Hello good readers! This'uns a big one, and gave me no end of trouble.
As of now, this story has 411 reviews, 46,000 hits, 157 favs, 168 alerts, and 8 C2s. Wow!
Anyways, please enjoy.
Inspired by Ocarina of Time.
Chapter Thirty-Five: Of Grassbow
"Warm wind blowing over the earth
Sky blue
I sing through the land, the land sings through me
Sky blue
Reaching into the deepest shade of
Sky blue
Sky blue
So tired of all this travelling
So many miles away from home
I keep moving to be stable
Free to wander, free to roam"
(Sky Blue ~ Peter Gabriel)
Link was quickly grateful for his decision to buy Deste – for all too soon the scrub and prairie of the Plains turned into steep, featureless grassland. He and his horse were climbing the massive, grassy ridge that marked the highest point of the Central Hyrulean Plains. Link and Deste struggled up the rocky path to the flat surface of the verdant mesa's top, and gasped when he saw Grassbow looming at the edge of the horizon.
The city itself was a blocky mass of red-brown buildings, nothing special, except for the towering windmills that topped every single block, slowly turning with the strong wind that blew over the long mesa. The sails of the windmills varied in size, shape, and color, but most were white rectangles, four sails to each tower. It was breath-taking.
As he grew closer, Link could hear the grinding groan of the sails turning over the sound of the wind singing through the tall golden grass. Grassbow was contained by four walls, a wind tower in each corner of the square barrier. He got in line to enter the city, avoiding the gaze of the gatekeepers by mingling himself into a train of farmer's carts.
The streets of Grassbow weren't as crowded as Mudwater's had been. Nothing, of course, could compare to the bustle of the Capitol. Mud bricks seemed to be the local choice for building material – there were few stone quarries in the Plains, and trees were completely absent from the mesa tablelands near and around Grassbow. What little wood was available was reserved for the sails of the windmills. Within Grassbow, were some of the largest mills in all Hyrule. Much of the Plain's grain was ground in this city, almost entirely by wind power.
Link idly found his way to a few supply shops, where he replenished his stock of water-purifying powder, arrow-fletchings, hard biscuits, and dried fruit. Around Second Worship the crowd faded to a few dregs of unbelievers. As the bells of the local cathedral began to ring, Link found a clean space in a courtyard set aside for stall keepers and travelers, and prostrated himself on the swept rock bricks, slowly counting the seconds until the ending bell rang, so as not to truly pray. The cathedral rang the end of the prayer, and daily life resumed.
Link enjoyed a tomato and cheese melted sandwich for lunch, followed by a skewer of grilled sour chicken from a vendor. A cheap mug of tea satisfied his need for a pick-me-up, and then he went around the city looking for a good tavern to stay the night at. He found one a few streets down from the traveler's prayer square, by the name of the Fat Pony. With those reservations made, and Deste properly stabled and fed, he explored the city looking for some kind of entertainment to last until nightfall.
Entertainment came in the form of a crowd around the mouth of a theatre. Intrigued, Link let himself be drawn in. Large posters were pasted to the walls outside the small theatre, declaring –
Milltown Theatre!
featuring
Willam Firstman:
actor
storyteller
genius extraordinaire!
To be followed by a jig from the performers the Wheat Uppers.
That seemed a bit much for a two-bit player, thought Link, but he paid the twenty rupee entrance fee, then a second, ten-rupee charge so he could actually sit on a chair rather than stand on the ground amongst the groundlings – who, he had heard, were a rather rowdy crowd.
Those same groundlings were getting impatient and more and more loud, when a brightly clad man strode onto the narrow, warped stage.
"Belay it all, be quiet, you culture-less, incoherent imbeciles!" He roared, and the packed theatre went silent. "Silence is needed now, my friends. Silence." The actor said silkily, "Only with silence, can you hear the stars sing, hear the whispers of the world under your feet. Only with silence, my good people, can you hear the story that I, Willam Firstman, will tell to you now."
Here the supposed Willam Firstman bowed to the crowd, with an articulate flourish of his feather hat. "Few have not heard of me – when the Goddesses first created the world, I was the first mortal to walk its ground, to sample its many delights. Only once I proved myself did they create more. When I had a son, I passed my name down to him. My father was Willam Firstman, just as I am, as my son is as well. I am one of many, all, and alone. Mine is an old tradition, an old craft. So do not fear – my words are true.
"Today, I tell the tale of King Harkinian the Great! The first Hyrulean King, the builder of our mighty country."
A thousand years ago, a son was born to the Hylian king Handen, who ruled the mountain reaches north of Arryn. The babe was no firstborn son – no, he was the second child of king Handen's third wife, the fifth son to bear the king's blood. Those were ancient days, when many men wed multiple wives, if they could afford it. The old king named his son Harkinian, and bestowed upon him the title of baron and the inheritance of Hag's Peak Valley, a land of high, hanging valleys and tarns. So young Harkinian spent his childhood in the castle in Hightop Valley, the center of Handen's mountain kingdom. He was a bright lad, quick with the sword and sharp-eyed with the bow. Oh, how his mother Gedasa loved him! Harkinian was raised in the manner of the mountain elves – strictly in tune with nature – in ways we Hylians have long lost to generations of flatlanders, but for those hoary tribes still roaming the Curled Backbones. Imagine! A whole way of life lost to the descendants of those who dared climb down from the cloud and rock of the heights!
Pale-haired, Harkinian was, hair as pale as raw silk, and dark-eyed enough to see no difference between pupil and iris. Many a warrior was unnerved by those unfathomable eyes! Unusually tall and broad shouldered, he was, a giant of a man.
He took over the ruling-seat of Hag's Peak when he reached his majority at sixteen, but the valley was nothing but rock, clinging shrubs, and the huts of the valley people he ruled. Bitter and dry was the wind that blew through those perilous heights, and empty were the bellies of the serfs in even the best of times. In the lean times even Harkinian hunted in the wilds for a goat or sheep to grace his table at suppertime. He went up to the shrine on Hag's Peak, to a soothsayer to find if this was what his life was to be, and the old man – a venerable hermit, told him to accept his lot in life, to find a wife and settle down and live among the rocks of the gravelly mountain pass through which no travelers no longer journeyed.
So young Harkinian bowed his head at the man's wisdom, walking down the mountain slowly, his future weighing heavily on his shoulders. As he went down towards the valley, a wind blew the clouds away from between the teeth of the mountains, and Harkinian saw the green and browns of the flatlands, stretching out for miles. Those rich colors entranced the young baron, who was so used to the blues and greys of the shade in the mountain passes.
He hungered for that land, with its rich possibilities, and made his mind up there and then. He would not accept his lot in life, he would not find a woman of the mountains to marry. He would not settle down.
So he returned to Hag's Peak Valley, and mustered everyone who would go to the flatlands. He left a deputy to rule in his place. When the snow had finally melted in the high passes, Harkinian and his subjects climbed down from the mountains, heading south.
They climbed down, and down, and down. Finally, at the base of the mountains, they made camp and spent the night there. This place they named Flatland, just as it is known as now. The party of fifty made their way to the banks of the Zora River, where they were able to live off the land far easier than they had in the mountains. It finally dawned upon Harkinian's subjects that this was their new home – and they began to build a settlement, naming it Riversbank.
But the flatlands were not entirely unoccupied – the mountain people had wandered into the territory of the Fire Birds, a Sheikah tribe. At first it seemed that the Fire Birds might wage war on the growing little settlement, but Harkinian managed to parlay his way to the leader of the tribe - Halkan. A wager was struck – if Harkinian could defeat the strongest warrior in the Fire Birds, the mountain elves could stay in Riversbank, so long as they sent warriors to fight with the tribe when war came around. Harkinian agreed, fought, and won with ease.
Harkinian was not happy merely joining the tribe. He wanted to run the tribe itself. With Halkan growing older, Harkinian began to woo the stern, steel-haired Ganhala, daughter of the tribe leader. She spurned him, saying he was not warrior enough for her. He began to bring her game, flowers from the river, carved ivory jewelry. Ganhala again asked him why he was bothering her so. When he protested his love to her, his strength, she bid him to build her a war lodge, finer than those of the Fire Birds. He agreed, and built a lodge from dogwood and willow. But still Ganhala would not submit. She told Harkinian to lead a war party and defeat the Sick Wolves, the Ten Hand's neighbor and enemy, and take over their territory. So he gathered together a party of both tribesmen and his own warriors and waged war on the Sick Wolves until they pled for mercy and willingly joined the Fire Birds.
Ganhala was waiting for Harkinian when he returned. Again he asked for her hand. Again she refused! Thank the Goddesses women these days know their place! But in those days, the Sheikah valued women just as much as their men.
Harkinian asked what he must do next, and she told him he must go into the forest, and find the great tree held sacred by Farore, clearly marked by the feather tassels that decorated it, and make a sacrifice of a young goat, burnt on the rock below the great roots, as a holocaust to the patron Goddess of the Sheikah. Harkinian chose a firstborn kid, and led it into the forest. Between the man and the tree ran a deep stream. Harkinian swam halfway across the wide, fat creek when a whirlpool formed close to where he floated. In his haste to get away, he let go of the rope connected to the goat sacrifice, and the animal was sucked in. Harkinian managed to escape, but his sacrifice was lost. He did not know that that whirlpool was sacred to the Goddess Nayru. Thus, instead of earning Farore's favor, he won the interest of Nayru the Blue. With his sacrifice gone, he took his bow and shot down a hind to replace the kid he had lost in the stream, and burnt it at the rock Ganhala had described. Then he returned to Riversbank to speak to Ganhala once more.
"When," Harkinian said to her, "Will all I have done for you be enough? I have fought for you, built the lodge you live in, hunted for you, and burnt sacrifices to your patron Goddess. I will not wait any longer."
"Cross the river and make peace with the Ten Hands, my uncle's tribe, and I will be satisfied." Ganhala said, so off Harkinian went to parlay with the Ten Hands, his war party following him. When that was over, he saw that the land the Ten Hands lived in was even richer than that of the Fire Birds, and determined to take it for his own one day. Rather than return right away, he ventured east beyond the lands of the Ten Hands, into the land around present-day Stonewall. He and his men walked beyond the foothills, and saw the vast green and gold expanse of the Plains. From where he stood, Harkinian could see a mighty foothill rising above all the others, so large the Zora River curled around it rather than carve through it.
Now, Harkinian liked his life in the flatlands. Life was better, hunting easier, the climes warmer and more temperate. But he was mountain-bred, and still attributed safety to high ground. He desired that steep-sloped hill as much as he had the flatlands, but knew that now was not the time to take it for himself. Instead, he returned victorious to Ganhala once more.
She was waiting for him on the mountain's side of the river, clad in bridal yellow, Sheikah colors. Harkinian crossed the river, and she took him into her arms.
"Woman," he said, "I have done all you have told me to. Will you wed me?"
"I keep my oaths." She said, "I will marry you, and bear your children, and rule when you are away."
They returned to Riversbank, where the people threw wheat grains over their heads for a fruitful marriage. They did not have tattoos carved into their hands, as was traditional among the Sheikah and still is for those few left. Ganhala took Harkinian into the lodge he had built for her, and there they were wed. As was traditional for Sheikah and elf alike, the newly weds spent the next week in the lodge of dogwood and willow. Their neighbors and friends cooked their meals for them, and each brought them a useful present for their married life.
When the week was over, Harkinian began training the warriors of the Fire Birds harder than he had before. By then, he was known as the best war captain in the tribe, so the warriors followed him without question. With the permission of Halkan, the leader of the Fire Birds and the father of Ganhala, Harkinian took half of the tribe's fighters south across the Zora River to the Shadestall region at the base of the Southwestern Backbones, and handily conquered the Shade people there. Harkinian returned victorious, and found that the leader Halkan had passed away in the weeks the elvish conqueror had been gone. He found his home burnt to the ground, and his place at the council fire fouled. Ganhala he found safe, and he discovered that in his absence the boastful, purist Tiernan had taken over. Tiernan had been jealous of Harkinian's feats and power. He was especially angered that Harkinian, who was not Sheikah, had such influence in the tribe.
Well! There was nothing else to do! Harkinian thought to rally his men to him, slay Tiernan and his followers, and take the leader's seat. The night before he was going to act, in a rough shed he'd built for the night, the goddess Nayru came to him, warning that to take violent action against Tiernan was to face his own defeat. Instead she told him what he must do.
The next morning he woke Ganhala, telling her,
"In two days you will make your venison stew, and wheat cakes. Dress in your finest gown, go to his house, and offer the food, then yourself to Tiernan. As he eats, serve him wine made from rose hips. His body sees roses and their fruit as poison. In this way we will triumph."
"So we must win only through trickery?" Ganhala asked, and Harkinian replied,
"I have done many things for you. It is time for you to obey your husband, wife." At this the woman grew angry.
"I did it because I knew you could be great if you were pressed into action. And I was right. My reasons were sound." She said. Harkinian sighed, and kissed her then.
"And so are my reasons. Ganhala, you must do this."
"Very well." She said, and began making the preparations for the meal she would seduce Tiernan with. Harkinian went out that day and shot down a fat doe. Ganhala stewed the meat with herbs, roots, and tubers. She baked golden wheat cakes, and studded them with dried cranberries. Then she bartered her favorite shawl for a skin of rose hip wine. Finally, Ganhala bathed, braided her hair, and put on a woad-blue dress.
She went to Tiernan's door, and asked to be let in, which he did willingly, for she was beautiful for a Sheikah woman, and he had lusted after her. Harkinian's wife spoke flatteringly to him, and bid him eat of the food she had brought. When he grew thirsty, she poured him a cup of rose hip wine. Tiernan drank a sip, then asked her,
"What wine is this?"
"It is fruit wine." She replied.
"Not rose hip wine?" He asked with suspicion, and she raised her hands.
"As you can see, my hands are not scratched from rose thorns. Besides, it is the season for wild cherries, not rose hips." That satisfied him, and he began to drink greedily.
At last the poison came over him, and with a gasp and a mighty shudder, he slipped into the hands of cold death. Ganhala smiled, and ate the rest of the stew as he died. When she was certain he was truly dead, she took his sword from his belt, and cut off his head.
This is why people today say, when a woman rejects a man's advances, he has 'been served rose hip wine.'
So Harkinian became leader of the Fire Birds.
He began to make changes quickly, using more and more elvish customs than he had when Ganhala's father had lived. He named himself King, and named the Fire Bird's territory Arryn, for the name of the star sign he had been born under. King Harkinian then sent a message to Ganhala's uncle, who led the Ten Hands across the river.
'I am determined to make the Ten Hands' territory my own. I am a strong leader – the Sick Wolves chose to join with me rather than fight, the Shade people fell under my army's might. You yourself have lost to me, but you are family, so I will warn you now, that if your men do not surrender to my forces when they come, you too will fall under their blades.'
Ganhala's uncle chose to fight, and then the Ten Hands tribe was no more.
By this time, Harkinian was thirty, and his kingdom covered all of present-day Arryn. He battled his way back to the great foothill he desired so much, and standing at its base, he turned pleased eyes on the summit, and with his people, began to climb to the top. At the crown of the hill, he built his castle in the style of the mountain elves, and named it 'High Rule.'
Back in Riversbank, Ganhala gave birth to a son, and in her husband's absence, named the boy Harkinian the Second. When the last stones were set and the mortar dry in the castle walls at High Rule, Harkinian sent for Ganhala and his son, and housed them safely in the new fortress.
His kingdom established and his ambitions satisfied but not yet run dry, he sent a letter of regal greeting to King Handen of Hightop Valley, his father. The reply, months later made it clear that while the King Handen did not wish to exert power over the distasteful flatlands, some of Harkinian's elder brothers did not feel the same, and felt that family land, new or not, should go to the heirs of the line, not the youngest son. Handen closed the letter with his pride in his long-absenced son, and a warning that Harkinian's brothers Palen and Arlenian might be making a ill-intentioned visit in the future.
So Harkinian began to further fortify his castle at High Rule, and the city Riversbank, as well as the more important towns in Arryn.
Ganhala grew with child yet again, and birthed Handen the Third, in honor of Harkinian's father. Harkinian wished to conquer more of the land east of High Rule, and rather than wait to see if his brothers would attack, decided to go ahead with his plans despite it all.
"After all," He said to Ganhala, "First they must gather their armies, and winter is still heavy in the mountains. They will have to wait until summer, when supplies are available. They would not beggar their own armies like that, and they are not used to flatland life." Harkinian prudently did not reach too far, however, and only expanded north to the base of the mountains above High Rule, and a little further south, towards the Plains.
A season went by, summer came. And no envious brothers came to knock at High Rule's door. Palen's army miraculously perished in a freak blizzard in late March. Arlenian took this as a sign that the Goddesses were on Harkinian's side, and called off his soldier's preparations to march down into the flatlands. Ganhala bore twin girls – Linalda and Denisla, and Harkinian expanded his kingdom west to present day Patcheem.
Years passed, Ganhala had two more sons, Danal and Trenalan. Unlike his father, Harkinian did his best to instill loyalty into his sons, towards their father, and towards each other. Ganhala continued to run the household with a hand as steely as her hair. Late in her motherly cycle, she gave birth to a final child – Angres.
In that year, Harkinian made several sacrifices to Nayru to give thanks for Ganhala's continued health despite her advanced age and such a difficult birth. Finally, Nayru came down from the sky to ask what Harkinian wanted after making such a tribute to her. Harkinian pled with the Goddess to become his kingdom's patron goddess.
Now back then, such a thing was unheard of. Each individual might have a different goddess who favored them, with the exception of Din, who jealously adored the Gerudo people, and them alone.
Nayru thought long and hard over whether to grant his request. Harkinian waited three days until she made her decision, and there, at the wooded base of the hill at High Rule, Nayru became the patron of the kingdom which was then called High Rule, but is now Hyrule. Her choice made, she departed from that small clearing in the woods, and upon that spot where she rose back into the sky, Harkinian Hyrule began to build a mighty temple in her honor, which would be completed by his grandson, King Harkinian the Third.
Years passed, Hyrule's borders ever growing, and finally Ganhala passed away one frosty winter morn. In his grief, Harkinian stepped down from the throne and let his son Harkinian the Second take the crown in his place. The great king retired to the Rosethorn estate, which had been a favorite escape for Ganhala, where he lived out the rest of his days, loved and respected by all who did not fear him.
And so, with his death, comes the end of this story, a tale of the father of our country, a leader, a lover, a pious man who secured Nayru's grace for all Hylians! Think hard and fondly when you recall the legend of King Harkinian the Great! I bid you all a fair day and a silent night!
Willam Firstman bowed, then slid offstage as the second act whirled onstage, four dancers in frayed costumes doing a jig to music played from somewhere behind the theatre's skene. As the audience began to clap in time with the jig, Link slipped out of the crowd, out of the theatre, and into the streets, where he wandered until his belly announced its hunger. He bought a meat-and-steamed-sprout bun from a vendor, eating thoughtfully.
So that was the great forefather of the Hylian conquerors? So that was the bloodthirsty, ambitious soul who could not be satisfied with a decent living? It was an entertaining tale to be true, but Link suddenly pitied the Sheikah whose lands Harkinian the Great had taken for his own. They too had been cast out, possessions and lives ripped asunder. If that legend was common knowledge, why then did the pale-haired, ruby-eyed shadow people bow their heads and pledge loyalty to the descendants of such a brutal legacy?
It made no sense to the boy. Link knew what he would choose – defiance over subservience.
Slowly, he came back to himself, the multitudinous creaking of the windmills drawing out awe and wonder over pensiveness.
He took a deep breath, and found his way back to his lodgings.
1. I have big plans for Kakariko – so big I took the Windmill alone and made a city out of it.
2. Hyrule was in the end of its bronze-age when Harkinian ruled. Hyrule was formed two thousand years ago, and Harkinian ruled about twelve hundred years ago. There was a technology setback when the races of Hyrule took shelter in the small country and walled it off from the world.
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