Fanfic / My Inner Life

Please wake up, Link...

"Dreams come in many forms. Some good, some bad, some very realistic, even ones that feels very real."

—Prologue.

My Inner Life is a The Legend of Zelda fanfic written at some point between the late 90s and early 2000s. It has gone down in history as one of the most memorable stories of its type ever written. It all started when a starry-eyed fangirl known as Jen began to have lucid dreams about Link and believed they were a real second life she lived, writing them down to share them with the world.

The story followed the exploits of a girl named Jenna, a traveling merchant who meets and falls in love with Link Silverblade (that's his last name now). She then proceeds to marry him, have lots of sex with him while grunting like tigers in heat, and bear his babies. Along the way, the couple takes part in a bizarre bonding ceremony, battles Dark Link, and discovers that Jenna is descended from a race of magical people who can control the elements.

The author never actually finished the story, but it lives on in the memories of many traumatized and amused Zelda fans. The story, plus a shrine to the author herself, can be found here. You can also hear an incomplete Dramatic Reading here. In February 2021, mutant museum^note formerly manwithoutabody, who did the very first Dramatic Reading (some of which is still available on archive.org, but is no longer available on YouTube), began a remake, which was re-uploaded (with the sex scenes cut out) in a playlist over here after his original channel was terminated, presumably due to the story's explicit content.

If those aren't enough to quell your interest, there is also a reenactment in The Sims 2, part one of which can be found here. Also recommended is this sporking. Two more interesting sporks are here and here. There is also a mission to this fic by the Protectors of the Plot Continuum, found here.

Adaptations of My Inner Life are troped over here.

Also, see My Immortal, legolas by laura, Shinra High Soldier, DOOM: Repercussions of Evil, Love Is Deffinatly Blind, Back to the Frollo, The Final Sword, Marissa Picard, Atlanta Nights, and StarKitsProphcy.

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My Inner Life provides examples of:

• Acrophobic Bird:
  • Invoked, probably unintentionally. While in the Griffin City, Jenna meets a griffin merchant named Tanis who claims to have traveled across the Barren Sea, a body of water Jenna has always understood to be impassable, due to a ferocious Sea Monster and constant whirlpools. Tanis is deliberately coy about how he managed to do it. It never seems to occur to Jenna that he flew.
  • Also present in the layout of the Griffin City, which has roads, roofs, and doors much as a human city would. The griffins' power of flight does not impact their architecture in any way.
• Ambiguously Human: The Draconians. According to the footnotes, they are the most feared and powerful of the Dark Knights who serve the Dark Lord Ariakis. However, at other times in the story, it seems like they are an Always Chaotic Evil race of beings, from whom the Dark Knights are recruited. The two Draconians we meet in the story never remove their armour, so we never find out for sure what manner of creature they are.
• All There in the Manual: In the Author's Notes, Jenna mentions that she had to catch up the fic to where she was in the dreams and says that she's at a point in which she's baptizing her newborn twins (her third and fourth children with Link). This bit doesn't happen within the story itself.
  • There are also extensive footnotes, although it's something of a subversion in that a lot of the information was included in the story itself.
  • By the point in the story when Jenna and Link are crossing the desert back, Jen the author responded to a curious reader, saying that she, Link and Nabooru would travel to her homeland, the Great Lebian Coast, and that they'd face Dark Link again. She also spoils that presumed arc by telling us that Link would die, but not to worry, since he'd be back soon.
• Alternate Universe Fic: The story is set up by Link not going back in time at the end of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, allowing him to meet Jenna. Therefore, as explicitly stated in the author's note, Majora's Mask and the Oracle games did not happen in this timeline.
• Animal Motifs: Jenna seems to have something of a cat motif. She's described as having "cat like instincts" and has an excellent sense of smell.
• Arc Villain: Dark Link returns to the Water Temple for a story arc, but is then defeated and vanishes from the narrative. Had the story been finished, there's evidence to believe that Ariakis would have ended up this way as well.
• Artistic License – Biology:
  • Link Jr. does not act like a real baby of his age. See Three-Month-Old Newborn below for specifics.
  • The castle healer tells Jenna that having sex while pregnant will make her body stronger, which is not the case in real life. There's also a notorious sequence in which a heavily-pregnant Jenna gets very drunk with no apparent adverse effect on the baby
  • Also, movement is generally more awkward and difficult during the last of the second trimester and the entirety of the third trimester, since, you know, the kid gets huge and all, while here Jenna is capable of traveling around and doing action scenes.
  • One does not boot horses in the legs to get them to move. It's the ribs. Really a firm squeeze with your legs is all that's needed. And maybe a light nudge with the heels. Actually, it seems rather impossible to boot a horse in the leg while you're riding it–horses are pretty big animals, after all. In fact, hitting a horse in the legs is more likely to send the rider flying off than make the horse actually go.
  • Jenna seems to be convinced that a horse's pregnancy is 9 months, when in reality, it can take a full year for a foal to completely gestate.
  • During Jenna's giving birth to Link Jr there was no mention of an umbilical cord and apparently the birth only took maybe five minutes.
  • At one point, Jenna said her blood was cold, though this could be metaphorical.
  • More a problem of terminology than anything else, but Epona gives birth to a female colt.
• Artistic License – Chemistry:
  • Jenna was able to smell sulfur and blood from across a lake. This is despite the fact that sulfur is odourless, though she's likely referring to the "rotten egg" smell of hydrogen sulfide.
  • She's also able to smell "something fowl" ^note  Maybe Dark Link was just chicken? while underwater.
• Artistic License – Physics: An energy ball created by Jenna simultaneously implodes and explodes.
• Author Appeal: There's quite a few things the author clearly has a fondness for that keep recurring in the story. Jenna spends a lot of time bathing with Link or being washed by him, for example.
• Author Filibuster: The warnings.
• Author Vocabulary Calendar: During the sex scenes. PLEASURE! HEAVENLY NAKED BODY! SHEER ECSTASY! PURE BLISS!
  • "He lifted my head up until our eyes met." A phrase which sounds more like Link is ripping Jenna's head off.
  • Jen also really, really likes to use the words "youngling" when describing any sort of baby animal; "miracle" when describing her first son, Link Junior; and "sneer" when describing how a villain utters their dialogue. Things are also often described as "causing" other things, in a way that becomes extremely noticable the more of it you see.
  • References to tigers during the sex scenes. In the sexual bonding ceremony, the characters are compared to tigers four times in just two paragraphs!
  • In the world-building segments (especially in the footnotes at the end), the phrase "once peaceful race" comes up a lot.
• Back from the Dead: The Great Deku Tree, who should still be dead after Ocarina of Time, shows up with no explanation whatsoever.
• Bat Out of Hell: A giant bat-like creature attacks Link and Jenna in the final completed chapter, apparently on the orders of the Dark Lord Ariakis.
• Big Bad: Dark Lord Ariakas ends up as this, given where the story ends. However, it seems likely from what we know of What Might Have Been that he was supposed to be more of an Arc Villain like Dark Link.
• Big Brother Is Watching: The monks from the bonding ceremony. Apparently they have agents all over the place, so you can never tell when they might be watching just in case a bonded couple are cheating on each other.
• Black Knight: The villainous Dark Knights, who wear heavy black armour with a Skeleton Motif.
• Bouquet Toss: At her wedding to Link, Jenna tosses her bouquet into the crowd. Zelda catches it, and we're told this means she'll be the next to wed. It's uncertain whether the author ever planned on following up on this.
• Captain Obvious:
  • "The nipples on my breasts."
  • The author refers to the food at a party as cooked pork and cooked turkey, as if serving it raw would have been expected. Later, Jenna prepares dinner for her and Link and describes that she made cooked pork once again.
• Cat Girl: Not a literal example, but Jenna's "cat like instincts" (which are never explained) certainly invoke this trope. She's also later able to smell blood and sulfur from across a lake.
  • Again, the tiger references in the sex scenes.
• Character Catchphrase: 80% of Dalamar's dialogue is a request for expediency. "We must make haste!" is his most common.
• Character Shilling: To absurd level with Jenna. Everyone who meets her immediately loves her, with the King considering her as a second daughter despite doing nothing.
• Chickification: Every rival for Link's affections, including Princess Zelda, Malon, Saria, and Ruto are reduced from their powerful and determined selves to fawning over Jenna, angst about how they want Link to be happy with her, and give her cool stuff... like the Ocarina of Time.
• The Complainer Is Always Wrong:
  • After Jenna is given her own guardian fairy by the Great Deku Tree, Mido is the only one who points out that there's no reason for her to have one. He has a completely legitimate point there, since Jenna is not a Kokiri.^note The justification is also rather flimsy; Jenna gets a fairy simply because Link used to have one, and they're supposed to protect them should Ganondorf return. But the game shows that Ganondorf is far more powerful than Link's own guardian fairy, who was useless in the fight against him. In the Distant Finale story Mother Goddess, Ganondorf finally does return (somehow), and sure enough, the fairies are powerless against him. Of course, Saria instantly gets all up in Mido's business for this, yelling at him for pointing out that Link and Jenna are adults and non-Kokiri.
  • Throughout the story, it's told that griffins don't trust people. However, the only ones to actually display any mistrust, a pair of guards, are subsequently yelled at for goofing off on the job, even though it's a guard's job to be suspicious.
  • Also, when Link and Jenna are about to travel to the griffins' home, he tries to get her to stay behind with the very good point of her being six-months pregnant. She goes with him anyway, and this is presented as the unambiguously correct and empowered course of action, with Jenna absolutely carrying the party both physically and magically in the fight against the evil dragon riders.
• Costume Porn: The fic is absolutely filled with loving, flowery descriptions of clothing, especially when it's worn by Jenna.
  • Hilariously averted in the wedding scene; after spending paragraphs describing Jenna's gown, Link's attire is simply referred to as "prince clothes".
• Damsel in Distress: Jenna alternates between this and Action Girl during the fight scenes.
• Demoted to Extra: Princess Zelda goes from princess to second banana to midwife to babysitter over the course of the story.
• Distressed Dude: Link is captured and needs to be rescued by Jenna in all but one conflict.
• Don't Like? Don't Read!: The author's note takes this up to eleven. If copied and pasted into Word or similar, it turns out the rant goes on for three pages-ish.
• Dragon Rider: The Dark Knight of Ariakis ride on dragons.
• Elemental Powers: Jenna discovers she has these. Interestingly, the Silverlite race is suggested to only have one power each, but Jenna was born with two and inherited both of her parents' powers.
• Fantastic Racism: The reason griffins are usually hesitant to trust humans is that, during the Great War of the Lands, Hyrule enslaved the griffins. Also a case of Moral Myopia, as there's no indication that Hyrule is (or should be) making reparations to the griffins or even issuing a formal apology. The story puts the onus entirely on the griffins to "learn to trust" humans again.
• Fan Sequel: "My Inner Life: The Legend Of Jenna".
• Fauxlosophic Narration: Jenna tries to make herself sound philosophical and intelligent in her prologue, but it does a better job of giving examples of redundancy.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: The narration informs us that griffins exist in this setting in the very same chapter in which a griffin first appears.
• Footnote Fever: There are a lot of footnotes explaining the new additions to the lore that Jenna has come up with. Unfortunately, many of these additions need no explanation at all (the Spring Festival is a festival held in spring), and others are explained in the main story anyway. A few footnotes even recap the events of the main story, one of them recapping events that haven't even happened yet at this point.
• Forgot About Her Powers:
  • Jenna is constantly forgetting that she can control the elements and thus dispose of most enemies in no time flat. Or rather, she remembers only after everyone else has been incapacitated and she's been cornered, or she'll remember it outside of a battle so she can use it as a reason why she's not a Damsel in Distress, but every other time, she just forgets. This makes certain scenes lose any sense of tension, as the reader doesn't worry if Jenna will be alright, but keeps asking why she doesn't just bust out her powers.
  • When Jenna discovers her elemental powers, all the other characters act like this is something no one in Hyrule has ever been able to do, forgetting that several of the classical elements are represented in the magic of the Sages, and that Link himself learns to cast spells that draw on three of the elements over the course of Ocarina of Time.
  • Jenna seems to conveniently forget that Link is more than capable of taking care of himself and defeating monsters the likes of which she has never seen whenever she wants to create tension. Yes, Jenna, of course Link could never hope to defeat Dark Link without your "help", never mind that he already did so when saving Hyrule.
  • Several characters are claimed to have enhanced senses (Jenna's smell, Link's hearing, etc.), but outside the scene that introduces this it never comes up again. e.g. Jenna hears something before Link does.
  • When confronted by the bat-like creature, neither Link nor Jenna even think about using any of their powers or equipment to try to fight it.
• Full-Name Basis: Dark Lord Ariakas is rarely called anything but.
• Gender-Blender Name: Zelda's father is referred to as "King Zelda".
• Great Offscreen War: The footnotes talk a little about something called The Great War Of The Lands, which is outlined in very vague terms, as befits its vague name.
  • During the main story, Link goes off to fight in another war which is even more loosely defined. Aside from Hyrule, we're not told the names of any of the belligerent nations or why they're fighting, the emphasis instead on Link and Jenna's resulting separation.
• The Ghost: Dark Lord Ariakis never appears in person.
• Hand on Womb: Jenna does this a lot when she finds out she is pregnant.
• Have a Gay Old Time: "So like I said, if the content of this story sounds, too queer to you, TURN BACK NOW!"
• Heir Club for Men: It's repeatedly mentioned that Link really wants a son.
• Hell Is That Noise: The bat monster can emit a piercing shriek that causes intense physical pain to anyone near it.
• Hidden Elf Village: The Unipegs are said to be extremely shy of outsiders, living in a remote Hungry Jungle and refusing to get involved in the affairs of the world at large. However, when Hyrule needs their help, they are surprisingly easy to get into contact with, and equally easy to talk into joining the war against Ariakis.
• Hungry Jungle: The Mystic Rainforest (sometimes called the Mystical Rainforest) is said to have some of these qualities, being supernaturally easy to get lost in, and only able to be found at all under the light of the full moon. Ultimately a benevolent example, however, since the Rainforest is the home of the reclusive but goodhearted Unipegs.
• Hypocritical Humor: Unintentionally: The author's note goes on and on about how immature it is to blow up just because people write something you don't like; it was written because people gave her fanfiction negative reviews.
  • Also in the author's note, she says that she didn't mean to make Jenna conceited because "I'm not really like that." In the story though, which is told from her perspective, she refers to herself as beautiful in the narration, claims she would be Hyrule's sole and most powerful protector, and calls herself compassionate in her dialogue.
• Idealized Sex: Some of the things described in the sex scenes would not work. At all. The author, presumably a virgin at the time of writing, has no idea what the male refractory period is and seems to think that men can climax twice in five minutes without any problems (some can, but the odds are against it and doubly so for those out of their twenties!). Also, women do excrete a certain fluid during orgasm, but the sheer amount that shows up after every one of Jenna's orgasms means that she has some serious health problems.
• I Have You Now, My Pretty: Dark Link makes an implied threat to rape Jenna.
• Informed Ability: The Great Deku Tree says at one point that Jenna is "spiritual." Besides her worship of Link, no evidence is seen for this otherwise.
• Informed Attribute: The Black Desert is repeatedly emphasized as an enormously dangerous place that few have ever crossed successfully. However, it only takes a single day to cross it, and Jenna and Link do so twice with no real difficulty.
• Informed Flaw: As mentioned above, we're constantly told that the Griffins don't trust anybody. However, aside from a few vague mutterings of distrust from griffins in the crowd, the only time this is actually shown is by a pair of royal guards (whose job would require them to not trust everybody) who are promptly chewed out for doing so.
• Insistent Terminology: This story isn't something Jenna pulled out of her head. It came FROM HER DREAMS!
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Ruto, Saria, and Malon. In the latter's case, it's expanded more so in one of the author's other fanfictions.
• It's All About Me: Jenna, of course, especially when Hyrule goes to war and the only thought on her mind is how it will affect her.
• Kaleidoscope Eyes: Everyone seems to have these. When a character is concerned, for example, the narration will frequently mention that their eyes have turned a shade of grey.
• Like Brother and Sister: Link is essentially an adoptee of the Royal Family in this fic, which ensures he can't be a love interest for Zelda.
• Logic Bomb: At one point Jenna sniffs the air... while underwater.
• Love at First Sight: Link and Jenna fall in love almost instantly, and they have sex not long after.
• Mills and Boon Prose: The sex scenes.
• Monster-Shaped Mountain: Dragonmount is said to be shaped like a dragon. We're told that it was probably a deliberate work of sculpture by the dragons, although in-universe historians aren't entirely sure why.
• Mr. Exposition: A lot of our information about the world beyond Hyrule's borders comes from Dalamar.
• Named by the Adaptation: Link gets the last name "Silverblade."
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: Jenna's powers, including:
  • Finding out she's descended from the "Silverlites," a Canon Foreigner race of people who can control the elements, was discovered at a very opportune time.
  • Her "cat like instincts" also come right out of nowhere. She doesn't even explain where they came from; they're introduced about halfway through the story with no explanation.
  • The "Phoenix Circles", which she apparently is skilled enough at fighting with to challenge Dark Link when Link cannot. Even though he's beaten Dark Link before and only gotten stronger since then. It's also prudent to point out that these "Phoenix Circles" are actually chakrams, and if one were to draw them on paper based on what little description was given, they would look incredibly similar to a certain Flurry of Dancing Flames'◊ version of these.
• No Ending: The story was never completed, and ends on a chapter heading ("Path of Darkness") for a chapter that was never written. Because of the way it's formatted, however, the last part of it most people read are the footnotes, which are their own anticlimax.
• No Pregger Sex: Inverted. Link and Jenna are encouraged to have plenty of sex, because it'll make their unborn child stronger.
• The Nose Knows: Jenna has an excellent sense of smell, being able to pick up the scent of blood from across a lake.
• Obligatory Swearing: It's very jarring to read Link casually saying "shit".
• Our Dragons Are Different: Not explained in much detail, but it's mentioned that blue dragons are the most dangerous variety, as they have the sharpest senses. As in Dungeons & Dragons, they appear to be Colour-Coded for Your Convenience, with blue, red, and black dragons as evil beings in the service of Ariakis, while the bronze and silver dragons (which never appear in-story) are said to still be free from his control, and are implicitly good. Other than that, they seem to be fairly standard European-style fire-breathing dragons.
• Our Elves Are Different: Link is said to be a half-elf (hence the pointy ears), and, therefore, has better hearing than Jenna.
• Our Gryphons Are Different: Griffins are a noble but reclusive race who live in the Black Mountains, across the desert from Hyrule. They are intelligent and can speak and even brew beer. Despite being able to fly, their town is laid out very much like a human settlement.
• Only Sane Man: Unintentional, but Mido comes across as this for being the only character in the entire story to point out that there is absolutely no good reason for Jenna to be receiving all this special treatment and presents. Of course, the story itself doesn't see him as this, Jenna dismissing him as "bitter" and "proud" in her narration, and Saria ripping him a new one by "reasoning" that because Link is special, so is his wife by extension.
• Parental Favoritism: Sort of. The King treats Jenna like his own flesh and blood more than his own daughter.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: Link has Navi, who is colored blue, and Jenna gets a new fairy named Lilly, which is coloured pink. The jewelry they are given by the monks after the Bonding Ceremony is likewise colour-coded.
• Post-Victory Collapse: Jenna faints immediately after using her newfound Elemental Powers to kill Dark Link.
• Psychic Link: Jenna has one with Link. A link to Link, if you will.
• Purple Prose: This story is well known for its overuse (and misuse) of higher vocabulary.
• Put on a Bus: Link's horse, Epona, is put out of action by being constantly pregnant.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: Jen's lucid dreams.
• Rouge Angles of Satin: The spelling itself isn't too bad by fanfic standards, although Jen keeps using "alter" for "altar", "minuet" for "minute", etc. What's really bad is that she thinks quotation marks don't just open and close a quote, but go between every sentence within the quote.
  • Also, the deliciously memetic "from the gecko" (presumably "get-go".)
  • For some reason, the author mixes up "through" with "threw", pretty much every single time.
  • She also constantly writes "so" as "soo", which is either a spelling error or an attempt to emphasize the word.
  • Another example is saying "award robe" instead of "a wardrobe".
  • One hilarious example is Jenna saying that they'd "bread" Link's new stallion with Epona.
  • At one point, Jenna smells "something fowl".
  • When the batlike creature takes off to chase Link and Jenna, it "[becomes] air born".
• Satellite Love Interest: Upon meeting Link for the first time, Jenna's first thoughts are how handsome he is and how beautiful their children would be. They're banging within a few pages, without a hint of tension or believability.
• Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: Not a science fiction story, but everything in Hyrule seems to be exactly a day's ride from everything else. This greatly undercuts the threat of the Black Desert - see Thirsty Desert below.
• Screaming Birth: Link Jr.'s birth is so painful for Jenna that she screams angry abuse at Link ("You did this to me!"), although she apologizes to him later.
• Shout-Out:
  • The names Dalamar and Ariakas, as well as the Draconian race, are all likely taken from Dragonlance. Her versions of dragons, while not entirely the same as the ones in Dungeons & Dragons, do still follow the same "chromatic bad, metallic good" binary; see Our Dragons Are Different, above.
  • Possibly unintentional, but Stardancer is the name of a My Little Pony character from gen 1.
  • The use of the word "youngling" is generally understood to be a reference to the Star Wars prequels, which use that word a lot. It's generally assumed that Jen thought this was a more common term than it was.
• Sex Equals Love: Link and Jenna quickly fall in love and have sex just after meeting each other. Their First Time supposedly shows how much they love each other.
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: Link and Jenna have an obnoxious sweet relationship, but little in common beyond the fact that they're in love.
• Sigil Spam: Jenna's Triforce-spammed dresses and Triforce jewelry.
• Slice of Life: The emphasis is very much on the characters' domestic lives most of the time, which can be jarring for readers who expect a Zelda fanfic to contain more adventure. There's not a hint of real, life-threatening-to-a-main-character conflict until near the end of the twelfth chapter and even then, it's resolved in less than two chapters. Indeed, there isn't any conflict, life-threatening or not, in the story until then.
  • Link and Jenna are parted for several months of plot time because he has to go to war. He's back in a few pages.
  • In the final few chapters, a more conventional fantasy adventure narrative does start to form, with Hyrule getting pulled into a war between Canon Foreigner countries, but the story stops there and we're Left Hanging.
• Smug Snake: Dark Link is a generically smug villain, who "sneers" almost all his dialogue.
• Somewhere, an Equestrian Is Crying: A relatively tame example — since it's not something that would harm a real life horse — but mind-boggling nevertheless. The author seems to think you spur a horse on by booting it in the legs. That would require very special abilities to even attempt.
• Sophisticated as Hell: The sex scenes, where flowery Mills and Boon Prose is intercut with words like "nutsack" and "pussy".
• Stay in the Kitchen: Present throughout the story:
  • Even though Jenna is determined to outshine Link in every capacity, she's still utterly devoted to him in a very anti-feminist way. When they're addressing the Griffin Council, for example, she lets him do all the talking.
  • Ruto, who should be old enough to run her own life by now, is admonished for not listening to her father.
  • Epona is put out of action with constant pregnancy.
  • Female griffins are repeatedly seen leading their "younglings" around like it's the '50s.
  • Zelda can only take the throne if she is married.
• Suckiness Is Painful: In the incredibly long author's introduction, Jenna responds to someone claiming this about the story, and fails to understand the hyperbole.
  Jenna: Also as a side note, I NEVER physically hurt ANYONE with this story. I got one reviewer that said. “Oh God please stop writing, your hurting everyone.” Now I want to know where I physically touched that person. I want to know how I’m twisting anyone’s arms to read this. I have never done anything of the sort in any way, shape or form and I DO NOT appreciate being accused of that!
• Thirsty Desert: The Black Desert. This is even more so than most deserts, because it's black, so it retains heat more easily. However, it's ultimately downplayed, since crossing it only takes a day, and Link and Jenna do this twice without incident. We're told they got pretty thirsty and it was hard going, but there's never any sense of genuine danger there.
• Three-Month-Old Newborn: Seconds after his birth, Link Junior is cute, clean and cooing in his mother's arms. He's smiling, giggling and doing math not long after.
• Tiger Versus Dragon: Almost certainly done unintentionally. Jenna and Link are described as "tigers" when having sex, and the Draconians have tamed dragons.
• Title Drop: In the prologue. "This is a book about my inner life..."
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • Ruto almost gets herself killed by wandering around Lake Hylia during a horrible blizzard because she was bored. For extra points, the fic earlier declares that the Zora are very susceptible to the cold.
  • Jenna herself. Among other things, she kicks her horses in the legs to make them go, tries holding in the baby she's birthing, and insists on tagging along on risky journeys while heavily pregnant.
• The Unfought:
  • Because we're Left Hanging, Ariakis and his forces are never defeated. Ariakis himself never even appears directly.
  • The bat monster that appears in the final completed chapter is a peculiar case. It chases Link and Jenna around a bit but at no point do they even consider standing and fighting it. Where the story leaves off, it's presumably still at large, flapping through the Hyrule night.
  • If this trope can be applied to a place, there's the Barren Sea. It is hyped up as an enormously dangerous place, both in the story itself and again in the footnotes, but Jenna's travels never take her there.
• Verbal Tic: The word "so" is consistently misspelled "soo", making Jenna sound like an air-headed valley girl.
• Wanton Cruelty to the Common Comma: Commas are often used incorrectly, to mark a dramatic pause or something like that.
• Weak, but Skilled: Link is still a swordsman and soldier, but gets beaten up and captured enough to give Jenna time to shine.
• What's Up, King Dude?: A traveling merchant has somehow become so close with the royal family that she's in line for the throne.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: What happened to Jenna's horse Star Dancer?
• Will They or Won't They?: A few readers have picked up on a peculiar Interspecies Romance subtext between Zelda and Dalamar. Again, because the story was never finished, we may never know whether this was intentional.
• Winged Unicorn: Called "Unipegs" in the story. They are mentioned towards the end of the story when Hyrule is preparing for war, as a possible ally, but the story ends before they actually show up.
• The Wrongful Heir to the Throne: Jenna is in line to rule Hyrule with Link should Zelda decline to take the throne (which, considering how Zelda is treated throughout the story, is almost a certainty).
  • And according to Jenna, Zelda can only take the throne if she's married - despite the fact that Zelda has been canonically shown ruling Hyrule by herself without spouse or parents in the majority of the games.
• Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: The Deku Tree and the King of Hyrule use "thee" and "thou" a lot, often incorrectly.

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