Chapter 3. Kakariko

Even with Epona it was late in the afternoon by the time we got to Kakariko Village. In the game Hyrule field seems a lot smaller than it actually is, it took literal days to get across it walking, very annoying. Anyway, Epona turned out to be afraid of stairs…or something, so I hopped off before heading for the village.

"Will you be all right out here by yourself?" I asked her.

"Link," Navi said, "she's a horse."

"Be quiet," I replied. I patted Epona one last time and started up the stairs, slowly. Racing around the corral at break-neck speed with Ingo had given my balls quite a bruising and the ride over hadn't helped at all. So I maintained as dignified a walk as I could until I made it to the top of the stairs and was greeted by the sound of laughter.

Familiar laughter coming from a familiar man. Those weird laughing twins, one of whom had attempted to break into the castle at one point, thus making my entry much more difficult, were standing in front of the tree at the entrance to the village where the boss carpenter had once stood. The criminal one wasn't laughing anymore, he was talking frantically, looking like he was trying to convince his brother of something.

As I got close the laughing brother turned to me and said: "Can you believe this guy! What a loser! Ever since we left Hyrule Castle Town he's been like this!"

Oookay… Well, that explained how the freaks had got here, but not what they were talking about. Or why they were talking to me.

"It's true!" the other one protested. "I saw the ghost of Dampé the gravekeeper sinking into his grave!"

Wow, what a loser. Well, I'd gotten all I wanted from those two so I scooped some change out of the grass around the tree and headed for the village proper.

You have no idea how much it relieved me to see that Kakariko was still standing. More than still standing, it was thriving. There were more people, more buildings (well, one), more businesses (the potion shop was open and I saw the target shop) and everything seemed perfectly fine. Well, not fine. The clouds over Death Mountain were definitely disturbing, but Kakariko itself seemed just as it had been. Even the windmill and the sound of chickens were familiar and comforting.

I felt so much better seeing that Ganondorf hadn't screwed everything up that I decided to waste some time and visit with the natives, much to Navi's disapproval.

First stop: the boss carpenter's house. I remembered that his wife was very friendly, she fed me on more than one occasion, and I was sure she wouldn't mind me dropping by.

In fact, she didn't seem to mind anyone dropping by, or moving in. The house was full of cots, even more than when the carpenters had lived there. Mammamu Yan, the dog-lady, and the boss carpenter's wife (yeah, I have no idea what her name is) were standing over by the stove gossiping. After I re-introduced myself and the ladies gushed over how big and handsome I'd gotten (always nice to hear) Mammamu Yan started complaining about someone I hadn't noticed before.

"I've never seen such a lazy guy," she exclaimed. "He just sleeps all day and all night. I heard his ranch was taken over by one of his workers, but that's no excuse!"

"His ranch?" I repeated. As Mammamu Yan kept on complaining to Mrs. Boss Carpenter about the guy, I wandered over to look at the bum.

"Yep," I said, nodding and dislodging Navi from my hat. "That's Talon all right."

"What a slacker," Navi sniffed disapprovingly. "He reminds me of someone…"

"In a minute," I brushed her aside (literally).

"Link, there was a reason Sheik wanted up to come here."

"Stop whining, I'll figure it out in a minute."

"Listen!"

"All right, all right, I'm going." Mrs. Boss Carpenter and Mammamu Yan were looking at me kind of strangely anyway.

The laugh-y guy's story about Dampé's ghost had made me curious so I decided to check out the graveyard. Up the stairs, left past some people, up the stairs, wait a second…someone was calling me. I stopped to say hi to the Cucco Lady.

"You look familiar," she said. "Have we met before?"

"Well, yeah. I caught your cuccos for you a couple of times when I was a kid."

"Oh yes!" she smiled and clapped her hands. "I remember you, such a nice boy. And you've grown so much!"

Now here's a problem. The Cucco Lady was the second not-hideous woman I'd seen since awakening in the future with a bonfire in my pants, and being near her was reminding me of all that information I'd found poured into my brain. I didn't have pornos like teenage boys in your world do to spark my imagination, but believe me, I didn't need them.

I shrugged. "That's what happens."

"I've got to show you something!" she exclaimed. "I'm so proud, I've been telling everyone! Remember I told you I'm allergic to cuccos?"

I neglected to tell her that I remembered her telling me less than a week ago.

"Well I've developed a new kind of cucco that I call the pocket cucco!" She ran over to the cucco pen and took out an egg, then brought it over and showed it to me. "I don't get goosebumps from this baby!"

"Cool," I agreed. "How long until it hatches?"

"It should be any moment now, but I'm afraid I haven't been keeping it warm enough."

"Why don't you carry it with you?" I asked. "In your pocket or something? It is called a pocket cucco." Thinking of the Cucco Lady's body heat was not calming me down.

"Could you carry it for me?" she asked. "It would be so much help!"

"Well…" I wasn't exactly capable of saying no to her at this point, so before I knew it I found myself with an egg in my pocket and a lecture on the care and feeding of cuccos ringing in my ears. Slightly stunned I decided to continue my exploration of the village.

There were a lot more people in Kakariko and I recognized almost all of them. Okay the years had been hard on some of them, but seven years isn't a lot to someone who's already fully grown and they all looked pretty much the same. There was that weird old guy, there the reverse beggar, there the beard guy and (behind the windmill) I even found those lovers who spent all day and night staring into each other's eyes. I was actually pretty surprised their relationship had survived this long. But I took it as a good thing that Ganondorf couldn't even destroy a relationship. I climbed down from behind the windmill and wandered into the graveyard.

It was empty, not that I'd expected anything else (actually I'd been half-expecting a pre-teen version of that creepy Dampé kid, but that's not important). Being curious and not exactly burdened with morals I walked right up to Dampé's old hut and tried the door. Unlocked. Score!

It too, was empty, but this time I'd been more-than-half expecting some kind of hidden treasure, the guy's life savings, or at least some cool stuff.

"Hey, look!" Navi had found Dampé's journal. Second score!

Whoever reads this, please enter my grave. I will let you have my stretching, shrinking keepsake. I'm waiting for you.

--Dampé

Creepy, but an invitation is an invitation. I left the hut and started reading tombstones. Dampé's grave turned out to be the furthest one on the left right next to the cliff face (this is true in the game too, oddly enough). Once I got there, however, I had no idea what to do. I leaned against the tombstone and sighed.

Then I felt it shift beneath my weight. Score three!

There proved to be a hole underneath the tombstone and, despite my history with holes under tombstones and aversion to anything undead (it's just so wrong!) I hopped down it.

Have I mentioned that I hate the undead? I do. Ghosts, ReDeads, Poes, Stalfos and Stalchilds (Stalchildren?), I hate them all. They just creep me out. I think it started with ReDeads, ugh. All that rotting flesh and moaning. Brr. I get shivers just thinking about it. I think that when something is dead it should stay dead. But I digress.

Dampé the ghost was floating a foot or so off the ground at the end of the room I found myself in. He had a halo and a lantern and was moving his jaw in a very bizarre way. And he freakin' creeped me out!

"Hey there young man!" he called in an eerie echo-y voice. "I may not look it but I'm quite fast, how would you like to race?"

"Umm, okay." What else could I say?

"Follow me if you can!" Dampé floated backwards through a hallway and I followed as quickly as I could. He led me through a labyrinth of halls and rooms, dropping fires along the way to guide (and burn) me. The underground maze was actually pretty cool, all kinds of different styles and colors. I would have decided to come back and explore later, but there was the matter of the place being haunted, plus I heard moans as I ran, ReDead moans (brr). The race seemed to go on for hours, I nearly got lost more than once until I saw fire around a corner.

You know, now that I think about it, it wasn't really a race. More like me just keeping up. Anyway, I finally caught up to the dead freak, which was kind of a hollow victory considering I didn't want to be anywhere near him.

"Congratulations!" he shouted in a curiously echo-y manner (I hate ghosts). "For keeping up with me I'll grant you my treasure!"

Behind him was a chest, the typical something-important-is-in-here chest. I wasn't really sure if it was a good idea, but I went over and opened it.

Fourth Score! I got the Hookshot! w00t! (Hey, anyone know what that means?)

"Be careful as you leave," Dampé warned me, then he spun around and disappeared.

Have I mentioned that I hate ghosts?

As soon as Dampé was gone I went straight for the exit, but something about Dampé's warning and the grating sound above me made me suspicious and I rolled out from under an enormous block that would probably have crushed my skull just as it came crashing down. Great, now I was trapped between two blocks, the one that tried to kill me and another one that was blocking the door.

Actually, there was something strange about that second block, besides the fact that I couldn't budge it. Carved on the side facing me was a very familiar pattern, it looked like the same pattern that had been on the Door of Time. Definitely a clue. I pulled out the Ocarina, played the Song of Time, just to see if anything would happen, and voila! The block disappeared. I was out of there.

And in the Windmill apparently. Weird, but oh well. Hey look, it's the crazy windmill guy!

"Hi there," I said to him.

"Grr," he replied.

"That's friendly," I snorted, and turned to leave, but the crazy windmill guy saw the Ocarina I still had in my hand and…went nuts.

"I can still remember it," he cried. "Seven years ago, the song that brat played that made the windmill spin out of control!" He then proceeded to pound out a song on his accordion.

A pretty good song actually, or it would have been if it were played less harsh. I put the Ocarina to my lips and tried to follow the melody, Crazy Windmill Guy didn't even notice. Or at least he didn't until I got the song right and the windmill started spinning a lot faster and it started raining. Indoors.

"What!" he exclaimed. "This isn't right! It's spinning way too fast!"

"How 'bout that?" I grinned sheepishly and started backing away. Which wasn't actually a good idea considering how quickly the windmill was spinning. Yeah, so I got spun around a few times and became thoroughly wet and dizzy before finally managing to stumble outside and collapse on the ground.

"Ugh," I said.

"Did you see that!" Navi exclaimed, bobbing around wildly. "Did you see what happened when you played that song!"

"Uh, yeah," I sat up and held my head. "It was kind of hard to miss."

"Play it again, play it again!"

"Okay, okay." I played the song again and was slightly (only slightly) surprised when the already dark clouds burst and began pouring down rain. "Great, now I'm dizzy, freaked and completely soaked. I don't care what you say, Navi, I'm not going anywhere any time soon."

I spent the night in the tree at the entrance to town. Sleeping in trees is not comfortable, or easy, but it is certainly a lot safer than sleeping on the ground when you never know if a Stalchild is going to pop up and use those claws on your inert form.

Have I mentioned that I hate the undead?

Anyway, the truth is I spent the night in the tree more because I was too embarrassed to ask Mrs. Boss Carpenter if I could use her floor, and I wasn't sure if anyone else would let me. And sleeping on the ground just didn't feel safe, even if Stalchildren never came into towns (and they didn't) there were always people and other creatures of the night who would.

I've got to backtrack a little now. It was evening and I was scoping out the tree as a sleeping place when I thought of the sad guy, the Carpenter's son, who used to sit in front of it. I wondered where he was now and if he was less sad. I also remembered the Gold Skulltula that had been in the tree, which reminded me of those creepy cursed guys in the House of Skulltula, as it was called. I considered visiting them, It had been seven years, but I'd only killed two spiders of the curse since my last visit and the patriarch of that family was not the sort of thing you would want on your mind as you were trying to go to sleep.

All right, point is, I slept in a tree. And, that night, I had my first wet dream. The first of several. Actually, I didn't go a single night in my freakishly horny adult body without one. Deal with it.

I won't go into the details of the dream, if you want to hear them you're not the type of person I want reading this story anyway, but it involved a blonde with sapphire eyes and the body of an angel… Ack! Focus!

The next morning I was awakened much too early by the sound of crowing coming from the pocket in my tunic. The pocket cucco had hatched and was making a racket. I regained my balance (the cucco had startled me out of a crucial moment in my dream and I'd nearly fallen out of the tree), transferred the bird to my pack, and climbed down. The sun was just rising, not that I could see it too well through the menacing clouds. Something was very wrong at Death Mountain, but I didn't have time to deal with it. I had to get home.

I started to turn and leave the village, when my stomach reminded me it was breakfast time. Okay, first things first, I needed food.

After refreshing my supplies at the general store (which doesn't exist in the game for some reason. Does game-me not need to eat or sleep?) I stopped by Mrs. Boss Carpenter's house for a hot breakfast. Mmm, food… Mrs. Boss Carpenter seemed a little concerned about how thin I was (considering how thin her son was the last time I saw him I didn't think she had that right) and made sure I had plenty.

During the meal Mrs. Boss Carpenter and Mammamu Yan kept talking about Talon, who was still asleep in the back. Mrs. Boss Carpenter was worried about him, Mammamu Yan just thought he was a lazy bum. I sort of agreed with both of them, but I was worried about Malon so I decided to see what I could do to help her. In other words, I decided to wake up Talon.

Of course, the best way to wake someone up, as I knew from personal experience, was to have a cucco crow in their ear. I took the miniature pocket cucco out of my pack, held it up to Talon's face, and gave it a jab.

Bingo! Talon woke up with a start and looked around in confusion. "Who are you?" he asked.

"Name's Link," I told him. "I'm a friend of your daughter's."

"Oh!" he exclaimed. "Did you save Malon?"

"Well, I saved Epona."

"I've got to get back to the ranch right away!" Talon jumped up from the bed. "I only hope Malon can forgive me!" With that he rushed out of Mrs. Boss Carpenter's house and off into the distance.

I blinked. "Cool."

There was just one last thing I had to do before going home; return the pocket cucco. It wasn't mine and I didn't want it and the cucco lady probably missed it.

When I gave it to her she seemed quite happy about the state it was in. "It seems to really like you," she said. "You have a gift for getting along with cuccos."

"Huh?"

"Could you do me another favor?"

"Well, I guess…What is it?"

"My brother's only friend is a cucco named Cojiro, but ever since he left Cojiro's been depressed, he hardly ever crows. Could you take him with you for awhile, try and cheer him up?"

"As long as he doesn't crow too much…Okay, sure."

"Thank you so much!" She turned and pointed to a blue cucco off by itself in the closest corner of the pen. "That's Cojiro there, please take good care of him!"

"Can do," I said. Then I picked up the blue cucco and, finally, left.