Prologue: A Remembrance

And to think... It's been a mere few months. For the similarity between my story and the other legendary Link, the Hero of Time, we seem to have rather different final chapters. I mean, we've even been to many of the same places, carried the same sword, bared same name... yet, he left Hyrule and fell into obscurity, but here I remain. And here I will probably remain till I die, a day which I almost relish.

A few mere months... if only it felt that way. Instead, it feels as though years have gone by; but when I remember her, it feels like yesterday. Then with a "see you later," she was gone. "See you later..." I knew what she wanted to say. I wanted to say it too. I guess you feel like you have all the time in the world. Until you see your world shatter, and the grains become as ordinary sand grains in a desert, in a prison.

A cold breeze flung flakes of snow down Link's collar, stirring him from his brooding. He turned his head, scanning the land before him. Mounds of snow, tall as a man and wider, dotted the land. And for each mound was a pair of recruits, either fortifying their mound, or taking a meal break. One of these recruits made his way towards Link.

"Sir," he began with a title that made Link wince slightly, "a few of us were wondering, and, well, I guess I drew the short straw to be the one to ask, if you don't mind my saying so," the recruit made little effort to hide how nervous he was to talk to Link directly, "I was just, I mean, we were just wondering why we are receiving this sort of training. It's just that, well, back at the castle, we seldom even see any snow..."

Link told the young recruit the same well rehearsed line he had given Zelda concerning the purpose for an obviously meaningless training expedition: "Life is full of surprises, and you never know what tomorrow will bring. So you need to be prepared for anything, and a full compliment of experiences and training will help you survive whatever may come your way. Much of this training may seem meaningless, but I assure you, at the very least you will become the most disciplined, resilient, courageous army this world has ever seen." On a less practised note, he continued, "as for teaching you how to survive in this weather in-particular, just consider yourselves fortunate that you have someone to show you how it's done. I can't tell you how miserable it was to climb Snowpeak without having ever seen snow before."

The recruit was unsure of how to respond to such an answer, so Link continued, "What's your name, by the way?"

"It's Shen, sir," making Link wince again.

"Well then, Shen, is your quinzhee ready to be dug out?"

"Nearly, yes. Layrou was just finishing up with making the mound big enough when I came over."

"I won't keep you then. You may go." Link watched Shen bow slightly to him and return to his snow shelter, immediately taking to hollowing it out. Through experience, Link knew that the quizhee needs to sit for a few hours before you dig it out, otherwise it will cave in unexpectedly. But Link thought better of telling Shen this fact. The burnt hand learns best, he told himself.

That evening, when all the soldiers-to-be had created their shelter and were at some point in the process of dining, Link snuck away from the camp for the real reason he took the training expedition this far into the mountains. He fetched a small dirty cloth from his modest rucksack and took off farther up the mountain, alone.

Finally, he reached the western ledge of the mountain, where the familiar stone monument was with the holes through it. The wind blew harder up here than it did down below, and as the wind made slight shifts in direction, it caught different holes and pits in the stone, each whistling its own note.

One of these holes Link stuffed with his dirty cloth, and from it he unwrapped an elongated black crystal upon which orange runes radiated. He had been learning to control the power of his own triforce, and now he used it to protect himself from the magic of the shadow crystal before he was ready as he held it in his bare hand.

He crouched on his feet in front of the stone, mimicking the way a dog sat as best he could, and let the crystal release its magic. Bones lengthened while others shrank, hair sprouted where it generally wasn't and thickened where it was, joints rotated, muscles adapted, and his clothing disappeared. The crystal receded into his body. All this happened in seconds. What took longer to notice was the acute change in his senses. He could vaguely hear the soldiers below where before all he heard was the wind, he could smell that the recent presence of the Yetis now and see the details of the rocks and the path from further off. But what he paid attention to was the sun falling behind the horizon.

"The twilight there holds a serene beauty...You have seen it yourself as the sun sets on this world. Bathed in that light, all the people were pure and gentle..."

He watched as the setting sun cast the sky into fading hues. Reds, oranges and yellows streaked the sky in the west, gradually darkening with the rest of the sky, till a dim purple was all that was left, and soon, it too was done. The innumerable white lights dotted the sky as the last signs of the sun disappeared, and into the night he howled in hidden anguish.

Link tried to make out the figures and legends people told him were recorded in the heavens. Link tried to see the curves of the autumn constellation, Volvagia the Dragon, but lacked the imagination to make it out.

He took instead to imagining new stories in the stars. The supposed tail of Volvagia became one horn of the Fused Shadow. And there, in the southern sky, was the Sacred Beast. For the Twilight Princess, he decided to wait for some months, so that he may immortalize her in another part of the sky, but a part forever bound to the other.

He remembered her in her resurrected body, and knew he'd find a place in the sky for her like that, so that she maybe remembered as being beautiful, not cursed. For Ganondorf, he remembered the image of shock and horror, when right after the blade of the master sword pierced his body and he fell to his knees — that was the image of the King of Evil that Link wanted to be in the legends, even if it didn't kill him.

Link watched the stars move through the sky for sometime before drifting into sleep in the snow. He was grateful for the thick fur that kept him warm in the snow.

Link arose before the sun, a habit Link had learn in the stresses of his journey. He saw the Sacred Beast chase the dying Ganondorf below the horizon and laughed to himself.

"Sleep well?"

Link turned to see the ethereal golden wolf approach, and responded, half questioningly, half relieved, "You found him..."

"He took refuge in an old Gerudo temple. Ready to finish this?"

"You're the one that has to die if we win... Are you?"