Who We Are; Zelink, Modern (The Legend Of Zelda)

A Nightmare? (10)

She wandered through the forest, the bright sunlight dappling the ground all around her. She looked up at the canopy and smiled. Such a beautiful place... It was too bad it couldn't last.

It was the same sky as before. It always started out as as the same happy blue sky, filled with chirping birds, waving branches, and beautiful sunshine... But no matter how much she might wish it could stay that way, it never did. In one way, shape, or form, it would always transform into a nightmare.

She reached the edge of the forest, and as she stepped outside of its trees the sky turned dark. She hesitated, but when she looked back at the forest she found that it had completely disappeared. She closed her eyes, she knew what was coming. "Not again," she whispered.

From across the darkened field arose a black shape, but it wasn't as large as it usually was. It wasn't a monstrous beast, but a familiar shape. A human being. Curious from the serious departure of normality, she walked towards it.

She had almost made it all the way to the other side of the field before saw the outline of the darkness change. It grew taller and taller until it towered over her. A face appeared but she couldn't quite make out its features as it was stretched and covered the area around it in shadows in shadows. Somehow she knew it was no one she had ever met before. She looked around as the field vanished; instead she was standing in the center of a parking lot. She heard a voice resound in the air, and in her very being.

You shouldn't be here.'

"I don't want to be here," she replied as she looked around for someone who could have spoken to her. But all she saw was the towering, hideous, vaguely human shape in front of her. As the thing slid towards her she closed her eyes. She tried standing her ground. Perhaps waiting for the hero in green who always came to save her from her dreams.

When her eyes flicked open again it took them a moment to adjust to the faint light. It took somewhat longer for her to process just what she was seeing.

Link was hovering over her, looking as if he had just seen a ghost.

Zelda blinked a few times as she tried to make her sleepy brain understand what was happening.

"...Are you alright?" he asked softly.

She raised a hand to the side of her face and blinked a few more times. "...Why... wouldn't I be?"

He bit his lip. "You were talking in your sleep... and I..." His eyes suddenly widened as he realized how he was lurking over her. He leaned back so he wasn't hovering over her quite so much. "...I just thought you were having a nightmare."

Zelda smiled lightly. "It's alright... I'm used to the dreams," she said as her eyes started to flutter closed. "I've had them since I was small..." She paused as she looked over at him, and he just stared back in silence, his eyebrows curiously drawn together. "Always the same...yet different...." she trailed off as her eyes shut. "Peaceful nature...darkness rising... hero in... gre..." her voice cut off mid-word as she fell gently into the waiting embrace of sleep once more.

Link looked down at her, and the hardness of his expression that he always seemed to carry softened, as if he was showing his true emotions for the first time in a long time.

"It sounds to me like you play too many games, princess..." he said softly as he reached out to her, hesitated, and laid a gentle hand on her face. "...You trust in too many stories..." He let his hand drop as he looked down at the bed.

Link gently picked up her right hand. After a few seconds the back of her hand began to glow softly in the darkness. "Yet...it's all just... " He started as his left hand began to glow just as hers had, forming a small triangle. "...a dream."