I
Arrival
Aaralyn teetered on a tree branch, looking out over the wide Navean bay with a smile etched into her porcelain face. The beauty brushed thick strands of brunette hair back from her face as she slowly stood, examining the ships further out in the harbor. Some of her father's own crafts were powerhouses out on the sea, and Aaralyn had, like her brothers, settled into her own craft of healing, much to her father's disappointment. The old man shuffled about his shipbuilding warehouse with a pipe sticking out of his mouth, sniffling to wiggle his white whiskers.
"Oh, you need to marry when you are sixteen, Aaralyn! You girls are such difficult things to care for."
"Father, I don't want to marry. I want to climb trees, write stories, paint pictures...please don't make me grow up so fast. There are a lot of things that I have still to do before I'm old enough to be somebody's wife. Don't you think, Father?"
"Aaralyn, you make everything so difficult."
"You have no faith in me. You think me a financial burden with no merit. You find it futile to spend precious money on a woman."
The old man thought for a moment, sniffling to wiggle his white whiskers again. He turned away and sauntered to a desk, apparently assembling something.
"It's true," he answered. Aaralyn's shoulders sank in defeat as she moved to flank the man's right side, watching him carefully.
"And if I should be a great healer someday, you shall still not accept me because I do not have the talents of a shipbuilder. And I thought that you would be more sensitive than my mother was. What about Luca? Will he not have to eventually support himself? Or is it, I suppose, because he is not a girl?"
"We will speak of these things later, Aaralyn."
She shuddered as she examined the harbor, watching the gulls fly overhead, singing the songs that only they could understand. Quite slowly she dragged herself from the branches and landed on the hard ground, picking herself to dust off. She ambled along from the tree, the townspeople hardly noticing the girl and her tiny, curious vagaries.
Aaralyn had, unlike many Naveans, an uncharacteristically strong sense of sight and an easy intuition that filled her soul. She could see the darkness that rimmed the shoreline of the harbor, something blackish by appearance. The sailors had been taught to care for the sea and knew well that polluting it was against the commands of King Xavier. She pranced along slowly, perhaps thinking that she had uncovered a great treasure that would seal her fate in the family and gain her father's respect.
Once she had gotten closer to the spectacle, she could see the faintest outline of green, could see dark, ragged boots that adorned a pair of feet. Her eyes widened as she took a step back, first fearing that she had perhaps encountered one of the fallen sailors who had gone overboard just weeks earlier. She leaned in toward the crystalline water and let her fingers graze the wet material before tugging with all her might, dragging the body onto the shore.
The sunlight blinded her at first as it dazzled along the waterlogged figure, though Aaralyn could tell quite easily that he was not of Navean blood. His handsome face looked slightly bloated, and his lips were dried and parched, cracked and blistered. His white skin looked slightly bluish, and his dark green tunic and white leggings were torn and shredded in several places. Aaralyn hovered over him as she gave him a light shake, hoping that by looming over him, he would not be blinded by the sunlight when he finally opened his eyes.
He didn't immediately stir, instead emitting a few small groans as he turned his head this way and that, eyelids cracking to mere slits before simply closing again. Aaralyn gave a sigh of frustration and leaned in, blowing on his eyelids. A faint smile came to his lips as his eyes again opened to cracks, recognition gleaming in the blue eyes that she could only vaguely see.
"You," he said softly.
"Me. I found you here on the beach. What's your name?"
"Zel..." he sighed, and spent of energy, it seemed that he simply lost consciousness again. Aaralyn scooped her arms about his upper body, taking him just under the arm pits as she began dragging him up the beach. A few passers-by gave curious glances, some even showing some semblance of excitement at the prospect of a foreign castaway on the Navean shores. However, being a quirky villager, no one paid Aaralyn that much attention. She escaped with ease to her family's small cottage on the outskirts of the village, setting Zel--as he had called himself--upon one of the cots towards the back of the cottage. Luca emerged from the dining room upon hearing a scuffle.
"Aaralyn!" he cried, looking the castaway over. "You have brought a man to this house? And a Hylian? You know that father will murder you!"
"Get fresh water and something to eat for him, Luca. He looks as if he's been in the hot sun for days. It sort of looked like he drifted on a few boards, perhaps from a boat or the like. How else could he have stayed afloat? Look...not a drop of water has touched his lips in days."
"He can't stay here, Aaralyn. You know that. What would father say about all of this? Better yet, what would His Majesty say? You know of his long-running anger with the Hylian King. If he were to know that a Hylian were on his shores, siphoning off his people like an animal. What are you going to do with him?"
"I'll come up with that when the time has come," she answered.
A pounding began at the front door, and Luca excused himself to see what was happening. He glanced out the windows, then quickly hurried back to Aaralyn's side, his eyes wide with fright.
"Well, the time has already come. The Navean army is right outside!"