The forest was dark, lightened only by crisscrossing beams of moonlight that found their way through the thick boughs of the canopy. Kara ran across the leaf-covered floor of the forest, her bare feet making no noise as she weaved in between the trees. She could here Cory further ahead, making more noise than a bear would as he stumbled through the forest with all of his clumsiness. She could follow him if she were blind.
She told herself once more that she was being foolish for following this goron-man. But something was happening, something was in that note that was very important and she intended to find out just what that something was. Curiosity had gotten the better of her, as it always seemed to do. Her long legs were beginning to become sore; she had chased him for about an hour now. But the forest was thinning now, and soon they would be on the long swaying grasses of the Hyrulian plain. The place where she was born, where she knew every creek and stand of trees and landmark. Then she would have the advantage.
Sure enough there was a short rise, and on the other side was the moonlit sea of grass, swaying with a night breeze. She had not seen it for sixty years, not since she had left her people and traveled out into the world as an assassin. But its secrets were still prominent in her ageless mind, and she felt like she had been gone for only a few short months.
With the forest behind him the Strongsword settled down to rest. From a distance she watched him kindle a fire and take a bag of dried meat from his pack. Kara lay silently on her stomach and watched...
* * *
Cory chewed away at the meat and stared into the fire, waiting for his heart rate to slow. He had ran non-stop for nearly an hour, eager to get out onto the plain and settle down to wait for this "Sage of Light" to find him and give him instructions.
A dark wind rises...
The ominous note still chilled him to the bone. It was in his thoughts throughout the entire run, overwhelming him. What did it mean? What was this blue stone called Nayru's tear, and why was it the bane of evil? Too many questions and not nearly enough answers.
The night wore on with agonizing slowness. He began to feel that he was wasting time, that this Sage of Light would find him someplace else. But he sat on stubbornly, watching the moon slowly move across the dark blanket of the night sky. As the hours stretched on his weariness reared its ugly head. Several times his eyes would flutter closed and his chin would fall to his chest only to shoot back up as he realized sleep had almost caught him in her tempting snare.
It was as the eastern sky began to lighten that he heard a rustle and saw the long grass on a rise a short distance away move. Suddenly wide-awake, he stood and picked up his fur-covered scabbard. He walked slowly toward the disturbance, the scabbard held in the crook of his left arm, hilt facing downward. He squinted into the darkness, telling himself that it was merely a prairie dog or hare. He walked on nonetheless, right hand clutching the hilt of the Sword of Darunia, ready to be drawn.
As he approached he thought he saw a vague outline laying in the protection of the grass, but with the darkness he could not be sure. As he drew closer he realized that there was, indeed, someone or something lying in the grass. It was when he reached the immobile form he realized it was a woman, either asleep or dead. He kneeled and touched her shoulder.
She shot up with amazing speed, jumping back. He heard steel being drawn, and saw a flash of moonlight on metal. He drew his sword and threw the scabbard to the ground. It was in the sword's red glow that he recognized who the woman was.
"What are you doing here!" He demanded. "Are you following me?"
The she-elf Kara said nothing, appraising him with her haunting blue eyes. She did not replace her knife, and so he did not lower his sword.
"Are you mute, woman? Answer me!" He said, seething with anger. When in the Zoran City the woman had acted like he was the most unwelcome company on the good green earth, and now she was following him?
"You demand nothing of me!" She said, her eyes fierce. She sheathed her knife in her belt scabbard and he grudgingly did the same. "I follow you under instruction from the Queen. She wanted me to help you in a gesture of thanks from the Zora to the Gorons."
"I don't need you tagging along--" He started, before she interrupted him.
"Well you have no choice, Strongsword. I will not disobey the orders of my queen."
"But she is not even your queen! You are not Zoran--"
"Neither are you a Goron, but you follow the orders of their chieftains. Do not question me for doing the same!" She said, interrupting him once more.
Cory stared at her with narrowed eyes. "I have a feeling that I am not going to get you to go away..." He said, after a moment's deliberation.
"You are extremely perceptive, Strongsword." She said, sarcastically. Cory didn't think he would be able to listen to her damnable sarcasm for very long. He had a notion, however, that if he denied her she would still follow him no matter what his feelings.
"You might as well come and sit." He said, ruefully. He led her to the fire, which was dwindling.
"Why do you wait here?" She asked as they sat next to the fire. He poked at it with a twig to shift the coals and cause the flame to shoot up once more.
He didn't want to tell her of his mission, but he supposed that if she was going to be his companion she should at least be informed. He reached into the black coat that Evara had gifted him and handed Kara the yellowed parchment. "I don't suppose you can decipher Goron runes," he said, as she appraised it, "but this note tells of a stone called Nayru's Tear, and its importance in banishing a darkness that is rising. I was told that someone called the 'Sage of Light' would find me and instruct me further."
Kara's slender eyebrow arched, "did you say 'Nayru's Tear'?" She asked, her characteristic sarcasm unapparent for once.
"Yes. I have never heard of it before. Is it some kind of precious jewel?" He asked.
"More precious than you can imagine, Strongsword." She replied. Cory was trying to decide if that was some kind of affront to him when she continued, "In my tribe there is a legend told quite often around our campfires and hearths. It is the tale of the ancient Elven-king Link Arstar, whose empire stretched from the distant hills of Merr to the northern reaches of Calatia."
Cory rested his chin in the cup of his hand and listened carefully. He had heard of Link, the Gorons held him in great esteem. Ages and ages ago he apparently helped King Darunia slay the dreaded firedrake in the volcanic caverns of Death Mountain. He didn't know if Kara spoke of the same Link or of one of his many sons, grandsons, and great grandsons who shared the same name.
Kara continued, "Arstar ruled peacefully for many years, but in an especially cruel and long winter darkness fell upon his vast empire in the form of Ganondorf's dark legions, the demi-humans. War raged, people died, ruin and destruction became widespread. Link's armies resisted the demi-humans for as long as they could, but eventually the Dark One's armies destroyed the walls of Link's capital and set the great city afire.
"Link died while defending his small folk and all hope seemed to be lost. His children, twins Jalen and Alia, were spirited away by Link's faithful steward and went into hiding in the vast Gerudo Waste. Over the next few years Link's empire was torn down and ruined. Much was lost in the unforgiving fires of the demi-humans; centuries and centuries of cultural evolution and history was forgotten and the world fell into a Dark Age that took centuries to recover from." Kara's voice was surprisingly sorrowful and somber as she recounted her story.
"It was in this time that the Goddess Nayru, from atop her throne in the vast endlessness of the heavens, shed a single tear which fell through the mists of time. It froze in on itself, layer after layer becoming hard crystal, and finally fell to earth in a shower of blue flame.
"It was in the deserts of the Waste that Jalen and his sister found it resting at the bottom of a smoking crater. Now a young man and woman, they had both spent years learning the ancient Way of the Knife, Asudara, from the Elven edgemasters that made the shifting sands of the desert their home--"
Cory reluctantly interrupted her with a question, "is that the same style that you fight with?"
Kara looked at him, "yes, though my prowess with Asudara is not nearly as refined as it should be. I will continue,"
"The fallen tear proved to possess great power. It endowed its bearer amazing speed and agility, and god-like strength. And beyond that it could grant any wish the heart desired, for good or evil. It spoke to the twins, and chose Jalen as its master to banish Ganondorf's evil.
"With the power of the stone Jalen was able to throw down the demi-humans and banish Ganondorf to the prison from whence he had escaped. The twins began a new dynasty together, but its wonders are another story."
By the time Kara finished the sun was all the way up, its golden light spreading across the grasses. Cory was struck from what he had heard. Was all that Kara said true or just legend? He could hardly imagine something with such amazing power. "So this is what I seek." He told himself, disbelieving.
"I doubt it even exists--" Kara started, but then she was interrupted by a strange voice.
"HOOT HOOT, it certainly does exist, HOOT HOOT."