The Parting Glass

by harrietpalmer13

1

I woke up panting. I looked around but I was still in my tree. Nothing unusual seemed to have happened.

"Oh, thank the goddesses," I breathed in relief. I'd had the dream again. My brother was evil and worked for that guy... but it didn't look like all of that had happened so that was good. I yawned and stretched. Then I hopped off of the branch I was perched on.

"Tabari!" I called out. There was a yelp, followed by a thud. I moved over to a willow tree and pushed it's drooping leaves aside, revealing my brother Tabari sprawled out on the thick carpet of leaves on the ground. His face flushed and he quickly stood up. He was a good two heads taller than me. He was a very stocky young man at a shocking age of only 18. He had thick dark eyebrows, but bright green eyes in contrast. He also had thick brown curls that he tried, but failed poorly, to keep straight. He had a square jaw and thick shoulders. His teeth were crooked, as well as his grin, but they were clean. As for me, I'm very lean but still quite tall for my age. I'm at a respectful age of ten. I don't look much like my brother. I have thick eyebrows that are so light you can hardly see them. My teeth are oddly straight as well as my hair which is a natural orange. My eyes are a soft brown. My jaw is pointed, as well as my ears, which are normally covered by my hair, but are faintly visible. I only have one outfit. An itchy dress, with a collar and a broach with the sacred triangles indicated on it. The dress's sleeves are short and flat against my shoulders, revealing their extreme scrawniness, a ribbon tied around it near the hem. The dress itself is a sunset orange, with a yellow sash around my stomach. The skirt goes down to about halfway down my calves. There are little designs at the hem of my skirt and above and below the sash. I also wear, thick, brown boots.

"Tabari, Castle Town?" I asked pointing to myself.

Tabari shrugged. "Sure, why not?"

I grinned and turned to exit our wood.

"No stealing!" Tabari called after me.

"I don't want you to get arrested! You know I can't leave here to come and get you!"

I nodded. "Right! I'm not to!" I replied. Then I left our wood.

I don't speak much because when I was little, my tongue was cut badly and now a chunk of it's missing so it's hard to talk sometimes. Tabari and I live in a small section of woods near Hyrule Castle Town. We can't live in it because Tabari has a bad reputation of a thief. He'd get arrested the second he showed his face. So I had to go and buy everything for us. I also have a stand in the Market. I sell things I made in the forest. Bows and arrows mostly, but sometimes pottery. There is a river back in the wood, with clay on the bottom, It takes a while to make but I sell them at a bit high of a price because they really are nice pots and bowls. They actually sell out pretty quickly. I also sell bowstrings because sometimes people's will break. I emerged from the wood. I went around one corner of the wall and walked for a few minutes until I got to the moat. I crossed the drawbridge and entered Castle Town. As soon as I passed through the gate I could hear the cheerful music of the musicians playing. The crowd was thick and everbody was busy, bustling around, setting up for the festival coming soon. I squeezed through the crowd and set up my stand. I placed my merchandise on the table and got my rupees ready for change. People began buying out the pottery right away. They were shoving all kinds of rupees at me. Green rupees, yellow rupees, red rupees. One person even dropped a purple rupee on my table and demanded three cups, two jars, and one bowl. The three strangest customers I got, were probably a nine year old girl with neon blue hair, a nine year old boy who was dressed like a Kokiri, and a man who looked like a Gerudo.

Blue Hair:

A hand suddenly grabbed one of my smallest bows then disappeared with it. I stood up and saw a small girl with blue hair slinking away.

"Hey!" I yelled.

She froze.

"You n-need t-to pay for t-the bow," I stuttered, my tongue aching.

The girl turned towards me. She had a thin face and a pointed chin. Her nose was a little big and her eyes were bigger. Her shoulder-length hair was covering her right eye. Her left pupil was dilating and shrinking rapidly. The color was electric blue. Her left ear was long and pointed, her right short and forced at the tip. She was very skinny.

She crawled over to me.

"You are... young?" she questioned. I nodded.

"Ten," I told her.

"Nine," she replied. She stood and in shock, I realized that she was taller than me by a few inches. She shoved a yellow rupee into my hand.

"I... apologize," she said slowly. She turned away.

"Wait!" I cried. She turned back.

"What's your n-name?" I asked her.

For a moment she didn't say anything. Then, "Aliana," and she darted away without another word. I stared curiously after her until she vanished into the crowd. What I noticed about her; she was running on all fours.

Kokiri Boy:

Something hit the side of my foot. I looked down and saw a beautiful gem. It was a green emerald with a strip of gold metal wrapped around 3/4 of it. I gasped in awe and picked it up.

"Excuse me," a voice said. I looked up. A young boy was standing in front of my table. In his hands, was a green hat with an odd shape. He had short blond hair and shaggy bangs flopping over his bright blue eyes. He was pretty small for a boy but he seemed strong enough. He was wearing a green tunic and brown boots. He had a brown belt around his waist. He put his hat on behind his pointed ears. Was he Hylian? Or Kokiri?

"The gem is mine," the boy said pointing to the stone in my hand.

"Where d-did you g-get it?" I asked him.

A shadow of sadness flickered across his face briefly. "A very close friend gave it to me."

"Oh," I said softly, understanding why he seemed so upset. "I g-guess you'll be want-ting it back th-then," I held it out to him.

He grinned, looking relieved.

"Thank you!" he said. "My name is Link."

"Mine is Aini," then he disappeared into the crowd.

Darn. I thought. I should've asked whether he was Hylian or Kokiri.

Gerudo Man:

"Th-thank you, have a n-nice d-day!" I said to a woman who had bought one of my jars. She smiled and left. A man materialized in front of my table. He was very tall and built well. He had red hair and green-tinted skin. I thought that to be strange. He was wearing black armor. In fact he looked a little bit like...

"Can I help you?" I asked him politely. I had to keep my voice from trembling. He had a very frightening appearance. It was quite unnerving.

"What is the longest, most durable bow you have?" he asked.

"Let me s-see," I said. I bent down and searched through my bows. I pulled out along one. I placed it on teh table. THe man picked it up and examined it. He ran his hand over the smooth, splinter-free wood and tested out the bowstring a few times.

"This is very well crafted," he remarked. "Where did you get it?"

I c-crafted it myself, s-sir," I replied silently cursing my stutter.

The man seemed surprised. "I am surprised to hear that. Children like you don't normally create this kind of thing and so well at that."

I didn't respond. I wasn't sure if he was making fun of me or complimenting me.

"How much will this be?" he asked.

"Twenty."

He dropped a red rupee onto the table. I scooped it up and the man disappeared. Not like, disappearing into the crowd, I mean legitimately disappearing. One minute he was standing there with the bow and when I blinked he was gone. I glanced around in confusion but couldn't see him. I shrugged. I wonder if he really is Gerudo...

When the crowd began to thin out I packed everything up. I counted what I earned and got a total of 145 rupees. I grinned. Amazing. Tomorrow I would come back and see what I could buy before the festival. I stowed everything in my satchel. It was enchanted so that anything could fit it. I pulled the strap over my head and dropped it onto my shoulder. Then I left Castle Town just as the sun began to set, painting the sky a beautiful, fiery orange. As I neared the wood the air even began to smell like fire! Wait a minute... I squinted ahead and gasped. THe wood was on fire. I began running to it. The only thing that was going through my mind was Tabari. I dared into the wood, the fire immediately searing my hair and fraying my clothes. I opened my mouth to call out Tabari's name but my lungs filled with smoke and I had a coughing fit instead. My eyes were watering terribly and I could barely see. But I knew this wood better than anyone, even Tabari. Then I came out into a clearing. The smoke was gone, there was no fire here. I glanced around and what I saw made me gasp sharply and duck behind a tree.

I'm dreaming. I had to be.

This is just mmy dream again. I'm still asleep. I must be. I bit my arm. Hard. I almost yelped in pain but restrained myself. Blood dripped from my wound. And it hurt. My hear sunk as the realization hit that I wasn't dreaming. This was really happening.

Tabari was kneeling in front of the man from my dream. Tabari's eyes flashed red briefly.

I felt tears well up in my eyes as I watched the scene unfold.

"N-not you t-too," I murmured. The man must've heard me because he turned sharply to me. I froze. This was the same man who I had sold the bow to earlier! Before he could do anything I turned and ran. The fire was back. I couldn't see. I could scarcely breathe. I was running blindly this time. I didn't know where I was going. Then I came to the river. I ran upstream until I exited the wood. The fire had stopped here. I was getting dizzy. I stumbled up a strange path then I fell to my hands and knees. My hands hit stone and I looked down. I couldn't read what it said because my vision had doubled. There was a waterfall next to me but its roar was no match for the ringing in my ears. My vision began to darken. I retched over the edge of the path. I saw an oddly shaped figure sprinting towards me.

"H-help... m-me..."

Just as the person reached me, my world went black.