Fidelis
The Skull Kid remembered Termina as a harsh, cold place. The people were mean (though he would always get back at them with something meaner). Everyone seemed to ostracize him (was that last prank a prank too many?).
But that was okay. He didn't need anyone (that's what he kept telling himself). He was like a hero...yeah. A lonely sort of hero.
But even then, that hero had a fairy friend to keep him company, hadn't he?
He remembered the dawn the bushes near him had rustled and how quick he was to draw his slingshot.
Ha, it was probably one of those pesky, grouchy merchants passing through again.
With a quick stretch and release, the slingshot hurled a pebble at whatever was stepping out of the bush...
...which was not a wandering merchant, as he had expected, but a little human girl. The rock made contact with her forehead with a dull "thwack".
The girl yelped.
Oh. That was his cue to leave. The Skull Kid scrambled into the nearest tree and observed from above.
The girl looked to and fro, massaging the forming bump on her head gently, before her eyes started to glimmer. She sniffed pitifully before she started to bawl to the sky. The rock, upon colliding with her head, had caused a small cut, and it started to bleed.
Wait, what? No! The Skull Kid jumped. He hadn't meant for her to cry! This is not what he had bargained for.
Watching the tears stream down the little child's face, he dug around inside his tunic until he found a piece of shredded cloth. It would do. He found himself sitting on the tree branch, debating with himself whether to jump down and assist the human or to simply toss the cloth down and hoping she was smart enough to know what to do with it. He examined her. She was tiny, and couldn't have been any more than 4 years old at the most. The Skull Kid felt a part of him give up. It's not like she would remember, anyway. Human infants have the worst memories.
He jumped down from his branch silently in front of the crying girl. She looked at him for a moment or two, fear in her watery eyes, before beginning to whimper and blubber out, "Please, don't eat me! I'm just lost...I have been for hours! I won't taste good at all, mister...please, please don't eat me...mama..."
As she wailed again, backing away clumsily, the Skull Kid sighed. "You're so noisy. I'm not going to eat you. You'll probably rot my teeth, anyway," he retorted, snickering.
The girl continued to tremble. He sighed once more (he seemed to be doing so a lot today). "Your forehead is bleeding. I thought you were a grown-up and shot you." He stepped close enough before adding, "Turn around unless you want that nasty cut to bleed to death."
That got the job done. The girl turned hastily and he swiftly tied the torn strip of fabric around her forehead, covering up her cut. He stepped back. "There. Told you I wasn't gonna eat you."
She stared at him now, the tear trails slowly drying with her eyes. Then said eyes widened in recognition. "Are you the imp my mama told me about? The one that goes around playing mean tricks on people?"
The Skull Kid stiffened before loosening again. "Why should I tell you?"
The girl hummed, ignoring him. "You're nicer than they said you were. And you really do have a duck's face!"
He tensed. "What did you call me?" he cried. The smaller girl quickly recoiled at his warning tone. There was silence for a few seconds before the Skull Kid pointed to his left. "Clock Town is this way. Keep going that way and you'll get there eventually." While the girl looked leftward, following his pointed finger, he retreated back into the closest tree. She turned around and gasped. After a minute or so, she headed off in the direction the Skull Kid had given her.
He watched her retreating figure with a certain curiosity.
.*.*
The Skull Kid sat on a stump somewhere near the outskirts of Clock Town. He fiddled with his flute, tweeting the notes of a certain melody the hero had taught him that one day. He would never forget the hero. He repeated the song over and over again. With each note, he felt his heart (if he had one, that is) get heavier. The melody, which had been cheerful and bright, reminded him of days when he was not alone.
"Mister Imp! It's you!"
That was a familiar voice. The Skull Kid jumped, falling over with a cry of surprise. He sat up, patting himself, salvaging a bit of his pride. "What are you doing here?" He paused. "Have you come to play a game?"
The girl shook her head. He noticed the wrap around her forehead to be absent. "Remember when you helped me home a week ago? I came to thank you and also to thank you for not eating me. Mama says thanks for those too."
The Skull Kid, unsure of how to react, was about to stammer out a line when a tray of sugary goodies in a little bag was placed in front of him. "This is thanks from Mama and me." She shifted uncomfortably. "I was gonna return your cloth thing, but Mama decided to wash it before returning it."
He couldn't remember the last time he has been treated like more than a pest. He was all too used to being forgotten, being left in the dust to rot away alone.
He felt fuzzy inside. Someone had remembered him, even if it was a human.
.*.*
When the girl returned the day after that, somehow finding him in the woods playing around on his flute again, and then the day after, the Skull Kid grew to accept the child as a part of the daily routine. The sun rose, he would find some Clock Town grown-up to mess with, he'd find a clearing in the outskirts of Clock Town, then the girl would visit. He started off by playing games with her. The simple ones, like hide-and-seek and even tag (upon the girl's request). After a while, the girl began to accompany him on his pranking missions, assisting when she could and giggling whenever appropriate (and sometimes when it wasn't, spoiling the prank). The Skull Kid did not remind the girl of the piece of cloth she had yet to return.
Her parents couldn't figure out why their innocent little girl was growing into a young prankster or where she spent her free hours, but they would never try, at any rate, assuring themselves it was simply a phase and that their innocent little girl would return once more.
The Skull Kid wasn't sure how, but seasons passed and years ticked by faster than they has before.
The girl, now into her double digit numbers at age 12, lay on the grassy hill, gazing at the sky. "Skull Kid, do you think Termina will ever fall on hard times?" When she was met with silence, she continued. "My Nana told me about a time when families were so stressed, they couldn't love each other as much. It sounded horrible."
The Skull Kid shrugged. "It doesn't concern me. As long as I can still have fun, I don't care what world I'm in." He giggled at this.
There was a comfortable silence, the Skull Kid fixing a tear in his gloves as best he could and the girl staring up at the sky. Then, out of nowhere, the girl smirked and remarked, "I'm taller than you."
.*.*
More years passed. The citizens of Clock Town noticed the flow of pranks lessening during the past decade or so, and, afraid as they were to question it, they thanked whichever deity was responsible for such a blessing.
The Skull Kid, however, felt a pit starting to form in his maybe-existent gut. The girl was not so much a girl now as she was a young woman. She would soon be a grown-up.
He hated grown-ups. But he couldn't hate his friend.
Grown-ups left people behind.
They forgot easily.
They didn't think about others.
"Skull Kid!" The young woman he had been worrying about ran into view over the hill, hair wild, long, and tangled. She had the largest grin plastered on her face. "He talked to me!"
"Huh?" he cocked his head. "Who?"
The girl-but-not-quite flopped onto the grass, rolling around. "The sweetest boy I've ever met."
Oh.
The Skull Kid snickered. "That's so lame." You won't abandon me for him, right? "You're all lovey-dovey about this one boy." You won't leave me behind, right?
"Yeah, but he's so...perfect..." She sighed. The imp purposefully ignored her.
He could not remember the last time he had felt comforted by another's presence. He didn't want it to end. He wanted to be friends forever.
But the pit in the Skull Kid's gut expanded as conversations seemed to revolve around this one boy as the days passed. She was replacing him. She wasn't going to want him anymore—
"Skull Kid? Are you listening to me?" The girl frowned. "I want to prank the mayor. We haven't done him yet, right?"
Now that was something he could take comfort in. "Sure. How about pouring buckets of burrs into his bed?
"Nah, nah, how about..."
*.*.
When the girl stopped seeing him as often after three more years, the Skull Kid knew she had grown up.
At 18, the girl-no-longer-girl was getting married to the sweetest boy she had ever met.
She was replacing him.
She was leaving him behind.
She didn't want him anymore.
He thought they were friends.
So when she came running down the the hills with an ornate wood-carved ring on her finger, her long-time friend was nowhere to be found.
*.*.
He didn't appear for a long time. He hid away from the world, bitter. Once again, he had been abandoned by a friend. He should've seen it coming. Why did he even bother to stay friends with her? She grew up. They would all grow up.
On a warm summer evening, the Skull Kid approached a clearing filled with celebratory music and the laughter of joyful people. Unable to help himself, he watched the dancing before him with an air of envious interest, when the crowd circled around a certain couple, dancing like they were the only two people in the world.
It was the girl-no-longer-girl.
In his eyes he saw the little 4-year-old, bawling about being lost, then offering him too-sweet baked confectioneries. The companion he relied on to prank the mayor. Countless merchants. Even her own peers, her own parents. The one who had been graced with the title "friend" in his book, and the first one to hold that title for a very long time.
His closest friend, and he wasn't even a part of her world anymore.
She had grown up.
Like everyone else.
So the Skull Kid wandered away, knocking over a decorative base placed on the grass in light of the marriage ceremony, in a foul mood.
He did not utter a word to her ever again.
*.*.
As even more years passed, he would ignore the young woman stumbling around in the forest, calling his name. He would ignore the looks of despair that graced her face. He would ignore the strip of familiar, tear-stained fabric set on a familiar stump day after day.
One day, a woman wandered into the clearing, sadly, and took the worn piece of cloth, stained with old, old tears and the scent of tree bark. She walked away and never looked back.
*.*.
Years turned into decades. The Skull Kid resorted to tormenting travelling merchants and setting up traps around the entrances of Clock Town, but he pointedly ignored the area of Clock Town a woman and her family resided in. He often heard laughter and sounds of happiness from that side of the Town. He would stand for a moment, thoughtful, before turning away and bolting off, filled with spite again.
*.*.
He found himself standing at a tombstone.
He was right.
She did leave.
He was right.
He knew all along.
He did the right thing, cutting off all ties with her.
If I was right, he thought, why am I crying?
The Skull Kid stood at her grave for a very long time.
*.*.
Years in the future, when a certain Hero of Time stumbles into a strange land home to the twisted and sad and hopeless, the spirit of a small girl will hand him an old cloth that smells of tree bark and tears, and without a word, will vanish.