2

A Day in the Life of Link, a Hyrule Academy Student

Link quickly recognized his friends amid the many students milling about the hall. "Zelda! Midna! Skyron! Wait up!" he called ahead of him. The friends turned around and saw Link running toward them, and so they waited.

"How was Epona?" Zelda asked.

Link replied, "Oh, she was fine. Just a little bit chilly after standing in traffic for so long."

Zelda smiled and nodded, saying, "Ok guys, let's head on over to the band room."

Every member of the group was also a member of one of the three bands at Hyrule Academy. Link took Traditional Band in first period, which consisted of ocarinas, violtans, and Deku drums. Midna and Zelda took Concert Band, which was a more modern band and had flutes, trumpets, harps, and newer percussion instruments in addition to the instruments from the Traditional Band. The third band, which Skyron participated in, was the Smooth Band. The Smooth Band played lots of jazzy, modern music.

But as the friends were walking over to the band room, the music they heard was not jazzy or modern at all. It was the sweet, honeylike sound of a violtan. And there was only one violtan in the whole academy that sounded like that. That violtan belonged to Ruth Stradivaria.

"I could listen to that piece the whole day," Link breathed as he entered the band room.

"Me too," added Midna.

"Hey, Midna just said something that wasn't sarcastic!" exclaimed Skyron.

Zelda gave him a look that clearly said, That was not necessary. Or relevant.

Link began to recognize the piece that Ruth was playing. It was music from the Traditional Band class, a new piece. He remembered that it was a concerto for ocarina and violtan, and that he was the principal of the ocarina section and she was the principal violtan. That meant that the part she was playing was the violtan solo, and soon there would be an ocarina solo and then a harmony between the two instruments. So Link unpacked his blue ocarina from its case and put it to his lips just as the ocarina solo began.

As soon as he hit the first note, the room seemed to disappear until the only people left were he and Ruth. His melody weaved up the scale as Ruth played a quiet pizzicato bass line, then dipped down and began an arpeggio of the A Major scale. Then Ruth joined in and the two instruments became a beautiful harmony. Link's ocarina wrought another arpeggio as Ruth's violtan went up the scale. Then Link played the scale and Ruth took over the arpeggio. At the end of the piece the instruments played a chromatic scale in unison and finished on a harmony, both students applying a slight vibrato to their individual note.

Link slowly came back to reality and heard Zelda saying, "Wow! Ruth, Link, you two should totally do a duet together for the festival this year!"

Link blushed and thanked Zelda. He smiled at Ruth and said, "You were really good. That was the best violtan playing I've ever heard!"

Now it was Ruth's turn to be embarrassed and she thanked Link, telling him that he was really good at the ocarina too.

Remembering that his friends were in the other two bands, Link started a discussion with Ruth, Skyron, Zelda, and Midna about the differences between the three bands and how the atmosphere in the room was when they were playing. Too soon the bell rang for the first class and Link's friends hurried off to their individual classes: Zelda to Ancient Runes, Skyron to the Gymnasium, and Midna to the art room.

The seats in the band room began to fill with musicians. The small violtan section arrived first, only Julienne, Alienora, and Yosaff completed the section. Then a mix of Deku drummers and ocarina players came in. Link's wild stand partner and assistant principal came in and sat down in his chair, his name was Sartak and he was pretty much high on Lon-Lon Milk all the time. Then the rest of the band filled in until they were only missing one person, and that person might have been the most important one of all: the conductor, Windy.

Unlike the other bands at academy that had the professor as the conductor, the Traditional Band was different. Their conductor was a short sixth year by the name of Windy. For Windy's twelfth birthday, the legendary king K.R. Lionz had arrived at his house and given him a beautiful silver baton: the Wind Waker. He had used it to control the winds and save most of the Great Sea region from the same evil power that Link had saved Hyrule from. Sometimes Link had wondered if Windy was a younger incarnation of himself.

But then, just in time for the bell to ring, Windy sailed over their heads on a large magical leaf, then dive-bombing the conductor's podium and snatching the Wind Waker from his pack. As the class clapped, Windy took a bow and arranged the scores on his stand.

It was then time for the Traditional Band class to begin. Link took his band folder from his bag and got out the piece they were working on, the Deku Forest March. The ocarina part for this piece was a peaceful, calm melody that was working with the violtan's harmony. The Deku drums in the background added a steady beat for the musicians in the other two sections to play by.

"Are you guys ready yet?" Windy called from the podium.

In response, all of the musicians put their instruments in resting position and looked attentively at the conductor. Windy raised the Wind Waker and the orchestra got into playing position. Windy breathed the upbeat and the orchestra began to play from the beginning of the piece. The Deku drums section began the piece with a light oom-pa oom-pa and then the violtans began to play. The sweet sound of bow on violtan string filled the room until it was time for the ocarina part to come in. When Link raised his ocarina, the rest of the section followed his lead and began to play. The ocarina's melody was light and airy, beginning in slow half notes and then gradually getting faster until they were playing eighth notes. Eventually the violtan part came back in and added a sweet harmony. Nearing the end of the piece, the ocarinas wound a lilting Aeolian scale while the violtans gradually faded away. The last bar was ended by the small thump of the Deku drum.

"That was great, you guys!" Windy cheered from the podium. "But near bar thirty-seven the ocarinas were getting a little mushy. Can I hear Link and Sartak at bar thirty-seven?"

Link and Sartak played the instructed passage well and the rest of the Traditional Band class went smoothly. The band rehearsed one more piece after Windy was satisfied with the Deku Forest March.

Class ended too soon for Link. After Windy gave the signal to pack up, Link began to wrap his ocarina in its cloth and lightly chatted with Sartak before they had to leave the band room. Not to his surprise, Sartak responded with something that was either completely inappropriate or completely random. Link waved to Sartak, Ruth, and Windy as he left the band room.

Slipping his ocarina into his pocket, Link met up with Skyron, who was just coming back from the Gymnasium.

Skyron grinned mischievously when he met Link, which was not uncommon. "How was band today? Anything out of the ordinary happen? What big entrance did Windy make today?" As usual, Skyron was filled with questions about Traditional Band.

"Well, today Windy flew in on his Deku Leaf, although I don't know how in the realm of Hyrule he's going to get all that magic energy back," Link quipped. "But other than that, nothing much happened. Sartak was high on Lon-Lon Milk, as usual. Ruth played beautifully, as usual. Sartak and Julienne were fighting, as usual," he counted.

"Well, if everything is going fine, then let's head to arithmetic," Skyron said. "Oh no. Wait. Why did I just say 'Let's go to arithmetic' like a normal Hylian?" Skyron groaned. "I can't believe I just did that! Professor Jacqué is my MORTAL ENEMY!"

Link rolled his eyes as Skyron recounted all the times that Professor Jacqué had wronged him. "He hates me or something! I mean, he puts me right up in the front of the class all the time, so I can't eat any of the treats that Maman gives me during class, or else he'll see me, and then he gives me a detention for drawing a picture of a Sheikah defeating a Gerudo! Come on! I've drawn so many battle pictures in Professor Dineroe's class and he hasn't even noticed that I'm drawing anything at all!" Skyron raged.

By the time Skyron was done ranting, he and Link had arrived at Professor Jacqué's classroom. Link chastised Skyron one more time on not ranting before the two boys entered the arithmetic classroom.

Link and Skyron stepped over the boundary of the door and saw their arithmetic classmates chatting and working on the warm-up problems that Professor Jacqué had written on the chalkboard. The professor greeted both the boys warmly as they sat at their desks. He reminded all of the students who were just coming in to take out some parchment and work on the warm-up problems when the tardy bell rang. A few students ran in late and either handed passes to Professor Jacqué or the professor wrote their names on the board if they had none.

In about twenty minutes, most students had finished their warm-up exercises and were ready to hand in the homework problems and begin the day's lesson. Link, like most of the students, had completed the homework problems and took out the sheet of parchment that he had written them on. He noticed that Skyron had not taken his parchment out.

"I totally forgot to do the homework! Ugh, Maman is going to be so mad at me! I'm sure she won't let me play portscreen games for a whole week!" Skyron groaned.

Link rolled his eyes at Skyron and replied, "Well, then I suggest you.."

"Get working?" Professor Jacqué cut in. "Remember, turning in something is better than nothing," the professor reminded him.

Skyron let out a small sigh, but took out some parchment and ink and began to work on the homework problems.

The professor walked briskly up to the chalkboard and, after getting the students' attention, began to teach the lesson. They were instructed to take out one sheet of parchment and take notes on how to solve missing triangle side lengths using the Pythagorean Theorem. Since Skyron was busy working on the homework assignment, Link decided to take out an extra sheet of parchment and take notes for Skyron.

As Professor Jacqué droned on about how a2 + b2 was supposed to equal c2, Link started to get bored and doodled pictures of the Triforce, ocarinas, and Cuccos on his parchment as he took notes. The rest of the class went on uneventfully, and Link was glad when the bell rang to announce the next class, which was by far one of the most crazy classes of the day: Athletics.

Link put his sheet of parchment with notes on it into his school bag, handing the other copy to Skyron. As usual, Professor Jacqué had forgotten to write the homework assignment on the chalkboard, so as the students were beginning to leave, the professor yelled, "Don't forget, the homework assignment for tonight is- oh, wait, today's Friday, so there's no homework. Off with you, then!"

Link rolled his eyes at the professor and finished packing up his school bag. When Skyron was finished, the two boys picked up their bags and ran off to their next classes.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Finally, I'm finished with the second chapter! I certainly hope you are enjoying reading this as much as I am enjoying writing it! I would like to thank my muses in this story, also known as my friends, for being so much like Legend of Zelda characters, and Real Life Skyron for allowing me to create an OC for you. Thanks, Merpheads!

Enjoy the next chapter, which shall be about the most crazy period in school: PE!

-Sinfonie