Proof

Link woke with the sun, and he soon found he wasn't the only one. Kirali flew through the barn door as he was making his way down from the loft. "Good, you're awake," she said in English. "We're having breakfast. Then we're showing Mama and Papa Hyrule." She started to turn away, but paused. "You checked for the doors, right? They're there?"

He reached the barn floor and stepped up beside her. Tatl flew lazy circles around his head, then settled on his shoulder. "They're there," he agreed. "You want to bring your parents?" Link wasn't sure how Angel and Laura would react to Hyrule. It could be a very dangerous place, particularly if you weren't prepared.

"I have to make them understand. This might be the only way." She hesitated, reaching up and twirling some of her red hair between her fingers. "Actually, could you get one of your transformation masks? We might need it."

Link nodded and jogged up the stairs to the loft, retrieving his Goron mask and then rejoining Kirali below. She nodded and spun, leading the way from the barn.

The storm door squealed behind them as they entered the house. Angel darkened the doorway to the dining room, a cup of coffee in his hand and a hard look on his face as his stare traced over Link. His eyes lingered on Tatl on his shoulder for a moment, but then came back to snare Link's gaze. "You can join us for breakfast," Angel said. "After, I expect you to clear out your things and leave."

Kirali exhaled in a loud puff. "Papa—"

"I said I'd look at whatever you want to show me," he said. "That doesn't mean I want him here."

"It's okay." Link put his hands out at waist level, palms down, like he would to approach a wounded animal. "I don't plan to stay. Thank you for breakfast. It's very kind."

Tatl gave a little chime and zipped up from Link's shoulder to orbit his head. "He's not very friendly today," she said in that crystalline fairy language that only the Kokiri seemed to understand.

"What the hell is that?" Angel asked.

"It's Link's fairy." Kirali crossed her arms under her chest. "Don't you remember Aven?"

His eyes flicked over to hers, then back to Tatl. His expression clouded and he looked down. "That damned big firefly you had with you when you showed up on our doorstep."

There was something raw and painful in Kirali's expression as she stared her father down and nodded. He didn't meet her eyes. "She's a fairy. Her name is Tatl."

Angel dipped his chin and retreated into the dining room, his expression drawn tight. Place settings had already been laid out and Laura was setting down a plate of pancakes. On one of his first days on the ranch, he watched Laura make pancakes like these, Kirali explaining as she worked. He'd decided that 'pancake' was one of few English words that made good sense. Laura looked up and gave him a small smile. "Good morning, Link. Could I get you something to drink?"

"Milk, please." He returned her smile. Kirali sat down facing the kitchen entrance, her hand gripping the back of the chair next to hers until Link pulled it out to sit beside her. He settled the Goron mask in his lap under the table.

"Kira says mysterious doors have appeared out of nowhere on my property, leading to a different world." Angel took a sip of his coffee, his stare hot on Link the whole time. "I don't know what sort of game you're playing, but—"

"Papa!" Kirali said, thumping her wrist on the edge of the table.

Laura reentered the dining room with glasses that she set in front of Link and Kirali. She spoke a quick burst of Spanish to Angel and then settled herself in the seat at his left hand side. Then, in English, "An easier topic, please. You say you've met this man on the news?"

Kirali barked a laugh. "That is not an easier topic, Mama," she said. "What about Blanca? Is she ready to foal yet?"

"Foal?" Link asked.

Angel slid his fork under two pancakes and levered them onto his plate. "Give birth," he said.

"It's the same word for a baby horse," Kirali added. She looked at her father. "Well, is she?"

Breakfast passed more easily after that. They discussed affairs on the ranch, a conversation Link could follow after working there for several weeks. Laura noticed Tatl, as well, and seemed almost delighted, though she too referred to the fairy as a bug. Once they'd finished eating, he helped Angel and Kirali clear the table while Laura loaded the machine that washed dishes and washed some of the others by hand. He hadn't quite figured out why they used the machine for some but not for others.

Finally they stood, the next step hovering in the air between them. Angel sighed and swiped a hand through the air, vaguely gesturing toward the door. "I already called Jorge to watch the boys for me a while. Let's get this over with."

Link led the way. He was the only one who'd seen the doors in seven years, after all. They trooped out of the house, through the yard, and into the woods. It was a matter of ten minutes before they could see the doors standing out through the trees, mottled sunlight sparking against their sculpted metal.

"See," Kirali murmured under her breath. No one answered.

They stopped around the doors when they got close. Angel circled around to the back side, shaking his head. "Just a set of doors standing on their own in the middle of the forest. Did you put these here?" He looked at Link, accusation drawing one eyebrow down.

Link shook his head.

"What's this?" Laura asked, running her fingers along the relief cast into the door. It depicted a number of people in robes around a circle at the center. Like the figures, the circle curved outward from the door. It had irregular bumpy masses raised along its smooth curving surface.

"Earth in the center," Kirali said, pressing her palm to the center of the circle. Now that she said it, Link did remember the maps she'd shown him of Earth. It matched up.

"What are you waiting for?" Tatl chimed.

Link threw his shoulder against one of the doors, remembering how stubborn it was to open from the other side. Sure enough, it crept open, the hinges giving a low shriek. The scent hit Link immediately: green and slightly damp. Home.

He pushed the door open as far as he could, then stood in the clearing in the Lost Woods, hungrily taking in the sight of the tightly-packed trees. Tatl zipped off into the trees, probably to look around; she'd be back soon, he was sure. Link turned and found Kirali stepping through to join him while Angel and Laura gaped through the doorway. Angel stepped to the side, circling around the door and out of view. When he spoke, though, Link heard him clearly. "This is impossible. How are you doing this?"

"Come through," Kirali said.

Laura hesitated only a moment, but then she crossed the threshold into Hyrule. She gasped the moment she passed into the other world. "It feels… different," she said.

Angel reappeared, pulling the fingers of one hand down the side of his cheek as he stared through the doorway. Finally he took a breath and stepped through.

"This is where I'm from," Kirali murmured. She spun slowly, taking in the clearing around them. "This is Hyrule. The Lost Woods, actually."

"How…?" Angel's eyes were wide as he circled the doors on this side.

"Magic."

Angel shook his head, peering at her from beyond the edge of the door.

Kirali sighed and turned to Link, making a lazy gesture toward the mask in his hand. "Show them, please?"

Link brought the mask to his face, pausing just before making contact to take a bracing breath. Then heat flooded his face and spread throughout his body like a lightning strike, the magic of the mask fusing with his skin and burrowing deep to yank and twist at his bone and muscle. His body swelled outward into the bigger proportions of a Goron, and it was all he could do not to cry out against the wrenching, tearing sensation of magic warping his body into something else.

Laura shrieked before the transformation was even complete, and then Link stood before them, a head taller than he'd been and burly with Goron muscle. The world was different in this form. He had a greater sense of the earth beneath his feet, and everything felt a little cooler.

"What the hell are you?" Angel demanded, taking a step back. Laura grasped his arm, muttered Spanish escaping her lips as she stared at Link with eyes like to burst from her head.

"A Goron," Link said. "The mask allows me to transform." He glanced over at Kirali and saw that even she was staring, though the lift of her eyebrows was more impressed than afraid.

Kirali swung her gaze over to her parents. "I wasn't lying," she said softly. "Magic is real. It was just sealed away on Earth for a very, very long time."

A jarring tone rent the quiet of the clearing, sending a jolt through Link's gut. Angel and Laura jumped, and then Angel dug into his pocket, pulling out his cellphone. It was the source of that ear-splitting noise. He read the screen and then looked up at them. "It's an emergency alert," he said. "The president's making an emergency address."

Link watched Kirali for her reaction: the darting motions and wrinkled brow of worry. "We'd better go watch it," she said. "It has to be about Ganondorf."

A weightless sensation spread through Link. He reached up and coaxed the mask off, holding his breath against the transformation. Returning to his natural form wasn't quite so unpleasant, but it was no fairy walk.

Kirali used gentle touches and pushes to goad Angel and Laura through the door to Earth. There was a familiar jangling noise as Tatl returned, and Link looked up to find her with a small smile. He started toward the door after the others.

"Really?" Tatl asked, and he paused to look at her again. "You're going back there?"

"Not for long," Link said. "We're going to see what Ganondorf is doing."

The fairy pulsed in the air before him, silent for a moment. Finally she said, in a voice like cracking ice, "I don't want to go back there."

Something twisted deep in Link's gut, but he nodded. He couldn't blame her. She'd been helpless there for weeks, barely clinging to life, probably half-certain she would die. "I'll be back," he promised her. "Or you can go find your brother."

She bobbed up and down in the air. "I'll see you again, Link."

Her gaze weighed heavily on him as he turned and left home behind.