AN: Sorry it's taken so long! I write music as well as stories, and I just
installed 'Finale' on my computer. I've been messing with it a bit too
much, I suppose... I've put a lot of thought into the rest of this story
lately, especially the ending, the 'issues of Tetra', and the beginning of
the sequel, but I honestly didn't think too much about the 'back-story'
properties of the Keaton hunt, even though there are some... hm. I'll think
about incorporating it into the so-called 'issues of Tetra'. I've loved the
upcoming chapter (even though I've had to split it in two so you wouldn't
worry) ever since it appeared subconsciously; it has so many memorable
moments. The words to Epona's song are completely my own, but, of course,
the tune is property of Koji Kondo, the master of the music in every Zelda
game. I've decided to make the "LZ" a bit easier to read, so, hopefully, I
won't give you (or myself) anymore headaches. If you ever want it back,
however, I will be happy to continue with all the old-fashioned spelling
errors you could ever want. To congratulate myself on my tenth chapter, I
have been looking at the earliest known version of this story in my mass of
notebooks. Anni wasn't always what she is now; in fact, the whole ranch
thing is pretty recent. She started out as a somewhat minor Gypsy-ish girl-
a lot less daring, a lot more dependant on Link and magic. Link was a
cocky, unaccompanied boy- the single thing I haven't changed is his
etiquette toward his elders. The Chichimara has always been the monster,
but I have altered it from gender to gender and changed the many tricks it
plays dozens of times. The plot itself has thickened- it is less
predictable, but still has a lot of the same elements as the original. I'll
tell you more of these as I feel necessary, but for now, read, review, and
enjoy! I may seem a bit out of practice due to Spring Writing Assessments
at school...~
The scent of horses filled my nostrils, and valley grasses licked at my heels. A warm breeze was blowing; the hair that swept before my eyes was as red as flame. Epona stood at my side, but she was but a filly, pushing her black-and-scarlet nose up under my hand, and before me stood a boy clad in green from the forests, a little iridescent being circling his head.
'Fairy Boy,' I heard myself say. It was strange; what came out of my mouth was a long string of gibberish, but I sort of felt what it meant in my head and heart. 'Thank you for bringing Papa back. I dunno what I'd do without you.' I reached up to slide my hair behind my ear, and felt that my ear was three or four inches long, and pointed. I was appalled. Whoever I was wasn't at all. 'How was Zelda? She didn't kick you out, did she?'
'No, she was great, Malon,' he said, smiling shyly and lopsidedly. I almost cringed at the use of my real name, and I realized that I knew his smile from somewhere...
'Link, that's wonderful,' I heard myself say. Link? Surely not... But it was, with those tell-tale foggy green eyes and those long pointed ears, and the way that he rocked somewhat impatiently in his boots; even his green tunic was the same. This made me wonder what I looked like, and so I checked. There was nothing much to see; a pretty plain white skirt designed in blue at the hem, and a pale yellow blouse. Nothing I found particularly stylish.
'Who's your pal, there?' He asked me; I realized he had a slight, spicy sort of accent that reminded me of lush green forests and eternal youth. He made a vague sort of gesture with his hand toward the filly at my side.
'She's one of our newborns, Epona,' I answered him.
'D'you think I could pet her?' he asked me, raising a soft, gentle hand.
'You can sure try,' I heard myself answer. 'But she's a timid one, and she might not let you.' He moved his hand toward her, and sure enough, she hid herself behind me. We laughed, and the filly snorted indignantly. The inner me beamed. The real Epona had been exactly like that before she became rouge; sweet and shy. I suppose becoming more mature had stirred something in her mind, and made her so proud that one day that she never let anyone ride her again. Until Link had come along, of course. 'There's a song that'll comfort her. My mother wrote it before she died, and it always seems to work.' I smiled, and began to sing words that were somewhat familiar (though I didn't think I'd ever heard them before) to that old ranch tune I knew so well;
'Stay close, Stay close
Hear the river rush;
Never fear, my friend
Spring shall come again!
'In the night, In the night
When all hope is lost;
Huddle up close to me,
Share the warmth!
'Sunbeams drip down from heav'n above
My heart shall be your shelter;
Things that frighten you, scare you off
Shall fade away...
'So when you leave, when you leave
Keep my love beside you;
Go to the farthest lengths
Heart must be your strength!
'And keep in mind, keep in mind
That I'm always with you;
Huddle up close to me,
Share the warmth!'
Epona cautiously crept out from behind me, and let Link run his hand from between her ears, to her star, to her black velvet nose. 'Your mom wrote that?' he asked, smiling slightly as the filly nosed him, searching for sugar or apples.
'Yeah,' I grinned. Link stumbled a bit as Epona leaned against him. 'If you'd sing with me, I'd be willing to teach it to you,'
'Er... I don't sing... but I have an ocarina,' He pulled a little ceramic instrument from his pocket. I tapped my foot and began to teach him the notes; the sweet sound of the ocarina resonated through the ranch, and every horse and cow raised her head and turned her ears toward us, two music-makers in a world of spite. The foresty tones echoed through my entire being, and my vision began to fade. Three voices whispered in my head; 'Remember... Remember... Remember...'
'Remember what?' I yelled into the black, but nothing responded. 'What's so important? Wha-'
"Anni, would you shut up already?" Someone grabbed my shoulders firmly, pulled me into a sitting position and shook me hard, and I opened my eyes to a very bedraggled Tetra. Her eyes were half shut with exhaustion, but she looked at me very seriously, and all I could manage was a sheepish grin. She groaned and threw me back into my bed. I took a glance at Medli on the trundle, who was still asleep. Tetra was about to climb back up to her bunk -the sky was still a dark blackish-blue outside through the window- when she stopped in the middle of the ladder, and gave me a puzzled look. "You were dreaming about Link, weren't you?"
"...Yeah. How did you know?" She smiled faintly.
"I have those, too. Kind of a pain to have the pirates rush into the room and shake you awake." She laughed.
"...What do you see? When you dream, I mean," I asked, and she looked at me suspiciously.
"Er... Link, of course...stone walls... and fancy courtyards, tapestries, a shadowy, armored woman, snow-white horses, stormy skies... And I'm always peering through a tiny window at Ganondorf... It's none of your business, really." She climbed another rung, and I interrupted her.
"Do those three voices talk to you at all?" I asked. She glared at me, sighed and continued softly:
"Yeah... They're annoying little buggers." She gave me a hard glance, and for a moment, I was surprised she hadn't turned me to ice with her cold eyes. "They're always telling you what to do. Sort of creepy... Would you leave me alone? I'd like to sleep a bit more, okay?" She grumbled some things inaudibly under her breath as she made her way to the top bunk and plopped down.
I paused for a moment. "Tetra?" I said- almost squeaking.
She swung her head upside-down over the side of her bunk. "What?!?" she snapped, almost loud enough to wake Medli.
"...Do you think the dreams... mean something?" She stared at me seriously, sighed, and permitted herself to smile faintly, almost sadly.
"Anni, I think they do," she mused. "I truly, honestly think they do." Presently, she looked me hard in the eye. "Now, no more of these questions unless you want me to shove one of my sandals down your throat, got it?" I nodded. She smirked in a satisfied sort of way toward herself and vanished.
~*~
I woke to the golden sunlight shining into my eyes through the window. The room was completely abandoned, but I thought I knew where everyone would be. I dressed quickly, tying a yellow bandanna around my neck; I had to go to school today, and the kerchief was a sort of uniform. I tidied up a bit, and then ran out the door, down the hall, and into the library. Sure enough, there was everyone, reclining in the dusty red-violet chairs. Medli was reading that 'LZ' book to a very engrossed Link, Tetra was playing chess with Daystar (and was being beaten very badly), Komali was discussing broken violin strings with Makar, and the pirates were fighting over who would read 'The Odyssey' next. Everyone was nibbling at a plate of assorted fancy pastries, which sat on the cherry coffee table. There were ten or eleven mugs, each of different styles, gathered beside the pastry dish; most were filled with orange juice, but one was full of coffee instead. I smiled to myself and plunked down on the couch next to Link.
"Mornin' Anni," he said, beaming, but his attention was stuck towards the book.
Medli rubbed her forehead and gave me a sheepish smile. "I just started a paragraph ago, and my head already hurts!" I laughed. Link blinked.
"So? I had another rude awakening this morning." He glared at Tetra, who pretended not to notice him and smirked. I gave him a questioning look, and he looked somewhat uncomfortable. "Y'see, every once in a while, Tetra just gives me a sharp kick in the ribs to wake me up,"
"Otherwise, he'll be asleep until noon!" She grinned, knocking out Daystar's pawn. He wagged his tail once and took out her king, carefully placing the piece with his jaws. "Agh! You really were a human earlier! I believe you now!" Daystar wagged his tail harder, so that it thumped against the sofa.
"Oh, then I don't envy you," smiled Medli, still massaging her brow with all of her long, pale fingers.
"So, how's the story going?" I asked, grabbing myself a chocolate muffin and peering onto the delicate parchment of the page. I was almost surprised that the gods weren't painted on this one. The first symbol on the page was illuminated in that old- fashioned style, so that it looked like a tree. There was a tiny, delicately drawn yellow-haired boy sitting against it, silver tears streaming down his face from exaggerated black-green eyes, and he was clad in a tunic such as Link's. I looked at Link and Medli, who simply wondered what I was looking at them for, and decided not to comment on anything until they were excited and intrigued by it. Trees and leaves and green-clad children loitered about the margins, and every last one of them was accompanied by a curious pinkish-white being- I recognized it from my dream, and decided (judging by the wings) it was a fairy of some sort. I looked back at the illumination with the crying boy, searching for the fairy, but there was none. Medli (reluctantly) began to translate:
"Being a tale of the Outcast, written by those who know it, for they hath lived it: Back in the Age, when Hyrule was still young, fresh from war, and still regaining peace, there lived a curious people of the Southeastern forest. Amongst the lush green and brown, the Kokiri were all of youth, and all accompanied by a single fairy, which flew at their shoulder until their death, be them devoured by a Deku Baba or simply worn out by playing too often. There was no such thing as age among them. They never even discussed such ridiculous things. Except for one boy, that is...
"He was a bit different from the others. It may have been that his ears were a bit too long, or the fact that he was a bit too tall, but he was considered strange among the Kokiri for his many thoughts on growth and life. They believed that these thoughts poisoned him so much that his christening fairy refused to go near him. They mocked him from a distance, this fairy-less child, convinced that his spoiled mind might drag them down too. Thus, the boy learned to fare mainly on his own, but on silver-moon nights, one could hear him weep in at the foot of his tree house. His name was... Oh dear." Medli paused and squinted at it. "I don't like names... This one was very honorable, you can tell." She pointed at several little quill scratches near the two square-like symbols of the boy's name. "See? These mean that he was appreciated by the Zora, the Gorons, my, by everyone! Oh dear..." She neared the page until the tip of her beak brushed it. "Good heavens... it's Link!"
"That's strange," said Link, slightly puzzled. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, quite," she assured him. "It's actually a word with much meaning in Hylian."
"Like what?" I asked, wincing as my tooth brushed a stale raisin in my third muffin.
"Well... You know how a piece of a chain's called a link? And some bloodlines? In old Hylian, they often used the term as a connection as well, but it was in more intimate sorts of ways... It was one of the many terms for 'friendship' and even 'love'."
Link looked a bit freaked out.
I looked up at the clock, and something snapped inside my head. "Oh, Holy Din! I have school today!" I jumped off the couch, and rummaged around frantically for my backpack (I was never very tidy when choosing where I should leave it). Thankfully, I found it lying absently on the corner of a small lamp table, and I swung it over my shoulder.
I was about to run out the door, when Tetra, without looking up, asked: "What's the rush? What is this 'school' thing anyway?"
"Uh... I suppose it's where you learn stuff... Like reading, and writing, and all that sort of junk." I snapped, hastily. It was eight-thirty, and I needed to be there and seated by nine; it took a long time to run through a field, rent a gondola, and get through the canals of Boulviddar before you reached the schoolyard.
"Isn't your mom supposed to teach you that stuff? Or your tutor?" she continued absently.
"Or your grandmother?" Link added. Komali and Medli nodded.
"I don't have any of those... And I gotta go, so see ya!"
"Bye, and don't get yourself eaten or anything," Tetra concluded. I raised an eyebrow, nodded, and left with the speed of the wind behind my heels. 'What sort of farewell is that?' I wondered as I turned the toes of my boots toward the schoolhouse.
~*~
The bell must've sounded a split second after I sat down! I exhaled any tension left in me. No matter what obstacle I had faced, my record was still clean of tardiness. My teacher, Ms. Koholint, wrote the weekly writing assignment up on the chalkboard.
"Write about what you did over the weekend."
I smiled, and pulled a piece of parchment and my magic quill from my desk. Licking the tip, I dunked it in the inkwell, and began to write very untidily and quickly. There was no problem in describing each crew member in detail, especially Link and Tetra, and didn't think once about how much of a fairytale it really seemed to be.
Later, after the paper had been handed in, Ms. Koholint beckoned me up to her desk with an awkward grimace. She was a long-nosed, brown-haired teacher, who wore horn glasses and a necklace strung with bits of ebony carved into children and numbers and apples, and she, like all teachers, could be intimidating at one time or another. This was one of those times. She gave me a plaintive sort of smile. Her teeth looked fake.
"Anni, when I wrote that on the board, I meant real events," she declared solidly.
"But-"
"We both know that you have a knack for writing fantasy, and I see no problem in what you did write, but remember, sometimes in life you have to stick with reality."
"But Ms. Koholint, if I may, everything in that paper is as true as twine, and nothing is exaggerated... Well, except for the fight with the crocodiles... But I can prove every word, honest." I argued, pounding a fist down on the desk. "I could bring Rito feathers, or maybe one of their instruments- if they'd let me, of course."
"I don't think so. You have so many geese around your house, how should I know that the feathers aren't painted? And in your place, it's not hard to snag an instrument from a traveling minstrel." She smiled, and I felt uncomfortable. "Unless, of course, you could bring someone to school with you..."
I gasped, with mixed feelings. "Oh, I'd be willing to do that... If the kids here weren't so judgmental of things... I mean, they have pointed ears, and beaks and wings; lots of teasing opportunities..."
"Well," my teacher concluded. "I'd be fine with either. Hopefully the students wouldn't be too bad. It's your decision."
I thought about it all day, doodling in the margins of my science-math tests. I was really relieved when the bell rang at the end of the day, and I ran out the door so fast that I forgot to pack a paper and was carrying it in my hand. The sun shone broad and bright in my face, even with my mother's hat to shade my eyes, and the wind was the strongest I'd felt in a while. It whipped around my legs and snagged the paper from my hands, blowing it high into the air. I chased after it. It had been my notes on homework, you see, and I would probably forget it all without it. It went west for a while longer, and settled on the ground just ahead of me. I rushed to perhaps stomp on it, and then the wind began to blow it in the other direction. I cursed audibly. This game of chase lasted until I was on my knees panting. The wind had blown in so many different directions in just about twenty minutes, but not once did I suspect a thing. My notes drifted casually on the now weak breeze and landed on my feet. "Hmm. Wind's acting funny today, don'cha think?"
I looked up to see Link, leaning against a fence with a huge lopsided smile on his face and a long white baton sort of thing between his fingers. He grinned down at me and slipped the white thing into his left boot. In his other hand, he held some rupees and a small length of parchment with scribbling on it in green ink. "Link? What are you doing here?!"
He looked up into the sky for no visible reason. "Oh, I just wanted to look around, see the sights, have a little fun... Y'know, stuff like that. Oh, and Saigon wants you to get some things, so I volunteered to bring you a list and some money."
"The wind really was acting weird." I murmured to the ground, snatching my paper. "I hate it. It always ruins everything," I was in a bad mood, as I often was right after school, but when I looked back up into Link's face, he looked truly and genuinely hurt.
"Oh, c'mon," he murmured, as if he were trying to avoid something. "I...It was just joking around." I looked at him as if he were crazy, and he smiled uncertainly. The soft breeze that was blowing vanished altogether and I realized that the wind was the only thing keeping us cool out here. I began to sweat. "D'you think we should go back to the gondola and get these errands done?" I mopped my brow with my school kerchief and nodded. "I got the gondola guy to hold it, but we'd better hurry before he gives it to someone else." The Boulviddarian gondolas were free and public, and sometimes you had to be quick to claim one, or you'd have to walk on the narrow wooden sidewalks on either side of the canals. If you were really unlucky, you'd have to wade across the street in a shallow area or cross a rickety bridge.
"Well? Let's go!" I swung my backpack over my shoulder and began walking briskly toward the gondola dock. Link shrugged and followed me. I found the gondola the guy was leaning against. He recognized Link, and let us both on.
"Thanks a lot, sir." Link nodded to the man, and they exchanged small grins. There was a yell from a woman in a gondola behind ours. I grabbed the oars to leave the dock, but Link made a hasty motion with his hand. I groaned and stopped. He stood up, shielded the sun from his eyes, and gazed over me at the woman. I took a glance too. She was dressed in very expensive-looking scarlet and gold robes, and her black hair was tied up elegantly in a bun with a comb of mother-of pearl. She leaned over the side of the boat, shielding her eyes and looking for something beneath the clear waves. "Madam? Is there a problem?" Link asked. She looked up. I smacked him lightly on the shin with an oar.
"Link, stop being polite to people you don't know!" I hissed. He didn't hear me.
The rich lady eyed him judgmentally. Her eyes were pitch black, painted with scarlet and gold eye shadow. "I dropped my most expensive silver bracelet over the edge of the boat, and it cost me half a fortune, too." She sighed. "There's nothing you can do about it, lad. It's gone. Thank you for applying yourself in my miseries, though." She sounded snobby and sarcastic.
"I think I can help," Link smiled, kicking off his boots.
"Link, what are you doing?" I growled. "Don't do anything reckless, lad!" the rich lady said, as if she didn't mean it very much. Link nodded.
"I'll just save you some getting wet in those nice clothes of yours." He took off his hat, threw it onto the floor of the boat, and jumped off the side, headfirst into the water.
"AHH! LINK!" I looked over the side of the boat but saw nothing except ripples. I would've wept- a normal person drowned in water- but didn't. Link had jumped in on his own free will, and, knowing him, he would probably amaze me somehow. I looked over at the rich lady. She wiped a tear off her cheek.
"He sacrificed himself for my bracelet! Ah, this is beautiful!"
It was only a moment before he appeared again above the waves, soaking wet with a huge grin on his face. Between his fingers he held a silver bracelet, which he handed to the woman from the water.
"Link? You scared me! Where'd you learn to do that?" I asked, still in shock. "I mean, can just anyone... move through water?" He looked at me strangely, and it was almost comical because his long yellow bangs hung damply over his eyes.
"What? Y'mean, swim?" He asked, as if I were a little ignorant. "Uh... Anni... I come from the ocean. Everybody knows how there."
"But not here... It's a Lost Art." I said in awe. "No one's been able to do it since Long claws Louie." Link would've shrugged, but he was busy treading water.
"Oh, thank you!" squealed the rich lady. "Anyone who helps me, Madame Ebony, deserves great payment!" She began to dig in a black leather purse, and I helped Link climb back into our gondola. The woman pulled out two purple rupees and handed them to Link. He gave me a quick smile. I looked away and to the sky, and a faint breeze returned, seeming to brush against me like feathered serpents.
Then we headed off to do our next few errands.
The scent of horses filled my nostrils, and valley grasses licked at my heels. A warm breeze was blowing; the hair that swept before my eyes was as red as flame. Epona stood at my side, but she was but a filly, pushing her black-and-scarlet nose up under my hand, and before me stood a boy clad in green from the forests, a little iridescent being circling his head.
'Fairy Boy,' I heard myself say. It was strange; what came out of my mouth was a long string of gibberish, but I sort of felt what it meant in my head and heart. 'Thank you for bringing Papa back. I dunno what I'd do without you.' I reached up to slide my hair behind my ear, and felt that my ear was three or four inches long, and pointed. I was appalled. Whoever I was wasn't at all. 'How was Zelda? She didn't kick you out, did she?'
'No, she was great, Malon,' he said, smiling shyly and lopsidedly. I almost cringed at the use of my real name, and I realized that I knew his smile from somewhere...
'Link, that's wonderful,' I heard myself say. Link? Surely not... But it was, with those tell-tale foggy green eyes and those long pointed ears, and the way that he rocked somewhat impatiently in his boots; even his green tunic was the same. This made me wonder what I looked like, and so I checked. There was nothing much to see; a pretty plain white skirt designed in blue at the hem, and a pale yellow blouse. Nothing I found particularly stylish.
'Who's your pal, there?' He asked me; I realized he had a slight, spicy sort of accent that reminded me of lush green forests and eternal youth. He made a vague sort of gesture with his hand toward the filly at my side.
'She's one of our newborns, Epona,' I answered him.
'D'you think I could pet her?' he asked me, raising a soft, gentle hand.
'You can sure try,' I heard myself answer. 'But she's a timid one, and she might not let you.' He moved his hand toward her, and sure enough, she hid herself behind me. We laughed, and the filly snorted indignantly. The inner me beamed. The real Epona had been exactly like that before she became rouge; sweet and shy. I suppose becoming more mature had stirred something in her mind, and made her so proud that one day that she never let anyone ride her again. Until Link had come along, of course. 'There's a song that'll comfort her. My mother wrote it before she died, and it always seems to work.' I smiled, and began to sing words that were somewhat familiar (though I didn't think I'd ever heard them before) to that old ranch tune I knew so well;
'Stay close, Stay close
Hear the river rush;
Never fear, my friend
Spring shall come again!
'In the night, In the night
When all hope is lost;
Huddle up close to me,
Share the warmth!
'Sunbeams drip down from heav'n above
My heart shall be your shelter;
Things that frighten you, scare you off
Shall fade away...
'So when you leave, when you leave
Keep my love beside you;
Go to the farthest lengths
Heart must be your strength!
'And keep in mind, keep in mind
That I'm always with you;
Huddle up close to me,
Share the warmth!'
Epona cautiously crept out from behind me, and let Link run his hand from between her ears, to her star, to her black velvet nose. 'Your mom wrote that?' he asked, smiling slightly as the filly nosed him, searching for sugar or apples.
'Yeah,' I grinned. Link stumbled a bit as Epona leaned against him. 'If you'd sing with me, I'd be willing to teach it to you,'
'Er... I don't sing... but I have an ocarina,' He pulled a little ceramic instrument from his pocket. I tapped my foot and began to teach him the notes; the sweet sound of the ocarina resonated through the ranch, and every horse and cow raised her head and turned her ears toward us, two music-makers in a world of spite. The foresty tones echoed through my entire being, and my vision began to fade. Three voices whispered in my head; 'Remember... Remember... Remember...'
'Remember what?' I yelled into the black, but nothing responded. 'What's so important? Wha-'
"Anni, would you shut up already?" Someone grabbed my shoulders firmly, pulled me into a sitting position and shook me hard, and I opened my eyes to a very bedraggled Tetra. Her eyes were half shut with exhaustion, but she looked at me very seriously, and all I could manage was a sheepish grin. She groaned and threw me back into my bed. I took a glance at Medli on the trundle, who was still asleep. Tetra was about to climb back up to her bunk -the sky was still a dark blackish-blue outside through the window- when she stopped in the middle of the ladder, and gave me a puzzled look. "You were dreaming about Link, weren't you?"
"...Yeah. How did you know?" She smiled faintly.
"I have those, too. Kind of a pain to have the pirates rush into the room and shake you awake." She laughed.
"...What do you see? When you dream, I mean," I asked, and she looked at me suspiciously.
"Er... Link, of course...stone walls... and fancy courtyards, tapestries, a shadowy, armored woman, snow-white horses, stormy skies... And I'm always peering through a tiny window at Ganondorf... It's none of your business, really." She climbed another rung, and I interrupted her.
"Do those three voices talk to you at all?" I asked. She glared at me, sighed and continued softly:
"Yeah... They're annoying little buggers." She gave me a hard glance, and for a moment, I was surprised she hadn't turned me to ice with her cold eyes. "They're always telling you what to do. Sort of creepy... Would you leave me alone? I'd like to sleep a bit more, okay?" She grumbled some things inaudibly under her breath as she made her way to the top bunk and plopped down.
I paused for a moment. "Tetra?" I said- almost squeaking.
She swung her head upside-down over the side of her bunk. "What?!?" she snapped, almost loud enough to wake Medli.
"...Do you think the dreams... mean something?" She stared at me seriously, sighed, and permitted herself to smile faintly, almost sadly.
"Anni, I think they do," she mused. "I truly, honestly think they do." Presently, she looked me hard in the eye. "Now, no more of these questions unless you want me to shove one of my sandals down your throat, got it?" I nodded. She smirked in a satisfied sort of way toward herself and vanished.
~*~
I woke to the golden sunlight shining into my eyes through the window. The room was completely abandoned, but I thought I knew where everyone would be. I dressed quickly, tying a yellow bandanna around my neck; I had to go to school today, and the kerchief was a sort of uniform. I tidied up a bit, and then ran out the door, down the hall, and into the library. Sure enough, there was everyone, reclining in the dusty red-violet chairs. Medli was reading that 'LZ' book to a very engrossed Link, Tetra was playing chess with Daystar (and was being beaten very badly), Komali was discussing broken violin strings with Makar, and the pirates were fighting over who would read 'The Odyssey' next. Everyone was nibbling at a plate of assorted fancy pastries, which sat on the cherry coffee table. There were ten or eleven mugs, each of different styles, gathered beside the pastry dish; most were filled with orange juice, but one was full of coffee instead. I smiled to myself and plunked down on the couch next to Link.
"Mornin' Anni," he said, beaming, but his attention was stuck towards the book.
Medli rubbed her forehead and gave me a sheepish smile. "I just started a paragraph ago, and my head already hurts!" I laughed. Link blinked.
"So? I had another rude awakening this morning." He glared at Tetra, who pretended not to notice him and smirked. I gave him a questioning look, and he looked somewhat uncomfortable. "Y'see, every once in a while, Tetra just gives me a sharp kick in the ribs to wake me up,"
"Otherwise, he'll be asleep until noon!" She grinned, knocking out Daystar's pawn. He wagged his tail once and took out her king, carefully placing the piece with his jaws. "Agh! You really were a human earlier! I believe you now!" Daystar wagged his tail harder, so that it thumped against the sofa.
"Oh, then I don't envy you," smiled Medli, still massaging her brow with all of her long, pale fingers.
"So, how's the story going?" I asked, grabbing myself a chocolate muffin and peering onto the delicate parchment of the page. I was almost surprised that the gods weren't painted on this one. The first symbol on the page was illuminated in that old- fashioned style, so that it looked like a tree. There was a tiny, delicately drawn yellow-haired boy sitting against it, silver tears streaming down his face from exaggerated black-green eyes, and he was clad in a tunic such as Link's. I looked at Link and Medli, who simply wondered what I was looking at them for, and decided not to comment on anything until they were excited and intrigued by it. Trees and leaves and green-clad children loitered about the margins, and every last one of them was accompanied by a curious pinkish-white being- I recognized it from my dream, and decided (judging by the wings) it was a fairy of some sort. I looked back at the illumination with the crying boy, searching for the fairy, but there was none. Medli (reluctantly) began to translate:
"Being a tale of the Outcast, written by those who know it, for they hath lived it: Back in the Age, when Hyrule was still young, fresh from war, and still regaining peace, there lived a curious people of the Southeastern forest. Amongst the lush green and brown, the Kokiri were all of youth, and all accompanied by a single fairy, which flew at their shoulder until their death, be them devoured by a Deku Baba or simply worn out by playing too often. There was no such thing as age among them. They never even discussed such ridiculous things. Except for one boy, that is...
"He was a bit different from the others. It may have been that his ears were a bit too long, or the fact that he was a bit too tall, but he was considered strange among the Kokiri for his many thoughts on growth and life. They believed that these thoughts poisoned him so much that his christening fairy refused to go near him. They mocked him from a distance, this fairy-less child, convinced that his spoiled mind might drag them down too. Thus, the boy learned to fare mainly on his own, but on silver-moon nights, one could hear him weep in at the foot of his tree house. His name was... Oh dear." Medli paused and squinted at it. "I don't like names... This one was very honorable, you can tell." She pointed at several little quill scratches near the two square-like symbols of the boy's name. "See? These mean that he was appreciated by the Zora, the Gorons, my, by everyone! Oh dear..." She neared the page until the tip of her beak brushed it. "Good heavens... it's Link!"
"That's strange," said Link, slightly puzzled. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, quite," she assured him. "It's actually a word with much meaning in Hylian."
"Like what?" I asked, wincing as my tooth brushed a stale raisin in my third muffin.
"Well... You know how a piece of a chain's called a link? And some bloodlines? In old Hylian, they often used the term as a connection as well, but it was in more intimate sorts of ways... It was one of the many terms for 'friendship' and even 'love'."
Link looked a bit freaked out.
I looked up at the clock, and something snapped inside my head. "Oh, Holy Din! I have school today!" I jumped off the couch, and rummaged around frantically for my backpack (I was never very tidy when choosing where I should leave it). Thankfully, I found it lying absently on the corner of a small lamp table, and I swung it over my shoulder.
I was about to run out the door, when Tetra, without looking up, asked: "What's the rush? What is this 'school' thing anyway?"
"Uh... I suppose it's where you learn stuff... Like reading, and writing, and all that sort of junk." I snapped, hastily. It was eight-thirty, and I needed to be there and seated by nine; it took a long time to run through a field, rent a gondola, and get through the canals of Boulviddar before you reached the schoolyard.
"Isn't your mom supposed to teach you that stuff? Or your tutor?" she continued absently.
"Or your grandmother?" Link added. Komali and Medli nodded.
"I don't have any of those... And I gotta go, so see ya!"
"Bye, and don't get yourself eaten or anything," Tetra concluded. I raised an eyebrow, nodded, and left with the speed of the wind behind my heels. 'What sort of farewell is that?' I wondered as I turned the toes of my boots toward the schoolhouse.
~*~
The bell must've sounded a split second after I sat down! I exhaled any tension left in me. No matter what obstacle I had faced, my record was still clean of tardiness. My teacher, Ms. Koholint, wrote the weekly writing assignment up on the chalkboard.
"Write about what you did over the weekend."
I smiled, and pulled a piece of parchment and my magic quill from my desk. Licking the tip, I dunked it in the inkwell, and began to write very untidily and quickly. There was no problem in describing each crew member in detail, especially Link and Tetra, and didn't think once about how much of a fairytale it really seemed to be.
Later, after the paper had been handed in, Ms. Koholint beckoned me up to her desk with an awkward grimace. She was a long-nosed, brown-haired teacher, who wore horn glasses and a necklace strung with bits of ebony carved into children and numbers and apples, and she, like all teachers, could be intimidating at one time or another. This was one of those times. She gave me a plaintive sort of smile. Her teeth looked fake.
"Anni, when I wrote that on the board, I meant real events," she declared solidly.
"But-"
"We both know that you have a knack for writing fantasy, and I see no problem in what you did write, but remember, sometimes in life you have to stick with reality."
"But Ms. Koholint, if I may, everything in that paper is as true as twine, and nothing is exaggerated... Well, except for the fight with the crocodiles... But I can prove every word, honest." I argued, pounding a fist down on the desk. "I could bring Rito feathers, or maybe one of their instruments- if they'd let me, of course."
"I don't think so. You have so many geese around your house, how should I know that the feathers aren't painted? And in your place, it's not hard to snag an instrument from a traveling minstrel." She smiled, and I felt uncomfortable. "Unless, of course, you could bring someone to school with you..."
I gasped, with mixed feelings. "Oh, I'd be willing to do that... If the kids here weren't so judgmental of things... I mean, they have pointed ears, and beaks and wings; lots of teasing opportunities..."
"Well," my teacher concluded. "I'd be fine with either. Hopefully the students wouldn't be too bad. It's your decision."
I thought about it all day, doodling in the margins of my science-math tests. I was really relieved when the bell rang at the end of the day, and I ran out the door so fast that I forgot to pack a paper and was carrying it in my hand. The sun shone broad and bright in my face, even with my mother's hat to shade my eyes, and the wind was the strongest I'd felt in a while. It whipped around my legs and snagged the paper from my hands, blowing it high into the air. I chased after it. It had been my notes on homework, you see, and I would probably forget it all without it. It went west for a while longer, and settled on the ground just ahead of me. I rushed to perhaps stomp on it, and then the wind began to blow it in the other direction. I cursed audibly. This game of chase lasted until I was on my knees panting. The wind had blown in so many different directions in just about twenty minutes, but not once did I suspect a thing. My notes drifted casually on the now weak breeze and landed on my feet. "Hmm. Wind's acting funny today, don'cha think?"
I looked up to see Link, leaning against a fence with a huge lopsided smile on his face and a long white baton sort of thing between his fingers. He grinned down at me and slipped the white thing into his left boot. In his other hand, he held some rupees and a small length of parchment with scribbling on it in green ink. "Link? What are you doing here?!"
He looked up into the sky for no visible reason. "Oh, I just wanted to look around, see the sights, have a little fun... Y'know, stuff like that. Oh, and Saigon wants you to get some things, so I volunteered to bring you a list and some money."
"The wind really was acting weird." I murmured to the ground, snatching my paper. "I hate it. It always ruins everything," I was in a bad mood, as I often was right after school, but when I looked back up into Link's face, he looked truly and genuinely hurt.
"Oh, c'mon," he murmured, as if he were trying to avoid something. "I...It was just joking around." I looked at him as if he were crazy, and he smiled uncertainly. The soft breeze that was blowing vanished altogether and I realized that the wind was the only thing keeping us cool out here. I began to sweat. "D'you think we should go back to the gondola and get these errands done?" I mopped my brow with my school kerchief and nodded. "I got the gondola guy to hold it, but we'd better hurry before he gives it to someone else." The Boulviddarian gondolas were free and public, and sometimes you had to be quick to claim one, or you'd have to walk on the narrow wooden sidewalks on either side of the canals. If you were really unlucky, you'd have to wade across the street in a shallow area or cross a rickety bridge.
"Well? Let's go!" I swung my backpack over my shoulder and began walking briskly toward the gondola dock. Link shrugged and followed me. I found the gondola the guy was leaning against. He recognized Link, and let us both on.
"Thanks a lot, sir." Link nodded to the man, and they exchanged small grins. There was a yell from a woman in a gondola behind ours. I grabbed the oars to leave the dock, but Link made a hasty motion with his hand. I groaned and stopped. He stood up, shielded the sun from his eyes, and gazed over me at the woman. I took a glance too. She was dressed in very expensive-looking scarlet and gold robes, and her black hair was tied up elegantly in a bun with a comb of mother-of pearl. She leaned over the side of the boat, shielding her eyes and looking for something beneath the clear waves. "Madam? Is there a problem?" Link asked. She looked up. I smacked him lightly on the shin with an oar.
"Link, stop being polite to people you don't know!" I hissed. He didn't hear me.
The rich lady eyed him judgmentally. Her eyes were pitch black, painted with scarlet and gold eye shadow. "I dropped my most expensive silver bracelet over the edge of the boat, and it cost me half a fortune, too." She sighed. "There's nothing you can do about it, lad. It's gone. Thank you for applying yourself in my miseries, though." She sounded snobby and sarcastic.
"I think I can help," Link smiled, kicking off his boots.
"Link, what are you doing?" I growled. "Don't do anything reckless, lad!" the rich lady said, as if she didn't mean it very much. Link nodded.
"I'll just save you some getting wet in those nice clothes of yours." He took off his hat, threw it onto the floor of the boat, and jumped off the side, headfirst into the water.
"AHH! LINK!" I looked over the side of the boat but saw nothing except ripples. I would've wept- a normal person drowned in water- but didn't. Link had jumped in on his own free will, and, knowing him, he would probably amaze me somehow. I looked over at the rich lady. She wiped a tear off her cheek.
"He sacrificed himself for my bracelet! Ah, this is beautiful!"
It was only a moment before he appeared again above the waves, soaking wet with a huge grin on his face. Between his fingers he held a silver bracelet, which he handed to the woman from the water.
"Link? You scared me! Where'd you learn to do that?" I asked, still in shock. "I mean, can just anyone... move through water?" He looked at me strangely, and it was almost comical because his long yellow bangs hung damply over his eyes.
"What? Y'mean, swim?" He asked, as if I were a little ignorant. "Uh... Anni... I come from the ocean. Everybody knows how there."
"But not here... It's a Lost Art." I said in awe. "No one's been able to do it since Long claws Louie." Link would've shrugged, but he was busy treading water.
"Oh, thank you!" squealed the rich lady. "Anyone who helps me, Madame Ebony, deserves great payment!" She began to dig in a black leather purse, and I helped Link climb back into our gondola. The woman pulled out two purple rupees and handed them to Link. He gave me a quick smile. I looked away and to the sky, and a faint breeze returned, seeming to brush against me like feathered serpents.
Then we headed off to do our next few errands.