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PROLOGUE





Twilight Realm, Noon. Ixte Fi, local bartender and occasional politician (with the right amount of mead in him) is running for his life. People look confused, citing conversations in which Fi had outlined his grievances with exercise and manual labor of any kind, saying that even the goddesses did minimal work since the creation of the universe. This day he, despite all conditioning and passing apathy, ran, was afraid; and with him came undone all the work he might have done swaying any friends his way.

"Great Din help us!" Some mother shouted before being swallowed by the deepest darkness seen there since the Interloper War. Gasping, the beloved pub-goer makes it to the capitol building.

"Death! ... Death everywhere! It's coming for us..." The crash had disturbed the fog of formality in the stuffy parliament floor, leaving the distinguished senator Teel to turn and fire commands to stop being so stupid so powerful the recoil from which doubtless would cause a migraine to move in. Fi repeated himself with better lungs.

"At the edge of town, someone was seen... Transformed." This word carried so much weight that all conversation immediately was displaced and flew out the large colonnades of the hall.

"Mr. Fi, you can't expect us to believe--"

"I know what I saw." The lady was silent for a moment. "I wouldn't have believed it either, but if you see it--when you see it--you'll know." At this point the clouds appeared to move in rapidly from the East. There was no wind to predict this, so it really seemed odd. A few whispers began as the capitol was eclipsed by the terrible night.

"Please, m'lady! You have to get everyone out of here! It won't stop until we're all dead or worse." None of the members moved much. A moment of this and the drunk was growing upset.

"Our people are dying! They'll be turned back to the darkness. They'll forget everything; do you want oblivion again? I've seen it consume a--"

"That's enough, Mr. Fi." The depth of Lady Teel's stare was truly maddening. "We won't be threatened by anything so soft as some hearsay and clouds. This is a country of discerning people. Nayru smiles on us, you know." But perhaps the goddess in question didn't smile on arrogance. Soon a frightful wind swept through the hall and took a few members of the parliament off their feet. A clamour echoed back into the encroaching darkness, and soon Lady Teel found herself muffled the dense panic. Amid tremors and screams one voice whimpered the goodbye of a fragile people finally letting go their hold on life as they came to know it.

"...In Twilight there is no new beginning."


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Lorule, Three o' clock. A meeting with the current Yuga yields much wasted teabags and heavy pacing through the beams of golden dust lit by the afternoon sun in the old windows of the castle. This particular tower was kept largely the same as it had been originally, preserving the tradition of Royalty living modestly every since the creation of the new castle around it. Outside a small patch of dark clouds, supposed to be rain by the forecasters, sat there with the subtlety of an earthquake.

"No, no, we can't raise taxes again, the Skull Woods is already lined up to shut off lumber for us." Hilda didn't bother looking up at Yuga this time. Both he and the issue at hand looked equally grey to her, and only one could potentially be solved by looking at it.

"But you seriously can't expect us to hold anything from the East without a ready army! That means taxes, Hilda. The people will understand. Put faith in them; their trust held us together for ages." Hilda pinched the bridge of her nose and swallowed that truth.

"... Maybe you're right. If we could only get the West on board, talk with them openly, we might be able to convince them it's for the good of the realm." Hilda stared out the window for a moment, watching that curious rain cloud sweep over the uninhabited plain. "But they aren't the brightest. Do you think they can see the bigger picture?"

"Do you think we have a choice?" Yuga and Hilda, conspirators to the end, smiled at each other. Soon though the walls of Lorule castle would shake and the guards would draw their swords to no avail against a faceless, immortal enemy. The mural of the Hero who once fulfilled the prophesy stood silent as the pride it brought came apart around it. For a moment the Triforce in the center image seemed to glow defiantly, victoriously... But soon it too was silenced.

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Termina, night. The Deku quietly buffeting the air was a wondrous sound, each citizen of Clock Town cued in on a different color it refracted from the grand spectrum of the night. The children heard a chopper, ironically being the most accurate, the new parents heard an angel that would conveniently lull their babies to sleep, the bombers heard an adventure on the breeze, the gorons, weary from travel, found in it a metronome to carry their sporadic rhythm, the dancers an invisible partner who appreciated every step they made with those tired feet, the bankers heard the wheels of the entire economy turning over slowly as the tides under that moon people used to think got very close to the land.

Out there in the distance, where echoes of smalltalk grew to catastrophic waves of silvery, frantic swimming--working on the rig that is--as Zoras danced between the swells and the breakers to make that quota, to sure up the match, to fix that joint; to make a mad attempt at love when it was all said and done. Whispering into the stones worn away by generations of the ocean's own sweet nothings on this side, and hearing on the other side of the world in the mirrored halls of the great Stone Temple proved that the fun, the definition, of a splash was in its fleeting sound, never to carry farther than it should. Back home the Deku boy who made good's parents made another deal with the witchdoctors and kooks to leave them alone, if only they might tell them how to charm the waterfall out of her secrets. Meanwhile the unchanging race kept watch over all, holding up the beauty of the land with their strong arms and simply wisdom. This was the movement everyone wished for, and this was moment they came to know as good and right and inconvenient too.

"Hey... I've been thinking. What if we stopped looking for troubles to solve?"

"What, that's crazy! There are always troubles to solve." There was a long pause, cut off by a sudden darkening. The moon, strong as it was, feared as it once was, had been taken away; there was no right or wrong in total darkness.

"... Maybe we should have written that down."


Now the pieces had moved, the celestial spinners had turned once again to reveal a colder side of fate. Sometimes things just have to go this way. Was it entropy? Apathy? Hyrule, the land of the goddesses, was a tooth in the same gear of fate; knowledge of the machine makes little difference; nothing does when faced with an absolute. But bright times were ahead! The festival could surely light up any horizon. Is your faith in the light stronger than your fear of the dark?