Disclaimer: All rights to the Zelda series belong to Nintendo. This story is for entertainment purposes only. No copyright infringement is intended.

Introduction

This project deserves some explanation, as it took some seven years of my life to complete, and even since that completion has seen some interesting twists.

First off, this is a straight-up novelization of Ocarina of Time, but it's not what you might think: a step-by-step recreation of the game, like a player's guide. That would hardly have been worth posting, and I'm sure we've all seen that a thousand times before.

Yes, it follows the storyline of the game, but it does much more than that, as I hope you'll agree. I always felt that the Zelda series deserved a novel, something that tells the story we're all familiar with, except with the kind of plot and character development more often found in literature than in video games. The seeds are there in the game, but sometimes they have to be drawn out.

Probably the biggest twist—and perhaps for some, the hardest to believe—is that this project came painfully close to commercial publication, meaning a professional literary agent actually helped me try to sell this to Nintendo.

I've submitted this project to several literary agencies over the years, but it never really caught anyone's interest until after the manuscript had gone through several revisions and I had really started to narrow down the list of prospects to those I felt were most appropriate for this type of project.

It was the summer of 2009 when I finally got my big chance. Out of respect for the agent who helped me, I'll leave their name out of it, but suffice it to say that the agent who fought the hardest for my cause had some pretty impressive credentials, including a production credit on a major motion picture and writing credits for a popular comic book series.

One of the last emails this agent ever wrote me went something like this: "I offered them a trunkload of money, and they didn't take it." For whatever reason, without having seen a single word of the manuscript, Nintendo refused to consider the novel for publication. Maybe it was me, since they didn't know me from Adam. Maybe they were against the whole idea of a Zelda novel to begin with. Either way, they had made a decision I had to respect.

Now, in 2012, three years after I hit that wall, I feel that this story should be shared with a wider audience. I may not be sharing it the way I hoped I would, but I am happy to finally be sharing it nonetheless. This is what I spent all those years writing. If it inspires or moves even one person, it was worth it.

My plan at this point is to post the prologue and the first chapter and after that to post one or two chapters at a time every week or so. The more response this gets from readers, the more likely I am to post the entire novel. So please feel free to share the link to this story and post reviews!

If you like what you see here—or even if you don't—you may enjoy my first commercial publication, a book titled Virtuous Worlds: The Video Gamer's Guide to Spiritual Truth. You can find it through a title search on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and many other major book dealers. The title is fairly self-explanatory, but if you'd like more info, feel free to send me a PM or check the book out on one of those sites. My focus here on this site will primarily be the Zelda novel.

Without further ado, please enjoy my take on one of the greatest video games of all time, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. And may the way of the Hero lead to the Triforce!

"Zelda was the name of the wife of the famous novelist Francis Scott Fitzgerald. She was a famous and beautiful woman from all accounts, and I liked the sound of her name. So I took the liberty of using her name for the very first Zelda title."

~Shigeru Miyamoto

"I believe that legends and myths are largely made of truth, and indeed present aspects of it that can only be received in this mode."

~J.R.R. Tolkien

"I suspect that men have sometimes derived more spiritual sustenance from myths they did not believe than from the religion they professed."

~C.S. Lewis

Prologue: The Fierce War

Some swearing, some crying for a surgeon,
Some upon their wives left poor behind them,
Some upon the debts they owe,
Some upon their children rawly left.

~Henry V, 4.1.130-133

She fled for her life and the life of her son. On a white horse, across a bloodstained field cluttered with the dead and wounded, through rain and thunder and the moonless night, she fled, clutching the reins in one hand, supporting her son with the other. Behind her, the city rang with the clash of swords and spears, the shouts of victors, and the screams of the dying.

She had left with nothing.

Only her clothes, her son, and the horse had come with her. Her husband had stayed behind, determined to fight with the rest. Even now, he could be dead, but she tried not to think about it. All that mattered was her baby. She had to get him to safety. She had to get him to the forest. It was the only place untouched by this awful war.

"Help me, please!"

A hand snatched at her foot, tearing away her shoe. Other hands grabbed at her knee, her arm, and her thigh, trying to slow her down. Wounded men surrounded her, and she stormed through them, ignoring all for the sake of her child.

A lightning bolt slashed the sky, illuminating the field for miles around. Two more bolts followed, and a peal of thunder crashed, spooking her horse to greater speeds. Ahead, the carnage tapered out, leaving a wide path to the forest, clear of debris.

Or so she thought.

The branch caught her at neck level, flipping her off the saddle and onto the grass, back first. Her son landed in her arms, unscathed. The horse kept going.

Blood ran from a cut on her chin. Her shoulder blade had cracked, and her breath slipped away faster than her ravaged throat could replenish it—but all that mattered was her son. She had to get him to safety.

Crying out at the pain, she pulled herself up, one arm braced around the trunk of the tree. Every muscle throbbed; every bone seemed ready to break. Still, she ran, and when the child began to whimper, she cupped her hand against its cheek and whispered her love.

"We're almost there," she said. "Father will come soon."

The forest loomed in the darkness. Another bolt of lightning speared the clouds, guiding her into the foliage. Her horse had trampled a path through the brush; she took it gratefully, hiding her baby's head from the branches and twigs that scratched her own face.

She hardly knew where she was going, but she knew she would run until her breath finally gave out. Her shoulder continued to spasm with pain. Now her nose was bleeding, and her chest ached with the strain of running.

She broke into the clearing at full speed.

Blue eyes tracked the strange woman as she entered the clearing, carrying the baby. This girl had never seen an Outsider before. The woman seemed lost, like a child far from home.

"Who is she?"

"Hush." The girl silenced the fairy at her side with a quiet rebuke. She hid in the bushes at the edge of the clearing and followed the woman with her eyes.

The woman stopped in the center of the clearing. A massive oak towered over her. She could have gone around it, but instead, she looked up as if to plead with the tree. Finally, she collapsed, and the baby fell out of her arms.

"Oh my…" The blue-eyed girl covered her mouth.

"Go!" her fairy screeched.

She felt the word echo in her head, and she knew then what she had to do.

As the woman lay dying, she stroked her son's face, no longer holding back the tears.

She had failed him. The baby would never survive without her.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, nearly choking on the words. "I'm so sorry."

She barely heard the rustle, barely saw the slender shape racing towards her. By the time she realized there was someone else in the clearing, she was beyond caring.

The mother of the child of destiny had breathed her last.