"Why did I become a traveling bard in the first place? Why did I throw away my life to wander alone, hungry and sleepless, among fields and towns hostile and strange to me? Why, to escape my family, of course."
T. L. Malona, Life and Travels of a Wayward Bard
The lateness of the year cloaked Kakariko, draping it in reds and yellows and dark greens. Trees leaned over the squat abodes, shading the paths, reddening ferns, stone fences and tiny, numerous shrines to spirits so old even the elder could not remember their names. The forest surrounding the village had been purposefully thickened, through decades of meticulous sylviculture, to hide it from any wandering woodsmen or prying eyes. Sometimes even Impa had a difficult time believing she could find her way home—but she knew better than to distrust her own instincts. She did not need instruction, repetition, or a map; she had been born here, raised here, and could sense the place from leagues away. There was a saying among her tribe that she had never seen proven false: all Sheikah, no matter how far, can always find their way home.
When Impa and Palo hauled themselves up the last steep slope and into the village's wooded plateau, the sun had already retreated behind the foothills to the west. She stopped to catch her breath, taking in the sight of her village fading in the oncoming darkness. It felt almost dreamlike, to see the result of the passing months of her absence. She had left the village in the high summer, when the early vegetables had been harvested and the mountain peaks were bare and gray, when the wind was warmest, the river was deepest and the forest's cubs and fawns were coming into their own. Her sister had been looking forward to the upcoming operas at the Old Riko Playhouse, and her mother had been thinking of nothing but the garden. Not much would've changed with those two—only the playbills at the theater and the contents of the garden.
Impa adjusted Link on her back, still tied and blindfolded, but wide awake. He had perked up about halfway up the mountain, and had struggled to escape from her back, but Palo had unsheathed his sword and gently prodded his ribs until he calmed down. Devoid of sight, sound, and the feel of the ground beneath his feet, Link had little else to do but sit limply on Impa's tired back, likely kept company only by his guesses as to what they were going to do with him.
"Are you going to take him to your mother's house?" Palo asked her.
She sighed. "I suppose I can't take him anywhere else, at the moment."
Palo laughed. "Irma will be so pleased to see you've finally brought a man home. And a Hylian, no less. Who would've thought you had it in you?"
"I have no doubt my sister will be the first to jump on him for that purpose," Impa admitted, almost gloomily. She stepped down the road, toward the calm yellow glow of the familiar window at the end of the plateau. "I will meet you at the elder's in a few minutes," she said.
"Love of the spirits, Impa, give me some time to wash myself," he answered, sauntering in the direction of his own abode. "I smell like a dodongo's asshole."
"That is true." Impa looked over her shoulder at him as he crept off to the other edge of the village, where the trees shuddered thickest, casting long shadows over the burial grounds. Impa sighed, readjusting the stableboy on her back, and stepped toward her own home.
She had to admit she was eager to get Link's weight off her. He was lean, perhaps a little underfed, but he was no child. He was as heavy as he had been when she carried him from the moat to the doctor's house, and even then she hadn't carried him halfway up the slopes of a grand mountain (she only hoped acting as this young man's mule wouldn't become a habit).
She almost guiltily slinked up to her family's home and hesitated before the thick oak door. The scent of some sort of boiling tuber set her stomach rumbling, and the light that glowed in the window was stained with color and warmth.
Impa sighed, took a deep breath and reached out to knock. Before her fingers could touch the dark wood, the door swung open, and her sister, bright-eyed and eager, cast her tall shadow against the doorway. "It's about time," she said, beckoning Impa inside.
"Evening, Talm," she answered, stepping across the threshold into the warmth of her mother's house.
Impa's mother rushed furiously from the kitchen, yellow dress brushing against the dark wood floor. She trotted past the low table and threw her arms around her daughter with a cry. She seemed unconcerned with the presence of another person on her daughter's back, and Impa imagined she might as well be embracing him, too. When her mother let go, she rested a hand on Impa's cheek, over her red mark, where she always did. "I'm so glad you're safe."
Talm laughed, catching a glimpse of the boy on her back. "That's a funny-looking princess you've brought back to us."
Impa sighed, letting go of his legs. She had to bend with him as he stood shakily, and untied his wrists. He stood still, perhaps comforted by the warmth and smells, as she unwound his bonds and pulled the strip of silk from his face.
He took a stunned moment to drink in the image of her family. His eyes settled on Impa's mother, and a look of comfort crossed his face when he recognized another Hylian, brown hair drawn back in the southern style, frown tempered by the kindness in her dark blue eyes. Talm was most likely a strange sight to him—a true half-breed if Impa ever saw one—dressed in traditional clothes, face adorned in thick tattoos, but with her hair combed back like her mother's, into a dainty bun. When he had his curious fill of Talm and her mother, he looked to the house behind them, made of thick gray stone and dark wood, draped in tapestries of tribal symbols, ropes of silk, weaponry and tools. He backed up to the wall, mouth agape, blue eyes shining.
"He's not bad-looking for a boy princess," Talm admitted. "Certainly has that fragile, regal look about him."
"He's not the princess," Impa said.
"What's your name?" Talm asked him. He just stared at her, so she repeated herself, louder and more forcefully.
"No use shouting at him," Impa told her. "He's deaf."
"Oh, thank the spirits, I thought he was just rude." Talm edged closer to the stableboy, speaking slowly, emphasizing the movements of her lips, asking him his name, where he was from, how he ended up in Kakariko.
"Let him be, Talm. He's had a long journey."
"And so have you," Impa's mother put in, grabbing her hand and leading her to the low table. "Sit, I'll feed you both."
"I really need to get to the elder and explain myself," Impa said, but her mother would have none of it. When it came to hospitality, Irma was a hurricane; there was no bargaining with her, no point in declining her gifts and gestures. She almost shoved Impa down in front of the table, leaving Talm to lead Link over and seat him beside her.
"Merel will be pleased to see you've brought a husband home," her sister said, eyeing the stableboy. Impa shook her head and accepted the steaming bowl her mother miraculously produced. She raised it to her lips, reveling in the savory scent of it, letting the steam warm her face. Irma rushed back into the small kitchen, returning with another bowl, and pushed it over to Link. He stared at it for a few seconds, then looked over at Impa (for instructions, permission, or what else—she didn't know), and finally raised it to his own mouth. Neither of them had eaten since that morning, so they had little room for words between the gulps of soup.
It wasn't new in the household for Talm to dominate the conversation. She leaned over the table, folding her arms almost deviously, and smiled. "You've got some explaining to do," she said. "Why you brought us a deaf guy instead of the heir to the throne."
Impa set her bowl on the table, emptied. "I will speak with elder Merel this evening. It is up to her to decide what we do with him."
The boy in question lowered his bowl and stared across the table at the far wall, eyes dimming. The paleness of shock lightened his face, as if he had just now come to realize exactly how far he'd wandered from his stable. He lowered his gaze to his empty bowl, and a pained look crossed his soft features. Impa couldn't stop herself from reaching out and touching his arm gently. He looked up at her, and she saw a myriad of expressions pass through his eyes—gratefulness, fear, relief, remorse, anticipation. The protean mix of emotions that slightly contorted his face were eclipsed behind what Impa knew to be abject confusion.
He did not know why this was happening to him—why strangers had felt the need to invade his life and steal him away, why he had to suffer imprisonment and even grave injury when he had done nothing wrong. He had done nothing to deserve any of this—at least that she knew of.
"Well, for his sake I hope Merel decides he's no threat," Talm said, leaning forward on her elbows. She folded her delicate fingers and rested her chin on them, big red eyes shining. "Shame to waste such a pretty face."
"Talm, don't be like that," Impa's mother said, sitting down opposite them.
"It's not like he can hear me."
Impa sighed, lowering her head for a moment. Palo should be on his way to the elder's abode about now, cleaned up and ready to announce their spectacular failure. She reached over to the stableboy's elbow and tapped him before motioning for him to stand. He obeyed, still giving her all those impenetrably complex looks as he followed her away from the table.
"Are you not going to rest longer?" her mother called, with the familiar half-hurt frown she wore whenever anyone threatened to leave her house. Talm just sat beside her, smiling, hands still folded.
"I have to make a report," she said, leading Link to the door. "I'll be back in a little while." She shoved him into the cold night air and led him down the dirt path toward the north side of town, where the steepest slopes of Mount Eldin jutted from the village's plateau. Carved into the cliffs that stood jagged and brown on the mountainside lay the elder's home—a cave partitioned into ornate rooms, adorned with pillars, fireplaces and shrines, decorated with tapestries and furnished with all the amenities a Sheikah elder would need. It had divining runes, ritual staves and blessed weaponry lining the smoothly carved walls, a large fire pit near the entrance where village meetings could be conducted in peace and with plenty of light. Deeper into the mountain lay the elder's private quarters, where she slept and bathed, relying on the steam and water pumped up from the hot spring under the mountain for her heat.
Impa's father once told her that the elder lived in the side of Mount Eldin because that was as close as one could get to the spiritual center of the clan, where her powers were strongest, and where her authority was most apparent. He had sat her on his shoulders and told her if she was lucky to live long enough, she might become elder someday, and then she'd get to wander the halls of that sacred residence, leading the village both politically and spiritually.
Impa was sure she still had a few decades to meander through—not to mention more than a few pearls of wisdom to gain—before she could move into Merel's spacious cave. It seemed a little too big and lonely for one person, but back in the time before the Conquest, when the Sheikah spoke the old language and the spirits still lived among them, the elder's abode needed all that space. Back when Kakariko wasn't the only village left, when each faction of their tribe had their own towns and settlements all over Eldin, the gatherings at Kakariko could boast hundreds of attendees, one representative of each Sheikah family. Now, with barely a few hundred members at all, much less a few hundred families, the tribe was an echo of what it had once been, and Kakariko merely the shell of its former self. Long ago, the empty, crumbling houses had been disassembled for their materials, but if one looked closely at the edges of the village, one could make out the dark impressions of where houses used to stand, or see the hardy sprouting of vegetables that had been planted generations ago in a domestic garden.
A few of these abandoned plots lined the path to the elder's cave, catching the sharp eye of the stableboy, lit only by the moon and the dancing of late season fireflies. Link slowed to stare at the plots—Impa had always considered them houses' graves—before following her up the shallow slope.
Palo met them at the last bend before the elder's abode, wearing a serious frown. He fell into step beside Impa wordlessly, and they walked up the narrow path, toward the flickering glow of light on the side of the hill. It looked like Merel had started a fire—it wouldn't surprise Impa to learn she had predicted their arrival and prepared ahead of time. Then again, one of the villagers could've spied them make their way into the town and sent word up. Impa usually found herself struggling to decide whether or not the elder could perform miracles of prognostication, or if she was just miraculously well-informed. Either trait was admirable enough.
When they arrived at the mouth of the cave, the elder stood to greet them, spreading her arms in a spiritual salute. She smiled on the other side of the roaring, almost boisterous fire, red eyes twinkling. Her wrinkled mouth widened into a smile, and she nodded her head to them.
Palo and Impa bent at the waist, showing their proper respect. When Link caught sight of them bowing, he threw himself to the ground, presumably to follow suit. He knelt and pressed his forehead into the stony cave floor, placing his hands above his head as if asking for them to be stepped on. It was a gesture of such shameless servility that Impa reddened with embarrassment. She almost wanted to step on his hands, to grind her heel into his palms, for thinking the elder so low as to appreciate such obsequiousness. But she merely reached down and grabbed his collar, tugging him back to his feet.
"Forgive him, elder," she said. "He doesn't know better."
"It is fine, children," Merel replied. "It is how he's been taught. He is from the Capital, yes?"
"Yes, elder."
The elder reseated herself, pulling out her long robe from under her and reclining on a pillow by the fire. She crossed her legs and closed her eyes, smiling. "Nobody escapes society without suffering the untruths of hierarchy. In time, he will unlearn."
It was a good sign. If the elder had waved her hand, given them a frown, told them to dispose of this boy who may now know too much about the Sheikah and their operations, she and Palo would have no choice but to cut him down and throw his body to the wolves of Eldin. She was not looking forward to that possibility. But now that Merel had admitted in passing the boy had at least the semblance of a future in which to discard his bad habits, it meant they weren't going to have to kill him quite yet.
Palo and Impa stepped toward the fire, and the cushions that awaited them. Link, still a little red in the face from his faux pas, came with them, head lowered, staring into the fire rather than look into the kind eyes of the venerable elder. Impa wanted to smack him upside the head for it, but she knew he did not know how to look into the eyes of an equal, respected and lauded though she may be.
Merel did not seem to care about his awkward, downcast eyes, or the way he clutched his own wrist as if holding on for dear life. She just smiled, the fire casting orange shadows across her dark skin and white hair. "With each absence you two grow a little more," the elder said, softly, with the husky voice like that of an ancient woodwind instrument. "Yet each time you return I am no less overjoyed to see you safe." Her kind smile disappeared after a second, replaced by a stern, intelligent interest. "What news from the Capital?"
"The rumors are true," Impa said gravely. "The King is preparing for war. We do not know with whom he plans to battle or when, but he is restless."
"We have some idea," the elder replied. "And we have sent your father ahead to scout. Wherever the King goes, Talporom will rise to meet him." Impa couldn't help but gulp as a swell of both pride and worry for her father rose in her chest. The elder did not seem to notice her strained look. She merely let her bright glance settle on Link. "Do you wish to tell me why he, and not the princess, is here with us tonight?" she asked, without malice, without judgement.
Impa lowered her eyes and grit her teeth. "Elder, we ran up against some unforeseen obstacles. Firstly…"
"Balras betrayed us," Palo said. "He sabotaged us. This whole mess is his fault. This boy, the princess, everything."
Impa glanced over to him. She kept her mouth taut, trying to conceal the look that crept across her face when she realized with something of a start that Palo had outright lied to the elder. The old woman just nodded, eyes glinting. Impa guessed she could discern the dishonesty in Palo's voice, but humored him anyway.
"Balras?" she said. "He is one of Talporom's oldest friends. What would drive him to seek the employ of the King?"
"We don't know, elder. We did not have time to apprehend him."
"Very well. I shall send a man to the Capital on the morrow to investigate. For now, explain to me why you have left the princess in the Capital in favor of bringing me this young man."
Dear gods, she's going to make me say it. She's going to make me recount every word. Impa gulped. "Forgive me, elder."
"Forgive us," Palo interrupted, before pausing for a tense, painful moment. "The princess is dead. She fell to an arrow fired by a palace guard."
"We have lost the last known thread of the royal bloodline," Impa finished, desperate to clear the apparent despair from the elder's face. "But there may yet be others. We will continue the search."
Merel closed her eyes, breathing in the smoke from the sacred flames. Her chest rose and fell slowly, and her fingers hovered over the fire for a moment, as if trying to sculpt out a shape or prophecy in the heat.
"We could not even give her a proper burial," Impa told Merel, her voice straining with the effort of concealing her shame. "I apologize, elder. I have no words to express my regret that our mission to the Capital was a failure."
The wizened matriarch did not open her eyes or her mouth. The fire seemed to light up her skin and the red tattoos that decorated it. She wore the all-seeing eye on her forehead, a sign of her honored status as elder of the tribe, but she still sported the marks of her youth—the diamond tattoo between her brows, the thick bar of red down her chin that designated her as a healer. Impa's father shared those tattoos—he had been her protégé for many years before Impa was born, and had fought beside her during Mandrag Elgra's march on Death Mountain. The elder had been a good friend of Impa's grandmother's, and as long as she could remember, Merel had been like a grandmother herself.
Impa hoped Merel would have no choice but to forgive her. She might punish her, she might cast shame on her simply out of necessity, but she would not dole out anything Impa did not rightly deserve for her incompetence.
But the elder did not speak for a long while—she did not issue orders or punishments, she did not even move. For every second of her oracular silence, Impa's heart beat a little faster. She glanced over at Palo, who sat facing forward, ready for reprimand. Between them, the stableboy shuddered, looking into the fire that danced under Merel's open palms. His eyes were wide, frightened, and at one point his hand wandered to Impa's knee, touching it lightly. She could not blame the boy for reaching out for comfort, to make sure that he was not alone in this strange new place, in front of this thaumaturgical flame.
The elder's eyes opened slowly, and she smiled. "Neither of you had the strength or skill to save the scion of the royal family, and that is regrettable." Her eyes wandered from Palo to Link to Impa and back, burning as hotly as the flames below them. "But your mission was not a failure. I asked you to bring me a potential vessel of great godly power. You have brought me just that."
Both Impa and Palo whipped their heads to stare at Link. He shrank before their eyes, lowering his head, wringing his hands.
"Him?" Impa almost gasped. "Does he have the old blood?"
"No. He does not. But the fire tells things true, it tells things honest." Merel raised her head and looked at the cowering boy. "He does not seem it. He does not seem to play that part at all."
"No, he doesn't," Palo admitted.
"But, we as Sheikah always know seeming and being are entirely separate concepts." She lowered her hands, and the fire died down a little. The overpowering, almost magical swell of heat dissipated and they were left sitting before a few small yellow flames, licking eagerly at the air. "Impa, you will take him to the summit of Eldin. We shall see what the old spirits have to say about him."
Impa gulped, resisting the urge to protest, to tell the woman that no gods or spirits of Eldin had been seen for so long it was madness to believe they still existed at all. But what Merel decreed, she was obligated to carry out. She merely bowed her head, gritting her teeth.
When the fire shrank and cooled, Merel lifted herself from the pillow at its edge and yawned. "Forgive me, children. It seems that I tire quickly in my old age."
Palo and Impa bowed to her, keeping an eye on Link so he did the same, properly this time. The old woman bid them farewell, returning their bows before shuffling off into the darkness of her cave. The farther she stepped from the fire, the shallower the flames danced, and when she disappeared into her chambers, the light snuffed out. Impa and Palo lingered in the mouth of her cave for a while longer in stunned silence.
When they made their way to the entrance, Impa stared at the rising stars, sighing. The chilly wind seemed to stab her to the bone, forcing shivers up her spine. She looked over at Link, hugging himself against the cold and darkness. Palo seemed not to notice the weather, but started the trot down toward the village, shaking his head.
"What a time of year to send someone up Eldin," he said.
Impa did not answer. She would have to prepare carefully in the next few days, or else decide which friends and relatives got which of her possessions when she did not come back down from the peak. And Link—spirits' love, he wouldn't survive it. Men who were so lean and timid could not climb mountains, much less conquer them. But Impa had to admit she'd never heard an untrue word from elder Merel—she'd never heard anything other than wisdom from the old woman, despite all her inner protests and disagreements. Merel had proved Impa wrong more times than she could count.
"Palo," Impa said, stopping for a moment when they arrived at the fork in the path that would take Palo to his house, Impa to hers. He turned, worried half-smile playing on his lips. Impa hesitated, biting her lip, and decided not to say anything at all.
"Don't worry, Impa. You'll be fine. If Merel says you should go, then… well, you can't argue with the wisdom of age, can you?" He folded his hands behind his head. "You'll come back down. But if you don't, I get Bloodletter."
Impa let out an anxious laugh. "Fine. But don't misuse it."
"Do I ever misuse anything?" he asked.
"Besides every faculty you've been born with, no." She smiled weakly and left Palo at the crossroad, leading Link back down to the warmth and safety of her mother's house.