The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time

Temple of Time

Link ran against the crowd, like a salmon swimming upriver. The crowd held an array of terrified faces, so similar that they blurred into a single face of fear, unified under one goal: to evacuate the city.

There was another crowd... a crowd behind them... unified under the goal of dominance, and brutal assertion through helpless submission. These faces bore the heavy makeup so familiar to Link. A band of Gerudo women came galloping down the main street on a stampede of horses. Link immediately turned and ducked into an alleyway, as he watched them ride fervently by, zealously driving out the Hylians with their torches ablaze.

"You were right, kid..."

Startled, Link spun around. There, propped up against the wall, was a city guard...the very one Link tried to warn about the impending doom.

"Ganondorf, the Gerudo King of Thieves..." he croaked, "what an appropriate name!"

Link was speechless. He was still a bit frustrated by this man taking his word with a grain of salt, and not even that. But the man in uniform armor was dying, with a gash wound slashed across the side of his ribs, oozing the maroon of coagulated blood into a puddle on the cobblestones. The last thing he wanted was to remind this man of his decision to abstain.

"I was wrong about him... I was wrong about those wretched savages!" he spat. "They truly are Gerudo Thieves, urchin scum sucking on the kingdom and its good people... and now they've taken the kingdom itself from us."

"No..." Link spoke up, "they may have destroyed the capital city, and maybe even the castle, but the kingdom is still rightfully the Royal Family's!"

"Kid," the guard groaned, "there's only two ways to have a throne: you either inherit it... or take it."

"What are you saying?" Link asked, fearing the answer.

"Ganondorf betrayed our king..." he panted, "the worst way one can be betrayed."

"He's dead, then... the king?" Link asked monotonically.

To that, the guard moved his head in small nods, which quickly grew smaller, until there was no movement in his head.

Link could not fully process what he had just witnessed. What he did next was really a blur to him. There were flashes of fire, glances of bodies strewn in rubble, and an image of a castle with only one tower standing.

The next thing he knew, he was standing before a cathedral-like building, untouched, in a part of the city that seemed somehow... sheltered... peaceful even. There was a garden in front of it, consisting of simple rows of marigolds along lines of fountain streams, much like the courtyard where he met Zelda.

Zelda... did she successfully evade the clutches of Ganondorf? His eyes began to tear up as he recalled the encounter. This was no dream. There were no more dreams... just reality, and the reality of it was, that she could be captured... or worse, and he did nothing to prevent it.