AN: Rampant vague pronouns and drifting point of view. I know. Stylistic choices.
(Also, edited on 14-2-2011)
Notes and definitions at the bottom. There's lots of 'em.
Animi
There was Rusl papa and there was other papa: that much he had known.
He had begun to learn this when he was five, a scant year after momma caught the sleeping sickness like so many others, and like so many others did not wake up. Rusl papa was still 'uncle' Rusl then.
He had always been there, watching and smiling from the edges of everything. He had never thought to mention him to the adults, and why would he? He watched and smiled kindly, and looked kinda like the man in the pictures momma had so loved to show him. He was a nice man even if no one else could see him most of the time.
The other village children knew about him, had even caught glimpses of him, this shade of a man, and spoke no more of it than he. It hadn't really been important. He didn't try to hurt them. He had never even tried to talk to them, after that once when his mouth moved, but no sound or breath came with it. So he lingered on in hillsides and the edges of trees, smiling sadly watching them, signing, and keeping the big cats and foul dreams away. Hands plucked strings on some unseen instrument, playing boleros to the sky and on the wind. They imagined they could hear his songs.
Sometimes, when he was learning how to do something people would remark how he seemed to look askance at someone unseen before correcting his grip on his writing chalks or looking chided after yelling or fighting with the other boys. They had wondered at this, but dismissed it, thinking that he simply missed his mother, and was imagining her there, or remembering her teaching him. They made sure he knew they would all be there for him, love him as his mother had, and moved on, as people do. But others they could not brush to the backs of their minds. Like how he had learned how to hold a sword (or a stick, an entirely acceptable substitute) without any of their help, and his mother would not have known how, much less taught or allowed it so young.
The nice man had shown him, he told them one day, and asked them who he was, because the nice man knew them but could not talk.
What nice man, they asked him. Surely they would have noticed a stranger. Surely the children knew not to approach one. And they had always hidden him away, kept him safe, when they came. And they came more and more often all the time. Looking for something. Or someone. (Or so they feared.)
But the nice man wasn't a stranger. The nice man had always been there! And momma didn't mind him, or she'd have said so. He was quite put out.
They asked him what the nice man looked like he told them, and Sera fainted dead away.
And so he learned about Nemoris Rinku.
They had hired a spirit guide after that, at what they expected to be great expense. The woman who came, a middle aged Sheikah, was severe, and carried many cares on her face. Sera, whose pregnancy was proving difficult, nearly took faint again at her name. The woman had been intrigued by their request, and having already been investigating reports of a spirit in the area, and had decided to come herself and see.
Wasn't it curious, she said (Curious indeed, they murmured.) that a spirit that had by all reports been haunting the country side for years – since the end of the last war, really – suddenly (Suddenly, they muttered.) chose to make itself known? And to a single person in such a peaceful, out of the way village. And who is it, by the way? She had been expecting Hylians, but saw none.
They called for the boy and had the rare privilege of seeing the Great Impa, leader of the Sheikah, council of the Queen, and Sage of Shadow fall in a dead faint.
When she came around she waved all costs, asking only how they had come to care for this child, who looked so like an old friend.
They finally learned six years late how the boy's father had spent his last days, and how he had died.
She learned of how he lived his last years, away from the court and machinations, and how they now believed he had not entirely left. And so the work began.
The child, Link, had seemed to be gesturing at someone, but not seeing who, (A natural seer, like his father. He'll need a teacher) she opened her sight to see (You open your eyes, she explained, and then open them again) and found a familiar face, smiling weakly back, and mouthing a greeting.
For a long while, it was all she could do to keep from sinking back to the ground.
And how long, she asked, her own voice nearly gone as well, had Rinku been appearing to his son?
The village breathed a little easier after that. Their children were safe, their boy's mind was sound, and they had their own guardian spirit, a wonderful horrible thing.
Impa stayed with on them for some weeks, having offered to begin her friend's son's training – a gift like his could not be left alone, else who knew what it would do to him? She also taught all the children, who in turn taught their parents, the beginnings of hand signs, ostensibly to keep little hands busy, but also because Link and Rinku were watching very closely.
She could not speak for him, but she could give him a voice, of a sort.
She left in the fall to report to the Queen (she promised to leave the boy out, officially at least. His father had enemies, she knew) and then to her own hidden home, but told them they might expect a few visitors: friends the drifting spirit had once known. She would try to stay the other interlopers, if she could at all.
The next spring, Impa sent them (him) a teacher.
She was a young scholar with a passion for history and a strong knowledge of magic: especially great for a hedge witch, for Miss Lily, as Link called her, was no mage. She had been looking to move to the country when someone suggested a destination, and a very special student. She would not name names, but it was clear.
Rusl papa, though he was not supposed to call him that anymore, thought she was wonderful.
He denied it, but no one listened. Stolen glances spoke too loudly.
Their first child, Colin, was born the following spring.
From time to time Uli would see her husband's ward watching something (someone) and gesture with the hand signs she'd been instructed to learn and teach. She had heard about the situation surrounding the village spirit, having had it explained with Link's sight, so she had never been overly concerned.
But one day, when Link was fourteen and just back from helping tend the ewes and the colt his grandfather had gifted them with, (they would not let him near the mare. Such a large beast, and temperamental, his father's horse...) she found him sitting with a most serious and focused expression. He was tracking something intently and gesturing quickly with the signs she had once taught him. His tracking stilled, eyes listening, and turned to face her.
She greeted him, and was in turn greeted with a stained silence.
He hesitated, glancing at something (and was that a face or just a shadow?) and speaking.
They'd gone to the provincial capital two months before, when seeing grandpa at Lon. It had been his first time to the city, although he'd been to Lon once or twice every year. (It was always darker when they were gone, they always said.) It made grandfather very happy. They'd stopped by the war memorial in Farda. Dad had not followed him, but his name was on it so they'd lit him a candle (no smell, not like the others, just clean fire). But... He paused.
He had not noticed at first, but after coming back, he had realised something was... off. It had taken time to realize what it was. But he suspected... There were no ghosts in Lon. Only dad lingered in Ordon. Everything around both was very much for the living and...
Again, he seemed uncertain, and glanced back at the streaking light, and yes, yes, that was an eye, wasn't it?
There were ghosts in Farda. Spirits of all kinds. But they were all... flat. One might mourn, and mourn always. That one might play, and nothing else. This one might hurt passersby, but only if they were green-eyed redheads. Another may tell a story, but only that one, and he never finished. They did not move, they did not change, until they were put to rest, however that was.
But his father was different. Everyone knew. He moved around. He was with his son most of the time, true, but he wandered often. He had simply refused to go to Farda. Sometimes he tried to move things, and every once in a while succeeded, although it seemed to tire him. (He seemed to wither, eye flashed red and pained and he would vanish, sometimes for days, and was always oddly peaky afterwards.) He laughed and smiled, soundless, wistful other times, and angered too, just as quiet. He was oddly vocal for one invisible and mute, when something had managed to annoy him.
But as odd as that was, it did happen (so they said) although only rarely in regretful souls, and the personality always faded, and those ghosts never strayed from rest for more than a few weeks. His father had been gone more than fourteen years. But it was more than that.
M – Uli, he pleaded. Who had ever heard of any spirit with such – they're dead, dead all the way through! – not even a pantomime of – He made a flustered little noise and cried: Mom, the dead don't breathe!
The little rough house on the edge of the village had belonged to Rinku, and Link had lived there in it with Malon, unfinished though it was, until she'd died in the plague. It had lain empty since, except for brief checks for any needed repairs (lest any small body discover the need first) and one silent shadow amidst shadows.
It had been kept up, the roof well solid and gaps in the walls plugged, the floors sturdy and without faulty boards in hopes that Link might use it again, once he was old enough. Smaller jobs could be used to teach and hone any handyman abilities, and the unfinished furniture could occupy his talent for art and carving for a long while to come. They did not know why he hid his sketches these days. He was so quiet and serious sometimes, any insight into his thoughts was goddess sent.
(It had been painfully awkward, arranging this, and other things. They had not imagined his parents minding the use of the house, they would no doubt be glad to have him use it, but they'd wanted to clear it with Rinku regardless, since he was more-or-less available. But it had never stopped being odd to talk to an apparently empty room after verifying with Link that his father was indeed present, and then asking the boy to step out for a moment before having him relay his father's yes or no answer. The trouble it took to try to surprise that child. Honestly.)
As he neared his fifteenth birthday, they had begun to have him work on small repairs, dangling the prospect of greater independence before him to distract from their new plight, and by sixteen he usually slept there. The other kids were a little jealous, but home was getting crowded: Rusl and Uli wanted another child and had for some time, and Link was steadily growing up. He still had growing to do before they actually let him go, and while not near so much as the others had to do, it would still come sooner than they'd like. (And they wanted him near, there were rumours. Such whispers. The temples sealed. Raiders and dark magic in the fields. Shadows over distant mountains. Such whispers.)
Although, who knew? He might not be alone, if whoever it was Lady Impa had contacted for them had any luck. But Rinku had the patience of the dead, even if he might not be so. If he could wait a little longer to learn what had happened to him, what he was, so could they.
Time would tell, as ever.
And Rinku smiled a little when he heard this.
Rinku vanished a week after Perrino arrived with messages from Impa and her associate, a letter with the Desert Province stamp and a pass. They said she had very strong suspicions, but would have to deal with something urgent before trying anything. She would contact them first.
After three weeks of silence, by mail and from the missing guardian spirit, like a dam bursting, King Bulbin rode into Ordon, and everything changed.
When Link awoke in the Great Spirits spring, and collected his thoughts to the distant thunder of hooves, fairly certain he should not have woken, despite clearly having done so (and oh his head hurt) he started. The now dull throb between his eyes from a blow? Yes, a blow from...
Shit.
There was no sign of them, just dark patches in the water and on the ground and they'd taken his little brother, and his best friend as gone, and he needed to know where they were taking them.
And goddesses give him strength, but where was parental advice when he needed it?
He ran.
He had felt a little guilty that, once he had gathered the Light Tears, his first thought was that he could finally tell that stupid little imp off. He had known where he was. Could not quite believe he had woken up, stuck with four legs rather than two, in Hyrule Castle's dungeons of all places, but he had recognized it.
Any Ordonian child would have recognized those towers. Impa, through their dear Lily, had made sure of it. They had all been taught enough manners to be able to get through it without offending anyone too, not that it mattered now, full of ghosts (and one breathing glow of light – not dead, just trapped) and fire gutted.
But he held his peace.
If she wanted to think he was some uncultured little farm boy from nowhere, (he was maybe naive, but uncultured, untaught? No) he would let her. She could affect the world little more than his father could when the shadows she called home were lifted. Midna needed him to accomplish anything, since all she needed was in the Light. All he needed her to do was to let him past the veil of Shadow, and he could probably find another way, given time.
But he did not have time, and the Spirit had agreed – with far more drama than necessary – that he must match shadows with shadows. He would put up with her.
For now.
Where the hell had he been?
His father had finally reappeared in what he identified as Old Deku's Grove, not far from where he'd found Talo two weeks past. He didn't know where he had been, only that the influx of Twilight made it difficult to appear. But the Golden Wolf was not unfamiliar, though why his eye was red just then had confused him, as had the sense of urgency, until he jumped.
He'd been quite prepared to strangle his father for that, until he realized that skeletal appearance aside, (and it wasn't that shocking, with so many glimpses over the years, whenever he tried too hard) he was still breathing, and he now he could feel him. And hear him.
As he learned from him those things his father so desperately needed him to know, he wondered if, if he'd sucked up his pride earlier, they might've found his voice sooner.
He had very mixed feelings about Eldin province. He had found the kids, a little roughed up but doing well, though Ilia and others were elsewhere, and it had taken him another solid two weeks to track down the Light Spirit's Tears.
It had been interesting to note that, between the stories his father and the old friends who sometimes still came by, he'd not had any trouble finding his way around the Goron city and to a lesser extent Kakariko. He'd spent too many days and nights dreaming of the distant lands they spoke of.
Still, it had been a relief to be able to check them over himself. He felt he could identify with dad then, just a bit.
But the moblin hoards were still running wild, kidnapping, killing and worse. The others were still missing, and Kakariko had no real defence or defenders to speak of. So much so that he'd been reluctant to leave for home, leaving them, to tell the adults at home that at least some of them were found all right. And they had nearly paid the price for their negligence.
By chance, he'd been returning from Ordon. The lands around the Kakariko Gorge had been crawling with moblin, so he had had thought to sneak through the fields to the north gates. He had been stunned to meet the explosion of King Bulbin's Hoard from the town, carrying his little brother.
In another situation he might have tried to sneak around them and steal his brother back, for while he would never abandon his brother, facing so many foes directly was more than reckless, it was criminally stupid. But caught in the middle of them, there had been no choice. He had been pushed to the Bridge of Eldin and surprised as anyone when he'd managed to knock Bulbin off it, but doing so had nearly killed both he and Colin. They had both taken some time recovering.
But Goddesses damn it, he'd won.
Death Mountain, once he had been freed from Renado's tender mercies, had proven to be a similar nightmare.
He would begin with his fear of heights. He had never liked them, and time had not improved the relationship. Any accident he had had as a child seemed to involve some sort of high places. (Tree climbing he'd broken his arm, the fear he had felt when the ground on the ridge had nearly taken him with it as it crumbled. There were others, but those were strongest.) He could work around it – it was in the end a lesser evil – but still. Fear of heights and mountain climbing do not mix. And this was Death Mountain.
Glee.
(Rinku, when he'd met him on the slopes, had worriedly suggested imagining everything below was covered in pudding or something similar. He'd nearly laughed at that: "Country Drowned in Berry Mouse," what a way to go.)
He'd made it without ever really panicking, with no help from Rinku, and he felt he could be proud of that. The damn imp could mock him all she wanted, she did not matter. (At least her venom seemed to be fading. But only a little.) But then there were the mines.
Who ever had thought it was a good idea to extend mines into the remains of one of the lands' most sacred temple deserved to be shot. (It still held the Sacred Stones! Still!) Whoever chose to begin them in an active volcano in the first place deserved to be shot twice. He could say no more than that.
He had decided that the Spirits, were they human, would be rather camp. How else could he explain their love of the dramatic? He had gotten the message, (Gods, had he gotten the message. Oh 'Lia,) he had not needed the exposition – he had seen what the Fused Shadows could do to a person, or even simple fauna. Even so, it was only a cautionary tale. He was still being directed to that dark relic.
He'd escorted Ilia, the bar owner and the prince to Renado, a rushed journey of a week, which had gone smoothly for the most part, interrupted but briefly by a handful of bokoblin and a trained kargarok. They had never faced Bulbin, who Link had unseated without coming near the Hylian Bridge by shooting at his boar. (He hated shooting at steeds, no matter the animal, but the damn thing was mad.) Though there was something to be said for crossbows. He would not have guessed Telma would own one.
And now Ralis was safe, and he and Ilia had been left in Renado's most capable hands. If they were to recover, it would be in there, and former Queen Rutella, once the princess Ruto, had thanked him for it. (It was made for your father, but I imagine he won't have use for it in the immediate future, said she, knowingly.)
The most difficultly he had had to do with the Zora's temple, before finding the Twilit beast, was getting the damned armour fitted. He had no idea what his father had been warning him about. It was annoying, certainly, but a maze? Turned around at every corner? Hardly! So much for that flawless sense of direction. Maybe he had had a head cold then?
Midna had even helped him some, getting around there and the domain, rather than berating him for things like catching cold, or having the audacity to be hurt. If she didn't stop, she might turn out decent, he thought. As it was, he was at a risk of liking her.
As it was, even then he was shocked to wake and find her protecting him.
His father had been unimpressed to find him cursed, and almost as annoyed to find the cruel Twilight Princess (a jab at Zelda, a stab at herself: not a subtle person) bearing a holy light. He had tended to agree, but as cruel as Midna could be, at least she was trying. It was more than most could say.
He had led them a short way into the woods, but left as the Skull Kid appeared. (You'll be fine – he knows better.)
It hurt more to lift the curse than it ever did to become the wolf.
Telma invited him to her bar where they would be meeting frequently until the need for it had passed.
The gruff Ashie's father had been a knight in one of the old King's companies, back when the knights of Hyrule had been competent. Auru, a captain and scholar from a noble house, had occasionally worked with him, and had been acquainted with Shad and his father, scholars both, and Commander Nemoris. Rusl had been introduced to them all by Rinku in the last war. They were the heart of a small, underground group which kept an eye out lest events like those that had led to Rinku's rise to Herodom occur. But sometimes, as they now knew, there were no signs. Only reactions. (The cycles were ever cruel.)
He joined them, discussing what he had learned in the western provinces, before setting out to meet Auru north of Lake Hylia, and from there to the distant Desert colossus, where he assured the man he could resupply.
He was fairly certain that woman had been one of the sages in Dad's stories, but could not quite recall. Someone important, at least. He fingered the pass in his pouch. And someone with foresight.
The next two things he decided were that one, the Arbiters' Grounds would become a lost chapter of his history if he had anything to say about it. So many things he could do to forget. The ghosts, the stalfoes, the echoing cries, the scent and feel of death clogging his pores. Mental bleach would be invented just to clear this, he swore this.
The second was that the ancient sages were probably senile, and needed nice sensible people like the sages of the other time to replace them. They were already minding the temples; it would not be much a stretch. Never was throwing the dark magic sorcerer into the dark realm or anyone else's realm a good idea. It was both foolish and rude. Midna may have been harsh, but her people were for the most part peaceful, just as most races were. The extraordinary arrogance and cruelty of her ancestors did not make her cruelty a given. (That was happenstance.) But what if the race of Twili had not learned from their ancestors' mistakes and turned warlike? Who knew what they could have created by sending Ganondorf there. Look at what they had created regardless.
Zant was not the only one of his kind, even Midna would admit. There were such ones in every people. He was just the 'lucky' one to find the mortal with aspirations of godhood. He was mad, but imagine if he had been intelligent, or calculating? He shuddered to think.
Maybe he would talk to Nabooru again on the way out.
And maybe she might have some idea about how a mirror could get into the sky.
As it turned out, she did have an inkling. So did Shad.
It began with going back to the sacred grove and into the Temple proper. Every temple, father told him, had a door into the Tower, the true Temple of Time. The thing had a way of making everyone inside feel insignificant, even if they were used to it. In the other time, he had spent seven years there, learning. (What, he hadn't believed that rubbish about the sleeping hero, had he? Good.)
Something with Ganon's taint had clearly been there, and done no small damage. That damage, several once-sages would later tell him, sounded much like it had in the other time. Bleed over, perhaps?
Either way, he had what he had come for, and something else he'd not known he needed, but which did not work, regardless.
And so Shad earned a new toy.
He had been to the hot mountain. Apparently he needed to go to the cold one too. He was unimpressed.
And apparently there were abominable snowmen, although the adjective wasn't all to accurate. They were also known as Yeti, the two living in the abandoned manor were called Yeto and Yeta: very simple folk, but very kind as well. He was glad to have helped them, taking away that dark pale the shard seemed to cast, but he was also glad to leave for somewhere warmer and less cliff-side.
Perhaps not the image of heroism that most people seemed to want, but he wasn't most people. This was how he would do his job: they could deal.
Kakariko had begun to fill over the past year, and he was always pleased to see the difference from one visit to the next. Even if the people were refugees, they were survivors, and finding ways to survive together within Kakariko's new walls. It was almost normal.
It was heartening to say the least.
Most promising though was the appearance of the Queen. She had been out of the country with a sizable escort for a series of diplomatic meetings with Hyrule's neighbours when Zant had attacked. She had returned immediately, of course, but with the bulk of her forces decimated was limited in what she could do. Even Hyrule's allies – more than willing to help deal with this unprecedented threat – would be of little value until they could find some point to strike from. How does one attack an enemy one cannot find?
So she was of course curious about the Ordonian youth who seemed to have a talent for finding them.
Link was amused to note that she handled his appearance far better than her council had, more than a decade earlier. Or even their reintroduction there in the Olde Elde Inne.
Of course you would be his, she said, with an exhausted, relieved breathe. She should have known. Should have guessed. She'd heard he lingered, was the murmur, as she glanced over his shoulder, a wan smile touching her eyes.
He had wondered where he had gotten to.
He acknowledged that he was probably more amused by the now functioning Dominion Rod than he should have been, but did the knights need to tease him so? In his defence, he had needed all the distraction he could get after Shad returned with his research (from rubbings and notes he'd never quite remembered to thank Link for earlier) and announce that the city he was looking for was likely the Watarara's Tethered City, in the heights of the westernmost Tal Tal Heights.
The Tal Tal Heights, sometimes known as the Mountains of Dreams, were the tallest range in all of Hyrule, if not the world. He could have wept.
They insisted the universe loved him, he was out to save it after all, but it felt so much like hate. And if they wanted to mock that, they could try getting blacklisted by the megalomaniac psychopath: see how they dealt with it.
In the mean time, they were welcome to help with the dragon, and know that this was his normal of late.
Hm? Didn't think so.
They treated their comrade's son with considerably more respect after that, and let him fiddle with the damnable scepter without comment.
There was currently only one Light dweller they could assuredly say could survive the Twilight Realm. No one was happy about it, but the Triforce of Courage could not break though the barrier over Hyrule Castle, nor could the Light Spirits. Only the stolen Fused shadows could do that, and that meant they had exactly two people who could retrieve them. They gave him everything they could think that might help him, but not knowing what he would face they could do no more.
Link spent his last night in Hyrule for three weeks with Rusl watching the children make gross misuse of an ancient artifact to animate their toys.
When the barrier over Hyrule Castle fell, there were ten thousand soldiers, many sent from abroad, but more still simple people who had taken up the sword to protect their homes in trying times.
With the result that ten thousand people believed they saw the Hero of Time (while others said not quite) appear with the leaders of the Resistance and the Princess and take on the mortal avatar of the God of Darkness and kill him.
Wolves howled victory in the distance.
Link had done a very good job of finding a hole to crawl into following everything. In reality, he had only gone home, but they had had the foresight not to tell anyone where that was, exactly. He just made himself scarce when Rusl had guests.
Rinku had been drifting between there and his friends, the new-old sages, who could now see him with little effort and were using this to try and finally solve his plight. In the spring they went back to the Heights to see if their work had born fruit.
In the last battle of the last war before the Twilight came, the invading Ikana had set a sorcerous trap on the Hyrulians' northern flank. The Commander had seen it not long before it was to go off, and went to counter it himself – a powerful mage if rumour were true – ordering his second to keep to the plans. They had done so and won, but the conflagration of magic had torn at the world.
Nothing could have survived they said, and no search teams came back.
But then, his greatest strength was in being underestimated, was it not?
The magic had settled when Link entered with the sages and their complements of guards, no longer swallowing unsuspecting visitors. As he watched them work on a particular piece of stretched space and saw it resolving into simple ground, he wondered what would happen.
Would he be alive when the magic released him? Able to live after a cheated half-life for so long? Would he be truly dead, instead of that macabre imitation he used to speak?
He waited as Rinku vanished, smiling proudly as the sages grew more focused, and did not pretend he wasn't squeezing Rusl's hand back.
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
Animi: (courage, spirit, pride, passion) is the plural of animus (soul, spirit, mind) and from the root anima (air, wind; breath, life; ghost, spirit (one's soul leaves their body as their last breath))
Talents don't spontaneously appear. You have something or do not, it cannot be gifted or even cursed. This means Link has naturally lupine leanings and the ability to reach it (even if through a curse or a focus), and Midna could at some point be called a hideous little person, spiritually anyway. Link has always been attuned to the spirit world – it's inherited, tied to visions, which Hylians are known for. (Re: Ears to hear the gods)
Nemus:, n. Wood, grove; Nemoris, (genitive singular) of the Grove/Wood. Technically a title: the Grove refers to the Sacred and Deku Groves. One Nemoris can act in the interests of the Woodland Realm in the absence of a sage. This is what Rinku did when he brought the Kokiri Emrald to Zelda in OoT.
Rinku: Alternative spelling/transliteration for Link. For my purposes, the n is dropped in the pronunciation and the u is long: Rīkū.
Impa: She was late twenties when Rinku first met her, so she's late-middle aged now, brushing on seniority, and not aging entirely gracefully. (I can't imagine her not having many, many worry lines and crows feet) She has lived a difficult life. She is probably related to Impaz, and both are named after an earlier Impa.
You open your eyes, she explained, and then open them again – Terry Pratchett, the Wee Free Men
Miss Lily: Uli! Something in her manner always struck me as different from the other Ordonians, of she's from abroad. The Ordonian accent and dialects have many sounds, but the strong, slightly guttural ū in Uli is difficult to pronounce. For Link, the name turns into a guttural stop and a double L (language peeps: compensatory lengthening), hence "Lily."
Farda: Ordon, as a province of one little village is exceedingly unlikely. It just happens to be home to a very skilled swordsman and weapons smith. Rusl gets high end commissions, like tributes. Ordon Village itself is probably larger – it's too prosperous to be otherwise, and it is now affiliated with a very prosperous ranch in the country proper. (i.e. Lon Lon. Talo and Malo are even named for Talon and dear departed Malon)
Mom and Dad: Uli's been there for him since he was six, and his memories of Malon will be sketchy at best. And even if his father's shade is there, Rusl and she have done the actual work of raising him – why wouldn't he see them as his parents? And with Rinku's spirit lingering, it's no wonder other people would be uncomfortable with that.
If something strains Rinku, he withers. He fades, but wilfully, so his son doesn't see.
The dead don't breath! No poe or stalfo or stalchild breaths, except for the denizens of Light, but they're technically alive, aren't they? Rinku, the Heroes shade, does too. (That heavy rattling in the armour, a la Darth Vader)
Perrino: The only good thing in "My Inner Life" was this name. The famed, devoted (obsessed) Postman.
Spirit vs spirit: The Spirits are lesser gods, spirits are ghosts or souls and shades.
Moblin: A moblin. A moblin thing. Many moblin. (Thing a moose, a herd of moose.)
Acrophobia: I seem to like giving TP!Link this fear. He needs something, and preferably something he needs to deal with more than once. Maybe not as well sometimes as others. I imagine him being a little extra focused/distracted during the bridge fight with Bublin because of this. Then something works and he's just as surprised as anyone else. Rinku probably has a fear of fire. (He grew up in a forest where that's a real problem after all, it only makes sense.)
Berry Mouse: It was chocolate pudding, but made the moblin note. He's probably never had chocolate anyway.
Sacred Stones: If you ever looked into the statues in the rooms with the Goron elders in the mines, you would find three stones. No metal work on them – just green, red and blue.
The Cycle: Appears in some fandoms. It will be fleshed out in A History of Hyrule.
Watarara: A bird like race, similar to the Rito in the OoT manga. Not cannon, but they're less ridiculous than the Oocca, who I just can't take seriously.
The Tethered City: CANON = LINK GOT SHOT OUT OF A CANNON. No. Just no.
Dominion Rod: Why should it apply just to certain statues? Certainly not to all... but a little harmless fun should be Ok, right?