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The Flow of Time	By : Catbeastaisha Category: Zelda > General Views: 5083 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own The Legend of Zelda game series, nor any of the characters from them. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 6
- 7
Epilogue: The Flow of Time
Disclaimer: Zelda characters and Hyrule are owned by Nintendo. Badria and Kaula, however, are mine.

            “That doesn’t make any sense, Moeder Badria! Why would Zelda kill Link?”

            The old fortuneteller rolled her cigar around in her mouth, lightly chewing on the end of it before replying with a slight shrug,

            “Who knows?”

            “But Moeder Badria,” the child protested, “you know everything.”

            The old woman laughed at the words. “Not everything, Kaula.” She flicked the ashes off her cigar. “Just a little more than the average person and a little less than the Goddesses themselves.”

            “Well?” Kaula leaned a little further off her bed, eager to hear just a little more of the story. She, like Moeder Badria, was one of the few gifted individuals who could discern truth from lies and find answers where only questions lay. Just passing her eleventh summer, Kaula was collected from her village by Moeder Badria and had been training with her for the last two years, honing her own gift. “Why do you think Zelda did it?”

            The old woman’s lips pressed tightly together as she leaned her back further into the wooden chair beside Kaula’s bed. While Moeder Badria was able to see wisdom in the smoke and flames, Kaula’s talent was in the reflections of others eyes and pools of water. Unfortunately, Moeder Badria’s glass eye never held any answers besides Kaula’s own reflection and Moeder Badria’s lazy eye never held still long enough. Thus, Kaula waited as patiently as she could for Moeder Badria’s answer.

            “It’s possible…” the woman whispered softly, sounding similar to a fall wind in the autumn trees, “that she loved him.”

            “She loved him?” Kaula shook her head, dark ringlets of black hair shaking. “No way!”

            The old lady laughed again, a harsher sound that crackled like logs splitting in the fireplace. “Don’t sound so shocked, dearie.” The lazy eye stopped it’s aimless wandering to pin Kaula with it’s gaze, Badria’s voice dropping as she continued.

            “People do crazy things when they’re in love. Insane, terrible things.” She sucked on the end of her cigar, exhaling smoke as her lazy eye went back to floating. “She was the princess, he the dashing knight who slew the beast. It is not uncommon for her to have held some romantic notions in her mind, especially the way he treated her when she dressed as Sheik.”

            “But she didn’t know that.” Kaula sat back in the bed, rolling her eyes. “Moeder Badria, you said yourself that the future Link fought through ceased to exist when he was sent back. No one remembered but him!”

            “No, child. She remembered too.”

            Kaula felt her mouth drop. “She couldn’t have!”

            The old woman shifted in the chair, the hard wood uncomfortable to her old bones. Removing her cigar from her lips, she closed her eyes and took a small breath of air.

            “All who bore a piece of the Triforce remembered, she included. And Navi.”

            Kaula tried to think that information over but it just didn’t fit with the rest of the story somehow. “What about the shadow of Link? He didn’t have one.”

            Badria remained silent in her chair.

            “Did he?”

            Badria said nothing, only choosing to open her eyes and flick the ashes off her cigar again.

            “But you said one creature, Moeder Badria! Not two or four!”

            Badria laughed. “Child, I said creature.” She held up a singular, bony finger. “One creature.” Badria put the cigar back to her lips, shaking her head a little. “The boy didn’t have enough rupees to get the full of it. Ganondorf, Goddesses burn him forever, was sealed away, hardly a concern or a source Link would want to recall the ‘old days’ with.”

            “What about Zelda then?”

            “She’s not a creature, she’s a Hylian.” The old woman grumbled. “Damn, girl, if I meant Zelda I would have said Hylian, not creature.” She waved a finger warningly in the air. “And before you ask me about Navi, Navi was long gone by that point. Didn’t count her.”

            “So… that left…”

            Badria nodded, turning her attention downward. It was times like this she almost regretted the words she’d given him. Perhaps it had been a moment of foolishness on her part, perhaps her own greed and bitterness had lashed out at the struggling flame of innocence. Either way, her atonement would come.

            “Moeder Badria, why did Navi send Link back to Hyrule, if it meant all this?”

            The old woman gave a sigh, almost beginning to regret telling this tale. She had kept it to herself for so long… and yet, it was time to pass it to this younger, hopefully more successful generation.

            “The piece of Triforce that Link had, in that time that happened but didn’t, left residuals of it’s magic in him, much like the shadow of Link still had fragments of the water magic. Link didn’t know the magic was in him, hadn’t intended it to be, but it was. If he would have resisted returning to Hyrule, facing whatever it was he needed or had to face, the shards of the Triforce of Courage would have ripped him asunder from the inside out.”

            “That’s horrible, Moeder Badria! Why? Why would it do something like that?”

            Kaula’s innocence and belief in the power of good and light was so strong sometimes, Badria almost hated having to show her the darkness that lingered amongst it.

            “Child, you need to know, need to be able to see, what the Light is capable of, what it is willing to sacrifice in the name of ‘what’s right’ and ‘what is good.’” Badria drew in a breath, and strength, at the same time.

            “Because Kaula,” the old woman whispered, trying to explain it as gently as she could. “The Triforce, and by that I mean three golden pieces of Wisdom, Courage, and Power, are meant to be used for good. When Ganondorf grabbed the Triforce, he was only able to hold onto the piece of Power because he believed what he was doing was good and that Power was all he needed to achieve it. Thus, Power is all he got.”

            “And then the piece of Courage went to Link and the other to Zelda, so?”

            “All three used their piece of the Triforce to do what they believed to be good. Zelda and Link used Wisdom and Courage to stop Ganondorf’s reign and Ganondorf used Power to try and help his people.” Badria paused, waiting for Kaula to figure it out for herself.

            Kaula bowed her head a moment, examining the information like it was a piece of a puzzle in her head. Slowly, she saw how it all fit together.

            “Link resisted going back to Hyrule because he was afraid of what it meant.” Eagerly, Kaula lifted her head, hands flying in the air as she explained her discovery to Badria. “And that was fine, as long as he wasn’t needed. But when it, she, needed him and he didn’t, the Triforce pieces of magic in him, it began to destroy him because… because…” Here Kaula trailed off.

            “Because the Triforce piece he had was only meant to be held by those who are Courageous,” Badria supplied for her.

            “Navi knew that… when she sent him back. She helped give him strength to return, didn’t she?” Kaula paused, perplexed. “Why didn’t she stay though, Moeder Badria?”

            “Like I said, child, Navi had long since departed this realm of existence.” Badria’s head tilted upward, though her lazy eye bobbed down and her glass eye merely held still. “Shortly after they returned, actually.”

            “Why is that, Badria?” Kaula asked, but Badria was already shaking her head.

            “Not now, child, there are more pressing subjects to discuss. That tale is for another time, if you wish to seek the answers.”

            Kaula’s brows furrowed a little. Badria typically did not deny her information in regards to her questions.

            “What happened to his horse, Moeder Badria? Was she okay?”

            Badria grumbled, taking one long huff on her cigar. “That, child, is not a pressing question but one I will answer merely because it is short. She died. The ride of three days stressed her giant heart to the point it burst, just after Link had entered the temple. It is of no concern, she will be reborn in the next cycle.”

            “The next cycle?”

            “Ah, an intelligent question.” Badria chewed a little on the end of her cigar, casting her lazy eye towards the single window of the clay hut they occupied, as though expecting to see something in the dark. “It is another part of the reason I suspected Zelda killed Link.”

            Kaula leaned closer again, wanting to hear as Badria began to murmur, almost more to herself than the girl listening.

            “There is a reason, child, that Link, Zelda, and Ganondorf always cross paths. It is because of the Triforce that they are inexplicitly bound, forever forced to live out the same destiny over and over again, albeit in different bodies and in different lives. Link will forever play the role of hero, under appreciated yet able to overcome all difficulties. Zelda will forever be the damsel in distress, princess or not, and Ganondorf, whatever form he will have, man or beast, will always seek power and destruction yet fall at the hands of Link.” Badria took a few small breaths at the end of that, as though the explanation of the three’s fate had somehow drained her. “Some of the others, such as Epona, will surface again. Some, such as Navi, will not.”

            “Why, Moeder Badria, why?” Kaula’s voice was but a whisper.

            Badria’s lazy eye swirled around and around and for a moment, Kaula thought it might pop out only to land spinning on the floor.

            “The missing piece,” Badria finally rasped, sounding as though the words were struggling to get through her mouth, like something was trying to hold them silent in her throat. “The missing piece that isn’t missing. The piece that the other three surround and try to contain and yet, it still taunts them with its presence. It, too, lurks in human minds and hearts, as does Wisdom, Courage, and Power but that piece, the piece unseen, plays by rules that are unlike those set up by the Goddesses. Rules that were put in play before the Goddesses themselves were born, before Wisdom, Courage, and Power even could be fathomed as such.”

            Badria was almost trembling now, never had Kaula seen her so afraid or so shaken.

            “It was the rules set up by the first God, the one born of the mighty ocean of the sky, the one whose desire for peace soon changed to desire for conflict, who sought out harmony but then dissonance, proclaimed justice and then vengeance, traded purity for wantonness. It is he who unknowingly causes the three to repeat their lives over and over again, never truly finding salvation.”

            Badria reached for Kaula’s hand and the small girl took it, her tiny hands seeming that much smaller when holding Badria’s wrinkled one.

            “The three Goddesses, when seeing the havoc the one God wrought upon his people decided to encase him, thus using their powers and leaving their gifts to us, those that were once his people. It was their hope that by giving Wisdom, Courage, and Power to the people that we could overcome the one gift granted to us by the God, the gift that lead him from righteousness to immorality, turned the land from paradise to hell.”

            “What was it, Moeder Badria, what was the God’s gift?”

            “Obsession.”

            But the answer didn’t come from Badria. Rather, it came from the dark clothed man standing in the door way, sword drawn and hanging at ready by his side, light from the flames not reflecting on the blade but instead seemed to be absorbed into it as his crimson eyes turned a shade darker and began to glow.

            “Where is he, old woman?” The man took a step forward, seeming to fill the whole hut. “Or rather, when will he be?”

            Badria, rather than answering the male, grasped Kaula’s hands tighter. “Obsession to gain more Power, Obsession to be Wisest, Obsession to save the day and remain Courageous. It drives us, drives them! It is that piece, unseen, that spins us, them. Inescapable!” Badria was practically wheezing by the end of her rant. “And now, now the Phantom God will continue, continue to chase Courage, who chases Wisdom, who is chased by Power.”

            “Tell me, old woman! I know it to be in your power to do so!”

            “Turning the wheel again, again, and again until, until they get it right.” Badria was coughing now, hacking madly, trying vainly to use one hand to cover her mouth while the other still held Kaula’s hands and the shadow of the great hero, Link, the boy whom she had knowingly sent on his path to destruction, now stood before her, planning on doing the same.

            “Child, child do not aide him! You mustn’t!” Badria’s shaking grew more prominent, her cigar falling to the ground and sparking briefly when it hit. “To do so, to do so will only keep it going! We must, must end it!”

            The next words Badria might have been about to say were silenced by the sound of sword sliding through flesh. Kaula screamed and backed away, the image of her mentor’s lazy eye rolling up back into her skull as the glass eye stared blankly ahead forever imbedded into her memory as the man withdrew the sword protruding from Badria’s chest, allowing the body that was once Badria to fall.

            “Perhaps you will be more cooperative, child?”

            Kaula’s back hit the wall and she tried to babble something out, but the words were all a jumble and she couldn’t even figure out what she was trying to say.

            That was when she looked into his eyes, past the glow, and saw the reflection.

            The reflection of a solitary tree with green and black leaves, whose branches fostered red flowers, one for every cycle in time the Phantom God had tried to be with his chosen and failed.

            The reflection of one thousand dead warriors, each similar in look and attire, with a thousand dead women beside them and a thousand more gruesome men and beast combinations yet only a single shadow surviving.

            The reflection of the final cycle where Power, Wisdom, Courage, and Obsession were balanced, none of the pieces overpowering the other.

            The reflection of her own death.

            “Well, child?”

            The growl of his voice brought her back and she bit the bottom of her lip, torn between helping him and preventing him. But she remembered the tree and the final cycle foremost in her mind. And the words of Badria echoed,

            “Child, you need to know, need to be able to see, what the Light is capable of, what it is willing to sacrifice in the name of ‘what’s right’ and ‘what is good.’”

            In the name of what was right, Zelda had dressed as Sheik and deceived the hero. In the name of what was right, Zelda slew Link to prevent the corruption of himself in the next line. In the name of what was right…

            But in the name of the emotion hidden behind the Obsession, the emotion that drove the Phantom God, though he himself did not recognize it, in the name of that four-letter word Kaula told the God what he wished to know.

            And that is what truly drives the cycle onward.

            And will one day bring it to its end.
- 6
- 7
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The Flow of Time

Epilogue: The Flow of Time