THIRTY-SEVEN

PEN, TO PAGE, TO PALM

Paya, of the Sheikah Tribe

I know my body, and I know my mind. I strengthen my mind, and my body will follow. I obey my thoughts, and my body falls in line.

The grass is cool under me, and the only sounds I can hear are the rustlings of the other creatures up early, and birds waiting patiently for dawn in the trees.

I should be listening to nothing. That is the key to a good meditation: hearing but not listening, sensing but not feeling, thinking but not…observing? No, wait: observing but not thinking! Now I can feel my brow furrow, and I try to smooth my expression back to neutral. Why is it so easy to get distracted while there is supposedly nothing around to distract me?

I remain aware of my own body, and of the tranquillity… and now acutely aware that I need to use the toilet.

I sigh through my nose. I will stay sitting here for a bit, as it's such a nice morning, but my will to meditate is long gone. I wonder if Grandmother ever had this problem. She must have done, although she'd never readily admit it.

I don't even hear the intrusion, I sense it, just as I have given up. The quiet morning atmosphere suddenly changes, and a presence other than birds and beasts is here, close to me. Mother and Grandmother always said that my sense of perception is quite keen, but it runs about like a chased deer: I can tell when something has changed, but the feeling is so overwhelming that I lose myself in it, and cannot manage to see anything clearer than a hazard in the future. The worst episode came a few years ago when I fainted dead away for seemingly no reason: but how could I tell Grandmother that I felt a knife move across my throat when I was simply carrying a tea tray downstairs to dinner?

Focus, I tell myself, and I can suddenly feel that clarity that Grandmother tries to urge me into, even though I didn't intend to reach it. The presence moves closer, even though I cannot hear the light footsteps in the grass. My restless muscles become like steel girders of a great building, no longer buzzing with anticipation but steady and unwavering. When I can stand it no longer, I rise swiftly from my kneeling pose, turn around, and firmly grasp the outstretched hand of the young man, just as he is about to tap me gently upon the shoulder.

Aha! I almost cry in triumph, but instead I break into a beaming smile.

"Paya," Link breathes, relaxing himself. "Oh, you startled me."

"You would have startled me," I tease, "had you tapped me on the shoulder like that, without announcing yourself."

"I thought you were meditating," he says, keeping hold of my hand, but lowering it. He grips it tightly, I notice.

"I was. Or rather, I was trying to."

He smells of the wilderness. I can feel leather under my palm, and I lift his hand to inspect it: he lets me, but looks away as if he is ashamed to see my reaction as I slide the worn leather glove off. Underneath, there is a tighter gauntlet, covering his palm. Even in pale moonlight, I can see ghost-like scar tissue like layers of rice paper over muscles that he has clearly built back up from nothing. A few red pock-marks, but he has taken great care.

"The gauntlets and gloves are a very wise idea," I say, trying not to sound too pushy.

"I chopped wood," he explains, still looking at the trees. I see him swallow a lump in his throat. "I did a few months of labour at the stables, and then as soon as I could walk and lift an axe, I chopped logs. Then I felled trees and pulled them back to the stables."

He is taller, I suddenly notice. That was why I noticed him swallowing: I am now at throat-level with him. How very strange.

"You look stronger," I tell him, trying to keep any trace of admiration out of my voice. The last thing he needs to think is that I am a silly girl, still fawning over him!

"Thank you. I do feel it," he says, finally looking at me. There are scratches and marks all about his face and neck, no doubt souvenirs from his life of manual labour. "I know you don't really approve of my dramatic exit, and you're right, but I needed to know what it meant to start over again."

I just nod at him: I don't know what else to do. I'm certainly in no position to scold him again. His eyes are bright, but there is something in his expression that tells me he might have been kind to his body but not necessarily to his heart.

"Your letters kept me going," he says, as I re-tie his gauntlet and hand him his glove. They are simple woodcutter's gloves that he appears to have softened, shrunk down and cut most of the fingers away: he could still draw a bow, or do something as fine as shred a needle or gut a fish, but without compromising his damaged skin.

"I'm just glad you received them. I'm sorry there weren't many," I explain, praying for the blush on my cheeks to clear up as quickly as it appeared. "Things have been lively here in the village, would you believe."

"How is everyone?" Link asks.

"Quite well," I lie. "Business as usual."

But as I look away towards the hills, I can feel my eyes filling up, and my lips starting to move of their own accord until my mouth is like a drawn bow.

"Paya? Is everything alright?" Link takes both of my hands and squeezes them gently. "What's going on?"

I take a few breaths and compose myself while he waits patiently. "It is a time of great change," I say steadily, echoing Grandmother's own words, as she becomes gradually more like a statue of her own self, a ghost standing in her own clothing.

"Will you stay?" I find myself asking. "I'll sneak you into the village for tonight. Nobody will tell anyone where you are, I swear it. Not even Grandmother. I think she would find your presence most reassuring."

"Of course," he answers, after his bright pupils dance back and forth a few times: no doubt he is quickly recalculating his own plans, or is maybe fearful that he will be reported to the Princess.

"You have come directly from the stables?" I ask quickly. "Did you happen to see…"

"Yes, I-" he begins, unsure what next to say. "I see that the Princess has been hard at work."

"She needs villagers," I press on. "More importantly, she needs a Castle Town Guard, now that her bodyguard has left her." It is not scolding, I tell myself, more of a gentle reminder that he cannot shirk his responsibilities forever. To my surprise, he laughs politely into his hand.

"Come on. I'm not a soldier any more," he says, with half a smile. "I'm a menial labourer."

"Can I ask how you made a living?" I ask.

He looks at me with a puzzled expression. "Like I said, I towed logs for the stables."

"And...?" I urge, making an overexaggerated gesture of looking down at his sword. "That's a weapon that doesn't look like it got an awful lot of rest. And you look well fed and equipped for a man on a menial labour wage, if you don't mind me saying."

He has new clothes: a longer tunic in a shade of dark blue, which would have been too long on the Link I last saw leaving for Gerudo, and a quiver full of arrows which someone recovering from hand injuries could not have made themselves. He lets go of me and gently unsheathes the sword, resting it across both hands: it seems to glow ethereally in the moonlight.

"The first time I unsheathed the sword," he explains, "I heard a voice. Deku Tree's voice. Sounds strange, doesn't it?"

Not really, I think, knowing of the sword's origin from my studies, but I remain patiently quiet while he tells his story.

"I went to the forest, and returned the sword to its pedestal… and I was immediately stripped of everything I was carrying, and placed into what I thought was a shrine." He sheathes the sword again. "I faced everything with nothing. Bokoblin gangs, a Talus, those irritating Lizalfos… all to gain back my sword."

"And your strength?" I offer.

He nods. "And my strength. When I got the sword back, it seemed more powerful. Easier to wield. I felt like I could return to some of the things I once knew. When I got back to the stable where Khalil waited for me, there was a group of people loudly debating how to deal with a band of problematic Bokoblins which were terrorising travellers and the stable's patrons. I just strolled up to them and before I knew what I was doing, I offered my help."

I can't help but smile at him, and after a second or two, he smiles back. "I killed them, and then the stable owner paid me more for that little job than he paid me for a month of hauling logs."

"So," I say through my smile, "you know what that means? You're a knight again, Master Link."

Link scoffs, and hangs his head, as I knew he would. I sling my pack around my hip, and as he watches with his lowered eyes, I uncover the gift I had not planned to give him yet. I open the bound book to its first few yellowed pages and read directly from the text:

"After the first foundry of Guards, during times of peace and civility, a Knight not directly serving palatial duty would patrol the nearby countryside and find semi-permanent posts in nearby villages and towns." I look up, and find his head raised as he listens. "Those who did not mind an unsheltered life would travel from outpost to outpost, and assist villagers, travellers and other townsfolk in return for meals, safe board, or sometimes a small payment in kind."

I shut the book with a satisfying thump, and balance my hand on my hip. "See? And didn't you do all of that before, when you had nobody to guard?"

"What's that book?" He asks, neatly dodging my statement, and bending to read the spine. I toss it towards him and he catches it in both arms and studies the cover.

"Now that you've recovered your strength," I say coolly, "perhaps after a while, it would be good for you to read this. It's the Charter of Knights, leading right up to just before the Calamity."

"Just before…" His lips mime the rest of the sentence as realisation dawns, and he suddenly flips the book over and rifles through the pages from the back of the book. I begin to fret: maybe I shouldn't have shown him this just yet. Grandmother doesn't even know it is missing from her library, though the way she is at the moment, I could have walked past her carrying the book completely stark naked, and she wouldn't have even spotted the first thing. He finds a page and runs a trembling finger down it, and then lets out a noise halfway through a cry and a gasp that startles us both, and nearly makes him drop the book.

He comes to my side and lifts the book into the moonlight, so I can see where his finger rests, within the last few chapters of a section near the back where there is a small diagram of a family of Knights.

"Arne of Hyrule," he says, as urgently as if it is a secret password or a magic spell. "Captain. Captain Arne of Hyrule."

The book wobbles in his hand. "My Father, Paya. That's my Father: Captain Arne of Hyrule."

I place my arm about his waist, as he looks like he needs help keeping himself up. One of his knees buckles, but he quickly corrects his posture. "And look," he says, lowering his finger to the two boxes below: "Master Arul - look, my brother - and Mas-"

"-Master Link of Hyrule," I finish for him.

With a fluid motion, he shuts the book and clutches it to his chest, before clutching me, too: the book lays between us as I feel my head nestle into the crook of his neck, and hear his ragged breathing. I can hear his heart beating, and smell his natural scent under the scent of pine sap, river water and sweat. Just mere months ago I would have died at the thought of him clinging to me like this. I thought I would never want him to hold me unless he was holding me like a lover does, but now, I feel a strange feeling of accomplishment, satisfaction, sheer happiness.

"Thank you," he whispers shakily. "Thank you, Paya."

"Will you stay here a while?" I ask again, and I feel him nod as he exhales warmly into the crown of my head, and squeezes me tighter. The book presses almost painfully against me. "And then you'll go and see the new town, won't you?"

"I promise," he says, and then he lets me go. I feel the absence of him, cold as a bitter night breeze. He wipes his face roughly with his hand, and then tucks the book under the crook of his arm. "Come on. I'll walk you back to the village. Will the inn accept me this early?"

"You'll stay with us," I say in no uncertain terms. His lips part, but as he sees my expression, he wisely forgets his argument.

"Thank you. I'd love to stay."

We begin to walk slowly, side by side, back to my village. The only person that is awake to meet us is Dorian: he cannot hide his relief at the sight of Link, and he holds his emotions in as long as he possibly can. Link stops in front of him and bows low, and to my surprise, Dorian grips his hand in both of his and shakes it vigorously. I head up the stairs to give both men a moment, trying not to listen to their brief conversation, and instead wondering if Grandmother will have even remembered to shut her eyes in her sleep tonight. She no longer takes to bed, just sits there facing the door as always like an extension of her own stool, or like an ornate pillow. I hear Link take the stairs two at a time to catch up with me. He has wisely stowed the book in his pack.

"A quick word, Link," I say, placing my hand upon his arm. "Grandmother is…not what you may remember."

"Oh," mouths Link quietly. "Is she unwell?"

In the absence of words, I sigh through my nose and place my hand on the door, sliding it gently open and expecting the image of my almost comatose Grandmother perched on her stool to speak for itself.

I did not expect to see her the other side of the door, standing on her own two feet as if she had not been sitting in the same spot for the past three months, driving us all to the brink of despair. She is holding a teapot in one hand and a bowl of steaming tea in the other, and she raises the cup towards Link with a faint smile.

"Good morning, Master Link. So nice of you to visit. Tea?"

Thanks all for your support. Rewrites are more necessary and therefore taking longer than expected! I will however keep going, bolstered by all of your dedication!