((authors note: sorry for taking so long to write this. I was very…hesitant to go ahead with my planned plot. Things might get a bit oc-ish after this chapter. Sorry for shortness once again. Please REVIEW! I really need feed back, I think the end seems a little forced.)

---Chickadee ch16-----

Link about changed his mind right there as he stood in the door frame of the room. She looked like he was about to beat her senseless. And in a way he supposed that was exactly what he was about to force himself to do.

"Molly…" He said carefully feeling as though he might as well be addressing a dangerous snake.

She started to sniffle as soon as she heard him call her by name instead of chickadee. This pathetic little bird reaction was not what he had expected, but then again she was just a little girl.

"I have to leave for a while…" he explained with lack luster as he watched her face get progressively red.

"NO!" she shouted furiously, suddenly snapping to anger the way he had expected at first.

"I'm sorry but I have to…" he said moving forward and shutting the door behind him.

"No you don't!!" she cried.

He was silent, unable to respond for a moment.

She stared at him angry through her watered up eyes.

"I have to…" he tried again, coming closer to sit on the edge of the foot of the bed. She inched away.

"NO, you said- You said!-" she pounded the bed angrily. He had told her a lot of things, that they would stop traveling once in Hyrule, he had even in his promise sings told her she could have one of Epona's foals eventually. And now he pulled all those stable domestic possibilities out of the air and crashed them.

How had he gotten himself into such a tenuous mess? He gave the girl a hard look, giving himself a hard unappealing revaluation. Had he really taken it seriously? He'd been nonchalant about the situation, it hadn't been as hard to take care of a child as he had expected. He didn't really have much to go honestly, kakari forest hadn't been exactly abounding with parental figures of the grown variety. He knew what it was like to be ten though, though not all ten year olds had to the save the world…

"I owe it to Tavis. I owe it to your sister…"he tried to justify himself with weak inner conviction, but his voice was firm, "I know its taken a long time but-"

He was struck with very terrible effective lie.

"I never intended to stay, Molly. This is a safe place for you, Its what's best for you." artificial forced words that surprised him. Why did he want to go so bad? Didn't he owe Her more than this?

He shut his eyes and put his fingers to the bridge of his nose. He just couldn't see it. Every day, every step of travel he taken he could see it. Peace, quiet, a comfortable pseudo parent hood, a small farming town….and now that he was here: Poof. It seemed some how still unobtainable, slightly wrong. This almost mechanistic urge to walk another thousand miles all the while hoping and wishing for something at the other end filled him. It was ineffable and the more he tried to wrap his fingers around the faster it faded away from his grasps. It wasn't from lack of love of his charge or any real desire to go risk his life for strangers. Was it goals? No, he could reach goals fine. Long term goals? No he put his mind on something and it was his. Commitment? Well he'd come this far. Finishing what he started? Well usually other people started and he finished. No, no and no. Endings, satisfying endings. Nothing had ever gone his way in the end of things. All the efforts, hardship, weird traumatizing events he had had to go through and all he'd gotten as thanks, was a trip back in time and caught up in war that had nothing to do with him. He was sabotaging himself and he didn't realize it.

"YOUR NOT MY FATHER!! YOU DON'T KNOW WHATS BEST FOR ME!" the screamed words of rage knocked him out of his self deprivation and he looked up, shocked. He shouldn't have been shocked. What had he expected her to do? Just accept it and mope off? She stormed out like a miniature hurricane, tripping along the way.

He sat at the end of that bed for a long while, elbows limply propped on knees, head hung. His boots seemed to be of great interest to him as Zelda appeared at the door frame. So softly she watched he hardly heard. So softly he almost didn'y look up with his red shot drunkard eyes.

-----------------

"I told you." he said for the third time now, "I made up my mind. I am fine"

"I'm just saying you look pretty damn pissy," Tavis said double checking the bags to the large white stallion the castle was permanently loaning him.

"I told you, Molly just didn't take it well, is all….bit disconcerting."

Tavis gave a bit of a sigh, "Ready then?" he swung up into the saddle.

"As I ever will be." he said with more meaning than his comrade interpreted. Several days had not lessened molly's uncontrollable rage to come out of 'hiding' long enough to say good bye. He had a feeling, a very bad one, that it was something that would eat at him for a good time to come. But, he had asked two very large favors and he was sure, very sure that it was the very best for her. Link attracted trouble, and as much as he longed for some sort of peace in his life, he had come to the conclusion that it was something destined for him.

And his heart was heavy with the revelation.

-------

"Link?" he small voice was like the coo of a dove, soft yet inexplicably audible in the morning light. The door groaned behind her as she entered. "Link….?' she asked again. The door shut. She stared at the empty room, too neat to have been lived in recently. She had spent the last three days hiding in the hay loft of different stables and stealing from the kitchens. She'd spent most of her time crying, but then the thrill of staying hidden had entertained her.

She treaded softly across the room. His back pack was gone. She ran quickly to the bed and threw up the dust ruffle, his boot weren't there, and no stray sock. She ran to the drawers in a panic and pulled them open nearly falling on her rear end, Both his and her clothes they had been borrowing had vanished.

"No." she gasped, "nononononono…"

She fled the room, running at full tilt on her short legs to the stable. She skidded on the hay cover coble as she entered the building. The sun was to bright and soft smell of horse too comforting for the panic that was swelling in her small chest.

The stall was empty and the hot tight feeling increased. She checked every stall, but the big war horse was gone.

Maybe she wasn't too late. She ran out into the court yard. Nothing. Her heart pounding like war drum, she sped toward the rampart stairs. She tripped dup the stairs going up the to large steps. Her feet thumping painfully on the stone. She nearly ran into the stone wall, catching herself and standing on tip toe. Castle town was spread before her. Only an old cart approaching the gate.

Gone.

She turned her back to the ramparts and slide down till she was sitting with her knees up to her chest. She covered her head with her hands. At age ten her heart was breaking for the first time.

----

Night had snuck up on her. And as she peeked up from her protective shield of arms and legs, the soft glow of the sunset was disappearing.

"He's good at disappearing and breaking hearts."

She gasped and pushed her self away and twisting to se the phantom voice above her.

"Boo." the corner of the young man's lip curling up was barely visible, "He broke the princess's heart once, too."

She sat back a bit bewildered as the blond cat like man with the red eye looked down at her, with the same coy al knowing look that had annoyed her some much on the princess's face. But there was a spark of something wild in this look, something that wasn't in the ruling princess's expression.

"who are you?"

He smirked, "why should you care?" he said with a light almost feminine voice.

She glared angrily, "because I'm talking to you! and… and your wearing a very silly tunic!"

H made a face and looked down at the front of the purple tunic, "You shouldn't disrespect the evil eye," he moved from half crouch to a sitting position, "its always watching."

She stared with big brown eyes a little startled.

"Link told me that I better look out for you… I'm not very thrilled." he siad with a lofty tone.

"then DON'T!!" she yelled, the fire of abandonment and betrayal still burning in her wet eyes.
He sighed, "but a promise is a promise, besides what do you intend to do now little bird?"

"I-" she hadn't thought about it

"Exactly, you don't plan to stay here?" he said with a tilt of his head, his blond hair moving to reveal his other red eye.

"I-…I-guess not." she said meekly. She felt trapped by the red orbs set in his face, a disconcerting half force trust was creeping into her opinion of him. She shook her head hard but the feeling was not dispelled.

"Be up here with your things at night fall." he said with a commanding sternness, "The way through the night will be revealed. Fear not the future for you are steadfast hands." he ended in a strangely juxtaposed poetic verse.

Molly continued to stare, utterly confused and still horribly hurt. There was a bright flash and resounding crack. She looked away, and as the blinding light subsided the strange young man was gone.

"What…the hell…was that." she asked the thin air. She pounded her fists down on the ramparts were the stranger had just disappeared from. Tears were still stinging in her eyes.

"That BASTARD!" she screamed. Not sure if she was referring to the stranger or Link. She didn't care. She listened to her angry voice echo. She rested her chin on her hands after a moment. She really didn't know what to do. He'd really had gone and left her. There was no way she was staying in the palace with that phony insincere princess that gallivanted around as queen. Zelda had not made a very good impression with the child.

She pushed back form the ramparts, "I don't need any ones help." she said softly and defiantly. If link was going to leave her, then fine. But she was not just going to go along with his plan to leave her in some strangers care. Yes she was going to pack her stuff up, but no she was not going to meet her new keeper on the ramparts. The young girl marched determinedly down the rampart steps.