A/N: Yes, here I am, writing yet another story. I will update once every two weeks, on every other Monday or Tuesday, or at least I promise I will try to. XP

What motivated me to write this… well, for those who care, I just beat Twilight Princess on Sunday (the 14th) after having gotten it on Christmas (yes, nearly 3 weeks is not impressive at all, but school got in the way and boy was I unhappy about that Xp). So anyway, I beat it, and I’ve been wanting to write a novelized version of it for weeks (so, technically, since I got it). I tell ya, the game was so freaking good, that it actually managed to beat Ocarina of Time — my favorite Zelda game EVER — by far! The graphics are better, the story is lots more fun, the weapons rock, Midna is way cooler than Navi (don’t get me wrong, I love Navi dearly, she just isn’t nearly as cool as Midna), and Link is ten times hotter. XD

Anywho, enough of my incessant rambling. Onward to the story! Oh, and, I almost forgot — Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I do not own Twilight Princess or any of The Legend of Zelda games. All of those things are copyright the almighty Shigeru Miyomoto, and not the unworthy Cailel Aakkwe. :(

I heart my spinner :D

Chapter One
Thrice Lives Shattered, Thrice Kingdoms Fallen

“I must commend you. You have done well to have gotten this far in your reign. But that’s all about to end.”

“You are a weak coward, Zant. You always have been and forever will be. So why don’t you just crawl back into your hole and mind your own business?”

He laughed. “Such biting words. But I serve a new master now. And he is by far more powerful.”

He advanced toward her, slowly but surely. She could tell… there was something different. His eyes… They were full of hunger and greed, and of a manic nature she had never seen in him before. Whoever this was, it wasn’t Zant, and he was approaching. She found herself taking a step back, and then another. He raised an arm and waved it through the air. She was thrown to the ground and fell out of her cloak. A fuzzy feeling overcame her body.

And then she pushed herself up on little arms. Little arms that weren’t hers. She frowned and looked at her hands. Her eyes grew wide with horror as she looked them over. These were not her hands. She stood weakly and looked herself over. She was… an imp!

“Zant!” she cried in a childish voice that was not her own. “What have you done to me?”

He laughed once more. “I don’t see the big deal. Your new look seems more suitable to you than your old one did, if you ask me.”

“Well, I didn’t ask you, now, did I?” She formed a dark energy ball and sent it flying at him. He waved a cloaked arm and it broke apart. She gasped.

“Your power is nothing compared to mine anymore,” he said, grinning. “And I have no further use for you.” He zapped her with an energy ball of his own, and she lay motionless, eyelids drooping. He carried her by the scruff of her neck to the portal. He threw her in, and with it a bolt of dark energy. She flew through the portal and into the world of light, and after her came the bolt, smacking full throttle into a mirror. She had no knowledge of the bolt. Rather, she had lost consciousness after she hit the ground, and thus ignored the two demonic beasts that dragged her off.

xxx

“Princess! You must come, quick!”

The blond maiden looked up. A worried soldier stood at her door, and beckoned her frantically to come follow. She stood and followed him to the window. He pointed.

“Look, Princess. What are those creatures? They are headed for the front door!”

She frowned. “Gather the men,” she ordered. “We will drive out the intruders when they arrive moments hence. Go, quickly.”

The soldier nodded and rushed off. The princess grabbed her sword and hurried up several flights of stairs to the throne room. Soldiers already lingered there, ready and prepared for battle.

“We will take them, Princess,” one soldier assured her. “Do not fret. No doubt they will be stopped even before they reach here.”

Moments after the soldier spoke, however, the doors flew open and shadow beasts darted inside, gripping soldiers and choking them. A cloaked being walked forth and spoke to the princess, who raised her sword.

“Surrender or die,” the cloaked being stated bluntly. “Oh yes, a question for all of Hyrule… Life… or death?”

The two soldiers next to her gasped and glanced at their princess, awaiting some sort of order. But she gave none. Rather, she gripped the sword tightly, hesitated, then dropped it to the floor. It fell with a clang, and the hopes of all in the room fell.

xxx

Many years earlier…

The young woman smiled, looking up at the sky. She lived in Ordon Village, where her husband had grown up as a boy and she had moved to almost five years ago. Unlike him and the rest of the people of Ordon, she had the pointed ears of a Hylian from the Lanayru Province. Her hair was of the loveliest reddish-brown and her eyes dark blue. She watched her four-year-old son play with the mayor’s daughter, who was one year younger than he. Though she missed the bustling cities of Hyrule Castle Town, she rather enjoyed the peaceful little village of Ordona Province, even more so than she loved the city. She had never seemed in place there, and here she felt she belonged.

Her husband sat next to her. “What are you thinking of?” he inquired. He had light blond hair and gentle green eyes.

“Nothing,” she told him, leaning against him. “Everything.”

“Ah.” He smiled, knowing better than to question the peculiar workings of his beloved wife’s mind. He kissed her lightly on her temple.

“I talked to Uli today.”

“I’m not surprised.” He laughed. Uli was her best friend, and they spoke every day. “What makes this time so special?”

“Oh, Link,” she said, swatting at his hand. “Didn’t you hear? She and Rusl are finally tying down the knot.”

His eyebrows lifted. “Are they, now? Well, it’s about time. She mention any specific dates?”

“It’ll be a month, but it will happen, I’m sure of it.” She sighed. “Love seems so much more romantic in a small town than in the big city. The story of how they met is so idealistic.”

Link picked a white daisy, his wife’s favorite flower, from the grass. He remembered asking her why such a simple flower was her favorite, and not the rose, seeing as her full name had the word ‘rose’ in it. She had merely answered saying that the daisy’s simplicity was what made it so beautiful, and the rose was already pretty enough that it wasn’t appreciated as much. He had been wise enough to not press the matter any further. “Do you remember how we met, my dear Mari?” He tickled her nose with the flower.

She giggled and took her attacker with two fingers, twirling it gently. “I try not to,” she teased, sniffing the daisy. It had been quite an incident she had been in the town square, minding her own business, when an owl had swooped down through the plaza. People had screamed and rushed away, but she had laughed and admired the beautiful creature, that seemed to notice her stares and settled in her hair. A young Ordonian rancher named Link rushed in and gently pulled the owl from her hair, apologizing sincerely for ruining it. She remembered laughing and saying it was quite all right, and she rather liked owls. He had begun courting her after some time, and eventually got married and she moved to Ordon Village with him. She’d hit it off right away with all the villagers. They were all fascinated by her life in ‘the big city’ as they called it, and loved that she was always kind, without a mean-spirited bone in her body.

“But you’re glad it happened.”

Mari smiled up at her husband. “There isn’t a single moment that I regret it.”

He took the daisy from her fingers, placed it behind her ear so it stuck out in front of her hair, and kissed her gently on the mouth. “I love you,” he whispered in her ear.

“I love you too,” she muttered. “For ever and ever, for all my life and forever after. I won’t ever leave you, I promise.”

“Nor I you.” They kissed again.

That night, disaster struck. Two large, hideous ogres on giant boars came rampaging through the village. Link woke and grabbed the sword Rusl had made for him as a wedding gift upon hearing the screams of the villagers. Mari begged him not to go, but he wouldn’t hear of it.

“Stay here where it’s safe and protect the boy,” he ordered her. He kissed her quickly. “I love you. I’ll be back shortly.”

“Are you crazy?” she shrieked. “You’ll be killed!”

“I’ll be back, just stay inside!” Without another word, Link rushed out of the tree house and ran toward the village.

Mari, however, was infuriated at this, and sick with fear. She seized her handmade bow and a quiver of arrows and rushed out after him. When she arrived at the village, she found one of the ogres being attacked by Link and Rusl while the other lay dead on the ground. The surviving ogre grabbed Link by the ankle and held him up. Mari panicked and fired an arrow. It hit the ogre in the hand that was holding Link. He yelled in anger, causing Link to be shaken furiously. Link looked up and glared at Mari.

“Get back inside!” he yelled at her.

She ran towards them. “Not a chance,” she told him. She fired several more arrows, planting every one of them on the beast that held her husband captive. Rusl said something to Link, then was knocked aside by an enraged beast that dropped Link and charged after Mari. She didn’t have time to do anything. Everything happened so fast. The ogre came after her, raised his spiked club, and brought it down on her just as she fired another arrow. The last thing she heard before she fell down was the cry of, “Mari! NO!”

Link rushed toward his fallen lady. He managed to drill his blade into the beast’s leg, causing it to fall over, before he knelt beside Mari. He kept whispering, “No, no, no,” as he stroked her bloodied face. Her beautiful face was marred by where the club hit her, her head smashed in, blood trickling down every which way. Her eyes were closed and one was smashed, juices flowing from the sunken area where her eye had once been. He heard the beast stir in an attempt to regain his footing, and turned and quickly sank his blade horizontally in his head as he sat up. The ogre fell back down, dead.

After the ogre had fallen, the village people started presenting themselves to the outside world again. They gathered around Mari’s body, which Link held close to his chest, muttering to each other. Link wept tears of anger and grief onto his lady’s wounds, uncaring as to who heard him sob like a child.

Rusl knelt beside him and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. He did not say a word, but he didn’t need to. Link understood. As Uli had been Mari’s best friend, Rusl was his, and he knew that when the man would later say he was sorry, he would mean it. Everyone in the village would mean it. Sera, Fado, Uli… All of them would be sorry, and they would mean it. But Link didn’t want their sympathy or their pity. All he wanted was his wife back.

Mari’s funeral and burying took place the next morning. Link had sat there in the same spot all night, sleeping by his wife and, upon waking, stroking her face in hopes it had all been a terrible dream and she would gaze into his eyes and say, “Good morning,” as she did every morning, and they would kiss and make ready for the day and all would be as it should. But when he woke that morning, things were different. There were no deep sapphire eyes gazing lovingly into his. There was no exchange of good mornings. There was no kissing and no making ready for the day. And nothing was as it should be. The woman’s face was bandaged after Link desperately splashed the healing water over it in hopes of it reviving her. The hole was dug while the diggers listened sadly to their friend’s angry curses at the good-for-nothing spirit Ordona and his mournful pleas for the great spirit to resuscitate the love of his life. Mari was buried after Rusl pried her from Link’s death grip, telling him it was no good holding on to what was no longer there. Each resident of the village took a turn at the grave, saying kind things about Mari and then gently taking the shovel and loading a pile of earth into her hole. Their words were kind, but they meant nothing to Link, who stayed by the hole the entire time, unable to watch dirt be thrown upon his beloved.

Once the hole was completely filled, every member of the village threw daisies onto her grave. Some had begun picking any old flowers, but Rusl and Uli went about reminding them quietly that only daisies were to be thrown. They didn’t question it and did as they asked. By day’s end, every daisy in the village was lying on Mari’s grave. A small rock stuck from the ground to signify a sort of headstone, and engraved in them were the words, “Here lies Mari Rose, beloved wife, mother, and friend. May she rest in peace.”

Link remained by the grave even as dusk approached. As the sun was setting, he put a hand on the ground. “Well, my darling,” he said, “I suppose this is the end.” Tears spilled from his eyes. He smiled bitterly. “But you promised you’d never leave me. Just this morning, you promised you would never leave me. And yet, you broke your word. You’ve never broken your word…” He pounded the ground. “God damn it, Mari, I can’t live with this! Who is going to help me raise our son? Who is going to grow old with me? My life is nothing without you by my side. I… My life… is shattered, my kingdom fallen.” The grief-stricken man stayed there the entire night, even after Rusl came by and told him he should get his rest.

A week later, Link took sick and died. The last words to leave his lips were, “At least… now, I’m with Mari.” He was buried next to her and the rock that served as his headstone read, “Here lies Link, beloved husband, father, and friend. May he rest in peace.”

His son was upset over the loss of his parents, but was still too young to really grasp what had happened. He was raised by Rusl and Uli until he was ten, and then he moved back into his tree house between the spring and the village. Over time, the words on the headstones faded away as chunks of the rock fell off, and no one went to put them back in again, unknowing as to whether it was to spare the deceased’s son or themselves of any more trauma.

A/N: Whew, first chapter’s over! That was a long one, eh? The story of Link’s parents at the end doesn’t really have any sort of effect on the rest of the story, but I really wanted to write about it and explain how a pointed-eared fellow grew up in the Ordonian Province with a bunch of rounded-eared folk, and plus I needed a reason to put the word ‘thrice’ in the title of this chapter. XD So, please don’t comment on how it has ‘nothing to do’ with the story or how it was ‘just a stupid filler’.

Okay, as always, reviews are welcomed, constructive criticism is appreciated, and flames are ignored. I will get right onto writing the next chapter… as soon as I get some sleep. (’Tis eleven o’clock at night right now.) Thank you, and good night!

PS: Tell me your favorite weapon in TP. If it's the same as mine, you get a cookie. ;)