Chapter Two
“So I need you to pretend you’re me,” finished Link. Liam looked at him with a little uncertainty.
“You really want people to think that I’m you?” he asked. “Have you gone completely nuts? All of the hot girls are going to want to follow you around. If they think that I’m you, they’ll follow me!”
“Yeah, that was the point.”
Liam smiled. “I always knew you were a true friend! You’d even give me the pretty ones.”
Link sighed. “I hope you’re being sarcastic. I don’t want to always think of you as someone who goes for looks.” Liam laughed.
“I’m just playing with you, kiddo. I’m going to do this because you’re my buddy, not because I want hot girls. “
Link sighed sarcastically. “And to think, I actually believed you. You really had me fooled.”
“Okay, enough joking around for now. So, I have to get a phoenix costume for the ball?”
“Yeah, and make sure that you get a mask to go with it.”
“Anything else I should know?”
Link thought for a moment. “Well, your hair needs to be covered. Everyone knows that I’m a dumb blond and not a dumb brunette, so your head would be an automatic giveaway.”
“Well, I’ll think of something. Dumb brunettes are smarted than dumb blonds, you know.”
Link grimaced. “Ha…Ha…Ha…” he said as he trudged to his own quarters.
He and Liam were like brothers, almost twins. The only ways that anyone could tell them apart were their hair and eyes. Liam had brown hair and green eyes, while Link had blond hair and blue eyes. Other than that, they were generally the same. They had almost the same voice and build, similar handwriting, and the same birthday (August 27th) and allergies (seasonal and peanuts).
Their stories, however, were completely different. Link was the Hero of Time. He had battled many horrors, braved many dangers, and saved many people. He had moved to Hyrule Castle because he was friends with the Royal Family and the Kokiri Forest was not a good home for the Hero of Time. He belonged in the Castle, and he was very happy living there. It was also easier to find him when there was an emergency that he needed to take care of. Link also had no family to go to at all, and the King was like a father to him, and Zelda, a sister.
Liam was born in the Hyrule Castle Town. His parents were wealthy when he was born, but when he was twelve, his father lost all of their fortune in a bet. In a desperate attempt to save the family, Liam’s mother did what she could. She sent Liam’s two sisters to work in Labrynna as maids and his two brothers to work in Holodrum as guards. Neither country would take Liam because they felt he was too young. Racona would have taken Liam, but their king had a vision one night that his son would die if Liam came to Racona before a certain time, so Liam clearly could not go there. Therefore, Liam’s mother appealed to the King of Hyrule. The King did not like Liam’s father, but he reluctantly took Liam in as a guard. By the time he was fifteen, Liam was the Captain of the Guard, and that was when Link came to the Castle. Instantly the two became friends.
People joked that they had been separated at birth, and it actually became a little bit of a scandal. The King had to show the people birth certificates to prove that the two young men were not brothers.
To Liam, Link was the brother that he never had. His real brothers were ten and nine years older than him, and they did not like to hang around with him at all. Most of the time, Liam would watch the two of them practicing dueling by sparring each other. By the time he was ten, old enough to wield a sword, his brothers were like strangers. Therefore, Liam taught himself all that he could in one year about weapons and fighting.
On the other hand, Link didn’t know what a brother was like. Growing up in the Kokiri Forest was more of a trial for him than most people thought. Link did not have a fairy until he was ten, and other Kokiri mocked him for it. He only had one friend, Saria, and a child needs more than one friend to have a remotely happy childhood. So Link lived alone for his childhood, only speaking with other Kokiri if it was necessary, or if they were Saria. When he began his journey to change the timeline, all of the Hero’s skills he needed came to him with great ease, and he made a few friends along the way. However, they tended to be girls. So Link was as confused as Liam was when they became close friends. How does one act like a good brother when one has never had one?
And so, this question settled their problem. They both decided that neither of them knew how to be a good brother, but then again, when the first boy was born, and his little brother was born, he probably didn’t know what to do either. Then, they realized that, because they had the same birthday, they didn’t know who was older. After a game of rock, paper, scissors (best two out of three), they decided that Liam could be older by five minutes. So, when their birthday came around, Liam’s would be celebrated with a cake first, and five minutes later, another would be brought out for Link.
It had been three years since they had met and become blood brothers. Some people swore to the Goddesses that when one of them would walk into a room in the Castle, they would have to say who they were, especially in the summer when Liam’s hair would become blonder in the sun. It was like having a set of twins with similar names. The two would have been kicked out of the Castle for confusing everyone so much, but they were very valuable, so they got to stay.
Then, there was the rumor about one of them marrying Princess Zelda, but that died quickly. First of all, no one could figure out if the rumor said that Link was going to marry her or Liam. Then, Zelda announced her engagement to the Crown Prince Daniel of Labrynna. That shut everyone up, to Link and Liam’s relief.
In the news, they were referred to as “the twins,” and this annoyed the twins to no end. Finally, the King told the press to watch it, or else Link wouldn’t be so willing to fight off monsters that attacked them and Liam would post fewer guards in their district. Liam and Link bought the King a pair of pink, fuzzy slippers as a present for this. They also sent Zelda a bra that unhooked in the front “so Daniel won’t have too much trouble on your honeymoon.” She sent both of them dirt in their thank-you notes. Such was the way of the boys and their friends.
So, when Link asked Liam to help him for the costume ball, Liam would have never even thought of saying no. It was like the time when Liam asked Link to double date with a girl from town with a “disagreeable” personality so Liam could date her really nice friend. Liam dated the nice girl for six weeks, but she broke up with him because her disagreeable friend liked him.
