The Legend of Zelda: Return to Koholint

Still, after having met and having become friends, Sara would not tell him anything she did not know, and between the miles that lay before them, on the way back to Mabe they learnt that there would never be any love over their friendship. That gave him a feeling of safety, that there would not be anyone else besides the one he was looking for. And even though the same creatures that crept across the beach were yet there, ready to bring harm to anybody that would come nearby, their short journey was one of great laughter and light hearts, even if the way he had returned to the island was still unknown to him. Sara would not tell him how he had arrived since she had not witnessed his arrival. But the burden of not knowing it was not as burdensome as he had at first thought of it.

"What is just is," had said she, "no more to think about it".

There had been times when Link had wondered about the why of everything. Since there had been such a long time of simply nothing in the days he had spent outside the island, (for he saw his life as three joined pieces, ere he met her, the island, and all else) the thought of thinking again of the why made him smile inwardly. He dared not tell Sara because he would not know how to explain to her that there are some things of which you cannot sing, just what she would never believe. Unsingable things. He thought that perhaps those might be the most horrible things of all.

But Sara loved to sing, she had a wonderful voice and she knew wonderful songs to sing with it.

Then as the first smoke lifted up from a chimney and they knew that Mabe was just around the corner, like a rain it fell on him.

"What is it?" asked Sara as she saw his face of stone.

"Perhaps I will find her, after all."

"Wouldn't that make you happy?"

"It would."

"Then why do have such a face?"

"I don't know."

A feeling that you cannot share with others. The foam that washed him away from his being awake had suddenly revealed that he was yet in love with Marin. But a mere dream perhaps… it would not be first time that in his dreams he would find her, and it would not be the first time that he would find her, hold her and lose her in the timeless void between sleeping and being awake. And the pain of watching her go was not one he was willing to suffer yet again.

"What if everything is a dream again?" asked he.

"Then what a beautiful dream it is!" said Sara.

"Why do you think so?" asked he.

"Because you came to meet me!"

And they laughed. But Mabe was no more a memory, and at length they came to the first house on sight, the library. They went on until they came to her house. And there had been many times that he had come and stood before her door, and without a knock she had opened it and had greeted him as if naught had ever happened on the quiet island where she dwelt. Then, for a while, they had lain beneath an autumn moon without the chill wind of Hyrule and wrapped in the cool wind of Koholint. But he would always wake ere long, and the pain would come again. He had already shed all the tears he may.

Sara knocked on the door; Link could not muster the valour. Nobody answered.

"Maybe nobody's home?" said she.

"Perhaps," said he and nothing else; but he had never found the house empty, she had always answered, and, out of naught, the smallest of hopes rose in his heart. It was quickly covered again under the snow of his memories. Sara knocked once more.

"And nobody's home."

"Perhaps we should ask about about her?" said Link.

And about her they asked the people they found, and great was his surprise when he learned that none knew who she was. All about Mabe they went, talking to every man and woman they met, yet nobody had heard of young Marin and her beautiful singing voice; though they were not few those who greeted Sara warmly. But Link suddenly found himself filled with a terrible doubt, for it did not seemed possible to him that so beloved a lass as was Marin were not known in her own town.

"This cannot be," he said to Sara. "Marin is known by all in Koholint! It's more likely that I'm at lost and that I was washed ashore to another land."

"Yet you stand on the very island of Koholint," said Sara.

If the dream was never over, then the dream was truly lost. Link felt, not for the last time, the swelling of tears yet again.

"I'm tired,"

But they had not walked for long, and Sara knew that there are many kinds of weariness. She smiled and put her hand on his shoulder

"Then let us rest for the day," she said. "Would you like to stay with me tonight?"

"And have the people of Mabe whisper behind your back the next day?" said Link. "Thank you, but perhaps I should go find an inn."

"There are no inns on Koholint," said Sara. "Or do you forget that you walk on an island? And you shouldn't care about what people say. What is just is.

"I never care about what people say about me, but I do care about others."

"Me? My friend, my people would never say anything of that kind about me. They know me too well, and they know that my heart is shut to all but one that's no longer with me. Come, my house is not far away from the beach."