{ -— one: mother dear. —- }
{ introduction/death. -— twilight princess. —- link, mother, rusl, uli. }
{ -— in which one mother once entrusted her son to the forest. generations later, another must do the same.
-— and in which rusl and uli find a child in a fairy ring. }
— i. —
"and the song is just i love you and always will"
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She is dying.
Blood trickles from a wound in her side, stemmed by a cloth wrapped tightly there. But the crimson stain grows, and with it, her pain.
She and her husband were travelling by wagon through Faron Province when a wolf appeared at the edge of the wood, startling their horse. Her face is pale as she recalls the uncontrolled race through the trees, the horse blind in its fear and panic, the seat bouncing sharply beneath her, and her husband roaring as he hauled on the reins. And then there had been a hillock, one they couldn't have seen coming, and the wagon had overturned and rolled and rolled, and all she could see was a blur of brown wood snapping and buckling, and then green grass on the hard ground beneath her scraped and bloody hands.
The wolf that scared their horse, their now-dead horse, had not pursued them. It had simply sat and watched with its one good eye, peering keenly at them as they passed, not even grinning, as wolves do, when the horse panicked.
If not for the wolf her husband would not be dead, crushed beneath the rolling cart. If not for the wolf her life would not be bleeding out from her, escaping bit by bit, drop by drop, from her body.
But she cannot hate the wolf, a wolf that did not give chase when others would have, a wolf that merely sat and watched when others would have snapped at her heels, her throat, fangs meeting in her flesh. She can hate the horse, the fool skittish horse, but not the wolf.
Besides, her hatred can wait. She first has love to give.
Where one hand is pressed to the wound in her side, the other supports her son, her infant son, who sleeps in a sling around her neck. By some miracle he emerged from the crash unharmed. He didn't even wake. Now he stirs, making soft noises of complaint, but does not slip from dreams. She looks at him with all the love she has, looks at his tiny red face, at his little fists clenched in sleep, the tufts of blond-brown hair poking out from his scalp, the pointed ears that speak of his Hylian ancestry. Looks at every inch of him, though she's already memorized every wrinkle and mole, looks at him because she knows when death comes to take her it will not spare her a final glance at him.
She frets for a moment that he hasn't eaten in several hours, since the day's journey began. But still he sleeps, and she finds she cannot wake him. He is strong as an ox, her tiny son.
Strong as an ox his mother is not, at least anymore. She fears she has broken more than one bone in her tumble, perhaps a rib or two, and then the bleeding, inside and out, will take her. Very soon it will take her. This is why she must make it to Ordon.
A little farming village clinging to the edge of the foothills, it was her intended destination from the start. Her husband wanted to claim a plot of land, there, to make a fresh start in a new place. Having grown up in a small village herself, she had been all for the idea, wanting for her son to grow up surrounded by sun and green life and honest work, away from the gray stone bustle of the city. Now, looking at the sunlight filtering weak through the tree canopy, she fears she won't make it there before she—
Well.
She'll have to get as close as she can. She squares her shoulders and, one hand on her wound and the other supporting her sleeping son, steps into the rippling shadows of the trees.
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She doesn't make it.
She doesn't know how far she's travelled. Not far enough.
Her legs gave out on her after a few short hours of travel, and all she can feel now is the throbbing of her heartbeat in her side, where the crimson stain has grown ever larger, a lapping tide waiting to engulf her. With pale, trembling hands she removes her son from his sling and cradles him to her chest, feeling tears spill hot from the corners of her eyes.
There are legends, generations old, that speak of a woman who fled the war and found refuge for her son in the forests beyond Hyrule's gaze. The little fairy children no longer haunt these woods, nor does there exist a tree with a human face, but she finds herself lifting up a prayer to the trees, to the spirits that linger here still, though time has long left them to fade.
Please, she prays. Please, save my son.
And she dies, never to know if her prayer will ever be answered.
— ii. —
"in a magical circle, a fairy ring"
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Rusl thinks he spots a flash of movement in the corner of his eye as he and his young wife Uli walk through the woods that surround their home of Ordon. A blurred glimpse of golden fur, perhaps. But when he moves to investigate, it's gone.
He moves one hand to his sword on instinct, remembering the rumors of a wolf roaming the hills beyond the village. It hasn't attacked or stolen any livestock — yet, he thinks — but the threat is very real. Rusl has had dealings with wolves before — he knows their endurance, their strength, their ferocity. A wolf will not hesitate to eliminate any threat to itself or its pack.
Uli's hand finds his shoulder. "Rusl." It's her way of telling him he's being too paranoid. They're just out on a walk, anyway. To look at the scenery. To relax, even.
So he lets go of the hilt of his sword with some reluctance, exhaling through his nose. "Alright." He takes her hand and tries to appreciate the beauty of the environment around him. Summer is drawing to a close, and autumn is beginning to creep up on the forest, staining the tips of leaves brown and yellow and crimson. The air is still warm, but stirred by a breeze that promises a chill night. And —
A twig cracks nearby. His hand flies to his sword again. Uli's hand finds his shoulder once more, but this time there's a tremor in it. "Rusl?"
He waits, listening. The air is taut with anticipation. Finally, when no beast reveals itself, Rusl lets out his breath and presses his lips together.
"Nothing, Uli."
They walk on. Soon the terrain becomes unfamiliar, though Rusl swears he knows this forest like the back of his hand. But then, he concedes, he doesn't know the back of his hand very well at all.
"Should we head back?" He turns to Uli, but she says at the same time, "Look!" His eyes follow her pointing finger, noticing the flowers that carpet the ground. Bluebells and violets, trembling in the breath of wind. They're almost precise, deliberate in their placement, forming a trail of blue that leads off the beaten path and into the dappled shadows of the forest. "Uli," Rusl starts to call her back, but she doesn't listen, just steps toward the flowers as if spellbound. Uneasy, Rusl follows.
There's something unnatural about this place, something that gives Rusl an unsettled feeling in his gut, as if this is a sacred place where no human ought to tread. Before, Rusl would have had no truck with the supernatural, would have preferred to face any fear head-on, regardless of its magical origin, but now he wants nothing more than to turn back from this place and never return.
But still Uli follows the trail of flowers.
And so he follows.
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They find an infant child, asleep and alone, in the middle of a fairy ring at the end of the trail. There's no mother in sight; that is, until Uli rushes past the circle of mushrooms to take the child into her arms. It wakes, then, and cries a little quietly, and Uli just beams.
"He's so tiny," she marvels, lifting the baby so her husband can see. "And look, Rusl," she adds wonderingly, "his ears are pointed, like an elf's."
"It's no elf, Uli." The infant's features are undeniably humanlike, even if there is much to suggest the existence of magic in this place. "It must be Hylian," Rusl decides. He is well familiar with the kingdom to the north, although he hasn't been there in years, and Uli has never been.
Even Uli knows enough to realize that Hyrule is many miles to the north. "He's come a long way, then."
Unsettled by the idea of how the child got here, Rusl mutters, "How do you know it's a boy?"
"I just know," Uli says mysteriously.
Rusl frowns and decides to look for any trace of the infant's parents. After much searching he finds nothing but a scrap of bloodied fabric on the soft ground beside a large, moss-covered stone. It feels eerily like a gravestone, and he manages a bit of a prayer before returning to his wife and her baby.
"We have to keep him," she says, as he knew she would. "He has no one else, and you were just saying how you wanted children."
Rusl looks at the red-faced little Hylian. There's something impossibly ancient about such a new person, a gleam of gold on the baby's fisted hand, a sharp, knowing sort of seriousness in his blue eyes that reminds Rusl of an old Hylian legend he heard, long ago.
He lifts his head and meets Uli's eyes, and smiles, just a little bit.
"What do you think of the name Link?"
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He doesn't mention the pawprints he found in the soft dirt beside the rock, or the matching prints that marred the ground by the fairy ring.
In the end he decides it's better not to think about it.
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Long author's note below. I apologize in advance.
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A/N: Guess who decided to take on the 100 themes one-shot challenge. Me, that's who. You can blame PhoenixCaptain for this.
A short explanation: You probably noticed some words in {bolded braces} at the top. Those contain the title, the prompt, the game or AU involved, the characters, and the description, in that order. It's probably self-explanatory, but that's the format I'll be using for these. Since I'll be writing for various games, characters, and pairings, feel free to take a look at the information in the braces to decide if you want to read the one-shot. I won't blame you for skipping one or two if you haven't played the game/don't care for the pairing, etc.
Another explanation: PhoenixCaptain's challenge only has one prompt per story, you say? Well, being the over-ambitious person I am, I'm doing two challenges at once. So instead of this chapter's prompt just being "introduction," instead it's "introduction/death." Easy enough. Just wait 'til we get to the really angsty prompt pairings. *rubs hands together maliciously*
A warning: This will have Absolutely No Update Schedule. I'll write when I can, even if that means nothing for months and then two or three all at once. I do want to finish this eventually, though. Keep reviewing and I just might. But please don't review just to tell me to update. I will refuse to update just because of you. It will be All Your Fault and everyone will hate you. Maybe. So don't whine, you'll get your update when you get it.
A second warning: These will be as long or as short as I want them to be. This one's about average length, probably.
One more explanation: We get like, zero information on how Link gets to Ordon in Twilight Princess, no backstory whatsoever, so I made one up. Enjoy my rampant headcanons.
Alright, enough rambling from me. Reviews are much appreciated, as are faves and follows (because yes, this will be an ongoing collection!).
Thanks for reading!
Yours,
godtierGrammarian