As I’m quite fond of the Legend of Zelda (something commonly known to a great many), what is also known to a great many of my readers is that I wrote a short time ago an article about how I’d make a Zelda movie or tv series.
The article can be found here;
It was popular enough and involved the ‘Adult Timeline’ of Zelda. This second article concerns the ‘Child Timeline’.
Before we proceed we must speak of what is the ‘Child Timeline’. we must speak of why and how there are different timelines to Zelda. In the Legend of Zelda lore, the timeline split during the story of Ocarina of Time, when Link played jump-rope with the time-line by leaping back and forth so that things became confused.
There three timelines spawned from his actions; because he had been plunged forward into the body of an adult two timelines came to exist because of this decision; one was the Fallen Timeline wherein he lost the final battle to the Demon King Ganon who was sealed away by the Seven Sages of Hyrule. The Adult timeline seen in my other article came about from Link’s victory, with Link sealing him away in that timeline, and during that timeline Hyrule was flooded by the gods after Link did not appear to save the day was defeated in another life so that the 3 Golden Goddesses had no other choice but to intervene.
There is also the Child Timeline, and in that one Link was sent backwards to live out the remainder of his life as a child, by Zelda and he went on to have a great many more adventures.
Typically Adult Timeline involves adventure on the high-seas and such, Child timeline horror & dark fantasy, while Fallen has the best stories, the traditional fantasy stuff and coming of age stories.
So without further ado let’s get into how I’d write a Child Timeline dark-fantasy horror story!
First thing to clear up is that as ‘Ganondorf’ died in Twilight Princess, I’d be reluctant to use him in that form (or almost at all), now I’m going to go with the idea that only the human side of him perished, and that Ganondorf has no further value to the timeline. Ganon is after all much better, as I like his original appearance which demonstrates better his distortion and perversion by his own innate wickedness.
That said, for the purpose of this storyline I will not utilize Ganon at all. The reason for this is because I have need of him for another storyline so that the seeds of his return will be planted in this season. What is more is that we need at least one adventure without Ganon.
Because Majora’s Mask (the most evil and deadly of LoZ’s villains) has been purified in the Child Timeline, we shan’t use it. It wouldn’t make sense and we must respect the timeline, nor do I think it makes much sense to use it in the Adult Timeline for the same reason (this is why I didn’t use it there).
That said there remains one major demon/villain we can use; Vaati. Vaati is someone who was a sorcerer, a Wind-Mage to be precise who hungered for power and the beautiful Princess Zelda, however he was cursed to become a demon (he turned himself into one really), but then he was split between a good half and a bad half (bad half is the demon as mentioned).
Now for this story, we’ll make use of the Good Vaati, who has lived on with sorrow and grief across many millennia. To explain why he’s not a factor in Adult Timeline we’ll just say that there the Goddesses drown him when they flooded Hyrule, makes sense as it was no ordinary flood and that Vaati found peace in that death.
This leaves us with Child Timeline not having resolved this character’s arc. The Demon-Lord who fused with the Dark Dimension is still out there though.
So tha this personification of evil, in some ways worse than Ganon is still out there. That said, the Triforce of Power has vanished at the end of Twilight Princess (proof Ganon’s spirit lives on in this Timeline).
All that aside, at the start of the story which takes place thousands of years after Twilight Princess, our hero was laid to rest long ago in the ‘Tomb of the Great Hero’ which became a famous pilgrimage site. Zelda in this Timeline naturally married, and bequeathed to her people a rich heritage and continued the Royal Line even as Link continued to pine away after Midna.
That said the Spirit of the Hero is reborn though in the same village where Link in TP lived, and it is there that the shrine is to be found. What is more is that a castle has grown up there so that it has become an important pilgrimage and trade-centre in the kingdom.
Link for his part is born to a small family of knights, with only his Uncle to care for him (yes I’m going to re-use him, sue me). This time though Uncle remains a Knight if a deeply troubled one, he retired from Royal Service in disgrace and went to serve his original lords, the Count of Ordon-Keep.
The Count though originally good and wise has recently changed though, and has begun to pick on his people, to kidnap local girls and to treat his people poorly. There are also rumours about him.
It happens that around this time though, Hyrule Castle vanishes from the map. The King is said to have fallen into an enchanted sleep and is laid to rest in a coffin within the nearby Temple of Time, the realm falls into chaos and his only daughter has disappeared.
Roam, Link’s cousin (Roam was originally a Knight from Link to the Past comic, but will be re-purposed here not simply as a rival but also as his relative), wishes to set out and rescue them having recently been a knight but is forbidden by his worried father. Link for his part is a much more cautious, level-headed and clever youth, and thinks it might be best to listen to their Uncle.
However his hand is forced when a beautiful young girl arrives in Ordon during a storm, seeking the aid of Uncle. She desires aid from him, and comes begging just when he’s left to go serve on his watch-rotation within the Castle.
The girl is revealed to be called Hilda, and has dark hair and is apparently in dire need of help, she is also being hunted by spectral witches.
Roam wishes to rush out to fight them, but Link cautions him against it after their initial attempts to fend them off fail. The boys escort Hilda within the home whereupon she reveals to them that she came seeking help to rescue the King.
Strangely just as morning comes she vanishes. Roam hurries out to go do what he wants anyways and Link gives chase, soon though Link is caught up in a spell only to end up in a distorted nightmarish version of the Castle. Startled, he is confronted by shadows and by strange shadows with fanged blades, whom he cannot harm.
Hilda communicating with him via telepathy urges him to hurry to the Shrine of the Hero, only there will he find the Shield of Light wielded by the ancient Hero of Time and that of Twilight. Doing so, Link however finds that though they have protection they still cannot harm the beastly dream-like phantoms.
However he is cast back into the ordinary realm, to find himself surrounded by guards, alone and kind of in a bind. The Shrine of the Hero has been blocked off from visitors for some time, so that Link is dragged before the Count, who summons him long after sunset and desires his execution.
Link though cast into a prison cell, soon has his equipment restored to him and is smuggled from the castle by his Uncle who cannot let him die and cannot find Roam. So that Link is advised to go find him, and to listen to Hilda who visited Uncle in a dream whilst he dozed on duty the night before.
Hilda and Link travel across a shredded landscape both in the nightmarish realm from before and in the actual Hyrule which has fallen under the sway of 7 wicked Lords. Along the way they stop when they hear of a great hero who is locked away in Lon Lon Tower (built on the site of Lon Lon Ranch). It is modelled after the Tower of London, and it is there that the worst criminals are imprisoned.
Battling his way past ghoulish guards to the top of the Tower thinking to find Roam there, Link discovers instead an imprisoned Wizzrobe (mage) and though Hilda advises against setting him free the mage whom introduces himself as Vaati begs to be set free that he might help the Royal Family. He claims to have been imprisoned there when he came to warn the Royals that someone was seeking to free Vaati the ancient demon, and disbelieved when he insisted and claimed that the 7 chief most Counts were conspiring against the King he was imprisoned for his petulance and for seeking to visit Zelda privately (he was accused of having putthe Princess in to an enchanted sleep, all while he claimed to have rescued her from the King’s chief advisor, Ner-Rule).
Hilda claims to know Vaati but claims she doesn’t know from where. Link though still cuts away his chains but finds he can’t be free, so ventures to the nightmarish world to free him of his chains there slaying along the way the Lon Lon Count who takes on the shape of a giant three-headed Wolf by way of enchanted arrows that Vaati blesses and that are known as Light Arrows.
When they return to the land of Hyrule it is to find the Count dead, and make their way out of the Tower by way of secret passage that only Hilda knows. From where she does not know. What is more is that Hilda soon urges them to go rescue the King of Hyrule, all while Vaati advises that they make for the greater prize; the Master Sword.
He also reveals when they arrive in the Temple of Time and find not the King but the Princess in a glass coffin within the Temple and decorated with roses and flowers on her coffin and around it. Vaati reveals he knows Hilda and that she isn’t real. He claims her to be a ‘shadow’, one who is made from half of Zelda and that he had to rescue her this way and put Zelda into an enchanted sleep. The reason he did this was because she was wounded in what he terms the ‘Dream World’, and that had she died there he does not know what might have become of her, so that he split her up and took on the wound himself.
The trouble is that before he could finish the ritual reuniting the two princesses, Hilda had screamed and escaped and Zelda fell into her present sleep and that he stood accused as said before. Vaati though knows that his spell isn’t permanent and that if Hilda acquiesces she will return to Zelda nad Zelda will be awoken by True Love’s Kiss.
Hilda though doesn’t wish to return to being part of Zelda and so refuses, with Vaati despairing begging and in turn threatening her. Link tries to calm the two down when suddenly the Temple is attacked by possessed townsfolk from Castle Town.
Desperate, Vaati closes the doors and seals them shut with his magic only for Link to at the urging of Hilda take up the Master Sword.
This in hand, he enters the Dream World, and slays the 2nd Count who reveals himself to be a puppeteer with fangs and horns, with Link cutting his strings and him in half so that the townsfolk leave the Temple.
Afterwards Link is encouraged to go slay the other Counts, both in the real world and in the Dream World where necessary and to secure the 7 Sage Stones that he might unlock the way to the Castle.
Link does this, and goes to liberate the Zora from an usurper who stole the throne from the legitimate King, with this false King taking on the shape in the dream world of a monstrous Leviathan with burning eyes.
The Goron Count for his part has imprisoned his son and intends to eat him, but in the Dream World is revealed to be a hydra whom Link must slay with Fire Arrows AND the Master Sword. Afterwards, he rescues the Prince of the Gorons and restores him to his Countdom.
There are the Gerudos of course, and in this case the Duchess of the Gerudos as she is known is a close friend of the Royal Family, but has been stricken with a curse that has caused her to have herself locked away, with her advisor usurping power. The usurper has claimed the title of Duchess, and once slain still the Duchess will not claim the throne of the Gerudos.
The reason is soon discovered as she is now a Werewolf, and she fears after having torn asunder her own husband a cousin of the Royal Family, and guards in that shape and other villagers doing more harm to her beloved people. Reluctantly Link must venture into the nightmarish palace of the Gerudos in the Dream World, to slay the Wolf Duchess.
In the real world when he returns from the realm of shadows monsters and evil things, to find the Duchess mortally wounded but at peace with her death. She passes the throne though to her niece, whom has been sent by her advisor to Ordon to be fed to the Count there.
Hurrying against time with his companions, Link along the way discovers that Vaati is infected with the wound inflicted upon the Princess by Ner-Rule but cannot die, and that Hilda might soon vanish and once she does Zelda will die.
Troubled he breaks into Ordon Castle to find his Uncle possessed, and venturing into the Dream World discovers Roam imprisoned there, and he reveals he knows who it was who corrupted Ner-Rul and set everything in motion. Eager to help his father, he helps break the possession in the Dream Rule but is mortally wounded by the Count.
He dies in the Dream-World to the horror of the heroes, and the immense grief of Link, with his spirit disappearing. Horror-struck to find his son dead in his arms, Uncle overtaken by grief plunges further into the Castle to go kill his liege-lord, only to discover he cannot kill him.
The man has become a vampire. Cursed by the likes of Ner-Rul he is unable to die and laughing he mortally wounds Uncle, who passes to Link the Hero’s Ocarina which is the only means by which they might re-anchor Hyrule Castle back into the realm of the living.
Link does battle with the Count, slaying him both as a giant bat in the Dream World and as a Vampire in the real one. As he begins to disappear, the Count thanks Link and begs him to save the King and that he hasn’t much time before the King is sacrificed to Vaati the Demon.
Angered by the revelation that there’s a demon called Vaati, the newly liberated Princess of the Gerudos and Hilda turn upon Vaati.
Vaati explains himself, that he is the good half and that all he wishes for is death. Yet he cannot die save by the Spirit of the Hero in his fullness and the Master Sword, and once his demon half lies dying.
Split in two thousands of years ago, he longs now for death and is disgusted with his evil half. Link moved by compassion and love for his newfound friend claims there must be another way to defeat the Demon Vaati than slaying both of them.
Hilda and the lady of the Gerudos are angry with Link’s decision, yet he reasons with them that to kill someone on their side would only taint their ultimate victory. Hilda is persuaded if only because of her affection for Link.
They then journey to go liberate the King now that they have the Seven Stones. It is once there that they enter the Castle which serves as the bridge between the realm of Dreams and Nightmares and Hyrule. It is once in the castle that they must fight their way past slavering demons, monsters, Moblins and a trio of horned pig demons one a mage, another a warrior and a third a false King.
Fighting his way to Ner-Rul, Link battles him in the Dream World three times, before it is revealed that not only was Ner-Rul not seeking the Tri-Force of Power but that he already had it. This helps to reveal that of Wisdom which Hilda has glimmers of and that of Valour which Link holds.
Ner-Rul though cannot control the power for long, and after losing in battle to Link in the form of a gargantuan chaine four-mouthed behemoth attempts to destroy Hilda. Vaati though jumps in the way taking on the wound himself, and admitting that he still loved Zelda though it was unrequited but it is revealed then that not only can he not die once again, but that the whole of the Dream World shudders and contorts when he’s injured.
Realizing that Vaati is the Dream World, Link balks at slaying Vaati, with the Demon now devouring the soul of Ner-Rul and re-entering Hyrule even as Link breaks the King free from the Dream World.
Hilda for her part on the cusp of disappearing apologizes to Vaati for doubting him, and realizing that they cannot defeat Vaati the Demon without the Tri-Force of Wisdom, admits her love for Link who is encouraged to go make out with Zelda. This he goes and does even as the Demon Vaati who now holds the Tri-Force of Power attempts to hound them, destroying everything within Hyrule in his maddened desire to have Zelda for himself and the whole of the Tri-Force.
Good Vaati holds him off despite his injuries, but is soon defeated and imprisoned. Link revives Zelda, who smiles seeing him as she gains the memories of Hilda and desperate to stop the Demon holds him off all while encouraging Link to go rescue Vaati now.
Link attempts to do so, but is told he must slay Vaati in the real world after rescuing him. Like Bowen from Dragonheart, Link claims they can defeat Vaati without needing to do so, and Good Vaati commands him, and when he still refuses attempts to blast him with magic. Link throws down his weapons and will not strike a friend, especially someone who alongside Roam has become his best friend.
Stricken Vaati, orders the King to slay him, but the King caught between his own morals (for he is a good man) hesitates, just as Zelda does.
The Demon soon begins to overpower Zelda and is on the cusp of over-powering her. Link seizing the sword proceeds to fend him off, but soon realizes it is hopeless, and it is only when Zelda is almost lost that he turns, realizes what he must do.
And so he with tears in his eyes mortally wounds Vaati, his friend with the Master-Sword.
Dying Vaati smiles, at last finding peace after thousands of lifetimes without it. As Demon Vaati shrieks and dies, Link reaches for the Tri-Force and proposes using it to heal Vaati who refuses.
‘It is better this way, my friend,’ he says blood on his lips, for he wishes to die. He knows what awaits him and is prepared to meet his maker, and proposes using the Tri-Force to restore Hyrule and Link’s Uncle. He also reveals that he now knows what happened to Roam; Roam’s spirit had been cast forward in time to be reborn later.
Vaati knows this because when his other self seized the Tri-Force of Power Vaati had semi-access to it and searched for Roam’s spirit across time and space with its power that he might restore him back to Link. But realizing that the other heroic Knight would be needed much later in time, he did not restore him to their own era.
He begs Link’s forgiveness and that of Zelda, along with the King, and when they offer it up he smiles one last time and looking at the flowers in the garden of the Temple of Time, declares this to be the happiest day of his life, and dies.
Grief-stricken Link weeps as do his lover and her father, and turning to the newly restored Tri-Force restore Uncle to life, and restore Hyrule back to what it was before the Coup against the King.
Link is ennobled and engaged to his beloved Zelda, his Uncle succeeds the dead Count as the new Count (for the Counts were not all restored, only the Duchess of the Gerudos was restored).
The King lives for many more years, long enough to see his impish daughter have her own daughter, whom she names Hilda.
A statue is built to honour Vaati, near the Temple of Time, and red roses are laid at his tomb and statue, with Link visiting it often both with his daughter Hilda, and also with his own son…. Vaati.
King Vaati I in his own turn would rule after his grandfather (who lived to see him reach adulthood and married), with Link and Zelda living into a ripe old age themselves. Though they lived happily, they were still aware that ahead lay more darkness for Hyrule, as Vaati had predicted there’d be need of heroes someday after they had passed. And after they had used the Tri-Force it had fragmented once more, with that of Power vanishing, as suddenly as it had been discovered by Ner-Rul.
In turn though, watching from another Realm is Cia, her hair having turned from blue to white as she predicts that this shall not be the end of the tale.
By this time she has begun to look on Link with ever greater favour, and ever growing longing.
And that’s it, for the adventure. Now naturally Hilda is taken from the name of Zelda’s opposite from Lorule in A Link Between Worlds. And quite naturally Vaati is the main villain of 4 Swords series of Zelda Games, and I’m quite keen to move to the Fallen Timeline, which will be for further down the road.
Interesting.
I thought the master sword could only hurt evil beings, but after some research it is an "ok" sharp sword besides. Without the blessing it is practically just a light, unbreakable, machete.
Good story. Could do with a short synopsis, like how the Hobbit can be summed up by an 8 year old. I got the impression this would be a looong movie if put to screen, on par with TotK cutscenes at a whopping 4 hours.