Legend of Zelda 1. Chapter 1

The Legend of Zelda:

**The Legend of Zelda:**

**Archaic Entity**

**Chapter 1**

The moon was shrouded by the thick clouds above, which covered the pirate ship in darkness. It was an old ship, with tattered sails, faded paint jobs, chipped rails and a worn hull. It had a dead and weary appearance, showing signs of rough seas and deadly assaults on its body. The sea appeared dead as well. The water was flat and lifeless, and no land was in sight for miles. No gulls perched on the sails. No stowaways in the depths of the ship. The only life that was visible on the ship was a young woman, who was leaning on the wooden railing, staring out at the vast and empty sea.

She was quite beautiful, with large glistening eyes that revealed a wealth of experience and insight, smooth tan skin that reflected the now uncovered moonlight, long flowing straight blonde hair that swayed with the wind, and a round face that reflected her young age. The woman, however, did not dress like a beautiful maiden would. She wore a red bandana that she tied around her head from her temple to the back of her neck, pearl white trousers that were rolled up to the bottom of her knees, bare feet, a black shirt that hugged her torso and hung all the way down to the bottom of her hips with sleeves that only went a little bit past her shoulders, and long strips of cloth that wrapped around her forearms and the palms of her hands. Around her neck she wore several silver necklaces, each with different lengths and gems at the ends of them. On her pointed ears she had many piercings, with nine on her right and seven on her left. All over her upper arms she had thick black tattoos that looked like billowing flames, which extended all the way to her neck.

There was sorrow and anger in her eyes, which did not appear in her overall demeanor. It was as if the woman did not wish to show her true feelings, and instead hid everything inside her deep blue eyes. She liked to bottle everything up inside, and she hid these feelings in order to appear prominent and independent. However, she did not always have to hide things to appear this way, as she was quite an independent woman, and she always was, even as a child. During her childhood she was already the captain of the ship, bossing around her crew of pirates and being the mature one around a group of blubbering fools ages older than her. Despite her leadership, she always had her true feelings bottled up. Yet there was one who she unleashed her emotion for, as that person was the only one she ever truly trusted. But that person was asleep in the ship's cabin, and was not there to help her exorcise those feelings from her eyes. However, there was always one feeling she kept from that person, and she never let it loose.

She wondered when she would ever be free of the sea, the sea that she had lived with her entire life. It never left; no matter where she was it was always there. She had once loved to be out on the water, pillaging and plundering island communities, reaping the land of its fortunes. It was once exhilarating, yet now she wished to stop this plethora of adventuring. It was once a game to her, an amusing endeavor that had no consequences.

Yet, after being in the world for nineteen long years, and after losing so much, she yearned to settle down and rest for years to come. But she had a task, a task that seemed to never want to end. She had to find a new land, where peace and prosperity could reign. The new Hyrule, as she had once said before Daphnes corrected her as the sea crashed down on them atop Ganon's Tower.

"It will be _your_ land," she whispered, reciting the ancient king's words. Her land; Nay, their land. She had forgotten about the one that was asleep in the cabin of the ship, the one who she had known for nine long years now. It was their task to bear, to share together. She was, after all, the descendant of Zelda, princess of Hyrule. And he, the new hero, was not a descendant of anything. Sure, he had family, a wondrous one at that, but where did he come from? Why was he appointed with this task?

She often felt sorry for him, being dragged into all of this, risking his life with no rewards for himself. He didn't seem to mind it; in fact, he enjoyed helping others in times of need. Yet, she couldn't help but wonder if he deserved better. Did he really have to bear this burden? Her thoughts were interrupted by a gruff voice behind her.

"Something wrong?"

"Go back to sleep Link, you've had a long day," she said softly, and this response was very unlike her. In normal instances she would have pretended to be vexed and would have thrown Link back inside the hull of the ship, sending him tumbling down the stairs and landing on his head. However, she wasn't feeling happy at the moment.

"And you haven't, Tetra?" said Link.

Tetra turned her head to look back at him. He had changed ever since she had picked him up on that cheerful island to save his sister. He was not the same innocent little boy anymore. Nay, Link was not innocent at all anymore. Sure he was still kind, and understanding, yet it seemed that it was only towards her. With others he was so much rougher now. He was easily angered, he had often rivaled her in scolding the shipmates when they messed up, and he never smiled. Smiling was his trademark when he was young, and he was one of the only ones she had known that ever did. But now, it was a rare occasion that he even curved the sides of his mouth. It had seemed that she had influenced him more than she ever thought she would.

His appearance reflected this change as well. He was much stronger now, not abnormally mind you, but it still made him appear more intimidating. His skin was a light tan from being on the ocean for almost half of his life. The once well trimmed short hair that used to sit on top of his head was now wild and messy, kept long so that he didn't risk injuring himself with his sword while cutting it, and it seemed to spike out on it's own without his interference. His face was serious, with a masculine physique and light stubble that covered his chin. His eyes were no longer large and shining, full of glee and innocence, but they were now stern, with a deep and cold understanding.

He no longer donned the green clothing of the Hero of Time; he felt that it was not necessary anymore. Instead, he dressed in brown trousers that were ripped off at the bottom of his knees, exposing his lower legs, wooden sandals, and a white short-sleeved shirt that had black bandanas tied at the sleeves to keep them against his arms. He wore a black bandana on his head, covering the front half of his upper head with hair sticking slightly out of the bottom.

He was so much older now, she could barely connect him with the little boy that he once was. She often worried about his newfound awareness and maturity, and how long it would take for it to show him how she felt.

Tetra smiled weakly at him, and turned away. She knew he wanted to know what was wrong, but she couldn't say it; she couldn't allow herself to have a breakdown in front of him. She didn't know what he'd think of anything she said anymore, even after knowing him for almost her whole life. His reactions varied day by day. There were so many things he surprised her with, things she didn't expect to come from the clueless child of Outset. She didn't know what to think anymore.

"Link-…Link just go back to sleep. I can handle it myself."

He adopted a vexed voice, "No you can't, no one can. I've watched you for the past months, you haven't been acting like yourself; you've barely spoken to me. You've been hiding in storage, and I've heard you, you've been crying. Stop bottling up your feelings and speak to me damnit!"

A harsh jab pierced his soul as soon as he stopped speaking, like someone had just grasped his heart with a firm and callus encrusted hand. She looked back at him with horrible guilt, her blue eyes quavering as they gazed into his.

He began to plead, "Tetra, I di-"

"It's my fault"

"-n't mean to… what?"

She looked down at her feet, wincing, "It's my fault they're dead."

"What are you talking about?"

"Gonzo, Niko, the crew. It's my fault."

"Tetra, that wasn't your fault. The only one who is to blame is nature."

"No! It's my fault! I told them to make sure the ship was kept in one piece! I told them to stay on deck in a storm! I went down into the cabin while you were all up here half dead, in fear of the roaring winds, only caring for myself. I caused them to be washed away by the fury of the sea." She wiped her eyes. "I could have saved them…"

Link paused for a few moments, absorbing what she had just told him. He couldn't help but feel a sudden hatred for her, but then that hatred clashed with sympathy as she looked back up at him, her eyes watering vigorously. He didn't know what to think anymore.

She inhaled with difficulty, and spoke again, "You can hate me if you want, I don't care anymore. I want to die."

"Tetra, don't say that."

He tried to put hand on her cheek, put she slapped it away. "I want to die!"

She kept looking at him, with waterfalls gushing from her eyes, her brows furrowed, and a flush of mixed feelings emulating from her complexion.

Any initial hatred Link felt after she told him her part in the crew's death was washed away by the sympathy that shared it. For the first time in years, his eyes didn't accompany the cold stare he had adopted as a mask to hide his emotions. Tetra could see it. It was the wide, curious eyes of the clueless boy of Outset, staring right into her soul.

Her sobbing anger withered away into pure depression, "It's just so lonely without them. Yelling at them was the only thing that kept me sane before you came along. It's like I've had a chunk of my life taken from me. The thought of them just makes me feel empty inside. I'm sorry; it's just that we never really talked about it when it happened. We just…"

She dropped to her knees, with her arms resting crossed on the ship's railing, her face buried in them. Link knelt down beside her and placed his hand on her shoulder, now feeling empty inside too.

"There's no need to be sorry, you knew them all of your life. They were to you as Aryll and Grandma were to me; they were your family. I can understand if you-."

She interrupted him, turning at him and burying her face into his chest as she yelled, although muffled, "I hate this! I hate this! I am no pirate anymore. I don't want to be at sea, all it has done is take things away; my mother, my crew, it took my family away from me. I want to rest. I want to sleep. I don't want to lose anything more. I don't want to lose you."

"Tetra..."

"But I can't have what I want. We have a task. We have a burden to bear together, and we can't leave it be. If we don't… where are we to go? I don't know how to get back to our old home, I don't even know where we are. We're lost, the winds misguide us Link. They've left us out in the ocean, alone; they've left us to die."

Link didn't know what to say, but he eventually felt that he had to do something. "Come on, you need to sleep."

He pulled her up and helped her to her hammock by the steering wheel. She looked at him one last time before turning away, facing the moon. He wanted to tell her what he had wanted to say ever since he first saw her being carried towards outset in the talons of that demented bird, but he held back. She was in enough shock already.

He walked back down into the cabin of the ship. As he walked down the stairs, he looked at all the things that were at the bottom of them. Diamonds, rubies, gold, silver, emeralds, jade, ebony, bronze, all the precious gems and metals that you could think of, all collecting dust. He walked past the treasures that had built up during their childhood, and went into his room. This room was not always his; it was once Tetra's. But she didn't like to be in there anymore. She wanted to be outside, looking at the stars and breathing in the fresh air. So he took it as his own, put her things in the storage room, and left just a bed, an oil lamp, his sword, and a box on the floor in the corner. He wanted to look inside of the box, but he wondered if he could take the pain of remembering those he would never see again.

He sprawled himself onto his bed, and turned off the lamp. He knew that what she had said was true. He had known it for a long time. They had left them to die.

The seagulls sat with profoundly dumb faces inscribed into their heads, gawking at each other and cawing like banshees into the air. A few of them circled the sail without reason, other than having a false purpose in the group of forty-six.

Seagulls were quite a peculiar animal. They seem to be the primary decomposer of this flooded world, eating up the waste and dead things that littered the earth and floated aimlessly around in the sea. They were the dysfunctional angels of death, carrying the empty shells, whether they are organic or inorganic, to the afterlife; to be specific, in their stomach.

If one were to die on their ship, with no one to take them to shore and bury them respectfully in the ground, the gulls would swoop down, devour whatever they could of the corpse, and carry them on to the gates of hell. They always seemed to know when death was imminent. In fact, they were very casual about it. On the sails of the lost ships they wait, preparing to pounce upon the living once the gift of life was stripped from them. When the carcass was devoured, the gulls always left scraps; the heart with only one ventricle left, the bladder and the appendix left there alone, the rest nibbled gingerly and left torn asunder on the deck of the ship.

They were once the weakest link of the detrivores, them at the bottom and the bald vultures of the desert at the pinnacle of royalty; they were the kings. But after the world was flooded thousands of years ago, the gulls were the only ones left standing. So their species took up the mantle of king, and ruled over the decayed people of the sea.

Those who were about to die didn't know why so many gulls appeared on their sails. They just watched them fight with amusement in their dying eyes. They would never know what was to happen to them. They would never know that the angel of death was upon their doorstep.

The rising sun struck light onto Link's eyes through the circular window in the back of the room. He opened his eyes reluctantly, and growled at the thought of waking up. He turned over and saw the box in the corner of the room. Just as he laid his eyes on it, he thought of Aryll. How much had she changed while he was gone? Did she even think of her big brother anymore? He couldn't even picture her anymore, aside from two large curious eyes, and a childish smile that haunted his mind every night.

And then he thought of his grandmother. She would be a hundred and four on this day. Although he knew she was probably dead by now, he did not want to believe it. Instead, he pictured the remaining two members of his withering family line spending time with the villagers on Outset, taking care of the pigs and harvesting from the gardens outside of their wooden houses. The children would be looking up to Aryll just as they had to Link. They would want to be heroes and play with sticks; they would swordfight and try to overcome their imaginary archenemies. They would pretend that the pigs were monsters, and they would chase them all across the island. Aryll would look on at them with the other adults on Outset, all laughing at their follies. That's what he wanted to think. He wanted to think that all was well at home. Then he pondered over a very sad thought. Did he even have a home anymore?

He couldn't take it anymore and lunged at the box, and pried it open. Inside was a pictograph with him as a child and the entire village of Outset. Grandma had her hand on his shoulder as well as Aryll's, and they were in the center of the pictograph. They had always been the glue of the community, especially when the others would squabble. They served as an example to follow, and the others followed in order to survive. Grandma wasn't always the feeble and gentle old woman she was when he left. She used to be the strong and energetic leader of the island, the one who made all the decisions and solved all of the problems. However, over time her old bones began to wither away, and she had to rest. They all knew she was going to die, they just didn't know when.

Link threw the box to the ground, and walked out of the room. He went into the storage room, with growling sounds coming from his abdomen as he walked. He looked inside a barrel, and saw that there were no apples. Link looked in another, and saw that all of the meat gone. He repeated in this fashion for an hour, moving faster every second. All of the barrels were empty. He cursed loudly and kicked over a barrel, breathing heavily through his teeth. After he calmed down a bit, and tried to ignore the situation he was now in, he went over to the buckets of water that they had collected after the last rain. He cupped his hands and dove them into the warm water, and returned them to his mouth, at which he drank ravenously.

Link looked to the side of him and saw that the rum was gone as well, with a three large bottles freshly emptied. His eyes went wide, now thinking of Tetra. _She's drinking again_. Passing by the treasures that collected dust by the stairs, he walked up to the deck of the ship. It was now the early morning; the sky was clear, spare a few white clouds, and the sun beat down on his neck. He turned and walked up to the steer of the ship. Tetra was already up, laying in the hammock with her legs crossed, drinking casually from a bottle of rum. She looked at Link out of the corner of her eye, and she did her trademark wink and grin at him. Link couldn't help but smile at this, for she had not done that since he was a boy. He sat against the railing of the ship by her hammock, and looked up at her curiously.

"How long have you been up?" asked Link.

"Who says I even slept?" Tetra hiccupped humorously. Link could now tell that she had definitely not slept, for there were dark spots underneath her eyes, and the veins in those eyes were pulsing red.

"I suppose you feel better now? Or is it just the rum that's making you giggle?" asked Link with a fake smirk on his face, while he was actually worried for her. She would never drink before. The entire crew drank it, as did he, while Tetra sat on the side constantly saying that it was a waste of time. But after the crew died, she had almost died of alcohol poisoning. Once again, she was going to drown her thoughts and feelings in a pool of buttery warm rum.

"The rum of course. You know, honestly I can't believe I used to hate this stuff. It's fantastic!"

Link could tell she was getting a bit tipsy. She began to sing drinking songs with a drunken overtone, waving the bottle around to the tune. Link looked up at the sail, and squinted his eyes at an odd sight he had not seen in months. There was a seagull perched on the sail of the ship, nipping at its underside. More and more came and perched on the sail, nipping and flapping their wings, cawing at each other at annoyingly high pitches.

He didn't ask her about her drinking, as he didn't want to anger her, especially when her common sense was faltered. Instead, he asked, "What are we going to do when we find this new land, anyway? I mean, we don't have anyone with us, how are we supposed to colonize an island by ourselves?"

"Who knows," Tetra said lightheartedly, hiccupping every now and then.

"Perhaps we'll have to crossbreed with those gulls up on the sails, make Gullians and live among deformed man-birds for all eternity."

Link laughed out loud at this. Even though she was only happy because of the rum, this was the first time the two of them were normal since the others died. Well, perhaps normal wouldn't be the right word, but it was enough normal for him. It reminded him of old times, when the two of them would sing and tell dirty and wild stories with the crew. It made his chest lift up and gave him a grand euphoria. He held out his hand, and Tetra placed the rum in his hand. He took a swig and gave it back to her, and he replied to her Gullian remark, "Ah yes, that would be quite the sight, I can see it now. We would be like the Ritos, only we would have half a brain and we would nip our undersides and flap our wings for no apparent reason when perched somewhere. When we would see someone with food, we would pester them, screaming 'gnanangna', as the gulls do, and shooting droppings into their eyes. We would continue doing that until they surrendered their food to us. That is how we would survive, and our society would have no order, just the need to eat, reproduce, and annoy the hell out of everyone we see."

Tetra saw this as an invitation to compete for the best interpretation of their wondrous man-bird society, and happily joined the fray. They went on like this for hours, ignoring their roaring hunger and the inevitable realization that they were going to die soon. Link did not want to tell her they were out of food though; he wanted her to smile, whether naturally or artificially. He was also worried that after the rum wore off, she would become sad again. He felt horrible when she was; he hated to see her like that. It was just so unlike her, he couldn't imagine the pain she was experiencing right now.

Link scratched his whiskers rhythmically, and looked back at the gulls on the sail. There were even more now, about forty-six, a few of them circling the sail, and two of them now squabbling over room. The two gulls faced each other in a deadly stare-off, with their beaks wide open. They stood in this trance for a few minutes, and then charged at each other, flapping their wings as they lunged forward. One of them slipped and their beaks crushed together as two stags in battle would clash their antlers in a wrestle over a doe. The two gulls were now cawing into each other's mouths, their beaks now literally locked together. Eventually Link's amusement of the epic scuffle turned to annoyance from the constant onslaught of their Gnanangnas, and he looked at Tetra again.

Her eyes were wincing, and her hands grasped her stomach. She got up weakly and walked away from the hammock. "I need to eat," she breathed.

Link decided that he couldn't keep it from her, but he couldn't bring the words from his gut to his mouth. He couldn't bear telling her of their imminent starvation. He sat there, looking down at the creases in the aged floorboards deck as he listened to her light footsteps head down the stairs to the lower deck, then down another flight into the interior of the ship, and again into the storage room. After a few minutes he heard barrels being knocked over in a hungry fury, and it eventually turned into breaking glass and irate screaming.

Link burst into a fear induced sprint, taking three steps at a time down each flight of stairs, running past the stolen treasures collecting dust, down the hall into the storage room. It was in more of a chaos than he had left it earlier that morning; shards of glass littered the floor, broken barrels laying in piles of spilt salt, shelves knocked down, even bloodstains. Bloodstains…

Tetra was collapsed in the center of the room, sobbing lightly, laying in a pool of blood. There was a long shard of glass by her side, and there was a slice her wrist, right through her artery. She had tried to kill herself.

He rushed towards her with a look of horror that had never before stricken his face. He was supposed to be courageous, he was supposed to ignore fear and fight through tough times. Courage was even on the face of his hand, in the form of a golden triangle that only he could hold. Yet it somehow left him at this moment, but it did not make him weak; it did not take away who he was. It made him human to have such a fear, fear that gave him the strength to do things. Courage cannot exist without fear, yet fear can exist without courage. Tetra had lost her ability to have both.

Link untied his bandana and made a tourniquet out of it, cutting off the flow of blood to her arm. He scrambled around the room for needles, found them, and pulled a thread of cotton from his shirt. While he stitched up her cut and used various techniques he had learned to mend a broken artery, she looked up at him with tears dripping down her cheeks. He was not crying, he never did, but it was showing in his complexion; it was showing in the deep black wells of his eyes, it was showing in the way he breathed, the way he moved, the way he thought, touched. He was afraid of her. Not her herself, but what was happening to her. He didn't think she was serious the night before, when she said she wanted to die, and she wasn't. She didn't want to die; she felt that she had to. She felt that she would rather die by her own hand than by the hands of the gods. He knew this, and he now felt horrible. He didn't want to lose her, but he knew it was inevitable for the both of them to lose each other. He didn't want death, but if he was going to die, they were going to do it together, in unison. He wanted to die by her hands, and she by his. That was the only way to do it without the other having to feel the pain of losing their last living friend.

He finished her stitches, and undid the tourniquet. The bleeding had stopped, but the pain still seared her. He held her against him, closing his eyes and hearing her heartbeat.

"Why didn't you let me die?" she whined.

"You don't need to."

"But I want to."

"No you don't. I know you don't, and you can't hide it from me. I know you Tetra. You may not think it, or realize it, but I know when you're lying, when you're afraid, when you're happy, when you're sad. I can hear it in the way you speak of death. You fear it, everyone does. Even I do."

Tetra didn't speak, and buried her face into his shoulder. She wasn't crying anymore, he could even feel her lips curl into a smile. They both wanted to say it, but they didn't know what they would think.


	2. Chapter 2

The Legend of Zelda:

**Chapter 2**

A gull had ventured down to the lonely deck of the ship to investigate, checking if there was food to eat. It hobbled around, occasionally puffing out its wings as it turned its head in hundreds of unnecessary directions. It stood still for a moment, and then an arrow shot through its head, send it flying across the deck into the wall, where it hung limp and feeble, dangling from where the arrow pierced the hard wood.

Link removed the carcass from the wall, used the tip of the arrow to open up its belly, and emptied its organs and membranes out into the water. They were desperate for food. He brought what was left of the gull over to a bucket of sea-water that he had just scooped up earlier, and washed off the meat. He attached the meat to a long wooden stick that appeared to have been torn from the ship itself and stuck it into the fresh flames of the small fire he made in the center of the deck. One of the gulls swooped down from its perch and picked up the entrails of its fallen comrade in its beak, flying back up to the sail consume eat the remains.

He sat there for a long time, knowing that it was going to taste horrible, but he and Tetra had recently gained a hope that they might find land soon, seeing as the seagulls had found there ship, which meant there was land nearby. So, it was necessary to get whatever they could find to eat. The gulls were the only things that were going to keep them alive, while the gulls were the ones who wanted them dead.

The meat was thoroughly cooked after that time had passed, and he brought it down to Tetra, as she needed nourishment the most. She had fallen ill over the past few nights, as she had lost her strength after losing all of that blood. Link had been taking care of her like a mother did with a dying child, catering to her every whim and trying to make her as comfortable as possible, as much as she refused. In order to do so, he had chosen to sleep on the floor so that he was there in case she became severely ill.

She was staring at the ceiling when he walked in with the gull meat, and at the instant she heard his sandals touch the hard wood of the room she sat up. Her face had lost its glow, and was now pale and weary.

"Where'd you get that meat?" she asked with a withered tone.

"I killed one of the gulls on the sail. I know that we need them to find land, but we'll never get there without eating."

She did not complain, and grabbed a hunk of the meat. As she slowly chewed it with an obvious struggle, Link watched with painful sympathy for her. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the treasures that were collecting dust by the staircase. In the piles of precious metals and gems there was a portrait of a young woman, with short red hair, emerald eyes, and strong and independent overall appearance. She looked like a tame and elegant version of Tetra.

Then he asked a question which had come unto him out of pure curiosity, "Tetra… did you ever know your mom?"

She stopped chewing at this, "That's none of your business."

He was glad to see that she was acting like herself again.

She looked up at him and asked, "Aren't you going to eat this?"

"No."

"You idiot, you'll starve before we reach land. Eat."

"You need it more."

She rolled her eyes, "Link, I don't need you to breastfeed me, alright? I'm fine. Now eat this damn gull."

He hesitated, and took the other half of the meat. As he chewed quietly, Tetra looked out of the room at the portrait.

"And quite honestly, I have no idea about anything about my mom, aside from the way she died," said Tetra. "I don't know who she was, even her first name. The crew didn't seem to like to talk about it, so I just let them be."

"So you didn't even know her?"

"They did tell you what happened on the day she died, didn't they?"

"Nope."

She blew out air and reached up at the ceiling, stretching her arms.

"Well, I don't exactly remember all the details, but they told me that she had some fatal disease. She turned purple, bloated up, and died as a great ugly pustule. It happened when I was three, so I don't remember much. I do remember feeling happy and light-hearted when she was alive, and I felt horrible when she was gone, but those days left me long ago. I had to be a woman the day she crumpled up and died on the staircase."

"I'm sorry."

"Oh don't worry about it, I don't really care that I didn't have a childhood. I got a head start, and did something with my life that no other child had a chance at. I was thrust into this kind of life before I could really find out what I was missing. You know what I was missing though."

A guilty look appeared on Link's complexion.

"Hey, it's not like I care that much," she reassured. "If I have lived this long without being a child, don't you think it really wouldn't bother me?"

"I suppose," said Link doubtfully.

They both finished eating what little meat they had, and Tetra laid back down, instantly falling asleep.

Link watched her for a long time, with a look of longing on his complexion. As she breathed in and out, her rough yet delicate figure rose and fell in even intervals. With her eyes closed, she did not look as much of an adult as she had minutes before. The way she looked when she slept reminded him of the haughty little girl that she was when he first knew her, only she was less intimidating in this state than she was to him as an actual child. It made him smile to see her in such tranquility, and it lifted his heart further up into his chest to remember those days.

He walked up to the deck again, glancing at Tetra's mother's portrait on his way. The sun was setting now, painting the sky in vibrant shades of red and yellow. The seagulls were no longer frantic and hungry, nor were they perched on the sail. No longer were they the angels of death, but their true occupation; a seagull. They flew around the ship merrily, swooping down and catching fish from the sea.

"What the hell?" he exclaimed inquisitively.

How could there be fish? They wouldn't be so close to the surface of the water unless it was shallow…

Link looked ahead of the ship in awe. In the distance he could see a wide and faded grey shape, rising and falling in jagged forms from left to right. Seagulls soared in the air, all migrating back and forth from the ship to the object. Link smiled, "The winds have not abandoned us."

"Tetra," whispered Link.

She stirred in the bed, groaning and tossing over at the sound of his voice, struggling against the urge to awaken. Link gently shook her shoulders, and at this she opened her eyes in slits in his direction, "What?"

"I have a surprise for you."

"You mated with a seagull?" she asked wittily.

"No, even better."

Tetra was more aroused now, and sat up. She looked much healthier than she was a few hours ago, her face now lush and vibrant once more.

Her eyes were now wide open, now realizing that he wasn't teasing her. She stood up with curiosity, now hearing birds chirping. Not cawing, not screeching, but chirping. She could hear the mating calls of many insects, trees blowing softly in the wind, and the sea washing against a shoreline.

She sprinted out of the room and up on deck, Link following suit.

Tetra stood just outside the door, looking up with a beaming smile on her face, and tears dropping down gently from her eyes.

It was morning, and the sun was now fully emerged from the horizon. Thousands of shades of green, red, and brown stood before them in towering figures, which varied in size and shape. There were long stretches grass strewn around the figures, which Tetra had finally remembered were called trees. They had found land.

She turned around and hugged Link with unnatural and surprising strength, almost suffocating him. She left him soon after and jumped off the side of the ship into the water, laughing hysterically. She plunged into the sea, and emerged on the shore, drenched in water. He watched her roll in the grass, as if she was trying to become reacquainted with the earth, with a look of pure joy on both of their faces.

He jumped down from the stern, landing gingerly on his feet. Their hunger washed over them, and it was heightened by the sight of hundreds of fruit trees bordering the edge of the expansive forest before them, which bore all colors. The two scrambled over to the trees and picked the unfamiliar fruits ravenously. They tasted things they hadn't tasted since they left Outset in search of new land; the sweet, the sour, the citrus, the many different flavors they missed for nine years, were now being crushed between their teeth.

No longer did life and death, love and loss, and the memories of home hang over their consciousness. They were only focused on the bountiful quantity of food and shelter they had stumbled upon. They decided right then that they were never setting sail ever again. They had finished the task that Daphnes had brought unto them. They were home.

The treasures gathered dust at the foot of the staircase…

Rain drops fell to the cold earth, becoming one with the lush soil. Footsteps strode across that earth, with nervous movement and fully realized intention. Apprehension and anger walked on the shoreline, with the vision of the punishment of their future victims fresh in their minds. Sword at their side, bow and arrow at their back, prepared to kill if necessary.

Law and order walked hand and hand with apprehension and anger on that night. They allowed them to persecute the ones they searched for, stretching the law to allow revenge to be brought unto those that were in the path of that vengeance.

The four walked hand and hand on the shoreline, searching for the treasures that collected dust at the foot of the staircase…

Link awoke in the night to the sounds of crackling flames, shouting men, and metal clinking together in random bursts of sound. He looked to the left of him. There were men on the far end of the shoreline where the land curved around into the distance, holding torches high above their head while their other hand grasped the hilts their swords. The men were walking, and then they saw the ship, at which they sprinted in their direction.

Link stood up in horrid surprise. He thought there was no one here on this island, and yet there was a band of armored men running towards them, drawing their swords. There were people here.

A bellowing voice came from the group, "Halt, in the name of the emporer!"

_An empire?_

"To the ground, now!"

Link defied, and walked towards them, drawing his blade, "For what?"

The man at the front of the group yelled through his thick beard, "Drop your weapon, and come quietly, or face death."

Link defied, grinding his teeth and glaring at them with his cold eyes, "I haven't done anything wrong."

The men behind the leader were intimidated by Link's building fury. He was frightening, like a feral dog that foamed at the mouth.

The leader held his sword out in Link's direction, looking sternly at him, "I'm warning you, thief! Drop your weapon!"

"I am no thief. You have no right to call me such a thing."

"Your ship matches the description of Aletra Ohira, the pirate who murdered seven Unharan nobles and escaped our fleets with hundreds of pounds of gold. Now where is she?"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Your captain, where is she?"

"I don't have a captain."

"Well then who owns the ship?"

Tetra came out of the trees, with a curious look on her face, "What's going on?"

The leader of the armored men furrowed his brows and grinned, "There you are."

He hit her over the head, and she fell to the ground unconscious.

Link ran at him with his sword held high, cursing at him with all of his might. Then an arrow was shot into Link's ankle, then into his thigh, and again into his shoulder. He fell over into the sand. They tied Link and Tetra in chains, and climbed up into the ship. They emptied everything out, and put everything of value into a steel box. The leader held Tetra's mother's portrait in his hands, and spat on it. Link watched them throw a torch at the sail, and at that the ship was engulfed in flames.

The pictograph curled up in the fire, shriveling up to the center. The last face visible in it was Aryll, who had a wide and childish smile on her face. The pictograph turned to ash.

Tetra awoke in a dark room, unaware of what had happened. She slowly looked around, searching for a hint of light, and failed to succeed in her hunt. She moved her foot slightly, and heard the crinkling sounds of metal. She was chained to the wall.

"Link?"

No response came.

Her voice became more frantic, "Link?"

No response came.

Tetra tugged at her leg, angrily attempting to free herself from her imprisonment, yet the chains did not give way to the tension she created. She punched the wall, which she just then learned was made of stone and concrete. Her knuckles bled slightly, and the area where the skin was removed stung sharply. She tried again to free herself from the wall, and failed. Again, and again, and again, and she failed each time. However, she remained undeterred, now in an eternal struggle to gain freedom.

Then a door swung open, and a bright white light blinded her vision. A man was thrown into the room, landing sprawled on the ground. He was bleeding profusely, and there were lashes all across his back. His breathing was broken and quiet.

She was close enough to kneel down beside him, and she turned him over. It was Link.

They looked at each other, both pairs of eyes piercing into the other's mind. Then an armored man knocked her to the side, and lifted Link up by the neck. The man dragged him over to the corner of the room, and attached chains to his right arm. The man turned around and glared at Tetra. As he walked out, he looked back and her and blared a grim smile at her. The door slammed shut.

"Link?"

He moaned in agony.

She rushed towards him, and instantly fell over face first onto the cold concrete ground due. The chains clung firmly to her legs. As her nose began to bleed, light entered the room again. She felt the metal brace of the chains free itself from her ankle. In an irrational feeling of freedom, she rushed in Link's direction.

Then the armored man grabbed her by the collar of her shirt and dragged her out of the room as she screamed and pleaded for help. The door slammed shut.

The man hauled her down a damp and dimly lit hallway. Rats scurried along the walls, and cobwebs were strewn all along the ceiling.

The man opened a door and threw her inside, slamming it behind him. She was in a square room, with white concrete walls and a similarly colored ceiling and floor. It was brightly lit in that room, which made it blinding to her.

She was chained with her front to the left wall, which was stained a dark red in various places. The man grabbed a whip.

Then a proud voice echoed from the corner of the room, "Begin."

The armored man lashed the whip at her back, searing her with pain. She did not cry out, but instead scrunched her face and absorbed the pain internally.

The voice echoed again, "Captain Ohira, you look much different than you did seventeen years ago. It's strange; you look much younger than I remember."

"I don't have a last name, and I am no captain. Not anymore."

"Yet you own a pirate ship. Seems to me that you are the captain."

"I am captain of myself, I have no crew."

"Then who is the man you were found with?"

"He's an old friend."

"Whose name is?"

"That's none of your business."

She was lashed again.

"It seems that I'm the one who holds your future. I believe that makes it my business."

She looked back at the voice, and she saw the round figure of a fat man sitting on a chair. But she didn't get to see the details, as she was lashed again.

"…Link. His name is Link."

"That's it?"

"He never told me. I don't know his last name."

She was lashed again.

"You're sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

"Well Aletra, you don't seem to be ready to admit to what you did, so-."

"My name is not Aletra!"

She was lashed again.

"Then what's your name?"

"Let me go!"

She was lashed again.

"Tetra."

"Then where is she?"

"I don't know! I don't even know who she is!"

She was lashed again.

"We found a portrait of Aletra in your ship. That is proof enough that you know who she is."

Tetra fell silent, "No, it can't be."

"What?"

"She can't be."

She was lashed again.

"Tell us what you know!"

Tetra coughed up blood, "She's my mother…"

The fat man smiled, "Ah, so you are the spawn of the demon. No one knew she had a daughter. This is interesting."

He stood up from his chair and walked over to Tetra, observing her with grim curiosity. He had a bowler hat on, with a suit and tie and polished leather shoes. In his hand he held a black cane, which had a ruby attached at the top where his palm rested. The man's face was plump and round, with miniscule eyes and a snout of a nose. His skin was pale and clear, contrasting oddly with his dark attire.

"Where is she?"

"She's dead."

He laughed, "So you didn't commit the crime, and Aletra is dead. I don't care; you are the still the kin of that vile woman. I won't let you walk the earth any longer, and neither will your foul mouthed friend. Tried to kill me, he did, sputtering curses and saying things that no sophisticated man would say. He is just as dangerous as your mother."

He waddled away with his head held high, and looked over at the armored man, "Keep lashing her, I want the people to see her scars when she's up on the gallows."

The fat man smiled curtly back at Tetra, "The two of you are to be hung tomorrow morning. Savor your last hours, child."

Link was past his pain, and was intent on killing the next person he saw. He knew what they were doing to her. They already knew that Aletra was Tetra's mother. They already knew who they were. They had already decided to hang them. They were torturing her for the pleasure of hurting things that they didn't understand.

He now wished that they had died on the ship three days ago, he'd rather be decomposed by seagulls than hung at the gallows for crimes he didn't commit. Something told him that things weren't well where they were now. Something told him that people like him were persecuted for the sole purpose of ridding them from the land.

His eyes were cold, as they always were when Tetra was not there. He wanted to kill that armored man when he brought her back, and he wanted to skin that suited pig alive. Link could see what the fat man was like internally when he first saw him; a cold man, with no sympathy for those below him and only wanted money. The man wanted all that were below him to either be slaves, or to face death. Link had never encountered such a selfish man before. He even liked Ganondorf better, as Ganondorf only wanted to avenge his people. This man had nothing to avenge, only things to gain.

The door opened, and the blinding light came in once more. Tetra was in the opening, bloody and wide eyed. The armored man threw her inside, hitting the ground just as Link had; only she landed close to Link. The man didn't bother putting on the chains, as they had nowhere to go. The door slammed shut.

Link held her in his arms, her blood dripping onto his clothing. They didn't speak, for nothing they could say would turn their attention from their fate that was soon to crash down upon them. They were hopeful that they were to get out of this, but in their hearts they knew this was a fabrication spun by their fear of death.

Their shattered souls could not amass the courage to tell the other the truth. Even in their eleventh hour, even in wake of the afterlife, they could not say it.

The citizens of the business district of Unharus were a humble yet fearful people who walked around the towering and ancient city, with its grey and white marble buildings that lined up along the cobblestone roads, going on with their daily lives. They were the intermediate, the middle-class, who knew of the city's faults and obscenities. However, while they were aware of the horrid details of their home, they did not speak of them; they did not want to think of such horrid things, and wanted to keep their attention of the sunny side of life.

The young men and women of that district were active and lively, with good intentions for peace and prosperity. They lived this way, and laughed and socialized, and thought well of their city. Their parents never told them what the city was really like on the inside. So the young ones continued on with their euphoria, and kept thinking well of their city. But as time passed on, as their bright eyes grew colder and colder, they slowly began to see what was held behind the iron curtain that was manufactured by the city's nobles. The children of the city were even more oblivious, and seemed to hint that they would never learn of these evils.

The parents and the older men and women of the business district knew the full extent of these hidden truths, as they lived through the times where they began. Yet as they wanted to ignore them, the larger reason for their false unawareness was the fear of persecution. They knew that if they began to rally against this evil, they would have three outcomes: enslavement, imprisonment, and death.

"What's bothering you, dad?"

"Nothing you need to know. Young people shouldn't know such things."

"I'm old enough to handle whatever troubles the two of you."

"You may be older, but you aren't wise yet. You wouldn't understand. You'd overreact."

The young people were vexed at the way their parents disclosed the evils from them, feeling shoved to the side and undermined. So they fought back, accusing their parents of arrogance and bigotry, and further pursued the truth.

The nobles of Unharus sat in their leather armchairs, living in their expensive townhouses. They were sweaty little pigs, fanning themselves with their bowler hats and breathing heavily. For what reason the swine precipitated so furiously, no one knew. Why would they not know? The pigs kept their reasons for sweat to themselves. Those reasons were of emotional values, of fear and loathing towards the ones that the evils of the city preyed upon. Why were they afraid of those people? What part did the swine have in this malevolence? Quite frankly, their role was large; they were the evil.

They were hungry for power, and whenever they could they obeyed their hunger, doing whatever they could to please their voracious souls. No matter where the nourishment came from, they fed upon it with sloppy habits and often fought over it with their fellow incinerators of equality.

There was an uprising forming, and the sweaty pigs knew it. But the uprising would not come from the people they preyed upon. Nay, it would come from right under their noses. It would come from the thieves who murdered the swine in the cold night, and stole their nourishment, and gave it back to the prey of the hogs. The thieves under Golden Mountain waited for the time to strike.

The young ones of the business district pestered their parents for the truth, and no truth came. The children of the business district played and laughed, ignoring all that seemed to break the city in two. The parents and the older citizens of the business district sat quiet, with fear and loathing towards the swine who cultivated the evil in their city.

The people of the business district went on with their daily lives, all with a sense of fault in their fallaciously beautiful city.


	3. Chapter 3

The Legend of Zelda:

**Chapter 3**

Thousands of people stood in the market square around the gallows, all watching Link and Tetra stand with their hands and legs chained together, waiting for the angel of death to come for them.

A thin and mousey man stood on the stage of the gallows, holding a long scroll in his hands. He recited the words in front of him, telling the crowd the false accusations that the fat man had made. The crowd appeared to have believed it, but some were skeptical. They looked up with mixed feelings as they peered at Link and Tetra's scars, still fresh from the night before.

Link wondered how such horrid people could govern such a beautiful city, with its bright marble hi-rises with vines growing up the walls, black round shingles on the roofs that arched upwards towards the sky, and many towers with domed roofs. Chickadees and finches flew through the city and over passed over his head, chirping with a pleasant and soothing tone. Such beauty seemed to lightly mask the fact that a noose was being swung onto his head.

He looked at Tetra, and saw her strong demeanor and vigilant personality booming from her stature. She was ready to face death, even if it was unjustified in its reason. The young captain was revealing herself once more in the face of death. She was really becoming herself again.

He looked out at the people before him, half of them cheering on for the two of them to be hung, and the other half quiet and observant, seeming to know that Link and Tetra had done nothing wrong.

He sighed and looked above at the four story domed building before them. There were three men in white cloaks, all standing side by side at the edge of the roof. The one standing in the middle knelt down on one knee, and mouthed a quiet command. The two men at his side ran along the roof in opposite directions, leaping from building to building. The man in the middle leapt down from his perch, scraping a clawed golden gauntlet on the wall of the building to slow his fall, landing without a sound. No one noticed the men.

The scrawny man walked over to a lever, ready to drop the trapdoors to allow Link and Tetra to drop dead with the nooses straining their would be dislocated necks. Then a long black dart pierced from the roof of the left hand building through the man's skull, and he dropped to the ground. Link and Tetra's chains dissipated and fell to the ground as a dust of metallic particles. Then three silver wolves twice Link's height leapt onto the stage of the gallows, bearing their long fangs and bristling their fur. The three cloaked men leapt from nowhere onto the backs wolves, the one with the golden gauntlet grasping Link and Tetra from the nooses and pulling them swiftly onto the back of his wolf.

As the citizens screamed in panic, and as arrows shot through the air, the wolves pounded off through the crowd and down the main avenue of the metropolis, which was bustling with horses, carriages, pedestrians, and soldiers, all surprised at the sudden onslaught of monstrous wolves sprinting towards the towering black gates to the outside world. As the cobblestones crushed beneath the wolves' paws, they leapt up the sides of the buildings onto the ebony roofs, sprinting towards the wall of the city.

Link was dumbstruck as to what was happening, as was Tetra. Their eyes were wide, with both fear and happiness. They were free, or at least they hoped this was so.

The wolves dove over the wall, sliding on their claws down the marble, and landed in the grass of the large world that Link was now aware that they were in. To the north, at a far distance of probably a fortnight was a long and soaring mountain range, with a dead volcano in the center that brushed against the clouds in the morning sky. There were rolling plains all around, with tall grass and the occasional patch of trees. To the south was a large lake that seemed to pour down into the ocean at the end of it. Large red and yellow birds that were as large as a human soared through the air, screeching loudly and swooping down over them, gracefully showing off their trailing golden tails.

The wolves panted heavily as they ran up and down the hills towards the mountains. Link and Tetra felt odd here. Even as their old home held many magical elements and exotic features, this place was otherworldly to them. The monstrous animals, the oversized cites, the mountain ranges that seemed to literally touch the heavens, the sights that they saw in the open world gave them a paranormal idea of what was hidden in the world that was kept a secret here.

They stopped at the edge of a maple and oak forest around nine miles away from the city, where there was a man standing in the shadows of the trees, waiting for them. The man that wore the gauntlets leapt down from his wolf, leaving Link and Tetra behind. He approached the hidden man.

They spoke in spiteful tones, as if they were being forced to cooperate with each other. The man that wore the gauntlets motioned for Link and Tetra to come forward and approach him. They studied the situation with caution, and stepped down from the monster, taking prude steps toward him and the hidden man.

The man with the gauntlets turned towards Link, and lowered his hood, taking a steel edged straw hat from the inside of his cloak and placing it on his head, soon after throwing the cloak onto his shoulder. The man's skin was a dark and yellow tan, his medium length hair a dark brown, and his eyes colored in an odd assortment; yellow pupils, a rainbow iris, and coal black corneas. He wore a black shirt and brown jeans that hung over his leather boots, appeared to have an inside of steel and iron.

The man did not appear to be friendly, nor did he seem to trust Link and Tetra. Why did he save them?

"Follow the man in the enclosure," said the man. "He'll take you to safety until the government stops looking for you."

"Now just wait a minute," barked Tetra. "What is going on? Who are you?"

"I don't have time for questions," said the man as he swung himself back onto his wolf. "Just do it."

He dug his heels into his monster's side, and the group bounded off back south towards the city as Link watched them ride away. He scowled, and ran after them.

"Get back here!" he exclaimed. "Answer the damn question."

They were too far away to hear him.

Tetra grabbed him and urged him over to the forest.

"Come on, let's go. You heard what that guy said, the government is after us. We're fugitives, we have to hide."

Link scowled, "No, we haven't done anything wrong! Why should I have to hide from them?"

Tetra had a worried look on her face, and pleaded, "They don't care if we're innocent or not. The man that gave us the sentence wanted us dead just because my mother was a murderer. He wants to cleanse the earth of our kind, Link!" She looked into his eyes, "We have to hide."

"You can hide then, I'm going back to kill that fatass."

"Link, stop acting like this, you're being a moron!"

"Maybe I am one. I might be the stupidest son of a bitch that ever walked the earth, but I'm not going to let some elitist bastard shove you and me around like this just for his own interests. I'm going."

He began to walk away as the man in the shadows called out, "If you try to go, I'll have to bring you back by force."

Link spun around enraged, "Who asked you?"

The man emerged from the enclosure, revealing himself. He was a tall and elegant man who appeared to be in his mid twenties, with long blood red hair, light skin, and dark red eyes that appeared demonic. He had pointed ears, like Link and Tetra, with black piercings that spanned the entire outline of the ear. He wore a black hooded sweatshirt that was unzipped, revealing his light green undershirt, and grey jeans that were worn down from years of damage.

"I'm the one who helped save your lives," said the man. "And I wish you'd be more appreciative of what I've done for you."

Link calmed down, still suspicious of the man, "What's going on?"

"Our seer sensed that you were coming, and there's a lot you need to know."

"Who were those men?"

"I'll explain everything once this is taken care of, but you have to come with me now, before it's too late."

"What do you want?"

"Millions of lives are at stake, and all you want to do is ask question after question. Come with me now, or find out before it's too late."

Link stood, thinking of what to do, when Tetra pulled him up the hill to the man.

"For god's sakes Link," she said, "Just come on."

He obeyed her, and walked up to the man, who had already begun walking back into the forest. The man swung himself onto a smaller black furred wolf, still taller than a human, but much stronger than the white wolves that the cloaked men rode.

"And the name's Arcodes. Now get on, before we run out of time."

Tetra followed the line of cloaked figures along the trail, with trepidation in her eyes. It was cold where they treaded. Thin layers of snow covering the ground like a dust that hung over the land, and tall rock formations lined the stone trial all the way across. Link was unconscious, his limp body being carried over Arcodes's shoulder, who was dressed in similar attire as the others.

The cloaked figures walked in single file, bowing their hooded heads towards the ground. On the back of each cloak was a red symbol of an eye resting on the high point of a cross, with three dots over the upper rim of the eye. The symbol was oddly familiar to Tetra, but she did not know why.

The trail stretched at an upward slant, higher up the mountain to a dark and ancient looking temple. It had an ominous look to it. It was just so lonely on the mountainside. It stood tall with its numerous towers and wings, yet it seemed appeared to be abandoned, making its size unnecessary.

"Where are you taking him?" Tetra asked frantically.

No one answered her.

A much smaller cloaked figure, who was holding Arcodes's hand, looked back at Tetra. It was a little girl, with large, frightened sapphire eyes, and long brown hair that whipped around in the gusts of wind that accompanied the falling snow. The girl turned away from her and looked up at Arcodes for comfort. He kept looking forward towards the temple, determined to do whatever he had to do.

They had made ink markings all over Link's body, swirls and letters and symbols that covered him from head to toe. He was technically nude, save for the cotton blanket that they wrapped him in before setting off towards the temple. His skin was turning grey.

They still hadn't told her what was going on.

"Chain him down, get the seal ready."

"What are you doing to him?"

"We're doing what's necessary for the fate of the world."

"What is wrong with Link?"

"There's no time to explain, child."

"Tell me!"

Tetra was being held back from the center floor of the dark temple by two of the cloaked men, with their hoods on to hide their faces. Arcodes was placing strips of long paper with writing on them around the floor, where there was a large circular array of symbols and patterns surrounding Link, who was fighting vigilantly against the chains that held him to the ground.

"Arm yourselves now, this might get out of hand," said Arcodes.

He stood back, and held out his hands. He muttered a chant, and the air in the great hall of the temple rose up as he finished. The array on the floor began to illuminate, and Link arched his back upwards and writhed from side to side, screaming at the top of his lungs.

Tetra tried to break herself from the two cloaked men, "Stop it, you're killing him!"

They paid no heed to her cries, and stayed focused on the phenomenon. Link's eyes began to glow, and an opaque black shape began to excrete from his mouth, moving through the air as a snake would on the ground.

The little girl huddled back against the wall of the temple, looking on in horror at the sight in front of her. She tried to watch for a short while, but her eyes teared too much to bear it, and she squinted them shut as she looked away.

Tetra pulled against the arms that held her back, screaming, "What are you doing to him?"

"Aim the seal!" demanded Arcodes.

A cloaked woman held a black and white box forward from her body, bracing herself for an impact.

Arcodes slammed his hands onto the ground, making the array glow even brighter. The writhing shape twisted erratically at this, and a multi-pitched screech echoed through the great hall. The box shot a light through the air that pierced the shape's skin. It scrunched tightly, and then broke free of the beam of light, still attached to Link's body. It kept growing and bulging outwards, bubbling in some places.

Arcodes' eyes were wide with dread.

"Reverse it!" he said. "Put it back inside his body!"

Three cloaked figures rushed into the glowing array that Arcodes kept his hands firmly against in order to keep the growing shape inside. They each placed their palms against Link's chest, and muttered a chant. The black shape shot back inside of his body, and he dropped limp to the cold floor of the temple. All was quiet, all was calm.


	4. Chapter 4

The Legend of Zelda:

**Chapter 4**

The door opened, and an aged woman wearing a dark cloak entered the dimly lit room, her red eyes hidden under a veil of shadow. Her elegant and beautiful complexion emulated a wealth of wisdom, and her silver hair was long and mellifluous. She looked down at the bed where Link was strewn upon, now with his bandana off of his head, which allowed his hair to drop down into his eyes. He was still and lifeless, yet full of color and light. The long scars on his back were scabbing now, brown and rough, merging with his skin like a parasite.

The woman stood over him, with a blank look on her face. She ran her long and sharp nails, painted black, along his cheek, as if searching for something implanted deep inside.

"Poor child," she said, "Such a pity that such a thing has been brought unto him. It's a wonder he has held it back for so long."

Arcodes stood in the corner, shrouded by the shadows, "How much time does he have?" he said.

The old woman sighed, and said, "It's not a matter of how much time he has; it's a matter of his will to fight it off. The girl said he used to be a kind hearted and relatively calm boy, but now he's become quite belligerent. I don't know. It could just be how adolescence affected him over time, or…"

"Yes?"

"Or this change could be the demon."

"Yet why would the demon's influence not be in effect when he's around the girl? It shouldn't make a difference."

"I don't think this is any normal exorcism, Arcodes. This demon once had a mind, and it used to a human. I can hear it speak. It's in pain."

"What happened to it?"

"It won't say, yet keeps saying that everyone hates it and that the world should be destroyed. It seems to be a lost soul, an ancient soul, which found its way into this boy and housed itself there, waiting for the right time to take hold of his body. From the looks of the hold it has on him, it's been there since the boy's birth."

"So it is not entirely corrupt?"

"No, it just feels like an outcast. It's quite depressing to hear it moan in agony, it sounds like it's been in this struggle for thousands of years, repeating the same thing over and over again. I believe something happened to it before it was removed from its body, something that involved a betrayal."

"Of what?"

"It won't say."

"Can you try to talk to it?"

"I would rather not risk it, Arcodes. It's dormant; if it's awakened it will finally take hold of this boy for good. And judging by the amount dark magic it holds, it may even be a god. It's too much of a gamble. I say that we leave the boy be for now; he needs to rest. Hopefully the seal we put on the demon will keep its influence subdued for a time, perhaps the boy will behave like himself for a few months before we attempt to exorcise him. Well, that's all I can see now, no reason staying here

She began to walk back towards the door.

"Thank you for your counsel, great crone."

"I am nothing but a seer, Arcodes. You must remember that I have yet to become a crone, there are still many years ahead before I take hold of that role. And at that point, that child of yours will take my place as seer.

Arcodes frowned, and looked down at his feet.

They left the room, leaving Link in darkness. He stirred in his sleep.

Tetra sat with her back to an ancient oak tree, which was planted at the top of the steep hill, overlooking the small village at its foot. There were small children, with red eyes and varying colors of hair, who were running down the winding roads of grass and soil, between the wooden houses and the towering trees, playing a game of tag. The young men and women of this red eyed race who had chosen to help provide food and service instead of becoming a member of the temple sat outside of their homes, watching their children play.

Tetra watched these children intently, full of awe and curiosity. They all gave her images of herself running around in such a fashion, with her mother watching her play from the outside of their home. Such a time never existed. She then pictured herself, at five years old, sitting alone in her room while the crew worked on the deck of the ship.

Her eyes faded a bit, and her upper eyelid closed down halfway as she looked down at her feet.

Link came up from behind her, "Hey."

Tetra spun around, surprised to hear his voice.

"You're awake?" she asked. "It's been eight days! Are you better?"

"Better than I have for years, actually."

He sat down against the tree next to her, beaming.

"I don't know why," he said. "But I just feel happy now. It's almost like I never left Outset. Hell, this village even reminds me it. I wouldn't be surprised if they kept pigs as pets as well."

Tetra smiled weakly, thinking of that joyful little place at the southern end of the great sea. Such a place that was so far away, on the other side of the world, had somehow materialized itself in front of them.

Link had a long strand of wheat between his teeth, and his eyes were bright and jovial, just like they were nine years ago. He had shaven, and even had his hair cut, abandoning his black bandana. It was shorter than it was, but it was still quite long, his bangs messy and hanging just past his eyebrows, and the rest cut to the length of an index finger.

"It does seem like we're there again, doesn't it?" she said.

"Yeah, I wonder how they all are. It's been so long. Is your back okay?"

"It's going to be scarred for life, but it doesn't hurt anymore."

"You know, we've been here for a while, and I don't even know where we are. Have you asked anyone?"

"No, I've kept to myself for the past few days. Too much to think about."

"Like what?"

"Well, that city that we almost died in, the noble that sentenced us just didn't seem right in the head. You know, like he's crazy. He was polite and had a charming voice, but then the things he said were just wrong. And… I keep thinking about my mom, more and more."

Link looked at her, knowing what she was thinking. "Tetra, judging by the way that man acted, I don't blame her for killing them. She was probably angry at him and his fellows, just as I was. I mean, there's just something wrong with that city, I just don't know what."

"I know… I just didn't know she was that well known. I mean, I knew she was a pirate, but a notorious pirate?"

"I wouldn't say notorious. Perhaps she was a vigilante, you know, trying to take down the nobles. For what reasons I don't know, but look at what they tried to do to us. They're evil, Tetra. Your mom was probably doing it for a greater cause than we know."

Tetra looked down at her feet, wiggling her toes in the cool breeze. "I guess," she said.

"Hey, don't be sad; we're going to be fine," he said brightly. "What happened to the Tetra I used to know, huh? She wouldn't be sad right now."

"I don't know… I just can't be happy right now. How can I? I mean, those things are the least of my problems."

"Well then what's wrong?"

She paused, and abruptly said while looking away, "Nevermind."

"Tetra…"

"It's no big deal, I can handle it."

"Tetra we've had this conversation before. How can you keep things from me after all that we've been through? After what just happened to us?"

"Link, there are some things that I just can't say, okay?"

Link looked down at the ground, thinking quietly to himself.

She had an expression of guilt on her face when she heard him sigh, and turned to speak to him. He was up on his feet, walking away with his back to her down the hill towards the village.

She went after him. "Link, wait!"

"I don't want to hear it," he said halfheartedly.

She stopped.

He looked back at with her with those cold eyes, and said, "If you don't even trust me after nine years, then I don't want to hear you speak."

He had no remorse on his face as he said this, and continued walking,

She opened her mouth to speak, but a hand covered it in prevention. Arcodes stood beside her, and said, "Don't tell him, he has enough on his mind already. We don't want him to have negative emotions. That's what it feeds on."

"There's much more to this than…that. Much more…"

Link walked into the village, scratching a wolf behind the ear as he went.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Link opened the door into Tetra's room, where she slept soundly with her head resting on her right hand. She looked innocent again with those closed eyes, and it made him feel guilty for what he had to do. He looked down at her, feeling those callus encrusted hands crush his heart and twist his mind into a downward spiral of lamentation. She did not stir as he walked towards her, silently breathing the air into her lungs by her subconscious mind. He bent down, looking at her closely, as if he was trying to permanently inscribe her beautiful face into his thoughts.

He kissed her on the cheek, and left the room while shedding a tear. She did not awaken, breathing soft and gently in the night.

It was dark, and a somber knock came at Arcodes's door. He got up from his chair by the candlelight, walked across the stone floor, and turned the silver knob in a calm manner, turning the door open. Tetra stood in the doorway, looking tired and worn.

She looked down at the ground, "I need to talk to you."

Arcodes hesitated for a brief moment, then ushered her in. She sat down on the floor with her back to the wall, facing him from across the room as he sat back down in his chair. His face was half hidden in the candlelight.

Tetra spoke shyly, "What's going to happen to him?"

"We aren't sure yet. The demon seems to have gone into hibernation, yet… I can't seem to cease thinking of how long it will be until he triggers it. What troubles me more is how it got inside him in the first place."

"I never would have thought something like this was in him all this time. He has done so much for others, and now he's being punished for all of the kindness he has given the world."

"He doesn't have to be, we're trying to figure out how to remove it and destroy it. He doesn't know about it yet, as we anesthetized him when we tried to expel the demon, so please try to keep him happy. The way you angered him today is the kind of thing that is going endanger us all."

"I'm sorry; I just don't know what he would think of what I was going to say."

"What were you going to say?"

"That's none of your business." She looked away as she said this.

Arcodes saw through her, and grinned. "You love him, don't you?"

She continued to look away.

"Why can't you tell him?"

"I'm afraid to get too close to him, especially now."

"You were before?"

"I never liked to get close to people, and I never have. People want to, especially him, but I've been betrayed before. I don't want that to happen again. Now stop asking about it. It's my problem, not yours."

She got up, and walked towards the door. Just as she placed her hand on the knob, a small and gasping voice broke the silence. "Brother! It's happing again!"

Tetra spun around, and saw the little girl from the exorcism earlier that week crawling on the ground towards Arcodes. Her eyes were shining bright light into the room, and she twisted and turned as she moved forward. Arcodes leapt from his chair, knocking it over, and picked her up and held her like an infant. She screamed and whimpered into his shoulder, and the room rattled with an unseen force.

The candlelight went out, and the girl's eyes became normal again. As she hyperventilated, Arcodes shushed her and said comforting things.

The little girl spoke in a broken voice, "There were dead people, laying in piles. It was red everywhere, and they were rotting. The demon man was there, laughing. He was eating their corpses."

Arcodes put his hand over her mouth and continued to shush her, saying comforting things.

Tetra was frozen in front of the door, feeling compassion for the poor girl. Arcodes walked into the other room, taking care of the horrified child until she finally went back to sleep. Once he came back, Tetra began to ask softly, "Is she okay?"

"Find Link," he whispered sharply.

"What?"

"Now!"

Tetra obeyed absent mindedly and rushed to the ancient tree on the crest of the hill, where Link was sleeping an hour before. He was not there.

Link walked through the twisting lanes of the forested village in the midnight's shadow, keeping his head down and hidden in the hood of the unzipped red sweatshirt he had stolen from a laundry pile in the eastern end of the village. The moon was hidden beneath a full sheet of grey and ominous clouds that crackled lightning and bled rain onto the soil of the silent and deluged world. The people were asleep, unhindered by the oncoming storm in the distance. A lone woman sat on her porch, looking at Link through drained and aged eyes. He passed by her, keeping his head down, and turned right towards the southern gates of the village.

A large wolf, roughly reaching his shoulders in height, cautiously advanced towards him, eyeing him with neither fear nor anger. It was dark grey, with its coat brightening with different intensities according to the thickness of the fur. Link smiled and gently beckoned it over, using his hands to gesture it forward. He rubbed its neck and swung his body on top of its back. It seemed to know where he wanted to go, and began to gradually bound forward out of the gates, sprinting along the downward trail that lead through the tall trees, away from this place of hidden joy to the fallaciously beautiful city of Unharus.

Winding through the black labyrinth of oak and maple and passing under the boughs of dark green towards an obligation spun from his stubborn determination he rode the wolf, grasping its shoulders to keep himself on its back. His hood fell back through the wind that pushed against him by the speed of the wolf's run, causing his hair to flow back and ripple in the air with feral movements.

Link and the wolf leapt from the trees and onto the vast expanse of grassland, and in the distance he could see the high walls of the metropolis. He could see light from that place, street lamps and windows shining out into the atmosphere, guiding him there as if they wanted to trap him inside. The tall grass bent back in the wind of the coming storm, and the rain began to bleed down on him. More and more rain came with increasing numbers, pattering down and staining the earth dark with a glisten that made anything seem beautiful.

The callus encrusted hands kept a firm grasp on his heart, and he felt that they would be there forever, bleeding him dry and scraping a deep and empty hole beneath his chest with their coarse and broken nails. His eyes were cold from love, and the demon spun around behind them, feasting upon his sorrow to keep itself alive.

The thousands of people that roamed the center of the city swarmed in various directions around Link in the morning rain that drenched them all in the blood of the clouds. They all covered their heads with some sort of contraption, whether it was an umbrella or a pair of arms. Link, however, just had the hood raised on his head, his face hidden in the shadows. A group of adolescent boys and girls in shirts and jeans who sat on the front steps of a corner shop watched him curiously, wondering what was wrong with him. He was mysteriously eerie in the crowds of diverse backgrounds, giving the aura of warning to anyone who came close to him. They adolescents eyed the sheathed sword at his back; brand new, clean, and unworn.

Yells of the street vendors and the traveling merchants filed the air of the market that surrounded the abstract obsidian fountain, which spurted clear water into the air, dropping down into the pool below. Bazaars filled the area, making the traffic of shoppers congested and frantic. Fresh fruit, fine cloth, rugs, weaponry, odd novelties, and other sorts of words that conflicted with the pattering onslaught of droplets surrounded Link as he walked carefree through the excrement of the sky that bequeathed the air with a putrid smell of worms and wet soil.

Link walked over to a wall close to the adolescents, which had a wanted sign with his and Tetra's faces on them. The faces in the photos showed them covered in dirt and blood, giving the appearance in the photo and the way he looked at that moment as he looked at them a noticeable difference. A large banner was placed above the photos: "Wanted for murder and piracy. Reward of 100,000 vias (apparently the country's currency), dead or alive."

The bounty on them was surprising to him, but it did not threaten him, as he knew he was going to be killed quite soon anyway. He ventured his eyes along the wall, and he found out that he and Tetra were not the only ones up there. The man with the gauntlets, with his horrifying black, yellow, and rainbow eyes, had his photo up there as well, yet it was only a shot of him that a person had seemed to take while the man was in the act of escaping the "law." No name was next to the photos, yet there was a bounty of ten million vias. "Wanted for murder, thievery, piracy, abduction, vandalism…" and the list kept going from there. He was to be brought dead. There was an address at the bottom of the compilation of criminal profiles: "908 Nevali Avenue, Business District." He now knew where he had to go.

He looked to his right, and saw that the adolescents were staring at him.

"What the fuck are you looking at?" he asked irritably.

The adolescents looked away, spare one; a boy who was sitting on the top step, wearing a black brimmed beanie on his head and had a thin goatee growing on his chin. "You new here?"

Link looked at him. "Yeah. What of it?"

"Oh, nothing… you just seem out of place is all."

"Excuse me?"

"Are you from another country? You don't sound like you're Vivalan."

"I'm not in the mood for a conversation, kid."

"Hey, don't call me a kid; I'm almost eighteen."

"So what? Your age doesn't give you the title of adult; your maturity does."

"I'm probably more mature than you are; you don't know what I've been through."

"Oh for Din's sake, don't get me started kid."

"Don't call me that!"

Link smiled. The adolescent got up with his fist clenched, and strode angrily over to Link as his fellows urged him to calm down. The boy began to throw his fist forward at Link's face, but he was stopped. Link grabbed his fist and held him back. "Whoa, calm down. You're going to hurt yourself."

"You asshole!"

The boy threw his opposite fist at Link's nose, but it was caught again and held back with ease. Link laughed, and shook his head. "I'm not going to fight you, kid. Put your hands down, you're just throwing a fit."

"I am not throwing a fit!"

"Look in a mirror, you're being a moron. I'm just saying that until you've been through what I have, you haven't experienced anything. I've come close to death hundreds of times, even when I was a child. Just calm-."

"It's you…"

"Excuse me?"

"Your ears, they're pointed."

Link's hood had been blown down to reveal his Hylian ears, exposing the only clue as to who he was. The boy looked at the wanted posters, and back at Link.

Link knew what he was thinking. "Kid, don't even try it."

The boy was grinning manically, and he whispered, "I'm going to scream it out loud, and everyone's going to hear it. I'm going to be rich. You're going to go back to the gallows, and you're going to hell where you belong."

"I'm warning you, you don't know what you're doing. Those charges are false. They have nothing on me except for spurious claims that prove nothing."

"You're a murderer. I'm not letting you go free."

"I am not a murderer."

"I saw you on the gallows. I saw you being saved by the thieves of the mountain. I know what you did."

Link knew that he had to lie now, or he'd never get by the boy. "I have a sword on my back, and if you don't shut your goddamn mouth I'll gut you without a moment of hesitation."

The boy became afraid, and let his hands fall from their attacking positions. "You wouldn't."

"I will."

Link put his hand on the hilt of his sword, put his hood back on, and drew the blade in a feral manner. The rain and the thunder masked the sound of the steel ringing from its removal from its scabbard, hiding his act from the citizens that swarmed like carpenter ants around the market.

The boy backed away frantically, and tripped over a bucket, landing on his back and scrambling back away towards the stairs. Link didn't feel right about how he scared the boy, but he knew that he would never be able to achieve his goal while being chased by the government.

Link started at him through his cold eyes. "Now if you shut up, I won't hurt you. Got it?"

The boy nodded nervously.

Link sheathed his sword. "What's your name?"

"Aviar."

"I'll keep that in mind if I get arrested."

Link walked away, and the rain thickened. The others helped the terrified Aviar inside the shop, where his father rushed over from behind the counter to see what was wrong. A chickadee chirped merrily under the canopy of an oak tree, singing a blissful song for the desolate.


End file.
