Author's Note: Okay, so the first little portion of this chapter is a 3rd person perspective flashback that should make sense if you've played OoT. Now that Tetra is back in the land of her ancestors, she starts to get these premonitions/ memories that belong to the original Zelda.
I know you guys have been waiting for it—there's finally some Link/Tetra action in this chapter. Woot! So, here, read—it's a gift from me to you. LOL!
The nursemaid, a tall, tawny woman, quickly ushered the child princess into her bedroom and locked the door, jamming the knob with a desk chair. Satisfied it would hold, she then rounded on the child. "Quick, Princess, where did you put it?"
The child became suddenly confused with all the panic. Her lips were trembling. "Oh, oh…I don't know, I hid it…someplace…" She burst into tears.
Sharply, the nursemaid told her to hush and began to root madly through drawers, tearing through garments and trinkets. "Where? Princess, where?"
"I don't know", the child wailed again, sinking into a pile.
A knock to the door.
"Your Highness?" It was a member of the Royal Guard. He sounded genuinely concerned.
"Don't make a sound," mouthed the nursemaid. She crossed the room quietly and peered under the bed as another knock, this time more forceful, came.
"Your highness? Is everything alright?"
The nursemaid shot her a warning look. Not a word! The child bit her lip.
The jammed knob was being tried. "Your highness? Open the door!" The child watched as the nursemaid ignored the summons. Ripping the bedding from the expansive mattress, the nursemaid again found nothing. Her search grew more frantic. She threw an ancient armoire open and tore through its contents. "Din! Princess, where is it?"
"Your highness, is that you? Your highness, we know you're in there! Open the door, we--" A low, familiar voice interjected, rumbling a suggestion to the guard. "—The King wishes an audience with you."
The child cried out, covering her ears as fists began to hammer down on the door. She heard a scuffle outside. The guard must have been shoved aside for new, more powerful pounds replaced the guard's, raining down in a terrifying, deliberate rhythm, splintering the wood to bits.
The nursemaid, in their final moments before the door gave way, found for what she searched and pressed the Ocarina of Time into the princess's hands. "Go! Get out of here!" the nursemaid shrieked, hauling the child up roughly by the arm, rushing her towards the other end of the bedroom. "Hurry!" The nursemaid pulled back a wall hanging, revealing the winding, secret passageway to safety.
The child tarried for an instant, transfixed as a huge fist broke a hole right through the door, then slowly reached in, reached for the knob…
"GO! GO! I'll find you later! Hurry, while you still can! Go, Princess! GO!" cried the nursemaid, pushing the child into the passageway. The wall hanging fell back in place over the doorway and the child found herself alone, stumbling in the darkness for the way out.
Link
Tetra lay there at the crest of a grassy slope, still and bent, one hand over her heart as if a coroner had fixed it there. At first, as I dropped to my knees and moved over her, I was relieved to see that her eyes were wide open. But as I came close I saw that they were glassy and unmoving, starring blankly ahead. I waved a hand over her face; she did not blink.
"Tetra…?"
She was so still.
I was dimly aware of Gonzo muttering something and even less conscious of the tears now running down my face. With a low moan, I let my head lower onto her chest and all at once was overcome. I was so upset that when her body gave a sudden jerk below me, I thought it was one of my own, trembling sobs. I didn't notice a slender hand trail up my arm and neck, a finger twirl my hair. It was only when a voice, muffled in my shirt, muttered, "No need for tears…you know, the countryside isn't half that bad," that I was stirred out of my grief.
I leapt off of her. Was she alive or was I hearing things? "Tetra…?"
There she was, alive, eyes bright and smiling lopsidedly. Slowly, she sat up, pushing away any assistance of mine. "Bugger off, will you! I'm fine!"
I starred at her incredulously. "You're alive!"
Tetra absently dusted off her blouse and vest. "So it appears." She glanced back up at me and her smile widened.
Right then we started in on one of those passionate kisses you read about in those trashy, little novels Beedle sells sometimes—not that I've ever read one of course, but I'd wager you could write quite the paragraph on this particular smooch. So we're kissing and kissing, and would have kept right on at it if Gonzo hadn't unfortunately interrupted with a curt, guttural "Ahem".
We broke apart and looked sheepishly at him.
Tetra laughed. "Sorry, Gonzo, forgot you were there."
He must've looked more mortified than I did. "Well…thanks be to the Goddesses you're alive…but I…I'm gonna wait down at the ship with the others. You…you two come down when…when you're ready." Gonzo fled, crimson red.
It was only when Gonzo disappeared down the hill and we were alone that the full implications of what Tetra had done dawned on me. "You did that on purpose, didn't you!"
"Did what?"
"Fake dead!" I snarled.
"Fake dead? When?" Tetra was playing me again; she put on a slack, astonished expression.
"Just then! It wasn't one bit funny, you know! You, still as stone with your eyes all glassy and strange. Did it even cross your mind that your little act might be just a little upsetting?" My embarrassed flush had heated to the scarlet of fury.
Tetra staggered up after me, following as I stormed off. "You really were upset, weren't you? Link, wait! I swear I wasn't faking dead!" She had switched back to her normal voice, realizing I was serious.
"Oh yeah? Then what were you doing?"
"Well…I…" She faltered, and, looking suddenly faint, sat back down in the grass. I squatted down next to her, momentarily forgetting my anger.
"Go on," I urged her softly.
"I don't know; it was curious. Real curious. I remembering getting tossed out of the ship and I must've given my head a good crack…a concussion or something like that, I suppose. I was out cold and I found myself in this unnerving, little reverie...funny really…must've been a bit of lunch that didn't agree with me. There was a young princess and her nurse, and they were searching…searching for something. Someone was at the door, banging…and they, for the life of them, couldn't find it."
"Find what, Tetra?"
She looked for moment confused, as though she had completely forgotten, but then she reached into her vest pocket and drew out the Ocarina of Time. "This."
We exchanged uncomprehending glances, but we were both certain this was more than a bit of disagreeable lunch. She and I sat there for awhile in silence with the ocarina. My thoughts began to wander after a few minutes and noticed what used to be the ship some distance below. From our vantage on the slight hill, I could see the others emerging from the wreck. I glanced at Tetra. She was absorbed in the instrument on her lap, feeling it's smooth surface over with her hands.
"Hey, are you okay?"
"Hmmm," was all Tetra said, which I supposed was in agreement, for she got up, once again refusing a hand from me. She led the way down the hill, lips pursed, mind racing.
We were halfway there, when she, out of the blue, stopped into her tracks and grabbed my arm. "Link," she said to me, "we're in Hyrule."
I stopped too. I knew that; I knew where were in Hyrule. But, in all the chaos of the crash, in all my worry over Tetra, it hadn't completely dawned on me. Suddenly, the air no longer tasted of sea salt. Suddenly, the cool, damp, maritime winds were arid. Suddenly, the crash of waves was lost from the sounds of the world and suddenly I was in Hyrule.
Hyrule. The land of the legends, the land of our ancestors, the land of Ganondorf and the King.
And we were there.
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