[Continued from a previous post; if your e-mail client shows posts in order by 
the most recent, stop and read segment 1 first or this part won't make sense. 
Also note that this half is where the potential spoilers start if you haven't 
played the most recent Zelda games, namely Ocarina of Time and the Oracles 
games.]

     It was fortunate that most of the festival-goers were also headed
towards the castle square, because the crowds were too thick to fight through
as Link and his father made their way through the streets. All along the way,
Link's father maintained a steady monologue of "Excuse us, coming through,
pardon me, excuse us ..." as he elbowed and shouldered his way past idlers at
one stand or another.
     "Good thing Gorons don't hang around in the streets," Link's father
muttered as they reached the square, just as the trumpeters were playing the
royal fanfare. "Just in time ... ah, stop fidgeting with your glove, boy."
     "My hand itches," Link complained. "Gaaaaaah ..."
     "Leave it be," whispered Link's father as the king and queen emerged
onto the balcony above the square. "Now keep quiet and look polite!"
     "Citizens of Hyrule," boomed the king, "we welcome all of those who have
made the journey here to celebrate the legends on which our nation is founded!
Legends of each of the races - Hylian, Kokiri, Zora, Goron, Gerudo - and as of
today, legends of the Moblins and Goriya as well. It is our great pleasure to
announce that from this day forward, all those members of the Moblin and
Goriya races who uphold the nation's laws and choose to accept citizenship
will indeed be counted as citizens of Hyrule!"
     Many of the cheers which went up from the crowd were reluctant to a
greater or lesser degree, but Link and his father were honestly cheered by the
news. Link knew that Moblins, Goriyas, and some other intelligent species were
more typically brigands and worse than law-abiding citizens of the realm.
     "Today," the king continued, "we celebrate the ancient heroes who have
shaped the course of our history -"
     A pair of high-pitched cackles interrupted him. "Heroes?" exclaimed one
of the voices, "HEROES?! Why only celebrate the heroes?"
     The other voice chimed in, "Why not remember the VILLAINS too?!"
     In an instant, Link realized that the shadow his sharp-eyed father had
seen earlier hadn't been a bird ... because the owners of the voices became
visible above the square: figures humanoid in form, barely recognizable as
feminine due to their height above the ground, and riding what Link would have
sworn were broomsticks. One was clad in red, the other in blue, and as they
swooped down on the castle square, their turbans disappeared to reveal the
figures' hair, or what passed for it: instead of real hair, the red-robed
enchantress had a mane of fire spreading from her scalp, while her blue-clad
companion bore flowing ice.
     "Damn!!" swore Link's father, fumbling at the cords which held his sword
in its scabbard. "Link, get out of here now! Those Gerudo witches are going to
-"
     "Get out *how?!*" cried Link. "There's too many people in the streets
around the square!"
     "They'll start running - NO!!" With a jerk, Link's father yanked his
sword from its sheath, snapping the cords and struggling to get the blade
above crowd level, but he was too late and too far away to do anything with
it; still well above the people's heads, the two broom-riding sorceresses
began unleashing blasts of fire and ice upon the citizenry below. Link's
father swore long and hard enough to make a longshoreman flinch, and with
enough force for Link to hear clearly above the rising screams. "Link, I'm
telling you to GO!! Don't wait for me, don't look back, get your horse and
head back to our village!"
     Reluctantly, Link turned towards the street by which he and his father
had reached the square - and found that it was blocked by a block of ice
easily as wide as three Gorons, because that was exactly who was encased
within the ice. "Oh, no ..."
     "Gerudo witches," spat the king as the two flying spellcasters hovered
level with the balcony. A burst of fire forced both king and queen back
towards their thrones. "What do you want?!"
     "For the people of Hyrule to remember their *true* history," hissed the
red-cloaked witch. "You can't have heroic legends without monsters for the
heroes to fight, can you?"
     "And an ultimate evil to be defeated by those same heroes," added the
blue-robed witch, leaning over the side of the balcony to sneer at the queen.
"And a princess in danger ... like your daughter ... a princess named Zelda."
     "Call your daughter," hissed the fire witch. "Now. Or I'll burn you down
to ash where you sit, and we'll find her by ourselves."
     The king swallowed hard, sweat trickling down his face. "You'll never
get away with this."
     "Why? Because of the festival? Because of all the valiant citizens
gathered here to remember the bright and shiny version of their history?" The
ice-wielding witch cackled, glancing downwards and scattering a few shards of
magical ice amongst the crowd. "They're sheep, you old fool! Sheep waiting to
be herded by whoever has the force of will to tell them where to go and what
to do - even if they're sent to their own deaths!"
     "Father?" The door at the back of the balcony opened slowly, revealing a
girl in a gown of pale pink satin, her long, honey-blonde hair pulled back
from her face in a loose but ornate braid. "I heard ..."
     "Zelda, RUN!" shouted the queen. "Run for your AAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!"
     "MOTHER!!" shrieked Princess Zelda as her mother was simultaneously
frozen and incinerated. "By the Triforce, no!!"
     "The Triforce?" The red-robed Gerudo hissed softly as her gaze slid from
the steaming remains of the queen to the wide eyes of Hyrule's princess. "The
Triforce ... you know what it is. You know *where* it is. You will lead us to
it. Or you will die, much more painfully and infinitely more slowly than your
dear departed mother ... you will give the Triforce into our hands, and
whether you live to regret that action depends entirely on how much you resist
us now." Smoke rose from the witch's fingers as she raised her hands to point
at Zelda. "And you will make your decision ... now."
     The princess took a step back, her breasts rising and falling rapidly
within the confines of her gown, her heart racing just as fast. "I ... you ...
who are you ... ?"
     "We are Twinrova," whispered the blue-robed witch, an icicle forming in
her hand and growing swiftly to the size of a sword, with edges just as sharp.
"Our own names no longer mean anything in the face of our destiny and mission.
Now ... dear princess ... DECIDE!"
     "NO!" shouted Zelda. "I will not - !" She didn't finish the sentence,
heaving the balcony door closed just ahead of the blazing fire that rushed
towards her; the oaken door was heavy and thick, strong enough that the first
blast of flame failed to burn right through it.
     "Little bitch!" snapped the fire sorceress, flames lashing out to
ensnare the immobile king in a deadly embrace. His death cries echoed over the
turmoil and panic of the crowd below; Twinrova ignored both as they blasted
their way through the door in pursuit of the princess.
     There was one cry to which they should have paid attention: the wails of
a boy who has just seen his father frozen in a solid block of ice, a raised
sword forming the core of an upwards spire.

     Her skirts hiked up around her knees, royal propriety be damned to the
Dark Realm, Zelda ran through the corridors of the royal palace, rushing down
stairs as quickly as her feet could carry her. She had to reach the chamber in
which the Triforce was kept, and quickly; somehow she knew that the ancient
symbol held the only hope of stopping Twinrova from achieving their goal,
whatever that might be.
     Impa was nowhere to be found; both of her parents were dead.
Technically, Zelda was no longer princess, but queen of Hyrule - but only if
she and her country survived long enough for her to be queen of anything more
than her own fate. That thought echoed in her mind, backed by the dying
screams of the king and queen, almost as loud as her desperation as she
navigated through the depths of the palace, trusting instinct to guide her.
     Finally, she reached the ancient door which served as the last physical
barrier between the Triforce and the outside world, and Zelda collapsed
against the wall just next to it. It was a solid door in solid walls, wood and
steel set in the thickest, heaviest stones, and believed impervious to any
attack - but after seeing magical ice and fire used together, Zelda was no
longer certain of anything.
     "Princess ..."
     With a startled gasp, Zelda jerked upright, leaning back against the
wall as Twinrova floated around the corner at the bottom of the stairs. "You
led us right to it," snickered the ice witch. "You're too kind ... yes, we can
feel the power of the Triforce from here; maybe you won't need to *give* it to
us if the power is unsealed this much."
     "You'll never get the Triforce," promised Zelda, her hands cupped in
front of her heart. "Every part of my being ... all the strength in my body
and spirit ... I'll use all that I have, all that I *am*, to stop you."
     "Oh, my dear princess," sneered the fire witch, drifting from side to
side across the corridor as she slowly closed the distance between the stairs
and Zelda. "Poor Princess Zelda, ignorant of her own heritage ... it's not
your destiny to drive off Twinrova and protect the Triforce, is it? No ...
Zelda never *really* protects her kingdom, especially not when she's just been
orphaned ... it's your destiny, Zelda, to fall before evil's power."
     "There's more than one orphan here, witches of the Gerudo!!"
     As one, the pair of witches looked behind them, towards the base of the
stairs; all they saw was a flash of reflected torchlight as a metal boomerang
slashed through the air, ripping at their robes before returning to the hand
from which it had been thrown.
     Zelda let out a sigh of relief. "Whoever you are, I thank you. But
they're still alive ..."
     Link shook his head as he stepped into the light of the nearest torches.
"I don't have the weapons to kill them; let's get out of here and leave them
for the guards."
     "The guards can't handle them - I saw them murder my parents; the guards
can't handle that kind of magic."
     "Yours too ..." Link looked down, then remembered who he was talking to
and belatedly got down on one knee. "I beg forgiveness, Your Highness. I am
named Link."
     "Link ..." Zelda looked at the vault door. "The legends are coming true
again. - Link, we have to take the Triforce away from here."
     "That will not be necessary." Icicles shot past Zelda, covering the
vault door in a thick layer of frost.
     "The Triforce will serve our purpose just fine where it is." Both of the
Twinrova witches hovered next to each other, flames starting to curl from the
fingers of the sorceress in red. "Now, princess, unless you desire to die
where you stand ..."
     "Oh, no," moaned Zelda. "Link, MOVE!" She half-lifted the boy to his
feet as she dragged him towards the relative safety of an alcove; he stumbled
along after her, reaching shelter just before a gout of flames worthy of a
dragon seared down the corridor, slamming into the frozen door - and blasting
it into so much dust and smoke.
     As soon as the flames had passed, Zelda stepped back out into the
corridor, gathering up all of the magical power she could muster and flinging
it at the two witches; the shockwave slammed into Twinrova, momentarily
unbalancing them, but they straightened out and bore down on the vault,
grabbing Zelda between the two of them and soaring through the still-
smoldering doorway.
     "Hey, wait!" Link scrambled back to his feet and gave chase, but he was
only in time to see the princess deposited roughly on the stone floor and the
pair of witches land next to the pedestal beneath a shining golden set of
linked triangles.
     The Triforce itself was unprotected.
     Twinrova laughed in unison as they dismounted from their brooms. "Now,"
spoke the red-cloaked witch.
     "We," continued her blue-robed sister.
     "Will,"
     "Attain,"
     "OUR WISH!!" Their bodies glowed, red and blue respectively, then merged
into one form, white fading rapidly into black, then revealing the combined
form of Twinrova: ice on one side, fire on the other, taller and more lethally
beautiful than either of the separate witches.
     "NO!!!!" howled Link, drawing and flinging his boomerang, then drawing
his wooden sword from its scabbard at his belt.
     Ice encased the boomerang in mid-flight, freezing it so deeply that both
ice and metal shattered when they struck the ground; white-hot flames reduced
what was left to liquid, and smoke rose where molten metal seared the floor.
     "Foolish boy," proclaimed Twinrova in a dual voice. "You can oppose
neither us nor our master - the master who will now be reborn." Ignoring Link,
Twinrova turned back to face her goal, and reached out to grasp the Triforce.
"Hear our wish, gift of the three great goddesses! By fire, water, and wind,
through courage, wisdom, and power, we claim thy power and our goal! Undo the
spell of ages past, revoke the curse of the seven sages, and let the incarnate
King of Evil, Ganon, be freed from his eternal dark prison!"
     "No," whispered Zelda as the Triforce began to shine more brightly.
"Please, Triforce, do *not* grant their evil wish ..."
     The Triforce didn't speak as its golden light intensified; Twinrova was
forced to let go of the sacred artifact in order to shield her eyes. "We have
claimed the power of the Triforce," said Twinrova in a voice of quiet triumph.
"Nothing can prevent our wish."
     "Din! Nayru! Farore!" cried Zelda. "By these sacred names do I plead,
let the Triforce be scattered! Power, Wisdom, Courage be separated, and let
the power of the Triforce seek a new master when all are reunited!"
     "It is too late!" exclaimed Twinrova. "Our master is being reborn!"
     Link briefly considered saying something like "Not if I can help it!"
but discarded the heroism of legends in favor of a more practical approach,
such as sneaking up and striking Twinrova from behind. At best, he considered,
he would break through the intense magic and fulfill Zelda's wish before
Twinrova turned around and killed him out of hand; at worst he would simply be
sent to join his father's spirit and the ghosts of so many others in whatever
kind of afterlife existed.
     He didn't get the chance to do either, as a blinding flash of light
filled the chamber. Something immensely powerful rushed through Link's body,
leaving him enervated and as weak as a kitten in its wake, yet ready to face
the worst that either Light or Dark World had to offer.
     When the light faded, the Triforce was gone ... and Link realized that
whatever power he had felt in that rush was little more than an illusion as he
looked up at a massive form, as dark as midnight, with a face that looked
somewhere between that of a Moblin and that of a wild boar.
     From the floor next to where he was standing, Link thought he heard
Zelda begin to cry softly.
     "TWINROVA," boomed Ganon, "YOU HAVE DONE WELL. MY PRISON HAS FINALLY
BEEN BROKEN; AFTER COUNTLESS AGES, AT LONG LAST I AM FREE!!"
     Twinrova's body dissolved and separated, the two witches genuflecting in
unison before the King of Evil. "We are born to serve you, Lord Ganon,"
murmured the red-robed Gerudo witch, "as our ancestors were so long ago. What
would you have us do with those who stand in your way now?"
     Ganon turned around slowly, surveying the vault. "TAKE THE PRINCESS
ZELDA; I SHALL SUMMON YOU TO BRING HER WHEN MY FORTRESS IS COMPLETED. AS FOR
THE BOY, HE MATTERS NOT. WE SHALL LEAVE THIS PLACE AND BEGIN TO GATHER MY
FORCES; WE MUST FIND THE TRIFORCE WHICH ZELDA SO FOOLISHLY HAS SCATTERED."
     "We are born to serve," repeated the blue-cloaked half of Twinrova as
she scooped up Zelda's unresisting body and straddled her broomstick. "The
Moblins and Goriyas who came to the festival ..."
     "THEY ARE FOOLS!!" thundered Ganon, his giant fist slamming into the
stone wall hard enough to crack it. "THOSE WHO DO NOT SERVE ME ARE AGAINST ME!
LET THOSE WHO WILL OBEY THE WILL OF GANON FLOCK TO MY BANNER; ALL OTHERS SHALL
BE DOOMED TO SUFFERING AND DESPAIR!"
     "It shall be as you decree," bowed the red-garbed witch as her
broomstick rose into the air beneath her. "The king and queen are dead by our
hands, and Zelda is our prisoner; Hyrule is yours over which to reign."
     "NOT UNTIL PRINCESS ZELDA IS DEAD," Ganon corrected the enchantress.
"AND BY THE TIME HER BODY IS CARRION, I WILL HAVE THE POWER I NEED TO ENFORCE
MY RULE. NOW LET US GO, AND QUICKLY; I HAVE NO DESIRE TO FIGHT OUR WAY THROUGH
THE ROYAL GUARDS OF HYRULE." He casually backhanded Link across the face, hard
enough to fling the boy's limp body clear across the vault and crashing into
the stone wall. As Link's body slumped to the floor, the pain of his impact
and the other injuries he'd collected over the course of the day seemed to
fade away ... the only thing he felt was the burning sensation on the back of
his still-gloved left hand.
     The last thought he had before losing consciousness was a memory of his
dream from the night before.

                         TO BE CONTINUED

Author's notes:
     This is actually my first independent fanfiction work in some time; I
wrote what may have been my last episode of MTCFF Ultra a month or so ago, and
I have a couple of other projects simmering at the moment, including the
DHY/BtVS crossover which is in a holding pattern (it's set between seasons 3
and 4 as far as the Buffy angle goes, so no worries about her being dead), but
I really wanted to do a Zelda fanfic - something which I don't think there
have been many of.
     Why write about The Legend of Zelda? It's been one of my favorite game
series, in one way or another, ever since the original game on the original
Nintendo Entertainment System; unfortunately, it wasn't until this summer that
I actually *finished* a Zelda game.
     The problem has been that I've never had a video game system of my own,
so until recently, I could only play video games on rented systems. "Recently"
dates back roughly to the American release of Pokemon Red and Blue, when I
finally marshalled my resources and bought a Game Boy Pocket; I considered
buying Link's Awakening, but I was never totally sure about it ... and then
the Oracles games came out for the Game Boy Color - by which time a friend had
given me a GBC, and I finally dove back into the Zelda canon.
     Quick recap here: I've played part of the original Legend of Zelda, a
little bit of The Adventure of Link (I didn't like the changes), about the
first half of A Link to the Past (through the fight with Agahnim in the
castle), and both Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons, in both individual and
continuation modes. Link's Awakening and the N64 Zelda games I've only
heard/read about.
     Nintendo's own website for the Zelda universe would have you believe
that all of the Zelda games take place over the lifetime of a single Link; I
have a hard time believing that based on what *I* know, and some of the other
Zelda players I've met online (who have more knowledge of the actual games)
don't believe a word of it. With that thought in mind, I considered the series
title: The Legend of Zelda. And I thought about the way the timeline seems to
be arranged when you look at the major games (at least if you define "major"
as those in which Link actually fights Ganon).
     It breaks down roughly into three eras, at least in my opinion: the N64
game, Ocarina of Time, sets the first time period - Ganon's origin and the
seven sages, and a starting point for the legend proper as the "Hero of Time"
performed the deeds which would inspire Hyrulian minstrels and bards for ages
to come. Majora's Mask is set roughly in the same period as Ocarina, and the
introductory animations for the Oracles games suggests that they fall into
this period as well.
     The second major era (again in my book) begins with A Link to the Past
on the Super NES; this game contains the first references to the seven sages
(note that it came out well *before* Ocarina of Time) who sealed the Dark
World. Link's Awakening, the first Zelda title on a handheld system, was set
in this time period when it was released.
     Finally we have the original NES Zelda games. By this point, the third
part of the Triforce has been "lost" and never appears during the battle
against Ganon; it wasn't until Zelda II: The Adventure of Link that any
mention was made of a third Triforce besides those of Wisdom and Power. The
canon in this period is somewhat notably fuzzy, too ... at least as far as I
know. ^.^;
     Anyway, three different time periods - and the Zelda title that's
forthcoming for GameCube may make it four, which would be appropriate in a
one-period-per-home-console kind of way. (Handheld systems, for better or for
worse, don't count into that pattern. At least not yet. We'll see what the
Game Boy Advance holds for the Zelda canon.) So I thought, "Why not take the
story and its standard 'rules' into an area the games aren't likely to touch?"
and started making mental notes for the series.
     Here you see the first part of the results, and I really hope that (1)
you've enjoyed it so far and (2) I can keep myself up to this kind of
standard. Part of the reason I'm writing this *now* is to keep myself from
getting homesick while I'm in Japan for my year of study-abroad.
     Actually, the being-in-Japan part is a more direct contribution ...
because, as a nice little side effect of being in Tokyo, I got to go to
Nintendo Spaceworld last weekend with some of my IES classmates, and the Smash
Bros. Deluxe page in the guidebook included a Japanese phrase which I'd been
searching for: the original Japanese term for Link's infamous Spin Attack.
Hopefully you figured it out in the reading, but if you didn't, that's the
Kaitengiri. ^_^;
     Anyway, it's late and my laptop's batteries are low, so I'll end the
notes here. - Except for one necessary statement, of course:

     The Legend of Zelda, its various incarnations, and all associated names,
likenesses, monsters, and unique treasures are copyright Nintendo, 1986-
present. This story is a work of fan-written fiction, produced on a purely
non-commercial basis, and is copyright Timothy Miller, a.k.a. Shachihoko. This
work may not be reposted or published in any commercial venue ... unless
somebody at Nintendo reads it and gets generous enough to pay me for it, but
we all know how likely *that* is, right?
     Anyway, as the owner of this fictional universe and most of the
characters, Nintendo has the legal right to tell me if they don't like my
borrowing them for my personal enjoyment and that of whoever reads my work.

                              Timothy Miller
                                   trmiller@bcpl.net

     September 2, 2001

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