Grumble…

I've just spent an hour correcting the formatting on every chapter of Hero because the new version of fanfiction dot net erased my dashes, leaving all my sections mashed together. In addition to the waste of time, I'm not happy that everyone who was reading in the past few days read a story with weird scene changes that don't quite make sense and probably left thinking I need to learn about separators. On top of that, I really don't like how those separators look. They create too much of a separation for my liking, making the story look disjointed, and on top of that, the text showing up right above or below the line looks too tight (extra empty lines are automatically eliminated by fanfiction dot net).

Anyway, this is my consolation. I put it together thinking that updating the chapters would cause the story to show up as newly updated and I figured that if anyone was watching, I should give them something new if the story was going to look freshly updated.

It turns out the date of the last update on my story was not affected by my changes, but I decided to post this anyway, because the idea of not posting it after putting it together was just too disappointing.

This first bit is from my personal notes and didn't really play much of a part in the story. Any detail found in there is in no way cannon: it's just what I decided to go with for my story.

Calendar

Most Zelda games never ever show anything else than a summer climate – other than in the mountains - so I'm assuming it's summer-like at least most of the year.

There are 405 days per year. There are 9 months in the year, each of which lasts 45 days. The months have kept their Hylian names of old. They are named after the Goddesses (of course) including an Hylian word used to denote a period of time: tova. The first month of each set of three also includes the Hylian word for first, ani. The second of each set includes the word for second, duni. The third of each set includes the word for third, teni. If this fanfic was written in Hylian, the triforce would be called something in Hylian, not a word that conveniently makes sense in English.

The nine months are: AniDintova, DuniDintova, TeniDintova, AniNayrutova, DuniNayrutova, TeniNayrutova, AniFaroretova, DuniFaroretova, and TeniFaroretova.

There are three holidays a year, on the first day of each "Ani" month.

Days are divided into 30 hours. The days are actually about the same length as ours, just divided differently.

Appropriately enough, Link finds himself on the first day of the Farore months: the first of AniFaroretova. This is 12 days after we first meet him, the 35th day of TeniNayrutova.

This second bit is a deleted scene, in draft form. It was replaced in the final version by Link simply telling Zelda about it. I cut it because it was too long for the purpose it served. The past Link featured is not from any game in particular.

Link heard a scream of terror and opened his eyes. In front of him stood a boy about his age, a big wallet in his hand and looking surprised, presumably at Link's apparition. Link heard the scream again, from behind him, and he turned around to see a middle-aged man behind a counter, backing away with one arm extended in front of him as if to ward whatever it was that was frightening him so much away. Link turned around again, but his past self was the only other person in the shop. Link then realised that it was him the shopkeeper was afraid of and politely backed away with his hands held out in a gesture of peace and his face fixed in a friendly smile.

He passed through his past self, who shuddered violently and jumped out of the way before turning towards him with his sword out. Link recognized the Master sword right away, and felt a pang of jealousy: here he was begging for food because he couldn't go anywhere near anyone to buy any and had no money to buy it with anyway, and his past self was casually buying whatever he wanted, carrying a huge wallet, and he had the Master Sword already.

"Please, boy..." The shopkeeper begged. "Please make it go away..."

"I'm not going to hurt you!" Link protested. "I just want him..." he pointed at his past self, "to give me some food!"

"That's all you want?" His past self asked, resheathing his sword. "Food? But why? Ghosts don't eat, do they?"

"I'm not actually a ghost." Link explained. "I'm actually your future self. I'm on a quest, and the President is against me and accused me of murdering a bunch of people so I can't buy food by myself because I'm wanted everywhere."

"My future self?" The boy said. "You think you're my future self and that you travelled back into the past?"

Link nodded. He was tempted to say that he didn't just "think" all that, that it was a fact, but he didn't think it would help convince his past self at all.

"And you want food because you cannot get any in your time. Well, if that's all it takes for you to be able to move on... how much do you need?"

"Just a meal for two, and maybe some dried stuff we can have later." Link said.

"Okay." The boy said. He turned to the shop keeper, who seemed to be trying to mold himself into the wall, positioned himself between Link and the counter, and asked the shopkeeper for two meals and a month worth of rations.

Link's eyes widened.

"We don't need that much!" He exclaimed.

"My wallet is full." His past self said, shrugging. "I was trying to figure out what to use some rupees on, it might as well be that."

The shopkeeper, keen to make the sale despite of his fear and made a bit braver by the fact his client was blocking the ghost from vue, busied himself behind the counter and presented the boy with two covered trays laden with food and four bags.

"It's 30 rupees for each meal and 50 rupees for each bag of travelling food. So that's 260 rupees. Plus the meal you wanted for yourself, I almost forgot..." He got another tray from the same place he had gotten the first two. "290 rupees please. Do you have that much?"

(That would have been corrected to have five weeks in a month if it hadn't been cut)

Link's past self dug into his wallet and took out the requested amount. Link noted that the wallet still looked mostly full afterward.

The boy handed the food to the ghostly appearance, who wrapped his arms around it - and slightly through it - thanked him and disappeared with the food.

"Well, that was easy." Link said to the shopkeeper. "Are you alright? He wasn't dangerous, couldn't you tell?"

The shopkeeper nodded feebly.

"Do you need anything else?" He asked, eager to help the young man get rid of some rupees and to forget the whole ghost business.

Still reading? I'm flattered!:)

This last bit is an early draft of a scene from a possible sequel to Hero. It features the Link from A Link to the Past, with an ending that is slightly different from what the game offered. The sequel would not center on that Link (it would still feature the same Link as "Hero" did), but other Links would appear again and I just happened to have this scene already drafted.

Please note that this is a draft: I'm not 100 happy with it and it will almost certainly be changed at least a little before its final version. Also, this is about as far as I got with the draft of the sequel at this point, so if it ever gets finished, it won't be for months yet.

Link clutched the Triforce to his chest, eyes closed tightly.

He didn't know what to wish for. Ganon had done so much harm, and Link didn't know how to fix any of it. Some of it couldn't be fixed at all: his uncle was dead, the King was dead, the maidens' souls were all free, but they were dead, even the Princess… what was there left to wish for? Ganon had already taken everything. Even the mystical Golden Realm was gone: Ganon had even taken Hyrule's dream and turned it into a nightmare.

Link wanted many things, but they were all so selfish he couldn't bring himself to wish for them. He wanted his uncle back, he wanted the maidens back. He wanted all the guards Aghanihm had made him kill to be alive and themselves again, and to forgive him. Above all, he wanted the Princess back. He wanted her to look at him like that again, like she had when he had saved her, as if he was the sun itself. He wanted to be able to call her just Zelda, like his future self did with his. He'd happily settle for her just to be alive again, even if she never again so much as stood in his presence.

But if he were to wish for any of that, what about everything else? He couldn't pick one wrong to right, he wanted it all. What he really wanted was for ALL the harm Ganon had done to be undone. He wanted everything back just like it was before Ganon had gotten his paws on the Triforce.

The Triforce started shining, so brightly as to hurt Link's eyes, even through his closed eyelids. It shone brighter and brighter, and Link fought back the urge to let go of it to cover his eyes with his hands. He turned his head sideway as far back as it could go instead – not that it helped: the glow of the Triforce was filling the whole room.

Then, as suddenly as it had started, the glow was gone. Link opened his eyes warily. The Triforce was still in his arms, but it was back to normal. Link looked around, and gasped.

Through the door to the room where they had fought, Ganon was scrambling up, whole and seemingly unhurt. Link's eyes went from the Demon to the Triforce and widened.

The Triforce had granted his wish. Everything was back, just like before Ganon had claimed the Goddesses' artifact.

Including Ganon.

Link's eyes went back to the pig, and met the beast's. He stuffed the Triforce into his tunic and took out his bow and arrow, expecting Ganon to charge at him. The Demon did no such thing, however. He hissed and before Link had even had a chance to shoot a single arrow at him, he vanished with a puff of smoke.

Link's breathing quickened. Just like that, Ganon had escaped and it was anyone's guess where he'd resurface and what he'd do. And whatever happened then, Link felt, would be his fault. He clenched his teeth, re-sheathed his sword and took out the mirror that had the power to bring him back to the Real World. The first thing to do was to let the King know Ganon was loose. After that, assuming he didn't get thrown in the dungeon, he'd happily do whatever they wanted to fix things.

As Link looked in the mirror, the room around him faded, replaced by the castle's inner court and the sound of deafening cheers.

Link had never felt LESS deserving of cheers. He looked around frantically, looking for the Princess. She was next to her father, beaming at him. Link's heart skipped and for one glorious second, he was happier than he would ever have thought possible.

Than, reality came crashing back.

"Your majesties," He said, addressing both of them. "He's back. Ganon. And he ran off… I messed up, I really messed up. I'm so sorry… I didn't realize, I was just thinking, and the Triforce did it…"

He collapsed to his knees, shaking. The cheering had not stopped yet because most people hadn't heard him over it, and it was making him feel worse. Here was everyone, so happy that all was well…

"Young man, are you saying Ganon is still alive?" The King asked.

Link nodded without raising his eyes. He felt a hand on his shoulder and the next moment, Princess Zelda's face was inches away from his own, looking serious but thankfully not angry.

"Is he in the Dark World?" She asked.

Link nodded again.

"Light World. I think. I didn't look outside, but..."

"What about the Triforce?" She interrupted him.

"I got it." Link said, pulling it out of his tunic. "But Ganon ran away, he could be…"

Link didn't finish his sentence, suddenly losing his train of thoughts: the Princess was smiling at him.

End of Extract