Sleepwalking
Right on time, oh Hero of Hyrule.
Syrup supposed she had to give the man riding to her cottage this much – she knew few people that could be called hero. Adventurers, soldiers, mercenaries, opportunists, sure, but hero? They were few and far between. So if nothing else, she could call the one with golden hair and sky-blue eyes a hero. But not a man, even if he had walked this world for sixteen years by her reckoning. True men wouldn't keep coming to her for the reasons he did.
"Back again?" Syrup asked, looking up from her cauldron.
The one before her dismounted his horse and let out a grunt.
"Just so you know, I can't actually leave this brew for long, otherwise I might burn down the entire forest."
Walking over, he let out another grunt.
"And I can tell that you're oh so worried about that."
The man shrugged. "I trust your capabilities."
"Oh so you do talk."
"When do I not talk?"
"Most of the time actually. Sometimes I think you're a mute."
He let out a grunt.
"See?"
He leant over and smelt the potion she was brewing before recoiling. "What are you even brewing up there?"
"Something to help tummy ache."
"And that could burn down a forest?"
"A goron's tummy ache."
"Oh."
Syrup nodded towards her hut. "Go inside. I'll be with you. Assuming you're here for the same reason you usually are."
The man said nothing. But he did nod and take off his cap before heading indoors.
Syrup sighed. Five minutes, oh potion of mine. Ten minutes tops.
Burning down the Lost Woods might have been an exaggeration. But she wanted to convey as best she could that this was a dangerous line of thought the one named Link was going down and-
No.
She wasn't doing the best she could. Maybe with all the rupees he gave her, she'd been able to look the other way, but no more, no longer. Or at least, not without giving him a piece of her mind. She got out a wooden spoon and tasted some of the bubbling brown liquid. It tasted terrible, which meant that she'd done a good job.
Someday, some witch would be able to make a potion that actually tasted good. But Syrup knew that she wasn't that witch. She was just someone who sold potions to anyone with the rupees to buy them, usually of the red or blue variety. Only a few people ever bought her green ones, but whatever – green was the colour of rupees, and rupees were the name of wealth. And Link was most certainly wealthy – being a hero didn't mean you had to live as a pauper.
But are you living? Syrup wondered as she entered her hut. Or are you still linked to a past you can never relive?
She was glad she didn't say that out loud – much ill continued to blight the world, but puns were in a league of darkness all of their own. That, and if she'd said it out loud, she might have woken up the slumbering boy before her. A man by the standards of Hyrule, but to her, nothing more than a sleeping angel, snoozing away at the table in the centre of the room.
"Wake up Link," Syrup said.
He let out a snore.
"Time to wake up."
The snore turned into a pig-like sound.
"Wake up!"
He did so with a start. For a moment, seeing him look around, his left hand reaching for his sword, Syrup was moved to pity the boy. For indeed, he would always be a boy in her mind.
"Sorry," he murmured.
"Restless nights then," Syrup said.
Link said nothing.
"So tell me," the witch continued as she went to one of her cupboards. "How are the draughts working?"
"Well enough."
"And how well is well enough?" Syrup asked.
"Well enough that I'll continue to use your services."
She snorted, even as she got out a bottle with a black liquid inside it. "I should remind you that my services aren't cheap." She turned around and saw that Link had already put a bag on the table.
"And then I'm reminded that being a hero pays well."
"Actually, it's monsters that provide the rupees" Link said. "And grass. You'd be surprised what you can find if you know where to look."
Syrup didn't laugh. She was too busy looking at his eyes. Eyes that were the colour of sky, surrounded by darkness the colour of the deepest sea. Appropriate, she reflected, all things considered.
"Very well," Syrup said. She handed the potion out to him. "Try this, and perhaps you may see your fair maiden."
Link reached out to take it. But Syrup wouldn't let go.
"Is something wrong?" he asked.
"I think you know there is," she said.
Link said nothing. He withdrew his hand, but he sat there, avoiding her gaze. So in shame that he couldn't meet her eyes, but not in enough shame to make him abandon this endeavour.
For a moment, Syrup weighed her options. What to say, if anything. How to say it. Questions that she didn't normally entertain, but…well, the one before her had saved Hyrule. And if what she'd heard from witches far wiser than herself, saving Hyrule would be his fate from now until the ending of the world. So in the end, she chose pity.
"I miss you," Syrup said.
"What?"
"The old you. The boy with a sparkle in his eye, and a skip in his step – asking me about red potions, and wanting to know about a Master Sword."
Link looked aside, his gaze lingering on the hut's western window. "Those times are long gone."
"Six years my boy – a blink of an eye by my reckoning."
"Then when I've reached the age of a hundred, perhaps I'll say the same."
Syrup slapped him.
"Ow!"
"I'm only ninety-two you little brat."
"And I'm paying for your services." Link tapped the bag. "That should be the end of our conversation."
"Perhaps the whores in Kakariko would say that. I, on the other hand-"
"I've never done that," Link said.
"I know, and for that, you have my pity," Syrup said. "Instead of taking solace in the physical, you take solace in the past. The one who's saved three lands, reduced to living memories of old."
Link said nothing. He just sat there, looking very small. And very tired. Sighing, Syrup sat down on the table.
"Long have I walked this earth," she said. "Many are my regrets, but refusing to live in the present has never been among them."
"Just give me the damn potion."
"When I started making these concoctions, I asked that you explain exactly why you needed them," Syrup said. "Do you remember?"
Link, eyes narrowing, murmured, "I do."
"Such fantastic tales," she said, leaning forward and moving the bottle up and down like a boat on the sea. "The Wind Fish. An island of dream and nightmares. A place beyond the reach of Men, for with the awakening of one, deep sleep came for all those within its world." She stopped rocking the bottle. "One most of all, you told me. One whom you've searched for in your dreams for years."
Link said nothing.
"I accepted your payment then," Syrup said. "I've refined these potions to give you the sleep you need – not enough to make you rested. Deep enough to enter the depths of memory. To see the one you desire over and over."
"And I'll happily take that potion now, thank you."
"You may take it, but you won't be happy. No matter how many times you see the one of your desire, you'll never be with her. You can never be with something that wasn't real."
"You weren't there," Link whispered. "You can't tell me what was real."
"As someone who's dreamt at night, and treated those who dare to dream in the day, I'm quite qualified to tell you what is or isn't real. And to tell you that you're little better than the boy I met all those years ago. Still a child, but worse, unable to see the world around him."
"I can see the world quite clearly thank you."
"Can you? Then perhaps you're aware that these are the years where the princess's flower begins to bloom. Where talk of the future becomes the topic of much conversation in castle and kingdom both."
Link looked aside – enough to tell Syrup that for all his years of dreaming, he wasn't completely blind to the present.
"Have you ever talked to Princess Zelda since your adventures with the oracles?"
"I know what you're saying," Link murmured. "And it's impossible."
Syrup scoffed. "The one who slays demons and sorcerers, the one who wakes gods from their nightmares and saves oracles of power and wisdom, dares claim what is impossible?"
This time, Link met her eyes, a fire behind his. "May I say that you're quick to say what is possible, but also desirable?"
She shrugged. "I understand that there's more than one woman in this world who may or may not have eyes for you. And before you say anything, yes, I know exactly whom I'm talking about."
Link didn't say anything.
"And yet, you pine for one you can never have."
"I do," Link said. He extended a hand. "And I'll take the potion now."
Syrup sat there in silence, looking at the hand before her. Not the eyes of one taken by rage and sorrow, who couldn't even sleep properly due to always seeking to relive a dream that had never even be his. No. It was the hand. The hand that asked for what was killing the mind that controlled it. The hand that tempted her with ever more riches. The hand of a man, still a child, caught between two worlds. One who was a hero, because a curse decreed it.
She put the potion in it, unable to meet his eyes, such was her shame.
"Thank you," said Link, getting to his feet. "I'll leave you to tend to that tummy potion now. We wouldn't want the forest burning down."
Syrup just sat there. It was only until she heard the sound of her hut's door opening that she dared to look upward.
"Link?"
Until she dared to speak.
He didn't say anything. He just stood there, looking at her. The face of one who knew he was destroying himself, but unable to turn aside.
"This will be the last potion," Syrup whispered. "The last time I will indulge your dreams."
She saw his hand reach for his sword, but quivering as it was, it never made it.
"Do you understand?"
"I do," he said, taking his hand aside. "I also understand that you're not the only witch I can see in Hyrule."
She snorted. "Then you understand nothing."
"And nor do you," he said. "You weren't there. No-one else was."
"Tell me," Syrup whispered. "If Marin was real, if she was with us now, would she applaud you killing your mind and body?"
Link said nothing. He just stood there, glaring at her. The one who dared use the name that each usually refused to utter. The unspoken truth of one never truthful at all.
"Well?"
He still said nothing.
"Link?"
"Farwell, oh witch."
With that, he turned and left her abode. Out into the world of the living and the waking.
Walking through it as a man who refused to fully wake up.
A/N
So it turns out that Nintendo's doing a remake of Link's Awakening. And right now, my reaction can be summed up as "meh."
That's probably going to raise a few eyebrows, but while Link's Awakening tends to be fairly well regarded in the fanbase in my experience, it's actually my least favourite entry in the series (out of the ones I've played). But even that aside, I'm left to ask why they didn't use the development time to make a new entry. After all, we got A Link Between Worlds rather than A Link to the Past remake and (in an opinion that's probably less controversial), that game was pretty damn awesome.
Well, whatever the case, drabbled this up.