Zelda didn't much like the hunt the next year, either.
It was a scant year, with drought and poor harvest. What little there was to be found in the Ordon woods was weak and slow from bad plant growth, and the local wolves and forest cats were starved and ruthless. The best they got that year was a few braces of pheasants, and a single lean doe. The rest of the week was spent in the hall, away from the cruel summer heat. The ladies entertained themselves with fruit and music and embroidery, and the men with ale.
Princess Zelda skulked off in her lightest linen slip, having packed a small lunch for herself, to go bathing in the spring. The idle amusement of the older ladies was dull to her, and she hadn't swam since she had been caught sneaking into the courtyard fish pond a year ago. And she had never been in a real spring before.
Zelda had spied it as they passed close to the waters' edge while tracking the doe- it was a perfect place, with fine, almost powdery white sand and no rocks or mud underfoot. Zelda dropped her lunch in the crotch of a tree, basket sealed firmly shut, and waded down from the water's edge. She paddled happily in the shady lagoon for some time, feeling the cold water against the hot air and the little reeds flick against her bare feet.
As she swam in to eat her lunch, she noticed a crumpled heap on the beach, propped up against a fallen log. It had not been there the day previous when she had seen the beach the first time. Zelda was drawn to it out of curiosity, crawling in from the water sopping wet in her slip on hands and knees.
It was some kind of animal, encrusted in dirt and mud. Its hair was tatted with sand. Flies swarmed around a red, festering streak that had seeped into the grit below it, dried brown.
Zelda dared to edge near it, noting a long, slim stick that sprouted from its shoulder. She was very slow, almost inching to it. She never had been good with dead things. But she had to know what it was, to see it up close.
The head snapped up, a sharp squeal piercing the still surface of the spring. Zelda stumbled backwards, biting her cheek to keep from screaming and being heard at the hall only a brisk walk down the path away. The animal was a wild swine, and alive. Its head drooped lamely, the shriek trailing off into a raspy wheeze. Barely alive, anyway.
"I'm sorry!" apologized Zelda. "Please don't hurt me!"
For even little forest swine, she had been told, were angrier and more dangerous than any wildcat. She had gotten the lecture from her somewhat cross mother last year when she had told her story, she now knew the danger. They ate the green and the flesh, alive or dead. In times of drought (like this year!) they would even hunt like dogs, going after the young and weak: after little girls, Mother told her. Just like her.
But this one was so heavily wounded it didn't seem to care. It stared at her and she stared back at it, almost afraid to move. It didn't move, either.
Zelda found herself sweating in the dry heat, and wished that she was maybe an older, braver knight and not a princess of barely twelve years. Then she would know what to do. The boar's eyes were still open, blinking slowly. Its stare was not yet deathglassy and the dark pupils darted around like dragonflies, as if looking her up and down. The eyes were ringed a pale color, not brown like a deers' but an owlish yellow.
But it was the way the eyes moved that struck her. Zelda had been on two hunts so far, and deer didn't look at what attacked them. Birds didn't focus on humans; their eyes didn't give people that sort of care. But Zelda had seen this particular stare before. It was telltale, unforgettable.
"You're the same one!" she almost cried out in surprise. "You're the same pig as the last hunt season! The one that killed the dog!"
It merely looked at her and rasped weakly. Indeed, it was the same. There were scars on its dirty legs where the dogs had bit it, and it was just the right size. Tiny nubs of filthy white protruded from its jaws, the barest suggestion of sprouting tusks.
"Stop it, pig. I fell off my horse to save you! Did you know that?"
It ignored her, barely mustering the strength to weakly lift its head in the direction of the water's edge, but could not do so much as roll over to reach it. Zelda bit her tongue. What am I doing, she wondered, talking to a dead, mean animal? Of course it wouldn't care that I saved it. It doesn't even know. It's just a beast.
But then again, it's not like I speak beast when it can't speak tongues. Maybe this will have to do.
Zelda scooped some water up in her small hands and cupped it with her fingers. On a whim, she edged on her knees closer to the boar, offering it with outstretched arms. It snapped at her, and she drew back. But Zelda was unconvinced. She took another scoop of water, an especially large one that spilled over her arms and wet her knees. Clear splattered drops were eaten by the sand, just outside the boar's reach. It gazed at the cool, clean water intently, opening and closing its mouth a bit. Then it outstretched its neck, trying to reach the treasure itself. That was when Zelda let herself get a little closer, and let the boar's snout touch the drink in her hands and suck it up with desperate greed.
"Do you want some more?"
The boar almost managed to get to its feet, it was so enthusiastic after her generous offer. Zelda laughed despite herself, feeling the nose snuffle into her fingers. She retrieved another handful of springwater and the boar downed that as well. This was probably a terrible idea, she thought. Wild animals were wild and hated people. It wasn't right.
But helping those in need was the best kind of right. So maybe they canceled out.
The drink strengthened the little animal and soon it began to flail a bit, worming down closer to the edge. Soon it was able slurp furiously at the water, sputtering it breathed so heavy to do so.
Zelda looked at the boar, unobscured by the fallen log. Its- his, the boar was not a sow- his ribs showed through, waist dangerously thin and legs wasted on hunger. He was so dirty the mud cracked as he moved.
"Can I touch you, master boar?"
It sucked at the spring and paid her no heed. It did freeze as her fingers touched the coarse hide, grunting softly. But it laid down with its snout above water, resting head in the cool shallows.
"Oh," she said. "You're filthy."
Carefully, Zelda slid around to the front of the boar and splashed a bit of water up against his side, melting a little grime off. He didn't seem to mind. Then she poured more on him, dripping brown and bloody streaks into the spring. The flies scattered. "Ew!"
He unsteadily rose to his hooves and surprised Zelda, wading a little farther into the water. There he stood, planted on the bottom and knee-high to Zelda from shore, soaking with snout above the surface, paying Zelda little mind.
"You are a very odd beast," said Zelda.
The boar stared at her, almost expectantly. The eyes were strangely reasonable.
Zelda waded out with him and looked back, pursing her lips. Then, hesitantly, she began to rub the mud from his back. It was slow going, for the short bristles were tough and matted. But after a while spots began to feel clean, and it all crumbled off easier after a soak. By the end of it, the boar made a strange sound, a kind of heavy breath or rumbling from the throat and belly. Zelda's hands ached once the animal was clean; the stiff hair brushed her hands, wearing them a little raw and numb. But her fingers alighted on the arrow shaft embedded in his shoulder, and the boar gave a sharp grunt.
"That looks really bad," she said. "May I try to take it out?"
Of course there was no answer.
"Please don't get angry with me."
Still nothing. Only an animal in the water. Zelda took a deep breath and put a hand on the arrow shard. She could feel where it had twisted into the flesh, and she had seen how the hunters had removed arrows without ruining meat or hide. Zelda gripped the arrow, counted to three, and yanked it out as smoothly as she could. The boar screamed at her, floundering in the water before going still and breath-heavy.
The blood welled up from the open wound. "Ugh!" Zelda grimaced, but pressed hands to the deep puncture. The arrow drooped below the surface, forgotten as it sank. Zelda could feel the heat from the wound leaking into the water, but she still pressed it closed until the red stain in the water congealed and the flow slowed to a stubborn stop. Exhausted, the boar hauled himself out of the shallows and collapsed in a patch of warm sand to dry. Zelda decided to do likewise and spread-eagled herself on the beach.
"Thank you for being so reasonable, master boar," she said, though it was mostly to herself.
The sun dried them. Zelda ate her lunch there while the boar slept, but saved the wine to pour onto his wound, and a handful of sweetmeats to leave for him on a spare napkin. She curtseyed goodbye and then was scolded back at the hall for getting her hair crusty with sand.
Despite that, she returned to bathe the next afternoon and found the boar wallowing in the water. Each morning Zelda greeted him politely, and he did not protest her presence. He would sleep in the sand, and she would clean his wound with wine when he couldn't feel the sting. It closed in three days.
When Zelda had to leave, she went to the beach and gave a shallow bow to the beast she found there.
"It was a fair trade," she said in parting. "I was polite to you, so you were polite to me. You are a good, brave beast. Eat lots of food to get big and strong, and don't fall into trouble, please?"
When she went home, she told her mother all about her new friend young master boar, but she was not believed. Though whatever her mother the queen thought, Princess Zelda hoped that somewhere in the forest the boar would respect her wishes.