Evening
Out behind the house, Link labored to cut some of the firewood Malon needed so she could cook the meat for dinner. In his opinion, she had more than enough wood, but it wasn't really about his opinion. In all of their years of marriage, that realization was still the fundamental concept that held the relationship stable and civil. It wasn't worth arguing about and it had to be done sometime, anyway. With a grunt, he brought the weapon down and split the stick of wood in half, slicing it almost perfectly. Rather than an axe, as most would use, he was using a sword. An amazing blade really. It hadn't gone dull yet, even after all these years. A kind of magic was left in it, he supposed, even when all other magic had decided to leave him. He threw the two halves onto the small stack and replaced them with another whole log.
Bringing his sword down again, his mind went to Hyrule Castle and the beautiful Queen who ruled there, still. When she'd been but a princess she'd given him an ocarina which could manipulate the ebb and flow of time itself. His journey had taken him back and forth across time in his quest to defeat the evil King Ganondorf, bent on ruling the world and achieving ultimate power. He smiled. With the help of that legendary sword, he had ended the Gerudo thief's reign in a horrible alternate future and destroyed the hideous monster, utterly. So clear things had been back then. Good and evil separated as plainly as light and shadow, no varying degrees of morality to deal with. If only things could have always stayed so.
Ganondorf's wickedness had been erased from existence and in the process Link had erased his fate as the Hero of Time. He had become the hero no one knew saving them from a threat that did not exist and had never existed, though the affects of his existence lingered on. Sure, the Gorons remembered him for opening their cave and exterminating the Dodongos, but he hadn't been to the North in decades. The Zora remembered him for saving princess Ruto from their Lord Deity's belly, but they had disappeared from Hyrule almost twenty years and hadn't been heard from since except in rumors. Then there were the Kokiri, but… well that was more complicated. Anyway, he was a footnote in the history of minor races, rather than the hero of all ages and peoples he was supposedly destined to be. A celebrity of obscurity. He had tried to accept this but in the end, his weakness and doubt and had finally overcome him.
He walks into the Temple of Time, quietly, respectfully. The sacred building is almost empty; a few who have come to pray kneel in front of the three sacred stones and mumble words as they try to find a way to communicate to the goddesses. He is twenty-eight. A priestess asks him if there's anything he needs. He says that no, he's just seeking some guidance in a time of trouble. She smiles knowingly and bothers him no more. He joins the faithful, praying intensely for hours for a sign to come and tell him what he is about to do is wrong. More than anything else, at this moment he wants to be stopped before his blasphemy goes any further. He waits but does not truly expect to be shown anything. He isn't disappointed when he receives none. The others leave eventually, and as the sweat of his spiritual exertion drips off his forehead, he stands up in front of the stone slab that blocks entrance to his destination. The priestess has left to attend to matters outside of the temple and he is alone. He is all alone. Even the hum of the monks in courtyard is silent and he knows it is time. He puts the ocarina to his lips and plays the song of time, the notes, filled with ancient magic, reverberating within the silence. The doors engraved with a symbol of the shining sun, slide open. As he enters the sacred room, he places the ocarina back in his pouch and takes a deep breath. It is night and yet bright light from some unknown source pours into the room from the window, illuminating the Master Sword in its place. He walks over to it slowly, his heart beating in sheer terror. His fingers wrap around the hilt and he jerks upward, attempting to pull it free from its marble encasing. It slides out easily. There is no bright light, no circle of fiery blue magic; there is nothing. He looks at the empty hole, still perfect in shape, not chipped or broken in the slightest. It was waiting for him after all, he realizes. He places the Master Sword in the empty sheath that is waiting for it and walks out, his heresy unpunished.
It had been selfish, sure, but he had taken the sword from its place in the temple, maybe just to assure himself that everything that had happened had been erased, rather than just never occurring at all. A tangible validation of his identity. Now the sword was in his possession really just as a reminder of what had happened, and nothing else. He chopped firewood with it and practiced his technique from time to time, keeping his skills sharp for that day when the need for his abilities would be called on again. If the need for his abilities would be called on again, he corrected.
The ocarina of time on the other hand he had had no use for, lest he be tempted to do evil with it someday. In the same trip that he had removed the Master Sword, he had returned the ocarina to the now Queen Zelda. Convincing the court to allow him to see her had been quite a chore. Humorous though. The looks on their faces when she'd proceeded to grant him a private audience had been priceless. He hadn't seen her either since that day twenty-six long years ago, but he figured she knew who had taken sword. For a few years after it disappeared, it had been quite mystery as people knew the legend that only the true Hero of Time could draw forth the Master Sword from its place. By now people just assumed that it was with its rightful owner and thought nothing else of it, if they thought of it at all. To his knowledge, Zelda was the only other one who had retained her memory of those non-events. The sages he had talked to after he was restored to his younger self hadn't given a hint of any memory of it. Private knowledge between himself, Zelda, and the three goddesses. That was good company to be in, Link supposed. Of course, Zelda was always good company to be in. He'd shared some of the information with Malon but he knew she didn't believe him. She had problems believing the things that still existed in this timeline, not that he could blame her. Ah well. All for the best, probably.
He suddenly snapped out of his routine enough to see the sun disappearing over the horizon and a stack of wood up to his thighs sitting next to him. He grinned. Yeah, that should do Malon for the night.
Back inside, the two girls worked to prepare the dishes and eating utensils for the coming meal. For Sharon, it felt as though life was back to where it should be… well except for the sounds of boys arguing and wrestling in the back of the house. Sharon missed them deeply but knew them to be dead. She had heard her father's argument with the boys those years ago and knew where they had gone. She had also heard stories of the brutality of the Battle of Evermore and its aftermath, traveling around with the healers. In her mind, she knew them to be dead but in her heart she could imagine them living on farms of their own, starting families in valleys hundreds of miles away. Sometimes it helped, but most of the time she was unable to let her heart deceive the reality her mind knew to be the truth.
"Sharon, you just gave Daddy two knives at his place. He only needs one," her younger sister pointed out quickly.
Lauron had grown up so fast in the time her older sister had been away. She was almost a woman in her own right. The two of them hardly ever talked now, partly because of the how seldom Sharon was home, but also just because they had grown apart. Maybe that was how it was with all sisters.
"Thanks," Sharon said as she realized she hadn't responded, "Say, what have you been up to lately? Met any boys?"
"No, not really," Lauron replied, violently jerking a thumb in the direction of their mother who had her back turned, "I hardly ever have time to meet anyone anyway as much time as I spend here. Besides," she began with a wink, " I'm not really into that whole thing right now. Plenty of time for romance and marriage later."
"Well, I've been thinking that maybe we shouldn't get married at all," Sharon said as she suppressed a laughed and winked back, "It seems like an awful waste to get tied down to a man for the rest of your life when there's so much more out there to see and do." Their mother stopped stirring the flour and turned to look at both of them with an expression of shock.
"Shame on you Sharon!" Malon scolded, "Just because you've become a lost cause doesn't mean you should fill your sisters head with those horrible ideas."
Both Lauron and Sharon were taken aback until they saw a grin creep its way up the corners of their mother's mouth and saw he wink back at both of them. "Just remember moments like these every time you think I don't know something or I'm not in on the joke. I was young once - when dragons roamed the earth – and I'm not quite as stupid as you think," she said as she turned back and resumed stirring. "Now go ahead and tell her about this Jared I've been hearing so much about."
"Mom!"
"What? Don't get mad at me. I have my sources but I always like hearing you talk about it yourself better. It's entertaining to see how the stories match up."
Lauron started to pout but Sharon stepped in to get the pressure off her.
"Hey, do you remember that time Daddy caught me in the barn that night with that boy?" she asked, "What was his name? Tim? Tate?"
"Taylor," Malon corrected.
"So you do remember," Sharon said.
"What I remember is worrying that your father was actually going to catch the boy and be picked up by the justices for murder."
"You were with a boy in the barn?" Lauron asked her sister in disbelief, "Why wasn't I ever told about this if everyone else knew?"
"Oh it wasn't that bad," Sharon said, brushing the question off, "and you didn't really need to know about it. Besides, we weren't actually doing anything but talking."
"Your father didn't know that," Malon pointed out, "I do believe he scarred that poor boy for the rest of his life. Why, the things that came out of his mouth as he was running after that boy, I hadn't heard before nor thankfully have I heard since. And when you two get finished could you start setting some of these pots and dishes on the table. There's no more room left on the counter." She looked back at them. "On second thought, you might as well help prepare a bed for our new guest. Knowing the two of you klutzes, half of the dishes wouldn't make the trip, anyway. Might give you two a chance to talk without your dear old mother getting in the way, too, I imagine."
They smiled and went back to their bedroom. When Sharon had lived there, one of the beds had been hers but now it was empty except when she came to visit.
"It's nice having you back," Lauron said as she lied down on her own bed, "but I won't lie and tell you I don't enjoy the extra space I have with you out of the way."
Sharon grinned.
"I remember how mad I was at you when you were born. All I knew is that I used to have this room to myself and you had to come along and take away part of it."
"Ha ha, you selfish witch."
"I was seven. Give me a break. Anyway, what have you been up to these past few years I've been away?"
"Not much. With you and the boys gone well… let's just say the work's kept me busy."
"I'm sure… What about hobbies?" Sharon question, "What do you do in the little spare time that you have?"
"I haven't told anyone else about this so I might as well tell you," Lauron answered cryptically, "It's nothing special really." She pulled an object wrapped in a cloth out from underneath the bed. Gently taking it out, she revealed a small dagger. Picking it up, she twirled it around and tossed it around from hand to hand skillfully.
"Impressive," Sharon said.
Lauron frowned.
"I'm nowhere near as good at it as I should be. My stabs and thrusts are decent, but my throwing is still wanting, terribly," she punctuated the statement by tossing it quickly at what Sharon assumed was a target on the wall. It missed a less than a foot to the side but that didn't seem good enough for Lauron, "It's a balanced blade, and, strong too, so fault still lies with me. Dad refuses to teach me unless I can catch him in the right mood so I have to train myself most of the time."
"Well I hope you never have a call to use it."
"Maybe so but if I do, at least I'll be prepared."
Sharon changed the subject and they sat talking for a little while about more pleasant matters before their mother called for them to come back in and sit down. Then the four of them sat down at the table and had an excellent supper.
Night
The house was quiet and dark as always, but lying in his bed next to Malon, Link found himself unable to go to sleep, even as tired as he felt. He was hot, restless. The room wasn't as empty as it should have been. Something didn't feel quite right. Something wasn't quite right.
-Link-
He groaned as he "heard" his name.
-Link-
He opened his eyes but his room was gone, replaced by a world of substanceless white light. As he looked around, bewildered, he finally saw a small child dressed in green before him. Link recognized the child as one of the Kokiri and the memories of his childhood swept over him. His brain registered this particular one quickly as Mido, once a bully and his nemesis, but one who had quickly become as great and loyal friend as could be found anywhere.
"Mido!" Link yelled out, his voice echoing strangely in this unfamiliar place. "It's good to see you. What have you been up to?"
-Link…come to the Kokiri Forest. Saria needs you. You must hurry-
"Wait, what? What are you talking about? Mido, what's going on?"
-Hurry…-
As his voice trailed off to a whisper, Mido faded away slowly until he was completely gone and Link was left completely alone. The next moment, he found himself back in his bed and he jerked awake, sweating and out of breath. The sheets on his legs were sticky from his perspiration and his heart was racing in excitement. He massaged his temples firmly. Well, he would be getting no more sleep this night. He looked over at his wife and found her to still be sleeping soundly, undisturbed. He cautiously got out of bed and pulled back the curtain, looking outside. It was still dark out and it didn't seem like it would be morning for another few hours. He looked back at his wife and stroked his chin for a few moments, thinking. What to do? Part of him reminded itself that maybe he'd just been dreaming and it would be a mistake to do something illogical and rash without giving himself so time to think about it. Another part reminded him that Saria might need him. What to do?
Decisions made in the middle of the night are rarely done in a calm or rational manner and minutes later he was on his horse, galloping toward the Kokiri Forest with his sword and shield strapped to his back. In the morning, his family found a note on the table explaining that he had been called away to the Kokiri Forest on urgent business. What to do, indeed.
Two Days Later
Morning
Link's horse trotted toward the Kokiri Forest slowly, panting. He patted it on the neck and fed it a carrot which gave it some incentive to go faster. Two days hard ride had taken its toll on the old beast, a feat which would have been easily done in its youth but was nearly killing it now. Link had thought about tying Alosa up somewhere and going along on foot, but he knew that he couldn't cover the five miles they had left running nearly as fast as his horse could walking. The sense of urgency was still there and it made him feel helpless to be moving so slowly. For whatever reason he'd been called, it had to be important. It was rare that he was invited to the Kokiri Forest, and not once in over thirty years.
He stands before an assembly of all the Kokiri. Some are sobbing, some sniffling, a few leaning against walls with their arms crossed across their chest, trying to appear tough. He is eighteen. He towers above them now but he can remember the days when he was the runt of the group. Once he'd felt like an outsider because of his size, and the feeling has returned to him recently. He looks down to see a young, green-haired girl who is far older than him, and far older than he will ever be. She looks as if she could not have seen the passing of twelve summers, and yet in actuality she is older than all but the tallest oaks of the forest.
"You've spent much time in the Kokiri Forest since you were brought here and that time has been well spent. But this is no place for adults, Link," she tells him sadly, "there are rules that must be observed and we've bent them as far as we can for as long as we can. This is no place for you anymore. You have to move on with your life. You're destined for something much greater; I can feel it. Do you understand?"
He nods, but says nothing. He understands none of it, only that he will never get to see his friends again after this day. He feel anguish like he's never felt before. Saria takes his hand and leads him out to the bridge that connects the Kokiri Forest to the rest of the world. The "chasm" the bridge traverses is unimposing, both narrow and shallow, but the size belies the true distance caused by the gap. They stop when they are half way across and Link drops to one knee in front of her. He kisses her forehead and she hugs him with the arms of a child, but the spirit of a sage. He remembers having a crush on her once when he was still a boy, but he's grown beyond that now and cares for her as a person in ways much more deeply than romance would allow, childish or otherwise. He tries to give her back her fairy ocarina but she won't accept it.
"Keep it with you so that you won't forget your time with us here," she says, "keep it for me."
He nods silently again, then without word, stands up and walks the rest of the way across the bridge, through the magic entrance, and jumps on Epona's back to ride away for good. Not once does he look behind him. Not once does Saria blink.
She'd told him to keep it to remember her, and he had, even though all of the magic had gone out of it long ago. The ocarina had been broken in some accident over twenty years ago (he couldn't remember what exactly) but he'd collected the pieces and set them in a box in his bedroom, a concession Malon granted him without even bothering him what it was about. Malon was good about knowing what to push him on and what to leave alone.
He'd respected their wishes and hadn't even tried to go back since but he knew that even if he did, he couldn't enter without Great Deku Tree and Kokiri children's consent. If they'd wanted him there, they would have called him as was currently being proven. The message that had actually been sent was troubling, though. Link wasn't exactly an expert on magic of any kind so perhaps there were other factors in the communication that prevented something less cryptic from being said. Ha, in his youth he'd wielded magic so carelessly without thought of where is came from or why it worked. Such days those had been.
The minutes ticked by quickly as he thought of all of the good memories he had gained from his time with the Kokiri children and soon he found himself in front of the barrier to the forest. He'd been told that those not allowed entrance couldn't see it, but he'd never tried to find it since he'd been told he wasn't allowed. He supposed it could be a sign that they wanted him in. Link dismounted and tied his up to a dead tree next to the entrance. He pulled out his sword and slipped his arm through the straps of the shield, advancing cautiously. He didn't know why he'd been summoned, exactly, and it was always good to be prepared in the face of uncertainty. Still, what a ridiculous sight he would be, an old man still playing dress up. The Kokiri would probably laugh at him, poke fun at the signs of his aging. Link wondered if any of the children had changed at all in the time he'd been away. He doubted it. As he passed through the magical barrier, he felt nothing despite the number of summers separating him from his childhood. He had expected some feeling, a tingle maybe, but perhaps that was because they were letting him in. Yes, that was probably it. As he came near the bridge, he noticed something didn't seem right, but he couldn't place it. He'd probably just been away from the forest too long.
As he stepped on to the bridge, the reek of death suddenly hit his nostrils and he gagged. He looked up to his right and saw a naked child nailed through the shoulders to a tall wooden post. Dried blood had run down its chest from a throat wound and crows picked at its empty eye sockets and open mouth for soft flesh. Flies crawled inside the nose and ears and buzzed around the boy's body, a further defilement. His body, baked in the sun over a period of days, was bloated sickeningly and though the top of his body was a pale, pale white, his lower body was full of color, purple and black. Link looked around and saw over twenty children in the same condition with their throats slashed, some further mutilated by weapons, and most eaten by creatures to some degree. He jumped over the side of the bridge, ignoring the pains in his knees as he checked for any possible survivors, rationality telling him he was unlikely to find any but hope driving him besides. The stench of decomposition and defecation was everywhere. He searched up and down the wooden posts for signs of life but the only life he found belonged to that of the scavengers. A few children, mostly girls, were lying on the ground with severe bruises around their necks, victims of strangulation. When he went to check on them and see if there was any way he could help them, maggots squirmed out from beneath them a malodorous stench swept over him, revealing that they were long past any help he could provide. He couldn't bear to look at them much longer. But so many more were nailed to the posts, left in varying degrees of defacement. They'd been hacked to pieces after their deaths, some skinned, some missing limbs, some even missing genitals. Who was capable of doing such a thing to children? Who could- there had to be survivors somewhere… They couldn't all be dead…He checked all bodies for life, even the ones that had obviously passed on. He wouldn't let himself believe that they were all dead. Finally, when he had given up all hope, he heard sounds of life behind a stone in the far corner. He rushed over to it and found a boy lying up against the stone as if he was hugging it. When Link got closer, he saw that metal bolts had been driven through the boy's arms into the stone in multiple places, holding him there. He was covered in cuts and bruises and it appeared both eyes had been removed from his head, by weapon or animal, Link couldn't be sure. Most of the boy's long blonde hair was lying beside him in clumps and his raw, sunburned scalp was in pieces. His legs were broken and twisted; from his left thigh, a bloody bone jutted out. The surrounding tissue was inflamed and the infection had many colors, a rainbow of repugnance. Link looked back at the boy's face. His lips moved but Link couldn't make out what the child was saying. He put his ear close to the boy's lips.
"Wa…ter."
Link quickly pulled out a canteen from his bag and began pouring it down the boy's throat. He gurgled and spit some up, but eagerly accepted more. Once Link felt the boy had gotten enough, he stopped and put the canteen up. It wasn't until he studied the face closer that he realized that it was Mido.
"Mido? Goddesses, what's happened to you? Hold still and let me get you out of that stone."
"There's nothing you can… do about it now. I am in too much pain and it would do no good. I'll be… passing on soon."
"Where's your fairy? Where are the rest of the Kokiri's fairies? They've still got their magic, don't they? They could revive you and the others!"
"No, we're beyond even their… help now. Even if we weren't, I'd rather… Tabila escape than sacrifice his life for my own. Many… of the other fairies were bottled by the intruders… or just killed. No, there isn't any… helping us now. You cannot undo what was done."
"What was done? What was done? By the goddesses, I can see what was done! Who did it?"
"Link, please don't… talk anymore until I'm… through, okay? This… is hard enough as it is. I…I was told to tell you that this…this is the penalty of all traitors and separatists in Hyrule. My… forehead wears the symbol of the king I should have sworn allegiance to instead of betrayed and… I pay the price for my mistake as all eventually will."
Link reached up and brushed the hair out of the boy's forehead, revealing the seal of the Kingdom of Hyrule. He looked away, the seal somehow more gruesome than any other corpse in the forest could possibly be.
"They came in through the Lost Woods a dozen of them…and took us by surprise but we assumed not with malice. We've never been enemies of Hyrule… Somehow they got through the… barrier. We thought they had come through with permission but… soon we saw that this couldn't be possible. We had no protection from them… I'm so sorry, Link… I was told to… call you here and in… return they said they'd stop torturing the rest of the children. But they… took my eyes Link. They took my… I… I don't know if they kept their promise. I haven't heard any others in days but… tell me, do they… wear the marks of a steel blade?"
"Yes, Mido," Link answered as he looked around, as truthfully as his conscience would allow, "Almost all of them look to have had their throats cut before the Excruciation killed them."
"Good," he said and as a pained smile briefly crossed his face. "I have heard that… when the non-fairy folk enter the Lost Woods they become monsters. Is that… what made them do this to us, Link? Did they become monsters within before… it could show on the surface?"
"Yeah, Mido," he lied, outright, "it had to be the dark magic of the Lost Woods that did this to them. No Hyrulian could do this to the the Kokiri without a soul tainted and black."
"Then I will… pray for their souls in the next life. I only hope the goddesses can… forgive them for their sins… and forgive me for my own. You have to understand…you have to… We were beaten for… days before I could call you, Link. The girls were… raped mercilessly over and over again, some by the soldiers themselves… others by whatever the soldiers could find lying around. It was horrible. Saria… she… she…" he began to sob tearlessly.
Link's mind was suddenly filled with last images Mido saw through the eyes he no longer had.
He sees images of a soldier running Saria down, tripping her into a rock. Her face hits it, knocking out several teeth and breaking her nose. Blood runs down her face as the rest of the soldiers make it to her and turn her over on her back. She screams as they tear off her clothes and beat her until she can no longer resist. She is limp, but still somewhat conscious. He can see her tears and hear her beg them to stop in a whisper. He sees them hold her down and explore her body with their hands and their mouths, and they force themselves into her, one after another for hours, pouring their lust onto her, and her agony sating them as much as the sex itself. He hears the snap of several of her bones that can't bear the weight and stress of what their ordeal, but they don't even pause. They don't have an ounce of mercy in them. He can hear one of the soldiers standing nearby say, "It's not like your really fucking a kid, I mean she's a couple hundred years old right? More like fucking a granny, really. Amazing it's as tight as it is, all things considered." He hears several of the other girls who are tied up whimper in fear as they watch and can see them hold one another close as they try not to look away, but can't. This is their first experience with true evil and they are so afraid, so very afraid. Several lose control of their bladders and bowels, causing the soldiers to laugh. One of the soldiers who hasn't been participating speaks up. "This shit isn't right, guys… Separatists or not, this shit just isn't right." But he makes no move to stop the others and they laugh. "Wait outside, then," they say. "We'll be gone soon enough." Link sees no more of the soldier in the images and realizes that he has left.
He watches as the soldiers finally leave Saria on the ground, a broken heap, almost dead, and turn their attention to the other girls. He sees the soldiers strip the girls as well and force the them to perform sexual favors with one another for the soldiers entertainment, threatened not with the death of themselves, but with that of their friends. "Touch her right there, in her special spot between her legs," they order as they crowd around to watch. "That's good. Now you lay down under her and you squat over her mouth. Lick it. Go ahead and put your whole tongue into it. See, she likes it. Doesn't that feel absolutely wonderful?" they say. But observing can't satisfy them for long and soon they began to rape the rest of the girls themselves. "Just put it in your mouth," he hears one soldier tell a child kneeling down in front of him as screams can be heard all around them. "There you go darling. You're a natural." Another soldier grabs his spear and makes a wager on how far he can get the blunt end into her before she passes out or dies. Link hears pleas for mercy and watches as the pleas are brutally ignored, or met with nothing more than laughter. He watches as the boys are forced to look on, tied up and unable to do nothing but absorb punishment at random. He sees two bored soldiers have a contest to determine who could crush a little boy's skull first. Link watches them bash the children's faces into large rocks until their heads are nothing but pulp and hears the loser complain that the winner's boy had a head that was too soft, and they should try again. He sees the Great Deku Tree's monolithic corpse lit on fire, and feels the Deku Tree Sprout chopped down as it broadcasts its pain to the other living creatures of the forest, unable to stop itself. Link sees children's houses being torched, some with children still in them, and he smells the air as they are cooked alive, the stench of burned flesh and oil overwhelming. Finally, he sees the children as they are nailed to the wooden posts by the bridge and the soldiers take souvenirs from the children's organs and sections of their skin, all the while amused at their hideous work.
In the blink of an eye, Link witnessed all of the pain they had gone through for days and he found himself on his knees, looking into Mido's unsettling blind gaze once again.
"You had to see why I… You had to know why I had no other choice," Mido gasped, "I'm so sorry Link… I swear by the Great Tree, I'm so sorry."
"What? What are you sorry for?" Link almost screamed at him, overcome by the images and somehow afraid of what Mido was about to say next.
"They said if I… called you here they'd stop hurting the others. They promised… if I called you and told you what they wanted…they'd stop hurting the others. They… said they wanted you here because… they didn't want to have to… deal with you when they went to your house."
