The Triforce Wars (2/15)

[spice_mix]

Chapter One
Do You Want To Know A Secret

For what felt like a very, very long time, Link drifted.

It was almost peaceful, here. Quiet, dark, almost warm - like being tucked up in bed on a cold winter's morning, like something he couldn't quite name. He could drift along in relative contentment, eyes closed even if it was dark outside, free from obligation or physical needs.

Why was he here, again? He couldn't quite recall.

But he couldn't stay here forever, could he? No, he couldn't. Touch was starting to return to his world - to his mild surprise, he found himself clutching metal in one hand and porcelain in the other. Something was tugging oddly at his clothes, eliciting a shiver every time cold fingers wormed his way in to stroke his skin.

Something wasn't quite right.

And suddenly there was motion, motion and light and a sudden shock of heaviness. Link dragged in a lungful of air and promptly started coughing, water spilling from between his lips, ocarina tumbling from his fingers as he clung to... cloth? Yes, fabric, some smooth weave embroidered with something he couldn't determine.

"Calm yourself," a steady voice told him, and now he could feel hands holding him up. There was grass beneath him, a warbling sound that indicated the nearby presence of water, and - ah. Well, at least that explained why he was soaking wet.

"What -" he started, and immediately lapsed in to another coughing fit. How had he not even noticed where he was? If this person hadn't been there...

Finally, he managed to stop shivering and coughing enough to rake his sopping hair out of his face, rub muddy water out of his eyes. "Thanks," he croaked, lifting his head to take in his saviour.

And he froze.

Messy golden hair, sticking up in damp clumps, bangs covering one full side of his face. Dark skin, even darker than his own tan, smooth and clear, the shape of one delicate cheekbone visible above the mask covering his mouth and nose.

The symbol on his tunic, the one he hadn't recognised at first - an eye, bright red against stark white.

And another bright red eye, this one surrounded by dark eyelashes instead of woven triangles, pale brow furrowed in confusion.

How could he forget that voice? How could he ever forget that face? For a long, long moment, Link simply stared at him, his oxygen-starved brain unable to understand how this was ever possible.

Because Link had already seen him disappear once.

"Are you alright?" he asked, and Link found himself transfixed at the sound of his voice, at the faint hint of movement of his lips behind the mask. It was debatable that he had even registered the question.

And this was simply too much.

"Hi, Sheik," he managed to force past his aching throat, and was almost relieved when the ground rose up to meet him again.



Now, instead of the motion of water, it was soft linens that cradled his body. With a return to lucidity, there also came a return to pain - he ached everywhere, throat feeling raw, bruised and battered. Dimly, he registered the fact that he was dressed only in a night shirt beneath the blankets - perhaps his old clothes were still soaked.

Not moving yet, Link frowned minutely and tried to discern precisely what had happened. He had met Zelda, as promised, she had given him the ocarina and asked him to retrieve the Master Sword, he had, and then... what?

He had woken up in water, that much he could work out. And he had been pulled out by -

"Sheik!" He sat up fast, then slumped back against the pillow as a wave of vertigo threatened to make him ill. Now, he could see where he was - a calm, pleasant little room, walls, curtains, and bed linens in white, the furniture smooth polished wood. A woven rug covered the stone floor, a small table beside him held a bottle of water.

He wasn't alone, too - a woman glanced up as he called out, apparently in the process of stoking the fire. "Do you need something, my lord?"

Link frowned - he was certainly no lord. "Yes - where's Sheik?" he asked almost plaintively - he didn't know how he had returned, but now he simply needed to see him. He needed the confirmation that he was real.

The woman straightened up, facing him fully, and Link's breath caught again. She was white-haired, yes, but younger than he had expected - smooth tan skin, a mask covering her lower face, red eyes. Another Sheikah? But Impa had said she was the only one left...

(And Sheik. But surely, he had only been a disguise for Zelda?)

"I can assist you with what I may, my lord," the woman murmured again. "Do you require food, a change of clothes?"

Both would be rather nice, but Link had his focus set on something else, and he wasn't about to be distracted. "No, I told you, I want to see Sheik!"

A muscle in the woman's cheek twitched. "Is my assistance not worthy, my lord?" she asked flatly, and Link found himself scowling.

"I'm sure it's fine," he told her with near desperation, dragging himself in to a sitting position, "But I want to see Sheik, and you're not letting me..."

The woman almost glared. "Yes, and I am Sheik. Now, will you let me assist you?"

Link simply didn't respond for a moment, staring at her incredulously. "...No you're not," he finally said.

"Are you judging my birthright and rightful position, my lord?" she snapped, and it began to occur to Link that perhaps he had made a mistake.

Still - this woman was claiming to be Sheik, and... she wasn't. "No, but you're not him!" he tried to plead, but the woman was having none of it. With a muttered exclamation that Link didn't quite catch, she practically threw the poker back against the fireplace and threw the door open to storm out -

"Your Majesty, Your Highness," he heard her murmur, "The stranger is awake and... unruly."

"We'll take care of it," a girl's voice answered, and Link glanced up as a small group swept inside the room.

First, a tall, richly-clad young man, dark hair brushed back neatly and held in place with - was that a crown? Beside him was a younger girl, perhaps Link's own age - while the man was watching him in suspicion, she simply looked curious. Bright red hair adorned with a tiara tumbled down her back in a braid.

And behind them - Link's breath caught. Two Sheikah - a girl and - "Sheik," he said shakily. "What's going on? There was this woman and she was really rude..."

The two Sheikah exchanged a glance, then Sheik stepped forward. "As we have had a prior encounter, I will assume you mean me," he said. But to Link's ears... it was strange. Every ounce of familiarity was utterly gone - he sounded distant and professional. "And please act in a courteous and respectful manner between King Eldir and Princess Zelda."

"Zelda's here, too?" he asked, scanning the little group for a familiar face - perhaps she, at least, could explain what was going on. "Good, I want to talk to her..."

The redhead frowned minutely. "What do you want to talk about?" she asked curiously, and Link twisted to look at her. He was frowning as well - something wasn't right, here. Sheikah who were also called Sheik, a Sheik who didn't recognise him, a strange girl claiming to be Zelda, and the minor matter of a king - Zelda's father still lived, as far as he knew, and his name wasn't Eldir.

"I think something isn't right," he said slowly - half addressing this new Zelda, gaze fixed on his hands. "You're not Zelda, Sheik's acting like a stranger..."

The king cleared his throat imperceptibly. "And, of course, there's the minor issue of your crimes," he said bluntly, the look he was giving Link distinctly unfriendly.

Link stared back at him indignantly. "I didn't do anything wrong! What's wrong with waking up half-drowned in a river? Where are my things?"

"Your clothes have been discarded," he said flatly, "As they were veritable rags. This trinket -" He held up the ocarina, and something in Link's stomach plummeted - they thought the Ocarina of Time was a trinket? "Will be returned to you in due course. But then, there is your theft..."

"I didn't steal anything," he said immediately. "Zelda gave me the ocarina. What did I steal?"

Sheik, with a brief murmured word to the king, stepped forward - in his hands was a long bundle, wrapped in white leather, cord keeping it in place. Link could just see a glint of blue, and recognition flooded him - the Master Sword. "This."

Link was silent for a moment. "I didn't steal it," he finally managed, "Zelda asked me to take it - she called me to the Temple so I could take it again."

The king frowned at the redhead. "Zelda, is this true?"

Zelda - the strange one - shook her head. "Not that I recall. Maybe I was temporarily mad." Link's shoulders slumped, but suddenly she continued on - "Something isn't right, though. This is more than just theft - something very odd is going on, I think."

Gesturing to the girl, she hurried off to fetch one of the chairs, setting it next to the bed. Zelda took a seat, curious expression still fixed on her face. "Shall we get to the bottom of this?"

Link hesitated briefly, then nodded. He was still utterly lost - Sheik acted like he didn't know him, the girl called Zelda wasn't the girl he knew, and now he was being accused of being a common thief - as if any thief could get past the Door of Time!

(Ganondorf could, he remembered with a guilty start. But - no, he wasn't going to think about that.)

"Well, let's start at the beginning, shall we?" she said almost cheerfully. "Since you don't really seem to know who we are, I'm Princess Zelda, the dour-looking one is my brother, King Eldir, and those two are our protectors."

Link glanced up at them - Sheik was watching them with detached curiosity, the girl with open fascination. "What are their names?" he asked slowly.

Zelda frowned as she glanced back at them. "Sheik. You should know that." She paused, then shook her head. "Well... maybe not. What's your name?"

Both called Sheik? Link gazed at them both - maybe the woman from earlier had been named that as well. "Link," he finally answered, still trying to search for any hint of recognition in Sheik's face. "My name's Link."

Zelda's answer was a warm, sunny smile. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Link. Now -"

"This is an interrogation," Eldir reminded her suddenly, "Not a party. Question him on how he stole the sword."

Almost imperceptibly, Zelda rolled her eyes. "I'm getting to that! Well, how did you get it?"

Warily, Link glanced at the king. Then he sighed - he had done nothing wrong, and the truth was an infinitely better policy than lying. "I was travelling. Princess Zelda - the Zelda I know - contacted me and asked me to come to the Temple of Time. She said there was a new danger and that I'd have to take up the sword again. Then she put the stones on the altar, opened the Door, gave me the ocarina, and told me to take it. When I woke up, I was in the water and Sheik pulled me out, and then I woke up here."

Minutely, Sheik nodded. "I can verify the latter part. When I discovered the stranger, he was holding both items."

The stranger? Something tightened in his chest. Interrogation forgotten for the moment, he turned to the Sheikah, hurt written over his face. "Sheik, why are you acting like we've never met before?"

Sheik's brow furrowed again. "Because aside from our encounter by the river, we have not?"

Link's shoulders slumped.

For a moment, Zelda watched him in concern. Then, softly, she pressed on - "What do you mean, you had to take up the sword again?"

Still downcast, he muttered, "You wouldn't believe me if I told you." And why would they? He was the Hero That Time Forgot - wasn't that how Zelda had dubbed him once? Not even old friends knew what had happened - let alone these strangers who assumed he was a thief.

"How do you know unless you try?" the princess said smartly.

A faint smile twitched on Link's face. "I guess. Well, it's a long story..."

"We have time."

"Not that much," the king said dryly, "I have a meeting with the merchants in two hours."

Again, Zelda rolled her eyes. "Yes, we know. Go on, Link."

Link exhaled slowly, lifting his face to meet her gaze. She wasn't Zelda, not the one she knew, but there was some similarity there. Some air that made him want to trust her.

Haltingly, carefully, he began.



It took him a good half hour to recount everything that had happened. From his meeting with Navi in the forest, to the Deku Tree, to meeting Zelda in the castle, to his quest for the stones. His voice faltered as he explained how he had taken the Master Sword and woken up seven years later, sank to an uncertain murmur as he recalled Sheik and his guidance as he collected the medallions and awoke the Sages.

His voice all-out dropped in to a whisper as he described Sheik's disappearance and his reunion with Zelda, then gained a moment of confidence as he explained the battle with Ganondorf and how Zelda had sent him home.

"And that was it," he concluded with a soft sigh. "I left the sword where it was supposed to be, went back to Zelda so we could stop Ganondorf from taking over, then left. I went to all these places, like Termina and Labrynna and Toaru, and I helped people as much as I could. Then, two weeks ago, I got a letter from Zelda asking for me to come back to the Temple of Time... and you know the rest."

There was ringing silence for what felt like a very long time. Then, finally, Eldir said, "A foolish, fantastic tale to distract from the truth. No, you are merely some clever thief in the night, spinning lies and fictions to explain your crimes."

Link glared at him outright. "I'm not lying! Everything I said is the truth - it's not my fault that only me and Zelda remember it!"

The other Zelda glanced between the two, holding her hands up to placate them both. "Both of you shut up. There's an easy way to test this, you know."

"Lock him up and see if any fairies come to rescue him?" Eldir muttered.

Zelda punched his arm - it was probably a good thing that she was his sister, because a lesser person would have been strung up for it. "No. We see if he can actually hold the sword. If he is a Hero of Legend, he should be able to."

Eldir hesitated, then actually nodded. "Perhaps. And perhaps the rest of us should, too - that way, we can confirm that it is indeed the Blade of Evil's Bane."

"If it's not, then what's the problem?" Zelda pointed out, then gestured to the two Sheikah. "Can you two go first?"

The girl hesitated, then nodded - as Sheik laid it on a table and dragged the leather bindings off, she rested a tentative hand on the hilt. Barely ten seconds had passed before she jerked it away, frowning. "It tingles!"

Zelda shot a triumphant look at Eldir, who scowled and almost knocked Sheik's hand away (he had lasted only a second or two less than the girl) to test it himself.

Almost instantaneously, he jerked his hand away again.

It was Zelda who could last the longest - fifteen seconds, her fingers twitching as she lifted her hand away. A thoughtful expression was on her face - fascination and curiosity. "I didn't realise it felt like that," she murmured, then sighed and (quickly) shifted the sword and its wrappings on to Link's bed. "Good luck."

Link nodded distractedly, and reached for the sword. He didn't feel any of the tingling the others had reported - just the usual warm pulse that ran from his fingertips, up his arm to his chest. It fit in his hand like it had been made for it - for just a moment, he allowed himself to recall battles, the Master Sword almost an extension of his arm.

It had only been a month or two that he had claimed ownership of the blade - and yet it felt like a part of him. His birthright, his duty and destiny to wield the sacred blade - it responded to him like an old friend.

Absently, he brushed a bit of dried mud away from the blade, fingertips touching the blessed blade itself. The others hadn't been able to do that, had they?

"...I suppose that answers that question," Zelda said hollowly, then, much to Link's complete astonishment, dipped her head to him. "It's an honour to meet a great hero like yourself. You said you were given the title the Hero of Time?"

Link nodded, frowning faintly. They hadn't heard of it? But Sheik had said the Hero of Time was a legend...

Zelda seemed to come to a similar conclusion at roughly the same time. "Link, tell me what year it is," she demanded gently.

He did, and this time, all four swapped glances. "No," Zelda said, "It's not."

And then she told him what year it really was.

Link wasn't particularly aware of anything after that - not the fierce discussion going on, not the way Sheik kept watching him like he wasn't quite sure what to make of that. He wasn't a stranger to time travel - no one who could jump seven years in the blink of an eye could be - but this was... out of his realm of experience.

Four hundred years in the past. No wonder this strange girl was the one named Princess Zelda, no wonder there was an unfamiliar king. No wonder they hadn't heard of the Hero of Time, and no wonder the Ocarina of Time was deemed to merely be a trinket - perhaps it hadn't even been crafted yet. No wonder there were still Sheikah around - now that he looked closely, though, even the symbol itself was different. No teardrop decorated it, the triangle eyelashes repeated beneath it as well, the topmost one replaced with a Triforce.

But then, that left a rather pressing question.

If he had travelled four hundred years in the past - and he was sure the Zelda he knew had had something to do with that - then what in the name of the Three was Sheik doing here?

"Then it's decided," Zelda said, and Link snapped out of his haze. "We'll go to the Temple of Time - if Link's story is true, the sword will still be there while also being with us. We know that he can hold it, at least."

Link glanced down - he had been absently stroking the sword for the last several minutes, it seemed. His hands stilled on it.

"What then?" he asked Zelda directly, "Even if you do decide I'm telling the truth, I'm still stuck in the past." With a Sheik who didn't know him, who hadn't looked away from him since he had first told his story. Well, maybe that explained that - he didn't know Link because they hadn't met.

Zelda smiled at him sympathetically. "We'll work something out. In the mean time, let's have some clothes sent up to you, huh? You won't look like much of a hero in your night shirt!"

Link almost chuckled. She wasn't the Zelda he knew, but he liked her nonetheless. "Okay."

Almost on cue, one of the servants appeared, a bundle of clothing in her hands. Link glanced at them curiously as they were laid on his bed - a long-sleeved white tunic that laced at the throat, sturdy brown pants, a leather belt, a pair of plain brown boots left at the side of the bed. No trademark green tunic or cap, but they looked sturdy enough. "Thanks. Um - what about the sword?"

Eldir frowned, but Zelda immediately butted in - "We'll get you a scabbard. Well, we have to take it with us, and you're the only one that can carry it..."

"Being that he was the one who carried it away," Eldir muttered, and Zelda elbowed him.

"You're so distrusting. We'll let you get dressed, Link." And the little group swept out of the room, leaving him with his new clothes, the blade still on his lap, and the faint sense that he had lost something he hadn't realised he had already had.



Castle Town was not the town he remembered.

It was busy, bustling, as lively as always, certainly. But there was a distinctly different air to it, something that not even the change in architecture could explain. Market stalls lined the place, pens of wild animals, a corral of cuccos squawking in a corner. (Link, shuddering, gave them a wide berth.) Shouts and cries came from every direction, strangers buffeting him on both sides - Link found himself with one protective hand on the Master Sword's hilt (and that was the other thing - the only scabbard they had found was one that dangled from his belt, leaving the sword bumping in to his knees at every step) and the other on the pouch Zelda had provided him with to hold the ocarina.

And it stank. Unwashed bodies, animal smells, and a faint undercurrent of... bodily expulsions.

Looking faintly disgusted as he stepped out of the carriage (the King and Princess, of course, were not to walk amongst the populace), he dodged a stumbling drunk and made for the relative peace of the gardens in front of the Temple of Time. And there was another surprise - while the Temple was largely abandoned in his time, here (although empty for the moment), it showed signs of every-day use.

Long rows of benches on either side of the plush carpet (a deep blue lined with gold, he noted absently) led up to a familiar altar. Here, though, the stones were embedded directly, free of their gold surrounds and glinting brightly against the black marble. Link paused only to marvel at it for a moment, then continued on - to where the Door of Time no longer stood.

At its threshold, he stopped. And then, simply, he said, "I told you so."

Because settled in its pedestal was the Master Sword, identical in every detail to the sword Link wore at his waist. As if in a trance, he approached it, drawing his own as he stepped closer.

There was some barrier, some resistance in the way. It was like trying to walk with the iron boots, he noted, every step a struggle to move. He could almost feel water rippling and tugging at his clothing...

"Link!" Zelda called, and he stopped suddenly, almost swaying. His other hand was stretched out to the other sword, the hilt of his own almost hot - he stumbled back as if something had suddenly released him, sucking in a breath as he joined the rest of the group.

"Now do you believe me?" he asked hoarsely.

Zelda hesitated, then nodded once, reaching for his free hand. "You have. I think it's time to go back, now."

But the other sword... Link glanced back at it, then sighed and sheathed his own. Once again, he found himself gazing at Sheik - Sheik met his gaze, then looked away hastily. "Okay. But if you can send me home... I don't want to stay here."

Trapped in the past, with a Sheik who was a stranger to him. It simply hurt too much to want to stay. What had the Zelda he knew been thinking?

Silently, he followed them away, not looking back at the sword. He'd find his own way out.


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