It didn't require much discussion for everyone to agree that Link shouldn't sleep in his own bedchamber. Castle staff members were cleaning up the bloody mess that had been left in the room, but it was still disconcerting for Link to even think about setting foot in that room again. Although the Serana imposter wasn't human, it certainly looked like one. Hacking it up into pieces had been sickening to his stomach.
Zelda informed Link that he would share her bedchamber that night, and that she would just have to tolerate whatever gossip came of it. They would also have heavily armed elite guards standing outside of their door throughout the night. The hulking muscular guards posted for the duty looked every bit as imposing as Ganondorf himself. Zelda and Link lay in bed next to each other. They were both still stunned from what had happened. Finally, Link found a way to put words to what had been on his mind.
"Zelda, we should talk about our mission. You stated before that there is a connection between the Master Sword and the Triforce. I want to know what you mean."
"The history of the Master Sword goes back a very long time, and I'm not really sure how accurate it is" said Zelda. "What I do know was that the Master Sword as we know it now was once in a different form. This was back when it was the Goddess Sword."
"Goddess Sword? What goddess?"
"Hylia" replied Zelda. "As you can probably guess, Hyrule was named after Hylia. I am a direct descendant of Hylia's reincarnation. Her reincarnation was also named Zelda. There have been other notable people with the same name throughout history. My reign will add to this confusion even more. Anyway, the Goddess Hylia created the Goddess Sword to aid her chosen hero in a time when the world was once again threatened by evil."
"And then it became the Master Sword?" guessed Link.
"Her chosen hero was the one who enabled that transformation" replied Zelda. "He acquired three sacred flames from the sacred dragons, who acted as emissaries of a sort for the goddesses who created the world. The flames contained the essences of power, wisdom, and courage. As you already know, these correspond to the parts of the Triforce."
"So these sacred flames are what give the Master Sword this connection to the Triforce?" asked Link.
"That's what I thought too at one time" replied Zelda. "But I'm afraid it's a bit more complicated than that, and here is where we get into more advanced Triforce theory. Adding the flames was necessary in order to open the Gate of Time. I am not clear on the reasons why the hero had a need to do that, but the sacred flames were needed to do so. It's not so much that the sacred flames possessed great power in and of themselves, but rather it was the fact that they established a common language of sorts."
"Common language?"
"Well, that's one way to look at it. It's hard to explain. The Gate of Time most likely derived its power from the Triforce. However, the Gate itself lacked intelligence. It could not read the will of its user, and without will, there can be no purpose. The sacred flames were personified essences, and thus able to communicate with the Gate of Time through the Master Sword. Because the Gate of Time was powered by the Triforce, it would only respond to all three essences being present simultaneously. But again, these flames only provided the framework for interacting with a derivative of the Triforce's power, and these flames alone are insufficient for interacting with the Triforce directly."
"So then what is sufficient?" asked Link.
"That's where I'm getting into pure conjecture" replied Zelda. "The Master Sword was created long after the Triforce but the Goddess Sword wasn't. I believe that the Goddess Sword contains a design for a key of sorts to be forged. The interesting thing about most keys is that their properties aren't really that important. What matters is the knowledge of what the key is unlocking."
Link nodded. "Right. If you know the shape of the lock, you know what shape to imprint on the key."
"Precisely!" exclaimed Zelda. "The key doesn't have to contain any other special properties. You just have to possess the requisite knowledge to make a one-time imprint of the correct shape. Except in the case of the Master Sword, the imprinting doesn't exactly refer to a physical shape but rather to a magical code of sorts."
"And the original Goddesses Sword was imprinted with this code?" asked Link.
Zelda grinned and shook her head. "No, it was imprinted with one-third of this code. The Triforce requires a balance of its attributes. The sacred flames were balanced among one another, but they could not provide balance to the sword's code, because the original Goddess Sword was inherently unbalanced!"
"Now you have really lost me" muttered Link, his head hurting. "My travels throughout Hyrule have forced me to solve some complicated puzzles but this is still beyond me."
"But that's only because I haven't yet told you the rest of the story about the Goddess Sword" said Zelda. "It was created by the Goddess Hylia, who was reincarnated as a distant ancestor of mine. As you know, my bloodline has traditionally been gifted with the Triforce of Wisdom. This was no accident. I have read a lot about the guardian spirit created by Hylia who lived within the Goddess Sword, and eventually the Master Sword. The spirit's name was Fi. According to every source that had come into contact with Fi in her brief time among the living, Fi had an extremely logical mind that was capable of solving the most difficult of problems. No calculation was too complex for her. The hero who served Hylia's will at the time replied heavily on Fi for her advice. In other words, she was the very embodiment of wisdom. Hylia didn't gift the sword with attributes of power or courage. No, she chose wisdom."
"So then the sword still lacks the balance of attributes needed then?" asked Link.
"Maybe not" said Zelda. "The hero who transformed the Goddess Sword into the Master Sword did something very interesting with it. He used it to defeat the Demon King Demise, and then absorb Demise and his sword's essence into the Master Sword. And it gets even more interesting. Demise's sword had its own guardian. He is known as Lord Ghirahim."
Link gasped. "That makes sense!" he exclaimed. "He was trapped inside my sword. So I suppose I lost whatever he added to my sword?"
"Not if it was a one-time imprint" replied Zelda. "From what I know of Ghirahim, the attribute he would have imprinted would undoubtedly be the attribute of power. That only leaves the attribute of courage. I'm not sure how that can be obtained but I would think that it would follow the pattern of the other two attributes and be linked to a guardian entity of sorts, like Fi or Ghirahim."
"But why would I even need a key?" asked Link. "The Triforce can be used just by touching it."
"Because the Triforce's balance requirement isn't the only safeguard it has against misuse. Who is to say that a person who possesses a balance of attributes will necessarily be a good person? We associate courage and wisdom with goodness but evil people can be courageous and wise too. In the event that the wrong person were to ever get their hands on the Triforce, we may only have one chance to walk the world back from the brink of ruin."
"That's a lot to think about" said Link. "Especially this attribute of courage that remains unaccounted for. Assuming the worst comes to pass, I would need to make sure that I am equipped to stop whatever trouble may arise."
Zelda pulled Link closer. "Well you won't have to do it alone. Not anymore."
When Zelda eventually fell asleep, Link soon began to drift off as well. His last waking thoughts were of a golden wolf.