much makeup.

"Yeah, I found the both of you." She said, sitting on his bed. "You… don't remember?"

Link blew out his breath. "So where are we, exactly?"

She let out a choked sob. "Don't you remember where you are, Hero?"

"Why the fuck is everybody calling me that?!" Link's temper suddenly chipped, allowing anger and frustration and confusion and despair to slip through like the blood suddenly drifting from his cranial wound. Link felt sodden, raw, injured, befuddled, and every other horrible feeling he had ever had in his life and, tears blinding him, mixing with the blood dripping down his face, he grabbed the girl by her front.

"WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO ME?!" his scream, laced with the unstable cocktail of emotions he scarcely contained, reverberated in the small room, making it sound even louder than it was. It seemed to add to the feeling that the past two hours of his experience seemed to be shredding out of him.

After a few seconds, he was dimly aware of an ache in his face, and he began to release the feral expression he didn't remember making. His taut jaw muscles cried with lassitude as he unclenched them.

It didn't occur to him that he was lying back down until he realized that the girl was sobbing on his chest. The warm deluge cooled him down a bit and made him remember that he was dizzy. He lifted her head to tell this girl that he needed to rest-

She was kissing him. She was kissing him and he was kissing her and Link enjoyed it a bit too much. He pushed her away, suddenly flustered. "W-what the hell are you doing! I-I don't even know y-you!" And in his state of undress, it did nefarious things to his body.

Link breathed hard. She made a move toward him, but he stopped her with an extended hand. "No… Sorry, but stay right there."

The girl's mouth quivered. "B-but Link i-it's me," she smiled through her tears. "Ashei, remember?"

Sighing, he rested his back on the bed's headboard, running his fingers through his hair and wincing when he brushed that re-opened wound. Of all the times when girls couldn't keep their hands to themselves, it had to be when his entire universe was stood on its head. Ashei was an attractive girl, but he was overloaded with emotions, wrung out, and already sort of involved with Saria. He tried and failed to calm himself, and instead merely tried to ignore what had just happened.

He searched her face for something familiar, but he found nothing. "I'm sorry, Ashei, but I've no idea who you are." Link paused, watching her warily. "But it looks like we were pretty close, uh?"

She sniffed, her eyes downcast. "We fought together… for so long. We went places together. The first time we met, I was glad that it was so cold, so that I could explain away a blush."

Link put a hand on her shoulder. "Listen… I'm sorry about just now, when I freaked out on you. It's just… a lot has happened to me and Saria in a pretty short time, so we're both pretty freaked out."

Ashei nodded. "Get some rest, Link." She wiped her eyes again, swiftly exiting the cave-like room.

Link felt taken aback at Ashei's sudden departure, since it contrasted so strongly with everything else that had just happened.

Link knew that Ashei cared about him quite a lot, and could guess why. 'She said that we fought together and traveled together, and apparently she liked me since we first met, but I don't remember it.'

He covered himself with the cot's thick blankets. 'Everyone has been calling me "Hero," and Ashei hinted that I'd been some sort of warrior or something.' Link swallowed, staring at his shaking extremities.

"Who… just who the hell am I?" he whispered.

"Oh… Link?"

"Saria!" he locked eyes on her. She looked tired and pale, and sounded weak with her obvious fatigue. "Sare, we made it outta there! I mean, if this girl named Ashei didn't come along and save us, we'd be frozen out there right now."

"Ashei?" She said. "That's a cool name. Link… where are we?"

He looked at the wooden door. "I dunno, but the people must be friendly, or we wouldn't be here."

"I meant… where's our school? And my apartment? And Sheik and Darunia?"

"Ah…" Link trailed off as he realized that none of those things had crossed his mind since he had woken up.

"I think we're not… there anymore," Link said. "Remember that really thin guy that probably brought us here?"

She swallowed. "Yeah."

"He said something about me being a 'Hero,' and that I had some sorta Power inside of me."

"Well… I don't know Link." Her eyes drifted shut. "I just don't know…"

Link sighed. She was tired; he would give her the rest she probably needed. Going back to his cot, he tried to go to sleep again, but he became painfully interested in what was outside their room.

He dressed, grateful that whoever had unclothed him had left his boxers on. '… Was that Ashei, by any chance?' He shook his head at the thought.

Finishing his shoelaces, he tried to open the door, but discovered that in place of one, there was a handle shaped like an iron knocker on Sheik's front door. He began to wonder what his best friends were doing as he lifted the knocker, the door emitting a clicking sound. He pushed the door open and exited. The dark brown tunnel smelled moist and pungently earthy, and aside from the periodic torch on the walls, there was little light.

It wasn't long until he came to another door. There was a sliver of light that penetrated the bottom of the doorframe, turning to shadow every few seconds. He heard low, guttural voices in a large volume from the other side. 'I wonder who… or what's on the other side.' He decided it couldn't be anything dangerous, or else he and Saria would have been disturbed by now.

He opened the door to a staggering sight. Mounds of rock were dancing, drinking, and eating. Rocks. They were rocks… that were eating rocks. Link couldn't keep himself from laughing out loud, finding it so hilarious that he backed into the door behind him, slamming it shut. Several of the cyclopean masses turned toward him, and he saw that they had small faces, and heads, and more definition than he had seen from the back. Their eyes were opaque, their skin the same color as the sandy cavern, and they possessed rocky eyebrows that seemed to perpetually slant downward.

Despite this, along with their hulking shoulders, they somehow bore an amicable appearance.

"LINK!" the room cheered, nearly knocking Link off his feet. Two of them picked Link up and displayed him on their shoulders, despite his protests and queries as to how they knew his name. Link braved the compliments, cries of good health, and questions at first, then began to feel the genuine feelings of fellowship alive in the room, growing a smile.

"An' he's awake?" Darbus asked with interest.

"Yeah, but…" Ashei trailed off.

Darbus frowned. "But what?"

"Well… he doesn't remember anything. Not where he is, not that he's the Hero…" Ashei swallowed. "Not even me." She finished, remembering her aphrodisiomania.

Darbus heaved a sigh like a huge bellows working. "I'm tellin' ya, we knew this was gonna happen if we ever saw 'im again. Guess we'll just hafta teach him. Get the Princess here. Hell, both of 'em. We could use their help."

"Yeah. Should I take him and… I dunno… teach him along the way?" The task felt daunting. Unless Link regained his memory, Ashei would need months or perhaps even a year to train Link back to his former abilities. He should have retained the muscle memory, but there were things like hunting strategies, survival skills, and first aid- to name a few -that would require training and practice. Most of all, she could not impart the irreplaceable experience he had acquired throughout his quest to defeat Ganondorf and Zant.

Darbus's slate-like brow fused together. "I guess, but there's all that other stuff that ya can't teach him, ya know?" He said as if reading her thoughts.

"Well," he said after a pause. "I need to talk to the Elders about this. Everyone on Death Mountain– hell, maybe even farther –knows that Link is back, so I should get their opinions. In the meantime, can you get Link to agree to a meetin' with them?"

"Uh, sure." Ashei said without much confidence. "I'll try, at least."

He patted her unarmored shoulder, chuckling. "Uh huh. Seeya soon, Ashei." he said in a tone of clear dismissal.

"Yeah," She said for what felt like the thousandth time that day.

(2/20/14) And sloppy. Everything about this chapter (now that I've gone back and reread it) feels clumsy to me. The prose... The dialogue... Everything. I'm beginning work on Chapter Seven now, so it'll likely be up by this weekend. Have a good day, and review! They're motivating.