The dream was the same one I had in Gannon's tower.
Oceans…
Oceans…
Oceans…
Oceans for as far as my eye could see. I flew over the waves for an eternity. I saw as the sun peeked over the horizon, watched as it traveled across the sky and set in the West. Every day brought the same thing. Nothing. Nothing but oceans. Water. My world.
When I was younger, my mother would always tell me, as she looked across the Great Sea, to the empty horizon before us, "There lies opportunity, Tetra. Don't you ever forget that. As long as we have seas to sail, life will never be dull, and we shall never want."
I believed that for so long… I still do, I guess, but in my dream I saw the Great Sea for what it also is. Empty.
"…we shall never want."
I suppose that is true, of course, assuming that between you and the waves there is land somewhere, and on that land, food. The ocean itself is a desert. We are tethered to those small mounds of dirt we call islands; without them, we starve. There is little fish in the waters. You could cast for days without so much as a nibble. A ship can only carry so much food and drink. Eventually you have to return from whence you came or find a new port to start over in. Opportunity can only take you so far.
But for the longest time, this had been the only world I'd ever known. What else was there? I didn't know, so I never wanted more, I guess. But in my dream, there was. There was more than I ever could have imagined.
Just when I thought I would float forever across that barren sea, I saw something on the horizon. Fog. As I approached it, I could feel the fear of the unknown overtake me. I knew it well. As a pirate, you live your whole life with it, gnawing at you from somewhere in the pit of your stomach. It's there when you see a merchant ship on the horizon—it's there every time you unsheathe your sword—it's there when you rally your men to fight or to die. My mother was definitely right in that respect: the sea holds within it endless opportunities for getting yourself killed.
I flew blindly through the mist, I don't know for how long, until something, a dark line far off into the distance appeared before me. It grew as I neared, and my heart beat with a mixture of that familiar fear and a new emotion—one that I hadn't felt for so long. It felt incredible.
And as the black line grew into a dark wall hurdling towards me, until it threatened to overtake my entire vision, that wonderful feeling filled my body and drove the fear away until there was none. And that's when I passed the fog. Or perhaps it lifted, I don't know. And there it was.
A foreign beach. Untouched. Beautiful. The sand was white, shining in the sun like crystal. Above that, there were trees—but not the kind I had seen all my life. The trunks were shorter, more stout, and the leaves were small and in the hundreds. Yes, there was the occasional familiar palm, but for the most part, the vegetation was like nothing I had ever seen before on my journeys across the Great Sea.
And as incredible as all that was, it was nothing compared to what I saw before me as my feet touched down in the water. She had her back to me, but I knew it was her—her hair, her clothes, the way she stood, everything. I saw my mother on that beach, and she was alive.
I ran to her, but before I could even leave the shallows, something incredible happened. My mother lifted her hands into the air, and the world began to shake beneath me until I fell. I looked up and saw as towers of stone and wood rose above the tree line, high above my mother and I. It was Hyrule Castle, born again and more magnificent than it had ever been!
And when her work was done, I saw my mother turn to me, and I could feel warmth rolling down my cheeks at the thought of seeing her face again.
But in the end, it wasn't her face that I saw…
All I saw was a little blonde girl kneeling in the water, crying like a baby. And that's when I woke to see Link standing before Ganon as Hyrule sank around us. And at that moment, I knew three things in this world to be true. One, was that I would go North. The second, that I would need more men if I planned to resurrect a nation. And the third…
The third was that my mother had been right all along. The sea was opportunity.
And I swear to the Goddesses above that as long as I have wind in my lungs and behind my sails, I will grab it…
Author's Note: And I'm spent! I know this a pretty small chapter, but after I take a little well-earned rest (between this and school, my fingers are numb) I'll be back with some kick-ass stuff! So in the meantime, do me a favor and spread the word. Wind Waker fics aren't exactly setting this site aflame, so if you like the way I write, tell some like-minded friends to read my stuff. I'm not one of those writers who claims to "not give a hang whether or not people read him/her." If I didn't want to be read, then I wouldn't write. So get me read, people!
Later.
--P4Pancho