AN: Ah, the next chapter of the story! We'll get some answers and we'll get some more questions as we now go into . . .
Chapter II: Malon Tells a Tale
Link could only stare down at them from Epona.
"The Hyrule-wah army? Is that some new club or something?" Link slightly regretted saying this as the two clearly took offense to this. Then the shorter one spoke up.
"A club? How the hell could you think of this as a club? We are part of the military that was made when Hyrule signed the treaty with Dovaria."
"Huh. Dovaria, Dovaria, sounds familiar . . . " Link wracked his brain trying to remember, before his eyes landed on the symbol on their uniforms. "Oh! Isn't that the land whose original founders decided a Lizalfos should be on the head council?" He smirked at the annoyed glares they were giving him. "Yeah, and then they realized it wasn't that great an idea when it had eaten half the members? And somebody had still complained after it was finally killed? Heh, and by the looks of you two, they haven't got any smarter. Hey, hey! Just kidding!" He raised his arms as he found two spear points thrust in his face.
"All-right smart boy. Why don't you tell us who you are and show us your ID papers and then we can get rid of you?" Link frowned as he slid off Epona and stood there.
"Well, I'm Link, but what do you mean ID papers? I've always come in here without anything like that." He wasn't sure, but the smirks the two exchanged couldn't be a good thing.
"Oh really Mr. Link? How do we know you're who you say you are?"
"Yeah," the other agreed. "For all we know he could be one of them assassins everybody's lookin' for." Link started at the man in shock.
"Wait, hold on! What assassins?" The taller one grinned evilly.
"Hey Harchi, that sound like somein' one of 'em would say?"
"Yeah Shermp it does." Link noticed both subtly adjusting their shields and realized that insulting their home country and meeting them five minutes before probably hadn't been that good an idea. "Also he didn't have his papers. Maybe we should report him to the captain."
"Hey now look guys, I don't want any trouble. If I have to go with you somewhere and get the right forms, I'll be happy to."
"Oh now he's Mr. Modest. Yeah, we'll take you. Shermp, go lock the gate and I'll restrain him." Link's eyes widened at the sight of the rope being pulled out from one of the guard's pouches. Best not to fight them, I don't know if they're well connected to someone. Link sighed as Harchi smirked and Shermp went back beyond where they were to a small building that had been set up next to a metal swinging gate.
"Huh, there's a second gate?" Link asked.
"Yeah, to keep Mr. Modests like you out of good places like this. Now turn around." Link sighed, but willingly turned. Next to him Epona nickered worriedly.
"It's OK Epona. Hey, watch the hat!" glared over his shoulder and yanked the end of the hat out of the man's grip.
"Pfft. Why do you care? It's stupid looking anyway."
"Yeah, but it's still special." Link then noticed Shermp had returned and had grabbed Epona's reigns. "Hey um, are you gonna have Malon take here? She's not all that comfortable with strangers . . . " Shermp laughed.
"Nah.! We'll just take her with us to the castle and see if we can sell her."
"Dude, she's my horse! I won't let you sell her!" Noticing that the ropes binding his hands were not that tight, he moved his hands apart, causing the rope to strain.
"Too bad, it's not like you'll be alive by the time we get there. Hold still you stupid horse!" Shermp was failing to make a very agitated Epona calm down. "Stupid horse!" Annoyed, he swatted the side of Epona's head forcefully. Epona whinnied in pain and fright. Link was mad.
"Ok, you can insult my intelligence, and my manners, but now you've hurt my horse and insulted my hat. And I've got a problem with that." The two scoffed.
"Oh really? And just what do you plan to do about it?" They both drew their swords.
Link sighed and easily snapped the rope. "You too may be idiots, but I'll be nice. Hell, I won't even touch my sword . . . "
Meanwhile inside the nearby barn, a large fat man with a prominent moustache sighed and leaned back against the wall of the stall. Rubbing a hand through his moustache, he asked, "How much longer now Malon?"
In response, a red-haired girl poked her head from around the backside of the mare. "Not much longer now daddy. I can see the start of the hooves." Talon nodded in agreement as Malon smiled jokingly. "The thing I don't get is why you still refuse to be back here during this. I thought you liked Rapona."
"Hey, seeing your head was enough. It's not Rapona, it's the sight."
"Yeah you faint every time. Including when I was born." She smiled. "I have to wonder what you did before I was born."
"That's what your mother and Ingo were for." Malon laughed and looked back.
"Hooves are almost all the way out. I wonder if this one will be as pretty as Epona?"
"Meh, none of the foals are as a pretty as the first one always seems to be. Nothing can top Epo-" he was cut off when something large slammed against the barn wall followed by muffled shouting. This startled Rapona, and she started fretting, rearing up and down. Malon rushed around to her head and quickly hummed "Epona's Song" to try and calm her down."What in tarnation! Blast those two! They better not be pestering a customer again! I swear to the goddesses I'm gonna give them a piece of my mind!" He moved out from the stall and toward the door.
"Be careful daddy, we don't need trouble!" Malon called after.
Talon walked out and closed the door behind him. "Dang it all you two, how many times have I told you? We've got a birthin' going on in . . . " he trailed off at the sight before him.
The new gate that had been installed now swung freely, though not much due to the short groaning man now laying on it. Behind him, his partner was swearing up a storm while frantically trying to free himself from under a horse's hoof that was pressed onto his chest. Plus the fact that she was pulling on his hair with her teeth probably didn't help either.
But the one thing that Talon's main attention was on was the figure brushing the dust off his green tunic before adjusting the matching floppy hat.
"Holy Goddesses Link!" Link turned and grinned at him.
"Hey Talo-" But the rest was cut off as Talon grabbed him and pulled him into a bone crushing hug. "Boy! Where the hell have ya been!"
"Oh here and there..."he gasped, trying to loosen Talon's grip. But Talon continued his happy rambling as the barn door opened again.
Hearing more shouts, Malon had decided her father had been in over his head and she might need to step in.
"Calm down daddy you're upsetting Ra-" she stopped as the scene in front of here finally clicked in her mind. Her eyes traveled from the two soldiers, her father, the horse behind him, and the horse behind him, and then to Link still crushed in Talon's hug. "Oh my gosh..." she started. Talon released Link, who opened his arms for the hug he figured was coming. "Epona!" Link stood dumbfounded as Malon rushed past him to step accidently(or was it?) on the guard and hug Epona.
"Um, hello to you too Malon..." Link trailed off as Malon giggled and turned and hugged him tightly. Talon chuckled and looked at the slowly rising guards.
"Well you two, what'd you do to incur his wrath?" The two got up, giving the boy a dirty look.
"We didn't do anything! This idiot didn't have his papers and refused to cooperate, he sicced his horse on us!"
"Yeah, and now somebody's gonna pay for this! We're reporting it! You're whole ranch'll go down! We're well connected, and our bosses won't tolerate you mistreating us!"
Link snorted. "Oh really? Hmm. Well so am I.. I'm kinda well known around here. Did a few things here and there." At their looks of skepticism, Link stepped forward, causing them to stumble quickly backwards down the path towards Hyrule Field. "Care to discuss this further?" He chuckled at the freaked out looks on their faces as they ran like crazy the rest of the way down the path and in the direction of Hyrule CastleTown. Malon sighed and released Link before turning around and going back into the barn.
Talon chuckled as he watched them, before turning back to Link, a worried look on his face. "It's great to see ya kid, but like they said, they've got people on their side who could get you in real trouble. Things haven't been that wonderful lately-" he was cutoff as Malon suddenly burst back out of the back out of the barn.
"Daddy, Rapona's foal is here!" Talon grinned happily as Link looked confused at the both of them.
"Rapona's pregnant? Well was pregnant?" Malon nodded.
"Yeah. Come on in and I'll show you. You can tell me what you've been up to this whole time." Link nodded and handed Epona's reigns to Talon who started leading her away towards the corral.
Following Malon into the barn, Link sighed contentedly to himself as the familiar homely smells of the barn reached him as he followed Malon through the stalls to where he could see Rapona standing with the small wobbling head of a foal peeking over the stall door.
"Aww," Malon cooed as she hopped over the side of the stall and moved towards the horses. Link held back, remembering the tales Talon had told him of how the mares never let anyone but a female Lon near the foals for a couple of weeks.
Rapona stood there, tiredly as Malon moved forward and stroked her neck. "Good work girl, he's a cutie." she said happily. Rapona neighed and nuzzled the foal, keeping an eye on Link as he moved around the side of the stall to get a better look at the foal hiding wobbly behind it's mother's legs.
"It's a boy?" he asked. Malon nodded as she started pulling the last few bits of the birth sack off the .
"That's what it looks like to me." She said winking. Rapona moved out of the way slightly, giving Link a clearer view of the foal. And Malon was right he was cute. He was like a cross between his mother and his sister, with the blacker mane and tail color, and the reddish brown coat his sister had with specks of white patterned across his coat. Link could definitely tell that he was going to be just as good as Epona, from how strong the wobbly legs looked already to the intelligent look in the young eyes that were shying away from Malon's gentle caress. "Heh, hopefully he won't get kidnaped by a forest imp.."he said jokingly to himself, not realizing Malon had heard him.
Malon looked up in confused shock. "Kidnaped by a forest imp? Why on earth would that happen? Did something happen to Epona?" She glared at Link and brandished the broom she was using to clean up. "If somebody hurt my horse, I swear to the Goddesses Link I'll..."
Sensing this was going down the wrong path, Link quickly put his hands up. "Whoa, Whoa, hold on, it wasn't like that!"
Malon only gave him a skeptical look. "Oh, then what've you been up to these past 5 years? Saving the world or something?"
"Well you'd be suprised. Better sit down, this'll take awhile..."
With that, he launched into a long tale of his journeys, starting with the trip to Termania and beyond. He had Malon in awe for most of it, from the recounting of reliving the 3 days over and over to racing the blue hedgehog at amazingly fast speeds. She laughed at the funny bits, and gasped at the constant near misses he seemed to constantly have had. But Link noticed, as the tale started to get closer to the present day, Malon became more brooding, and her expression darker. As he finally brought things up to now, Malon sighed sadly.
"I'm glad you're Ok, Link but I'm sorry to say that things haven't been so great back here..." this reminded Link of something that had been bugging him in the back of his mind since earlier.
"Why, what's happened? And what did those guards mean by assassins? And why are they there in the first place?" Malon only shook her head before patting Rapona and her foal on the head and standing up.
"Just a sec. I'd rather tell you elsewhere, I don't wanna upset the animals..."With that, she led him out of the barn and across the path to the main farmhouse. Following her inside, he saw that Talon was now standing at the stove apparently cooking something.
Sitting down at the table, she gestured him to the seat across from her. "I'm sorry, Link, but the Hyrule you left isn't anywhere near how things are now..." Frowning, Talon turned from the stove and joined the two.
"Yeah kid, things aren't as happy as they should be." He said.
Feeling a sense of dread, Link cautiously asked, "What's happened?" Sighing, Malon leaned back and started her tale.
"Well, it mostly started a few months after you took Epona and set off to find your fairy. Things were fine, life went on, got up in the morning, milked the cows, tended the horses, showed various tourists and customers around, the usual. There wasn't any major news from the other lands, just the regular small trading disputes and bar arguments between people. The castle was as normal as usual, with the occasional ball and various minor announcements delivered by pages every now and then."
"Well that doesn't sound that bad." Link said. Malon only shook her head.
"You'd think so. But then the delegation from Dovaria came."
"I've heard of them before, but I don't know much about them." Link said. Talon leaned back.
"Well, there's a reason for that. The land of Dovaria's a fairly large land that lies beyond the Death Mountain range. They're a fairly quite people, so quiet that the only treaty we've had with them is just a trade agreement. That's amazing due to the fact that they're so close to us. Sure we signed a peace treaty, but that was so long ago that nobody really even knows there is one."
"So if they're so quiet, how did you guys end up with them as guards?"
"We're getting to that." Malon told him. "Like daddy said, we barely know them beyond seeing a merchant or two in CastleTown. So everyone was shocked when out of nowhere a strange man named Zacharias appeared in front of the Castle Gates claiming that he was there to form a treaty with us."
Link could already tell he didn't like where this was going. A barely known race coming out of nowhere claiming that they wanted a treaty of peace? He'd seen what'd gone down the last time that had happened "And he was believed?"
"Well yeah, there wasn't anything that anyone could find wrong with the old man. Sure he was kinda creepy, but everyone says that's cause he's old and for all we know, that's what all the elderly people are like over there."
"So everyone agreed to it?" Link shook his head. The Sages should know better, especially Zelda, he thought. The similarities are too close. He made a mental note to make sure to mention it to Zelda when he saw her.
"What's wrong with that?"Talon asked, having ignored the food on the stove completely. "It's not like he showed up at the gates with a huge army proclaiming invasion."
Yeah, but neither did Ganondorf, Link thought. He only shook his head and gestured for them to continue.
"Any who, the guy shows up and proclaims he wants a peace treaty with Hyrule. Sure we were suspicious, but if it wasn't for Bernardstrom."
Link frowned. "Who?"
Malon got a faraway look in her eyes and sighed. "Prince Bernardstrom, heir to the Dovaria throne and the main envoy to Hyrule. Tall, rugged, handsome guy who you couldn't help but like A smile for the guys and a wink for the girls.. Sure Zacharias was ugly, but you Bernardstrom totally outshone him."
Link only shook his head as Talon rolled his eyes and stood to get the now overcooked food. He didn't like the sounds of this guy already. "So they signed a peace treaty cause he's cute?"
Malon frowned annoyed. "No, who said I thought he was cute?" Talon chuckled at Malon's bad attempts at covering the truth, before his expression got grim again as he returned and set the food down in front of the other two.
"Trust me kid, everyone didn't trust the either of 'em at first. They come up without any fanfare at all, just ride simply into town on horses, and claim to be the leaders of a land that barely anybody's heard of or knows? Well trust me, it was a good year before we finally made 100 sure that their story and their intentions were honorable."
Malon nodded. "But even so, there was rumors that the Goron, Gerudo, and Zora leaders weren't too trusting of things." Better not have, they should have clearly noticed there were too many similarities...
"But we ended up trusting them cause they gained the trust of King Daphnes. And you know that if you can't trust the man that unified us all, you can't trust anybody. He said we shouldn't be prudish and keep our borders closed to those we know nothing of. Hyrule's supposed to be a land of equality and being suspicious of them was wrong." Come on Zelda, you had to have thought something was up, he said the same thing about Ganondorf!
"But a month before the treaty was set to be officially signed, things went wrong." Link's sense of foreboding grew as Malon and Talon's expressions grew even grimmer.
"What happened?" Link asked cautiously.
"The king fell gravely ill." Link gasped.
"What? Who? How?" He demanded, starting to rise to his feet.
"Whoa, settle down kid! He's not dead!" Link sighed slightly relieved, and reluctantly sat back down. "Not yet at least. It's said that this's been bugging at him for a few years now but he's kept it under wraps, not letting it on that he's been in so much distress. But you can realize how horrible the news was when it was first heard." Link nodded, feeling that way at the moment.
"Then the fighting started." Malon said sadly. Link looked at her worriedly. "I don't know if it was already brooding and the worrying about the king's illness just escalated it, but everyone just started arguing."
"Over what?" Link asked worriedly, having ignored the food completely.
"Started out with the little things it seemed; who said what, who's charging too much for what, etc. But then the arguing escalated, with the Zoras against the Gorons and the Sheikah against the Gerudo."
"Over what?" Link asked again.
"Land disputes mostly. Apparently the Gorons want to build a tunnel that'll give them access to a huge rocksirloin vein. Problem is, the tunnel would go directly under the main branch of Zora's River. The Zoras are claiming that the tunnel will contaminate it severly. The Gorons say that the tunnel will be deep enough and won't bring any harm to the river. But the Zoras won't back down and neither will the Gorons."
"And the Sheikah problem with the Gerudo? I thought Impa was the only Sheikah left."
"Well she is, but apparently she's come across some old documents that say that there's a large group of Sheikah graves out in the wastelands of the desert. She's wanting the Gerudos to give her permission to go out there and excavate to see if there's really any there. Thing is, the Gerudos say that's a holy spot in the desert, and letting her in would go against all the religious beliefs. Impa says its not religious, that they're just covering up the fac that they're the reason the graves are there."
Link could only lean back and sigh. "I can't believe this. That's why there's guards at the gate? Land disputes?"
Malon and Talon exchanged looks. "Well," she started slowly, that's where the assasination attempt on the princess comes in..."
Well I think this is the perfect place to leave off here with like I said, some questions, some answers. I have many things planned, and I didn't want them all revealed at once, hence why I cut this chapter short. Check out next time as we get more info on what's going on and we get a glimpse at a few new things too in Chapter 3: Nightmares. R&R!