The Legend of Zelda: Shadowsong
Book One - Forest

Chapter Four - Custom

The sun rose hesitantly over Kokiri Forest; a pale sphere of light casting shafts of hazy glow across the verdant tops of the ancient, hundred-year-old trees. Morning was slow in coming here. Sparkling motes of stray magic wafted from the deep green shadows and danced across stray pools of morn-light that had found their way through the thick canopy above. And along the sun and shadow dappled forest path, a stray blue forest-fairy sped, its gauzy wings whirring furiously.

The path wound lazily through the trees in great slow loops, here meandering around a huge, multi-ringed stump, there dipping into a hollow where an old wooden bridge arched over the creek below. Link had built the bridge one summer, tired of having to wade across the water, and it still held up strong despite several years of weathering by sun, wind, and rain. The little fairy flitted across, paying no heed to the happy babble of the creek beneath as it tumbled over its water-smoothed stones. Just ahead, the dappled half-light of the forest at early morning gave way to a misty radiance that spilled through the encroaching tree trunks like white gold. Here the trees spread to either side as if the goddess Forore had reached down and parted the forest like a curtain.

In the center of that wide sweep of clearing, serene and unadorned in the morning sunlight, rested Ordon Village.

Ordon was nothing to look at: a few low, thatch-roofed wooden hovels huddled together along well-worn dirt paths through a field of emerald grass, dotted with purple-ish heather and sweetly scented white flowers. The villagers called them Ordon's Bells, because their little white heads hung heavily on their stems like clarions in a belfry. Several of the houses had front steps of wood or stone, but only one had a porch. The tiny one-room hut closest to the treeline, and thus farther from the other houses, was by far the simplest of them all. Sage Fado's hut was overgrown with vines and moss flourished in the thatch, but his wooden porch was long and wide enough for every child in the village to gather upon it and hear him tell his stories.

In the early morning no children were yet awake, but Fado sat out on his porch anyhow, swaying gently back and forth on his creaking wooden rocker, a violin pressed to his chin with the precise delicacy of a virtuoso. Its music was smooth and melodic; the kind of sound that, had it been a scent, would smell of pine. The ancient sage smiled quietly as he played, the wrinkles of his aged face creasing deeply from a lifetime of laughter. Fado was old and bent nearly double with the weight of the years. Although he was mostly bald, what little hair the old man had was wispy and white like cloud. He could remember being young, a long time ago, and recalled that it was much more fun to be a child, but he didn't mind growing old. All it really meant was that you had less hair and more tales to tell.

He also didn't mind that no one in Ordon had yet awoken to hear him play. In the Kokiri Forest, there was always an audience. From the shadows of the trees at the clearing's edge, the invisible eyes of the Kokiri spirits watched in silent bliss.

But there was someone else watching from the trees today. Glowing palely, the tiny blue fairy reached the forest's end and fluttered into the clearing. It seemed to perk up at the sound of Fado's violin and flew over to where he sat, wings quivering as it alighted on the very tip of his bow.

Fado's hand stilled, and he removed the instrument gently from the hollow beneath his chin, and with the utmost care set it aside on the wooden porch's smooth grain. All the time he held his bow perfectly still so as not to disturb the fairy, and when he turned back it was still perched there.

"Hello, Imi." said Fado.

"Hello, Fado." the fairy responded in a sweet chime that seemed to bypass his pointed ears and settle directly into his mind. "That's a pretty song you're playing. What's it called?"

Fado smiled at her. Nimirae, or as he called her, Imi, was a young, somewhat flighty little fairy. She had a short attention span, and tended to be distracted by beautiful things, but he loved her like a daughter. "The Wind God's Aria. I wrote it myself."

"I like it," the fairy replied. "It's pretty." Happily humming the Aria to herself, she fluttered her wings a few times and began to flit away.

"Imi," Fado called after her, "Don't go yet. Do you remember what I asked you to do last night?"

Imi paused, her glow flickering slightly as she thought. "You asked me to… Asked me to…"

"To go with Lincoln Shepherd and Minuet Weaver," Fado provided helpfully, recalling how hard it was for Imi to remember things. "And to keep an eye on them for me. The same thing I tell you every time they visit the temple."

"I knew that," the fairy said quickly. "That's what I did. I went with them in their lantern. I was a good light. A pretty light."

"I assume they stayed the night in the temple then?" the Sage asked. "Didn't want to walk home in the dark, I suppose. Did you come to tell me they were on their way back?"

"OH!" Imi gave a start and began zooming around in frantic circles. "Oh, oh, oh, I have to tell you something important!!! I forgot, I forgot! Why did I forget!?! Oh, oh, oh, Fado!!!"

"Nimirae!" Fado snapped, reaching out a hand and plucking the distraught fairy out of the air by her wings. She sat, quivering, in his palm. "Imi," he repeated, trying to make his voice sound soothing, "What's wrong? Did something bad happen at the temple?"

"A Boko Baba! There was a Boko Baba in the temple, and Minuet was screaming and Link hit his head so hard and then the lantern broke and… Oh, oh, oh, why did I forget!?!" She dissolved into incoherent sobbing.

A Boko Baba? In the sacred temple!?! Fado shook his head in disbelief. The forest temple was a safe place, as long as you stayed out of the inner sanctum. What kind of evil could have entered that would let a Boko Baba inside? And then another terrible thought rose: a fully grown Boko Baba could rip a person apart. "The children!" he prompted fearfully. "What happened to them, where are they now?"

"Th-the t-temple…" Imi answered, still crying. "They tried to leave but the d-door was l-lo-locked…"

Alive, then. And, if they stayed away from the killer plant, perfectly safe. Boko Baba were deadly, but they were also rooted securely to the ground. Fado let loose a sigh of relief. "Calm down now, Imi. They'll be alright."

"It's all my fault," the fairy moaned. "I was coming to tell you, but I got distracted and forgot."

"Nothing's your fault," the old man said soothingly. "Come here and sit on my shoulder, and I'll play that song you like." When Imi complied, he lifted the violin to his chin again and began to play. The Wind God's Aria drifted sweetly across the grass, in time with the swaying of the Ordon's Bells in the breeze. On Fado's shoulder, Imi began her happy humming again, completely forgetting the crisis a moment before. Fado felt calmer now as well. Once Imi was pacified, he would go and fetch the two sages-in-training from the temple. Only one thing was bothering him; a nagging doubt at the back of his mind.

For purposes of safety, the lock mechanism on the doors of the forest temple was a complex and elaborate contraption connecting the huge outer doors to that of the inner sanctum. When the inner sanctum was securely locked, the outer doors would open, but when a Sage entered the mysterious inner sanctum to pray to Forore, the huge double-doors would bolt themselves. The reason for this was obvious: to keep away the prying eyes of any curious apprentice who thought to follow Fado to the temple and catch a glimpse of its depths. Of course, it was also to keep in what was already there. There were… things within the temple. Sacred things, holy things, but nevertheless a thousand times deadlier than a Boko Baba. And, as his bow moved smoothly across the strings, it occurred to Fado that if the outer doors of the temple were locked, then the inner sanctum had somehow been opened.

The violin struck a rather abrupt and jarring chord, and the old Sage put it down without finishing the song. "Come along, Imi," he murmured. "We're going to visit the temple now."

"Oh, good!" she answered happily.

* * *

The Gerudo embassy's encampment was quickly disassembled as the sun rose higher in the cloudless blue sky over Hyrule Field. From a low rise in the sweeping grass, Shirobi watched dispassionately, occasionally jabbing at the dirt with the point of his spear. From this vantage he could see the entire camp, or at least what remained of it. Most of the red and gold tents had been taken down and were lying in the grass, the tent poles tied together in tight bundles and the thick fabric wound around them. The embroidered carpets and cushions rested in haphazard piles next to each tent, along with any of the girls' personal belongings.

The Gerudo Thieves themselves were running back and forth amongst the piles, attending to last-minute details. Byara had changed into her more traditional Gerudo clothing: a loose white blouse with blue and red patterns embroidered across the chest and a long divided skirt of palest pink gossamer over garnet-red breeches. The Gerudo tribe had always been attracted to bright colors. She was rolling up one of the carpets that had covered the floor of her tent, every movement causing a tinkle of metal from the thin gold chains swinging from the elaborate bun in her hair. Aer ran across camp, shouting loudly that whoever had borrowed her hairbrush should return it. On either hip, the curving blades of two scimitars glinted against the white of her skirt. Nearby, Lysper was sitting on top of her respective pile of cushions. She smirked slightly as she detangled her own short red hair with what was presumably Aer's hairbrush. Rhea was still packing her own tent into its tight roll, considerably behind schedule due to the fact that she had somehow been talked into packing up Lysper's tent as well.

Shirobi cast around inquiringly for his sister and found her walking towards him, betrayed by the jangling of her jewelry. Merlay had a small sack of faded brown leather slung across her back, its drawstrings pulled tight and looped around her wrist so she could carry it easily. "Hey, Shi," she called, and he waved her over with his spear. Merlay dipped down onto the trampled grass for a moment and crossed her legs respectfully before bobbing up like a cork and asking, "Are you all packed yet?"

"See for yourself," Shirobi answered, gesturing to his own tent-roll, which lay beside him in a neat bundle along with its carpets, cushions, and tall brass mirror.

Merlay nodded and swung the sack over her shoulder. "Well, I've got the Eternity Satchel, so help me put everything away." She gave the mouth of the sack a tug to loosen the drawstrings, revealing the bag to be empty save for a few stray rupees, Hyrule's main form of currency, gathered at the bottom. Shirobi stuck the point of his spear firmly in the ground and began gathering up cushions and carpets from the pile and stuffing them into Merlay's sack. Each item fit in easily, regardless of size, and all the time the leather never seemed to stretch or grow any fuller. Finally only the tent-roll remained, and the siblings managed to shove it inside by fitting the mouth of the bag around the bundle's end and then running its length, trailing the drawstrings behind them as though trying to drag the sack across the grass. Like some bizarre vanishing trick, the tent-roll disappeared into the depths of Merlay's magic bag.

Even having seen it done countless times before, Shirobi never ceased to be impressed by the Eternity Satchel. Merlay had bought the tattered bag from a wandering trader who had turned up mysteriously one night in the middle of the desert. No one else had dared go near the old witch-woman, peering suspiciously out at her from the doorways of their houses as she stood in the heart of Gerudo Valley and leaned arthritically on her crooked wooden staff. She peered right back, or at least seemed to, as only the glint of an eye could be seen behind the hood of the long, ragged purple cloak that covered her body. Few things could frighten a Gerudo Thief, but she managed to embody all of them. Shirobi could remember being very young, and watching as night turned to day and the desert sun grew high and burning. And he could remember the moment his sister, who stood beside him at the window, had finally gathered the courage to walk outside and ask her who she was.

The woman had turned her cloak-shadowed head and murmured, in a cackling rasp, "Tell me girl, would you like to purchase an item of great power?"

Merlay was grinning at him as she swung the Satchel back over her shoulder, still light as a feather, and Shirobi could bet that if he looked inside, the bag would still contain nothing more than a few rupees in the bottom. Come to think of it, none of the embassy knew where the items you put inside actually went. They simply disappeared and then somehow materialized again when you reached your hand inside to take them out. It was a remarkable and mystifying work of magic.

"If you don't mind helping me with the other tents," said Merlay in a tone that made her request sound more like an order, "It looks as though Rhea could use a hand." She began walking back through the camp, and her brother nodded and pulled his spear out of the dirt, resting it on his shoulder as he fell into step beside her. They paused by each girl's pile, filling the Eternity Satchel and moving on. The camp was no longer necessary; from now on the embassy would be housed in private suites within Hyrule Castle itself. Shirobi almost wished they were still sleeping on the ground. He may have hated the Hylians, but he wanted desperately to make a good impression on their king, since the embassy's behavior might well determine the future of his race. For the girls, staying in the palace would be… tempting. The Gerudo were thieves by nature, and in a castle there was so much to steal. He had made them all promise, no, swear, that they wouldn't cause trouble, be it violence, thievery, or taking rhenha. It was a promise he'd just have to hope they'd keep.

It was near eight by the time the last tent had been stowed away, as Shirobi knew by carefully counting the hollow tolling of Hyrule Castle's belfry. Negotiations for the treaty were to begin at nine, and the embassy wasted no time in beginning their short march towards the gates of Castle Town, laughing and talking as they went, Merlay carrying their entire camp in the sack across her back. Shirobi walked silently at the head of the group, listening to Byara as she instructed him on everything she knew from her short time as a spy. It was a lot to remember, since Byara's mind soaked up customs and traditions like the desert absorbed water.

"And don't sit down in front of the king unless he asks you too," Byara was saying as they walked, "Because in Hylian culture that's considered rude. Also, his proper title is 'Your Majesty,' and you have to call the nobles 'Lord' and 'Lady,' for men and women, respectively, and…"

"No, that won't work!" Merlay cut in. She was walking at his right side, and had been frowning slightly at Byara's recitation. "You have to consider politics, not just customs. If you give the king his full title he'll consider you his inferior. We want him to see you as an equal, like a king from another country."

"I am a king from another country," Shirobi protested. "And for Din's sake, slow down Byara! What is it you call the nobles again?"

"Lord and Lady," Byara repeated. "Don't give me that look, it's traditional, Merlay. And of course they in turn should call you by your full title…"

"We can't do that either," Merlay interrupted. "That makes you seem like you're vain and think you're superior to them. We're trying for equal status, Byara."

"I don't know about you, Merlay," Lysper piped up from behind them, "But I'm far superior to some water-wasting king."

"Don't call the Hylians water-wasters," Rhea chided. "They probably won't know what it means, but it's still not a nice thing to say."

"Fire of Din, it's always nice with you…" Lysper snapped, and their voices faded into low arguing as Byara continued her monologue.

"If the king asks you to dine with him, you have to accept. The proper place to sit is near the head of the table, on the king's right side."

"Wait," Shirobi pleaded, getting slightly flustered. "Which end is the head of the table? And is it my right or his right?"

"His right. And the head of the table is whichever end the king sits at."

"But what if he hasn't sat…"

"I just told you, you can't sit down until he does, unless he asks you to, and he won't ask you to until he's already sitting down, so finding the head of the table shouldn't be a problem."

Shirobi stared at her for a moment in incomprehension. He hadn't understood a word of that. As the open drawbridge of Castle Town grew nearer, and Byara's speech got longer and more complicated, he was having some serious doubts about these peace talks. His head was beginning to hurt, and this looked like it was going to be a long day. It didn't help that he could still feel the sting of those scratches on his face.

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Thoughts from the author:

Nimirae has the attention span of a gnat. I secretly suspect this of Navi as well, since she can't seem to remember that she's already told you to "go to the castle!" about a hundred times. As for Sage Fado, I had to include somebody named Fado, as it seems to have become traditional for most Zelda titles since Ocarina.

That magic bag will fill in a lot of potential plot-holes later in the story. (But wait! How are they carrying all these items? Oh yeah, magic bag.)

Poor Shirobi. He really isn't any good at this political stuff.

The next chapter features more of princess Zelda, who has been coming up with a clever plan while we've been away.