All summer and fall, Amichen sketched plans, talked to architects and surveyors, organized construction crews, and occasionally toured the area herself. Naissus just stepped back and let her work. He had been given a well-rounded education, but his studies had been concentrated in the arts of war and survival. Amichen, however, had been tutored in government and statescraft from a very early age—up until just a few years before, when her mother named Tiger-Lin as her successor instead. But even then, Amichen had hoped to find a place in her sister's court as an advisor, so she continued her studies in the hopes of being able to pass the hardest of the civil servant exams—those necessary to be a Counselor at court.

So Amichen was wholly fitted for the task, even if she was having to start from the ground up.

They had not even broken ground on their castle when Amichen's due date drew near. Undaunted, she insisted on giving birth inside Meridor and no amount of pleading or demanding by Naissus would sway her. Eventually he capitulated and he took his heavily-pregnant wife down newly-cut roads—still unpaved or improved in any way—all the way to the coast where she had decided their capital would be. Unlike their other expeditions, though, they didn't lack for servants and a large tent was quickly erected and furnished with almost every comfort they could have wanted in their room back in Hyrule. A midwife, too, was in constant attendance. But Amichen didn't go into confinement and spend her days resting; she was out and about every day, meeting with some architect or construction foreman, directing the building of the city. Only rain and cold weather kept her inside, but even that didn't stop her the day the first shipment of Erenrue marble for their castle came creaking up the rough road in a light drizzle.

When her labor pains finally came, Naissus was summarily dismissed while his mother, sisters, and sisters-in-law all came to help Amichen through her labor. Even the queen of Shi-Ha came to witness the birth of her first grandchild.

When, at last, Amichen delivered a boy, he not only was recorded as the first prince of Meridor, but also the only royal child ever known to have been born in a tent.

Amichen and Naissus were living in one wing of the still-unfinished castle when she bore her second child, a daughter. Their third child, another son, was, however, born in the fully-completed castle. It was a short time afterward that the last of the planned construction in the kingdom was finally finished and Amichen and Naissus threw a week-long festival to celebrate the founding of their kingdom, culminating with their official coronation.

All told, Amichen and Naissus had six children—five boys and one girl. During her last delivery, Amichen began to hemorrhage and she nearly bled to death. She hovered on death's door for the better part of a week before she finally turned the corner, but it would be nearly a month before she could finally get out of bed. The doctor feared the bleeding had been caused by some permanent injury she had suffered during her attack, and he cautioned her to have no more children, for fear the next one would be fatal. So, although they had hoped to have a large family, Amichen and Naissus stopped at six children.

All five of their sons bore the names of their lost friends. As the boys grew older, Naissus began to remark that they reminded him of his cousins, both in looks and in personality. Later, as teens, they shocked some of their Hyrulian cousins when they visited for a wedding; their resemblance to Rodger, Walcott, Arlen, Bodi, and Seymour was so uncanny, Walcott's mother wept when she saw his namesake. It was generally agreed throughout Hyrule that the princes of Meridor were the reincarnations of the young men who had lost their lives there many years before.

Over time, Naissus regained some movement in his left arm, although it remained weak. He did, however, succeed in training himself to be right-handed and he eventually declared he was as good a swordsman with his right hand as he had ever been with his left. He established a military school and trained all of the kingdom's knights as he had been trained in Hyrule.

Everything else that Amichen had wanted—universal education, a peaceful court, and so forth—was obtained. Meridor's chief export became fruit; as Queen Maris had said, a place which grew so many trees was indeed good for fruit trees as well. Farms stayed small, but bountiful, and orchards produced all the fruit anyone could want. Southerly winds meant that the temperature stayed warm enough a few miles in from the coast to produce citrus fruits, and Meridor quickly eclipsed Kakariko County in Hyrule as a citrus producer.

Four more bandits were caught over the years as they spent their marked coinage—one in Meridor itself. It was never ascertained if all the bandits had been caught, and barely more than half the money surrendered by Erenrue was recovered. Over the years, tales grew of a hoard of gold buried somewhere by the bandits. Everyone knew someone who had heard a believable tale from someone they knew and treasure hunters dug empty holes all over all four kingdoms—but especially in Meridor. None of the royals understood people's obsession with the lost gold because it clearly belonged to Erenrue and everyone was in agreement that if it was found, it would be returned. But as far as they were aware, the knowledge of the tell-tale reverse sides was still a secret known by few people outside the royal families, so if anyone did find the cache and tried to spend it, they would be caught. And gods help them if they were assumed to be outlaws rather than treasure hunters who had gotten lucky.

Not long after Amichen gave birth to her final child, her mother became ill. At first it was just a persistent cough that resisted all attempts at a cure. Then she lost her appetite. Much and more was done, but eventually all the court doctors admitted they didn't know the source of her wasting illness.

Amichen traveled to Shi-Ha to be with her mother as the illness quickly withered the once robust and commanding Tiger Queen. Amichen performed all the duties expected of the eldest child in Shi-Ha, personally feeding her mother and giving her medicine and bathing her shrinking body. Although the two women were too different to ever understand each other completely, they managed to bridge gaps that had existed for as long as Amichen could remember and met each other halfway.

Amichen stayed after her mother's funeral for Tiger-Lin's coronation. Although their mother had stated that she intended for Tiger-Lin to follow her, the law still gave Amichen precedence. So, to make the succession fully legal, Amichen had to crown her younger sister on the tiger throne that was hers by right of birth. And more than a few who knelt in the hall for the new queen wondered if they would have been better off with the calm, scholarly daughter than the younger one who looked across her new court as a tiger would look over a field of rabbits.

But Amichen had no desire to take the crown, even if it hadn't been against her mother's wishes; she had made the kingdom she wanted with all that was best of Shi-Ha and Hyrule, with a little of Erenrue thrown in as well. Shi-Ha felt like clothing from her youth that no longer fit—not that it had ever fit very well.

Amichen left as soon as was diplomatic. No one noticed that she left with one more guard than she came with—although the Captain of the Guard later wondered why he was a man short. Upon her return to Meridor, Amichen introduced the man as one of her late mother's retainers and she gave him a nice suite of apartments in the same wing as the rest of the important people at court. He was occasionally seen walking with the queen, alone, but he was more often seen with the children.

Some thought that he was a private secretary or some sort of unofficial ambassador or maybe even a spy master working on behalf of Meridor because Queen Amichen didn't fully trust her sister. But others dismissed the idea and argued that the man was a tutor who had been brought in to teach the children the customs and history of Shi-Ha; they did, after all, call him "Honored Grandfather," which was a customary title in Shi-Ha for tutors and men of a certain age. Still others thought that he must have been Amichen's tutor or advisor from childhood and she had offered him a quiet retirement in Meridor in gratitude—or perhaps because he was no longer welcome at her sister's court.

But despite the speculation, no one ever asked the queen outright why the man was at court or what he did to merit comfortable accommodations and access to the royal children, and she never publicly said.

Tiger-Lin married the eldest son of the most powerful nobleman in Shi-Ha—despite Amichen warning her that it was not prudent to concentrate that much power in one family. But Tiger-Lin was infatuated with the handsome young man and she was convinced that she could control his family. Instead, she got nearly-constant feuds and petty wars as her father-in-law fought his enemies and fought for more power. Although her husband didn't try to rule over her, he did try to improve his family's lot or get revenge on their enemies, and he was sullen for months at a time when Tiger-Lin put her foot down and rebuked him or his family.

What's more, he failed to provide Tiger-Lin with a child and their marriage eventually became so strained, he left (or she ordered him to leave; the tales varied) to stay with his family and he was rarely seen in court afterward. It was rumored that the queen took a succession of lovers to her bed, but no children were ever forthcoming.

And then, nearly two decades after her fateful decision, Tiger-Lin was killed in an ambush as she rode to her father-in-law's castle to reprimand him for his latest transgression. All of her host was killed and there were no witnesses to say who had murdered the queen—her husband, her father-in-law, or some enemy of both parties.

The country was in utter chaos when Amichen rode in with Naissus at the head of the Meridorian army. Unable to trust anyone in Shi-Ha, she used Naissus and the other knights of Meridor to hunt down the former Prince Consort, his father, and the leaders of several other factions who had been at war with the House of the Red Mesas.

To everyone's great surprise, she ordered her former brother-in-law and his father executed for treason to kingdom and queen. The other men she imprisoned, holding them hostage for their families' good behavior. One of them had to be executed before everyone got the message that Amichen was not to be trifled with.

But, once the political climate had stabilized, rather than taking the crown for herself, Amichen once again crowned another in her stead—this time her daughter, Anne-Marie. Tiger-Lin's name in the annals of Shi-Ha became a mere footnote—a one-off aberration—while the tradition of the eldest daughter of the eldest daughter continued unabated. Amichen's name was an aberration in its own right, though, because she was written into the list of royals twice—both times as "Amichen the Uncrowned."

Amichen aged more quickly than her Hylian family and she passed away at 102 years old. She was buried in a crypt under the castle she had built, which Naissus often visited. As he had promised her when they were first wed, he never loved another. He ruled alone until his own death nearly 100 years later. Prince Rodger had his father buried beside his mother in the lifelike sarcophagus they had made in imitation of Link and Zelda's. And so it was that the first king and queen of Meridor passed into legend and a new generation, who had never known life outside their kingdom, took up the reins of governance and shepherded the young kingdom into its adolescence.

Author's Note: Need more? Check out my newest story, "The Legend of Zelda: The Triforce of Power," which is the sequel to my original "The Legend of Zelda: The Circle of Destiny." It's the same world with both new and familiar characters.