Chapter One
The Sparring Ring

An older warrior in green buckled to his knees. Blood stained his tunic red, and his breathing became labored as he fell, clutching a gaping wound in his chest. Dust hung in the air heavily when the monsters astride massive boars rode off. They were whooping their victory like the animals they were. Above all that came the shrill cries of a distressed infant, and a sobbing wife and mother, who was wailing as loud as her infant child. "No... Don't leave me!"

The man, though in deep pain, pressed his dying lips to hers, so full of life. "Stay strong, my love. Raise our daughter to be a beautiful young woman. If she becomes a gentlewoman, I will be proud. If she becomes a warrior, I shall be equally proud." With those words, his eyelids closed, and he fell limp in his love's arms, breathing in his last ragged breath. The young widow raised her head to the sky, and let out a scream of anguish matched only in eerie harmony with the wails of their only infant child.

Ryn woke on the floor, gasping for breath, as if she'd been the one who'd died. Her legs were stuck in the air, propped up against the bed, and her head hurt a little. She stared at the ceiling, trying to shrug off the dream as best she could. This had become her morning schedule since all of her memory of being at the Temple of Time: every night, she'd be plagued by a different nightmare – this time, it happened to be the death of that man, again. She'd dreamed about him countless times for unknown reasons. Something about him just bothered her immensely, and she could never pinpoint what bugged her, which perturbed her more than the fact that he bothered her in the first place. She thought it might be the fact that he seemed to stalk her through her sleeping mind.

Stiffly, Ryn swung her legs from the side of the bed, and straightened. Everything was still in its proper place, except for her blankets, which were on the floor, the sheet on the left side of the bed, and the top comforter on the right side. Huh, she thought, how in the hell did I manage that? Deciding she'd handle the mess later, and still annoyed by the dream, she decided to take out her pent up aggression on other hatchlings.

Well, she wasn't really a hatchling. But everyone at the temple referred to her as such because not many words referred to human children... or Hylian, in her case. In their throaty language, 'Hylian' was a very difficult word to say, and the word for 'human' was so uncommonly used, not many people knew it. Having been raised by Lizardmen, she only really knew how to interact with lizards without being looked at like a total moron. There was only one occasion in her life when she and another nest of hatchlings had ever encountered a human... and it wasn't very pleasant. He, even though he was a full grown man, had screamed like a little sissy girl, resulting in rowdy laughter from all the kids, and their adult chaperone ushering them back inside the temple with wide eyes.

Ryn was far from being a sissy girl. At this thought, she smirked a little, shouldered her sword, and began to hoof it to the sparring hall.

In the center arena, two teenage male lizards were having a hand-to-hand brawl. It was entertaining to watch as the pair clawed and scratched and bit at each other, but when one began to just claw at the other until his skin looked like raw ground meat, two adults had to pull them away from each other. It was savage, but these were sentient creatures reflecting on their lives before sentience. Everybody seemed happy, except the loser, who was hanging his head in shame. To lose, as a Lizardman, was to be as good as dead.

Lizardmen had a surprising sense of pride in their nobility. Losing was unacceptable. Lizalfos, the Lizardmen's feral counterparts, lacked this sense of nobility, and replaced it with a sickening sense of hubris. If they lost, though, they didn't have time to hang their heads in shame; they were dead when they lost. They had no sense of mercy, unlike normal Lizardmen. Normal lizards took pride in their race, and whenever someone encountered a Lizalfos, they would gladly spit on the feral representations of themselves.

Ryn jumped down into the ring and held up her hands. "Anyone want to spar with me?" She gave a self-satisfied grin, drawing her sword, and slowly turning about to see if anyone was going to join her. "Or is everyone a coward here except him?" She gestured vaguely to the winner of the last fight.

Resounding growls spread throughout the crowd, but only one slightly smaller Lizardman stepped up. His scales were a dark green mottled in places with a medium brown and his stomach's scales were a pale cream color. "I'll fight you," he said, shifting in his leather armor, but his dark eyes twinkling under his helm revealed a little hidden laugh within him. The guy looked nervous, but Ryn knew that he was ready to slam her to the floor.

She smiled. "Great." He approached, and Ryn drew her sword quickly. He drew his, and without another word, they began to spar.

Ryn and he were matched. No matter how hard Ryn tried to get into one of his openings, he'd dodge or block. No matter how hard he tried, she'd dodge or block. She got rash and began coming at him with new energy, letting out a mock battle cry, and jumping through the air in a jump attack. He blocked with his sword and a hand, and jumped over her head when she was preparing to rise as if it were a game of leapfrog. He pressed his sword to her neck. "You lose," he said dryly, but a little sympathetically, then released her.

The young warrior touched her hand to her neck, still, in the back of her consciousness, feeling the cool metal on her skin. "Who are you?"

"I'm Sal'nar, but my friends call me Sal."

She nodded, then, shamed, ran off away from him, her face bright as a berry.

– x –

"I lost," Ryn muttered, with her knees tucked up to her chest. She was in her bedroom once more, and although the tempting smells of roast meat were flooding in from the kitchens and dining halls, she wasn't going to eat, not yet.

I lost, she thought, as if it would make it clearer.

She wasn't a little girl. How come he was able to overpower her so easily? Why was he so clever? Was he trying to go easy on her? So many questions she had yet to ask, but there was only one way to find out if he had motive behind what he did, or what. And if she had to, she'd fight him. Pound him for answers.

Ryn smacked her fist to her palm, pinky side down, an evil grin crawling its way onto her face. That's it, Ryn. Don't just sit there, actually do something about it, and quit your damn moping. She jumped up off her bed, and began to hurry off to the dining halls, first for some dinner, then for some fun antagonizing Sal'nar.

Once inside the spacious hallway, Ryn could smell the tantalizing smells of roast cuckoo and venison, lambs, rabbit, and other forest creatures. One thing about Lizardmen: they were voracious eaters, and would very well eat something twice the size of their head by unhinging their jaws like a snake. In fact, their faces did resemble snakes, Ryn thought, but she'd never found it weird.

Likewise, Ryn was raised with a lizard's appetite. So she was starving, absolutely ravenous. She'd skipped breakfast and now she'd almost missed lunch, too. In line, she piled her plate with food, and sauntered directly over to Sal'nar. He was sitting amongst two older lizards who were whooping and patting his back as he quietly chomped at a wing of roast duck. Ryn recognized the other two as the nestmates Ral'sar and Tal'nac. She'd beaten them twice in the sparring ring single-handedly, but only because they were being too full of themselves and all talk. Tal'nac wasn't all that smart (all brawn, no brain); and Ral'sar was not the bravest, unless he felt that he was on top of you. So, the pair were able to adequately compensate for each others' lack of skills, but only when they weren't butting heads.

"Oh, look, it's the lizard that isn't really a lizard. How does it feel to be beat, Ryn?" said Ral'sar.

"Man, her name is hard to say. Why couldn't they have named her Ral'na, or something like that?" teased Tal'nac.

"Get your fat tailed asses out of here before I have to rip off the tails and eat them for an appetizer," she growled. "I'm hungry enough, and not in the mood for your crap." The pair, wide eyed, took a step back. "I need to talk to Sal'nar. Alone."

It didn't take much to get them running for their lives, or, in this case, tails. Leaning on the table and picking up a piece of rabbit, Ryn had caught Sal right where she wanted him. "Why did you... do what you did yesterday."

Sal'nar put down his wing of duck, and said, "Because I knew I had a chance. You were getting too full of yourself for your own good. I wouldn't have done it otherwise."

"You put up a good fight."

He grunted, not making eye contact, but staring at his food.

"What?"

"You're full of hubris! You don't even care about all those hatchlings you beat the crap out of! They all go back to their parents and cry. They lost, you know, because they were younger than us, and you didn't hold back. I didn't hold back because you needed a lesson. Everyone respects my decision. Do you even know how high you hold your nose in the air, because we're scaled beasts, and you have pointed ears? Even better, do you know how jealous most of us are because you are blessed by the Goddesses, and even if half the lizards here don't believe in the Golden Goddesses, they're still jealous because you're courageous to the point of stupidity, and that is the point I was trying to make to you. You're not better than us. You're worse. You're more full of yourself than a stuck up lizalfos."

Ryn blinked. There wasn't much she could say to that... there wasn't much she could say at all.

"You might as well just get out or change, Ryn. That's all I have to say." With that, his scaled face took on a rather angry appearance as he rose to his feet, and began to leave.

"I'm not certain what good it'd do... but I'm sorry," Ryn said quietly.

Sal'nar glanced over his shoulder at her, and blinked. "It does good, if you really mean it, No-Tail Ryn."

A smile twinged at one side of her lips for a heartbeat. Sal's face broke into a toothy grin, and he clapped her on the back. "Friends?" he asked her simply.

"Friends," replied Ryn, smiling broadly, turning her blue-eyed gaze to the lizard that won. The lizard who dared humble her was her friend, now.

– x –

After that, Ryn and Sal did everything together. They studied in the Great Library together, pouring over books and scrolls that caught their interest with their heavily illuminated, gold-inlaid pages; and learned languages like Hylian and Twili and the language of the Oocca. They sang songs in boisterous voices and fought more, evenly-matched battles in the Sparring Ring, only now, they weren't competing to compete, but they were competing as friends. When one of them lost, they wouldn't feel ashamed – no, instead, the loser would rise up to their feet and say, "Let's try again." They played games and shared secrets.

Though the question of Ryn's history still hung over their heads, Sal'nar and Ryn had decided that they'd discover it together, no matter what.

And that was that.