"Link!" she cried out with relief, rushing to the platform where a layer of blue light blinded me, setting me gently down. "As the water is rising, the evil is vanishing from the lake…You did it!" She looks me over once, her voice becoming anxious. "How are you? Are you hurt? "

"I am wet." I said flatly, vainly trying to wring out my sopping hat. "I am cold. And I am tired." I took a deep breath, my frustration building in my voice. "That temple…" I growled, pointing a shaking finger towards the entrance. "That temple…If I ever have to do anything as impossible as that again..."

Buried beneath the cowl of her Sheikah uniform, her expression changed, a raised eyebrow my only tool to read what I could only name as skepticism. "You…you went through the entire temple without any injuries? Completely, one hundred percent fine?"

"I am not fine." I moaned, burying my face in my hands, taking another breath to try to steady myself. "If I ever find anything as goddess-damned frustrating as that goddess-damned temple, I swear to Din I'll kill myself because you know what? Life just isn't worth living anymore."

She visibly relaxed, closing in on the short space between us, pulling down her cowl and wrapping her arms around my sodden form. "Aw…" she cooed, tugging playfully on the tip of my hat. "Was the great, big, scary Hero deterred by some widdle puzzles?"

"Shut up!" I snapped. "You don't even know the half of it."

She smiled, pressing a delicate kiss to my neck. "You can spend the time we usually take preventing you from dying telling me about it."

I rolled my eyes, gently prying her arms from me and beginning to unbuckle my belt, in turn shedding all the heavy pieces of armor; the sword, my shield, my gauntlets.

"Well," I began, peeling the soaked blue tunic from my chest, flinging the magical dead weight out of sight. "Not mentioning the ten times I almost drowned the first hour or so considering breathing underwater isn't exactly easy, it was just a giant room with a whole bunch of different levels that the hookshot couldn't reach, so I spent half my time backtracking to find these magic symbols on the wall that when I played the ocarina in front of they changed the water levels so I could swim to wherever I needed to go. However, if that wasn't difficult enough, none of my stuff worked in the water, so I couldn't kill all the monsters like I normally do, leading to these,"

I paused, pulling up the sleeve of my damp white shirt, showing the fresh scratches and bites among the general hodgepodge of healed and in the process of healing wounds, the freshest of those being the burns that the Fire Temple had given me.

"I mean you think after the Fire Temple with all that damn fire I would be happy for some water, something that wouldn't, you know, burn me alive, but honestly, if I never saw water again I'd be perfectly fine."

Stopping in my rant for a moment, I pulled my familiar forest green tunic from my pouch, reveling in the soft, dry fabric, throwing it over my head and sitting in the soft grass.

"And then…and then…about halfway through, I came into this really big, empty room. Just white in every direction, with a small layer of water on the floor. It was so foggy you couldn't see a couple feet ahead of you. It was huge, and it looked pretty empty to me. So I sat down by the door and I was going to take a nap, until I heard it…"

Sitting in the warm sunlight on the shores of Lake Hylia, I could still hear it; the empty, broken whisper of a voice scarily similar to mine.

Heros de Tempus…

Vitae ut scire erit dissecuerit a supremum!

Cicatrices praeterita voluntas onus aeternum!

Tu summum bonum et…

HERO OF TIME.

YOU WILL DI-

"Link?"

Her gentle, curious voice shattered the dark one's, getting my thought process back on track.

"I heard me." I whispered. "And then I saw him. He was…me, but he wasn't. He was a shadow, all black, with red eyes, but besides that, he looked exactly like me. Every move I threw at him, he mimicked it, right down to the facial expression." Her expression turned horrified, and considering it wasn't a threat—I had killed the thing, after all—I decided to downplay it. "But I beat him in the end. Maybe it was the Goddesses trying to tell me how useless I was. I'm fine."

But I really wasn't. Something about that thing's aura scared me to the bone. I could feel his anger, his malice. And for some reason…a need for revenge. As much as I pondered his words, I didn't understand them, but something about them...I was afraid. Afraid like I'd never been before.

She laughed, going to fetch my discarded clothing, hanging it over the bough of the dead tree on the island we rested on. "You were in there for almost a week," she said over her shoulder. "I was starting to get worried. My imagination was getting the best of me."

"I sincerely apologize, my lady," I said in my most formal voice, deeply bowing before sitting against the trunk of the tree, her taking a place beside me, taking my hand in hers.

"I do wish you would stop referring to me as "my lady" or "Princess."" She complained, settling in the spot on my shoulder that suited her perfectly, like she was made to fit there.

"It's disrespectful. You're a princess, and last time I checked I wasn't some Lord in your court. I'm a scruffy, ill mannered, foul tempered common boy with no family, no money, no anything to my name." I reminded her, leaning down to peck her once on the lips despite my words. "Something tells me you don't get this buddy-buddy with all your subjects."

She rolled her eyes, blowing a stray strand of her bangs away with a huff of her breath. "We both know you're more than just another subject. Once this is all over, you'll have dukedom, you'll be knighted, anything you desire, you name it, and it will be yours. What you're doing for Hyrule…I'll never be able to thank you enough, Link."

I grinned, squeezing her hand gently. "So I'm not just some scruffy common boy?"

"No," she frowned, her voice filling with an unusual passion. "Never. You're Link. You're my Hero. You're…everything."

"Well, in that case, I'll have to take you up on your offer. There is something I want." I smiled mischievously, my heart thudding unevenly in my chest.

"Oh?"

"You may give me land and riches and a title and all those other trivial things," I murmured, bringing our intertwined hands to my lips and pressing a gentle kiss to the back of hers. "But the affections of my Princess are the only thing I desire."

A small half-smile lit up her face. "I was under the impression you already knew they were yours," she whispered, turning her face to look at me. "And please, stop with the titles. I am Zelda, and you are Link. That's all there is."

Much to her frustration, I shook my head, admittedly taking pleasure at the aggravated look on her face.

"Fine then," she said haughtily, scrunching her nose in annoyance. "I don't suppose you'll be able to kiss me then, or would that be considered too inappropriate, even despite my wishes? I've been waiting out here for a week, you know, with no one to talk to but that twisted old owl."

I snorted with laughter, shaking my head and pulling her face to mine once again.

"Anything for my Princess."

A/N: There's a major spoiler for the end of the story in the language none of you can understand. Someone PMd me saying my Latin sucked the other day, to which I replied, pfft, it's not Latin. It's got a bit of Latin mixed in, but besides the first chapter's quote (which I got from the Aeneid, the inspiration for this story) they've all been in a language I made up, which I've been dubbing "Sheikahn" to the people that read my drafts. It's a way for me to get my…foreshadowing isn't really the word, so preparation for the end, maybe?...in without a few of you cheating and going on Google Translate or something.

~Alyssa