Chapter 1

Link had, unequivocally, zero idea how long he had slept.

He was in a dank, dark cave. The only light came from a podium in front of him, off to the side. Its blue glow pulsed lightly, but it didn't actually provide enough for him to see much more of the cave. The strange pool he'd just woken in slid away from him as he got out, wet droplets falling down his body. He wrung his hair with his hands. It hadn't grown, so he must not have been asleep that long.

But he had to get out of this cave. How he'd gotten inside was a mystery, as there was no door to be seen. From what he saw, the cave was tiny, barely larger than a living space. The air stank, as if last year's apple crop was nearby, long past rotted away, and all that remained was the aftertaste. Link loved food, but he didn't think he'd venture so far as to eat whatever had been rotting away in this cave.

His stomach gurgled a low growl, and that's when Link realized he'd been ignoring a dull pain in his abdomen. Hungry, alone, and practically naked, he shivered with no meager amount of anxiety. How long had he been here? When had he fallen asleep?

And most importantly, when had he last eaten?

That last thought was what finally made him move. He had no desire to wake up only to die of starvation. If he could claw his way out of here, he would do so, but all around him was rock. He could chew on rocks, but the thought made him turn away in disgust. He was not a Goron, but a growing man who needed proper food. And fast.

Weak but determined, he made his way over to the pedestal at the end of the room. Its glow was emanating from a small rectangular object at its apex, and its light seemed to move in waves. While he was hungry enough to eat his own arm, he was too curious about this tablet. Within the blue waves of light, thin orange glows traced symbols on the pedestal and effervesced through the surrounding air. It created Sheikah phrases, undecipherable to his untrained eyes.

Strange, he thought. I know what it is, but not what it says.

Was he supposed to know what it said?

That's when it struck him. He had no memory of his past.

If he didn't know Sheikah, what language did he know? How did he get into this cave? Who was his family? His friends? Did he have a lover? Was there someone out there who missed him and needed him?

Who was he?

He stood in front of the pedestal for a few more moments and lifted his hands to his face. Yes, those were his hands. He cleared his throat and prepared to utter something, but nothing would even come out. His throat was not only hoarse, but dry as a bone.

All right, so it had obviously been more than a day that he'd slept, and therefore eaten. His stomach pain came back to him in full force, and he doubled over. He righted himself with effort, and with nothing better to do, picked up the tablet from its pedestal.

Instantly, a display lighted up the middle of the tablet, and he noticed that there were buttons on its face, also glowing a faint blue and orange. The bright light lit up the room and nearly blinded him. A woman's voice, faint but sure, bombarded him as he squinted at the room.

"Come back to me, Link," the voice echoed. "Come back home."

The voice, while sounding genuine, was too unfamiliar for Link to place. Was he supposed to know who this was? Was he so hungry that he was delusional? No, that couldn't be it. Why would his inner voice be feminine? It made little sense. Link then wondered if it had been a memory. But whose? That woman's voice...it was intimate, desperate, longing. This was someone who knew Link, and someone that he should remember. But who was she to him, and why couldn't he remember her?

He closed his eyes, partly to shield them from the bright light of the tablet, and partly to orient himself. Then, unbidden, an image of a desert flashed into his mind. Red, gritty sand blowing in the breeze. Looming columns of rocks, threatening to crumble. Hydromelons blooming in the harsh ground. Red flowing flags, marking territory.

The desert image disappeared almost as quickly as it came, and Link tried to understand what his mind was doing to him. A part of him had lost where he'd called home, or who he'd called family. But another part, this latent part he accidentally discovered, did. And it was begging the other part to give in.

Home.

Was the desert his home? There was only one way to find out, but no way to get out of this cave.

He looked back down at the display on the tablet, and it showed him an incomplete map of Hyrule. Instinctively, he looked at the bottom left corner of the map, and somewhere in his forgotten heart, he recognized where the desert would be. He pressed a handful of the buttons on its face, but they didn't seem to have much function. Sighing, he put the tablet back on the pedestal, where it landed with a light clink.

Instantly, the wall in front of him shook, and he ducked beside the pedestal for support. Tremors shook the cave, causing the wall in front of him to sink, filling a hidden space underneath. As Link knelt by the podium, the tablet fell into his lap with a thud. After a few seconds of the cave wall falling through the ground, intense daylight came through the new opening, illuminating the cave. Dirt exploded all around the wall, threatening to choke him, so he buried his head in his arms and braced himself. The crashing noise of stone against stone was high pitched and grating to his ears. Not only was he weak from lack of food, but the screeching was close to giving him a headache. Put stale dirt in his lungs, and Link was having one of the worst days of his life—that he could remember. So far, he only knew about this day, and it was unpleasant, to say the least.

After a loud thunk, the wall stopped crashing down. Link waited a few more seconds for the crumbling dust to settle, then lifted his head up slightly and opened his eyes. There was still dirt dancing in the air, which he saw clearly with the full beam of light coming in through the new opening of the cave. He looked around the now illuminated cave and was unsurprised at the pitifulness of it all. It really was just a cave. No entrance until now, which was about twice his height and thrice his width, and no other exit.

Link gripped the tablet in one hand and the pedestal on the other and hoisted himself up, coughing. Now free, he walked outside into the vast wilds.

"Ho, there!" an elderly male voice cried out from a few trees away. Link had been sitting near an apple tree, enjoying a gift of its yield. He hadn't tasted anything so sweet as this apple. Alone in this forest, it was easy for him to hear and see all this place offered—birds chirping in the canopy of trees, squirrels rustling in the underbrush, and even a distant bokoblin honking in delight. The old man approaching him was no surprise, though Link had silently hoped that the man hadn't spotted him. Alas, the bearded man was now only a few steps away. He leaned on a walking stick. "Had enough of that cave, have you? Can't say I blame you. Doesn't look very hospitable, now does it? I have a small fire at my camp. Would you like to join me?"

The old man's bushy white beard swayed as he talked, and Link couldn't help but give a small smile. "All right," he said, his voice coming out in a barely audible, hoarse whisper. The old man held out his hand, and Link grabbed it, letting him pull him up to his feet.

"How long were you in there, if I might ask?" the old man inquired as they walked down a thin dirt path through the trees. "Do you know?"

Link cleared his throat and attempted to speak, but still barely anything came out. "I don't know."

As they slowly meandered through the trees, Link wondered who this man was, and why he was alone in this forest. Perhaps he was camping for recreational purposes. Perhaps he was homeless. Or, perhaps, he was simply taking a walk, and Link was in his path. The old man wore a heavy-looking brown threadbare robe with a hood, which the old man wore above his head, covering his face with shade. As Link looked closer at his face, with sideward glances, he was taken aback that the man had hardly any imperfections at all. Sure, it wasn't unusual for old men to have white hair and beards, and wrinkles surrounding their eyes and mouth. But there were no strange discolorations or spots of any kind. And he certainly didn't smell old. Perhaps the old man wasn't that old at all, and the older features were a mask? A ruse? Link had only just met the man, and he was already suspicious.

The thought made Link turn his head and look forward rather than at the man. He didn't like that his brain was already telling him what to think of him, rather than hearing him out and understanding him. But something in him was anxious, as if his brain was wired and prepared for a battle. He shook his head, trying to make sense of it all.

They walked along the bottom of a short cliffside. Before long, a small alcove opened up to a small fire, sending a thin trail of smoke up into the air. The man's campfire. The old man gestured for Link to sit on a nearby log, and then put a few sticks on the fire and breathed lightly onto it. "I had hoped it wouldn't be anytime soon that you'd emerge and come back to life," the man said, looking directly at Link as he sat down on a log across the fire. His gruff voice and bright eyes penetrated Link's attention with his next words. "It means a few things. One, that you're ready. And then by default, that Calamity Ganon is also ready."

Link had no clue what the man was talking about, so he simply pointed at himself with a confused glance. Me?

The old man nodded sadly, then stood up again and opened a small crate beside him. He pulled out a simple shirt and pair of trousers. "Yes. You. Here," he said, handing Link the clothes. "They should still fit."

Still confused, Link took the clothes and put them on, grateful. Why did this man have clothes in Link's size? Why did he have these clothes at all? Was this man a spy? Did this man know him? Who was he?

Yet, Link didn't want to distrust this man who had shown him some hospitality. Even if it was only a campfire and a log to sit on. Link cleared his throat again and tried to speak. This time, his voice was soft, but at least it was more than a whisper. "Who are you?"

"Oh, that, well," the man said, chuckling to himself. "I suppose that is a reasonable question. I am just an old man, you see."

Link narrowed his eyes slightly, and the old man changed his trajectory.

"Oh, all right. I might be more than that. Or, less, depending on how you think of it." Unafraid, he rested one hand in the fire before them, making Link start. Wasn't it going to burn his skin? Then the man put his second hand in. "I am... not truly alive anymore. I was once a man who lived on this earth. I had a daughter, close friends guarding me, and a handful of scholars at my side. I would like to say I was a nobody, but that wouldn't be entirely true. Or any amount of true. I was the king of Hyrule."

Link sat up straighter when the man—apparition—said this. Becoming a less-than-physical person would help not get burned. But the king of Hyrule? Did all kings live in ghost form after death, or just this one?

"I've been waiting for you, Link," the king said. "Waiting for you to wake up."

Remembering what the ghost king had said before, Link squinted, trying to understand. "I'm ready?" He didn't even know what his last dinner was, and he was supposed to be ready for something? And how did the ghost king know his name? Link was getting more confused by the second. He was going to need another nap, or at least some more food, to help him survive what seemed to be the longest day of his life.

"Well," the king replied with a humph. "Nearly. Waking up was the first step. It's been one hundred years, Link. Calamity Ganon's been readying himself for a long time, and I doubt Zelda can hold on for much longer."

At the name, Link closed his eyes. He should know that name. But as with everything else, he struggled to remember.

"My daughter, the princess," the king said when Link didn't respond. "You were by her side for the months leading up to Calamity Ganon's return all those years ago. You fell in battle, and were brought here, to the Shrine of Resurrection, and she went to Hyrule Castle to battle Ganon directly. My physical self, unfortunately, had not lasted in that battle. But the Goddess let me return in this form, to help you find your way when you woke up."

Sinking his head into his hands, Link thought he could cry, but the tears didn't come. He felt for this king and this princess and their kingdom. His empty bank of memories taunted, saddened, and frustrated him. His mind raced, tantalized by the life he must have had. Surely, something would come back to him. Surely, his life now wouldn't be a constant struggle of forgetting and missing things he didn't know existed.

"What does that all mean?" Link asked, his words coming out a little more loudly this time. "What am I supposed to do?"

The ghost king's gray eyes met Link's with pity. "Do you truly want to know?"

Link shrugged. "I know I want to believe you. I know I need to go somewhere. I—" then Link remembered the voice that spoke to him in the cave. The young woman's voice. "I heard a voice. When I woke up and took this," he said, holding up the tablet.

Eyes widening in recognition, the ghost king nodded. "Ah, yes. The Sheikah Slate. Zelda had one of those. Took it everywhere with her. She was always so studious." At this, he gave a longing sigh. "That might have been hers. Have you gotten it to work? It might tell you where you need to go."

Link pressed a button on the tablet and the display lit up, showing the map of Hyrule yet again. "I've gotten it to turn on, but I don't know what else it does."

"Impa will know. She is a Sheikah; helped design that. You'll find her in Kakariko Village." He stood up and turned, pointing eastward through the trees. "You can get there through the pass between the mountains. Impa is a most excellent resource."

Nodding, Link followed the man's gaze and spotted the mountains. He grunted in acknowledgement.

"Take this, as well. You'll need it to get off this plateau." The king pulled out a thick bolt of fabric woven with rods, and handed it to Link. "It's a paraglider." He gave another small chuckle at Link's confused expression. "If nothing else, trust me on this one."

Suddenly, a young deer trotted past, as if startled by something. Link and the old man looked around but didn't seem to find anything out of the ordinary. Turning back to the bearded man, Link took the cloth. "Thank you. For your help, and for this." His voice still croaked, but it was improving.

The old man hesitated. It was subtle, but Link noticed. Even though his memories evaded him, he was nothing if not observant. The king sat down again and gave Link an intense glare, serious and disheartening. "There is one more thing. I don't know what to make of this, but I thought you should know. There used to be a woman here," he added, gesturing to the forest. "She wandered here many years ago, around the time the Sheikah placed your body in the Shrine. On occasion, I would see her sitting near the entrance of the Shrine, as if she were guarding it. We spoke a handful of times, nothing meaningful. She was here for years and years, aging all the while, but still vigilant. I never learned her name." He sobered, remembering this woman from long ago. "She had brown hair, about your height. You wouldn't remember who she was, would you?"

Link shook his head, and the ghost king continued. "No, I suppose not. Anyway, perhaps thirty years ago, she found me in the area and approached me. It was odd, since it was always me doing the approaching. She told me that she was leaving, and she didn't want her decaying body to be the first thing you saw when you woke up. Said it wouldn't be kind to you or to your memory, and the memories you shared."

Link's heart fell yet again, frustrating him in a way that only hearts can. There were now at least two people who were gone, who he should remember, yet he had no recollection. It was bad enough that he couldn't remember himself; now, he was letting others down as well.

"Now that you're out and awake," the king said, attempting to change the subject, "I'd encourage you to find Impa. She will help you remember what you need to do."

Hoisting the paraglider in his arms, Link stood and bowed his head in respect. "I hope you're right."

"Hyrule has been waiting, Link," the old man said. "I've done my part. It's time for you to do yours."

As the king finished speaking, his incorporeal form turned translucent, then nearly transparent. "Find Impa. Help the Princess. Defeat Calamity Ganon. Remember."

All Link could do was stare in shock as the ghost king disappeared completely. Then, taking a deep breath and rummaging through the crate for anything else the king might have left, Link hefted an old sack onto his back and made for the forest trail.

"I will remember," he whispered to himself, now more determined.

A scene flashed into his mind, exactly like the one he received while back in the cave. The desert sands whipped past his face, his hair blowing in the breeze. Sweat gathered on his brow, and then—

Then it was gone again.

He looked up toward the afternoon sun, gathered his directional bearings, and headed southwest.