Well guys, this is it. It's taken three years, but I've finally finished my first multi-chapteral project ever. I started to hate it at the end and seriously almost lost all motivation. I never would have finished it if it weren't for all of your positive reviews encouraging me to continue.

So thank you to the 1000+ of you that reviewed this story and helped see it through to the end. Some of you have stuck with me since the beginning, and I find that amazing, considering I started this as a freshman to develop my writing technique. I really can't express how grateful I am for your support :)

I would list all of you that reviewed, but that would take a long time and I think you all just want to know what happens. I'm still grateful for each and every one of you!

I hope you enjoy this last installment of Reality, and keep your eyes open. I have more stuff in the works!

Thank you all again :)

~Leila

warning: one little f bomb, though I think it's pretty validated

Some legends are told,
Some turn to dust or to gold,
But you will remember me
Remember me for centuries
And just one mistake,
Is all it will take,
We'll go down in history
Remember me for centuries

/Centuries by Fall Out Boy/

epilogue

They were all honored at a ceremony in front of Hyrule Castle. People threw flowers at their feet and cheered their names.

Link watched as the head priestess placed medals around their necks. The King. The new Princess. Teagan, Sheik, Saria, Lulu, Darunia, and some girl named Ashei whom he didn't recognize.

She smiled graciously, but her eyes were dead. Link suspected he looked the same.

When his time came, he bowed his head and allowed the priestess to bestow the medal upon him.

"Behold," she called to the crowd. "Behold the heroes of Hyrule!"

The crowd cheered again, chanting and laughing and clapping.

Congratulations! You killed to get here. You're a mass murderer. You deserved to die back there.

As he stepped off of the podium, Link heard two familiar voices yelling at him from the crowd.

"Link! Hey, Link!"

"Liiink! It's your auntie and uncle!"

Sure enough, his aunt and uncle stood in the front of the crowd, smiling fake sugary smiles and waving a little too-enthusiastically. He met their eyes with an icy glare, and mouthed two words at them.

"Fuck you."

Those words had never tasted so sweet.

He was mobbed by old friends and neighbors and people of the town, asking him to sign things, congratulating him- congratulating for what?- and thanking him for his services.

He had to get out of Hyrule, he knew that. Too many people knew him. There were too many reminders of Aryll.

So he left. He left after he watched Roy's coffin descend into the earth. He left after he attended a memorial service for Tetra. They couldn't recover her body.

Why did my friends have to die?

He took only a backpack and the Master Sword and ended up in Skyloft City, knocking on the door of a cozy little cottage. He didn't know where else to go.

Koume and Kotake welcomed him into their home without question.

They loved him like a grandchild, and that was exactly what he needed. If Aryll wasn't there to love him, someone else had to.

He stayed in Skyloft City for almost three years. He and Fi helped the sisters run their potions shop and performed chores and errands the couldn't do in their old age. Slowly but surely, he was able to recover. He collected his shattered pieces, and he began to smile again.

All the homemade cookies and pancakes on Saturdays and curling up by the fireplace and the jokes and the hugs and the cakes on his birthday was just what he needed. He'd never known how good his name could taste written on a cake or how sweet it was to wake up wrapped in a blanket when he had fallen asleep on the couch.

The nightmares didn't go away, but then, he figured they never would.

The sisters were just the thing he needed to get back on track, and after his twentieth birthday, they began dropping subtle hints about returning to Hyrule. They fought about it too many times to count. He was scared. But as usual, Koume and Kotake were right. It was time for him to go back.

With a lot of hugs, a bag of cookies, and a little bit of tears, he hopped about the Spirit Tracks and made his way back to Hyrule.

Everything was so different, yet exactly the same.

He found that he had missed the smell of the beach and the sound of the waves. The first thing he did was buy an ice cream and feed the cone to the seagulls.

Then, he'd made his way down familiar streets and stepped into an old, rundown building that smelled like beer and fried food.

Before he could even react, he was swept into a crushing hug.

"Oh, honey," Telma had whispered, tears spilling onto his hair. "Where have you been?"

He began to live in an apartment above Telma's tavern and worked there to pay his rent. He liked his job, and liked the people he served. People always whispered when he approached their tables, and he always pretended not to notice. Some people asked him up front if he was the hero, and he always responded with a small smile and a shrug.

Teagan and the King announced their engagement, and Link wasn't surprised in the least. He was, however, surprised to receive an invitation in the mail asking him to be a groomsman.

He reunited with Sheik and their best-friendship picked right where it had left off three years ago. Sheik and Midna were getting pretty serious, and he told Link he was considering proposing.

Midna was fragile. Being controlled by Zant had destroyed every trace of the spunky girl he knew in high school and had left behind a paranoid shell of a person. The bastard had raped her and gotten her pregnant, and she and Sheik decided to keep the child. He was an energetic little boy they called Wolfe, though he took after his father and Midna could never look him in the eye. Sheik said she often woke up screaming from nightmares and needed assurance that she was in fact herself.

All the Sages were living inside of the Temple of Time and worshipping the goddesses alongside the priestesses. Saria was pleased to see him and announced that she was currently dating Agitha, her longtime childhood friend.

Lulu's boyfriend, Mikau, had been killed during the war, leaving her a pregnant widow. Darunia stepped into the role of adoptive father, and they named the child after his father. The two had gotten married a year after the war and were very happy.

He held on to the Master Sword, and Fi remained his faithful companion. She was there to soothe his nightmares and talk through his fears. She had been there. She understood.

There was one person he could never bring himself to see. Telma had suggested he go to the castle several times, but he always made up one excuse or the other.

He just wasn't sure he could face her.

Two years passed in Hyrule, and he fell into a routine. He worked at Telma's all day. He would visit a different friend every night, and he always found some way to keep himself busy. He took the occasional trip to Skyloft City to visit Koume and Kotake.

He was content, though Teagan and Matthew's wedding was approaching, and he was considering saying he couldn't go.

She would be there.

One day, while working at at the tavern, Telma shoved a platter of food into his hands.

"Would you be a doll and take this to table 3 outside? I'm swamped."

He took the food without second thought and made his way to the patio. As he walked, he examined the food on the platter and suddenly felt that Telma hadn't coincidentally handed him this particular tray.

Onion rings. Fish and chips. One pink lemonade with two straws.

His suspicions were confirmed when he saw a hooded figure sitting at table 3, the table he and Sheik had painted when they were kids. His mouth went dry, and his heart pounded in his chest.

"Hey, Link," she'd greeted him.

So casual.

"Zelda."

It was silent for a moment, until she pulled off her hood and smiled at him.

Her beauty took his breath away. The last time he'd seen her, she was a malnourished wreck. She'd recovered very well. Her eyes shone, her cheeks were rosy, and her long golden hair was done up in an intricate braid.

"Sit with me?"

Of course he did.

They talked for hours, and Link found all his fears melting away.

She told him how she'd been kidnapped, and how Nabooru took her place to trick him. He told her of the obstacles he'd met after her disappearance.

By the end of the night, when she'd left to go back to the castle, he'd fallen in love with her all over again.

They began see in each other again, first as good friends, then as lovers. They walked arm-in-arm down the aisle at Teagan and Matthew's wedding, smiling at each other the whole way.

The King and new Queen were wed, and Link began wondering about the possibilities in his own future.

Sheik and Midna were married that same year. Midna was pregnant as she walked down the aisle, and soon gave birth to a beautiful baby girl.

Link began living at the castle to be closer to Zelda and assisted in training the Royal Army. Ashei, the woman accredited with bringing down the dragon in the war, had been appointed the Captain of the Hylian Army, which now accepted people of any gender they identified with.

She was amazing with a sword, and Link loved working with her. Though he did find it odd how someone like her was married to his old high school teacher, Shad.

Teagan and Matthew had a baby girl whom they named Syrella after Zelda and Matthew's late sister. Lulu and Darunia had twins around that time, and the Temple of Time was full of the sound of little feet. Saria and Agitha were married that same year.

Marriage surrounded them, and Link was receiving hints that Zelda was looking for the same.

So, five years after he returned to Hyrule, Link Carstairs proposed to Princess Zelda Nohansen Hyrule over a glass of Telma's pink lemonade.

They were wed almost immediately, and it was a wonderful ceremony.

Koume and Kotake came up from Skyloft City. Teagan and Matthew with there, along with baby Syrella. Sheik was best man, Midna was the maid of honor. Their Wolfe was the ring-bearer. Lulu, Darunia, and their children were there. Saria and Agitha were there. Even Fi came out of her blade to be present for the ceremony.

And Link knew Aryll was there in spirit.

He requested an empty chair reserved for her.

Link cried when he saw Zelda walk down the aisle. It was the happiest moment of his life, and he'd never been more excited to kiss her than he had been that day.

They were an interesting couple. Nights were spent consoling the other after nightmares had them calling out. The Princess still visited a therapist weekly, and Link talked to Fi for at least an hour a day.

For the most part, however, they were determined to leave the past behind them. They had a very promising future.

Very soon after the wedding, Zelda became pregnant, and nine months later, she gave birth to a beautiful baby girl.

"She's so small," Link whispered, kneeling at Zelda's bedside.

Zelda smiled tiredly, cradling her newborn with the pride only a mother knows. "She is. She looks like her daddy."

"Nah, it's all her mother."

The doctor came in, smiling widely at the happy parents. "Have we decided on a name?" she asked.

Link and Zelda looked at each other. They hadn't really put too much thought into names, and the ones they had been considering didn't seem to fit their little girl.

There was a long, drawn out silence. Neither had to speak, their eyes did all they talking. And finally, they reached a consensus.

"Aryll," Zelda said softly. "Her name is Aryll."

The end.