My first real Zelda fic. Constructive Criticism would be greatly appreciated, even if it's more criticism than constructive.

Remember When It Rained

"What do you think, Ingo?" Malon asked, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand. The mare in front of her flicked its tail and trotted off to the lean-to in the back of the paddock. "She looks good, doesn't she?"

Ingo grunted something Malon couldn't make out as he walked distractedly over to the lone paint in the corner.

"I picked that one up the other day. Isn't he beautiful? I haven't seen one like that in years; since Grandpa ran the farm."

Ingo walked around the stallion, inspecting him closely. "Do you really think you should take so much time with the horses?" he asked the girl. "Talon always focused more on the cows. They're where all the revenue is these days."

Malon sighed. "Don't worry, Ingo. I'm not dropping the cows. Father kept them well, and I don't think they'll need any more special attention for a while," she said. "I've heard people in town complaining about the long distance treks they have to take just to get to the lake. I think there's a rising need for faster transportation." She patted the paint on the neck and looked into its eyes. "We could make lots of money on selling these horses." Looking back at the mare as it pulled some hay out of a bale, she added, "But that's not what I wanted to know. I was looking at Nani, asking if you think she's ready for the season."

Ingo didn't take his eyes off of the paint in front of him. "I don't know anything about horses," he said. "Cows. The revenue's all with the cows."

Malon rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Okay, Ingo. I look at the cows with you this afternoon." She looked back at the farmhouse, a small pillar of smoke rising out of the chimney. "I think Rachel's fixed us up a solid lunch." Ingo looked at her stolidly. "Let's go eat."

As they walked together around the corner of the barn, Malon immediately felt that something was amiss. The barn door was open and there were fresh foot and hoof prints in the dirt. "Ingo," she said, instinctively keeping her voice low, "do those look like Gerudo boots to you?" she asked.

Ingo squinted at them. "I don't know, Malon. My eyes aren't what they used to be," he said listlessly, shuffling towards the house.

Malon's brow furrowed. They had been having problems with the local boys lately, but she didn't know if she could handle even one Gerudo warrior. Bracing herself, she quietly stepped into the barn.

There was no one there that she could see, not even an extra horse. "Hello?" she said, whispering in spite of herself. "Is anybody here?"

"Why are we whispering?" a voice came from behind her.

Malon jumped in surprise, landing not so gracefully on her back. She looked up at the intruder, and immediately burst into laughter, as did he.

"It's nice to see you too, Fairy Boy." She held up her hand and he helped her to her feet. "Haven't in a while."

"You look good," he said with a smile. "Dirty," he added, "but when you hang out on barn floors, I suppose that's to be expected."

She shot him a menacing look. "I suppose so."

He looked around. "The place hasn't changed much since I've been here."

"Nope, just that one empty stall," she said, looking over in the corner. But it wasn't empty anymore. A tall, red-dunn mare stood there, calmly munching on grains. "Epona!" Malon said, running over and hugging the horse around the neck. "It's good to see you again!"

Link laughed. "I'll just leave you two alone for a while, shall I?" he said as he walked out the door.

Link took a long, deep breath in, basking in the warm country air he hadn't smelled in fifteen years. There was something to be said for dirt, sweat, and manure all wrapped up in one sniff. He strolled around the well-known and dusty path running beside the paddock and surveyed the new horses. He took note of a few familiar faces; stallions that had been no older than yearlings when he'd last seen them were now heavy footed and graying around the mouth, and two mares who had been foals with Epona were showing signs of Mama Swayback themselves.

"You ride her too much, Fairy Boy," Malon called from behind him. She held a very wet Epona on a rope. "Her hooves are worn practically to the nub."

Link kicked at the dirt sheepishly. "Sorry."

"And she could do with a few more hose downs than you seem to give her," Malon added.

"Malon, I—"

"And her tack is in tatters. You really should buy some new."

"See, I've been—"

Malon cut him off with a raised eyebrow. "There's no excuse for bad care," she said seriously.

Suddenly, the mare blew a loud raspberry and lifted her lip up, sticking her teeth in Malon's face, then trotted off and stood next to Link, who reflexively patted her neck.

Malon shook her head and sighed. "But she's stuck on you anyway, I see."

Link shrugged as he untied the rope and led Epona to the gate in the front of the paddock. She trotted in, and he closed it behind her. "I see you have some new additions," he said to Malon as she came around from behind him.

"We have," she said, watching as the mare began to clip grass. "Since my father died, I've been trying to build up the herd a little more."

"They look good," Link said.

Malon looked him for a long moment, and he tried to appear unfazed by her odd stare. "Would you like something to eat? I don't know what we're having, but you're welcome to it."

Link cocked his head at her. "You and Ingo have been out here for hours," he said. "Who had time to make lunch?"

"Since we thinned out the family numbers, I hired a little extra help," Malon explained. "Rachel helps with the house; cooking meals, cleaning up after things, and all she needs is food and board for her and her son, Breas, so she comes at a very acceptable price."

"Ingo could you pass the salt?" Malon said from across the table. Link watched from behind his bangs as she lightly tapped the small crystals into her soup. There was something different about her. The way she walked, the way she spoke to people, even the way she held the saltshaker. There was a new delicacy to the way she did things, as if she was afraid that it might all break at any moment. Link didn't understand what could happen to her here that would change her.

"Breas, not at the table," Rachel whispered fervently into her son's ear as he began to fiddle with his silverware, turning them into people and giving them voices.

"But they're not hungry," he said. He looked somewhere about six years; Link gathered that he was a very restless soul from the way he'd been acting.

Malon put her hand on Rachel's shoulder and looked at the boy. "Now, Breas, if you and your friends aren't hungry, than I'm sure you wouldn't mind cleaning up the dishes after the meal. It's much harder for people with full bellies to do hard work like that."

Breas looked at his food, then at Mr. Spoon, then back at Malon. "No, we'll eat," he said as he took a generous helping of chicken broth into his mouth.

Suddenly, the door to the outside burst open and another boy came running in. He was quite a bit older than Rachel's boy; he was probably nine or ten years. Link watched as he walked up to Malon and kissed her on the cheek.

"Tate! Where have you been? You said you'd check in yesterday! You had me worried," she said to him as he took the seat between her and Ingo.

"I had planned to, Mother," he said, "but there was this Giant Goron, and the bomb plants were just barely out of range, and—"

"Hush, honey. Eat now, talk later," Malon said. "You probably haven't had a good meal in days," she muttered under her breath.

Tate shoveled a pile of vegetables onto his plate. "I was going to go back to town tonight, Mother," he said, not looking at her. "Some woman's lost her dog."

Malon sighed as she fetched her son a bowl of soup. "Alright then, tell me tomorrow when you get back."

"But I was going to—"

"You heard your mother, boy," Ingo said lethargically. "Be back tomorrow."
"Ingo, there's a scarecrow—"

"Tate, your mother's been worried sick about you all day," Rachel said. "Give her poor heart some rest."

"You don't understand, Rachel, I—"

"If you won't listen to your own mother," Breas said with surprising articulacy, "listen to mine. Come home tomorrow."

Tate looked around at them, his eyes landing on Link for the first time. "What? No well-practiced line from you, Stranger?" he asked with a defeated look.

Link looked back at the boy. "Uh...well..."

"Tate, this is Link. I've known him for a very long time, and I would greatly appreciate it if you would treat him with a little tact," Malon said, still staring into her bowl.

"Sorry," Tate said.

"Uh...yeah. That's okay," Link said stupidly. Without thinking, he added, "The woman's dog is that gray one in the alley behind the—"

"Link!" Malon, Ingo, Rachel, and Breas all said together.

"Oh. Sorry."

Tate looked at him, eyes wide and open mouth dribbling soup out the corners. "What did you say?" he asked.

Link looked around at the table fearfully. "Er...nothing."

"I'm really sorry about that, Malon," Link said as they crossed to the barn later that day.

"Oh, it's all right. I understand that you just...well...you just acted like yourself," she said, opening the stalls and leading the cows out to pasture. "It's just that Tate really doesn't need any encouragement."

Link looked down at his shoes. "I can tell."

Malon turned to him. "I can't stand it!" she said. Link saw that there were tears welling up in her eyes. "He'll leave on a Monday and not come back until the next Wednesday. And then, when he gets home, he'll leave after dinner and be gone for weeks!" She shook her head sadly, trying to hide her face as she blinked back the water. "He's just like you, Link."

Link reeled. She had never called him "Link" to his face before. All he could say was, "I'm...I'm sorry."

"He tells us all these stories about the people he meets and the stunts he pulls, and the...and the Poes he kills! Poes! My nine-year-old son is killing Poes!"

"Wow. I didn't do that until I was twelve..." he started to say, but stopped before Malon heard him.

She heaved a long, overwhelmed breath, her third today, by Link's count. This one held more pain and fear than the others had. All at once, Link was staggered at just how hurt his friend looked. It was as though every day of her twenty-five years of existence sat on her shoulders, making it hard for her to stand the tall, strong woman she had once been.

"I know it shouldn't be this hard for me," she said after a minute of composing herself. "No one worried about you this way, did they?"

Link was startled by the question. "Well, no," he said. "But, Malon, I didn't have any family." He looked at the farmhouse as Ingo emerged from inside. "It looks like Tate has more family than he knows what to do with."

Malon smiled wistfully. "I think we annoy him," she said without looking up.

Link shrugged. "Isn't that the point?" She laughed, and Link had the sudden urge to change the subject while she was still in a good mood. "Come on, let's have a look at these fine bovine specimens."

Sitting under the tree, Link watched the horses gamboling together in the paddock. Epona had distanced herself from the rest, choosing instead to munch quietly on the hay under the lean-to. Evidently she was having as hard a time as he was trying to fit into a world that had changed too rapidly. He plucked a small white flower up from the ground next to him. The sky was darkening as the sun passed behind the hills, and the eerie twilight cast colorful shadows over the small farm.

"Mr. Link?" a voice came from next to him.

"Yes, Tate?" Link said without turning to him. He heard the boy sit down a few feet away.

"I was...I mean...there's this thing..." he sputtered.

Link chuckled, spinning the flower around in his fingers. "Get it out boy."

Tate took a calming breath, much like his mother had earlier. "I was wondering how you knew that thing about the dog," he said.

Link nodded knowingly and looked up at the pink clouds. "Because she's lost that dog before." Tate was silent for a long moment, but Link could hear him breathing in as if he were going to say something else, then thinking better of it. "It's my turn to ask a question now," Link said, for there was something that had been on his mind ever since Tate had stepped into the farmhouse during lunch.

"O-okay," Tate said.

"Where's your father?" Link asked, and immediately regretted it. The boy's body didn't move, but his eyes darted everywhere, as if he were looking for the answer somewhere in the grass. "Nevermind," Link said quickly.

"No," Tate said, and though he still looked frightened, his voice was firm. "I'll tell you," he said. He was silent for many moments, and Link felt too guilty to urge him to go on. Finally, after the sun had gotten significantly lower in the sky, he said, "Rachel's husband used to work with the chickens."

Link didn't know how to respond, or even if he should, so he just stared at the small bloom in his hand whose stem was now rather battered.

"My father and Breas' were great friends; there's a picture of them on the wall inside. They used to go into town together and sell the animals and milk for the farm. But they wouldn't come back for days, and when they did, they wouldn't have any of the money they had gotten from market. I don't know where it went, but after Breas was born, they left more often and stayed away longer. After a while, they stopped bringing the products at all and just left by themselves." He stopped, bringing his legs up to his chest and cradling them hard.

"You don't have to—" Link began.

"Then one day, five years ago in the fall, they left and didn't come back." Three little tears fell down his cheek and onto his knee. The two boys sat in complete stillness, listening as the rooster crowed and the night birds began to sing their low songs.

"Tate?" Malon came around the corner of the house. "I thought you left already."

Link winced as Tate quietly snuffed his tears and, more skillfully than his mother had, wiped his face invisibly. "I decided to wait until tomorrow," he said without the slightest hint in his voice that he had just told the hardest story of his life.

"Oh, well that's wonderful!" Malon said happily. She smiled at Link who tried his best not to ruin the boy's façade. "Rachel's got dinner ready if you two are hungry."

Tate stood up. "Are you coming Mr. Link?" he asked.

Link swallowed hard. "I'll be in in a minute." Tate walked off and Link heard the door to the house close.

"What's wrong, Fairy boy?" Malon asked, sitting down next to him, closer than her son had been a minute before.

Link tried to compose himself with a sigh like Malon's family seemed so capable of doing, but it caught in his chest and he heard himself cough. "Nothing," he said, hoping she wouldn't ask any further. However, knowing Malon, he figured that she—

"I don't believe that for a second."

—wouldn't believe that for a second.

So Link looked back at the flower, now bereft of a stem entirely. "He just left and never came back?" he asked.

Malon's face fell. "They both did," she said softly.

He looked up at her face, afraid that he would find tears like Tate's there, but her face was dry. "Why didn't—"

"Why didn't I go after him?" she finished.
"No, I wasn't—"

"Because he didn't love me anymore, that's why. He didn't love me, so I was determined not to love him," she said with ferocity Link had never seen in her before. "And I don't."

"I wasn't going to ask that," he said. "I was going to ask why you didn't tell me before."

Malon raised her eyebrows at him; she almost looked angry. "I didn't tell you my husband left me because I didn't think it was any of your business what had happened to us while you were gone," she said. "You were gone. You weren't here. A lot of things happened that you weren't around for, and you don't care about them."

Link closed his eyes. "I meant why didn't you tell me that you had a son, that you ever had had a husband, that Rachel wasn't the person you hired, but what he'd left behind." He turned to her finally. "Why didn't you want me to know?"

Malon's expression softened. "I..." she began even more quietly than before. "I was ashamed."

"Ashamed? What is there to be ashamed of? Tate is a great kid, from what I can tell, and Rachel, well, her food is—"

"I'm not ashamed of them; I would never be ashamed of my own son," she said, and though she was trying to keep her voice clear, her words began to falter as she fought to hold back sobs. "I'm...I'm ashamed of myself."

Link gaped at her. That's what was different: she didn't believe in her own strength anymore. "Why in the world would you be ashamed of yourself?" He shook his head as if to clear it of a bug that had flown in his ear. "You are the strongest person I know, Malon," he said, "and that's saying something; I've met a lot of people." He put his hand on her shoulder. "No where else in this world is there another person who could raise the son of a man who left her, run the farm of a man ho loved her, and pay the dues of a man who scorned her. No where else on this earth is there someone who could do all these things and not kill herself in the process."

Suddenly, her composure left her and her body sagged against his as she sobbed out all the pain she had ever felt in her life. "I-I ca-can-can't d-d-do it, L-Link," she tried between gasps.

"It's all right," he told her as he stroked her hair out of her face and kissed her forehead. "You're not alone. You have all these people around you who love you."

She muttered something inaudible.

"What?"

"Nevermind," she said quickly, and immediately Link knew what she had said.

"I'm sorry, Malon. I'm so sorry."

"No, don't—"

"You're the closest person to me in the world; I should have taken better care of you."

"You were saving the world."

"I should have saved you."

She sat up and looked at him. "I don't mean more than the hundreds of people in Hyrule and Termina," she said, wiping her eyes. "You did what you had to do."

"I left you."

"No!" she shouted. "No you didn't!"

Link looked at her, shaken by her reaction. "I was gone for fifteen years."

"To leave someone means to stop loving them," she said. "Only one man has ever left me. Don't tell me that you did, too. I don't think I could take it."

Link shook his head quickly. "No, I never left you. I never stopped—" he faltered. What was he saying?

"I never felt like you had forsaken us," Malon said more calmly, ignoring his interruption. "It was lonely here without you to talk to, and sometimes I would come out to the field to sing, hoping childishly that maybe you'd hear me wherever you were."

Link wasn't listening. His breathing quickened and his heart pounded painfully in his chest. What are you doing? he asked himself.

"And then when Tate started going on his little adventures, I let him because he reminded me so much of you and...well...I missed you. You were gone for so long that I just—"

Link never learned what she just did, because in that moment, he reached over and swept her mouth up in a kiss more passionate than anything he had ever experienced before. She returned it, wrapping her arms around his neck and entangling her fingers in his golden-orange hair. He really had never stopped loving her.

As they parted, they're eyes met and were caught in a stare that communicated all the words that had gone unspoken for so long.

"Who says you can't go home?" he said softly, wiping her eyes and picking a lone white flower out of her hair.

Longest ficlet in creation.