Postscript: War in Another Land

The city was in chaos, flames sprouting up everywhere. Monsters came from the smoke, preying on any who hadn't fled at the first sign of trouble. Why would anyone do this to their own capitol? The people here lived their daily lives, causing no trouble to others. There was always talk about how the twin queens were not as cordial and fair as they made themselves appear. While people wondered if it would fall apart, they didn't expect it to affect their lives. The trouble should have stayed within the castle.

A horse ran through the blazing streets, kept from panicking with the sheer trust she had in her master. A young man with black hair held the reins; his gray tunic stood out amid the bright colors of fire. Behind him a young woman gripped onto him tight, her face buried in his shoulder. She had insisted on staying behind to try saving her store, a cathedral, and other important places. But the flames were fueled by a malicious magic that sought to destroy all.

Spotting a darker street, the rider turned his horse that way; there should be a gate out of this city not far from there. But a wall of flames erupted in their path, causing the horse to whinny fearfully as she was turned around again. He looked around for another way; this horse wasn't good with jumping, so going through the flames would burn her. However, the walls quickly surrounded them. They'd been found.

He cursed under his breath right as he saw a dark figure walk through the fire. "There you are, dear sister," the woman said, pleased at the discovery.

"Is this your doing?" the woman on the horse asked, coming out of her grief with anger. "How could you do this to everyone? These are our people too!"

She chuckled at the outburst. "The ordinary rabble? We'll find more loyal subjects to do their work, less demanding creatures who won't gossip and complain. Contessa was using them against me. She was using so many, I had to stop her."

"It's not all about you two," she argued. "I left the court because you were getting ridiculous, but I didn't think you two would go this far."

"Silence, fool," the dark queen said. "Even if you did leave, you're a rival as well. I can't leave you a chance to get any power over me now that I drove her away."

The young man drew his sword. This was a bad situation, but if he could distract her into making a break in the fire, they could still flee. Could he stay behind and fight to let her leave? That could be the way of a hero… no, he had to stay with her and keep her safe. It was no good to act like a hero if the person he was defending was still in danger. "You leave her alone!"

"You're no knight, just a lonely drifter and nobody," the dark queen said, angered that he was trying. "Both of you, out of my sight and out of my life!" She waved her hand, causing darkness to warp them away.

Where was his horse? He'd landed on a springy ground of white fibers and dirt; it was like a carpeting of spider webbing. Although he was worried when he didn't see his horse, he turned to his human companion. "Elise? You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, Marley," she said, looking around the tunnel they were in uncertainty. "I'm sorry, I should have done more than just run away..."

Marley put his hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry about that for the moment. We need to figure out where we are and get somewhere safe."

"I think this is the Spider Queen's Den, from all this webbing," Elise said. She had a point; this might be a cave, but the walls were barely visible under the thick grayed webbing. Some parts were a brighter white than others, perhaps more fresh.

Spotting a ledge where the webbing seemed to end, he nudged her in that direction. "We should get off the webbing if we can."

"Oh, have you been here before?" she asked, walking alongside him.

"No, but if monster spiders are like regular spiders, we should get off." The ledge was just high enough that he had to help her up there; she didn't have the arm strength he did to get up on her own. It was mostly dirt path here with just a few large strands of web support.

It was only a few feet over, but it was enough to alert the residents. Two spiders the size of bears scuttled through a tunnel of webbing in search of them. Dark gray fur covered their black carapaces, and a few human skulls were worn like trophies. Hoping to deal with them quickly, Marley used his off-hand to cast a fireball spell at one. It screeched and was stopped, but not killed. Elise backed off to the wall, trying to keep brave even with her lacking the ability to fight like him.

There was just enough time to cast another fireball and kill the one spider before the second jumped for the ledge. Marley slashed it to stop it from making the jump; it spat white goo at his face, nearly hitting his eyes. Not bothering to wipe it off yet, he put a quick fire enchantment on his sword. It wouldn't last long, but it was long enough to destroy the monster with one more thrust.

And then his vision went blank gray. He grabbed at his face and found a band of webbing covering his eyes. When he grabbed at it, intense pain rushed across his forehead. "Aaah!"

"Marley?" Elise walked over and took his hand; he turned towards her. "That's bad."

Forcing himself to keep composed, he let go. The pain faded. "It doesn't seem to be growing any further; I can't see at all."

"Th-these spiders use that webbing to enslave people," she said, afraid. "It usually takes a few days and it can be gotten rid of. But, I can't fight like you and I'm not sure where to go to escape here."

A few days… in his case, it might take less time. Marley still didn't want to give up. There was a good chance they could get out even like this. "Don't worry, I have an idea. Is there some small room or nook away from the webbing? We need someplace to hide for a short while."

"Um, looks like there could be." She took his hand and guided him. Marley heard the distinctive faint ring of a light spell being activated. "This looks okay; I don't see any holes or something another monster could sneak through. No webs here either."

He would have liked to see the place himself, but that was out of the question. "All right." He then opened up his side bag and searched through it. What he wanted should be obvious, a crystal on a leather cord with some beads. Feeling the smooth harness of crystal, he pulled it out. "This should be my gossip stone," he felt for the beads. Finding it right, he activated it. "Good, this should work."

"I thought the gossip stones were stationary things that only a few people can understand," Elise said.

"This version lets you converse with others who have stones of the same set," Marley explained.

The stone vibrated lightly as it got a connection to another active stone. Link was the one who answered. "What's going on, Marley? We can see the capitol burning from here."

"I got out of there with Elise," he said. "Well actually, we ran into one of the queens responsible for this and she teleported us into the Spider Queen's Den."

"Ah, none of us have been in to check out that place. But I hear that if you keep away from the center and go up, you'll find a way out."

"That could help, except that I got a curse binding from one of the spider monsters who caught us dropping in," Marley said. "It's over my eyes so I can't see anything. And Elise isn't trained to fight, so we're stuck."

"Hmm, hold on a moment." The sounds of conversation were faint then as he must be discussing the matter with the others.

"Who is that?" Elise asked. "I saw something in that crystal, like a man in green. It seemed kind of like an old legend."

Marley nodded. "Link comes from the long lineage of heroes from Hyrule, and he's one of my fathers."

"Can that kind of thing really be true?" she asked, unsure of it. She always was of a more rational mind. "You always surprise me with that kind of thing. I thought a wandering swordsman was an unfeasible romantic icon, but then that's how you came here. And now your family is descended from legends?"

Hoping to keep her spirits up, he chuckled. "My whole family is like that, sprouting new legends wherever they go. I'm kind of the most mundane member of the bunch."

"You don't seem mundane to me. Most people I know would be frightened out of their wits in your situation."

"That won't help anything," he said, smiling. "I am worried, but I know my family can help us out."

The gossip stone quivered again. "We're coming in after you as soon as we can ride over there," Link said. "Stick together in a good spot to hide because we can use the gossip stone to find you. Don't try to remove the webbing yet; Julius says he can handle getting rid of it."

"It is painful if I try to take it off, so I haven't tried much," Marley said.

"Ah. And, Elise?"

"Yes?"

"We'll have to wait for better circumstances to introduce ourselves. For now, keep talking with Marley to keep him alert. He has a vulnerability to some curses, so we don't want to take chances of letting his guard down and the curse overtaking him."

"All right, I can do that."

"Hang tight, we'll be there as soon as we can." The gossip stone settled down.

"Could you hold onto this?" Marley asked, offering her the gossip stone. "I don't want to lose it."

She took it. "Sure. But is talking with you gong to be enough to stall a curse like that?"

He shrugged. "I think it's one of those standard precautions they take. There's a lot of ways a curse can be constructed. Some can be worsened if you panic, others get worse if you sleep through it. Besides, it should be easier for you to tell if something's going wrong with me if we're talking."

"I see. Well, then," she paused, thinking. "I'm sorry I dragged you into this mess. I thought my family was going to leave me alone when I left the castle."

He listened to her, but also past her voice. There wasn't much activity. Of course, there wouldn't be a lot he could do blinded. Maybe he could cast a spell if he could hear a target. But it was quiet, they should be okay for the time being. "It's fine. Though, I am surprised to hear that you're a princess. I thought you were just a genius young merchant."

Elise seemed a little cheered up by that. "Well I did have the best education available, although I don't think they hardly guessed what I would use it for. I'm the youngest of seven princesses, so they brought me up thinking that I'd be married off diplomatically. Maybe even to that prince of Hyrule, there was talk about making that offer."

"He's supposed to be a great guy," Marley said, although he hoped that still wasn't a possibility. "My parents have been writing the queen as friends for years, so I only know them through those letters."

"So I've heard, but I'm glad I ran into you instead," she said. "I'd already decided to strike out on my own because living in the court was horrible with Contessa and Lucinda bickering all the time. Apparently our parents spoiled my older siblings greatly, seeing nothing wrong with setting twins up as the next rulers. They're always trying to gain full authority from the other; most of the country gets run by the lords and ladies, so until now, most of our people weren't affected by it." She sighed. "And if they're calling me a rival now, I'm not sure if I'll see my other sisters again."

"We can figure out what happened," he said, trying to encourage her. "I got caught by surprise this time, but I'll do better in protecting you. We might get some help from my family, but we're not from around here. I'm not sure they'd want to get involved in a war like this."

"Even if they just hid us for a short while until we could find a place to establish ourselves," Elise said. "I guess we could leave too, but even if I left the court, I don't feel right about abandoned my country when they've gone this far."

"I don't want to abandon what's important to you."

"Thanks. So, what is your family like? I've heard you talk about them before, but the people of the court kept telling me you were part of some gypsy band I was best off staying away from."

"We're not gypsies, but we're pretty close, I guess," Marley said. "You know all the stories of wandering adventurers who can't settle down and are always looking for new places to explore? We're all like that, except I wasn't as great about it as the rest. When I met you at that fair, I decided I didn't mind giving that up to settle down close to you. They gave me their blessings for doing so. Although, we're lucky they decided to come back to see me when this all happened."

"I thought all those stories were about loners who happened to do heroic things on occasion. Though, it does seem nice to have a family like that."

"It was fun when I was a kid," he said. "Actually, I was the first child our parents adopted. I got to see Link and Gale's wedding, which was really exciting for me. I'd lost my original parents in a war and got sent to the same orphanage Link was living at. But he had a destiny to become a hero, so he left one spring to fulfill that. It was a crazy time to live through; there were dragons terrorizing the lands, a cursed storm that lasted a month, and armies of humans and monsters fighting each other. A lot of us kids were scared by it all and we didn't want to go outside. But then, we had faith that Link was the legendary hero and he'd stop it all."

"So you've lived through times like this before," Elise said, to which he nodded. "Our land has legends of heroes, but nothing certain like Hyrule has."

"If you have reoccurring legacies of heroes, you also have reoccurring legacies of powerful evils taking over everything," he pointed out. "That's not a good thing to be living under. Link realized that and he resolved to break the cycle completely." Thinking of something, he chuckled. "And you know what? He rescued the princess of Hyrule, but Gale was more important to him and a harder person to rescue. Gale had been a king and gave up his royalty in gratitude and love.

"When the two of them said they wanted to adopt me in particular, it was like a miracle to me to gain a family like that. They taught me all kinds of things for adventuring so I could come with them, like taking care of horses, magic, archery, swordsmanship, and even bartering to trade found treasures for things useful to us." Marley smiled with a little embarrassment. "Although, I was best at bartering, which turned out great because I could work with you in that way."

"You have helped me succeed far better than I could on my own," she said warmly. "Actually, your combat skill has been a great assent to keeping bandits from causing us too much trouble"

He nodded. That had been a major problem he discovered when he'd settled here. While he'd tried finding out where the bandit gang was based, he hadn't had any luck so far. "I wonder what they'll be up to with this conflict. They might get bolder and easier to find, but the queens are a bigger threat."

"We'll figure that out when we can," she said. "What about the other kids your parents adopted?"

It would be a long story to tell, but he was happy to recall it all. "Well, one of them wasn't adopted. We left Hyrule and in the first land we sailed to, we came across a village of fairies that had been destroyed. We helped the survivors repair their homes, then tracked down the monster responsible. Link and Gale destroyed it while I was left to defend the village. After that, we traveled around looking for those that had scattered in the chaos, to let them know that it was safe to return. The leader of the fairies decided to thank us by giving my parents a child of their own."

"That would be wonderful, if you could trust the fairies."

"They repay their debts well. Meia's the youngest of us, but she might be the most amazing. See, Gale is really talented with sorcery and Link is a natural swordsman and archer, and many other things, and she takes after them both. That makes Meia the mightiest little champion you'll ever meet. Well, she is kind of quiet, but she's a great kid.

"There was one time shortly before I left that a group of kids had disappeared from a town we were staying near. They'd dared each other to go into this well that everyone else thought was haunted. It had a ladder down into it leading to some cellar, but the entrance was blocked off leaving only a small hole. Meia was the only one of us who could crawl through there, so she went ahead without worry to get the other kids back. When the lost ones got back, they talked about how there were large monsters and traps down there. After they were all back, Meia unblocked the door so we could come help her with a later part." He smiled proudly thinking back over that. "And she acted disappointed when the other kids said how brave she was for rescuing them. She actually said, 'Only keese and skulltulas,' to them asking how she couldn't be afraid."

"Well skulltulas could be frightening, like these ones here," Elise said.

Marley shook his head. "Those were giant spiders, but they weren't skulltulas. They don't have the distinctive skull carapace. And given how they can curse people so fast, they're probably more dangerous. Maybe not with good hearing if they haven't found us yet."

"I'm not sure. These ones generally aren't a problem in towns, although there's very little wildlife around their den. Still, Meia's braver than most girls if skulltulas don't frighten her."

"Well neither is my other sister, Celia. But she's exceptional in many other ways. When we got back to traveling once Meia was old enough to walk around on her own, we joked occasionally about how she could use a big sister around since she had a brother and two fathers. Then we got to another place where we started hearing rumors about a girl who was raised by bears."

"Raised by bears?" she asked in disbelief. "You hear about a kid raised by wolves sometimes, but bears?"

"It wasn't entirely accurate, as rumors tend to be," Marley said. "Celia's parents had been changed into werebears, see? They were humans for a few hours when the sun was highest, but lived as bears for most of the day. They'd always lived in the wilderness so she was a bit wild herself, not having much contact with others. But then someone mistakenly killed her parents when they were bears. thinking they were a threat to his cattle. Celia then went and attacked him, ending up imprisoned for it; she was seven at the time."

"That's awful; they should have recognized that she was just a kid who'd lost her parents."

"You'd think so, but most of the town was against her and there was no way she was going to get a fair trial. So Gale stepped up in her defense, he researched their laws and brought a number of arguments before the judge to get her acquitted. Like how she was a child and she hadn't actually killed the rancher.

"But the strongest argument was that there was a law in that country that if a murderer, even by accident, was known but not charged, it was the right of the surviving family to take revenge for their fallen loved ones. Gale even mentioned before the public court that it was a barbaric law that encouraged a vicious cycle of revenge, which the country leaders were trying to keep quiet. For some reason or another, they weren't taking it off the books. Since the town knew about the transformed parents and didn't do anything about the rancher that killed them, it was legal for Celia to attack and even kill him."

"I recall talk about that country's law being repelled a few years back," Elise said. "Not about the specific case, but since it was there, it should have excused her."

Marley nodded. "Gale managed to win her case, although it was clear that no one in that town would accept her even with that. So when we got together with Celia for dinner afterward, Gale asked her if she'd like to join us and be an older sister to Meia. After she got over the shock of that, she was thrilled to join us. And she worked so hard to learn more civilized manner; she's still a person who thrives more in the wilderness than in towns, so I hope you don't mind that."

She giggled a bit. "You're the closest person to that that I know of, though I've dealt with some very coarse people with the shop."

"She's not like that," he said, smiling and hoping that she kept in good spirits while they waited. "And she learned a lot more from the fourth kid who joined us, Julius. It was a couple years later, in yet another land where we came across a hidden abbey that took in orphans and trained them in the holy arts of magic, including healing. But even though they had such a valuable gift, they were extremely secluded. Their followers rarely had contact with the outer world until they were entrenched enough in their religion to be named priests or priestesses. Anyone who wanted their services had to come to their hospital, no matter how far the sick person needed to travel."

"That doesn't sound right," Elise said.

"Right, there was a group within them that wanted to break out of that paranoia and send out traveling healers. Or even set up a secondary abbey and hospital in another place so their healing was more available. But their leader was convinced that they were better off with limited contact with the tainted world outside."

"Did your family help them out then?"

"Not quite," he said. "We'd come to them after a failed expedition left all but Meia injured; she'd been left with a caretaker since at that point, she was definitely too young to be going to that dangerous dungeon. We all had curses of various types, which normally Gale should be able to handle. But the curse that ended up on him blocked his ability to use magic. And since I'm particularly vulnerable to curses, we had to get help.

"I don't remember a lot of that first visit since I could hardly keep awake at the time. But Julius had been training at the hospital at the time, even though he was only a young teenager then. He was one of their most talented kids as well as one on the side of being more open. While we were discussing how to handle that dungeon again since it was a threat to the people in that area, Julius' mentor recommended that we take the two of them to use their holy magic to counter the evil magic there."

"That makes sense."

"Yeah, and we succeeded with their help. The abbot was furious about it and threatened to excommunicate them. But enough members of the abbey were convinced that they decided to replace him and open up their services. The mentor took over as the new abbot, and then Julius asked us if he could come with us so he could learn the more practical aspects of being a traveling healer. He was surprised that we'd accept him as a member of our family too, but Gale and Link are like that. If you're traveling with them, you're as good as family."

"They must be good people to be so accepting, though you're on your own now."

"But I'm still their first adopted son, plus between the gossip stone and letters, I hear from them a lot. Actually, both Julius and Celia are old enough to strike out on their own too. Meia's still a kid, and I suspect that once the other two move on, our parents might pick up other kids to join them. Even when times are tough, we found ways to be happy and help others be happy too. I hope I could bring up a family that strong as well."

Elise barely heard some footsteps while she and Marley were discussing plans for what to do about the two heartless queens. While it had a rhythm like a being who walked on two legs, they seemed too light for an adult human. "Someone's coming," she said.

Tilting his head, Marley listened. It was disturbing to look at his face where thick spider's webs covered his eyes. It made the conversation eerie for how calm he was keeping; at least it meant he wasn't in much pain. "Right. There should be two of them, one hanging back some."

The younger one came first; it was a preteen girl with dark skin and red hair in a short ponytail. She was oddly well-armed for a child, with a short sword at her side, a small shield on her right arm, and a quiver on her back. "Hello," she said, going over to hug Marley immediately.

"Hey Meia, good to hear you again," Marley said, hugging her back. "We'll be fine, let's get out of here."

"Good," the girl said. Meia looked over at her, not inclined to say anything more but she did smile.

The other had come up as they were talking. It had to be his other sister Celia, since she was a young woman who wielded a large axe over a sword like the others. "At least you seem to be in good spirits," she said cheerfully. "We got a ways to walk out of here; think you can climb a ladder still?"

"Sure, just get my hands on the rungs," Marley said.

On the way out, they had to be careful not to step on any webbing or alert the other monsters around. The huge spiders would come running to disturbances on their webs. There were a few spider carcasses around; Celia and Meia had to chop some of the webbing down earlier so they could bring them out safely. In spite of that, they hadn't taken any injuries.

Julius was outside of the Spider Queen's Den, looking after the family's horses and waiting on them to bring Marley back. He had some tents set up and brought Marley into one to work on undoing his curse. "You two had dinner yet?" Celia asked, getting a pot and some tins from a wagon they had. "We should finish up what we had going before we had to hurry off."

"Not really, it's been a tense day," Elise said. "Can I help?"

"Sure, got to add something else so there's enough to go around," she said. Meia had gotten out a bag of apples to offer. "Oh yeah, we could do some pan-fried apples, good idea."

"Right, that sounds good," Elise said, smiling at the quiet girl while they started slicing up the apples and preparing some spices.

"Actually, there's something else you could help us out with," Celia said, working on the other dish they had. "Well, just me and Meia. I supposed to be her big sis and all, but I ain't got a clue how to act womanly or what." She shrugged. "I mean, I don't mind about myself really cause I'll give a, a strong word to anybody who thinks I ought to act like someone other than myself. But it might be nice for Meia since she doesn't like arguments."

She might be more adaptable than she thought. Elise noticed her momentary pause; her rough words suggested she might not hesitate in cussing someone out either, but she was holding her tongue around her sister. Chuckling, Elise said, "I was drilled in a woman's graces when I was still a princess, so much so that I had to learn a thing or two about being brusque myself when I went into business."

"Oh, you were a princess?" Celia asked, curious.

She nodded. "I left my family because the in-fighting and politics was horrible, but," she glanced over at the glowing spot on the horizon where the capitol had been. "Well that's what led to this all. I'll have to take back up being a princess again to stop all this nonsense. But I won't be as soft as they wanted me to be, that just leads to trouble."

Near her, Meia reached over and patted her arm. She smiled again, but didn't seem too sure of what to say. Maybe she was shy even with Celia here as an example.

"Thanks, Meia, I've got Marley to back me up now," Elise said. "I'm sure we can do something about my sisters. But for now, sure, I'll help you two out. At least about the sensible parts." And given Meia's age, it might be sensible to go into other things. That is, if she got her fathers' permission to do so.

Gale and Link were late in coming back, though. The five of them went ahead and started eating once the meal was done. But they were just about all finished when the two of them finally appeared at the campfire. There was a glow off in the distance where the Spider Queen's Den was. "That took a while," the red haired man said, taking a moment to flick off some webbing from his long sleeves. Meia immediately ran over and hugged him. "Sorry for making you worry, we're fine."

"They had four demon gates at the bottom where the queen called on new followers," the other said, removing his green cap and running his hand through his blond hair. "We had to comb the area to make sure there weren't others."

"Hey, I thought you warned us to be careful using fire in there," Celia said, though she was smiling in relief that they were back. "Did ya really have to blaze the whole place like a kiln?"

The one who looked like Meia (who must have been Gale) grinned and said, "Yes, to make sure they didn't come back."

The problem with using fire to make sure this place was no longer a danger was that they had to make sure the fire didn't escape the den. Thankfully, a full moon made it easier to spot areas of the ground where smoke was escaping. Link stayed up the first few hours to make sure the fire didn't spread.

When he went back to the campsite to get some more water, the others were asleep. Elise had agreed to take a cot in Celia and Meia's tent. She and Marley were definitely close, but not to the point where she felt comfortable sharing a tent with him for a night. They had talked some before he'd gone to check on the fire; there was a lot on her mind, but one of the first things she brought up was that she was worried about how Marley felt overshadowed by the rest of them. She loved him a lot already and Link would be fine if they stuck together.

Although, it was troubling that Marley still felt that way. He and Gale had been worried about him when he announced that he wanted to settle down in this country to get to know a girl he'd just met. But Marley's confidence had been rocky at that point; it seemed best to give him some space and letting him live on his own was a good way for that. Perhaps helping Elise at this time could help more.

Gale had talked to her more tonight, mostly because he knew the responsibilities of royalty; he must have wanted to make sure she was taking that seriously before they agreed to help out. While they would discuss it in more detail later, Link did want to help out here. This was a country they didn't know a lot about, but Marley had chosen it for his homeland. Not only that, but the people who suffered the most in these times were the common people who had little do to with disputes of royalty and nobility. Yet they were the ones who lost loved ones, their security, and much more. Link wanted to make sure they were protected.

He was about to leave again when he noticed that someone else was up. Meia came over to him, looking tried and grouchy. "Having trouble getting to sleep?" Link asked, waiting on her.

She nodded. "There's… bad things happening. Elise is good, but something very bad is around."

At other times, it had made him proud to see traits of a hero in her. But he could recall the trials of other child heroes as well as his own. This wasn't one of the good things even if it spoke of native heroism more clearly than the rest. "I know, I feel it too," he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Come on, we'll go talk about it while we keep an eye on this fire."

On the way over, she suddenly said, "Um, if Elise is the princess here, does that mean Marley could be king here sometime, if things go well?"

"Maybe," he said, smiling at the thought. He winked down at her. "But let's not tell him that yet, okay? We can see how long it takes him to realize it."

"Okay," she said, cheered up briefly. But she got serious again quickly. "This is a war, isn't it? Lots of people died today, and will this whole time."

"That's right," he said. "We could end up involved in it as soon as tomorrow if we agree to help Elise and Marley."

"We have to cause they're family," Meia said, acting like that was inarguable. "Then we'd be in this war and lots of people could die. I don't want any of us to die." She then hugged him, trembling.

Stopping where they were, he put his arm around her. "Have you been dreaming like that too?"

When she nodded, Link's heart twisted up a bit more. He knew his family was capable of defending themselves; he'd helped train them like that. But they hadn't gotten involved in a serious war like this together. Meia had done a few small heroic acts, things that he and Gale were sure weren't too dangerous for her to handle herself. She was very capable, but this was a situation they couldn't be sure on what to expect. For one thing, this wasn't Hyrule. The power of legend had bound them, yes, but it also did small things to protect them to fulfill a legacy. There was none of that here; anything could happen.

But she'd want to help too. She might keep this fear hidden after tonight, but it'd still be there with both of them. She wasn't alone, though, and he felt resolved to make sure she didn't feel that way. "Did I ever get around to telling you about the Link who worked with the Picori?"

"No," she said, seeming puzzled why he'd ask that now. "What's a Picori?"

Link tugged her over to where they was a rock nearby; they could sit there. "They're tiny fairies who once lived in Hyrule; maybe they still do. But the thing is, they can only be seen by children." He ruffled her hair. "How about I promise to tell you a little bit of that story every night now? We'll have to make sure we can get back together to do so, whatever happens to us. But I'll do my best to make sure it happens."

She bit her lip at first, still with some tears in her eyes. Then she nodded. "Okay, I will too."

For that night, they didn't actually get far, just enough to explain about how Link and Zelda had been best friends for a long time and about the annual Picori festival. Meia was able to get to sleep mostly on that promise that this would happen every night for a while. Fortunately, they were in a place where he could see the den's entrance.

Gale showed up around an hour later. "Ah good, you do have her," he said quietly, coming over and trying not to disturb her.

"This isn't a simple civil war," Link told him as he sat nearby. "She could feel it too."

"I was a little suspicious of things Marley and Elise talked about," Gale said. "Seems the two queens were treated like the world's greatest thing without regards to their actual capabilities. Even so, setting fire to their own capitol is extreme."

He could tell a lot through his magic, but even though he'd lived with it for years, Gale didn't have the same sense for evil. "There's a powerful evil at work in this land. We have to keep our family safe."

"That serious, huh?" he said, losing that detached rationality.

"She was in tears because one or more of us could die in this," Link said, his throat tensing up. He'd been able to comfort her, but he knew just as well himself. "I felt a bit like this before that incident with the horses when we met, but I didn't have as much to lose then. I want to help protect these people; that's what a hero does. But even I'm afraid that we could lose one of our own."

"You two have got to be careful about how we handle this," Gale said, putting his arm around his shoulder.

Meia still seemed asleep in his lap. "All of us do."

"Certainly, but the rest of us don't have the soul of a hero like you both do," he said. "Don't deny it, you'd both throw yourselves heart and soul into making things safe even if this isn't our homeland. And I'm sure both of you are thinking that you'd do whatever you could to make sure the other was safe." Gale put his head against Link's. "It's going to be such a headache keeping you two out of serious trouble now."

As much as he didn't like the thought that Meia might step him in save him, he couldn't deny that she probably would. Especially since she was a child; she had only this life's experiences to tap into and wasn't able to judge the dangers ahead as accurately. "It is nice to have you to look after us. And I did make a promise with her, that we'd try to meet up every night for a story. I hope that keeps her from taking things too far."

"Good, then I have no regrets with getting involved." Gale chuckled. "That one queen taunted Marley for being a lonely drifter and a nobody. Let's make sure she knows just who she provoked by attacking him and his beloved."

"They are going to regret this," Link agreed. "Let's make sure that we don't."

A/N: And the adventures go on, but the story ends here. I'm happy this turned out like it did, especially since it started with a request that I would never have thought of. I hope to see you again in my next venture, whatever that may be.