Cover art by ooOMarinOoo of Deviant Art.
As the gentle sunlight streamed through the window and warmed Link's face, the young man opened his eyes. Snug beneath his wool blanket, he could easily have lain there for the rest of the day. It was only once in every ten days that he allowed himself a break from work to sleep in, so when he did, he made certain to enjoy it.
But something wasn't right. His breath caught as he counted the days. It had only been six since his last break. With a startled yelp, he leaped from the bed and began pulling on a pair of white pants. Why had Marin not woken him?
He looked up to see her standing in the doorway to their room, a mischievous smile playing across her face. Wavy red hair that rivaled the beauty of the sunset fell down to her mid-back, and her emerald-green eyes sparkled with an unquenchable vivaciousness. Panicked though he was, he could not help taking a moment to admire her beauty.
But before he could say anything to her, she crossed the room, pressed a soft hand upon his chest, and forced him back onto the bed.
"Did you really think I'd let you go fishing today, Link?" she asked. As he stared at her, trying to work out what she meant, she stooped to lift his legs onto the bed and then pushed at his shoulders until he consented to lie back down.
"You forgot, didn't you?"
He gave her a bashful smile. His wife shook her head.
"Colin," she called in a voice thick with sarcasm. "Come remind your brilliant father what today is."
The pitter-patter of small feet heralded the entrance of a boy with blond hair and the cutest smile in town. He bore a wooden plate piled high with links of sausage, scrambled eggs, and fresh blueberries.
"Happy birthday, Papa," the boy squealed.
Of course. It was his birthday, wasn't it? How long had it been since they last celebrated it? Had to be at least a decade. Probably more.
"Thank you, Colin," Link said, accepting the plate. "Did you make this yourself?"
Colin nodded.
"Are you really a hundred years old?"
Far older, he thought to himself, but his family did not need to hear that tale.
"Aye. Reckon I am," he said.
"You are," Marin said,"and today you're going to stay in that bed as long as you please." She turned to their son. "Run along now Colin. Don't you have something you have to do?"
"Oh yeah!" He sprinted from the room as Marin cried after him "No running in the house."
The pounding footsteps faded into silence, and with a gentle sigh Marin sat on the edge of the bed.
"Wanna 'ite?" Link managed through a mouth stuffed full of sausage.
"This is your breakfast, Link," she insisted, but Link noticed that that did not stop her from plucking a berry from the plate.
"One day you should teach the kid how not to burn stuff," he said after a rather large swallow.
"He gets it from his father," she said, bending over to kiss his brow. "Enjoy your bed, Link."
She rose to her feet, and Link's heart fell. Though he was blessed with an eternity with her, he could never quite get used to her leaving. The world always seemed somewhat darker without Marin's smile.
"Maybe you could enjoy the bed with me for a bit."
Marin laughed in the way she did that heightened his pulse and sent chills across his body.
"Duty calls, my love. But when the work is done, I shall return to you. I swear it." She pressed a fist to her heart in the style of the Hylian Knights of old, turned an about face, and strode from the room. Link set the burnt offering on his nightstand, pulled up the covers, and returned to the pleasant dream he had been having.
Alas, it is the nature of pleasant things to come to an end. As the sun began to dip below the horizon, Link found that he could sleep no longer.
True to her promise, Marin was snuggled up beside him, an arm draped across his chest.
"You are truly a legendary sleeper," she said. She took him by the shoulders and planted a kiss on his lips, but when he drew her in to kiss her more deeply, she pulled away.
"Not now, silly. You've a party to attend?"
"Huh?"
She smacked him across the face with a pillow. "Stop being stupid and get dressed. Everyone's waiting."
Five minutes later, he exited the house, hand-in-hand with his son. The boy was tugging him forward, his little feet digging into the ground as he fought against Link's restraint. Eventually, Link gave in and jogged down the dirt path beside Colin.
"This is gonna be the bestest party ever," the boy yelled as they rounded the bend by Madam MeowMeow's house.
"Colin..."
"Best party ever," his son amended. "Just you wait."
He was right.
When they came to the center of Mabe Village, a bonfire blazed great and tall in the midst of a throng of people. It seemed the entire town was there, and even some folk living on the outskirts-Saria entertained a gaggle of children with her special ocarina, Ulrira stood outside his house gazing studiously at his feet, and even the haughty Nabooru made an appearance.
Tarin was the first to greet him.
"Well, lookee here," he said, pumping Link's arm up and down with a meaty hand. "The man o' the hour. Thanks for makin' my Marin the happiest girl in town."
Link felt a blush come to his face as he smiled.
"From what I hear, I had nothing to do with that," Link replied.
Tarin guffawed and slapped him on the back. "Well, you sure didn't hurt anythin', that's fer darned sure."
Then Mayor Bo was upon him. He thanked him for his help with Ilia's garden, Pippit shoved a platter of cheese in front of him, little Beth started tugging at the hem of his tunic, and soon he was lost in the throng of people.
It was some time before he next saw Marin. Once he had had a bite of dinner, Saria got the children together and led them in a lively mazurka. They played an eclectic combination of crude wind instruments, many hand-carved years ago by one person or another, with the odd violin or two accompanying them. Though they did not always hit the right notes, they performed with a youthful vigor that brought everyone in the town to their feet.
He looked for his wife, but before he could find her Hena took his hand and pulled him into the circle of dance. He stumbled at first, until his feet remembered the steps. Then it was him leading her, both twirling and laughing to the beat of the music. When the song ended, he took a turn with the ancient potions-mistress who cackled merrily the whole time, and then Sera, who made him promise to send Colin over to play with Talo and Beth more often.
He danced until his feet were too tired to continue, but even when he sat down on a side bench, the dancing continued for at least another hour. Link marveled at the resilience of the children, but he supposed that on this island of happiness anything was possible.
He watched his friends smile and dance and laugh, but really he was looking for Marin. He still could not see her. But finally the music stopped, and the children laid down their instruments, and his wife emerged from the forest clad in a simple blue dress. A hibiscus flower graced her hair, the same kind she had worn when first they met an eternity ago.
Link stirred, and an old instinct moved his hand to grasp the sword that was no longer there-that had not been there for a century-as she stepped onto a wooden dais illuminated by four braziers.
Then she began to sing, and Link knew something was wrong.
Her voice carried clear and strong over the silent crowd. They were spellbound from the first note. How could they not be? Her song was a song of beauty, and of terrible power.
He heard the simple, elegant phrases of the Ballad of the Windfish, and his heart fell. He chocked back tears, but he could not tear his eyes from the frightful beauty, nor shut out the melody that assaulted his ears.
He did his best to compose himself before the song ended. There was, after all, no guarantee that it would happen that night. Once, if he remembered right, he had had an entire week. He would not spend his remaining time in sorrow. That would gain him nothing.
A pressure on his hand. He turned. Saria sat beside him, ocarina sitting in her lap. Link squeezed her hand back as the last notes of Marin's song gave way to profound silence.
"You're leaving, aren't you?"
Link nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
"But you will come back. You always do."
"You remember?" Heads turned at his outburst, and Link took a moment to calm himself. Few islanders were willing to speak of the distant past, and those that did seemed confused by the details. If she remembered not just the time before he came to the island, but the time he had been there before that...
"I told you we would always be friends."
People began to stir. Some moved over to the food, while others clustered around Marin.
"Is...?" He glanced at his wife, her smile shining through the night as bright as any flame. He couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence.
"What do you think?"
"I suppose not." Marin had been too perfect to exist even in life. How then, could she have followed him into death?
Saria took his other hand and closed it around her ocarina. The magic in it-no, the music in it-leaped into his fingers, bringing back a flood of memories of a special forest clearing, and his home in a world that had moved on.
"I want you to hold onto this for me," she said.
"I won't remember."
"It will."
Link embraced his friend, unspeakably thankful for this one anchor to reality.
The party continued late into the night. Link allowed Colin to stay up, but he soon found the child snoozing beneath a maple tree.
Colin had given him a large necklace of shells sometime before. Their surface was a lustrous blue of perfect smoothness. Secret seashells, he had called them on his first sojourn on Koholint. Link wondered how the boy had acquired so many, then decided it was better not to know.
Hena had given him a new lure, Beth a collage of colored feathers she had collected, and Ilia had promised him a ride on her horse. They were good presents from good friends, and he was glad to have them.
As the night turned to morning, he sat down with an arm wrapped around Marin, enjoying the antics of those few that remained. Then Mayor Bo approached him.
"Someone else here, says she has a gift for you too," he said. "Said she's from Tal Tal Heights. Never seen her before. Hooded fellow over yonder." He pointed to the tall figure standing by the bonfire. She was wrapped in a dark cloak, but even so there was no mistaking Princess Zelda.
"Link, who is that?" Marin whispered, clutching his hand. Link absently disentangled himself and rose.
"No need to concern yourself with this, my love." He walked forward, almost in a daze, until he was but an arm's length before the harbinger of fate.
"I wish I could say it was good to see you again." The drawl he had adopted from living on the island had vanished completely. His words came out stiff and precise.
"Shall we walk, Hero?" she replied, her voice even more sterile than his. He extended his arm, she took it, and the pair left Mabe Village behind.
They walked in silence. Zelda was familiar as anything, and there was a sense of rightness in joining arms as they did, as if they were somehow meant to stand together so. And truly, they were.
Yet he was still unable to ever get used to her. She was death, and cold duty, and the anguished screams of thousands. She was the quest, and he would always accept her.
Link raised his head to see that they had come to Toronbo Shores. There were no vicious crabs roaming the beach. There had not been since he arrived. There was only the ocean, gently lapping at the fine white sand as a flock of seagulls soared overhead.
"This is where I washed up," he said. "It's where I always wash up. Then Marin comes and drags me home. At first I thought she was you, you know. But that was in simpler times, when time was yet young." He released Zelda's hand to pace the beach.
"My sword ends up right here," he said, kicking at a patch of sand. There was nothing to distinguish it, but he knew it all the same. "Every time, the same spot. I cast it into the sea. Though it seems that you would return it to me once again."
"There is time yet," Zelda said. "You need not leave tonight. Bid your family farewell if you must."
Link forced out a bitter laugh as he gazed out over the sea. A memory stirred and he intoned "Sea bears foam. Sleep bears dreams. Both end the same: Crash."
"Ganon again?" he said after a silence.
"He is already loose. Hyrule will be desolate by the time you arrive."
His left hand clenched tight.
"Link, please."
"Peace, princess. You need not convince me. I made my choice long ago."
It was no choice at all, really. Saria was real, as was Zelda, and all the people of Hyrule who would soon suffer under the evil king. Koholint was but a dream. Marin was but a dream. He had awakened before, clawing at the very fabric of the world until it released him. Now, he need only take Zelda's hand and follow her.
It had been so much easier the first time.
With a deep sigh, he turned to her. "I've already said good-bye to Saria. She's the only one that matters, I suppose. Don't know why I keep torturing myself. There are other islands than this one, after all. Most are easier to leave."
"For love," Zelda said, taking his hand in hers.
"Aye. For love." Somehow, in that shipwreck that first brought him to Koholint, he had fallen in love with that beautiful illusion. It seemed, somehow, that it was his nature to love illusory things. For his heart cried out also for the invincible bond between a man and his wife that all too quickly frayed, and the nobility of spirit that always seemed to buckle when threatened, leaving him to face Ganon alone, and still too the simple beauty of a flower that died after but one year.
"But verily, it be the nature of dreams to end," he murmured.
"Shall we go?" Zelda asked.
Link took a final look at the island-his true home, in a way. For in the end it always came back to the island, and to the joy of his friends.
"Aye. If there is work to be done, then let us do it."
And so the princess and the hero strode arm-in-arm into the infinite sea, and a new legend was born.