Author's Note: I suppose this is where I should put some sort of legal disclaimer. I don't think it would actually do any good, but better safe than sorry. Ahem. "I am but a humble slave at the foot of Nintendo, and do not claim ownership of any of the characters herein, save for Iido which is mine so there."
Also, this is a corrected version of the first chapter, which I felt needed it direly. The second chapter is still being written, but I just couldn't leave well enough alone.
Critiques and Reviews, if you please. I know its a good concept and that I can write well enough, I need you to tell me where I messed up.
Chapter One -- The Long Road
The sun rose slowly through the morning mist, casting its pale light over the wintry landscape, its feeble rays doing little to dispel the early morning chill. A lone rider paused briefly to look down the path she had come from. Home was far off, days away, yet it was not too late. She could still turn the horse around, and be home in good time. Two days of hard riding could see her in front of her fathers fireplace, safe from the coming winter, safe from all the dangers of the road.
Yet, she rode on.
She looked almost comical, her small frame in contrast to the horse's large build. She shared her fathers pale skin, but her dark eyes and hair were said to come from her mother. One of the few things she had ever received from her, she thought. She also got her fathers head for knowledge, which she was secretly grateful for, even if she did have little use for myths about Sky People and his obsession with Hyrulian lore. The sword at her side was a gift from Rusl, the old ranger who had taught her the ways of the sword. It was old and scarred from many years use, but it was a serviceable blade nonetheless. The simple wooden shield at her back bore the symbol of Ordon, that of the particular goats that were raised in the region she hailed from. She wore no armor, having naught the funds to purchase such.
Though her father had stressed that she follow a more academic path in life, Iido spent most of her free time as a child in the woods surrounding her home, exploring the area and imagining if He had rested against this tree, or if He had camped at this particular spot overnight.
He, of course, was the Hero. The Hero that saved Hyrule, the Hero who battled the mythical Gerudo King of Legend along side Princess Zelda herself. For as long as she could remember, her father, along with everyone else in Ordon, would regale her with stories of Link and all he accomplished. Of course, she stopped believing most of them by the time she reached her womanhood, but all legends were based in some truth, she knew. If only she could have asked him herself.
Her earliest memory was of Link. She couldn't have been more than three years old, and it was only a brief moment, but she cherished the memory like a dying man cherishes his few remaining breaths. Most of what she remembered about him were his eyes. Intense, almost feral they were, with his rough, scarred hands holding hers as he said goodbye. Her only tangible link with the larger than life Hero, and it's the last time anyone in Ordon had seen him.
Which led her to where she was currently. Everyone had their theories as to where the Hero of Ordon had gone, but no one seemed all that keen on finding out exactly where that was. Ashei, the severe, angry woman who came by her fathers house from time to time, sometimes talked about going out to search for him, but at most she would compile a list or something stating what they knew, which wasn't much when you really looked at it.
So, here she was. The seventeen year old daughter of Shad, the Royal Historian, off on a quest to discover where the Hero had gone.
Having helped Ashei compile numerous lists over her lifetime, Iido had an almost encyclopedic knowledge of what she liked to call "The Hero's Journey." It read as a sorts of compendium of locations he was said to have visited or spent time at. It ran the breadth and width of Hyrule, and just thinking about it made her apprehensive about this whole thing. It was said it took Link almost half a year to do everything that was attributed to him, and, she considered, most of that was probably taken up by travel time. She was almost unsure of where to start first, so she considered she would first go to Hyrule castle, where Colin was living with his family. She could stay with him a few days and get her bearings, and pick his brain for clues.
But, that was still another days ride away, and she had other things to think about. Like saddle sores. No one ever talked about the Hero's saddle sores. Nor did they ever talk about the stink of a journey on horseback. Hard to sing about bad odors, she mused.
She fingered the handle of the sword at her side. She was fairly confident in her ability to use it, not that she'd have too. The moblin raids had all but stopped in recent years, and they rarely left their encampment in the Gerudo desert, save for trade, which was new for them. Some even attributed that to Link, but Iido had to draw the line somewhere. Moving back the twilight, saving Princess Zelda's life, and slaying giant beasts she could believe, but not bringing civilisation to the moblins.
However, no road was safe, especially not for a young girl. So, she carried a sword. And a sling, but that was more for hunting than for self defense.
Which wasn't a bad idea, she thought to herself. She pulled her horse over to the side of the road and dismounted. She reckoned it was nearly 10 o' clock, so that would mean she'd been riding for five hours or so.
"Definitely time for a break, Fitz" she said to her horse. He whinnied gratefully in reply and began to graze the small patch of grass at his feet. Iido unwrapped her sling from around her shoulder and picked a nice, heavy stone from her bag, and set out away from the road in search of lunch. She wasn't long in searching when she came upon a small river, and spied what looked to be a suitable rabbit taking a drink. She set the stone in the sling, took aim, and nearly jumped out of her skin when a flaming arrow buzzed her thigh and struck the rabbit, killing it.
Iido felt she was reacting rather calmly, considering someone just fired a flaming arrow at her. She chanced a quick glance behind her, and was horrified at what she saw. Off by the road, she could see two moblins chasing her horse down the way she just came from, and another one knocking an arrow into his bow. With this new flood of information, Iido felt her calm dissipate like steam from a boiling kettle, and she panicked and dove into the river. All thought having vanished from her mind, she began to swim downriver, aided by the river's current, and remained underwater until the need for air outweighed her fear of arrows in the back.
Iido came to herself lying on a shallow bank, her breathing labored and arms and legs burning from exertion. She quickly rolled over and looked around, almost setting off another full scale panic, until she realized she was miles away from where she had stopped for lunch. A sense of dread gripped her stomach. Here she was, barely three days into her grand adventure, and she had already lost her horse, was nearly shot in the back, and had almost drowned in a blind panic. She felt tears begin to well up as she realized exactly what she had gotten herself into. She cried quietly to herself for a few minutes, despair rolling over her in waves. She eventually managed to calm herself down, as it was hardly adult behavior, sitting here bawling like a child. She took a few deeps breath and pushed back her tears, and decided to take stock of what she had, as opposed to what she had lost. Amazingly, her sword was still in its scabbard and on her belt, and her shield was just a little ways upstream, caught in some tree roots. She had her sling, which she had had in a death grip for her journey downriver, and two strips of sodden jerky in her pouch at her side.
What she didn't have was her tent, her sleeping roll, her extra clothing, her weeks supply of hard tack, her bag of carefully selected stones for her sling, her flint, and Fitz.
She hope to the Goddesses Fitz was alright.
Fighting back a fresh wave of tears at the thought of the moblins killing her horse, Iido decided she might as well get moving again. As near as she could tell, from how far she thought she had traveled downriver, Castle Town was about two days away. She looked up to get her bearings, and was dismayed by the fact that it had become very cloudy since the morning. So cloudy, in fact, she had trouble finding where the sun was. She glanced around at the trees around her, hoping to spy a familiar landmark, but could find none. She wasn't even sure which side of the river she was on. She pushed down another wave of panic, and was suddenly at a loss as to what to do.
What was turning out to be a warm day had taken a turn for cold, as the thick forest and heavy cloud cover, combined with her sodden clothing, made for a thoroughly chilling effect. She decided the first thing she had to do was warm up, so she began to search around for some suitable tinder and firewood, as well as some flint. The worn flint she had been carrying she had found herself in a wood similar to this one, so she was pretty sure she could find another suitable piece nearby. As luck would have it, she not only found a sizable piece of flint, but the remains of an old campsite, not too far from the river. She decided it would make a good enough place for her, so she moved what little firewood she had collected to the campsite and proceeded to make a fire. She breathed a silent "thank you" to the Goddesses when her small tinder finally caught, and before long she had a suitable fire going. She pulled up a sizable log, and sat down near the fire.
Iido pulled a sodden piece of jerky from her pouch and nibbled away on it as she began to formulate a plan. Her despair had been slowly ebbing away, and it was being replaced by a quiet sense of resolve that she hadn't really noticed. Its not like this was the first time she in the woods alone with no supplies, and with any luck, it wouldn't be the last. She had been taught by the best, after all, and Rusl would have chided her for behaving the way she had.
She could only imagine how Link would have acted in her place.
"Well, he wouldn't have panicked and ran away, letting the moblins chase his horse away, now would he?" she asked herself quietly. It was an old habit of hers to talk to herself when she was alone in the woods, and one she wasn't planning on breaking now.
"No, he would have killed the moblins, ran down a deer and broke its neck with his bare hands, married the princess, and flew away on a magical rainbow steed." She finished with a wry grin.
Her clothes had stopped steaming and now just were slightly damp, so she stripped off her outer layer and hung them over a branch that was near the fire. Her undergarments were still pretty wet, so she sat a little closer to the fire to ward off the chill and hugged herself. She was still a little shaken up from her encounter earlier. It was only just now when she realized how strange of an encounter it actually was. Moblins hadn't been seen this far away from the desert since she was five, and they had largely abandoned their warlike mentality. Sure, there were a few isolated cases of wagons being attacked, or of a small hamlet raided…but those were all north of the Faron province. For there to be three moblins this far south meant something big. If the moblins hordes were on the march again…she shuddered at the thought. Iido suddenly wished she still had her horse. She could have made it to Castle Town in less than a day if she rode Fitz hard, but she was on foot, and not even sure where she was. It was going to be dark soon, and she knew better than to try to find her way through the woods at night, ill equipped as she was. So, she decided to camp here for the night, and would have to try and get her bearings in the morning.
She had staved off her hunger with the jerky she had eaten, but she knew that wouldn't last for long. She considered trying to find something eat tonight, but decided against it. She had gone hungry before, it wouldn't kill her to go hungry again.
By the time night had fallen, her outerwear had dried, so she stripped out of her underwear and hurriedly put her outerwear back on, and then hung her underwear on the same branch as before. Normally, she would have had little compunction with being naked this deep in the forest, but her encounter from earlier had left her a little leery of practicing old habits such as that one.
As night drew in, she threw a few more logs onto the fire and sat huddled on her log. The clouds started to clear a little, offering her small, patchy views of the night sky. She took out her other piece of jerky and laid down, propping her head on the log. She knew she was in for a long night, and had made sure to have plenty of firewood on hand. She was taking a chance leaving the fire going, but she'd rather not freeze to death if she could help it. As she did often before, her eyes closed and her thoughts turned to Link. She childishly wondered if He had slept in this very same camp, if the flint she found was one of his old ones. She latched onto this idea and took it with her to sleep.
Iido slept. The forest moved as the crescent moon passed slowly overhead. An owl hooted overhead as a rabbit scurried for cover under a tree. A breeze swept through the forest, causing the trees to sway and bringing a chill to the night air. Iido turned her face to the fire, and dreamt.
She was in a small clearing just outside Ordon. She had a wooden sword in her hand and was facing off against Rusl, who was similarly armed. Rusl was clothed in his typical garb he wore when he did anything outside his house. Iido was wearing shorts and no shoes, and her shirt was overly large. Her young face was smudged with dirt and scrapes, and her hair was tangled and matted. She braced herself with her sword in a defensive position as Rusl casually swung down and knocked her sword out of her hands.
"Are you even listening?! Even when you are at your strongest, a man trained in the sword can still easily overpower you. Its a fact of life, Iido. Women are not built as men are! You can be twice as skilled as your opponent, but skill only gets you so far. Brute force has won more battles than you'd like to think." Rusl sighed and reached down to fetch Iido's sword. He handed it back to her. "You are a very smart and talented girl, Iido. It is for this reason and this reason alone I agreed to teach you. If you are to learn how to properly use a sword, you must learn how to use it to your advantage." He grabbed his sword by the hilt and began to slowly circle Iido. "You are not strong, but you are fast. I daresay you are quicker on your feet than most. Where I would block a blow, you must strike it and deflect it to the side, or avoid it altogether. It is…more difficult, and is a very unconventional method of combat, but one that has served others very well. Ashei, for one."
"Ashei fights like this? She fights...like a girl?"
Rusl laughed heartily. "Well, yes! What other choice does she have? You seem to be convinced that fighting like a girl is somehow less honorable than fighting like a man." He kneeled down and leaned in conspiratorially. "You see Iido, men fight for different reasons, and most of them are far from noble. To fight like a man is to almost always fight for the wrong reason. I am not teaching you to fight at all. I am teaching you how to use a sword to protect yourself and the ones you love." He sighed and reached out to touch her head. "A true warrior does not fight because he wants to. A warrior fights because he must. Because SHE must." He sat down and breathed deep. "I think our lesson is done for the day. Before you go home to your book lessons, however, I want you to run around this clearing ten times, and then go bathe in the spring. If your father saw you like this he'd kill me."
Iido turned to go, but stopped, and turned back around to look at Rusl. She started to speak, then stopped. She finally mustered the courage and asked her mentor, "W-Was Link a true warrior?"
Rusl smiled and stood up. He glanced up at the sky, as if looking for something. "Link was the bravest, most courageous man I have ever known. If anything, he was the one who taught me what it means to be a true warrior." He glanced down at Iido and grinned. Then a flaming arrow seemed to grow from his chest, and he began to scream as blood poured out of the wound.
Iido awoke with a start. She instinctively grabbed her sword and whipped it out of the scabbard, but she soon realized nothing was there. Her heart was pounding and she was covered in sweat, in spite of the predawn chill. She put a few more logs on the fire and lay back down, trying to make sense of her dream. It was a memory from her childhood. She had been about thirteen or fourteen, she thought. Of course, Rusl hadn't actually taken a flaming arrow to the chest that afternoon, but the dream still unnerved her. So much that she had trouble falling back asleep.
She looked around, and judged it was about an hour before dawn. Knowing she couldn't fall back asleep, she reluctantly stood up and scanned the immediate around her, checking for signs of movement. She saw none, so she quickly undressed and put on her now very dry underwear. It was warm from the fire, and with her outerwear back on, it helped keep the predawn chill at bay, if just for a few minutes. Knowing she'd have to have a good breakfast if she were to begin her walk towards Castle Town, she prowled around her makeshift campsite, looking for suitable rocks for her sling.
The sun rose over the forest, shining its golden light through the gloom of the deep woods. A rabbit scampered out from under a log, and stopped to sniff the air, its nose turned skyward. A silent whooshing sound caused it to jump, but too late. The rock connected hard with the rabbits head, knocking it over and killing it instantly. Iido let out a whoop and ran over to inspect her kill. It was a sizable rabbit, and had she the time, it would have provided her with breakfast and some jerky for the road. But, she was in a hurry, so she would settle for an extra large breakfast. She took the rabbit back to her campsite and threw the last of her logs onto the fire. Laughing quietly to herself, she drew her sword and wondered how she looked, skinning a rabbit with a blade meant for killing men. Not that she had any alternative, with her small hunting knife now probably in the hands of a moblin.
It took her a little longer than normal, but soon she had the rabbit skinned and cooking over the fire, and she cleaned the fur and stuffed it in her pouch. It would be good for a little extra money once she got to Castle Town, which she would need if she was going to replace her lost supplies. She finished cleaning the skin and took the rabbit off of her makeshift spit, and tore into it ravenously. Being her first actual meal since yesterday morning, she realized she was hungrier than she thought. Soon, she was sucking the marrow from the bones and tossing the remains into the fire pit. She stood up and surveyed her small campsite, and she couldn't help but feel a small sense of satisfaction. She stamped out the fire, grabbed her new flint, and slung her shield over her back. It was time she headed out.
Iido had gone back to the spot where she had woke up, and using the sun as a reference, realized she was, in fact, on the wrong side of the river. She reckoned that she was closer to Kakariko village, probably only a days walk east of her current position, which put her in a tight spot. She could walk to Kakariko and probably borrow a horse from Malo, and from there it would be a days ride to Castle Town...or she could cross the river, getting all of her clothes wet again, and take a chance that she was relatively close to the road.
Deciding that she didn't want to go into the river again, and a warm bed sounded better than a pile of leaves, Iido decided to head east. Besides, she hadn't seen Beth or Malo in a while, and it would be good to see them again. She secured her shield, made sure her flint was in her pouch, and began the hike east, towards Kakariko.