Crepuscular Tempest

Prologue: Fire

"History doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme." ~Mark Twain

The scorching sun beat down relentlessly on the bleak earth. Water, screamed the land. Give us water! The demands grew incessant, a buzzing noise that filled my mind and bleached it as pale as the sand I stood upon.

Water!

I knelt down at the altar before me and prayed. I prayed for water at first, because that was the demand of the land, and the land was my first worry, my first priority. My only worry and priority.

Slowly, though, another voice entered my mind, and it suggested terrible things.

Water… water for what? To see us live another day, only to die the day after? Of course, we could always pray for more water, even knowing we would never receive enough.

The water was good, the water would come; the goddesses favored us as they favored all creatures of this land: equally.

If they favored all equally, then why were those… what are they called again? Hylians. Why are the Hylians so obviously blessed with more than us?

You are not the land. You are not my people. You have no right to speak. You know nothing of the ways of this land.

I know plenty.

The words hung like a challenge in my mind, causing it to drift away from my prayers, breaking my focus. The words beckoned, urged me to ask the obvious question. I squeezed my eyes shut even tighter, desperately hoping the urge to respond would quickly fade so that I may return to my prayers.

Water. We need water. Give us water.

Yes, that's right. The land needs water; I must pray for the land. If the land could survive, although it had to adapt and change to do so, then so could we. We grew up stronger, braver, more knowledgeable for it. That was our secret blessing. That was what we traded for water. It was equal and fair, like all things in this world.

Except for the Hylians.

Leave me in peace unkind, wrathful spirit. Lingering specter of the old ways, which we swore on our kings' lineage we would never return to.

It's those ears, isn't it?

My mind reeled and drew a blank. Even I, so familiar with the calls of those unfamiliar to most, could not understand the logic in this. I only realized after I responded that I had indeed answered, and thus given into the whisper of the voice. I asked the question it had waited for:

What do you know?

Those ears. They say that one may hear the goddesses' whispers with those delicate ears of theirs. Of course, only of theirs, because the goddesses are not fair, despite what you and your people delude yourself into believing.

No. I will hear no more of this. I seal my ears to your unkind words; I would sooner gouge out my own eyes than see your unearthly presence here on this plane of existence. Be gone, back to whence you came, and do not dare disturb my people with your lies again.

You're afraid to admit it, aren't you?

I feel free to admit all truths, including the truth of your lies. Leave me to my prayers!

No, worse than that. You know you fear it, so you hide from it. Not even that. You simply hide your hatred.

My heart thumped harshly in my chest, rattling me to my core. Suddenly, my lungs felt constricted and my hands began to shake. What was this feeling overtaking me? You dare to posses me while I stand on holy ground? You shall surely burn in righteous fire for what you do.

I would never do such a thing.

My trembling stopped just as swiftly as it had come, my heart slowing to a more regular beat.

That feeling you just felt, remember it well. It will serve you for many, many years.

What feeling do you speak of? What have you done to me?

I have physically done nothing to you. Physically I have left you untouched. Pure, as you might say, but I have unlocked something deep within you that you've repressed for a very, very long time.

Unlocked? And you say you haven't physically defiled me? You do worse than lie now; you threaten to bring the wrath of my people and our chosen goddesses upon yourself.

I fear not the wrath of the others. I want only to see their precious children suffer as much as my children have.

My throat constricted in a different way. It was not an unfamiliar emotion rushing through me that set fire to my veins, but rather it was a feeling of shock and disbelief. My eyes flew open and the bright light of the sun nearly blinded me. Could it be, after years of praying, we are finally answered this day?

And so you begin to catch on.

O blessed goddess, what would you have me do to atone for my ignorance? I shall sacrifice all that my people have to obtain your forgiveness for my impudence.

Fret not my child; I want only the best for you and my chosen. You are all my children, and I will guide you all to a better life. To a fairer world.

What would you have me do?

Abandon your priesthood. You were not born for it. You were born, built, designed, indeed, engraved with the markings of my own personal warrior. Rise up as a leader and king of your people. Rise up as a symbol of my presence in Hyrule. Rise to your new name: Fire.

It shall be so. I am your fire on this world; I shall cauterize the wounds of this world and incinerate those that would stand in my way.

This pleases me. Know that your people will never suffer again, all for your generous sacrifice and great faith. You shall be a hero to your people and the world. Fire, take this world and set it ablaze.

I rose up on shaky legs, inhaling the dry, hot air with a certain amount of pleasure. Rebirth made even this blistering, desolate place feel beautiful again. My people would hail me as a hero, a savior, a prophet. After all these years of prayer, we would finally take our rightful place at the top of the world. All the water we sacrificed for so many years, at long last, justified.

The Hylians had to die though. This I knew undoubtedly and almost immediately. Their ears weren't the only ones that could hear the whisper of the goddesses, and soon I would prove to them and the rest of the world that they weren't the only ones whom the goddesses smiled upon.

They would burn to ash, and I would be the spark to start the inferno.

I am… Fire.

I knew he didn't mean to wake me, because he never did, but I still noticed when he nearly jumped out of bed, sweating and panting. The fear, confusion, the utter terror, rolled off him in waves. Even if he didn't make a sound when he woke up like this, I would still feel those emotions pouring off him in a sickening wave.

"Link, are you okay?" I mumbled, knowing very well he wasn't.

"I think it was Din again," he whispered, pain in his voice, although from knowing he had awaken me or due to the dream I wasn't sure of. "She's been crying out more and more lately it feels like."

I sat up in bed and leaned my head against his bare shoulder, thinking back to the time we had faced off against the spiteful goddess. It really wasn't so long ago. I could still remember watching as Link's teethed snapped down on her neck, blood spurting out in a sick display of pure, rancid death. A gruesome death.

"I think I'm going to go for a walk," he muttered. He tossed his feet over the side of the bed, but I wrapped my arms around him before he could get too far.

"Why don't you just lie back down, and try to forget about it until tomorrow?" I whispered in his ear, already knowing it was futile. Link was nearly as stubborn as me.

"You know I can't," he answered, turning back around to face me and capture my lips in a tender but brief kiss. "I'll be back in a little bit, please get some more rest. Don't worry about me."

Easy for him to say, as always, but I didn't bother pushing the point. I watched as he silently escaped my arms and slipped out the door, to wander to some unknown place at some unknown hour. I flopped back on the bed and let out a slow sigh as my head sunk into the pillow beneath it.

Shortly after Din's death, Link began seeing things in his dreams. At first they were little things, and we had hoped that ignoring it would make it go away. Sadly, the dreams only grew worse until they transformed into flat-out nightmares that he had to deal with on a nearly nightly basis.

When we spoke with Zelda about it, she couldn't determine a reason for the horrid nightmares either. Her best guess was a theory about Din's blood. She thought that because Link had tasted the corrupted goddess's blood that maybe he was seeing things. Either her past or her dreams or even just thoughts and wishes that never came true.

Although that still didn't explain why the dreams only grew worse.

Another thing about them that bugged me—even though I knew Link would never admit to it—was the fact that the nightmares were much, much worse in the Twilight Realm.

The first weeks he had stayed in the palace, receiving a crash course in kingly manners, he didn't even mention dreaming, let alone wake up in the dead of night screaming. After he felt more confident in his new role, he started to experience the same problem I had, being so young with a throne under our butts: restlessness. He fidgeted worse than me, although I suppose that could be written off as my years of training versus his month.

Either way, we decided to head back to the Light Realm—Hyrule—to give him a break from the doom and gloom of the Twilight Realm and to take a much needed trip to Zelda's (newly refurbished) castle. During the time of Link's training, couriers had been bustling back and forth with literature and artifacts, and scientists on both sides of the (also newly refurbished) mirror had kept busy studying and catching up on cultures hundreds of years old.

I had joked about an enlightening period involving new cooking methods for Twilight Realm-exclusive creatures, but Link had just smiled softly and shrugged, eyes forward, anxious to see how little or how much his world had changed.

I had rolled my eyes and smacked him in the back of the head, earning myself a grimace and glare.

We talked to Zelda, making sure that everyone was playing nicely, no random cults had popped up screaming defiance or anything dangerous like that—I suppose for Link, dangerous was more along the lines of the return of an ancient-evil-dark-lord-of-the-night. Either way, it was all going smoothly, both sides playing an accepting and cautious role.

The first nightmare happened as we made our way back to Ordon to spend a few nights there before returning to the Twilight Realm. Link had set up a fire as I muttered about simple nostalgia. We had lain side by side, whispering to each other about—business, of course. Running the Twilight Realm and all that kind of stuff.

He started to get off track, groaning about not wanting to think about ruling anything, and tried to distract me by pointing out the stars in the sky. He filled my head with useless little facts, and before I knew it we had left the dreary topic of kingdoms behind. It felt more and more like the "good old days" as we talked about not having time to appreciate the stars like this in the past.

All that rushing around, I realized, and I hadn't even had a chance to see a fraction of the world's beauty.

It started to sink in—because, to be honest, I hadn't relaxed a bit after our fight with Din—that this was it. This could be the rest of my life. Not worrying about some insane, reincarnated king coming to kidnap me or torture me; not worrying about the corruption of the land seeping into the few friends I held dear or my people. No worries—not compared to the worries I had at one point.

It almost felt boring, but this was what I had worked for. This is what Link had risked his life for: to live out his days in peace with someone he cared about…

I had blushed at the thought, glancing down at this face to see him sleeping relatively peacefully. Isn't this just what he deserved? Of course. But did it ever bore him? He had been in the thick of battle more than me, I'll freely admit, but did that make him all the more thankful or all the more restless?

Suddenly his face contorted in pain and his hands started to twitch and shake. Slowly his limbs started moving as he tossed and turned, sweat quickly pooling on his forehead. I sat up, alarmed, and placed a cautious hand on his shoulder.

"Link?" I had whispered, hoping he would wake up at that. No such luck. His hand shot up unexpectedly and grabbed my throat. I tried to dodge backwards and escape his grip, but he far out-did me when it came to pure muscle strength. So instead I grabbed the front of his shirt and shook him, eyes already growing bleary from suffocation.

Passing out like this would not be a good idea.

I tried to yell at him to wake up, but it was no use with his hand constricting my air passages. My limbs started to weaken, so in a last ditch effort I lifted his top half off the ground and released, dropping his head to crack against the ground.

He bolted up right with a start, panting hard, hand still around my throat. I tapped his arm quickly to get his attention. He turned to me, confused for only a moment, before releasing his grip and scuttling backwards.

"What happened?" he demanded, appalled by his rude awakening.

"I could ask you that," I grumbled, rubbing my throat. The man had more strength than he knew what to do with, that much was certain. "It looked like you were having a bad dream," I explained after catching my breath.

"A bad dream?" he echoed, mostly to himself, dropping his eyes to the ground. After a moment a look of realization flashed in his eyes. "Oh."

"Oh?" I prompted.

"Yeah, it was a bad dream," he agreed, a frown creasing his brow. I had waited for a moment, but it was obvious he was lost in thought. Whatever the dream had been about was something he wanted to deal with on his own, and I could respect that. Just so long as this was a one-time occurrence.

Not with my luck.

It all went downhill after that, with several more nightmares—significantly worse than the first—during our stay in Ordon, which caused him to pick up the habit of late-night walks. I was so frustrated I ended up staying at Rusl's house for the last week we were in the rural village.

Finally, though, we had to return to the Twilight Realm. Duty called for us and for him, I had hoped, it would mean a break from the bad dreams that haunted him. We left the village after all of the congratulations had been received and only after we promised to come back and visit soon. We went home and the first night was perfect.

No nightmares, no tossing and turning, no waking up and trying to kill me in the middle of the night.

Nope, nothing. Perfect. For a day.

Then the nightmares had returned and the first one—I wish I could remember it better—was so severe that the royal council insisted that Link stay in his own room, where a guard would be posted. Of course I objected right away, but Link reigned me in. He said that he would try to get a hold on the dreams, and it would be easier to do if he wasn't disturbing anyone while he did it.

What he didn't say—didn't really have to—was that the first dream had shaken us both up.

It would be wrong to call him a coward or even scared really, but I could hardly blame him for wanting time to himself to take care of the problem. That was how he worked, after all. He saw obstacles as mere enemies, placed there only to be defeated by him. And I had full confidence he could take care of the dreams.

Night after night they continued—they never stopped, not once—but he did seem to get better at differentiating between reality and dreams, which meant he had allowed himself to move back into my room. Not without first lecturing me on the value of killing him to save my own life first, of course. I swear sometimes I felt like the younger one in the relationship.

"Are you still up?" I jumped in surprise at the sudden noise, turning to see Link standing just inside the room, leaning against the door.

"Yeah, I was just thinking," I whispered. He walked over and climbed back into bed, flopping back against the mattress and letting out a slow sigh.

"Don't think too much about it," he advised, eyes trained on the ceiling. "We'll figure it out when the time's right—we always do."

"Do you honestly think there's something bigger than just nightmares going on?" I asked concernedly.

"Nothing's ever normal with me," he laughed bitterly. "There's a reason for the dreams." He closed his eyes and I watched him until his breathing deepened, chest rising and falling with each breath—sleeping again, for now.

I glanced towards the balcony where the curtains were drawn to let in just the right amount of twilight—enough to see, not enough to keep us awake. It was surreal, to be sitting here with him sleeping beside me. Like a dream come true after everything we'd been through.

So why didn't it feel like it was over?

A/N: This story is the sequel to my story Twilight Storm. It is not necessary to read that to enjoy this, so long as you can accept some points made in that story that will be discussed in this one. I hope you enjoyed this prologue, please do tell me what you thought about it!