Malon had been waiting patiently for her father to return from the Castle, and although she was
usually quite tolerant of her dad's antics, this was quickly becoming too much.
She looked around the Market, pausing at a booth to glance longingly at a length of green silk. The
vendor noticed her interest and walked over to ensure a deal. She flushed at the price, said she wasn't
interested and quickly walked away, vexed with herself for thinking such a fine piece of cloth would
be in her price range.
"It would have made a nice dress." She thought sadly, walking to the fruit vendor, while humming a
simple tune. She spotted an apple and reached for it, another hand colliding with hers; she pulled
away and turned to see a boy putting his hand back to his side. "Go ahead." She said, grabbing the
ruby apple and handing it to him.
'He looks beat.' She thought solemnly, and indeed that was exactly how the young boy looked. He
wore a green tunic, which seemed to have been torn and dirtied beyond repair, and streaks of filth
covered his face and blonde hair. He gave her a tired smile, but it never reached his haunted blue eyes.
She felt a stir of pity, and quickly reached into her small purse to hand the vendor a rupee for the apple.
The young boy frowned a bit, looking at her quizzically. Malon felt herself becoming increasingly
embarrassed and she quickly said, "I don't think I caught your name."
A blush rose unbidden into her cheeks when the boy smiled, more authentically this time, and
opened his mouth to reply only to be beaten to it by another.
"His name is Link. He doesn't talk a whole lot so don't expect a thank you."
Malon blinked and glanced around, and only then did she observe the fairy hovering above the
young boy's hat. Link glared up at the pixie, and attempted to flick it away, although he was smiling
a bit himself. The smile lit up his entire face and Malon realized that he wasn't much older than she
was, not to mention that he was rather attractive.
Unfortunately the fairy didn't miss Malon's appreciative glance. "Oh and my name is Navi, and since
you appear so taken by my partner here would you mind buying me an apple too?" a slight giggle
escaped the fairy's throat as she once again dodged away from danger.
The young girl tittered self-consciously, Link glared, Navi laughed.
In the end Malon bought another apple.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"So you're from the forest?" Malon asked as they devoured the pastries she had bought.
Link nodded, finishing off the sweet roll before replying, "I've lived there my whole life, and it's a
nice place, as long as you don't venture into the Lost Woods alone."
Malon nodded, absent mindedly picking the roll apart instead of eating it. Navi found that extremely
wasteful and lectured the young girl about it intensely before taking the pastry for herself,
consuming the entire sugary thing with an efficiency Malon had only seen in goats.
The red head rolled her eyes at the fairy, then realized Link had asked a question.
"Huh?"
He smiled, "I asked you where you were from."
"Lon Lon Ranch, my dad owns it. You should come by sometime, we don't get a whole lot of
visitors." She had spat out the words without even thinking of them first, and then frowned at herself.
"I'm sorry, we just met and here I am blabbing away like I've known you forever. It's just-"
He raised an eyebrow when she stopped, but she was too busy trying to figure out what 'it just' was.
He seemed familiar, like an old friend who had been gone for years and had just returned to visit.
She felt an involuntary tug at her heart whenever he smiled, and felt ridiculous for it; they had just
met after all.
A hand on her shoulder pulled her out of her reverie and she looked up to see Link frowning.
"Are you all right?" he asked, taking his hand away from her shoulder. "You seemed a bit gone for a
second."
She nodded, watching his hand slipping away and feeling vaguely cheated. The thought that
marriage at her age wouldn't be considered an oddity crossed her mind for a second, then fled at her
mortification.
It was then she noticed the sun had been going down for quite sometime and frowned.
"I have to get going before the gate closes." She sighed, walking briskly toward the said exit, she
stopped. "Where are you staying tonight?"
"At the inn." Navi said with an impish smile. Link rolled his eyes and nodded in agreement.
Malon smiled, "Well then, maybe I'll see you later."
Link grinned back and waved as she ran across the drawbridge, slowly disappearing from view.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Ganondorf watched the young girl run for her home with detached interest. She obviously had
something to do with the fate of Hyrule, the almost invisible threads of Fate attaching her to that
disruptive young Kokiri assured him of that. But it wasn't the reason he was watching her now.
When he had first scryed for her, he had been too preoccupied with other thoughts to really pay
attention to exactly what it was he was seeing. Now warning signals bounced off the inside of his
skull, and his hackles rose at the very sight of this peculiar young girl. In her, Ganondorf sensed a
power, a strange, limitless power that made his skin crawl with something akin to dread. He had felt
it keenly when she had been in the Market, it was so apparent he was surprised no one else in the
Castle had perceived it. Perhaps this deserved more tending to than he had originally supposed. In
the end it came down to two obvious options, he could either exterminate her right then and there or
he could wait.
He had never been the patient type.
