We have come to the point in the story, the "83%" as I like to call it, that is a treacherous place for all authors. It is the part between plotpoints that us "wing-it, make it up as you go" authors have yet to map out even a little bit in their heads, usually resulting in painful writer's blocks that can go on for weeks, slaving over our Word document trying to find a logical way to get from point A (80%) to point B (90%) before your epic conclusion (100%). As of this chapter, we have gotten to 87%, I am pleased to say, so perhaps one more chapter before the bomb drops, and from there it's all downhill. So we're halfway over the hump! Wahoo!

On another note, another (small) part of the reason why this chapter took so long was because I went back and completely edited the entire story. It's now all nice and up to date and pretty and perfect….at least, I hope so. Nothing pivotal that will change the plot has been changed or added, but if you need something to tide you over until the next update or are curious about the couple extra foreshadowing third-person interludes I added, I'd love for you to go back and reread what I fixed. There's much more character development, for Archer and Wolfe especially, which is important for the next couple chapters, and the ending I have in mind, hint hint.

Hope you enjoy!

~Alyssa

Non vivimus, si vivere nec sine te.
…

I won't live, if living is without you.

ox(O)xo

At first, there was nothing.

Just an empty bedroom, doors to the balcony propped open to the evening air, the cicadas and other night creatures meshing together to form a symphony in the dark.

A lazy wind blew through the doors, the curtains surrounding the bed billowing ever so slightly in its wake, reaching me even from my hiding place behind the tapestry. It was cold, caressing my neck with the gentlest of touches and whispering in my ear.

"Egn everru oyte glliw uoy."

Slowly, the scene began to morph and change. It was still the same room, but now it was light, sun shining through the windows, the sound of laughter echoing in the walls.

Now, where the bed was once empty, a young boy and a small girl were wrestling, the former mercilessly tickling the latter while a smiling woman standing by the doors to the closet looked on. A bearded man suddenly emerged from behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and kissing her neck once, blue eyes alight with what I could only describe as…happiness.

"Time for breakfast!" He announced, taking the woman's hand and leading her to the door, gesturing for the two children to follow.

It was then that I realized.

The man, aged, yes, with a beard and heavy lines around his eyes from what could only be laughter, surrounded by his wife and children, strong and content and happy as any man could possibly be…he was me.

And the woman, hair beginning to grey at the temples, but eyes that were still as alive and beautiful and happy as when she was a child being pulled into the lake by a stupidly audacious commonboy…she was Zelda.

And the children…Daphnes and…and Genevieve, her name was. My children. They were there, they were with me, all smiles and laughter and joy…but I was taken from them before I even had the chance to tell them how much I loved them.

And now they were gone for good.

They paraded outside into the hallway, the man hoisting the little girl in the nightgown up and resting her on his hip, kissing her on the forehead with a broad smile on his face, reaching for the knob with his other hand.

The door closed behind the happy family with a light click, and the wind was back again.

"Eru tufe htuo ywohs naci." It said, and the scene changed again.

Night, again, the doors to the balcony still propped open, the music of the insects still making the night alive…but this time, there was something else.

Someone was…singing.

Zelda.

She sat on a chair tucked into the corner, facing balcony that opened up to the night, a bundle in her arms that she cradled like it was the most precious thing in the world. Slowly, she rocked it back and forth, the soft, soothing tones of her song joining the chorus of the darkness.

Her lullaby.

I closed my eyes, letting the familiar tune and her perfect voice wash over me, almost being able to recall the first time she had taught it to me.

Remember this song…

"Remember this song?" She had asked me, when my burns had been so severe that I could scarcely stop screaming enough to breathe as she treated them, and the night after I had finished cleansing the Shadow Temple, so dead to the world that it was all she could do but sit and smooth back my hair while I trembled and shrieked from the voices only I could hear.

And then she had sang, like she was singing to the child, however quiet and still, now, blind to everything else in the world. The difference was, now there was another center to her universe, another mind to soothe, to comfort, to protect.

Slowly, I opened my eyes to look at the thing, but something else caught my attention immediately.

Zelda was crying.

They were cold, quiet tears, lines of wetness trailing down her face and landing on the bundle underneath, but she didn't seem to notice. Her voice remained unwavering and strong despite them, carrying on for the child as she carried on for me all those years ago, though she didn't remember as I did.

There was power in those notes, she had told me once. Magic, though she wasn't sure what kind. She liked to think that they could heal, should things go terribly wrong. It had always worked for her, when she was sick or was hurt and her mother sang to her. It had always worked for me, lulling me to sleep despite the worst of the pain…

So why was she singing it now?

The song began to slow, holding out some unwritten fermata until it came to a close, a final, piercing note that hung in the stillness of the night.

And then she began to sob.

Gut-wrenching, heartbroken sobs, earth-shattering, world-stopping sobs, a kind that I had never heard her utter before. A long-dead piece of my heart began to stir, longing to comfort, but was shot down before it even had a chance to come to life again.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, holding the bundle closer and hugging it to her chest. "I—I'm so sorry."

What could she be sorry for?

What could possibly have made her act this way?

But then, she lifted it so its head was above her shoulder where I could see, burying her face into its soft down of golden hair. Its eyes, a soft azure blue that were incredibly familiar but in the moment I couldn't place, were open, but blank. Unseeing.

Dead.

"I wish I could make you understand why I didn't want you." she continued, voice hitching and broken. "I wish I understood all that's happened and why I did it. I've been stupid. I didn't want you. And now you're gone and the only person left that matters doesn't even—"

"Are you still going on about the thing?"

She stopped immediately, looking up to Lucien, who stood in the threshold with a disgusted look on his face.

"She is not some thing."" She grounded out through gritted teeth, reaching up with a hand to dry her tears.

He rolled his eyes. "What does it matter? What good would she have been? A woman could never sit on the Noamatian throne."

"She's your daughter!"

"She's dead." He retorted, no remorse in his voice as he began to strip his clothes, kicking off his boots and hanging his cloak up by the door. "How many times will you have to hear that to get it through that thick skull of yours? She's dead and no matter how much you cry over it, it won't change a thing!"

"You would be the same as me if this was your son, dead before he could live." She spat, holding the child closer to her chest, angling her as far away as she could get within the confines of the chair.

"And rightly so. He would have been my successor. The future king of my people. That girl there, she would have been nothing but a liability."

"She would have been the Queen of Hyrule!"

"She would have been sitting on a pretty chair waiting for her mother to die so her brother could kill her and take Hyrule for himself." He corrected, hanging up his jacket. "Which is what the smart man would do. I would have done it myself if my mother weren't as sentimental as it were. That's the problem with you women. You're weak. Better that the girl died before she could shame herself and her family name with her."

He paused a moment, considering. "She wasn't want I needed anyway. I need a son. An heir. And you'll give him to me."

He strode over to where she sat, pulling her up by the stays of her bodice and ripping the top off her blouse, smirking at the horrified look on her face when she realized what he meant.

"You know what they say, don't you?" he crooned, angling his face to kiss her neck in a sick imitation of what the man had done to her just minutes before, biting down so harshly on her ear that she cried out, dropping the bundle at her feet.

He laughed, a malicious, menacing sound, reaching down to unbutton his breeches and giving the bundle a sharp kick away. "When first you don't succeed, try, try again."

And as he threw her down onto the bed, my eyes averting and locking on the child's, I realized something else.

The unseeing azure blue that stared back was the same as mine.

"Eru tufru oysi siht." The wind whispered, "Egn everru oyte glliw uoy."

Again, the scene began to change, quickly and more abrupt than the other times, thrusting the scene at my face.

There was Lucien on the ground by the bed, bleeding out onto the carpet with an arrow stuck in his throat, eyes as unseeing as his daughter's just moments before.

For a moment I was so wrapped up in the satisfaction that he had been brutally, painfully murdered that I didn't realize what was going on on the other side of the room.

But I saw now.

Zelda, curled up in the corner with her bow slung around her shoulder, sobbing at the feet of a man. An arrow had pierced clean through the fleshy part of the junction of his arm and his shoulder, but he didn't even seem to notice as he walked deliberately forward, sword in hand.

"Give me a reason," he said, voice gentle, as he lifted the flat side of his blade under her chin, forcing her to look at him. "Give me one good reason why I should let you live."

"You're not yourself." She whispered in answer, "You-you're being possessed, Li-"

"Ah, ah," the man chided, reaching up with his free hand and patting the arrow lodged in his arm, not even wincing. "You took care of that, didn't you? Light arrows, they kill everything evil, you told me all those years ago..." He paused, harshly ripping it out by the shaft, tossing it carelessly to the ground as blood spurted on her face. "There's nothing evil inside me telling me to do this, Princess. This is me on my own accord, doing something right."

He lifted her up by the collar of her dress, higher and higher until they were eye level. "I want you to say my name." He murmured into her ear, seductive like a lover. "I want you to beg for forgiveness. I want you to scream and grovel and my feet and hope that whatever shreds of mercy I possess didn't get destroyed when you sent me back in time."

Ice suddenly filled my chest, but I could not move. Could not cry out. For a moment, I couldn't even breathe.

And Zelda only shook her head, sapphire eyes brutally defiant as they glared into his, unwavering as she sealed her fate. "Just kill me," she whispered.

And without hesitation, he did.

She crumpled like a doll to the ground, eyes fluttering madly, staring uncomprehendingly at the blood on her hands that came from the hole in her chest.

"I'm sorry," she sighed.

And then she was still.

For a second, the man did nothing. He only stared at her lifeless body, still seeping blood onto the carpet, with a look devoid of any emotion on his face. But then he shook his head.

"I'm not." He said.

He turned around so he was facing me, and then, as though he knew I was there behind the tapestry, we met eyes.

The same empty, cold azure blue as the baby's.

The same empty, cold azure blue as mine.

"Egn everru oyte glliw uoy." The wind whispered.

And that was when I woke up.

It's short. I know. But it was the best I could do.

Leave a word! The next chapter is going to be a kicker!