A young child with bright red hair and sparkling sapphire blue eyes sat on the stones surrounding a big fountain in the middle of Castle Town with her small legs dangling back and forth in pace with the humming coming from her mouth.
The young girl was very hungry and quietly wished for her mother to show up from her delivering job, which she knew was very important for her mother's ranch, since not so many came to the ranch that often, it was the only way they could ever get money.
She sighed out of boredom, and carefully stood up. Her mother had always told her to never leave their meeting spot, which was by the fountain, until she arrived. But Kayla had been in the same place for nearly one hour now, and she could sit still no longer. She needed some sort of adventure or she was going to burst.
Her eyes scanned the surroundings, and she started mumbling to herself. A small whisper suddenly increased into a laughing game as the young girl spun around making her emblem green dress whirl around her.
"Iny, Meeny, Miney, Mo." The young girl laughed as she let her words decide which path she was going to take and stopped to spin as her finger pointed towards one of the many paths. Then started to walk in that direction, ignoring all people that had stopped to look at her odd behavior.
"Have that girl no mother?" One woman with a small pig nose asked one of her female friends.
The female friend nodded her head and whispered "I've heard that, that young girl's mother is that brat Melon. You know from that ranch, Long Long Ranch or one thing or other."
"Oh no darling." Another woman with long brown hair and wrinkly face joined the chat. "It's Malon not Melon, and I've heard that the father of the child left her as soon as he found out about her pregnancy."
"But that's not what I heard." The first woman announced. "I heard that she got raped at a very young age, and that the she brought shame on the whole family after that. And that young child was awfully ill treated by her sick mother."
"Poor girl." All the women agreed as they watched the laughing girl pass them by without as much as a glance.
"I guess some women never should be mothers." They all nodded in agreement.
XxXxXx
Kayla stopped as apples and bread filled her eyes, she was surprized and yet amazed by their sizes, there were piles in vaste amounts and she couldn't help but let out a small giggle. Her luck had made her run into one of the things she wanted the most, food. How great wasn't that?
But the worst thing was that she didn't have any money. Her hands went through her front pockets of the dress and came out empty except for a small note her teacher had written for her mother to read. Everyone had gotten the same note saying something about needing one of the parent's signatures in order for Kayla to receive homework and such. She placed the note back with a defeated sigh. What was she going to do now?
Her legs brought her up to one of all the stands, and she watched the big, wonderful red apples. "Excuse me sir?" Her voice was barely above a whisper and the owner of the stand had a hard time to hear her.
"What was that miss?" He brought a hand up to his ear and bent down to hear her a little better
Kayla blushed. No one except her grandpa and mother had called her miss. It made her feel so grown up. She cleared her throat and tried again. "I said, excuse me sir, but how much does one apple cost?"
The man looked at her with big brown eyes and his hand went through his black hair once before he answered. "Well, the red once you see here," the man pointed at the basket filled with the red apples Kayla had her eyes on just before talking to the man. "They are 6 rupees."
"6 rupees!" Kayla echoed. "How can an apple cost so much!"
The man shrugged his shoulders. "That's life kid. Come back with your father and I'm sure we can make a deal, but until then," he waved his hand at Kayla as a gesture for her to scram and gave his attention to another customer.
Kayla snorted and placed her hands in a cross over her chest. "Men are no nice," she said underneath her breath. She told herself that she would tell her mother how mean that guy'd been towards her and she knew her mother would rush down to just this stand and scole the man for his weird behavior, like she'd done a thousand times before when someone wasn't treating Kayla nicely.
But Kayla wanted to give the man a lesson right now. She didn't want that man to think he could get way with anything, even just for a second.
Her eyes meet the sweet looking red apples, and came up with an idea.
Kayla placed her hands in her front pockets and hummed a song she knew all to well. The one song her mother sung to her every night. She slowly made her way towards the big basket. It was easy for her to reach the basket unseen by the nasty pig man since he was busy with another woman buying some of his green apples. It was actually the next part that was hard.
Kayla had never stolen anything in her life. She didn't have the nerves for it. "But it is for a good cause!" She told herself over and over again as her shaky hand went over to the one apples that was nicely placed on the top.
Her hand grabbed on to it and she made a run for it.
Her dress flew like a bird behind her as she zigzagged into a huge wave of people. She could only hear her heart as it pounded hard in her chest and she could only feel the hard apple as it burned in her hand.
She'd actually done it! Kayla had actually stolen an apple!
Kayla stopped as she rounded a corner, finally letting herself catch some breath and look at the apple she stole. Yes, it still lied in her hand.
"It was for a good cause!" Kayla mumbled as she leaned her sweaty forehead on a cold stone wall. "You had to do it, that nasty pig man deserved it! And besides nobody saw you do it."
"Now there is where you're wrong."
A man's voice came up from behind her and she could feel two strong hands place themselves underneath her arms and lifting her off the ground.
"Hey, let me go!" Kayla yelled on the top of her lungs as she tried to struggle herself out of the man's grip. "You can't do this!"
The man didn't answer. Instead he sat her down on the closest of barrels and let his arms drop to his sides.
Kayla glared into the man's sapphire blue eyes. "I'm going to tell mother what you just did – and she won't be happy!" She pouted in an angry manner bringing a small chuckle out the man's lips.
"Well, then you give me no choice but to tell her what you did as well." Kayla grasped in shock and brought a hand to her lips. "Didn't think that one through, now did we?" The man asked as he watched Kayla's widened eyes.
"You can't tell her," Kayla murmured, "She'll kill me."
"Well…," the man liked his lips and pulled a hand through his sand blond hair. "Stealing is wrong, no matter who's doing it. I can't just let you go."
Kayla eyed the man from top to toe, noticing the silver armor he was wearing and mentally scolded to herself. "The men in armor were the people that could throw people in dungeons and such." Kayla's mind raced with frightened thoughts of her being in a cold dungeon without the worm smile of her grandpa, only water and bread to eat and not being able to lie on her mother's chest as she sung Kayla's favorite song.
"No!" She yelled and her eyes got filled with tears, "you can't throw me in one of those dungeons! I'll return the apple I swear! I can even apologize, just please don't toss me in a dungeon! Take the nasty pig man instead he's the one being mean! I can't live without my mom! And what will grandpa think! Please!"
"Hey, hey, hey!" The man placed a hand on the young girls shoulder as he noticed small tears stream down her red cheeks. "Nobody's going to throw you anywhere. You're going to fallow your mother home, hey don't cry." He lifted up her head with his fingers underneath her chin and brushed away the traces of tears left on her cheeks. "You honestly though you were going to spend a night in a dungeon? You're too young for that stuff, and besides you took an apple, that's not ... too bad?."
Kayla watched the man as the corner of his mouth rose into a grin and she couldn't help the thought that came into her mind. "You have nice teeth."
The man gave her a shy laugh. "That's an odd thing to observe," he mumbled. "But thanks."
Kayla just smiled and showed him the apple. "I'm sorry for taking it, it's just that he was mean to me, and I was really hungry."
"He was mean to you?" The man repeated as Kayla nodded. She streached out her hand for him to take the apple, but he just shook his head. "Nah, keep it. We'll just go down to where you found the apple and teach that man how to act around pretty young maidens."
Kayla just laughed as the man scooped her into his arms.
XxXxXx
"Kayla!" A mother in her yearly twenties rushed through the crowed around the fountain, desperately looking for her daughter. She was shaking from top to toe with worry and tears started to blur her vision. "If something ever happened to her…" Malon's thoughts raced as she tried to calm herself down. "Why did I force her to go to that damn school? I should just have listened to her when she told me she'd had second thoughts! Why, did I have to be born so overly stupid?!"
She ran back to the fountain again. "Kayla!"
Her voice got drowned by all the talking people that past her without even stopping to ask her what was wrong, but Malon ignored them all and got a hold of an old man's shoulder nearly knocking him over.
"Excuse me," Malon said without entirely meaning it, "I was just wondering if you by any chance have seen a young little girl? She's six years old with red hair? Around this height," Malon placed her shaky hand near her abdomen showing an invisible person's length, but the man just shook his head as he begin walk away from her, but Malon took no notice. She just tossed herself at the next person asking the same set of questions to no avail.
Nobody had seen the young Kayla.
Malon felt that she was on the verge to throw up and fall on the ground at the same time. All this was her fault. How could she be so careless? If she hadn't been so stupid as to forget the time, she would've made it in time to find Kayla sitting near the fountain. Now, who knew where she was.
Malon ran down a small path ignoring the people staring at her. All she cared about was to find her little Kayla alive and well.
She looked around, seeing a lot of baskets filled with apples and bread, but no Kayla.
Malon walked in a fast pace while her eyes darted between all the stands. She past people in all different shapes and appearances but she couldn't see Kayla anywhere.
"Kayla!" She shouted again, without actually excpecting any answer, but this time…
"Mom!" A small voice traveled all the way to Malon's ears and her neck nearly snapped as she tossed her head in the direction she'd heared her voice. What met her eyes made her thank all the goddesses because just a few heartbeats away, sitting on a barrel with dangling legs with a red apple in her hands was no other than her daughter Kayla.
"Kayla." Malon's whisper didn't reach far as she ran over to her daughter and embraced her into a tight hug with tears running down her face. "Don't ever run away like this again."
"I'm sorry mom," Kayla mumbled against her mother's chest, "I just couldn't wait for you. I was hungry."
Malon let out a tiny laugh even though she didn't find anything in this situation amusing. And slowly she pulled away from the embrace and kissed Kayla's forehead. "I'm so sorry sweetie. It won't ever happen again, I swear."
Kayla shrugged her shoulders. "It's okay," she said, "He took care of me."
Kayla pointed right behind Malon, and without thinking first, Malon spun around and threw herself at the man standing behind her. She pulled him into and even tighter embrace than Kayla had gotten as she whispered her thanking prayers to him.
"How could I ever thank you?" She finally asked, looking up toward the man's face but froze at an instance once their eyes had met. As did he.
"Mom," Kayla happily said as she jumped down the barrel. "This is Link."
