This chapter will be a bit different from the others. Link/Nox is actually a person. And he's an angsty teenage boy. In this timeline he gets to have a childhood, after which comes an adolescent-hood, and I decided that he would have some fun with it. So there's a bit of a different mood, a happier, lighter hearted one that I had an immense amount of fun writing.

Hope you enjoy, and thanks for the amazing reviews once again—if I haven't PMd you back yet, I'm sorry, I've been a bit backed up considering my Internet hasn't been working all that great lately (I've been having pretty bad thunder and lightning storms where I live, so it's messing with the connection more than often enough to drive me completely insane.)

~Alyssa

Qui amicus est amat sciens et idem.

. . . .

A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same.

Now

My preteenage years were loathsome.

Instead of spending them in a deep, enchanted sleep while Hyrule crumbled around me, I spent them coherent and thoroughly miserable.

The changes that puberty brought were something I had never experienced before, and to be quite honest, something I could have survived without.

However these were the years that I grew to be a person. I was a warrior no longer; the weight of saving Hyrule no longer rested upon my shoulders. For the first time in my life, I was able to be a child. An honest, happy, no consequences to think about child.

It was fantastic.

Linden was approaching her fifth year, and was in the "What is that?" phase that Garrett loathed and Archer adored. She questioned everything that could possibly be questioned and sometimes things that couldn't. It wouldn't be long until she pondered the unthinkable.

I could only imagine…

A cold winter night, a fire roaring in the grate, and Linden sitting on Baxter's knee, nestled up against his broad chest like a sleepy kitten. Just when he thinks she'd fallen asleep, she stirs and gazes up at him with her innocent green eyes.

"Baxter?" Her voice is wispy and sleep-laden.

"Yes, sweetheart?" His voice is gravelly, like always, but with an undertone of affection.

"Can I ask you something?"

He nods, half asleep, and she giggles. Then she takes a deep breath and puts on her best curious little girl face.

"Where do babies come from?"

Silence.

"Baxter, are you okay? You're twitching again…"

"I- uh... Well, you see… Th- they, uh…er… Zenith!"

Just the thought of his face…

It was these years that I learned many valuable lessons that I never did in my old life. Things like trust and love, heart and dedication. And most importantly, how to be in a family. How to be a brother, a son, a friend. They were essential to the person I would become, and therefore essential for you to know, to be able to understand my tale.

I…I wasn't always crazy.

No, I'm not crazy. I can still remember…I was a normal person, once.

Once.

Then

I believe I was about thirteen in new-world years (if you counted the sixteen from before, which for a very long time I did, I was twenty-one), and Archer fifteen or sixteen. Whatever our ages were, we definitely weren't old enough to be doing what we were.

I can specifically remember this was the year my voice had finally gotten over squeaking, and also the year Archer decided he was interested in finding a girlfriend.

As much as I wished to join him in his ogling over the girls in the market, I simply couldn't bring myself to, for reasons much like when I was asked my favorite color. I would say green; silently screaming that it was actually blue: the color of time, the color of the Master Sword, the color of Lake Hylia, the color of the sky, but most importantly the color of her eyes...

I couldn't let go.

But that's not important.

Once a week Baxter went down to the local tavern, telling Zenith it was to get up to date with the gossip, making sure nothing potentially dangerous or threatening was brewing that would affect us, however in reality all he was looking for was a pint and a break.

One day he decided to take Archer and me along, for reasons I still can't fathom. But no matter the reason, he did, sitting down at a table in the middle of the lively bar, immediately striking a conversation with a man sitting nearby.

Archer and I were on top of the world, too awestruck to say anything. We were in a bar. An actual bar. Completely under the permission of Baxter.

A girl no older than us strode by, setting down three drinks on the table. Her light brown hair was pulled into a no-nonsense bun on top of her head, her tawny eyes carefully watching the nearly overflowing mugs in her hands as she spun gracefully in between the tables, handing out drinks and dodging the roving hands of the rowdy barmen. And as she walked away, Archer's eyes followed her, unmistakable desire in his recently-changed hazel eyes.

Baxter elbowed him in the shoulder, grinning at the dumbstruck look on his face. "Like what you see, lad?" he guffawed, causing Archer to abruptly snap out of his reverie.

"Please," he snorted, looking down at his drink and blushing, using both hands to take a sip.

This was also the year, now that I can recall, that we discovered Archer's tolerance to alcohol.

By the end of the hour he had gone through his cup and three more, any sense of inhibition gone as he talked with the other men, bawdy filth spewing from his mouth. He was up there with the best of them, singing the pub songs at the top of his voice, egging on the fights that broke out, and flirting shamelessly with the barmaid—Elle, we learned from a man who had come to sit with us, the daughter of the barkeep.

I was still quite in my senses, having not even finished my first drink. It was fire going down my throat, a sensation that I did not enjoy and intended on staying away from. It was quite humorous watching the usually thoughtful and careful Archer out of his senses, all reservations put aside. However, his limit was fast approaching and no one was stopping him.

His arms shook as he tried to take a swig, sloshing the brew over the table, his eyes unfocused.

"Why don't you cut it off there?" I suggested as I grabbed onto his arm, trying to pry the glass from his iron grasp.

"Nocksssss." He slurred, a confused look on his face as he stared at me. He laughed at his own statement, whatever he was about to say forgotten. "That's a funny name, you know that?"

"Yeah, yeah, hilarious." I rolled my eyes, pulling the cup from his hand. "I'm busting a gut. But no more, okay?"

He mimicked my expression, rolling his eyes with a goofy grin on his face. "We'll go soon. But where's that pretty girl that gave us the drinks? I have to tell her somethinggggg…"

He stood up on his stool, scanning the room until he found the girl.

"OI ELLE! I-"

Finally Baxter—who had been completely useless at reining him in up until this point—intervened. "Time to go!" he interrupted, throwing an arm around his waist and hoisting him off the chair, thankfully stopping whatever he was about to say in his tracks.

"Waaaait!" Archer whined, struggling against Baxter's hold. "I know her! I neeeeed….I need to tell herrrr…"

"I know you know her," Baxter told him indulgently. "Whatever it is can wait until morning."

"You'll thank us later," I muttered, tapping him sympathetically on the arm as we left the tavern. "And I'm never letting you drink again."

ox(O)xo

The next day, once he somewhat regained his senses, Archer decided that the barkeep's daughter was a girl worth pursuing, despite his first impression on her. As much as I warned him it was a bad idea—he'd truly made a fool out of himself—he was insistent on giving it a shot.

I went with Linden—the pair of us still the only two without a warrant hanging over our heads—on our rounds that morning, wishing him a half-hearted good luck as we left.

True to her reputation, Linden drew out our trip for hours. She was curious about everything—why the bread at the bakery rose, how the weavers spun their thread, how the tanner made his leather. It was so impossible to refuse her when she got that look in her eyes, that puppy-eyed I'm-just-an-innocent-little-girl face that got her everything she wanted.

It was dark by the time we returned home, my arms laden with the spoils of the day.

"Is Archer home?" I asked Garrett as I set the baskets on the table for Zenith, who was sitting by the fireplace with a dusty book on his lap, the pages yellowed and crinkled with age.

"He's upstairs." He said, not looking up from his volume. "If you know what's good for you, you wouldn't bother him. He's a beast."

I laughed once empathetically, climbing the steps two at a time, cautiously opening the door. I stood in the threshold, a bit afraid to make his temper flare. Garrett's warning combined with the notes he was plucking from his fiddle spelled out exactly how things went with Elle.

"Something tells me it didn't work out?" I joked, hoping to get him back to his normal self.

His expression was less than expressed, and he continued to play the pizzicato notes of despair, much to my dismay.

"It couldn't have been that bad."

"It was so bad." He sighed, putting down his violin and flopping face first into his pillow with a huff.

"What about your dashing good looks repulsed her?" I asked, trying to get him to smile. It was probably the hangover talking, and maybe if he worked it out of his system he would be less intolerable.

He hesitated before he answered; mouth twisting as he replied with what was obviously a lie.

"She said she wasn't into blondes."

I leaned against the doorframe, trying with all my might to keep from laughing at the evident falsery, instead choosing to make another joke. "That's the least of your worries. You can pull some Sheikah magic and just make your hair brown. Or maybe red. I hear the girls are into redheads."

"Come on, Nox, you're supposed to be making me feel better!"

"Hey, I offered a perfectly valid solution. You're the one who's not taking my advice."

He snorted, twisting onto his back and rolling his eyes. "I don't want a girl to fall in love with a hunky, charming, redhead when I'm really a no less hunky, charming, blonde."

"I'll give you the blonde part." I said, finally failing in my attempts to quench my laughter and going to sit on the empty bed frame across from him. "And you can add modest to the list."

He leaned his head to the side, offering me a flat glare. "I need less sarcasm and more advice."

"I can't give you advice if you're going to blatantly lie about what happened." I pointed out, kicking off my shoes and closing the door behind me.

"Fine," He ran a hand through his hair, closing his eyes tiredly. "We used to be friends, when we were young. Then everything got messed up, and I haven't talked to her since. And that's the end of it."

"It doesn't sound like the end of it."

"Well," he scowled, "It is."

"All right, all right." I held up my hands in surrender. "But you're still torn up over her?"

"Broken and completely shattered," he moaned, clutching his chest with a hand dramatically. At least some of his good humor was back.

"You're breaking my heart, Archer." I said as I climbed into my bunk, mindful that he was downplaying his feelings but smiling anyway, sparing him any more questions. "If I knew you were capable of this type of emotion before I would have started courting you a long time ago."

I felt the frame of the bed shake with his laughter, and I sighed with relief, a real grin forming on my face.

"Din, I messed things up so bad, didn't I?" he groaned, shifting over to the side of his bunk.

"You could always try talking to her again while you're sober."

He coughed embarrassedly, scratching his head. "I'll run myself through before I drink again."

I rolled my eyes. "If you drink like that again, I'll do it myself."

At this he started to laugh again, closing his eyes and nearly falling off the bed in the process. "You're my best friend, you know that?"

"And don't you forget it. One day I just might need a wingman as well."

"Please. If I can't get a girlfriend, you can't either."

I rolled over in bed, hoisting the blankets over my torso and blowing out the candle. "Thanks for the confidence boost, Archer."

"What are friends for?"

Now

Friends.

They are the essence of life. Sometimes they're better than you; more interesting, more fun, more powerful. Sometimes they're worse. Either way, a true friendship is when both people are accepted for who they are. They take your assets and highlight them; they take your faults and realize that you wouldn't be who you are without them. A friend is one who knows your burdens and helps you carry them, takes some of the weight to their shoulders and making the journey easier.

However, you never know when they will be taken from you. Especially in this life, I learned the value of companionship.

Navi, who stood by me through thick and thin, stayed with me no matter the circumstances, followed me through Hell and back and still managed to keep a smile on my face. She saved my life more times than I can count. But now she's gone.

Malon, who was kind enough to give me a bed and a listening ear, who trusted me enough to teach me her mother's song, who laughed at all my terrible jokes and told me a few in return to keep my morale high, who sang me to sleep when my wounds festered and bled. She was irreplaceable in my heart, so unique and so beautiful. But now she's gone.

Epona, my faithful horse. She waited seven years for me to tame her, to aid me in my quest. No matter where in Hyrule I stood all I would have to do was play her song, and she would come running. Her gentle, quiet faith that I could sense when I rode her, her alabaster mane flowing in the wind, the sound of her hooves in the dirt…I loved her more than anything. But now she's gone.

Saria, the girl who stayed by my side no matter what, who protected me from the bullies, who stood up for me when they accused me of killing the Great Deku Tree, who gave me my first ocarina and taught me my first song, who promised she would always be my friend. And true to her word, she was my only friend for a very long time, in an important part of my life, but she forgot like the rest. And now she's gone.

All my friends that the flow of time stole from me, erased them, blew them away like the sands in the desert wind. I took them for granted. I didn't understand how much I needed them before they were gone. Before it was too late.

I would do anything…would give anything if I could have them again, for things to go back to the way they were, even to just speak with them one last time; one last conversation so I could express how happy they made me, how much I loved them.

Or even simply the chance to say goodbye.

Treasure them, or someone else will.

I learned that the hard way.