"This is it," Link said excitedly. He pushed aside a few more
leaves, and just like a scene from a book, the city of the Kokiri opened up
before them. Well, it wasn't really a city, Link thought; he only liked to
think of it that way. The settlement that lay before him had only five or
six houses, and one store. But, he thought stubbornly, it was home.
Except it wasn't where his house was. He gave up on this mental debate and
stepped onto the dirt path, beckoning for Zelda to squeeze in behind him.
All at once, ten or twenty children (whoalltalkedreallyreallyexcitedlikethis) spotted them and ran over to them. "LINK!!" They all chorused in unison before beginning with a flurry of other questions ("How are ya?" "Where have you been?" "Who's she?" "She's pretty!" "I thought you were engaged to Malon!" "How tall is Death Mountain?"). Link heard Zelda giggle a little bit behind him. He smiled himself. "Hey everybody," he said.
The citizens of Kokiri Village fell silent for a fragment of a second, then started up again louder than ever. "Yeah, yeah, it's good to see you too," he tried to calm everyone down, but it was to no avail. He turned, and Zelda was now laughing out loud. "They're so charming!" She explained.
"Okay, okay, everybody CALM DOWN!!" The hero cried. The chatter ceased after a second or two and Link could talk freely. "I am here only for a few days, at the most! I came to get my weapons!"
"Oooh, your weapons, what do ya need those for?"
"There were Moblins attacking the castle a few nights ago"—The Kokiri, who particularly had it in for Moblins, gasped—"and I am going to find out why."
"All by yourself? Isn't that a little risky?"
Zelda looked at him as if to say, "Isn't that what I said?" Link scowled at her and said to the Kokiri, "I am sure that I—we!—will be fine!"
The children were silent for a moment. "Well, whatever you say Link." "Yeah, we're sure you made the best decision." Then the crowd dispersed. Link thought he could hear someone saying "I get his sword!" As they left, but decided to ignore it.
"Come on, this way," he said to Zelda, doing his best not to show defeat. They didn't speak until they reached Link's house. He stabled Epona and filled her trough, and Zelda hobbled Odin nearby in the clearing, and then went into the house. He patted the palomino's broad forehead before continuing inside of his cabin.
Zelda was sitting on a chair. "Maybe," she slowly began when he entered, "maybe they're right."
Link looked her square in the eyes, but she looked away. "Who?" he asked.
"The Kokiri….maybe they were right….maybe you should get someone to help you."
"Not you, too. Haven't we been through this already?"
The princess stood and met his gaze. "Well, yes, but, you didn't listen to me then, so I thought maybe you would when your friends started agreeing with me!"
Link was taken aback. "No, I'm still not going to listen to you! Not even if every man in Hyrule volunteered to form me an army!"
"Why not? Are you just too proud?!"
"I just don't trust people, all right? I'm going to go visit some people. I'll be back by dinner." And with that Link stormed out the front door. Zelda, angry and hurt, fell backwards onto his bed.
Link didn't go visit anyone. Angry and hurt himself, he instead picked his way through the Lost Woods to the Sacred Forest Meadow. Ever since Ganondorf had been locked away, the only monsters that remained to guard it were five or six Mad Scrubs, which might deter the Kokiri, but most certainly not the Hero of Time. He shielded his way through them easily, and trudged up the grand staircases that led to the temple's terrace. His anger had worn off by now, leaving him only depressed. Link took out his Longshot and fired at the tree over the temple entrance, and seated himself at the top of the broken staircase. He took out his ocarina. Presently Link realized that this was the ocarina that Zelda had entrusted him with when they were only children. He smiled a little bit. He had been so excited then….he had only been a kid. The young hero had dreamed only of grand adventures and fabulous stories that he would someday be able to tell to the Kokiri who had shunned him. If only he'd known the horrors that his path would lead him across. Link put the ocarina to his lips, and played the Requiem of Spirit, for no other reason than that he felt that his mood and memories mirrored the remorseful tune.
After he had been sitting there a while, Link noticed that Saria had wandered into the terrace area as he was wrapped up in his music. She was watching him intently. "What are you doing up there?" she called.
"Nothing," he replied. "Just…reminiscing, I guess."
"How long have you been up there?"
"I don't know, maybe half an hour? Why do you ask?"
"I'm just worried that Zelda might be looking for you…."
Link suddenly got defensive. "I don't want to talk to her!"
"Why not?"
"She—she thinks…she thinks that I can't do this. And that I'm a fool! She wants me to get people to help me root out this Moblin problem! I can handle it!"
"Maybe she's just worried about you."
Link paused.
Saria sighed. "Well, I know better than to argue with you. So, how have you been? Haven't seen you in a while."
The hero, relieved that he did not have to come up with a response to her previous comment, said, "Hey, I'm all right. The banquet was kinda, um, exciting though."
"I still don't see why you love that fighting stuff so much."
"Hey, it's just what I do, you know?" He sighed. "…I really don't like the wars. Truly, I don't. I hate the killing, and I hate the sadness….nobody should ever have to see that. Nobody."
"It must be hard."
"It is! And the worst thing of all is that I had to do it all alone! I mean, Moblins are one thing. But taking on Ganondorf's entire monster army was another thing entirely." He sighed. "I'm…I am glad…that Zelda came along. It's companionship, even if we do fight a lot…there were times when I really thought I'd go crazy, all alone in the middle of The Imprisoning War, with no one to talk to but Epona and Navi. My fairy was no help. And Epona, well, she can't talk back, you know? But Zelda…she's human." He paused. "It's kinda nice."
"You know, somehow I get the feeling that I'm not the person you should be saying all this to," Saria said.
"What? Who?"
"Zelda?"
"Nah, she'd think I was insane."
"Well, just don't ramble to me. You should at least go try to make up with her."
"Well…okay, I'll try. But she's not going to listen."
"She might." Saria smiled.
Link jumped off of the destroyed staircase and returned down the same path he had used to get there. When he got back to his house, he found Zelda brushing off the hobbled Odin. She did not appear to take notice of him.
"Zelda?" He began. Startled, the princess dropped her brush. She bent to pick it up. "Link?" She said when she straightened again. She watched him curiously. Link looked at his feet. "Um," he said. She brushed Odin a little more, absent-mindedly. After a moment or two:
"I'm sorry," they both said at the same time.
Link and Zelda chuckled a little. "It's okay," she said first. "I've been thinking, and maybe…you were right. I mean you did take on Ganondorf's whole kingdom single-handedly. And win."
"I shouldn't have gotten so angry at you," he admitted. "But I'm glad you think I'm right. Because," he said, drawing himself up, "I was!"
Zelda laughed openly. "Just don't get too used to it, it's not a particularly frequent occurrence!"
"Hey!" He said. "Well, okay, maybe ONCE I was wrong…."
Zelda laughed again and threw the brush at him. He picked it up, and went to put it back into the stable after shaking his head at her mock- disappointedly. The princess grinned and went back to her work.
"So what exactly are these weapons that we traveled miles out of our way to get?" Zelda asked. It was the same day, that evening. They had already eaten, and now they were making ready for departure tomorrow. They'd decided yesterday that Kakariko Village would be their destination; it was a Sheikah village, once, and Sheikah wisdom had a way of lingering in a place. Plus, the Shadow Temple never had come completely safe, so there would probably be something to do there no matter what.
"These ones," Link said. He walked over to a trunk at the end of his bed and unlocked it. From it, he withdrew a second, bigger, sharper sword (the Master Sword being the first), a well-formed longbow and quiver, and a heavy iron hammer, and somehow he managed to fit it all under his shield.
"All right! If that's it, we'll need our rest—"
"That's not it," he said mischievously. He walked over to the window, and bent down to the floor. Link carefully lifted a loose floorboard. Zelda watched with interest, as the removal of the wood revealed—nothing?
The hero's face fell. "What? Where are they?"
"Where are what?"
"My crystals! Din's Fire, Farore's Wind, Nayru's Love—those were gifts from the Great Fairy herself! Who would have taken them?" His anger was slowly building.
"Let's go find out," Zelda said simply.
"Yes, let's," he muttered, staring out the window. Then he turned and charged out of the hut, Zelda close behind. "Should we take the horses?" She asked.
"No," he said. "Anything but a filly wouldn't be sure-footed enough for this terrain, and if what I think stole them, did steal them, then the horses would make too much noise."
"What do you think stole them?" She said as she followed him onto a trail.
"The skull kid," he answered simply, more to himself then to her.
"I would guess you've had run-ins with him before," she commented.
"You bet I have," he growled, picking his way around a mud patch. "People think skull kids are monsters, and they're usually not. So I guess all people must have based their opinions on this one."
"He's that bad?"
"Worse." He paused. "It's my fault, I suppose. He was good once. But I sold him a mask, seven years ago, and it made him, frankly, popular with his people. I guess his arrogance slowly built, and now, he has become the nightmare people think he is. He has an obsession with masks, and he goes to Termina annually to find new ones. I hear he's looking for one, Majora's Mask, and I also hear that the thing was the bane of an ancient civilization. It's not unlike him to rob a traveler blind and sell their possessions for money, so he can keep doing what he does. Bet that's where my crystals would go." He sighed. "I wish I would have known seven years ago. I'm not the only one that he torments."
"You can't blame yourself for his corruption," Zelda said.
"I guess," he replied. "Come on, he likes to hang out over here."
Zelda shielded her eyes from the sun as the forest widened out into a clearing. There wasn't much in it, except for a tree stump, and across from it, a trunk that had been sheared off two or three feet up. As they neared the trunk, Link walking confidently, Zelda nervously, from out of the air appeared a Skull Kid playing an ocarina, carved out of stone. He was doing a strange dance, hopping from foot to foot. He wore strange orange clothes and on his face was a mask that the princess thought was supposed to be human, but so hideous that she couldn't quite believe it. It had huge nose, a moustache that looked rather like a barfing caterpillar, and a vibrant red hat with the letter "M" on it. She couldn't stand to look at it for very long and soon turned away. Comes from being "refined," I guess, she thought bitterly.
The Skull Kid went on with his dance for a few more moments, then stopped, bent a little, and stared Link straight in the eye. "Like my mask?" It asked. "I got it from the mask man. Only 250 rupees!"
"And what people's money did you waste on it this time?" Link asked tiredly.
"Mine," the Skull Kid grinned wickedly.
"It's not yours unless you earn it."
"I do earn it!" It insisted. "Stealing is hard work!"
"Look, I'm not here for a conversation," Link said. "Where are my spells?"
The Skull Kid's eyes got wide. "Ooooh, your crystals. Those were so pretty!"
"What do you mean 'were?'" Link asked, losing patience.
"Well, I was going to sell them…." It paused for dramatic effect. "But….I DIDN'T!" The Skull Kid seemed so excited.
"What did you do with my spells?" Link asked way too calmly.
The Skull Kid drew a breath to speak, but waited for a second before saying, eyes wide, very excited, "I HID THEM!!" He stared doing his hopping dance again, feverishly.
"Where?" Link asked, very annoyed.
"Around here……somewhere," it said mysteriously.
"Thanks for your help," Link said sarcastically.
"Anytime!" The Skull Kid replied.
Link and Zelda turned away as the Skull Kid picked up his ocarina and began to dance and play again. "He'd be good if he wasn't so evil," Link commented dryly.
"Where do you think he hid them?" Zelda asked.
"He said around here, and even though he's a thief, he'd never lie outright. Plus, he loves riddles," Link summed up. "So I think it might be over here."
He was heading towards a huge hollowed-out log that seemed to form some kind of road. Out the other side was another clearing. They were standing on top of a ledge. On one side, a ladder led down to the "room" floor, which was scattered with trees and a Gossip Stone on one end. "It'll probably be down here," he continued, climbing down the ladder. Zelda followed suit.
Link wandered around the floor for a bit, looking at the individual trees and the Gossip Stone. Finally he walked back to Zelda, who had been waiting at the base of the ladder. "I know where it is," he said simply.
"Where?" She asked.
"Over here," he answered. He crossed back over to the Gossip Stone, and turned left to wind up on a short ledge beside it, motioning for Zelda to follow. There was nothing on the ledge except for a hole, but she came anyway.
"They're down there," he told her. "But he's surely got some kind of anti-me enchantment on the room…he does own a few magic masks, you know. So, you had better go down."
"Me!?" She asked, surprised
"Yes," he said. "Don't worry, there's nothing down there. Except grass."
"But—"
"You want to save Hyrule, don't you?"
"Yes, but—"
"Well then?" He said, gesturing towards the hole.
"Fine," she sighed. "Just fine." She walked lightly over to the hole and dropped in. "The things I do," she grumbled to herself on the way down.
Link was right; there was nothing down in the hole, except for a chest. Cautiously, warily, Zelda strode toward it, and when she arrived in front of it, slowly lifted the lid. Inside were three crystals, about the size of her palm, each with an orb of fire within, one green, one blue, and one red. They were beautiful.
The princess slowly reached her hand in and picked one up, and then another, and then all three were in her hand. She closed her fist, and then opened them again. The pieces were captivating. The princess withdrew from the chest, and turned around.
Right into the face of a Stalfos.
It was an eight foot tall skeleton that brandished a rusty, bent sword, and a circular shield in the style of the time of the Old Dynasty, before the Harkinians came into power. Her eyes widened in fear as she gasped. It was all Zelda could do not to drop the crystals. As soon as she got her breath, she fought the urge to scream, closed her eyes, looked deeply into herself, and opened her eyes again, but now they shined with a warrior's determination. She instituted some of the ancient Sheikah techniques that Impa had taught her all those years ago, and managed to hold off the Stalfos for a little while. However, it soon became painfully evident that the fist was no match for the sword, at least not this particular blade. She was being forced back into a wall, then sliding down a wall, and the Stalfos had its sword in place to make the final thrust into her throat, when suddenly—
WHAM! Another sword rammed through the Stalfos' neck. Its skull head fell listlessly off, and without the head, the rest of the body toppled into a useless pile of bones that was soon consumed by green fire. When the flames cleared away, Zelda saw Link standing there, holding the Biggoron's Sword down by his side, his Hylian shield on one arm. He looked down at Zelda with worry in his eyes.
Zelda, breathing heavily, slowly rose. "I heard fighting…." Link was saying. Zelda shook her head for him to be quiet. "Are you all right?" He asked. She, not really paying attention, held out her closed fist to him, and opened it, revealing the crystals. He looked at them, wide-eyed. A smile broke out over his face. "Thank you!" He said. "They're my most prized possessions!" She nodded. He looked up at her again, and the smile faded. He hurriedly pocketed the crystals. "Are you all right?" He asked again, holding her shoulders, staring deeply into her eyes.
"Yeah, it was, it was nothing," she answered.
"Zelda, that was a Stalfos," he said matter-of-factly. "It's a miracle we're both still alive. They're the most dangerous 'common' monster known to man. I was only able to kill it because it was too busy with you to notice me. You must really have some ability, to last as long as you did."
"Really?"
He smiled again. "Yeah." He looked at the crystals in his palm, and then closed his fist around them. "Come on, let's go home."
"Okay," she agreed, and they turned back towards the beam of light.
All at once, ten or twenty children (whoalltalkedreallyreallyexcitedlikethis) spotted them and ran over to them. "LINK!!" They all chorused in unison before beginning with a flurry of other questions ("How are ya?" "Where have you been?" "Who's she?" "She's pretty!" "I thought you were engaged to Malon!" "How tall is Death Mountain?"). Link heard Zelda giggle a little bit behind him. He smiled himself. "Hey everybody," he said.
The citizens of Kokiri Village fell silent for a fragment of a second, then started up again louder than ever. "Yeah, yeah, it's good to see you too," he tried to calm everyone down, but it was to no avail. He turned, and Zelda was now laughing out loud. "They're so charming!" She explained.
"Okay, okay, everybody CALM DOWN!!" The hero cried. The chatter ceased after a second or two and Link could talk freely. "I am here only for a few days, at the most! I came to get my weapons!"
"Oooh, your weapons, what do ya need those for?"
"There were Moblins attacking the castle a few nights ago"—The Kokiri, who particularly had it in for Moblins, gasped—"and I am going to find out why."
"All by yourself? Isn't that a little risky?"
Zelda looked at him as if to say, "Isn't that what I said?" Link scowled at her and said to the Kokiri, "I am sure that I—we!—will be fine!"
The children were silent for a moment. "Well, whatever you say Link." "Yeah, we're sure you made the best decision." Then the crowd dispersed. Link thought he could hear someone saying "I get his sword!" As they left, but decided to ignore it.
"Come on, this way," he said to Zelda, doing his best not to show defeat. They didn't speak until they reached Link's house. He stabled Epona and filled her trough, and Zelda hobbled Odin nearby in the clearing, and then went into the house. He patted the palomino's broad forehead before continuing inside of his cabin.
Zelda was sitting on a chair. "Maybe," she slowly began when he entered, "maybe they're right."
Link looked her square in the eyes, but she looked away. "Who?" he asked.
"The Kokiri….maybe they were right….maybe you should get someone to help you."
"Not you, too. Haven't we been through this already?"
The princess stood and met his gaze. "Well, yes, but, you didn't listen to me then, so I thought maybe you would when your friends started agreeing with me!"
Link was taken aback. "No, I'm still not going to listen to you! Not even if every man in Hyrule volunteered to form me an army!"
"Why not? Are you just too proud?!"
"I just don't trust people, all right? I'm going to go visit some people. I'll be back by dinner." And with that Link stormed out the front door. Zelda, angry and hurt, fell backwards onto his bed.
Link didn't go visit anyone. Angry and hurt himself, he instead picked his way through the Lost Woods to the Sacred Forest Meadow. Ever since Ganondorf had been locked away, the only monsters that remained to guard it were five or six Mad Scrubs, which might deter the Kokiri, but most certainly not the Hero of Time. He shielded his way through them easily, and trudged up the grand staircases that led to the temple's terrace. His anger had worn off by now, leaving him only depressed. Link took out his Longshot and fired at the tree over the temple entrance, and seated himself at the top of the broken staircase. He took out his ocarina. Presently Link realized that this was the ocarina that Zelda had entrusted him with when they were only children. He smiled a little bit. He had been so excited then….he had only been a kid. The young hero had dreamed only of grand adventures and fabulous stories that he would someday be able to tell to the Kokiri who had shunned him. If only he'd known the horrors that his path would lead him across. Link put the ocarina to his lips, and played the Requiem of Spirit, for no other reason than that he felt that his mood and memories mirrored the remorseful tune.
After he had been sitting there a while, Link noticed that Saria had wandered into the terrace area as he was wrapped up in his music. She was watching him intently. "What are you doing up there?" she called.
"Nothing," he replied. "Just…reminiscing, I guess."
"How long have you been up there?"
"I don't know, maybe half an hour? Why do you ask?"
"I'm just worried that Zelda might be looking for you…."
Link suddenly got defensive. "I don't want to talk to her!"
"Why not?"
"She—she thinks…she thinks that I can't do this. And that I'm a fool! She wants me to get people to help me root out this Moblin problem! I can handle it!"
"Maybe she's just worried about you."
Link paused.
Saria sighed. "Well, I know better than to argue with you. So, how have you been? Haven't seen you in a while."
The hero, relieved that he did not have to come up with a response to her previous comment, said, "Hey, I'm all right. The banquet was kinda, um, exciting though."
"I still don't see why you love that fighting stuff so much."
"Hey, it's just what I do, you know?" He sighed. "…I really don't like the wars. Truly, I don't. I hate the killing, and I hate the sadness….nobody should ever have to see that. Nobody."
"It must be hard."
"It is! And the worst thing of all is that I had to do it all alone! I mean, Moblins are one thing. But taking on Ganondorf's entire monster army was another thing entirely." He sighed. "I'm…I am glad…that Zelda came along. It's companionship, even if we do fight a lot…there were times when I really thought I'd go crazy, all alone in the middle of The Imprisoning War, with no one to talk to but Epona and Navi. My fairy was no help. And Epona, well, she can't talk back, you know? But Zelda…she's human." He paused. "It's kinda nice."
"You know, somehow I get the feeling that I'm not the person you should be saying all this to," Saria said.
"What? Who?"
"Zelda?"
"Nah, she'd think I was insane."
"Well, just don't ramble to me. You should at least go try to make up with her."
"Well…okay, I'll try. But she's not going to listen."
"She might." Saria smiled.
Link jumped off of the destroyed staircase and returned down the same path he had used to get there. When he got back to his house, he found Zelda brushing off the hobbled Odin. She did not appear to take notice of him.
"Zelda?" He began. Startled, the princess dropped her brush. She bent to pick it up. "Link?" She said when she straightened again. She watched him curiously. Link looked at his feet. "Um," he said. She brushed Odin a little more, absent-mindedly. After a moment or two:
"I'm sorry," they both said at the same time.
Link and Zelda chuckled a little. "It's okay," she said first. "I've been thinking, and maybe…you were right. I mean you did take on Ganondorf's whole kingdom single-handedly. And win."
"I shouldn't have gotten so angry at you," he admitted. "But I'm glad you think I'm right. Because," he said, drawing himself up, "I was!"
Zelda laughed openly. "Just don't get too used to it, it's not a particularly frequent occurrence!"
"Hey!" He said. "Well, okay, maybe ONCE I was wrong…."
Zelda laughed again and threw the brush at him. He picked it up, and went to put it back into the stable after shaking his head at her mock- disappointedly. The princess grinned and went back to her work.
"So what exactly are these weapons that we traveled miles out of our way to get?" Zelda asked. It was the same day, that evening. They had already eaten, and now they were making ready for departure tomorrow. They'd decided yesterday that Kakariko Village would be their destination; it was a Sheikah village, once, and Sheikah wisdom had a way of lingering in a place. Plus, the Shadow Temple never had come completely safe, so there would probably be something to do there no matter what.
"These ones," Link said. He walked over to a trunk at the end of his bed and unlocked it. From it, he withdrew a second, bigger, sharper sword (the Master Sword being the first), a well-formed longbow and quiver, and a heavy iron hammer, and somehow he managed to fit it all under his shield.
"All right! If that's it, we'll need our rest—"
"That's not it," he said mischievously. He walked over to the window, and bent down to the floor. Link carefully lifted a loose floorboard. Zelda watched with interest, as the removal of the wood revealed—nothing?
The hero's face fell. "What? Where are they?"
"Where are what?"
"My crystals! Din's Fire, Farore's Wind, Nayru's Love—those were gifts from the Great Fairy herself! Who would have taken them?" His anger was slowly building.
"Let's go find out," Zelda said simply.
"Yes, let's," he muttered, staring out the window. Then he turned and charged out of the hut, Zelda close behind. "Should we take the horses?" She asked.
"No," he said. "Anything but a filly wouldn't be sure-footed enough for this terrain, and if what I think stole them, did steal them, then the horses would make too much noise."
"What do you think stole them?" She said as she followed him onto a trail.
"The skull kid," he answered simply, more to himself then to her.
"I would guess you've had run-ins with him before," she commented.
"You bet I have," he growled, picking his way around a mud patch. "People think skull kids are monsters, and they're usually not. So I guess all people must have based their opinions on this one."
"He's that bad?"
"Worse." He paused. "It's my fault, I suppose. He was good once. But I sold him a mask, seven years ago, and it made him, frankly, popular with his people. I guess his arrogance slowly built, and now, he has become the nightmare people think he is. He has an obsession with masks, and he goes to Termina annually to find new ones. I hear he's looking for one, Majora's Mask, and I also hear that the thing was the bane of an ancient civilization. It's not unlike him to rob a traveler blind and sell their possessions for money, so he can keep doing what he does. Bet that's where my crystals would go." He sighed. "I wish I would have known seven years ago. I'm not the only one that he torments."
"You can't blame yourself for his corruption," Zelda said.
"I guess," he replied. "Come on, he likes to hang out over here."
Zelda shielded her eyes from the sun as the forest widened out into a clearing. There wasn't much in it, except for a tree stump, and across from it, a trunk that had been sheared off two or three feet up. As they neared the trunk, Link walking confidently, Zelda nervously, from out of the air appeared a Skull Kid playing an ocarina, carved out of stone. He was doing a strange dance, hopping from foot to foot. He wore strange orange clothes and on his face was a mask that the princess thought was supposed to be human, but so hideous that she couldn't quite believe it. It had huge nose, a moustache that looked rather like a barfing caterpillar, and a vibrant red hat with the letter "M" on it. She couldn't stand to look at it for very long and soon turned away. Comes from being "refined," I guess, she thought bitterly.
The Skull Kid went on with his dance for a few more moments, then stopped, bent a little, and stared Link straight in the eye. "Like my mask?" It asked. "I got it from the mask man. Only 250 rupees!"
"And what people's money did you waste on it this time?" Link asked tiredly.
"Mine," the Skull Kid grinned wickedly.
"It's not yours unless you earn it."
"I do earn it!" It insisted. "Stealing is hard work!"
"Look, I'm not here for a conversation," Link said. "Where are my spells?"
The Skull Kid's eyes got wide. "Ooooh, your crystals. Those were so pretty!"
"What do you mean 'were?'" Link asked, losing patience.
"Well, I was going to sell them…." It paused for dramatic effect. "But….I DIDN'T!" The Skull Kid seemed so excited.
"What did you do with my spells?" Link asked way too calmly.
The Skull Kid drew a breath to speak, but waited for a second before saying, eyes wide, very excited, "I HID THEM!!" He stared doing his hopping dance again, feverishly.
"Where?" Link asked, very annoyed.
"Around here……somewhere," it said mysteriously.
"Thanks for your help," Link said sarcastically.
"Anytime!" The Skull Kid replied.
Link and Zelda turned away as the Skull Kid picked up his ocarina and began to dance and play again. "He'd be good if he wasn't so evil," Link commented dryly.
"Where do you think he hid them?" Zelda asked.
"He said around here, and even though he's a thief, he'd never lie outright. Plus, he loves riddles," Link summed up. "So I think it might be over here."
He was heading towards a huge hollowed-out log that seemed to form some kind of road. Out the other side was another clearing. They were standing on top of a ledge. On one side, a ladder led down to the "room" floor, which was scattered with trees and a Gossip Stone on one end. "It'll probably be down here," he continued, climbing down the ladder. Zelda followed suit.
Link wandered around the floor for a bit, looking at the individual trees and the Gossip Stone. Finally he walked back to Zelda, who had been waiting at the base of the ladder. "I know where it is," he said simply.
"Where?" She asked.
"Over here," he answered. He crossed back over to the Gossip Stone, and turned left to wind up on a short ledge beside it, motioning for Zelda to follow. There was nothing on the ledge except for a hole, but she came anyway.
"They're down there," he told her. "But he's surely got some kind of anti-me enchantment on the room…he does own a few magic masks, you know. So, you had better go down."
"Me!?" She asked, surprised
"Yes," he said. "Don't worry, there's nothing down there. Except grass."
"But—"
"You want to save Hyrule, don't you?"
"Yes, but—"
"Well then?" He said, gesturing towards the hole.
"Fine," she sighed. "Just fine." She walked lightly over to the hole and dropped in. "The things I do," she grumbled to herself on the way down.
Link was right; there was nothing down in the hole, except for a chest. Cautiously, warily, Zelda strode toward it, and when she arrived in front of it, slowly lifted the lid. Inside were three crystals, about the size of her palm, each with an orb of fire within, one green, one blue, and one red. They were beautiful.
The princess slowly reached her hand in and picked one up, and then another, and then all three were in her hand. She closed her fist, and then opened them again. The pieces were captivating. The princess withdrew from the chest, and turned around.
Right into the face of a Stalfos.
It was an eight foot tall skeleton that brandished a rusty, bent sword, and a circular shield in the style of the time of the Old Dynasty, before the Harkinians came into power. Her eyes widened in fear as she gasped. It was all Zelda could do not to drop the crystals. As soon as she got her breath, she fought the urge to scream, closed her eyes, looked deeply into herself, and opened her eyes again, but now they shined with a warrior's determination. She instituted some of the ancient Sheikah techniques that Impa had taught her all those years ago, and managed to hold off the Stalfos for a little while. However, it soon became painfully evident that the fist was no match for the sword, at least not this particular blade. She was being forced back into a wall, then sliding down a wall, and the Stalfos had its sword in place to make the final thrust into her throat, when suddenly—
WHAM! Another sword rammed through the Stalfos' neck. Its skull head fell listlessly off, and without the head, the rest of the body toppled into a useless pile of bones that was soon consumed by green fire. When the flames cleared away, Zelda saw Link standing there, holding the Biggoron's Sword down by his side, his Hylian shield on one arm. He looked down at Zelda with worry in his eyes.
Zelda, breathing heavily, slowly rose. "I heard fighting…." Link was saying. Zelda shook her head for him to be quiet. "Are you all right?" He asked. She, not really paying attention, held out her closed fist to him, and opened it, revealing the crystals. He looked at them, wide-eyed. A smile broke out over his face. "Thank you!" He said. "They're my most prized possessions!" She nodded. He looked up at her again, and the smile faded. He hurriedly pocketed the crystals. "Are you all right?" He asked again, holding her shoulders, staring deeply into her eyes.
"Yeah, it was, it was nothing," she answered.
"Zelda, that was a Stalfos," he said matter-of-factly. "It's a miracle we're both still alive. They're the most dangerous 'common' monster known to man. I was only able to kill it because it was too busy with you to notice me. You must really have some ability, to last as long as you did."
"Really?"
He smiled again. "Yeah." He looked at the crystals in his palm, and then closed his fist around them. "Come on, let's go home."
"Okay," she agreed, and they turned back towards the beam of light.