He wishes for happiness.

Only eighteen. He is far too young to have loved and lost so deeply.

All the villagers notice. They watch Link come home after the war, tired boy astride tired horse, and wonder why eyes once bright and vast as the sky hold nothing anymore. Deep, empty pits, gray and cold and dull and utterly incomprehensible.

His mother Uli - adopted, but still entirely his - wraps bandages around his torn skin and his torn mind. Even with her gentle fingers and soothing words, both scars won't leave.

That girl Ilia, the one he had intended to marry so long ago - had it really only been a year? It feels like a century - is just as kind. She loves, and she laughs even when he doesn't, tries to make him smile, and for her sake he tries too.

But it never works.

Twilight falls. A blanket of stillness and cold and orange and shattered memories. Ilia never really leaves his side. And she just sits there with him as the dusk breaks his heart all over again, and even with her there - even with the entire village there - he is lonely. He is nothing but loneliness.

She notices, and grasps his hand, pulling him back to reality and away from the ethereal shadow realm that sometimes he doubts is even real.

He pastes a fake smile on his face. She knows. Ever since he returned that's all he offers - fake smiles, fake warmth, fake laughter and fake love.

Almost a year passes. Ilia thinks he'll change. She can heal him, she hopes, for both her sake and his. Because he's too different for his own good, too much of an empty shell that she tries to fill with laughter and joy, but clearly there's a hole in his heart because all the love she gives him just seeps out like water into the soil and it can't be reclaimed.

So on the eve of his nineteenth birthday - she gives him the gift he never mentioned but she knows he wants.

She tells him to go.

He blinks at her in surprise, and for a moment there's only silence in the chill air - twilight again, because it seems everything cruel in this world happens at twilight. She just smiles in response, and nods, tears gathering in her eyes that she won't let fall.

And as much as she hopes he'll refuse - as much as she wishes he'll confess his love for her and tell her he'll stay - of course he doesn't. Her mind tells her to expect this but her heart breaks anyway.

He'll go. Yes, he will, and he does.

His nineteenth birthday comes and goes, hollow celebrations and hollow well-wishes and hollow, hollow, hollow. Uli is there, and Rusl his adopted father too, and Colin his adopted brother. And they laugh, and Rusl tries to tell jokes, and Uli giggles at all of them even though nobody else does.

Link doesn't even try anymore. He doesn't smile, hardly pays any attention to the people he had once known so well, and when they inquire concerning his vacant expression he only apologizes and tells them he's nervous to be nineteen.

Ilia doesn't try anymore either.

The "party" ends, not that it can be called that, before lunch is even fully over. Link spends the rest of the day packing, and Ilia helps, even though part of her doesn't want to.

Near the end of day he dons that old green tunic, the accursed one torn from battle and stained with his own blood, but he doesn't seem to care about how worn it is. She watches with a smiling mask as he leaves at twilight - curse the twilight - riding away on the back of his still-tired horse with the first genuine smile on his lips in a year.

She lifts a hand to him, a hand that holds the entire weight of the world, but she lifts it anyway - and waves.

He doesn't notice.

Green woods swallow him, green woods bathed in the orange of that awful dusk, and she thinks their shadows are much too eager to claim him.

He searches for happiness.

He starts his quest for knowledge with a bright smile and a heart racing in excitement. The words of books whisper to him, and he listens, sweeping eager fingers across pages old and new.

But as time flows around him - his smile fades. The days pass, and turn to weeks and then months and almost another year has passed, and the gently whispering words of those books turn to taunting laughs and cruel grins.

Nothing. There's just nothing, and he thinks that shadow realm he grew to love so much is naught more than an illusion.

But he basks in that illusion. He shuts his eyes and lets the twilight swallow him, a half-man half-boy in a half-realm of light, and not a soul can break him free from it - save for, perhaps, the gentle whinny of his faithful companion.

He turns twenty and doesn't notice. No longer does he care about the passage of time. It is meaningless to him in his desperate quest for knowledge. Only the books matter, the terrible books, the books empty as he is despite their pages crowded with dark ink letters.

It might be time to visit his village again, he thinks one day as he shuts another empty book and slips it back onto its mahogany shelf. It's already been a year and they must miss him. He certainly misses them. Especially Ilia.

But then he remembers his quest, and it hangs a heavy burden across his shoulders. He can't give it up. He can't go back, not yet, not when he's still nothing but loneliness.

So he takes his faithful mare Epona's reins again and rides away. And he doesn't stop riding, not for a long time, not ever it feels like, and even when a hundred twilights flitter past like memories of her he still doesn't stop.

Knowledge of a shadow realm won't exist in Hyrule, a kingdom of emerald fields and marble manors and sunshine laughter.

He must go beyond.

And so he does, and doesn't stop, and doesn't return, even when his heart cries for home and his mare cries for rest. He doesn't stop, he can't stop, because what if -

- what if he finds her round the next corner of the setting sun?

He searches for happiness he can't find.

Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three - all these birthdays come and go. He doesn't even notice they exist. For all he knows, he's been traveling for a year or a century. What difference does it make?

Canyons scrape the sky with rocky fingers red as blood. Silver rivers cut through their deepest valleys, speaking of shadows and taunting history that only they know but he longs to hear.

Villages dot the land, little settlements teeming with life and culture and not a single pointed ear. Sometimes he pulls his hat down to cover his. Still they question him. Still the breeze carries the foreigners' wary whispers of "distant wanderer" to him.

Sometimes people are scared of him. Sometimes they furrow their brows and stare and quickly look away once they realize he's looking at them too. Or sometimes they welcome him with laughter and joy and pleas for a tale or two from a faraway land.

Sometimes he can't help granting them one.

Even then - even when he lies alongside merry hearths with a full belly and a kind couple asleep in another room - even when he drifts to sleep with the hint of a smile at the edges of his pale lips - he still leaves in the morning anyway, astride an ever-faithful mare with a heavy quest hanging on his shoulders and the grins of a beautiful, terrible shadow realm curling possessive fingers around his mind.

Always the villagers watch him go, watch the lonely figure and his lonely horse fade into the horizon, and they can't help thinking his gray eyes used to be azure once.

He searches for happiness though he's too tired.

Epona's ever the only one there for him as the inevitable twilight always drapes the land. Even in a place so far from Hyrule, the orange sky and the chill it holds is the same. The same cruel world that lies just on the sky there in front of him, but the sky is too high to reach.

He tries to reach it anyway. And when he can't, when grief threatens to consume him, Epona nudges his shoulder hard enough to knock him over and wake him up. He's grateful for it - even though he always has to pick himself up again afterwards, a little dustier and dirtier each time.

One day he finds a field. Not like the fields of Hyrule, interrupted by flowers or a narrow stone trail or an occasional tree or the outline of a castle in the distance. No, a vast field of pure swaying green, no flowers, no trees, only a sky above as blue as his eyes had been so long ago. No soaring castle towers to break the horizon. No villages in the distance, or even mountains. Green. Green, and nothing more.

It feels like another world. And when the sun sets, spreading brilliant pink and golden wings glowing across the endless sky, he almost believes it is.

The familiar sadness that comes with twilight isn't there that time. He notices, and smiles, a shaky smile with ungraceful tears flowing down his blotchy red cheeks and dripping off his chin, but he isn't sad. He doesn't quite know what he's feeling, but he thinks - after all these years, and all this stress, and all this pain - it might just be relief. It might just be happiness.

Happiness. Impossible. Not for him, no, the lonely hero who gave everything, including his heart, and received nothing in return. He must be dreaming.

But then that wonderful horse of his nudges him, and when he peers into her familiar gentle eyes he knows this is real.

For the first time in years he sleeps without nightmares of that awful shadow realm.

He searches for happiness - but all he wants is to give up.

He stops one day in a bustling city, square black stone castle sitting squat in the center of it. A hundred merchant stalls surround it, each loudly advertising their wares, voices filling the air and echoing against tall wooden houses.

One woman proudly boasts her jewelry and trinkets, and her homemade pies of highest quality. The smell wafting through the air and into his nostrils is irresistible, so he stops.

As she passes him the delicious meat pie he ordered, something catches his eye. Something glinting in the sunlight. It sits at the corner of the stall, polished to gleam, and his feet carry him to it with curiosity in his step.

A simple mirror. Small, round, not very ornate at all, framed by dull wood. But it grabs his attention anyway, and he peers into it.

A strange man looks back at him. A strange man he doesn't know, but it might be him. Scraggly hair brown with dirt reaches far past his shoulders, inelegantly framing a hardened face and narrow gray eyes that might once have been azure. It must be him. But how could it be, with a face so different and eyes so cold and thin lips never smiling?

It's been so long. How long, he can't be sure, and he realizes he doesn't even know how old he is anymore. But he figures it's about time to visit his family once more, to see how they're doing, and to apologize for being selfish enough to leave without a word when all they had done was care for him.

Epona gently nuzzles him then, as if to say she agrees - it's the right thing to do.

So he climbs into her saddle and urges her away from the city, eating the delicious meat pie as he goes, and thinks he's happier now than he's ever been for the thought of seeing Ilia and Uli and Rusl and Colin again.

He journeys home. He does not stop to rest, or search for knowledge. A man unstoppable in his loneliness, and a mare unstoppable in her loyalty. She runs, churning dirt and grass and flowers beneath sharp hooves, and even when the sun beats down cruel on canyon walls - even when dark clouds gather at the edges of the sky and rumble deep with thunder - even when the endless field of green beckons him; tells him to stay - even when fat droplets of cold rain pound against wooden rooftops - even then, she doesn't stop. He lets her run, lets the icy wind tear at his hair and scream in his ears.

It doesn't take him nearly as long to get home as it did to leave it. And before he even realizes it, Epona's quite suddenly trotting through familiar green fields, broken by quaint stone paths and broad-crowned trees and pink flowers and elegant bridges spanning silver rivers. The silhouette of a familiar castle shatters the clear blue sky, spindly stone towers reaching like fingers for the heavens.

Tired hooves clatter across a long wooden bridge, unchanged even by these many years. Link's heart drums an unsteady, anxious rhythm against his ribcage at the sight of it.

Then - then the mare stops. Stops, within the depths of a shadowy wood, gentle breeze whispering secrets of twilight through leafy canopies. He shudders, and shuts his eyes, allowing those familiar secrets to envelop him.

Epona catches a familiar scent. Her ears perk. A whinny of excitement tears from her throat - and without her master's guidance or permission she charges forward along a familiar dirt path with a cry of surprise from the man astride her saddle. She skids to a stop before a beautiful spring. Familiar spring, as everything here is familiar, so familiar it's almost painful in its unchanging peace.

And -

His name rings in the air, from a voice familiar as his surroundings -

He whips his head to the side, and sees a beautiful woman rushing toward him. Hair bright as sunlight spills past her shoulders in shimmering waves. A joyous grin splits her porcelain face. And dark lashes frame eyes - wonderful green eyes that hold the very forest within them.

No - Ilia? It must be, but it can't, she looks so different, and - is that a child, in her belly?

Link only stares as she stops beside Epona, and the mare nuzzles her, whinnying in happiness. The beautiful woman pats the horse's nose, her name tumbling past laughing lips.

And she looks at Link, and utters his name.

How does she even recognize him, if he couldn't recognize himself?

He slips off Epona's saddle to meet her. For a moment something of an awkward silence drapes the air - in which she stands there, eyes sparkling, happy smile never leaving her pretty face, and in which he has no idea how to respond, because it's been far too long, and - this can't be Ilia.

Then she throws her arms around him, heedless of the dirt smudging his skin and caking his hair and the stench of unwashed man and horse that pervades him.

In response he smiles. Actually smiles, his first genuine smile in - in, he doesn't even know how long, and all he can do is wrap his arms around her and breathe a sigh of contentment with the knowledge that yes, he is home at last.

Then something unfamiliar interrupts. A voice. A boy's voice. Wary, and near-silent, inquiring as to the identity of this "stranger".

Link's eyes flash open. Ilia's arms drop to her sides again, and she turns to a child that's been standing behind her in the shallow spring all along, a child that looks remarkably like her - save for his dark brown hair…

And Link can't help the questions escaping his lips - who's this, how's everyone doing, how long has it been?

She tells him it's been eight years - eight! - and introduces her son… Fado's son.

Really, Link can't help being confused for quite a while. Fado? And Ilia? It seems so unlikely; the two barely spoke to each other. Well, of course they did, occasionally, but only when Link was with the both of them. Never had they spoken to each other alone, at least not to his knowledge, and Ilia always treated him as something of a stranger. She didn't treat him unkindly - just a little too politely, the type of polite in which Fado knew she wasn't very comfortable around him.

But then again, eight entire years had passed. Much can change in that time. Too much.

Ilia tells her child about Link, about how he's the man in all the stories she'd told him, and Link can't help a terrible sadness that overcomes him at the thought of his childhood friend telling her son all about him even when she should have forgotten him, for her own good.

Maybe that's a selfish thing for him to wish. Selfish of him to leave his village for eight entire years without telling anyone, that much is clear.

The child smiles. Even at such a young age, he already possesses Fado's large nose. The sight makes Link smile back.

He wants to meet the others. Ilia advises him to take a bath first. They both laugh - laugh! - and then she asks, practically begs, to wash Epona while he's washing himself. Of course he lets her, because how could he not? For old time's sake, he thinks to himself with a grin as he returns to the house he'd left empty for so long.

And maybe those are tears, streaming down his face. Tears of sadness, or regret, or even joy - he can't tell.

After he's finished bathing - which takes quite a while, since only the Goddesses know when he last cleaned himself up - he meets the villagers all over again. There are tearful reunions, there's laughter and joy, and maybe even a bit of motherly anger on Uli's part because she almost yells at him for leaving without a word. Almost - because Uli's too gentle to yell, really. And then she's sobbing and burying her face in his shoulder and blabbering about how they all missed him so much, and how he looks so different, and is he all right?

Beth is a different person completely. So different that she has to introduce herself, and Link responds with an awkward blush and a nervous laugh when he realizes too late that it's her. Her slightly-messy brown hair falls to her shoulders and she gives a soft, easy smile. When he looks at her and Talo, he can tell there's something between them, even if they had once hated each other in their youth.

Malo isn't there at all. Even at such a young age, he's the rich owner of a successful business chain, and is apparently lounging around in Castle Town atop a throne of silken pillows within his own personal mansion. Or so his mother tells him. Then again, she's always been one to exaggerate.

Colin is near unrecognizable, but Link recognizes him anyway, despite the teenage grin on his teenage face and his teenage arms wrapping around him. And he excitedly explains something about being a soldier in Castle Town, to which Link can only respond with wide eyes and surprised silence.

Too much has changed. He wishes he could have grown with Colin, instead of so far away. But the years have already flown past. It is too late now for regret.

He regrets anyway.

Finally Fado hugs him in a crushing grip, and he hasn't changed much at all. Link can only chuckle as he returns the hug, and Ilia and her husband laugh as they bring him up to speed on just about everything he missed in his time away from Ordon.

They talk late into the night, when silver moonlight is their only other company and their four-year-old son should be sleeping in bed, but he seems quite content to stay up late and chase fireflies.

Then they leave Link. Leave him to rest, and sleep, and let everything sink in. And they leave him with promises of tomorrow, of "see you in the morning", of a hot breakfast waiting for him in their home at the crack of the peaceful pink dawn.

It is unwise of them to leave a wanderer to himself.

For, in the morning, there is no Link to share breakfast with.

He can't find happiness.

That beautiful village of Ordon, the one of lush green and golden sunsets and deep sapphire water, the one of bright smiles and joyous laughter and family -

It isn't happiness. It is loneliness. It is pain, pain of memories long past, wisps of smoke in the air that can't be touched. He wants to reclaim them. And he almost, almost regrets not returning Ilia's love - because now she's given it to someone else.

But no.

Her.

If only he could find her, the one his heart had belonged to for all these eight long years, the one his heart still belongs to, but she's a shadow, and after all this time he sometimes doubts she even existed in the first place. She might be a figment of his imagination. A faraway dream.

He can't love a dream.

But he tries anyway - and he sets off to search in an entirely different direction this time. Surely the Goddesses will give him some kind of happiness after all this time, after all the grief he had gone through to save their precious Hyrule.

Surely he'll find something. Anything.

Epona's hooves leave prints in unfamiliar desert sand. The sun beats down cruel upon the world, giving the hero nothing more than a condescending glare, sneering at his hopeless quest.

The days flow by as easily as a river, a river he wishes he could drink from, because his water canteen runs low. Epona plods through the desert, a tired horse with a tired rider, tired, tired as they always are. And when he looks at her he feels selfish and terrible all over again, because doesn't she deserve rest too?

He almost wants to turn back. To give Epona to Ilia, because she'll take good care of her, and then the mare will be happy without her cruel master driving her through the burning heat of midday.

But he can't. He's too selfish, too absorbed in his quest, too desperate to find the next town and its library and the information stored within.

Eventually the sand stops, and leads to dry, cracked ground with scant life growing gnarled limbs between it. Never does a cloud hang in the sky or a river in the horizon. All he knows is heat and dirt and the occasional dusty green of a struggling bush. And the only sound he knows is that of the dry, hot breeze, burning his skin.

Night isn't any better. It brings the eerie howls of foreign beasts, and a cruel chill to rival even that of Snowpeak's. And still there is no water.

Day comes again. In the distance a ravine slices deep into the barren flatlands, a ravine in which his sensitive Hylian ears can detect the laughing of a wide river. The sound makes his heart leap, and brings a faint smile to his lips, just as dry and cracked as the world around him. Even Epona's ears perk and she gives a whinny of tired joy at the thought of drinking water again.

The silhouette of a city stands on the other side of the ravine. An ancient stone bridge leads to it, narrow and crumbling. It looks unsteady. But Link doesn't care. All he can think about is the city, and the libraries full of knowledge that must lie within such a large place, and the river hidden deep inside the ravine. An excited grin splits his face - and he spurs Epona into a gallop, even despite how exhausted she is, despite her heaving sides, despite her labored breathing.

Sharp hooves clatter against the stone bridge. The large river roars a mile below, music to his ears, and the grin grows ever wider on his dusty face.

Suddenly -

- the bridge cracks.

A sharp, resounding crack. It shatters the once-quiet air, echoing against the rock walls of the ravine and stopping the Hylian's heart. And then there's nothing beneath the horse and her rider, save for a splitting bridge and falling stones that could not support their weight, and Epona screams, and - and as she falls - she throws him. Throws him to the still-intact side of the bridge, and he crashes, and rolls, shouting in surprise, and finally slides to a stop, safe, at the end of the ravine.

But he doesn't even stay down for a second. He stumbles to his feet, eyes wide in horror, and calls for his mare, his ever-faithful mare, and skids to the side of the ravine where there he looks down. Looks down, even though he doesn't want to - and sees her splash into the river a mile below, such a tiny splash for such a great creature.

For a while he can only kneel there at what must be world's end. For a while he can only watch, waiting for her to return to him, his only companion through eight years, or more. For a while he just stares - doesn't even blink -

Until, finally, tears stream down his cheeks, and pour off his chin to join the raging river a mile below.

No. No, it can't be, not after so many years… Not after she had been the only one there to comfort him, and to find him when he sometimes lost himself in visions of twilight.

It can't be true. But it is. And he hates himself for it. If only he had been kinder, more selfless, if only he had let her rest…

But it is far too late now. And what can he do, what, other than continue his hopeless quest?

So he turns. And he walks. Walks, alone, alone across barren ground without a soul for company, for the first time in his entire life.

When he arrives to the city he finds it entirely devoid of people. Old ruins reach toward the sky in vain, roofs crumbling and walls missing. Stone beds lie empty in the streets, flowerbeds, things that might once have held color, but are now empty and lifeless. Just like himself. He drops to his knees inside one of them and sobs, and doesn't care about how disgusting he must look, messy tears carving trails into the dust caked on his skin.

The sun laughs at him. Scorches, and burns, and beats, and laughs.

He despises it.

Blessed twilight relieves him of the scorching day. It falls as a gift from the heavens, pink and purple sky the only color in this Goddess-forsaken place. And he falls in love with it all over again. Even if it's an illusion - even if it's a dream he still persistently clings to despite the fact that there's nothing there - he doesn't care.

He falls. Falls, deep into that awful, beautiful shadow realm, and never comes back.

He reaches for happiness.

Even though he doesn't deserve it, even though it might be best for him to just die already and let the Goddesses judge him of cruelty and selfishness… still he reaches. Because it's within his grasp, right there, right in the old ruined library of the old ruined city, lying within the pages of old ruined books.

He searches them. Grazes tired, calloused fingers across their faded ink words, and discovers things he isn't even sure he wants to know. Stories of an ancient tribe banished from the realm of light -

Wait.

Ancient tribe. Realm of light.

It can't be, it can't, after so many years - how many years has it been? He doesn't even know, nor does he care because here it is, right here, what he's been searching for, for so long, thank the Goddesses!

His heart soars, and he devours every word on every page - every word he can read, anyway, because some of them are just too faded - and -

The realm of shadows.

He finds it in a thick, ancient book.

Hidden in darkness. Fitting for a realm of shadows, he thinks, and pure joy consumes him at the thought that this - this is it. All he must do is search the darkness and there it will lie, waiting, waiting for him to step through from the cruel realm of sun into the gentle world of twilight.

And her. He'll find her there. Doubt nags at him for a moment, that maybe she's moved on, found someone else, but he pushes the thought away just as soon as it comes. With that, he sets off.

Only endless golden deserts await him. Their shifting sands whisper taunting promises to him, promises of that other realm, and he listens. They tell him where to go and he obeys. By night he travels, shunning the terrible light of the sun. He doesn't keep track of the passing days. He never has. But he does know it's been a very long time, and the gate to that other world should be here, but it isn't, and maybe he's just looking in all the wrong places.

Without a horse he travels. Without company he talks. Without jokes he laughs. Talks to shadows, and laughs at them, and doesn't jump at them like he used to so long ago.

The desert seems alive, the way it talks to him when he stops talking to himself. The way it sings him to sleep when he's too tired to continue on.

After a while, he starts to think, maybe it really is alive.

Like a beast he hunts, and eats, and in the darkness he regresses. When dawn rises he bares his teeth at it and scurries like a filthy rat to hide in any shadow he can find.

Maybe he's going insane. Sometimes he hates himself for it. Sometimes he doesn't have the presence of mind to care.

In darkest night he fights. Fights the beast within him, the beast that threatens to destroy any last shred of sanity he possesses. Fights, fights, stumbles… too tired to continue on. Too tired to care about anything anymore, even her.

After all these years, he can't remember her face. The one who started all of this, the one who sent him on this terrible quest even if she didn't mean to, the one who stole his heart and took it far away where he could never reach…

Is it all for nothing? Does anything matter anymore?

As if they finally understand - as if those cruel demons that call themselves Goddesses finally realize just how close their "hero" is to snapping -

They give him relief at last.

He finds happiness.

She stands there before him, swathed in fair twilight, white trees riddled with glowing blue marks surrounding her tall form. Her dainty blue hand reaches to pluck a black rose from the base of a tree. She does not see him, not yet.

For a while he can only stare. Stare at her familiar form, and the familiar silhouette of the Twilight Palace beyond the trees, and the familiar ethereal purple sky, black clouds ever shifting within its expanse.

Then he runs. He doesn't care about his disheveled clothes, his unwashed stench, the gray of his once-azure eyes. He can only laugh. His happiest laugh in too many years to count.

Her head jerks up at the sound of his voice. Beautiful sunset eyes flick to meet his.

She hasn't changed, not one bit, he thinks as he crashes into her, shoulders shaking with sobs.

She says nothing. All she does is stand there, confused, for a moment - and then she realizes. Realizes, and wraps her arms around him so tightly that he thinks he might just break, but he doesn't care because they're her arms and nothing matters anymore. Then she's sobbing too, wetting his filthy shoulder with countless tears. Every breath she breathes sounds like his name. He smiles, fingers clutching the fabric of her dress as desperate as if she'll disappear if he doesn't.

In this eternal darkness, in this realm of shadow - he is happiness. He is nothing but happiness.

A/N: And it's finally done... this one took me weeks and I don't even really know why. Usually I can write a oneshot just as long as this (or longer) in a few hours, but this one... It was certainly an interesting little thing, that's for sure.

Also, sorry about the huge mood shift later on in the story. Basically I took a break from writing this for a few days, and in those days I played Ico for the first time (it came out in 2001 and I just barely played it, I know, I'm super late) sooo... yeah. That's the reason for that mood shift there.

And if anyone can tell me what Epona's death is a tribute to, I will give you like... a million internet cupcakes or something.

Sorry for all my rambling, but thanks so much for reading - and reviewing, if you wanna do that too! I'm open to critiques if you have any for me. Anyway - thanks again!