Title: Twisting Fate
Fandom: Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity (Zelda Game)
Characters: Sooga, Kohga, Link, Impa, Urbosa, Zelda, Yiga

Chapter: 7
Word Count:1594

Warnings: cross dressing, Yiga being Yiga, Zelda being the knowledge whore that she is

Beta: shadowfaerie

AN: Things have happened, including me needing to find a new place for me and my wife (got married on Dec 13), but I am hoping to find some kind of normalcy here with posting. Every Thursday I think. I have an alarm.

For now, enjoy. Thank you for sticking by me in the last couple of years as life went nuts.

To note: I wrote this BEFORE Tears of the Kingdom came out. Long before it came out actually and thus did not know about Rauru. So…all of this? Even more AU then before.

"All of these books are so very fascinating," Zelda chirped, nearly bouncing as she stared at the books that had been hidden away in the compound, still perfect. Link tilted his head, reading the spine of a few of them, smiling at his Princess' enthusiasm for something so simple as new knowledge.

"They were well protected under some of the first spells that the first Ganondorf knew," one of their Bladesmen escorts said.

He was to watch them while Kohga and Sooga worked their way through the rest of the base to make sure that the traps were disabled. They were also making sure that none of the halls had collapsed, would collapse, or that animals had gotten in.

"He had wanted to make sure that our knowledge couldn't be touched by time or damage. Even when the male Yiga were unable to be in the village, we still were able to gain copies of all of the information within. We have thousands of files, including some that had been lost to past issues and wars," he admitted. He smiled behind his mask at Urbosa's raised eyebrow. "We have started to make copies of all of our files, Lady Urbosa."

"That would be decidedly helpful, thank you. We lost quite a lot of information about some of our family lines about fifty years ago," she admitted. "It'll be nice to fill in some information."

"Not to mention the information on your culture as a whole that the one King forced us to destroy in his madness," the man snorted. He crossed his arms and carefully ignored the glare that Impa sent him.

Link hummed as he pulled down a book, carefully opening it to see a sketch of a book. "The information contained here spans the entirety of the world's history?" he husked out, getting a nod.

"Yes. All the cultures, past and present have books saved. The Yiga are not just bodyguards but we are also cultivators of knowledge and history. Even when the Sheikah couldn't do the technological experiments that they had done at one time, we gathered all of that information, making copies and hiding it. Ever since the hint of Calamity Ganon started to come around, we pulled out what information we had once more in the thought that since you guys were starting to dig into it, it would help us in the long run."

"Are we able to get copies of your copies?" Zelda asked as she popped up and over the top of one of the bookcases. The Bladesman just looked up at her in some surprise before he nodded.

"Yes. One of Master Kohga's commands was to have us make copies for you to send so that your people are able to go through them. But we do have a lot of information to go through and some of it isn't as well organized as we would want so we're having to comb through everything," he admitted. He shook his head as Zelda beamed at him and disappeared behind the shelf once more. Link smiled and shook his own head, putting the book away.

'She loves to learn. Anything and everything. She hates feeling as if she's doing nothing, but she has done so much more than what you would think,'Link told him. The Bladesman hummed.

"It is obvious that she has an inner strength that comes from being allowed to be herself. It is good to see that she is open-minded to new possibilities though," he said. "Her ancestors, I hate to say it, had a frightening tendency to be very closed-minded." Link hummed, nodding and ignoring Impa's scowl.

They all knew that she was starting to come around but there were still generations of bad blood between the Sheikah and the Yiga that wouldn't just up and disappear in a short amount of time.

"I think that there was some information on the Master Sword this way," the Bladesman finally said.

Link tilted his head, following the Bladesman as the man started to look over a bookcase. The Yiga paused and pulled out two of the books. 'What are these?'he asked, taking the books when they were held out.

"The thicker one is a copy of a journal from a remarkedly long time ago. From around the time the Goddess Hylia was a Human. It was given to one of my personal ancestors before we became the Sheikah, and we took care of the original journal. My ancestors and even my family now would make fresh copies every so often and that was the last one made. I think that the original is still under lock and key in the rooms that we used as our own," he stated. "The other is a collection of all of the information that we had at the time about the Master Sword and all of those who wielded it. I know that there are more books about the subject, but only Master Kohga will be able to access those."

Link blinked at the books before smiling and nodding, stroking a hand over them before tucking them into the crook of his arm. 'Thank you. If you are able to find any more books about this, please, bring any copies you can?'he requested. 'I want to know about the lives that I've lived. I keep getting compared to them but I'm...not them. Just as they aren't me.'

The Bladesman nodded his head as he shifted on his feet before leading the way back to the main group. "To compare oneself to their past lives is to stunt one's growth in your new life. We are always different. We lead different lives. Have different ways of being raised. We live in different circumstances. It is bad to compare or to be compared to lives that we lived at one time. And that does go for you, Princess. You are not your past lives. You are you. In this life and being compared to other holders of the Triforce of Wisdom is just idiotic."

"You are very wise," Zelda said. She smiled up at him and patted his arm, her Geurdo guards staring as the man started to rub the back of his head, acting bashful. "I think that I needed to hear that from someone who doesn't truly know me. I hear it from Link all of the time, but he's also my bodyguard. I'm still working out my issues with how he was pushed onto me as my bodyguard."

Link shrugged and smiling, knowing what she was talking about. He had ditched the veil that helped to keep out the dust, but he was still wearing the comfortable clothes that he had bought from the Geurdo's seamstress. The Bladesman swallowed and shifted, quickly looking away from the young swordsman.

It really didn't help him that Link was whatever Yiga Bladesman looked for in a partner. Good looks according to their personal tastes. An ability to blend in with the people around them. That had been shown by the fact that he had just waltzed right on into the throne room, acting as if he was a merchant girl there to greet the queen. Along with all of that, he was able to use a blade in all of the best ways, if the way he did his exercises with the scimitar was any indication.

He still knew better than to even think of flirting with him seeing as they knew that Sooga had his eye on him.

Link just ignored the way the other male moved, instead returning his focus on the books. He had looked for information before, but with the fact that his job was to follow after the Princess, and she never went to that part of the Hylian Library, and the archives meant that he hadn't been able to find those things. But with the two books in his hands, he felt he had a good starting point and maybe Zelda would go to that section so he could start to dig into the cycle that they were stuck in.

He needed to see if they couldn't break the cycle and defeat Malice once and for all. Terrako chirped up at him from next to his feet, making Link smile down at the little bot. He reached down and patted it gently, stroking along its seams and getting a little purr.

He knew that the little Guardian hadn't appreciated being placed into a bag, but they had had to keep him out of eyesight just long enough to sneak in. Not to mention that the sheer amount of sand that could have gotten into his joints.

Still, seeing as Zelda had taken over his care, he was a happy little thing.

Zelda giggled, hooking her arm around his. "Come and let us find Master Kohga and Sooga. Maybe we can work out a better treaty for the exchange of information. Perhaps they'll be able to find even more information about our cycle?" she asked, gasping at the thought. Her eyes lit up at that, Link smiling at her and nodding.

Impa blew out a breath, staying quiet since she knew that she couldn't stop the change that was happening. She was just going to have to suck it up and learn to deal with the Yiga clan. She idly wondered if her grandfather and father would be okay with all the new treaties and changes that were happening before making a note to see them before they traveled to Goron City.