He wakes up one morning, invisible.

When he walks past no one turns to look at him and no one says his name, no hello, no good morning, no how are you, no nice weather we're having, isn't it. He finds his family, not his birth family but still the only one he's ever known, and he is invisible to them, too. The woman who is his mother doesn't reply when he says her name, the man who is his father doesn't notice when he taps his shoulder to ask whys and whats, the boy who is his brother doesn't seem to care when he doesn't say hello, just walks out the door. The whole world thinks he doesn't exist, it just keeps turning, slow and gray and cold, wherever he goes.

The trees in the forest don't make a sound when the leaves rustle above his head. No animals run, startled, when he passes in front of them. The beehive doesn't sway or fall when he pitches rocks at it; the rocks, too, turn invisible when he touches them, he supposes, although he doesn't mind that he can throw all the pebbles he likes without fearing the swarm that usually follows.

That day he moves through the town silent and unnoticed; blink and you'd miss him, watch and you'd miss him even then, too. His feet don't touch the ground, disturb the dust where he walks, kick up pebbles behind him. He is invisible, and that is all he is, really. Sometimes he begins to wonder when they'll notice him again, but then he begins to forget what it was like to be noticed, anyway.

He wanders through the forest and through the fields, all the way to the outside of the city walls, before night falls and sleep claims him and he falls asleep just outside the gate, slumped against the wall.

The next morning no guards wake him, though they're standing right there, their spears clutched firmly in their gray cold hands. He wakes and looks at them, stands on sleep-wobbly legs and waves a hand in front of their eyes.

Nothing. He steps back and wonders, maybe they're dead, they haven't moved in a while, not even to breathe, they're so still, so maybe they're dead. He's heard of sleeping standing up, and one time someone really did die in front of him, standing up, but now that he thinks of it he can't remember who, and it only bothers him for a little bit before he forgets all about it and all about the soldiers standing guard, and he enters the city.

Again, no one can seem to see him, but then again they never did, did they? They're just people rushing past, real fast, if they ever moved at all, and they're caught up in their own little worlds, just as gray as everything else.

So he just keeps walking, aware of nothing but himself and even then he's not aware of himself at all, he's just walking, he's invisible, maybe he doesn't even exist, the whole world seems to think so.

At least, it does until someone rounds the corner, gray as everything else, and he keeps walking like he's been, but then he — runs — into — them —

And the whole world just stops.

.

.

.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!"

They're scrambling to their feet — her feet actually, she's a woman, not young but not old, yet, either, not quite, and she's got pointed ears and blue eyes, blonde-brown hair and a smile of an apology on her lips, and she dusts herself off and offers him a hand to help him up, but he can only stare, because this —

This isn't —

He can't —

He looks at her face and he sees — he can remember —

"I—"

And then she sees it, too, and the hand she offered him flies up to her mouth and her eyes are wide with disbelief and incredulity, and maybe even pain because —

"Oh, my gods," she breathes, and she steps back before she's flying forward to grab him and yank him to her in a fierce, tight hug, like she's trying to pull him right into her heart by sheer force. Her fingers curl against his back, and one hand's pressed against the back of his head, flat against his hair, and she whispers, "Oh, my son, my son."

And he —

Mother.

Oh, goddesses.

Mother.

His mother, his birth mother, his mother, missing from his memories all these years and here she is, mother, his mother. And he looks at her when she finally releases him from her hug, and she's just as gray as the rest of the world, tears streaming colorlessly from her colorless eyes, and sometimes she moves too fast and sometimes too slow but she's his mother, his mother, here, and she can see him, somehow, somehow when everyone else can't.

And he remembers things, when he looks at her. But the memories don't feel important and they make no sense to him, blurry bits of color, places and faces and names that mean nothing to him for some reason anymore. There's a, there's a wolf with golden fur, and a woman with a crown — a princess? — and she's laughing with a voice that's not her own and her eyes are gold, maybe, or blue? And then there's someone else, her face keeps changing, black and white and gray and ugly and beautiful, but her eyes are the same red and yellow sharp pieces of glass and they pierce his soul. And her name springs to his lips, it's on his tongue, he can almost remember it, can almost remember her, there's a hand on his cheek, his shoulder, eyes glinting in his shadow, there's a weight on his back and heels digging into his ribs, and he knows her, he knows her name and he can almost remember —

But then, "Come," his mother says, and the memories fade away as colorlessly as they came, and they mean nothing anymore, nothing at all now that he's here.

He takes his mother's hand and lets her lead him down the crowded busy empty silent streets, and though a smile folds over his lips there's a lingering sorrow in the back of his mind he can't seem to escape.

.

.

.

One morning he wakes up invisible and his invisible mother is still asleep in the bed across the room, and for some reason he can't explain he gets up without a sound and he opens the door and he leaves and he's never coming back.

His feet move without his mind telling them to, he's confused but at the same time he knows exactly what he's doing and where he's going.

And he crosses the fields and the forests and he's back in the village that is his home, he thinks anyway, he can't always remember, but no, this is his home, it must be, he's certain of it even though he's not but he is.

It's gray and silent and empty and cold, and it's moving like it's underwater, slow and blurry and sometimes the water gets in his eyes and he can't see, exactly, but it's moving, not too fast and not too slow, so he stops and he watches, and for some reason he wants to remember, wants to remember more than anything even though hands grip his mind and no, he doesn't want this, he doesn't but he does, he wants to remember he's going to, even though, but he is, he is, he is, there is no doubt, he is!

And he shoves the hands away from his mind and the water drains from his world and he can see again.

The gray people moving across the gray village are slow and silent, but he can see them, he can see them and he can see the sorrow that weighs them down. And there are three of them, a mother and a father and a son, and he knows them, and they're broken, all three of them, and he knows why, but he can't, he can't seem to remember.

And there's a girl, and he knows her, and she's broken, too, and there are tears streaming colorlessly down her face even though it's been so long, he thinks, but then he doesn't know what it's been so long since, he knew once and he still maybe knows but he can't seem to remember.

So he follows the girl when she walks down the path to the clearing in the woods outside the village — there's a treehouse and he remembers it — he remembers it, and there's a patch of flowers and a mound of dirt and a stone, and he doesn't, all of a sudden he doesn't remember this, until all of a sudden, all of a sudden — he does.

And the gray drains from the world and he can remember, he can remember the wolf and the princess and the evil thief that took a mask and raised it above his head and it crumbled to pieces in his grip, he remembers the anger and the anguish turning his blood to fire in his veins, he remembers the feel of the sword in his hand and the man-demon-thief standing in front of him, dying standing up, and he remembers turning around and there's someone else, standing there tall and beautiful and her eyes are like shards of glass red and yellow and there's a smile on her lips she's alive and he's tripping over his own feet to fall into her arms, and she's laughing with him, he remembers her laugh, too big to fit in her little black and white body, now just right, a perfect fit, and he's a perfect fit in her embrace, he remembers. And then there's a broken mirror and sand in his eyes and then tears and tears and tears and there's darkness in his mind and his heart, eating away at at the good memories turning them bad, and he can't think of them without choking, until all he can remember is the feel of the sword in his hand and he — he takes it in his hand and it — he takes it — and there's a hole in his stomach, there's blood, blood on the grass and the breath is being stolen from his lungs and the blood feels like fire in his veins, he can't breathe and they're all there, the man and the woman and the boy and the girl, and he can't breathe and the world is turning gray in front of him until everything is cold and silent and still and there's a girl sobbing into the grass over a grave decorated, gaudy, with flowers and a stone.

Oh.

Oh.

He blinks and he breathes and he steps back and he — he remembers.

And he's still invisible but the world is alive around him and he just stands there, right there, and maybe he's dead, or maybe he's just asleep standing up and this is a dream, a bad dream, a nightmare, and maybe he'll wake up when they notice him sleeping standing up. Maybe.

But for now, he is invisible, and that is all he is, really.

.

.

.

A/N: Can't stop won't stop writing angst.

This time Link dies before the story even starts. That's got to be a new record, for me.

Reviews are much appreciated.

Cheers,

godtierGrammarian