if i die tomorrow - permanent hiatus

world

Hyrule Field, 6 months ago.

     The first thing I noticed was the little girl that had materialized beside me.

     She had a hand on my knife. 

     I'm not gonna lie. I yelped like a hyena's shriek, a sound higher than I thought my vocal cords could possibly make, and sprang away a couple meters. My heart dropped out of the bottom of my stomach and just... hung there for a few, very long seconds. 

     Sadie stared at me, completely dumbfounded, for no more than half a second before she also yelled and stumbled away, losing her balance and landing hard on the grass.

     "What are you doing here?" I stormed closer and demanded with a hint of hysteria. 

     She shrank back, tears filling up her eyes. I was too horrified to feel guilty. "I---"

     "Oh my god. Oh my god." I backed away and started pacing, back and forth. 

     I thought I'd bought her years with the Sword quest. I thought I'd given her time to train and be ready to face evil with all she was capable of, so that when I emerged into this timeframe, I'd have at least one capable warrior who was prepared for war at my side.

     Instead I had this -- this little girl that I could never bring onto the battlefield. Because look at her. Messy long hair, wide eyes clear with innocence, soft little hands, dirty doll's dress. She was still clutching the Master Sword -- which was useless now. 

     How could I ask this child to fight, to kill?

     That wasn't even taking into account her complete lack of battle skills. 

     I knew travelling back and returning her to her rightful time was impossible. The Ocarina of Time was a one-time usage. She was stuck here now.

     I thought my plan was perfect.

     Now what?

     "Where are we?" She was looking around. "Did we teleport?"

     I sighed. Control your frustration, Link. You're going to scare her and that would get you nowhere.

     "No. We're about ten years in the future from your time." I'd never told anybody about my role as a time traveller, so it felt strange saying it now. "I come from about six months still in the future from this time, right now. Hyrule is going to be destroyed by Calamity Ganon pretty soon to my knowledge--" I didn't mention the part that involves her sister. "--And I went back in time to try and prevent that."

     Her face was equal parts disgust at everything's strangeness and complete bewilderment. "Wait wait wait, I'm so confused. So I'm the hero, you're the Princess, this is the actual actual Master Sword, my sister's the Big Bad Ganondorf, we're ten years into the future, and you come from... from..." She scowled at the dirt. "I don't know, I'm not good at math."

     "Around ten years and six months from your time." I said with a very carefully controled tone. Forget about my irritation scaring her, just the world she was now involved in was doing a darn great job at it. 

     "..."

     "But more importantly--" I knelt down and gripped her shoulders. "Why did you follow me here?! You were supposed to have all the time you needed to prepare for the destruction of Hyrule! And now-- Why?"

     She looked down at her shoes. "I... Don't know."

     "Huh?"

     "I don't know." She looked up into my eyes and I saw an ocean of lostness. She was confused and frightened and felt terrible for blowing my plan to pieces and possibly dooming her kingdom. She understood what the mistake put at stake just as well as I did. My anger evaporated, to be replaced by a reluctant sympathy.