And in his dreams, he felt as though he was sitting in a warm field eating
an apple that was a few days past ripe. The sun was hot and soured the
apples ever so slightly before he took the next bite. Six red riders were
letting their horses drink at a nearby stream, and neither he nor they paid
close attention to the other. He kept looking towards the south, towards
the Kokiri Forest, expecting something to emerge from it. And then, as a
summer's rain fell against a clear sky and misted his face, a figure on
horseback was coming closer. And the mist grew denser, and the world turned
into a very grey thing indeed.
He woke up with a wad of hairy blanket in his mouth. The cold dank room looked older in the sunlight. No time of day was kind to the shelter, but in the darkness the cobwebs, rust, and the bone-like qualities of the wood had a slight chance of being ignored. In morning's sun, the room looked frozen and all the more miserable. A skeleton that had seen too many seasons and not enough worms
He looked outside and the girl had on a dark green cloak, and sat atop Epona. She was looking at Link reproachfully, and he was certain that he had overslept, and she most certainly had not gotten so much as a wink.
"We'll ride shortly to the Kaer. It's east of here, in the Granell Swamp", she mouthed with certainty in Link's mind. A tickle of a thought chilled his head, and he recoiled. He couldn't shake the feeling something very violating had happened, but the light outside was surely warmer a thought than any he would have inside.
"I think we should both ride Epona. She's strong enough for two.", Link said as he fitted a malformed boot to his right foot. It had a hole coming along, and he could see the pink of his big toe, peering through the darkness to see if it was alright to come out. A
"Oh, well, that shouldn't be a problem. There's just one thing, Link."
"Sure, what is it?"
"Don't touch me."
".Excuse me?"
"I said, don't touch me." Her command was a threat. Perhaps thoughts of the old man had filled her with terror. Perhaps the thought of another person touching her filled her with stress. He didn't like talking much, and perhaps she felt similarly about physical conversation, perchance to even a greeting. "Alright," he said, "I won't touch you."
"You had better not, fairy boy. Don't.", she said. She clutched hard at her robe, and looked away from him with obvious disgust.
Link approached Epona, who startled and almost threw off Terryn. It whinnied and kicked back its heels at him. Something was wrong. In all their travels, Epona had never startled at the notion of him coming near. It took some coaxing for him to get on, as well as a gentle tap to the horse's backside with the blunt part of a sword sheath, and for the rest of his journey Link felt like less a proud rider but as a reticent master.
Little was spoken by either for the journey. Terryn's speech came mostly in "go left's" and "go right's" and "stop jostling, idiot's". When the ground became dead and jagged, even a slow pace was made erratic. She placed her hands on Link's side only after she almost fell off. Well, it was the second time this happened. She made clear to grab his nappy tunic, and not to him.
Link followed a small winding creak east. "We should rest", he said. This ride was not comfortable, and the sun overhead had begun marching back down the terrestrial plains for the night.
"I do not want to stop" Terryn said. "This land is not kind to travelers."
"Only for a moment, I need a drink. What's the harm in that?"
Terryn sighed. "We need to find out where we are."
"What do you mean?"
"When I asked you to make that first left, I think we were supposed to go right."
"But that was only one turn, does it make all that little difference?"
"I don't know where we are," she admitted, "and I do not know the way from here."
"I don't think we should be turning back, I think we can get back on the road." He didn't, actually; his real motive was hence, "But first, a drink?"
Terryn hesitated and let loose her grip on his tattered garment. He slowed, and walked awkwardly on the tiny pebbles that gathered around the bank. The boy looked to the mountains they had spent the remainings of the morning traveling down, and watched as the creek flowed towards the peak. Saddle sore and confused, he scooped up the water in his hands and drank generously.
Link drank for a while, and began to walk back to the horse, when he hiccupped and fell to his knees. The world began to spin. He saw the bank, and screamed, "This river is flowing uphill! Towards the mountains!" Link was startled that his reflection seemed to be moving impossibly towards the summits, then reappearing in front of him, looking startled and frightened, headed for imagined gallows. Then the reflection would be torn up the river, mouthing pleas of mercy towards the lad. And again and again this happened. The image shouted at him to go fuck himself as it went up the mountain pass. Link looked away, completely assured he had gone mad.
He flung himself to the ground, and began to fitfully roll around. He wasn't sure which way was up, if he was a fish out of water, a bird in it, or a man whose eyes had unfocused and decided taking in everything as a singular experience with no ground for pretense.
"Link!" Terryn shouted, running to him and trying to raise him to his feet. "You stupid fairy boy, I told you not to drink the water."
"Buh. Buh." Link sputtered, his internal sense of movement allowing him to finally make a sound. Terryn shifted his weight onto her left shoulder, pushing him and keeping him steady by clawing at his tunic.
"You're not supposed to meddle with things you do not know, bo-", and that's when she screamed as his weight shifted and he tried to grab onto her hand. Horrified, she darted back. He found air, and soon his body again found the earth.
Spitting dirt from his mouth, Link tried several times, finally succeeding on the fifth try, to say "I think I'll have to get up on my own."
He warily got to his feet, yet his body felt as if it was submerged, a loose and unpredictable thing in a current. Reacting to unseen currents, his arms moved all about him, and his head turned with similarly drunken whimsy.
Epona approached Link, and after sniffing him for a moment, moved close enough for him to get on. He clung to her hide as if it anchored him, and he stayed there breathing heavily into her mane.
"If. if we were on. if we were on the right path, which way would we go?"
"What?"
"I said,"gulped the hylian boy "what would we do next?"
"Well," she began to think. "If we were on the right path, that would be a dying forest up head, so I think we'd turn right to a bridge. But that bridge isn't here, obviously.
Link looked up at her general direction "And where should this forest be?" She pointed to her right.
He held tight and muttered "We're going left."
The trio moved left down a fork, then left at an abandoned shack. Then left again. Every now and then Link would ask her which way to go, and they would go the opposite way. Soon they passed a dead forest, where the sound of snow falling could be heard, but never seen. And then to a decaying bridge, carved of a yellow (or yellowed) stone that, on its bases, had four statues of giant warrior livestock. One a bull, one a swine, one a chicken, and one a ram. They were carved ornately with the features of men holding spears. Dressed as proud warriors, with the exception of their noble faces, animals with human expression. Most of the swine's face was missing, and the bull had only one horn left.
Link put into his head that they were gods once. Terryn hummed a once popular tune. As they walked across the bridge, it became more foggy.
"Where to now?," asked Link. His head was still roiling with the ill effects of his thirst. The thick fog made him cough, but it did clear his sinus. He wiped it on his dirty left bracer. Terryn thought again, and said right.
Some time to the left, the fog began to lift. The trio stopped at what was around them. A densely packed forest, with trees the size of castles, thousands of smaller trees all around. It was hard on many of these smaller trees to see their top, as they towered well over the thicker ones. It was if the big hulking trees were mashed down from the taller ones. Link gulped for air.
He had seen a giant tree like those around him, but these squatting giants didn't give off an aura of life the way an old friend had. They had found themselves in something of a clearing.
To their back was a path, and around them was a circle of trees. Link's head rolled with the creation around him. Terryn got off the horse, scratched her head, and walked to the edge of the clearing. She came back with several finger sized reddish mushroom. It was a coppery color all over, with crimson blotches veined in its stalk. Link's eyes had barely took their time in looking at them before she took them all in her hands again.
"What" was about all he could muster as she took the mushroom in her hand and smashed it, let it ooze through and throughout her fingers. And then, with mushrooms coating her hands, she took an oozing blob of it and forced it inside Link's mouth.
He stumbled off the horse. It tasted as copper as it looked. He started to vomit, hard and fast. First the mushroom, then clear water. It seemed like more water than he had drank, a boy that became a fountain. More water than he was built to hold, it seemed. The last bits drained from his lips. And he felt himself fall head first into a terrible puddle. He pulled himself up, feeling better than he had all day, and saw Terryn smiling. "You knew this was going to happen."
"Very good, fairy boy. You passed." She walked over to him, and using her green cloak brushed his cheek with her hand. "You're really going to be the one to save her, aren't you?"
Link turned crimson. At that moment, a shrill woman's laughter traveled by tree and echoed around the clearing. It sounded like the raucous giggle of a woman making love. It was coated with stress and sweat. It was the kind of laugh that knew it would soon wane to a smile through a bitten lip. Terryn took her hand again to Link's face, and pointed his head to the right.
There, sitting on top of Epona, was a fairy creature. Her scant yet curved body lightly radiated green, and it was as much a woman's body as it was that of the pixie, in a silver gown. Her hair was blue, or was it red, or green. Link heard music when he tried to tell. Her wings didn't move when she came towards him. But she floated, acknowledging Terryn, "Terryn.". And then it said, in a deep womanly voice most men dare not dream about, "Good morning, fairy boy". Link blinked, and when he opened them he was in the Kaer.
He woke up with a wad of hairy blanket in his mouth. The cold dank room looked older in the sunlight. No time of day was kind to the shelter, but in the darkness the cobwebs, rust, and the bone-like qualities of the wood had a slight chance of being ignored. In morning's sun, the room looked frozen and all the more miserable. A skeleton that had seen too many seasons and not enough worms
He looked outside and the girl had on a dark green cloak, and sat atop Epona. She was looking at Link reproachfully, and he was certain that he had overslept, and she most certainly had not gotten so much as a wink.
"We'll ride shortly to the Kaer. It's east of here, in the Granell Swamp", she mouthed with certainty in Link's mind. A tickle of a thought chilled his head, and he recoiled. He couldn't shake the feeling something very violating had happened, but the light outside was surely warmer a thought than any he would have inside.
"I think we should both ride Epona. She's strong enough for two.", Link said as he fitted a malformed boot to his right foot. It had a hole coming along, and he could see the pink of his big toe, peering through the darkness to see if it was alright to come out. A
"Oh, well, that shouldn't be a problem. There's just one thing, Link."
"Sure, what is it?"
"Don't touch me."
".Excuse me?"
"I said, don't touch me." Her command was a threat. Perhaps thoughts of the old man had filled her with terror. Perhaps the thought of another person touching her filled her with stress. He didn't like talking much, and perhaps she felt similarly about physical conversation, perchance to even a greeting. "Alright," he said, "I won't touch you."
"You had better not, fairy boy. Don't.", she said. She clutched hard at her robe, and looked away from him with obvious disgust.
Link approached Epona, who startled and almost threw off Terryn. It whinnied and kicked back its heels at him. Something was wrong. In all their travels, Epona had never startled at the notion of him coming near. It took some coaxing for him to get on, as well as a gentle tap to the horse's backside with the blunt part of a sword sheath, and for the rest of his journey Link felt like less a proud rider but as a reticent master.
Little was spoken by either for the journey. Terryn's speech came mostly in "go left's" and "go right's" and "stop jostling, idiot's". When the ground became dead and jagged, even a slow pace was made erratic. She placed her hands on Link's side only after she almost fell off. Well, it was the second time this happened. She made clear to grab his nappy tunic, and not to him.
Link followed a small winding creak east. "We should rest", he said. This ride was not comfortable, and the sun overhead had begun marching back down the terrestrial plains for the night.
"I do not want to stop" Terryn said. "This land is not kind to travelers."
"Only for a moment, I need a drink. What's the harm in that?"
Terryn sighed. "We need to find out where we are."
"What do you mean?"
"When I asked you to make that first left, I think we were supposed to go right."
"But that was only one turn, does it make all that little difference?"
"I don't know where we are," she admitted, "and I do not know the way from here."
"I don't think we should be turning back, I think we can get back on the road." He didn't, actually; his real motive was hence, "But first, a drink?"
Terryn hesitated and let loose her grip on his tattered garment. He slowed, and walked awkwardly on the tiny pebbles that gathered around the bank. The boy looked to the mountains they had spent the remainings of the morning traveling down, and watched as the creek flowed towards the peak. Saddle sore and confused, he scooped up the water in his hands and drank generously.
Link drank for a while, and began to walk back to the horse, when he hiccupped and fell to his knees. The world began to spin. He saw the bank, and screamed, "This river is flowing uphill! Towards the mountains!" Link was startled that his reflection seemed to be moving impossibly towards the summits, then reappearing in front of him, looking startled and frightened, headed for imagined gallows. Then the reflection would be torn up the river, mouthing pleas of mercy towards the lad. And again and again this happened. The image shouted at him to go fuck himself as it went up the mountain pass. Link looked away, completely assured he had gone mad.
He flung himself to the ground, and began to fitfully roll around. He wasn't sure which way was up, if he was a fish out of water, a bird in it, or a man whose eyes had unfocused and decided taking in everything as a singular experience with no ground for pretense.
"Link!" Terryn shouted, running to him and trying to raise him to his feet. "You stupid fairy boy, I told you not to drink the water."
"Buh. Buh." Link sputtered, his internal sense of movement allowing him to finally make a sound. Terryn shifted his weight onto her left shoulder, pushing him and keeping him steady by clawing at his tunic.
"You're not supposed to meddle with things you do not know, bo-", and that's when she screamed as his weight shifted and he tried to grab onto her hand. Horrified, she darted back. He found air, and soon his body again found the earth.
Spitting dirt from his mouth, Link tried several times, finally succeeding on the fifth try, to say "I think I'll have to get up on my own."
He warily got to his feet, yet his body felt as if it was submerged, a loose and unpredictable thing in a current. Reacting to unseen currents, his arms moved all about him, and his head turned with similarly drunken whimsy.
Epona approached Link, and after sniffing him for a moment, moved close enough for him to get on. He clung to her hide as if it anchored him, and he stayed there breathing heavily into her mane.
"If. if we were on. if we were on the right path, which way would we go?"
"What?"
"I said,"gulped the hylian boy "what would we do next?"
"Well," she began to think. "If we were on the right path, that would be a dying forest up head, so I think we'd turn right to a bridge. But that bridge isn't here, obviously.
Link looked up at her general direction "And where should this forest be?" She pointed to her right.
He held tight and muttered "We're going left."
The trio moved left down a fork, then left at an abandoned shack. Then left again. Every now and then Link would ask her which way to go, and they would go the opposite way. Soon they passed a dead forest, where the sound of snow falling could be heard, but never seen. And then to a decaying bridge, carved of a yellow (or yellowed) stone that, on its bases, had four statues of giant warrior livestock. One a bull, one a swine, one a chicken, and one a ram. They were carved ornately with the features of men holding spears. Dressed as proud warriors, with the exception of their noble faces, animals with human expression. Most of the swine's face was missing, and the bull had only one horn left.
Link put into his head that they were gods once. Terryn hummed a once popular tune. As they walked across the bridge, it became more foggy.
"Where to now?," asked Link. His head was still roiling with the ill effects of his thirst. The thick fog made him cough, but it did clear his sinus. He wiped it on his dirty left bracer. Terryn thought again, and said right.
Some time to the left, the fog began to lift. The trio stopped at what was around them. A densely packed forest, with trees the size of castles, thousands of smaller trees all around. It was hard on many of these smaller trees to see their top, as they towered well over the thicker ones. It was if the big hulking trees were mashed down from the taller ones. Link gulped for air.
He had seen a giant tree like those around him, but these squatting giants didn't give off an aura of life the way an old friend had. They had found themselves in something of a clearing.
To their back was a path, and around them was a circle of trees. Link's head rolled with the creation around him. Terryn got off the horse, scratched her head, and walked to the edge of the clearing. She came back with several finger sized reddish mushroom. It was a coppery color all over, with crimson blotches veined in its stalk. Link's eyes had barely took their time in looking at them before she took them all in her hands again.
"What" was about all he could muster as she took the mushroom in her hand and smashed it, let it ooze through and throughout her fingers. And then, with mushrooms coating her hands, she took an oozing blob of it and forced it inside Link's mouth.
He stumbled off the horse. It tasted as copper as it looked. He started to vomit, hard and fast. First the mushroom, then clear water. It seemed like more water than he had drank, a boy that became a fountain. More water than he was built to hold, it seemed. The last bits drained from his lips. And he felt himself fall head first into a terrible puddle. He pulled himself up, feeling better than he had all day, and saw Terryn smiling. "You knew this was going to happen."
"Very good, fairy boy. You passed." She walked over to him, and using her green cloak brushed his cheek with her hand. "You're really going to be the one to save her, aren't you?"
Link turned crimson. At that moment, a shrill woman's laughter traveled by tree and echoed around the clearing. It sounded like the raucous giggle of a woman making love. It was coated with stress and sweat. It was the kind of laugh that knew it would soon wane to a smile through a bitten lip. Terryn took her hand again to Link's face, and pointed his head to the right.
There, sitting on top of Epona, was a fairy creature. Her scant yet curved body lightly radiated green, and it was as much a woman's body as it was that of the pixie, in a silver gown. Her hair was blue, or was it red, or green. Link heard music when he tried to tell. Her wings didn't move when she came towards him. But she floated, acknowledging Terryn, "Terryn.". And then it said, in a deep womanly voice most men dare not dream about, "Good morning, fairy boy". Link blinked, and when he opened them he was in the Kaer.