Prologue: Fear
Link was as active as any young child could be, running around and playing with his friends, leaping fences and antagonizing the goats. Basically for the town of Ordon in Hyrule he was as normal a child as any you could want. He was naturally inquisitive and naturally goodhearted, and he liked to help people as much as he could. He was a good boy, and everyone in the village liked him. But on the eve of his seventh birthday something happened that changed that.
Link changed. One day while playing outside the house he turned into a wolf pup. His mother who saw the transformation panicked and grabbed the pup, bringing him inside before Link had time to realize that he had become a wolf. The boy's mother was not actually a human, though she was Hylian. She was a race that could take the form of a human and a wolf. However Link's father had married her because she couldn't change into her wolf form. In fact the race had all bit died out and now they were only a human race. Seeing the boy change into a wolf both made her heart soar and made her nervous. She knew if the villagers found out that her boy would be in danger.
She quickly brought Link inside and wrapped the pup in a blanket, holding him firmly to her chest, and probably a little too firmly. He wiggled and let out soft whines, but she kept shushing him over and over again. She looked out the front window, trying to see if anyone had noticed him. So far no one had. She took the pup to the couch and sat him down in her lap, cradling him gently. She then peered in at the pup's face.
Link was a boy that was just a little small for his age, and in his human form he had short blonde hair, strangely pointed ears, and blue eyes. As a wolf pup he had black fur with a white underbelly that formed odd shapes on his side. The white was rimmed with brown between the black and the white, and in the light it seemed to shine silver. The pup had a strange mark on his forehead as well that was white. The pup was a strange one, and had no markings that a normal wolf would have, and his eyes were still blue. Now they were full of fear and confusion, looking pleadingly at his mother. She felt her heart break a little at the sight.
"Mom what's going on?" Link asked, scared. "Why do I look like this?"
"Hush," she purred as convincingly as she could. "It's alright. Don't be scared."
She wasn't sure how she was going to explain to the boy what he was. As far as he'd known he'd been human, and she didn't want to frighten him too much with the knowledge that he was not human. But she had to tell him what he was now. There was simply no hiding it anymore. She'd hoped that he would never find that he had a wolf form. It had been nearly three hundred years since a wolf walker was last seen with a wolf form. But he had a wolf form, and there was no use pretending anymore. She smiled and stroked the boy's head.
"You're a Wolf Walker Link," she said gently. "You're a type of people that can change at will between a wolf and a human. I am also a wolf walker, but I never had a wolf form. This is normal sweety. You'll get used to it."
"Then why did you bring me inside?" Link asked. She pursed her lips a little.
"Because people are scared of people like us," she said. "You have to promise me that you won't turn into your wolf form again around other people."
Link quickly promised, but it was impossible for him to not take that form again. The next time he took his wolf form on accident was right in the middle of town. There was nothing but confusion and screams of terror as they found a young wolf in their midst. Link had been talking to Ilia, his best friend in the whole village. However he had gotten too excited and turned into the wolf. He had never seen such pure terror on her face before, and he never wanted to see it again. She went from laughing to running in fear and screaming about monsters.
Link's mother had run into the fray and scooped him up again, running to the house and locking herself and the tiny pup inside. But even trembling and hiding as far as he could into his mother's breast his sensitive ears could still hear the sounds coming from outside.
"What was that?" the mayor demanded. "We knew about your wife, but now your son is a beast too?"
"Bo he's just a boy," the boy's father tried to defend him. "I'm sure he can learn to control it."
"He is a beast, Kiln," the Mayor, Bo, cried. "Now that he has a wolf form there's no telling what he'll do. What if he gets loose? I won't have him running around threatening the life of my daughter."
"Ilia was just scared," Link's father Kiln said. "Link didn't hurt her. Please there has to be another way!"
"He has to go Kiln," Bo said with a growl. "He's too dangerous to keep around."
The conversation continued for several more minutes, and people began arguing back and forth for a long time. Link remained huddled in his mother's chest, still whining in his wolf form. The boy had little knowledge of what was going on, though he knew that they were angry and his mother was crying. He just shook a little as he listened to the angry voices outside demanding that he go. Go where? What was he supposed to do?
The boy's fate was taken up to a vote in the town center. His parents were brought forward, and the boy was left at home, trembling and listening to the far off sounds of the angry crowd. He wasn't sure what was going on, but he knew when after two hours the talked died down and his mother ran and pulled him into a hug, sobbing all the while, that something was terribly wrong.
His father all came in, and his face drawn and tight with pain. He simply looked at the boy, watching him. Link could do nothing but stare back. What was he going to do now? Slowly his father knelt and put a hand on the boy's brow, looking him in the face. Link was in his human form again now, and it only seemed to distress the man and woman more.
"Come my boy," he said. "We're leaving now. We have a long way to go."
Link felt his young heart fall into his stomach. He didn't understand what was going on or why it was happening at all. But there was no changing the minds of the village. They all saw Link as a threat, and they had voted to get rid of him. His father had talked them into letting him take him far away and leaving him where he couldn't return. This had only upset his mother more, who had told him that it was worse than just killing him because the boy would never survive on his own.
The town was a good one, and everyone was close to everyone. They had been scared, and like everyone else in Hyrule they thought that the Wolf Walkers were bad omens. Though the village of Ordon was a close knit society they didn't take to change easily. The boy's sudden change had frightened them beyond belief. Ordon was a stable village but full of traditions that they feared to break. The boy's lineage was something that scared them, and they wanted to be rid of it. They weren't properly thinking. In the heat of the moment they had decided that killing the boy was best. Leaving him in the wilderness where he would surely die was just as good to them.
The villagers stood and watched, young and old alike, as the boy and his mother got onto an old gray mare and set off, bundling up against the cold of the coming winter. The boy's father lead the horse into the forest with a sword in hand in case they were attacked by monsters on the road. Link looked back one final time, confusion and betrayal in his eyes. He didn't understand why this was happening. It was that final look that would break Ilia's heart in years to come. It was that final brief glance that would make the villagers regret their decision years later, once the shock of the whole situation had worn away and they realized that they had doomed the boy.
But for now though they simply watched, feeling that they had made the right choice and now feeling safer for it. They no longer saw Link as the boy who had played in their front yards and laughed so happily. They only saw a beast now, and they watched after the boy long after they had disappeared into the dense Faron Woods and were lost from sight.
Sleep would not come to Link for the many long days that they trekked onwards. Tired and exhausted though they were, his parents could also not sleep and kept the horse moving along. They were confused and hurt at the thought of what was going to happen to the poor boy, and seeing him snuggle closer to his mother's chest and continue to shake only made their fear worse. They didn't want to send their son off to die in some goddess forsaken wilderness, but they couldn't fight against the whole village. And they too were afraid of change. They could have thought to move away from the village and take their son with them, but they didn't want to leave the place that had been their home for so long. So they felt that their only choice was to follow the will of Mayor Bo.
As they went the days grew colder, and they set out to find the edge of the kingdom of Hyrule. They weren't sure where exactly they were taking the boy, but it had to be away from others who would want to hurt him. Several times his father would stop in a forest, examining it, wondering if it was far enough away that the boy wouldn't find himself back in the village again. All the time his mother held the boy closely and cried, humming him a lullaby with no words. It was a beautiful song and it was one of kindness and hope. But the boy only felt confusion and dread.
Why would they be afraid of him? He was still Link, that hadn't changed. He was still the same little boy who had lived with them since he had been born. Link's young mind couldn't figure out what he had done wrong, or why he needed to leave. He soon lost all bearing of direction. He had no idea where he was, but his father seemed to be looking for something. His mother kept crying and kissing his head, pulling him into her arms tighter. She never once let him go, never once took her eyes off of him. She repeated that she and his father loved him endlessly, sung a song, or sometimes just held him as she cried. Link didn't understand why she was so sad either, and the boy couldn't figure out what was going on. He'd never seen his mother cry so much, or his father's face so drawn and tight.
Link's father on the other hand didn't talk to the boy. He couldn't find the words to say that would comfort him. He knew that the boy could tell that something was obviously going on. He was looking instead to find a place where they could leave the boy where he might have a chance at surviving. He knew the chance was slim. The boy had no idea how to survive in the wild after all. He knew he was almost certainly dooming his only child to death out here. But he wanted to make sure he had the best chance that he could give him. He needed a place with water, with plenty of food and shelter for a young wolf. But there was one thing he could never give his boy, and that was comfort or consolation. He would never understand, and that hurt his father badly.
He decided he needed to take the boy as far away from other people as he could. He didn't want any Hylians to find him in case they decided to hate him too. He also needed a place that would be a good place for a wolf to live. In that case he found himself at the border of Hyrule, looking at a large and lush but dark forest that separated the Kingdom of Hyrule from the Kingdom of Twilight.
The Kingdom of Twilight was their silent neighbor to the north, always watching and waiting. They weren't on friendly terms with Hyrule, but neither were they enemies. They were simply there. The people that made up this place were Twili, which looked much like humans. Only they weren't humans at all. They were often said to have blue or mint green skin, black and green or blue markings and many times reddish hair and unearthly red and yellow eyes. As nervous as the thought of them made Link's father, this forest had plenty of food, water, and shelter that the young boy could need. He hoped that the Twili would leave him alone, true to their neutral natures.
It was here that Link's parents said their final goodbyes. Link's mother cried as his father took him from the woman's arms and carried him to the eave of the forest. He sat the boy down here and knelt. He pulled the boy into a hug, letting tears fall down his face. For a while he just held the boy like that. Then he looked him in the eyes. He drank in every detail of this face, refusing to ever forget the boy. If he was going to live with his regret, then he was never going to forget a single flaw of his skin or the fear and confusion in his eyes. He refused to forget. If this place was to be his son's grave, a foreboding and lonely forest like this, then he was going to honor his memory by never forgetting. Tears came unbidden to the man's eyes again.
"Listen son," he said. "We have to go. You're going to have to be a good boy while we're gone. Do you understand?"
"When will you come back?" Link asked. At this, his mother broke into a fresh wave of tears.
"I will never have another child," she vowed. "I will never curse another to this fate!" And she kept that vow for as long as she lived.
"Be strong my boy," his father said quietly. "Know that we love you and we always will. May the goddesses protect you."
It felt empty to the man, and he felt as if every part of his being simply shattered as he stood and went back to the horse. He leaped onto it with his wife and turned to look at the boy, seeing nothing but that confusion, pain, and fear. He had told the boy to be strong, and he was praying now as he had been for hours that the goddesses would watch over his boy. But the world seemed dead silent. If there were gods, then why had they cursed this boy to this fate? His parents to this agony? He turned the tired steed and raced away, never again looking back into that forest.
Link just stood there for a moment, watching his parents leaving. Then he sprang forward and ran after them. He was faster in his wolf form, and he ran forward on his tiny and tired little paws. But there was no way he could catch the horse, and he was only a small wolf. He kept running after them for a long time, but they were soon gone from sight. Once they were fully out of his sight he kept running. Before long though he tripped and the pup was left sprawled out in the dirt.
For a while he just silently sat there, staring at his paws. Then he stood and started yipping. He instinctively started calling for his mother, crying loudly and shrilly in his voice. He yelped and whined and yipped but there was no answer. Finding himself alone the pup sat down and did something he never had before. He howled.
Being alone as no wolf should, he found himself feeling the loneliness of the wild. He raised his tiny head and let out a small but mournful howl. It was highly pitched and never carried far. But it was an absolutely heartbroken sound. Any Hylian who would have been within hearing distance would have heard it and felt their own hearts break at the raw and painful emotion that this tiny little voice carried. There were no Hylians to hear him, but there was something else.
From within the trees stepped out a she-wolf. She too was a Wolf Walker, but she was a Twili. Unlike the Hylian version that had been hunted and cross bred to near extinction, the Twili Wolf Walkers were still alive and kicking. She was a small she-wolf, black in color with a light blue underbelly and swirling markings on her sides and legs that matched the blue below and the black above. Her eyes were yellow with red pupils, which were now watching the pup. Her fur and tail was much more ragged looking than Link's giving her a fierce look. She was beautiful, but Link had a sleeker appearance and his fur was less ruffled looking. His tail too was longer and not bushy like hers, but a sleek and snaking line.
She had never seen anything like him, with only a single mark on his forehead. She could hear the anguish in the young voice though, and even though she realized he was Hylian she found she couldn't ignore his lonely cries. She had watched from the edge of the trees and seen his parents leave him. There had been agony in their faces as well, but she felt like there should be no reason why they had left him here like this.
Slowly she crept towards the pup, lowering her head so as to seem less threatening. She moved carefully and quietly up towards him, careful to move so that she was within his line of sight. As soon as he saw her he froze and stared at her in terror. He had obviously never seen anything like her either. He was scared and looked ready to bolt. So she raised her head and spoke gently and in a kind voice that seemed to Link to be like a river, babbling gently in its path.
"Do not fear little one," she told him. "I am not going to hurt you."
Link didn't seem to believe her. He kept staring at her, unsure what she was. He had heard tales of the Twili before, but it had always been before bed and he had never concerned himself with tales of the mysterious people that lived beyond the woods. If he would have known it, he would have thought it odd to see one so close to the border at all, even if it was a Wolf Walker. She had been hunting and lost the trail of the scent and had ventured close enough to see the boy's parting with his parents.
"Who are you?" he asked, terrified. "Why am I here?"
"My name is Rastra," she replied gently. "This is the border between Hyrule and Twilight. It seems that you were no longer wanted where you are. It's a pity that Hylians fear Wolf Walkers. Twili do not."
The pup just continued to stare at her for a long time, waiting for someone to say this was a joke. He was stuck out here somewhere he had little knowledge of, and the sounds of the forest were ones that held a knew terror in them. He was also faced by a strange creature he had never seen the like of before and didn't know. He wanted desperately for his friend Fado, for Rusl or Ilia to appear and laugh and tell him it was all a joke and he could go home now. But there was no one. The pup again began to cry softly and there was more pain in his voice than ever before.
Rastra was watching the boy quietly, and there was sadness on her fine features now. She was only around sixteen years old, and she would never have pups of her own because of an injury that she had gotten while defending the territory from monsters. As she saw the pup sitting there crying she thought of this terrible fate of her own and felt her heart go out to him. Maternal instincts took over and she knew that she had to help him.
The Twili Wolf Walker carefully made her way over the Hylian Wolf Walker. She sat down beside him and gently reached down, licking his head. The pup's crying stopped abruptly as he felt the tongue pass over his face. He looked at her with wide eyes. But he was alone and frightened and her eyes were very much like his mother's hand been, kind and comforting. He buried his face into the thick fur on her chest and began softly crying again. She felt her ears fall and gently licked his head again.
Link had never felt soft fur like this before, or the feeling of nestling into it. He'd never felt a strong muzzle or huge paws like this. He'd never before come into contact with another wolf. He had changed into his wolf form before, and the animals had talked to him. Humans except for his mother had never been able to hear what he was saying. Stranger though she was, she was the only comfort he felt for the aching loss that was now in his chest. He would not understand, and he would not forget the pain. He simply continued to cry and nestle into her soft fur. At least now he wasn't so alone.
Rasta let him cry for a while, knowing that she could say nothing that would help the pup to understand. He was still small. How could she explain to him why people could be so cruel? She just offered him what comfort she could. Then she looked up. The twilight hour was fast approaching. She needed to return to her pack soon, but she also was not leaving the pup out here to die. She stood then and reached down, grabbing the folds of skin on the back of his neck.
Link was startled, having never been picked up before in this manner. But without even thinking about it his body went limp and the she-wolf lifted him up off of the ground. He said nothing and just watched as she turned and trotted into the forest. The dark forest cast gloomy shadows about them, but she tread onwards without a single pause. She knew the path that she was taking.
Link was a little scared, but Rastra was gentle with him and he was still small enough that she could carry him the whole way back. She knew her mate would have done the same if he had been the one to find the pup, and she knew the pack would take him in. They weren't as cruel as Hylians, especially not to one of their own, even if he was a Hylian. The light soon faded from the sky and the forest became darker and blacker than ever.
This was the place where Link disappeared from all knowledge in Hyrule for many years. It was a long time before any of Ordon would come to this place to look for him, and by then all that was left of the boy was the sad rumor that could be heard through the plants and animals of the field and forest that spoke of the pup's lonely cries. There were tales told of a tiny wolf pup crying in the fields before dusk fell and he disappeared. The people of Ordon would come to regret their choice and look for him, but they never went far enough inside the forest and it would be many years before Link returned to that part of the forest.
By this time the villagers thought that he was dead for sure, and there was never any trace of him found there. By the time Link would again venture towards Hyrule any trace of them had been wiped away as well, and it would be a long time before he realized that they did regret their mistake and mourn for the boy deeply. However now Link was just a tired, lost, confused, and lonely pup that felt betrayed by the people he had once trusted and was scared beyond belief of what he would find in this forest.
Author's Note:
This prologue is just basically to set up the story. I won't rush through other chapters like this. But this was a necessary part of the story and I didn't feel like writing several chapters before the story actually begins to explain what I could in a single prologue. It was kind of rushed, but now you know why Link is where he is.