Legend Of Zelda Fan Fiction ❯ The Legend of Link: Lucky Number 13 ❯ Deus Revelatus Pt. 01: Homecoming King ( Chapter 59 )

Chapter Fifty-nine

 

“Would you like more … um, water, sir?” the waitress asks me for a third time in the last thirty minutes, little tablet and pen ready to jot down an order that'll never require that much precision.

 

“Sure, but throw in the steak and a baked potato,” I reply, looking up at her from my gaze at the ocean just outside the window. “And I like the new hairstyle,” I add to show that I'm paying attention.

 

She smiles, before she goes to get a meal that I could conjure on a whim. Why bother? Well, it's her job, for starters. Secondly, I miss the positive attention. I come here, like its six other regulars, to think. I used to come five or six times a week to remind myself why I don't destroy this planet and be God. Yesterday, however, I got the first piece of good news in a while. I'll get to that later, though.

 

How long has it been since we wiped out Fate? A year to the day, actually. A whopping 360 days that I've had to adjust to the fact that everything is not, how one would say, “good.” What happened? Well, that's complicated. I mean, we know what happened, but the problem may lie in what didn't happen.

 

Guess I'll take you to the bottom and work up to the meat of it all. First things first, how did I come back. Without Fate and Destiny locking things in a hard-line order, shaping reality to suit me was like shaping putty. After I dealt with my aunts and the other gods, all I had to do was warp here. The homecoming was a spectacular highlight of what seemed to be a series of lows.

 

No, I did not cry like a little girl. Okay, maybe a little—but just tears! I expected it to be awkward—and it was beyond that later on—but standing in front of the ruined fortress, it was perfect. Even the next few weeks were amazing … for the most part. If it wasn't for—never mind, I'll get to that later. Anyway, I had just got back and Nabooru was wrapped around me tighter than my tights, and Zelda somehow managed to squeeze in between and hug what wasn't covered up by her mother. The other half of my family was standing about eight feet away patiently waiting for their turns.

 

Everything felt so … good … worthwhile, you know? It was like everything had led me up to that moment and life was just starting right there.

 

Anyway, I wanted to hug them all—Junior, Sepaaru, my mom, hell, even my dad. The reality is that they wanted the same thing, but only one of them seemed upset with the then current goings on. Huh? You'd think it would've been him that was ticked, but it wasn't. Junior just stood there and smiled, sort of waiting his turn to keep me from doing something weird like expanding my wingspan to include him in the hugging process. Sepaaru was the angry one. She realized that I could feel these things and took a massive 300-foot leap backwards and walked off into the arid wasteland. I chose not to follow, because I had something good in front of me and I stuck with that.

 

Still, her reaction would be the first clue that all was not well.

 

On impulse (because I'd been too happy to notice), I returned the planet to what it was prior to Fate's tantrum and my rise to newfound power. Life resumed unfettered from ten minutes before everything went to shit with no one the wiser. An hour later, we were gathered in this Orb Room they'd constructed with people that I hadn't seen in … well, a lot of years. And I owe you thanks for protecting my friends, if I can still even call them that.

 

Huh? No, I didn't tell them about you yet. If Saria hadn't called to say she was trapped in a “magic” bubble, I would've probably never known how close I actually came to losing them. I was too far removed—too focused on ending Fate where he stood—to even remember them when the power kicked into high, let alone protect anyone outside of my immediate vicinity. Still, Saria was there to chide me about forgetting to take the shield away, worrying everyone, and everything else.

 

My ladies, the Gerudo, were all anxious to tell me about their children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren and the wonderful lives they'd made for themselves under Nabooru's rule. People spoke of the joy of immortality; the irony of being happy to have so many healthy children; and the despair of seeing them die. And there were glowing reviews abound for how Nabooru held it all together, which made me smile knowing that the weight of it all hadn't crushed her.

 

They thanked me for the unintentional gift of immortality, but also fought desperately not to ask for more. I must have saw a million pictures, heard a million-million stories, and been hugged a million-million-million times. Nabooru slept through it all, though. She came and sat in my lap about halfway through and silently dozed despite the frenzied nature of it all.

 

“That's probably the first decent bit of sleep she's had in years,” Zelda, former Queen of Hyrule, had noticed. And that made me feel great. It was like I still registered on some level.

 

Still, it was all just knee-jerk reaction.

 

Anyway, my father was my father—meaning there was plenty of sarcasm—but you'd have to be pretty deaf not to notice his incessant bragging. He bragged about his clothes, his shoes, his wealth, his and my mother's “stock.” I didn't have the heart to tell him that some of that stock came from Charon and that a birth defect was responsible for my rise. Huh? Nah, it would've irritated me before, but I could see his time among “the little people” did him some good. It was a great welcome back.

 

For a while, it seemed like everything was going to be all right. It wouldn't surface for a while, but, three weeks later, it spiraled out of control. They, my wife and everyone, insisted on cooking up some false identity for me to go out into this new world. By noon, they'd dressed me up like my dad, complete with dark glasses to mask the eye and white gloves for the hand, against my wishes for tights and a nice tunic. Next thing I know, we're on this outside stage with all these pictob—actually, they're called cameras here. Anyway, flash-flash-flash, clap-clap-clap and Nabooru delivers her speech.

 

I'm sitting there in awe of her, smiling to see her shine so brightly, and then I hear a pop from a few thousand feet out and … react. Someone had attempted to assassinate my wife. After everything I had just gone through, some piece of mortal trash had the audacity to try and take it all away from me! What'd he shoot? Does it matter? Bah, it was some kind of energized crystal meant to cancel whatever protection spells she may have surrounding her. Naturally, I'm going five types of crazy in lieu of this … disrespect. I warped from sitting on this giant stage to her side, caught the crystal, and warped the shooter before me. Upon doing that, I promptly ripped his lower jaw off, jammed his jawbones into his eyes … and proceeded to beat him into paste with the end of the microphone.

 

Apparently, that was the wrong response.

 

Insert people screaming and running for their lives, authorities attempting to arrest me—ME—like I'm the bad guy—and, well, a lot of people died. I admit that my … temper has seen better days, but that was extreme. I come back from the worst years of my life and someone tries to snatch one of my primary motivations for living away. Fuck all if they thought that would fly! I'll see every one of these infantile pieces of garbage … easy, easy. Of course this is easy to talk about. Honest, I mean, it's as easy as passing a boulder through my dick.

 

After that, it was damage control, according to Nabooru. An inner-circle meeting that involved her, my parents, our daughter, my son, and Zelda convened to figure out what to do. It was then that the situation went from bad to worse. An alarm sounded and Nabooru, Zelda, and Junior all kicked into high alert, as did most everyone else, as though mere mortal dangers should concern them now that I was back.

 

This was the second clue that this “joy” and “inclusion” that I was receiving was superficial at best. I bust down the biggest threats all of creation has ever known, but people—my family—act like I'm not even there to help them when the shit hits the wall. Despite all that, I'm trying to get someone—anyone—to explain to me what the big deal was. I stopped an attempted murder, so why was I suddenly being treated like I no longer existed? Why were they trying to arrest me? And why did we flee the scene of the announcement like we were the evil ones?

 

“Sons of bitches!” Nabooru shouted, runic symbols leaping to the surface of her skin, as she rushed for the phone on the table. “Situation? … Where? … Find Sepaaru and get her people down there! No survivors. None!” She then looked at Zelda, former queen that she was, and shouted, “Get your people and back her up!” Zelda snapped to attention and bolted from the room without question.

 

Naturally, I could have eavesdropped on their thoughts, but I was actually shocked about all of this. Thing is, when I'm around them, I instinctively slow my thought process to a virtual crawl to experience everything firsthand as they do. This meant I could be confused. This also meant that I could be surprised. I was as shocked as anyone else, basically. The only problem was that the shock of the situation went no further than me; they were all used to this.

 

I asked, for the umpteenth time, “What's going on?”

 

“Our enemies have hit a weapons manufacturing facility,” Nabooru finally said between barked orders to her people on the phone.

 

“What? Esmerelda!” my father shouted. “Are these your people again? How—”

 

“This isn't us,” my mother replied.

 

“Enemies? Her people? What?” The questions jumped out of my mouth before I knew that I'd asked them, but all I got in return was talked around.

 

Admittedly, I kept sporadic tabs on this room in the midst of my battle, but I could never delve deep into the meat of the minds here, not with my own spiraling out of control. Without thousands of enraged gods clawing for my head, I could assess better if I wanted to, and I did want to, so I did. The knowledge I began to gather … angered me. No, I'm not planning to slaughter a field of stalchildren. This anger thing is … a distraction. Now, pay attention!

 

“There've been wars here,” I said. As I began to siphon thoughts from their collective minds, perfection started to break down. I felt like I was being lied to, and the fact that no one reacted to what I said irritated me. Here they were trying to show this happy front and they'd been fighting almost as much as I had.

 

I looked at Junior and I saw the faces of those that'd died by his hands swirling around him in a vortex of ethereal faces and screaming voices. His calm wasn't because he'd kept faith that I would come back or that he'd even made peace with my absence. His calm was because he'd exorcised his anger through battles with them. How'd I feel? Like the time that you threw us off that cliff into the river in belly-flop position: Raw, itchy agony mixed with the feeling that someone had stepped on my chest in iron boots and shit in my lungs. I failed Zelda, but not him, too. And, as I turned towards my daughter, I saw the same thing. It was another blow, though, slightly softened by her altruistic intentions of helping the less fortunate. This still wasn't how it was supposed to go down. They were supposed to be happy here, carefree.

 

My kids … my babies had … killed many, many, many times over.

 

Almost from the time that I'd put them there to the present day, my family, my friends—they'd been the target of people that I created. I … I should have known it would happen. I just didn't care, though. Creation: it was part of the training. I refused and refused, but I got curious and tinkered around once. It wasn't even worth mentioning; just another run of the mill thing to do that led me home to my new family and ensured I didn't kill them. I took bits and pieces from all the civilizations, worlds, and times that I'd seen, used myself as a template for the people, and left the rest up to … fate.

 

And I got them fucked for it was all I kept thinking.

 

“Understand, I was going to tell you,” Nabooru told me, approaching me from her phone now that I'd put the puzzle together. “I … I was hoping that you could sit down for a minute, relax, and rest before hearing bad news.”

 

Again, I was too angry … too fast … to listen. I suppose that even if the fight was over with the Originals, the anger wasn't. Plus, there's what those three wenches did to me… fucking … no, no, I'm fine. They'll be getting theirs for years to come, but that's a story for another day.

 

Back then, though, I wasn't fine. In less than one second, I had taken the reins completely off my mind. A millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a second after that, I knew everything there was to know about the entire planet's populace. I knew the leaders of the movement against the survivors of Old Hyrule. I knew addresses, locations of hideouts, weapon stashes, financial figures, and a million other useless tidbits of information about this mortal enemy.

 

My daughter, nice person that she is, tried to change the subject as the red glow from my eye escalated around the rim of the sunshade glasses and eventually melted them from my face.

 

“So, I'm sure you're wondering why she was yelling into the box,” she said in reference to the phone, half hoping and half assuming that time displacement mattered to me in lieu of the current situation.

 

I could've opted not to speak because all I did next was set off a chain reaction that knocked down my frail house of cards.

 

“Don't patronize me,” I began, which is always a great way to start a conversation. “It's a telephone and I've known about the silly things since you were a child,” I responded, condescension on high as I spoke. “It'll be obsolete in 436 years when telepathic birthrates begin to outnumber so called normal ones on this world. Left alone, the lives here will follow the same pattern as the rest of the worlds out there.” I kept going after that, too, outlining the course of technological-, magical-, and natural-based evolution. I shit on their advances, hard-earned as they probably were, as just another thing.

 

No, it wasn't a joke at all. It wasn't, “Oh, Link is telling us one of his stories.” It was like, for the first time ever, I wasn't Link talking. I was THE God Link delivering divine insight unto the unwashed masses. Yeah, that's exactly it: It was like a god/worshipper relationship between an owner and his animals. The animals don't know where you get their food, cures to their diseases or their shelter from, but you're their god because you consistently provide it. Unfortunately, I was once one of those “animals,” so there was a disconnection between us when someone they thought was one of their own started producing the godly food instead of waiting by the trough with them to receive it.

 

As much as everyone wanted to act like they hadn't seen me for a few days, I dropped it all in their laps: I had been gone for years and on a person-to-person level, which was probably the biggest blow, no matter how far they had ascended, I was still above them quite literally. Imagine gaining as much wealth and influence as these people have, some going from foot soldiers to more than the Hero of Time at his highest in Old Hyrule, that's an amazing rise to them. There's a part of them that felt like they were my equals or probably betters now thanks to their global statuses. I come in and dismiss it all in a paragraph, establishing that not only are their advances and statuses mundane to me, but they should also be mundane to them because everyone would have them.

 

It was unintended arrogance that ran leagues deeper because, try as might to deny it, I am the premier god now—and no amount of wealth or global influence trumps that.

 

By the time that I decided to think on their level again, I was standing there surrounded not by friendly family and friends, but confused people. Excuses were quickly levied, some great, others not so, as to why people had to leave. I tried to explain, apologize, hell, even say something, but I could already hear the doubt—the fear—creeping into their minds. Before long, it was just me and Nabooru. Heh, I remember thinking, “There used to be a time when silence with her wasn't uncomfortable.” Naturally, I did the only thing that I could do: Asked her to give it up and come home to Hyrule—Old Hyrule—with me. I was working my way up to asking, but I got so lost in the happiness and seeing my family alive that I literally forgot this wasn't my home.

 

“What?” Nabooru asked in mild irritation, half listening to me as she went towards the elevator and hit the call button. “Can we talk about this later?” She wasn't even listening to me.

 

Nabooru uttered an incantation and disappeared before the elevator came or I could reply. Why? It was the same reason they all left me there alone: They were afraid of me. That was the third and final clue that things were messing up. God mind or not, it was the one thing that I should've recognized more than anything: Powerful people are afraid of people who can unseat them from that power. As we saw with Fate, it is a basic rule that is as old as life itself.

 

Even without delving into that part of their minds, I am fear; I know what everything is afraid of. At that moment, it was me that they feared. Not the abstract “by default they fear me because I am fear,” but they feared me as the person who made them feel inferior by proxy. It is jealousy and inadequacy combined with the uncertainty and scale of what I am that causes them to fear me. I'm the unknown that they don't want to associate with, but I'm also a friend to some degree, even if they haven't treated me much like one since that day.

 

Friend or enemy: which one am I?

 

It was too much for them to take. Even for my proud parents, I had become the unknown quantity. Stronger than Fate and Destiny? Sure. But what did that really mean? You easily wiped out Hadrian. I naturally wiped out Fate. And let us not forget the Originals and Destiny. Hell, even your presence is a question mark in judging me. Yes, I know you aren't out to harm them, but I've known you infinitely longer than they have.

 

No, they never came right out and said it, but looking back, there were a lot of little signs to show how uncomfortable we made the family. A lot of “how are `we' doing today?” or jokes about shadows and two-for-one sales. Well, that's true—can't say that you have a Shadow Demon living within you and not draw some odd thoughts. The fact still stands that I've gone beyond even my parents' ability to comprehend and, more importantly, all of their abilities to cope.

 

I've done the— No, I am the impossible and now no one seems to know what to do with me.

 

Yes, kick me when I'm down. Why do you think I wanted them to see the “big fight”? I wanted them to know that from that moment until forever they were safe. There was nothing alive or dead that could harm them so long as I was there. More than that, I wanted them to know that I was okay and that the family would be back together soon. It just went to shit right in my hands, though. Give up? I didn't give up. After all that I've done, I couldn't give up. I did too much to let the situation rot around me without trying, so I changed to accommodate.

 

If it took losing the tights, the tunic, and the boots permanently to make me fit in, so be it. From the day they left me down there, I dressed in that exact outfit every day that followed—black shirt, green necktie, black pants, and black shoes. I even went the extra step and twisted reality around my eye and arm to make them normal looking to the people around me, and I was foolishly ready to talk them into believing I was just like everybody else.

 

Oh, I admit that freely: I was desperate. Extremely desperate. I needed acceptance like they needed air. Longer, more gut twisting story short: Even if you dress up the giant, super god like a man, it's still a giant, super god. Forgoing that logic, I emerged from the Orb Room and went about through the fortress—now a full-on governing building of offices and employees who attempted to restrict my access—looking to set things right.

 

I spent the next six months being a fucking salesman. I was there with some positive spiel at any given moment, trying to sell the idea of a normal me, but it wasn't endearing or even really acknowledged. “Friend or enemy: which one am I?” the question that kept me stuck in a virtual gray area with everyone I knew. No one had an answer, so no one knew how to treat me.

 

Nabooru rarely if ever slept in the same bed with me after those first few weeks, insisting that it was one problem after the next that she had to delegate until I got the hint and just stopped asking. Even looking back at the magical weeks of happiness, it was more like two strangers forced to bunk together. No touching, no sex, just … two bodies on a bed. And the few times we did sleep in the same bed after that, she slept over on the opposite side.

 

Sure, I had conversations. Of course, if I didn't keep pumping words out, the people that I was talking to would start making excuses and walking away at any pause. I tried arguing with my father, talking to my mother, my kids, Sepaaru, and my so-called wife and came up pretty much empty. And when confronted directly, everyone kept hitting me with the same excuse: “Give me time.” I tried to honor that request, but the more I tried, the more it physically hurt. I went through all of that and no one could be bothered to talk to me for more than five minutes at a time, even after I practically denied who and what I am? It hurt worse than the beating—a lot worse.

 

There had to be someone fucking me, but who? You told me that Original was here waiting for me, but it was gone when I got back. Furthermore, so was my uncle. No, I don't think he'd set me up, but that thing? Maybe this was its final fight before it crawled off. I expanded my mind to the point of omniscience, but neither of them was in the land of the living that I could see. And if they weren't alive, they were dead. So, who was left that had the will, knowledge, and the power to do this to me?

 

Yes! That's exactly what I thought, too! This was Fate! He had to have fucked me somehow! Even if he was scared, he must've had some kind of contingency plan. I got with Charon and he agreed with our assessment that Fate must've done something before dying. We approached him—well, the fractured husk that looked like him—and I was allowed to interrogate.

 

“Ah! Ah! Ah!” he whispered, bounding around the little corner of the underworld that Charon had laid out for him. The pain of being ripped apart in that many directions had splintered his once brilliant mind and left his soul in a paradox of insane sanity. “What have you come to do now, fearless leader? Who's afraid of you? We are! We are!” he laughed, twisted smile smeared across his face, mumbling to things that only he could see.

 

I smacked him hard into a wall.

 

“What did you do to them?” I asked, picking him up by his throat, red eye shining through and casting his shadow against the wall.

 

“Who do belchoo … I see nipoo!” he laughed. Even though he was a soul, he visibly looked like a cracked dark glass statue that had been poorly glued back together, as thousands of white cracks littered his body. “I didn't do anything!” Fate then shouted, mind clearing for a brief moment, before the fog of madness reset. “Doo, doo, doooo! I've doo'd—”

 

“Shut up! Yes, you did!” I insisted as the anger set in. I then escalated the demands for the truth into periodic beatings to keep him focused and to make me feel better.

 

Truthfully, I was enjoying the release of frustration. The months of near isolation from my family were beginning to take their toll on me and smacking him around was the most joyful moment that I had since first returning. What I hadn't planned on was the dagger that he spit straight into my soul. I broke his arm in seven places with a thought and his mind latched together long enough to almost kill me where I stood.

 

“Arrogant fool!” he shouted, his former vocal authority echoing through the chamber, as he grabbed his arm. “You threw your family into a fire! Through that single act, you forged them into a sword! Like pieces of iron, they were heated up, melted, and battered until they bonded together into a single, deadly unit. You, on the other hand, opted to protect them. You chose to be a scabbard, Hero—always there to protect the sword, but never, ever really a part of it.” Fate's mind slipped again and he started rambling nonsense, but the blow was struck. “Alone … lone … lone! Aaaaaaaaaloooooooooooone!” he shouted, madness resuming unfettered.

 

I dropped him and it's never been that hard to stand. While I sought to protect them, I had unwittingly brought them all together without me. Positive on one hand, sure, but how damning on another. How typical of me. Charon came in a few hours later and found me on my knees. I told him what Fate had told me and he tried to tell me it was a lie, but even without eyes, I could look into his empty sockets and tell that was bullshit. It was then that I stopped reacting and started thinking. If I can forge a sword, I can do the exact opposite, right?

 

Fucking right I can! I'm a god!

 

Unfortunately, the more I thought, the more I began to see the painful truth. The result of all this thinking was the realization that, quite simply, we're different. Despite fighting for millennia, I'm still just as close to my family as the day that I left. There is no emotional rift indicating time of a substantial amount has passed on my end. I have the knowledge that all of these years have passed, but I only feel this last year where I've been near totally abandoned.

 

On their end, the story is different. There are centuries on top of centuries worth of history and within that history there's accepting, coping, and healing—and this is all on top of the newfound fear. Despite Nabooru's best efforts to believe the contrary—the obsession with my battle, the paintings, the reaction to my grandfather, and the disdain she contends to hold for this world in her mornings—I've become a part of her ritual at worst and an exaggerated memory at best. The minute I came back and wasn't that man from the memory exactly, it was a gradual return to business as usual for her.

 

Left alone, I started spending days slinking through their minds, and found different spins on the situation with Nabooru: there was an image of how they remembered me, the real man deviated, and they had no answer for it. Still, Nabooru's was the most elaborate. There's almost a giant memorial of me in her head that keeps her going, but it also keeps her alone. She thinks it's that bogus spell that I cast, but, truthfully … yeah, you know me. As far as lies go, I thought it was a better one. Make her think that she couldn't love anyone but me. She wins by getting to trust herself and regaining her confidence. I get my wife back. Win-win situation.

 

Sepaaru? Opposite, actually. She didn't want to remember me. She's also taken a few lovers over the years since my exodus, but felt justified because there wasn't a spell keeping her hooked to me. Now, she feels guilty because she knew that I wouldn't do something like that to one of them and just used it as an excuse to “cheat.” Hmm? Nah, I see her from time to time, but the conversations only last a few moments.

 

Now, she's also dealing with the old memories: dying, almost being raped, the virginity thing, how I treated Junior, and the oath not to intrude on me and Nabooru's lives. The last one is why she tries harder than all others to avoid me. Plus, she lost her father for the “greater good” and … I don't know, I guess I understand why she doesn't try most of all. I could remake him from the layout in Fate's design, but she's told me not to.

 

Oh? The kids? They're the only ones trying to be here. I'd give my right arm for more time or less awkward pauses, but a drowning man can't be picky.

 

Junior or, rather, General, as he prefers it, is fine—strong, confident, smart, talented, and I could go on—but he's finally achieved a name for himself that exists outside of the shadow of mine. He and Saria have been married since he was twenty years old. It was a beautiful ceremony that I watched through Nabooru's memories. Still, as beautiful as it was, they can't have children. Those were hard memories to witness—his and hers—as even his magic wouldn't allow it to happen.

 

That rage was also turned on their enemies, I found. He'd clear out entire armies of wizards before the armistice by himself, a deadly release given the raw level of magic being practiced here. It wouldn't be until the science of this world evolved that Junior and Saria would know why they were incompatible. He'd figured it to be my fault for making him half god, anger that also went towards their enemies. The truth, however, was that Saria was half plant.

 

Let that sink in: Deku Tree grabbing tissue samples of Hylians and combining it with himself to make the Kokiri.

 

I've saw to it that that issue was fixed. They no longer remember getting that news, because it never happened. Saria's two months pregnant with her first child. What? With my level of ability, the resistance of memory alteration is non-existent. It's like a piece of paper resisting a tidal wave. Well, if that wasn't what you meant, what did you mean? Why'd I do it? They deserve to be parents, so I gave them what they wanted. No, I don't think it was wrong.

 

As for Zelda, well, eh, Zelda's working through some things. The issues with how her mother and I went sour still haunt her here. She didn't become involved with anyone until she found, of all people, Talon the Second. Yep, Malon's boy, one of her oldest friends. Uh huh, that makes him also the child of Hadrian disguise Ingo. Well, he's not exactly her uncle, because Hadrian elected not to pass his genes on, hence Talon's technically not related.

 

How'd he get here? Turns out, he was one of the Sheikah that she saved the night I was attacked. Who'd have guessed his grandfather would've been Sheikah? Suppose I should've known. Man his size who moved that fast and hung out in Kakariko Village in his spare time with no means of warping and without riding a horse? He had to be a former warrior. Anyway, their relationship seems to be quite spectacularly distant. Zelda likes to keep things at arm's length because she's not trying to repeat her mother's mistake. Well, at least she's sleeping with someone that loves her. And the Goddesses gave me that bullshit about mortal love length? Ha!

 

In fact, when we get back tomorrow, I'm weaving that into reality: Love is forever.

 

What now? Oh, what happened yesterday? Right! Sorry, I got so bogged down in the crud that I forgot about the good news. In the end, after all this isolation and anger, all it took was time. Yeah, I guess I was cracking up for a bit there. I mean, it's only been a year. Given more time, I'll earn their confidence, and prove my normalcy away from this world of madness. That's the good news: We're going back home.

 

Hyrule—Old Hyrule—was one of the few subjects that made for natural conversation. There was always something to smile or laugh about when that was the subject. People did more than wait for a chance to run from me; they participated in the reminiscing. I'd been always planning to bring the subject of going back up, but with everything that's been on my mind, I always kept putting it off. So, anyway, yesterday is when I suggested it to Nabooru during a lunch meeting.

 

Somehow, I had got her to agree to the little date, and when she got here we started talking about the old archery track. We were laughing about this hideous trick that I attempted, which made Epona throw me off, and into a heap of shit. As we laughed, it was like I had my best friend back. That's when I laid my cards on the table and, in the midst of this good time, I proposed we go home again. This time, instead of blowing me off, she tells me that it's a good idea and that she'll put the word out in case anyone else wants to go.

 

I would've liked to have kissed her, but it was too soon for that. Still, if I had a heart, it would've exploded from the sheer level of happiness. I got another shot—and this time there are no gods to fuck it all up! For two hours, we did nothing but laugh and talk. Now, a day later, and in less than five hours, I can have that perfection. I'm supposed to meet them out in the old archery track at midnight to take everyone back who wants to go.

 

I—Hold on. Food's here. I'm painfully aware that I don't have to eat, but I want to. So, we'll continue this conversation in a little while. Next time I see you, I'll hopefully be at home.

 

Take care.

 

 

Author's Notes: Apologies for the delay, first and foremost. I didn't know how much more bleak I could keep this without being beaten by flaming muskrats, but I think I've got something interesting where the main conflict is within the family again. There'll be external conflict, too, as not everyone responded to Fate's call to arms. Make of that what you will. The Goddesses will make another appearance, though, in what capacity, I can't say. Questions can always be answered at redknight2k@Hotmail.com.