Legend of Zelda The Severed Link

**A/N: Hey, all! Back into the swing of things, for a while, hopefully. I just had a new idea that's been gnawing at my bones, and I wanted to try it. It's almost a social project of sorts. I wanted to depict how Link would develop as a character if he wasn't stuffed into that green tunic we all know so well from the series. Just what kind of a person he would become if he was raised by someone…different? I really want the story to do most of the talking so that I don't have to, so I won't say that much more for now. Just know that this is likely to be a Dark Link story (the concept, not the character), and that, loosely based off of the Zelda spinoff **_**Hyrule Warriors**_**, it eventually encompasses many of the various elements and characters from previous eras in LoZ's timeline.**

**I hope you enjoy this idea as much as I enjoy writing it!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own The Legend of Zelda, in any of its incarnations.**

**Prologue: The Way Out**

"'_We, the noble few of the blessed many, who descend from the creative hands of the Goddesses are called upon to uphold their most precious Laws. The same Laws that bind us and define us…'"_ A young man's voice rang clear, crisp, and scholarly as it emulated the words of writing set inside the parchment book sprawled open in his lap – the characters in the runes of the customary Hylian text. The bright orange hue of light escaping the fireplace guided his eyes over every letter. _"'It was the radiant Din who anointed us with Power, and taught us how to govern, follow, respect, and temper It in all of Its mighty aspects. It was the immaculate Nayru who anointed us with Wisdom, and showed us how, through love and subtlety, we are called to deliver ourselves from the path of Demise…'"_

"Darling…" a tender voice called weakly over to the reader from the corner of the room. The young man stopped to glance over at its source: a beautiful blond maiden in a white gown, nestled comfortably beneath a blanket of wool set on their bed. "The baby won't stay this cute forever." In her arms, she held a bundle of cloth wrapped snugly around a whimper tiny enough to belong to nothing greater than an infant. "…Come see your son's face. It's so fleshy…and cute!"

"Let me just finish this passage real quick, my love. Then I will." He insisted with a promise to appease her.

"But you already know all _about_ the Goddesses," she protested with a hint of the childish impatience he had come to know so well. "What unknown parts of our religion are you convinced you can find in that tome?"

"The principles that my faith gave me played a large part in my personal growth." He reminded her. "But faith can slant if it is not properly supported by knowledge – even the knowledge we already know."

He watched his lover's lip furrow into an unsatisfied look at his explanation. "Puh-leeze. Just how large a part could they have played to keep you from your own baby?"

As he watched her from his chair, he put on his most charming smile, hoping that the fire behind him didn't darken his silhouette too much for it to reach her. "I'm astonished. You of all people should realize the value that these principles have to me. They are what guided me to the single best decision I made in my life…"

He turned away from her to stare into the fire, and as soon as his woman realized he would leave her hanging without her beckon, she retorted. "Oh Goddesses, don't pause for dramatic effect, it'll kill me. What decision?"

He looked back over at her, a tender glint sailing from his sea-blue eyes. "…Falling in love with you."

She used her tongue to blow a raspberry at him, using enough conviction to voice the ineffectiveness of his cheesy line, but not so much that it would frighten the child she held up to her chest. At either end, she looked adorable doing it. "You fell for me because I'm pretty, and you know it, dummy."

The grin he wore melted off of his face like hot wax, exposing a wearier layer of his complexion. "Oh, jeez. Got me." His eyes crept back to the pages on his lap in an effort to steal the last vestiges of unread text off the parchment. _"'And it was Farore, through Her virtuous qualities of goodness and spirit, who anointed us with the Courage to brave the trepidatious tide, and to cross through the Valley of the Shadow carrying in our hearts the fear of no evil…'"_

"Darliiiiiiiiing~!"

He gave up and slammed the book shut, snapping his head over at her as he did so. _"Wwwwwwhat_ is it hun?" He huffed in one exasperated breath.

"Don't 'wwwwwwhat' me. C'mere. Church time's tomorrow; family time's now."

The man picked himself up from his chair in front of the fire, situating his long garb from both sides so as not to trip, and worked his way toward his certain feisty lover. His boots brushed mildly against the fine carpeted rugs, across a room belonging to a house too modest to be a mansion, and too elegant to be a cottage. The walls were lined with stone, each face possessing at least one different antique or artifact of sorts, and the number of these relics was easily trumped by the amount of paintings that the very new father had spent his time on. All of them were exquisite depictions of a resplendent lady with long flowing hair of liquid gold, her features ever intensified by his extensive uses of style and colour.

Every portrait or two of his love was accompanied by another portrait of a different sort, contributed to the collection by a less-practiced hand – resulting in hilariously disproportionate features, off-target blotches of paint, and stick-figured limbs. No one would recognize whom, but every single subject of these silly cartoons was actually a sincere attempt made by a loving wife at capturing her husband's handsome likeness.

All this time, he had never said a single bad thing about any of them – even so much as a light jab.

The mantle above the roaring hearthside was adorned with silver instruments of war. A longsword and a rapier were crossed under a polished shield with the Hylian insignia; the red wings of a great bird holding up three golden Triangles, homage to the Royal Family. A commemorative document to a veteran soldier's services was carefully placed in a glass case beneath the display of arms.

The happy couple's privileged abode was neatly situated around the middle of Hyrule Town's town square – the center of the most secure city in the kingdom. Every resident on the countryside wanted to live as close to the castle as they could, but usually only the most decorated soldiers and nobles of notoriety made the cut. As one might imagine, fighting such competition wasn't a mere matter of money, but of blood, sweat, and tears. In spite of the pressure, the two did everything they could to secure a place most fit to raise their child.

All things considered, they couldn't deny that they did quite well for themselves.

The house's patriarch opened the shutters of the window to let the moonlight in. The stars of the summer night sky glimmered and gleamed, each with a unique beauty that set it apart from its neighbors, yet all breathed as one while they smiled down at the prosperous land of Hyrule.

Walking over to rest himself on the bed next to his partner, he inquired softly, "Can I pick them, or what?"

She leaned over to his side and rested her head on his shoulder. "You can pick 'em," she admitted contently.

"Look at that sky…" he continued. "The doctrine tells us that every star you can see holds another world. Some of those worlds look just like ours. Some, they say, contain places built with shapes beyond our comprehension – with colors that we haven't even discovered yet!"

"Shhh. You'll wake the baby."

"Oh…! I umm… Sorry." Caught in his own excitement, he lowered his volume to a crawling whisper, having almost forgotten the company of the tiniest, newest member of the family. "I'm so used to it being just the two of us…"

"I know what you mean." She agreed, smiling up at him.

"It just feels so weird, you know? Being a dad. I mean, my dad was a dad… Can I just say something?"

She lowered her eyebrows and gave him a pitiful look. "Is it going to make more sense to me than that groundbreaking revelation you just shared about your father?"

He could only laugh at her wit, along with its casual attacks on his lack thereof. "Even though I can hardly believe my dream came true, I think I've actually…just always wanted to be a father. Right from the moment I looked like him." He emphasized his point by fingering the baby's face, chuckling warmly when he saw his son's nose twitch.

"You don't have to gloss it so extravagantly…" she replied, "but I do know what you mean."

"Hey, um." He moved closer to her. She readjusted her elbow to maintain her hold around the baby. "Do you…believe it's true? What the doctrine tells us about there being other worlds and all that…"

"Oh?" She raised a mischievous eyebrow, as though she could practically smell the weakness off of his quaking breath. "Having our doubts, are we?"

"What? Of course not! I was only curious of what you personally thought about it. I mean, the temple clergy proclaims all of this stuff as though every follower is expected to automatically understand its…umm…"

"As though all of us are expected to take their words for granted?" She helped him finish.

He scratched the back of his head. "…Something like that."

"Huh." She sighed lightly, letting her head hang back a little, as if trying to put the words together in her mind. "I'd like to believe that we're not the only ones here. That the Goddesses had more of an imagination than the Church lets on. I mean, the Doctrine of Time tells us that they created us in their very own image. I for one always thought of that line of thinking as rather…"

"Selfish?" He returned her support.

She scratched her cheek. "…Something like that. But why do you ask such a question? About other worlds and all that?" Her eyes grew suddenly tense, narrowing into a paranoid leer at her hubby. "You're not seriously gonna try and go out to plunge yourself into one right _now,_ are you?"

He laughed. "All right, well now you're starting to sound as crazy as me."

She turned her head away from him to stare worriedly down at the child in her arms. Her grasp on the infant tightened, ever so little. "It's because you're crazy that I get concerned." She fired back in a solemn voice.

"Hey…" He touched her arm. She turned over to see him meet her nose with his own. He caressed her face in two amorous hands, their warlike strength disguised by the tenderness he used to hold her. "It's you." He whispered in her pointed ear.

"Wh-what's me…?" She asked shyly, taken aback by the sudden intimacy purring in his voice.

"It's always been you." He pressed thoughtfully. "You're the object of my attention. If ever there comes a day I grow bold enough to call myself great – if I'm ever bold enough to consider myself _anything_ – everything that I am is owed to you."

She took one of his hands off of her and kissed it. "You sap. You know well that in this life, we all forge our own greatness. You had yours long before you ever even met me. Now hold your child."

"Only if you kiss me." He answered in a serious tone. "I just never…ever got enough of your kisses." All the way through this earnest request, he never broke from her eyes. His blue drove deep into her green; the clarity of both sets wrapped around each other thoroughly. There had never been two people more in love. And only they were contented to know it.

Ordinarily she would have smiled in jubilance, but she was far too hypnotized by his gaze to do anything with her expression. Their faces closed in around each other's, eventually to the point where they were drawing in the heat of the breaths they took. "I…will always…"

Just before their lips locked, they heard the most unwelcome sound.

An alarm bell rang furiously in the distance, driving all the quiet out of the night and shattering the perfect world that the two lovers had built around themselves.

The young man's eyes instantly jumped awake and broke away from his wife as she continued to hold the baby. "What is it?" She asked with tension already dripping from her voice.

"Th-The patrol? Spotted something?" He rushed over to the window and peered out at the square. In the distance he could make out the smallest ember, gradually growing larger to him as it crept its way down the cobbled street separating the living quarters from the town gate. He heard cannons fire and men shout and walls crumble, and the only thing running through his mind all the while was what was going to happen to his wife and child if he didn't act fast.

Running back to the bed, he grabbed her firmly by the shoulders and met her with a wild expression, far too different from the love-drunken one he had her with earlier. "The soldiers are rallying at the northwest gates. Something might be coming! No matter what happens—"

"Just what are you—!"

"Lis-Listen to me, Lias!" He reaffirmed her with a small shake. Feeling the panic exceed all of its natural thresholds in an unfair instant, his senses had nearly fled, but he managed to pull himself back together. His heart was shocked awake, as if he had jumped up from a deep slumber and instantly began fighting for his life. "What I have to say is very important. No matter what you think happens, you head out the back, and you make way for the castle if that fire comes any closer!"

She wrested herself and the baby from his grip and gave him a fierce look. "Has all that combat made you stupid in the head?! No way in hell am I leaving this house unless you're with me!"

He knew the way she got at times like this, and he knew that the only way to get her to see any reason other than her own was to relax himself. He took a deep breath and spoke in a calmer voice. "Sweetheart, I am always with you. But right now I need you to think like a mother to your child, not as a wife to me. If things get bad, take the baby, head up the winding path towards the castle. This threat may reach this house, but it will never come near the castle without the king's notice."

"What?! If whatever's out there breached that gate, the king has _already_ noticed, Reisner! Come with me!"

"There are civilians here, Lias. Civilians with husbands fighting out there to preserve our family as much as theirs. What kind of a soldier would I be if I just ran off with mine?!"

She gritted her teeth, overcome with frustration. "You just…!"

A loud boom clashed in the distance, but the rumbling of the house told them that the distance wasn't to last. The bundle of cloth in her arms began to bawl.

"Damn," he glared out the window, "woke up the baby."

"The soldiers will never notice one of their number missing." She persisted. "I'm begging you. Don't let that number be somebody else!"

But what she said was a falsehood, and she knew it even as she spouted it. Anyone familiar to Hyrule's military would notice her husband out on the open field. He wielded metal in a martial style unique to himself, and it was this discrepancy that set him apart from his comrades-in-arms. He took up a longsword, the same as any of the other soldiers, but when he clashed with an opponent, especially one much larger than himself, he would drop all of his strength at the point of impact, let go of his sword to ruse the enemy into false security, then pull his twin rapier from a sheathe hidden at his side.

With a touch of improvisation, the fight was usually decided in an instant. Even Impa, the captain of the guard, who had a potent martial art of her own, was nearly found hard-pressed to match his speed with her lightest katana.

He saw right through the carelessness of her words as they dragged, and put up a reassuring smile. "I know you," he said, "you're not that selfish." He walked up to the mantle and pulled his swords out from under the shield that kept them in place. "And you know me," he turned back to her, wielding blades of different girth in each hand, "those boys would miss me if I didn't go." The last thing he pulled off the wall was the ornate metal shield, the pride of the Hyrule smithies.

"Tch…" She sneered, glaring away from him with the baby still locked up in her arms. "Why are you always like this…" She muttered, but could sense that he heard her regardless.

Without a sound, he appeared in front of her and held her chin, forcing her to redirect her stare back to him. "Because I love you, because I am your husband, and because this is our home." He leaned in to kiss her on the lips. It was the longest kiss they shared since their first. When he finally broke away, he added with a wink, "In that exact order."

He let go of her, and departed, repeating his final order for her to evacuate if it became necessary. She watched him go.

Turning her attention towards the baby, she proceeded to gently rock him in her arms, cooing with love and concern, to get him to stop crying. "Hush, little one. Your dah will be back soon. He's just…" She turned her attention back at the door he walked out of. "…Just going off to fight some bad guys. …Yeah."

A huge explosion, louder than anything that came before, shook the house profusely, lighting up all the windows in the house. She felt herself shake as she held the baby tighter, praying to the Goddesses that it wasn't possible for infants to contract PTSD.

'_Shit, Reisner. That better not have been you…'_ She thought to herself, biting down hard on her teeth.

The men continued shouting outside, beneath the stars that had appeared so amicable and docile before the conflict started. Now it appeared as though the night sky had sundered itself, opening into a bright red haze, like a horrible wound. The smell of fire and gunpowder entered her nose, and she couldn't help but think of war itself, and the wages that each side must pay to fund such an evil aspect of mankind.

She thought of him…

The heat was drawing in, but she held on to the house. _'Not yet…'_ She thought. _'He won't ever fall. He'll come back for his son…'_ She began to squint as it became brighter outside.

Brighter.

And brighter.

And hotter.

But still she held her ground. And still she held on to her baby.

'_Any moment now. He'll come crashing right through those doors, and he'll sweep us up, and we can leave for the castle, together. Yeah. Maybe we'll even get a chance to see the princess…'_

She looked down at the baby, who wasn't having better luck with the rising heat than she was. Wiping the sweat from her brow, she spoke softly to him, apparently trying to calm herself down as much as her kid. "She'd be about your age, you know… The princess."

Just then the door swung open, and she felt her heart jump up into her throat with anticipation.

The anticipation, she found, was soon to fade.

The silhouette, trailing fire at the doorway, was much larger than the one with which she had grown accustomed. The center of the frame was glowing with an eerie white, and two bright yellow dots lit up as its eyes.

The stranger stepped into the house slowly, and she felt her ears grow heavier with each sound his metal greaves made as they struck the hard floor. When the light behind him no longer obscured the details of his visage, her eyes fell with quiet terror over his crimson beard and his morbidly green skin. A sizeable orange gem was set to his forehead – the man was a Gerudo.

His eyebrows were furrowed into a menacing countenance, and they accompanied two unmistakably evil eyes. His grin was teeming with confidence, and perhaps a bit of a twisted satisfaction at seeing her with her back to the corner.

"I should say good evening." He began with a deep, but soft voice. "Even if it does seem unwarranted."

With paced, leisurely steps, he made his way closer to her. She inspected him carefully. He looked deadly to be sure – his armor blacker than shadow – but he carried no weapon that she could see. She could use this, if she beat him to the thought.

"Who are you?" She demanded. "What are you doing in my house?!" The stranger's grin only deepened, and he advanced on her evermore. "St-Stay where you are! I'll yell! Then my husband will come back and…!"

"Hm? Husband…" He looked at her, almost in a confused way, almost as though he had no idea to whom she was referring. "Ah. Was he about this tall? Carried a pair of mismatched swords?"

She gave him an openly disturbed look. "How do you…"

"I once fought such a man." The stranger went on. "Quite recently, as it turns out." He either didn't seem to notice or care that the woman was now inching closer to the bed. "He had a very commendable fighting style, as I recall. Giving the enemy the impression of a full-frontal attack, withdrawing at the pivotal point, and then ending it with the lightning strike of a hidden blade." She leered at him intently, searching for any opening that she could take advantage of. "In fact…ahh…" He reached over at his side and plucked the familiar hilt of a broken sword out from between his ribs. The fluid drenching the grooves was too black to be considered regular blood. "This, I believe, is the blade right here. How embarrassing; I must have forgotten that it was even there."

She felt her spirits wane more and more with every word the wicked man spoke. Gently putting the baby down on the soft mattress, she focused her full attention back on him, and saw that he was concealing something with his other hand. "What's that?" She called over to the invader, ready to act at any sign of trouble.

"What's what?" He wondered, looking around. Then instantly, his face grinned deeper than she had seen it yet, and the very shape his mouth made had sickened her to the stomach. "Oh, you must be referring to what I have in my other hand…"

He stepped closer to her – close enough that the two could capture every detail of one another's features. As his other hand came into view, she spotted a tuft of hair clumped between the iron-grip of the man's fingers.

Deciding that it was time to sate her curiosity, he held up his entire acquisition. Her heart plunged rock-bottom faster than her eyes could process what he had shown her.

Caked with blood, riddled with cuts and bruises, the broken husk of her beloved was dangling over the ground, held up by his hair in the most profane, insidious show of superiority she had ever witnessed.

This new face – an unpleasant face that appeared in front of her for a minute at most – had singlehandedly widowed her before she could even say good-bye to her husband.

Possessed by the very spirit of grief, she fell to her knees, almost appearing to strangle herself in order to keep the tears from gushing down her face so rapidly. She felt the heat of the surrounding fire conspire against her with the salted, stinging heat of her own eyes, and she was drowning in all of it.

"But you really mustn't weep, my dearest…" He assured her from behind his twisted smile. "After all…I find women to look far more homely when they carry such tears."

"_You…"_ Her face shot back up in his direction, warped into a seething rage, and she jumped to her feet and lunged at him before he could say anything more. The flash of a concealed knife sprang from the side of her gown. "I'LL SHOW _YOU_ WHO'S HOMELY!"

She used her strongest leg to propel her way into him with a kick off the floor, and her weapon found its mark at the side of his neck. She watched his eyes bulge wide with disbelief, his face contorting into a sadistic reflection of her own fury. She twisted the hilt of the short blade to plunge ever deeper into the thick stalk that kept his head to its shoulders. The blood had shown itself, but a woman, grieved with the death of her lover and the fear of losing her only child, would never show mercy and let go.

Her eyes stared into his eyes, relishing in delivering him a fraction of the pain he had shown her. Even in the throes of death – _especially_ in the throes of death – she would never let go.

Her triumph began to run sour when she noticed him reach for the embedded knife with his spare hand, however weakly. When it found her wrist, the tide of the struggle was overturned in an instant.

'_How?...'_ Her shaken mind pondered even as she was being thrown through the air. _'His jugular… I hit it for sure. So how…?'_ Her arm, still seized by her assailant, guided her entire body into the hard floor, headfirst. _'How is he overpowering me?!'_

The side of her head began to bleed as he pitilessly pulled her back to her feet. Wrapping her arm around her back, he drove her forward, throwing her onto the bed. She landed directly next to her own child, who was staring back at her face-to-face with his big, sad blue eyes.

"My beautiful, sweet thing…" She whispered over to him with an anguished smile. "Forgive me…"

She felt the agonizing flow of pain shoot out the back of her head as she was pulled back off of the bed by her golden hair – the same hair that was caressed and adored countless times before by a loved, now lost, companion.

Her hair still in grasp, the marauder used his other hand to grab her by the neck, with such strength that it lifted her off the ground. _"You…miserable cur…"_ His voice was significantly weakened from the sharp tip encroaching at his throat, but his face carried an intensity many times greater than it had when he was smiling at her with it. _"You so much dare…as to gnash your teeth at me…?!"_

With all the force he had, he threw her into the wall, which she hit solidly with her back. A number of decorations went down as she did. There came from her body a slight show of struggle from the floor, but its movement was soon to cease, and she lay there unresponsive…caged within an unconscious body, around a burning house.

Her attacker stood firmly on his feet, ripping the knife from his throat with an angry yell. It clanked noisily as he tossed it to the ground. He then turned his attention to the ball of cloth which was still wailing from the bed the woman had left him on, next to the sizeable bloodstain where her head at been pressed against the sheets.

He walked slowly towards it, his curiosity growing with every step. When he reached it, he nudged it over to examine the features of the baby's face. The small creature no doubt exchanged every ounce of his curiosity as he peered up at the dark, green man with bulbous, lucid eyes.

He picked the baby up, and for one of the very few moments of his life, he was uncertain of what to do.

"You… Just look at you." He began with his voice already back to normal, as though it had never been stabbed just a moment ago. "Many people would think you were so cute when they look upon your innocent face. …No doubt that few would stop to realize that when you grew up, you would become as much of an eyesore as both of your parents were." The infant stared drowsily up at him, as though barely capable of hearing his words, let alone hanging on to them. "But in your blissfully ignorant state, there exists a wonderful gift…" He continued, lifting the child up by the garment of its clothes, preparing to dash it into the floor. "That gift being…you will never recall how your death came… Nor how distressing it was."

But something stopped him short.

As he had the baby held up high by a single hand, he caught sight of something that clung to the wall, near where he had laid low that dogged woman.

He carried the child in his arm all the way with him as he approached the object of interest, unable to peel his eyes away from it. The fire reflecting off of the article of clothing hanging on the wall made it difficult for him to discern its true color, but he nevertheless knew.

Laid out in front of him, spread open from sleeve to sleeve in the magnificent shape of a T, was a simple – but significant – green tunic. A tunic which he had suffered to see through many lives, and through many defeats at the hands of a great "hero." A petulant pawn in Princess Zelda's game, which she petulantly played against his campaigns for a stable regime.

"No…" The Gerudo muttered under his breath. "Could it really be…?"

He turned back toward the small child he held, and wasting no time, proceeded to unfold the cloth from around its tiny hand. Tugging it up with two fingers to meet his searching eyes, they widened when they caught glimpse of a sight he feel he had seen somewhere before.

Three triangles, stacked atop one another in a very famous fashion, were etched at the back of the baby's hand. A trademark of destiny's chosen, as many oracles and prophets knew.

The dark warrior took a moment to stare out passively – past the baby, past the broken bodies of the baby's parents, past the burning walls of the baby's home, past everything that he had done that night.

There, protruding magnificently out of the mind of the infamous leader of the feared Gerudo Tribe, was one prominent, "Oh, Shit" thought:

He had found the great Hero.

Stress began to unfold itself over his face, and out from under his cold, black heart. He bit down on his thumbnail while concentrating on the baby, which was now gripping another of his fingers with five tiny fingers of its own. It was impossible to believe himself.

This thing would one day become the Hero?

This thing would one day save the world?

This thing would one day _beat him?_

"My lord Ganondorf!" An impish voice had temporarily severed the thoughts closing in around him. "The time has come. We must withdraw. The king has taken his notice of us."

"Ah, yes." He replied to the short, hunched Bulblin lurking in the doorway. "I was merely wrapping up a quick errand."

"What is that?" His minion hissed when it took notice of what its master was holding. "A newborn? Aren't you going to kill it, master?"

"Kill it?" He looked as though he thought about it for a bit longer, but then a familiar, plotting smile had once again overtaken his visage. "Don't you know what this is?"

The creature shrugged its shoulders. "Was hoping for some breakfast. Breakfast, yes, breakfast…"

"This is not your breakfast." Ganondorf replied coldly, causing the imp to draw back slightly in fear. "This is…my ancient nemesis."

The smaller monster scratched its head with its crudely constructed club. Hearing your overlord announce that a baby he just discovered was either ancient or his nemesis was nothing if not a tad bit disconcerting. "Errah… So confused."

"If I did something so simple as to kill him now, he would only reincarnate someplace else." He turned and looked out the window, rocking the kid gently. "…Signal the retreat," he ordered his underling, "I have found something…far more valuable than what I came for."

"Aye-aye, sir!" The goblin whipped out a massive, oaken horn and blew it with all the breath in his lungs, nearly shattering the window with its loud, offensive noise.

"Not in here, you idiot, we're standing in a confined space!" Ganondorf shouted in annoyance at him, holding a now greatly disturbed, crying baby.

The creature was quick to catch on, and left the house promptly to call off the invasion.

The Gerudo Thief was once again left with his thoughts. The thought that every person who ever wore a green tunic became a threat to him, and the thought that he now felt this same threat from the boy he was holding in his arms.

It was so easy just to kill it…kill it, and continue his plans without sacrificing a wink of sleep over it. But fate was not such an easy mistress to seduce. East, West, North, South – the Hero would come back from somewhere, and he would always get in his way. Darkness never gave up, but neither did light, as it turns out. Everyone had always known this.

But what if…

What if fate had a loophole? What if there was a way out of this endless cycle of good-beats-bad? A chance to usher in a great age of darkness, even greater than the Era of Chaos, when he once wrested control from Hyrule's leaders for seven glorious years.

What if this was his big chance to write the story differently?

All throughout history, the Hero was the one thing that kept the world from his grasp. Imagine the possibilities he could achieve if the Hero became his pawn? His weapon? His trump card? His free pass? Ohh, under those circumstances, the look on Zelda's face tickled far too much for him to imagine.

His latest acquisition in hand, Ganondorf turned to make his leave. His cape brushed over the beaten face of the baby's father as he stepped through, his evil mind occupied only by the nefarious events he would soon unfold.

"Have a good final look," he whispered to the child, "at the legacy you are leaving behind." He motioned toward the two fallen parents, who were so in love with one another, and so in love with their child, before the tragic night ended.

Out from the corner of the room, a disheveled young woman – beautiful past all of the wounds – reached a weak hand up toward her baby, sobbing softly as she watched the last light in her life get stolen away from a tall stranger in black.

"Now forget…and have a good first look at me." He turned the baby upward toward him. "At the legacy you will soon be starting."

Embracing the newborn from under his cape, he stepped through the doorway, trailing an unholy fire that was soon to engulf the entire house. With an insatiable hunger, the blaze crawled over the floor, consuming carpets, and tapestries, and paintings. At last, the flames reached the pages of a Hylian bible, lying open on the floor, near where a righteous man had once sat reading it.

Ganondorf's eyes shimmered malevolently with ambition. "Things are going to get a lot more interesting from here on out… Link."

**A/N: Woo! That's first blood drawn, I guess. So yeah, the story starts out super intense at first (I couldn't find a lighthearted way for the King of Evil to murder both of the protagonists parents, wouldn't you figure), but I plan on incorporating light moments later on. I like a bit of everything in my stories: action, adventure, comedy, drama, tragedy, romance, hurt/comfort, so I'll be packing as many of those elements into it as I can, hopefully making it more of a melting pot than a salad bowl.**

**Only because I feel obligated to remind you, please leave a review to let me know what you thought! It's the closest thing to money I'll make off of this site, and in many ways, it's much more valuable.**


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Legend of Zelda, Adventure, Romance