Gemyn returned to Link's house, doing her best not to grumble about being ordered about like an unruly child. Despite sternly telling herself not to, her eyes immediately fell on the wide log bed as soon as she entered the room. The pillow she'd lain on had a slight crease in the middle where she'd snatched it up and hugged it to herself when she realized Link had been in the bed with her. Link's pillow lay on the floor, a soft indent showing where his head had been. Swallowing the bitter lump in the back of her throat, she picked up both pillows, fluffed them gently, and placed them neatly back on the bed where they belonged. The sheet also lay on the floor, tangled tightly on itself; Gemyn couldn't believe how tangled Link had managed to get himself. She snapped the sheet out and replaced it on the bed as well, folding down the coverlet she hadn't needed the night before. She'd even kicked the sheet off, it had been so warm; perhaps that had contributed to Link's entanglement.
All evidence of the morning's encounter erased, she turned her attention to the chest at the foot of the bed that held several changes of clothes for both Gemyn and Link. The first thing she pulled from the chest was a long white nightshirt that she'd been given by the Scientist. When she'd leapt from the Falls after Raobi had tracked her and Lia to the cave, she'd been wearing a plain cotton dress. He had given her this nightshirt and had the dress burned, for blood had stained it and it had been completely unwearable. She crushed it against her heart for a moment, remembering his kindness. How she missed him. Strange, that she should; they had known each other only a day, perhaps two. Perhaps she'd latched on to him so tightly because he had been the one of the first people in her life to show her any bit of kindness whatsoever.
It was hardly suitable day wear, but it would certainly make a more comfortable sleep shirt than the clothes she'd slept in last night. The Kokiri had given her two sets of warm, emerald green woolen tunics and white leggings much the same as what Link himself wore. They were startlingly comfortable, if a bit warm. The brass belt buckle did tend to dig into her when she sat down, though. One of the tunics she wore now, having slept in it the night before. She changed into the fresh one and folded the other as neatly as she could before setting it aside.
The rough prison garb she'd been given to wear at the Fortress was thrown into the fireplace without a glance. Even if it had been made of the finest silk, she would not have kept it. It was a much-too-close reminder of just how close she had come to dying in that Fortress. It wasn't pretty or comfortable, in any case, and it was not much of a loss.
Lia had refused to wear a Kokiri tunic. Despite being only half-Gerudo – and a slave at that, purportedly hating the Gerudo and everything they stood for – she looked down on Hylian and Kokiri garb with complete and utter disdain. Saria had brought her a length of rough, off-white cloth that Gemyn thought might be linen, and Lia had sewn herself a pair of baggy breeches and a top that bared her shoulders and abdomen. It was the exact same sort of thing that Gemyn had seen the Gerudo wearing around the Fortress – although, she had commented, the purple that some of them wore was prettier. That had earned her a snap from Lia, who had retorted that only the guards and slave-owners wore the purple. Everyone else wore white, or brown. Lia's only other set of clothes were the ones she was wearing; Gerudo clothes similar to the ones she had made herself.
Link had two tunics folded neatly in the trunk. A third he wore at the moment, Kokiri green that matched the one Gemyn was wearing. The first tunic she pulled from the trunk was red. The hem was singed slightly, and the fabric smelled rough and charred. It also seemed to be warm to her touch, as if it had been drying by a fire. The second tunic fascinated her; it was a deep ocean blue, and seemingly made of wool though the fabric slid over her fingers as softly as silk, and just as cool to the touch. It smelled of sand and seaweed, and made her think of Lake Hylia. She glanced surreptitiously at the door before discarding her green tunic and pulling the blue one over her head. I'll just wear it for a minute, she told herself.
The fabric felt delicious against her skin, even better than it had on her hands. She felt as light as a bubble; She wanted to go swimming, to dive headfirst into ice-cold, crystal clear water and…
The door burst open as Link staggered through, his hands clutching bulky leather saddlebags. "Saria told me to bring these up for you - " he began, then stopped dead when he saw what Gemyn was wearing. She had leapt to her feet in surprise at hearing the door open, her hands fluttering nervously around her neck. Splotches of color appeared on her face and exposed collarbone; the tunic was much too big for her, and slipped down over one shoulder even as Link stared at her.
Consternation mingled with amusement spread across Link's face. "What – what are you doing?" he asked in a level voice, although Gemyn thought she could hear a tinge of laughter.
"Nothing," she said defensively. "I just – it was so pretty, and the fabric felt so nice – I wanted to try it on. I only had it on for a minute! I wasn't trying to steal it or anything!"
"I didn't think you were," Link said carefully, and there was definitely a hint of laughter in his voice this time. She had a guilty look on her face that put him in mind of a child caught with its hand in the proverbial cookie jar. "In any case – here's the saddlebags. Pack everything up as tightly as you can, we're going to have to fit all of our provisions in here as well." He dropped the saddlebags on the floor with a loud thump and turned to leave.
"What kind of fabric is this?" Gemyn asked, hastily stepping forward. "It looks just like wool – just like the one you're wearing – but it feels like silk. Nicer than silk! It's…amazing."
"It's a Zora tunic," Link said. "I got it for – for helping them a few years ago. "They have this way of weaving water into cloth, I'm really not sure how they do it." A mischievous grin split his face. "You should try swimming in it. It can make you breathe underwater, you know."
Gemyn tossed her head indignantly, as Link had known she would. His grin widened. "Don't be ridiculous," Gemyn snapped. "I'm sorry I put on your tunic, but you don't have to make fun of me. Do you think I'm that gullible? Breathe underwater!" She scoffed loudly and pulled the tunic over her head before reaching for her own green one. After the smooth silkiness of the Zora tunic, it felt as rough as a cat's tongue. Link hurriedly averted his eyes; she was not naked, but the thin undershirt she wore left very little to the imagination.
"Anyway," he said hastily, turning back towards the door again. "There's the saddlebags – once you've got everything packed up, just leave them on the landing outside and I'll take care of them." He beat a hasty retreat before Gemyn decided to start undressing again. Once outside, he shook his head and grinned to himself. He hadn't even begun to imagine how unbelievably…adorable she would look in that tunic. The fact that it was much too big for her made it even more endearing. The image of her smooth shoulder, bared by the tunic falling down as she had leapt up to face him, stuck in his head and he found himself wondering what her skin felt like. He imagined that it would make the Zora tunic feel as prickly as a thornbush.
Gemyn was blushing furiously at her own stupidity as she folded each tunic into as tiny a square as she could make it and packed them tightly together into the saddlebags Link had brought. How could she have been so silly, trying on his clothes like a little girl playing dress-up? Link already thought her an immature little idiot, and then she had to go and do a thing like that!
She stopped suddenly, frowning. Why did she care what Link thought of her, anyway? She surely had no high opinion of him, after all. Well, we do have to travel together. It's not that I want him to like me, but of course it'll make things easier if he doesn't think I'm an idiot…so long as he doesn't think I was trying it on because I like him!
She refused to acknowledge any other reason for caring what Link thought of her. She had finished packing the clothes into the saddlebags, altogether pleased with herself; the wool of the tunics was thick and did not squash easily, yet she had managed to stuff everything into roughly half of the bag. She hefted the bags up, surprised at how heavy they were, and lugged them through the front door. Link had said to leave them on the landing; she was more than happy to. She did not fancy trying to haul them down the ladder all by herself when she could barely carry them on level flooring.
She dropped the bags as instructed and turned to cast a critical eye around the one-roomed house; everything was in order. The bed was made, the trunk had been shut and latched, and the fireplace was clean except for the Gerudo garment she had tossed in it. She didn't trust herself to make the flint work to light it; with her luck, she'd send sparks flying everywhere and burn the house down. Making a mental note to ask Saria to make sure it was burnt, she started out across the village in search of Link or Saria when she stopped dead, frowning. Ever so slowly, she turned back towards the tree house and gaped at what stood before her.
A beautiful mare with the reddest coat she had ever seen on a horse stood at the foot of the tree, saddled and bridled, looking at her with a curious glint in her big brown eyes. "Epona!" Gemyn breathed, stepping towards the mare. "But…we left you at Lake Hylia! How did you get here?" Epona whickered, tossing her head, and pranced backwards. Gemyn's breath caught; she had never cared much for horses before, but looking at Epona she understood why so many people considered horses beautiful and majestic. "I don't know if horses have royalty, but if they did you'd be a…a queen." Gemyn said slowly, then shook herself; she was talking to a horse. But Epona looked as if she understood, and lowered her head in what Gemyn could only consider a bow.
She stepped right up to Epona and held out her hand uncertainly; were horses like dogs? Did you have to let them sniff your hand? Link had said that the key to controlling a horse was confidence. The second they sensed you didn't know what you were doing, they'd take over and you would just be along for the ride. But Epona was so grand that Gemyn thought that she wouldn't want to control her. It wouldn't be right…it would be like trying to control Lia.
Epona chuffed at Gemyn's hand and moved her lips delicately over the outstretched palm, looking for a treat. "Oh," Gemyn said once she realized what Epona was doing. "I haven't got – I'll go get you something - " She dug in her pocket, coming up with a bit of cheese. Did horses eat cheese? Gingerly, she put the cheese in her palm as Link had shown her how to do. Epona sniffed at it somewhat suspiciously, then scooped it up with her soft lips and swallowed it. Delighted, Gemyn reached up and began stroking Epona's velvety nose. Epona closed one eye, enjoying the attention. She chuffed pleasedly.
After a moment, Gemyn pulled her hand away. "I've got to go find Link and Saria," she told the mare. "I'll be back – and I'll bring more cheese!" Epona neighed loudly, arching her neck. It was almost like she was telling Gemyn to hurry. Gemyn stumbled backwards away from Epona, not wanting to turn.
She caught sight of Saria outside of the village store, directing the Kokiri merchant to fill water skins and wrap up cheese, bread and dried meat. "Hello," Saria said as Gemyn came to a stop beside her. "All finished with the clothing?"
"Yes," Gemyn said, fighting the urge to blush. Surely Link wouldn't have told Saria how silly she'd been, trying on that tunic. "Where's Link?"
"He is at the smithy, getting a knife made for you." Saria replied.
Gemyn blinked. "A – a knife?" Surely she had heard Saria wrong.
"Yes, a knife." Saria repeated. "You cannot go wandering across Hyrule without some means of defending yourself.
"But I don't know anything about – about fighting!"
"Then you will learn," Saria said unfeelingly. "Gemyn, surely you did not expect that Link and Lia would look after you."
Gemyn was silent. She didn't want to admit it, but she supposed she had expected that they would do all of the killing, if killing needed to be done. She recalled with a shiver how Lia had dispatched those guards the night they'd escaped the Fortress; she could never do something like that! She couldn't even kill a spider, much less a person! "I have to go find Link," she said. Without waiting for a reply from Saria, she set off towards the smithy. Link was standing just inside with a dagger in his hands, discussing its merits with the blacksmith.
"Ah, Gemyn, there you are," Link said, turning to face her with the five-inch-long dagger in his hands. "This is for you."
Gemyn stared at the dagger, all of her misgivings firing up and making her feel dizzy. "I – I can't," she said slowly.
Link frowned. "What do you mean, you can't?"
"I've never killed anything before!" Gemyn wailed. "I can't carry a weapon! I don't even know how to use it!"
Link felt a smile forming at the corners of his mouth, and bit it down. "Gemyn, no one is expecting you to kill anyone," he said comfortingly. "But for you to go around without any protection whatsoever is not a good idea."
"But - "
"Gemyn, there are people in Hyrule who are looking for you. If something happens to me or Lia, or we get separated, do you really want to be left with no way to defend yourself?" Link asked. He could see Gemyn's face growing hard, and sighed inwardly. When she wanted to be stubborn, it was like trying to tell the sky not to be blue! "Just carry it. Use it, don't use it…whatever you want. But at least carry it, so you have the option to use it if you ever decide you want to. Please?"
Gemyn pursed her lips. She didn't want to admit it, but Link was right. Even though it would likely do her no good if someone tried to attack her when Link and Lia weren't around to help, it would be better than nothing. "Fine," she said, taking it from him. The handle had a nice feel to it, and the weight felt comfortable in her hand. "Where do I…?"
Link handed her a leather belt with a sheath. "Here," he said. "You wear this, and the knife goes in here."
Gemyn fastened the belt around her waist. The sheath rested just over her right hip, in perfect position for her to quickly and easily draw the knife. "Alright," she said, once the knife was safely stowed in its sheath. "I've packed up all the clothes - " she flushed ever so slightly at the word, and Link's raised eyebrow told her he had not missed it – "-and Saria has got meat and bread and cheese wrapped up for us, should we go fit it into the saddlebags?"
"Yes, let's." Link said his goodbyes to the blacksmith and followed Gemyn out of the smithy. She walked quickly, forcing him to lengthen his strides to catch up. "Look, Gemyn, are you really upset with me about this morning? I said I'm sorry."
Gemyn sighed. "It's fine," she said tersely. "I'm not mad. Let's just – get ready to go. I left the saddlebags on the landing, they were too heavy for me to lift down the ladder."
"That's fine," Link said. "I can do it. We'll bring Epona and the saddlebags to Saria instead of the other way around, it'll be easier."
They reached the tree house and Gemyn bounded forward to pet Epona. "Gemyn!" Link shouted. "Get away from her! She's very temperamental, she only lets me - " He stopped dead as Epona lowered her nose to Gemyn's outstretched hand and nibbled on it affectionately. "I'll be damned," he breathed. "Gemyn, how did you…?"
"How did I what?" Gemyn asked, stroking Epona's nose.
"Epona, she's so temperamental – she never lets anyone touch her except me!" Link spluttered.
Gemyn shrugged. "I didn't do anything. I just let her smell my hand, and then I gave her a bit of cheese I had in my pocket…"
Link shook his head, amazed at what he was seeing. "I'll…get the saddlebags." He scampered up the ladder, hefted the leather bags over his shoulder, and climbed carefully back down. "Step away for a moment while I fix these on," he instructed Gemyn, who complied silently. He threw the bags over Epona's back; Epona chuffed and moved around in irritation, but held still after her initial jump. Link lashed the saddlebags on tightly, then gave Epona a quick ear scratch. "Good girl," he said soothingly, and reached for her bridle to lead her off towards Saria.
"So how did she get here, anyway?" Gemyn asked, falling in step beside him.
Link hesitated; Gemyn did not seem to know much of magic, and what she had seen she didn't seem to believe. "My ocarina," he said finally. "It can…do things. Like how it transported us here, from the Fortress?" Gemyn nodded, her eyes on him. "I can use it to call Epona to me, wherever I am. So even though I left her at Lake Hylia when we left for the Fortress, I can call her to me with my ocarina."
Gemyn digested this. It seemed rather far-fetched; she wasn't even sure she believed his tale about using his ocarina, or whatever it was called, to bring them to the Kokiri Forest. If Lia hadn't corroborated his story, she probably would have outright accused him of making it up. Still, this was a strange world…maybe magic did exist. The Gerudos could certainly use it, in any case. And it would certainly explain how she had been transported from the barn to the middle of the desert in the blink of an eye.
Then something occurred to her. She frowned. "So, if you can use your ocarina to transport us, why do we have to walk to this mountain?"
"We're going to Kakariko Village," Link corrected. "There's a transportation pedestal in the Death Mountain Crater, but it's so hot up there we'd die in seconds. We're going to go to the Gorons first to get you and Lia tunics – did you see my red one, when you were packing? It will protect you from the worst of the heat up there. But without them, there's no point in transporting the three of us up there if you're just going to die in thirty seconds."
"So what about Kakariko Village, then?" Gemyn persisted. "Isn't there a spot there we could transport to?"
"I – no," Link said tightly, not looking at her. He was lying; she was sure of it. Her scowl deepened.
"Why are you lying to me?" she demanded.
"I'm not lying!" Link flared, flipping his golden hair out of his eyes and turning to look at her with his piercing blue eyes. "Don't you think if there was a transport point in Kakariko Village, I would have suggested we use it instead of bothering with all this?"
"Not if you didn't think of it and didn't want to admit it," Gemyn countered.
Link turned ever so slightly pink. "I'm not that prideful," he said scathingly. "There's no transport point in Kakariko Village. End of discussion!" They had reached Saria. She looked at Link and Gemyn with coolly quizzical eyes, but said nothing to indicate she had heard their argument.
"I've put together enough food to last you three days," she said, gesturing to the meat and cheese wrapped in waxy leaf paper sitting on a large stump beside her. "It should hardly take you that long to reach Kakariko Village, but just in case…." Four large water skins slumped on the ground beside the stump as well.
"Thank you, Saria." Link said, already stuffing food into the saddlebags. "I can't tell you how much this means to us."
"Yes," came Lia's voice, and the three turned to find Lia standing beside Epona, looking as strong and healthy as she ever did. "Saria, you have done so much for us. I will not forget your kindness." She knelt at Saria's feet in the Gerudo gesture of obedience, forehead brushing the grass. "I am in your debt."
"Rise, Lia," Saria said gently. "I will not allow you to bow to me. You are not a slave here, but an equal among equals."
Lia straightened with more grace than Gemyn had in her little finger. She felt like one of the lumpy, bulging saddlebags in comparison. Saria was holding out golden leaves to each of them. "These proclaim you as kindred to the Kokiri," she said. "None will bar you entry or exit to the Forest so long as you have this." She pressed one of the leaves into Gemyn's hand and smiled at her. "You are welcome in the Forest so long as I am the Sage here," she promised. There was no golden leaf for Link; Gemyn supposed he already had one. Sure enough, she spied a golden leaf pinned to his cloak. She imitated him, as did Lia.
"Thank you," Gemyn said awkwardly. How did she say goodbye to someone that she had spent so much time steadily disliking? "I – I know I haven't always been very – nice to you…but…thank you."
They began a slow procession towards the bridge that led out of the Forest; Link went first, holding tight to Epona's bridle, followed by Gemyn and Lia. Saria walked behind them, and the rest of the Kokiri behind her. It was like a parade; everyone following, yelling and shouting goodbyes and waving frantically. They stepped onto the bridge, and the Kokiri stayed behind, continuing to call goodbyes. As they reached the other side, Gemyn turned for one last look at the Forest: Saria stood at the front of the crowd, one hand raised in a peaceful salute.
Then there was a flash of sunlight and they were out of the Forest, standing on a hard-packed dirt path with rolling green hills spreading out before them.
"We head northeast," Link said, pointing. "With luck, we'll reach the river by nightfall. That's where we'll camp."