Nope lovely readers, I'm not dead. I just took a break from writing to discover what it's like to have a relationship with another person. But he's going into the military shortly, so I should have more time to resume my writing. Assuming school stops trying to kill me.

FLASHBACK

Despite his strong voice a moment ago, Blue suddenly looked very nervous. His face was mirrored for a moment by all the other teens, before Green took a deep breath and straightened.

"Come on guys," their leader said, "We've gone up against horrible monsters and beasts. Surely we aren't going to let something like this make us turn tail. Everyone in there just wants to say thanks, come on!" And with those words he turned and walked toward the doors. The others fell in step behind him as he led them confidently into the unknown.

CHAPTER XI

As the sound of the trumpets faded the great oak doors opened, revealing a huge ballroom. Beams of slanted light came in from a line windows at least three stories up on the western wall, sending squares of golden light onto the opposite wall and the huge tapestries of past heroes that hung from it. Lower on each wall a line of torches in their sconces burned to light the room further.

There were people in the ballroom too; hundreds of men and women in all kinds of finery filled the room, standing in groups of three or four. They all turned toward the doors, all watching to see the heroes that had saved their country. Many oval tables were scattered about on either side of the long, deep red carpet that led from the doors to the two thrones at the opposite end of the room. The people were denser at that end as well; the King and Princess were seated, also watching the heroes.

Before the doors had quite finished opening, Green stepped forward, unhurried, toward the thrones at other end of the giant room. As he did a single harp from a group of instruments began to play a soft melody, trumpets and stringed instruments soon joined what everyone recognized as the Song of the Hero(1), one of the oldest songs in the land. It had been written after the first hero completed his journey, or so the stories told.

Behind Green, Red smiled at everyone as they walked by, waving at a few familiar faces from their travels. Behind him Blue stayed rather stiffly facing forward, though his eyes darted around the room, unable to relax. From the back of their line Vio simply followed, looking around a little but mostly just calmly walking with the others up to the thrones.

As they reached the base of the three stairs that led up to the thrones Green stepped to his right and stopped. Red stepped up beside Green, Blue stepped to the left and Vio moved to the far left. The music began to fade as together the four boys moved down to their knee, one hand on their sword hilt the other across their chest in a formal bow.

The princess and the King rose from their thrones and stepped forward to the top of the stairs. In his great booming voice the King spoke, his voice easily carrying across the silent room.

"Welcome, Heroes of the Four Sword, to Hyrule castle. Please rise and accept our thanks for all that you have achieved. For destroying the evil Wind Mage Vaati; for defeating all the evils he set loose across the land; for sealing Ganon away where he can harm no one. I thank you, the Royal family thanks you, all the people gathered here thank you, and Hyrule herself thanks you. You have all preformed a great and noble service, and your names will be remembered with the other Heroes of Hyrule."

A cheer went up as the four teens bowed again. Glancing over at the others a thought occurred to Green and as the cheering died down he began to speak.

"We thank you, Your Majesty, for such a great honor. However it should be known that there is one other who is no longer here, but should be remembered as well. Without his help we could never have succeeded in our task and likely would not be here. He gave his life so that we might succeed and I ask that his name be remembered with ours."

"Very well," the King spoke with a small smile. "Who was this brave lad that you would have us remember?"

"His name was Shadow, because he was our shadow, given life and a soul of his own. He was brought out of the Shadow Realm to do Vaati's bidding, but turned on his master and helped us succeed instead. It cost him his life, but he knew that Vaati was wrong and embraced the light in the end. We ask that you remember his sacrifice, despite the damage he caused in his misguided beginnings."

When Green had begun the Princess gasped, similar responses were heard throughout the hall. The King's eyes had been wide, but quickly softened as Green went on. As Green finished he even smiled and when he spoke his words were kind.

"He was a brave boy indeed; to turn against his evil masters for the sake of goodness. Such courage should not go unremembered. His name will be written alongside yours, and will be sung with yours whenever the bards tell your tale to the children of Hyrule for generations to come."

Then, unexpectedly, Vio stepped up and spoke. All eyes turned to him as he said, "But Shadow also committed great crimes against Hyrule and her people before he turned. Is he to be pardoned for all of those crimes?"

The King looked at the last hero a moment, before deciding it couldn't do any harm to pardon a dead person, and nodding he spoke. "Yes, I, King of Hyrule hereby grant full pardon to Shadow, for righting his wrongs by turning against his master and helping save that which he once tried to destroy."

Vio bowed low in thanks as the King turned to the two boys in the center of the line. "Do either of you have any requests of me?"

Red and Blue both quickly shook their heads and the King smiled broadly. Raising his head he looked out across the assembled guests and said, "Then let the ball, to celebrate the success of the Heroes of the Four Sword, begin!" Another cheer went up through the crowd and they began to mingle and speak in their small groups again.

The boys moved away from the thrones a little before Green turned to Vio.

"What was that about?" the leader asked quietly, more curious than angry. Vio shrugged.

"I thought it was a good time, public, embarrassing for the King if he refused. It would be horrible for Shadow to have to go on trial for his actions right after we finally brought him back. This way he's already been pardoned."

"But you took advantage of the fact the King thinks he's dead." Green sounded a little angry at that.

"You really shouldn't speak that way Green," Vio warned softly with a glance around. "We are at a ball full of people and employees who work for, or are very close to, the King. It would be horrible if any of them even thought one of Hyrule's newest heroes thought ill of her King. Or worse, would take advantage of him." And with that Vio turned to walk back toward the thrones. The other three watched in a mix of astonishment and resignation as he invited the Princess to the first dance of the evening.

Green sighed after him as Red went off to go find cake, Blue on his heels. Green thought to himself /Sometimes I think Vi took more than a page out of Shadow's book/. At that moment though, he was approached by a tall brunette girl who wanted to dance. For quite a while after that he had little time to think of Vio or Shadow.

.o0OOO0o. .o0OOO0o. .o0OOO0o. .o0OOO0o.

Vio knew he had to get away from Green before their leader could get really angry about what he had done, and he had to dance with Zelda at least once. He'd always liked taking out two birds with one arrow. Luckily for him the first song the band played was a stately, almost melancholy waltz, the princess only needed to show him the simple steps twice before they were spinning easily across the floor with the other dancers.

Once Zelda saw he'd learnt the steps, and had begun leading her, she tried for some conversation. She still needed to learn if she could trust these four boys as well as she'd once trusted Link, and Vio was definitely the hardest to read.

"I never knew Shadow had done anything to help you," she began to get his attention. It worked, his head fairly whipped around to look her in the eye. His look was piercingly intent and took the young Princess off guard for a moment. After only a moment though the fire retreated, his face resumed its usual polite mask.

"You never did ask either," he said softly as they spun across the floor. "I'm sure as soon as we have a chance Green and the others will tell you about everything they've done, and how Shadow helped them."

She frowned, "You make it sound like theirs was a completely different quest from yours."

Vio looked away again, "In some ways it was," he said so quietly she almost didn't catch it. After a moment he continued, "For a time I pretended to switch sides and join Shadow to learn the source of the evil power and perhaps destroy it. In that time I found Shadow wasn't a mindless servant, he was just lonely. When I stopped pretending to be evil, he thought I had pretended to be his friend as well and was enraged. He fought us and we sent him back to the Shadow Realm.

"Ganon or Vaati brought him back though, likely using the Dark Mirror. Then something happened; maybe he had time to think, or someone said something to him that reminded him he wasn't all bad… something made him change sides and help us instead of Ganon."

The princess suddenly remembered being trapped on the Tower of Winds, where Shadow had come out of the dark mirror shivering and looking exhausted. She remembered telling him he was a hero too, because he was a part of Link just as the four heroes were. She hadn't been sure of it then, but it had seemed like the right thing to say. Then the Dark Cloud had taken her and the next thing she knew she was falling toward a battle between the four and Ganon…

Both teens were deep in thought for nearly the rest of the dance. As the ending notes rang in her long ears the Princess felt she needed to say something else to this strange, quiet hero.

"Perhaps I had misjudged him after all. My father was right to pardon him if all you and Green have said is true. I look forward to hearing the full story from Green soon; it seems there is much to know."

Vio smiled at her as the song came to an end. "There is always much to know Princess." With that he stopped. As the other dancers bowed to their partners he took the princesses hand and bent to touch his lips to the back of it. He straightened with a small smile.

"Thank you for the dance, Princess Zelda." And then he was gone, walking off across the room toward the large doors they had come in earlier. Before she could take more than a step after him another young man, a nearby town's young Mayor, asked her to dance. When she looked back the way Vio had gone he was nowhere in sight, so she accepted the dance and was lead across the floor again.

Vio hadn't actually gone far, as a large group of dancers left the floor between him and the princess he turned and blended in with their group. A moment later he was at one of the snack tables, getting a glass of juice and a small cake for something to eat. Sure there were healthier snacks, but Vio's sweet tooth was almost as bad as Red's, he just had a little more control most of the time.

.o0OOO0o. .o0OOO0o.

Red and Blue had gone off to the largest table of sweets they could find and plundered it. Each with two little plates piled high with food, they had gone to one of the round tables to sit and enjoy their horde. Very shortly a small crowd had gathered and Red easily chatted with at least four people at once while still finding time to eat. Blue watched him, amazed, eating his own food. Every so often someone would ask Blue to tell his tale, or to dance, but Blue always answered, "After I'm done eating." And he didn't plan to ever stop eating till he decided to go up to bed.

That was, until Red had turned to him and said, "Well, would you?"

Blue jumped slightly, realizing he'd missed something. Around a mouthful of food he murmured, "Umm, what was the question again?"

Red smiled, "Would you like to dance? Everyone out there looks like they're having so much fun, and I think I'm getting full on cake." He giggled a little at that.

Blue looked at him a moment, swallowing the food, then shook his head. "Naaa, I don't think so." he said after a moment. "I'm sure someone else can dance with you, if ya want."

"But I want you to dance with me. I don't wanna dance with anyone else." The boy pouted with those huge round eyes of his and suddenly Blue changed his mind, no one could deny anything to that face.

"Well, if you really want me to, I guess I could." Blue mumbled quietly. But somehow Red still heard it over the music and chatter around them. The small boy immediately leapt up and nearly tugged Blue from his chair.
"Thank you so much, Blue! You're the best. Let's get out there quick, this song's nearly over and we want to be ready for the next one!"
Blue let a quiet groan escape him as Red created a path in their fans, toward the dance floor. He had to fight to keep a grin off his face, why did Red have to be so adorable all the time?

.o0OOO0o. .o0OOO0o.

Green caught sight of Blue and Red as they entered the dance floor their leader was trying to escape. Green had been dancing nonstop with girls since the celebration began, and he felt he was due for a rest. Nearly to the edge of the dance floor a short girl with cute pigtails stepped into his escape route.
"Knight Green! I had hoped to see you… and perhaps, dance with you?" she asked in a high, sweet voice.
Green barely bit back a moan. Allowing only a slight sigh at his fate, the hero straightened himself and put on a smile. He was about to accept the girl's request when another feminine voice with much more authority spoke over his shoulder.

"I'm sorry, but Green has already reserved this dance for me."

Green looked over his shoulder to see the Princess, dressed in a long, puffy, elegant pink dress that nearly brushed the floor. He hadn't had much time to see her clothing earlier. White lace circled her neck and arms, and layered the lower half of the poufy skirt. The only jewelry she wore was her small tiara and a gold necklace with a Triforce charm. Green had no doubt those were real gemstones set into its shining surface.

The girl gave a quick curtsy and scurried off as Green sighed in relief. Amazing, a Princess coming to His rescue, but this was her home. She had the definite advantage.

A slower song began and much of the floor cleared, it was a song for resting and the dancers wanted a chance at the food. But the Princess didn't seem to mind, she outright giggled at Green's grateful look. As they moved back into the floor she led him in a slow waltz.

"Do not worry, Hero, Green. I can see you are in need of rest. The girls tonight have more than taken advantage of your hospitality and willingness to please. After our dance I'll see to it you are given the chance to rest that you deserve."

"Thank you, Zelda." Green replied with another quiet sigh as they walked slowly across the floor. "It's not that I dislike dancing with them… It's just that, they are all so energetic. It gets hard to keep up after a while."

He spun her around and they resumed their slow waltz. "It took me many years to build up the stamina I have for such things. You have not had to dance much on your travels; you're simply not used to it. The others have been avoiding the floor as well you know. Blue and Red have just entered their first dances of the night, and Vio left moments after leaving my side."

"Blue and Red? Where are…" At that moment a laugh was heard beside them, and Green looked up to see Red fly by, nearly tugging Blue at a pace that would fit a song twice as fast as the one playing. Red was laughing like mad, and even Blue was smiling as they half danced, half skipped across the floor. Weaving in and out of the slower dancers Green was suddenly reminded of fairies dancing around falling leaves.

"Forget I asked." Green finally finished his sentence with a small laugh.

1) It's a real song called Ancient Hero on Youtube, for those who want to hear it. And a link for the lazy… watch?v=ldthDW1xszA

Yup, here is is. Next chapter. I'm trying to get back into writing, but wow has it been a while. I promise the next chapter will have vital information in it.
Thank you all for the lovely Heart Pieces though. 3 3 3