In a dream, Link drifted in darkness deep…

A storm was about to arrive, swept by bitter winds to the horizon where he was standing…

He held a baton, and he realized he was the one to bring this fate!

There was no panic, no heart-pounding falling sensations to wrench him from his unsettling dreams, but the chills that wracked him even through bear fur were enough for Link to glance around for bearings. There was the orange ember pit of the fireplace. Above, Navi glowed vaguely bluish-white in the rafters and the roaring and grumbling of the snoring Lons pervaded his hearing as the context of his new world settled his dread. Why did the last half-moon cycle of his life have to be so uprooting, Link lamented as he curled deeper into his sleeping fur. Life in the forest was easier…But it wasn't, the small voice in his heart reminded him. He recalled further his "stoic withstanding of torture" recited by the Knowing Brothers at his Last Dinner, and the heaviness of that moment made his toes curl for a sick homesickness. Mido's teasing was simpler on his mind than the complex nature of Hylian culture. At least, this tribe's ways, Link corrected, thinking about the vague descriptions of the Market and the people of the west, those responsible for Malon's birth. How different everyone must be, for one group to hate another with so much venom. He would watch closely and observe the schisms in culture, and become like a firefly on a dark night, a little beacon of truth and light. Yes, doesn't that sound lovely, he bit dryly.

Link rolled to his other side, facing the gently puffing canvas wall, studying a landscape that meant almost nothing to him, as he recognized no letters or symbolic landmarks. A great knowledge, he praised again, wanting to smile for never considering marking a trail in the same manner as the beasts amongst which they lived. Directions were different in the forest, though. Link learned the trails every Kokiri had to memorize: the Great Clearing, the Deku Tree's Meadow, and the ones closest to the Lost Woods, where none dared to tread except for the most extreme situations. Even as the Wisest's best friend, Link could imagine no reason to step beneath the sumac and laburnum canopy. The Kokiri also intimately embroiled the details of their surroundings into their memories, so it was understood which cardinal direction was meant by "towards the spring beneath the maples."

Dozing into a pleasant memory of summer air beneath whispering branches, it was with a heart-balming joy Link fell back into rest.

Dawn again. Link, Talon and Gerick shambled towards the bluff over the river, all glad for the lack of drizzle. Cooking fires were stoked and sizzling filled the morning with a beautiful buzz. Malon and Ingo were outside too, lining up beneath the mess pavilion with plates wiped clean from the previous night. The men's party joined the pair, accepting greasy fried slabs of pork belly and another round of brown biscuits. Most of the Lons chose to sit on the dew-damp grass to enjoy breakfast and an hour or so of gossip before work could begin for the day. Link did not fail to notice that people were arranging themselves in an open circle facing towards the group he sat with, the children lining the front row. He made an effort to seek out Mullick's gaze, a little nod of understanding and morning greeting translated by a shade of a smile between the boys.

Talon sandwiched his pork with his biscuit, took a mouthful and raised the bitten food to his kin. "Mornin'," he mumbled. The rest toasted to the patriarch in fashion.

"I have a matter for discussion," Malon volunteered after swallowing. Adult and child's attention tuned to the redhead. "Our windswept friend already has itchy feet, and we wish to show him our Homestead, the jewel of the plain before our first Market Trip. This will take us, as you know, two weeks out of the way, and to arrive in time for our reservation, we need to leave within a day or two."

She made it sound simple, Link wondered, inwardly relieved she had not shared his motives, and complimented her people for him aside. Talon taught leadership well.

Small conversations peppered the other families at this promise of an early end to Summer Camp.

"Do we all have to go?" the plump woman Cella asked.

"I've still got some trees to strip in the bottoms," said another man with a scalplock of brown hair.

"Not at all," Talon replied. "Those who want to delay and come straight to Market are welcome, and responsible for their own stock. I'll be moving mine, and it's always easier with more hands to get the cattle to comply. Nobody is obligated to follow early."

Approval was rampant now, and those who had a few choice products or possessions at Homestead sounded eager to get moving again.

"The Horse Clan will go with you, Talon Lon," A man with sun-lines and bandy legs stood, nearly ceremonious in the way he shook his single long, Mohawk, and Link likened it, not by coincidence, to a horse's mane. But weren't all these people Lons?

"The Cattle Clan will also follow you," said another man with a wide, sturdy shoulder span and a twisted leg.

Food positively flew down gullets and families scattered to begin the mysterious preparations Link was very soon to be introduced to in a trial by fire. They wiped the tin plates with handfuls of grass, immediately breaking for the tents. When the door opened, Link was surprised to see Navi hovering in the opening, shocked and her tiny face scrunching in anger.

"I almost had it open!" She huffed. "No one told me breakfast was on!"

Malon stepped forward. "I thought you were right behind me. I apologize, Navi." The fairy sneered but shrugged her acceptance.

"I'll prepare our wagon, and bring the team around," Talon said, not entering with the family, turning and striding away with purpose.

Link and Malon, Ingo and Gerick buzzed around the tent, folding linens and putting them in the ubiquitous, wooden boxes of the Lon Clan, each decorated to suit the owners. Malon's box bore swirls and curlicues that suggested horses, burnt into the wood itself by an artisan hand, but both Talon and Ingo's boxes were plain, kerfed-plank affairs. Sheets, bedding, heavier clothes and the few books the little family group owned. A battered crate Malon set aside early on turned out to be the receptacle for all the hard implements of their plains-oriented life: a metal kettle, tin cups for tea, the lap board, the five tin plates, lidded containers containing ambiguous "spices," knives and personal eating tools and a round skillet with a stocky handle made of horn. Once the beds were stripped to the squared-off wooden frames and straw-tick mattresses, Link helped carry their belongings, including his own fur-wrapped pack out of the tent, and awaited the next instruction.

"Now," Malon said, handling her hips as she stretched her back. "Our bedframes are more than they appear. As riders and ranchers, everything we make is portable and useful in more than one way." Ingo pulled on the corner of his wooden bed, revealing a tight joint of pegs and holes. Link came close to inspect them, Navi closer than he, and she made a marvelous observation.

"They're whittled to fit, but come apart with pressure," She looked into the holes of the other piece of the frame. "What else can the frames do?"

"We'll have to wait for Talon to come back," Gerick promised quiveringly. "I don't know that we could explain to make ya see right away."

With that, each wooden board was loosened and Link and Ingo moved back and forth to stack the pieces outside the tent where the rest of the contents awaited whatever Talon was bringing. The rugs and mats were rolled up and the fire doused entirely before they carried the warm stones of the fire's ring to the pile of belongings.

"Boy," Ingo barked softly. He stood impassively in front of the empty dwelling. "We pull up these stakes." His hand waved at the metal spikes twisted with a rope anchoring the canvas and poles. "Start on the hinge-side and go around, but only when I say."

Placing himself on the right side of the door, Link heard Navi, "You have a name. He ought to use it."

"Now is not the time," Link replied under his breath, sensing the man's hard shell would only strengthen if he gouged at it.

He and Gerick were wrestling with the door, finally lowering the round opening and grabbed at the ties holding the canvas to the frame. Ingo raised his face and spat for Link to pull the first stake. Link wrapped his hand around the metal and yanked. Earth followed the gesture and it was with a startle he overcompensated and sat down hard with the stake in his fingers. Crumbles of dirt pooled in his green lap.

"Just as well, we gotta roll this up," Ingo grumbled and shoved by the boy. He stopped and frustratedly yelped, "Untie the rope! That's part of the job!"

Heated cheeks and caterpillaring brow painting Link embarrassed and a little angry, the boy sprang up and untwisted the tie from the stake, handing it over to the man who crumpled it with the canvas in his mitts. They moved on, and the process was much less buggy as they continued. Navi, too tiny to help, watched other dwellings around them being disassembled in the same manner, and it was a practiced efficiency that aided this moveable culture. Even Link was anticipating orders as he grasped how to tilt the poles down so the decorations and rafters could be removed, leaving only a wide ground cover on the flatten grass of their spot. Malon jumped back into the work by gathering the Lon's personal identifiers from the poles: a cloven hoof, a crescent of some hoof or horn, banded eagle feathers, rawhide shaped into interesting ornaments and four silver tabs stamped with the stylized face of a bovine.

"What are the Horse and Cattle Clans?" Link asked as inspected the ornaments in Malon's hands. "I see other people with different items outside."

"Very observant," Malon complimented as she set the bundle of possessions aside. "This settlement is for those who herd cattle, cows, and the people who ride and raise horses. They are different family groups dedicated to different aspects of ranching, and take pride in identifying themselves as Horse, Cattle, Flax, Sheep or Crafter Clan members."

"Most Children have a name that tells about their position in the tribe. The Knowing Brothers, Garia Clayhands, Tulia Threadpuller, Hido Spearheart and Saria the Wisest are storytellers, pottery makers, weavers and spear makers."

"Saria makes spears?" the blue eyes questioned the boy.

"No, she's our Wisest, our Lore-holder and ceremony leader."

"Well, out here, we have Smiths, metal workers, Wheelers, our wagoneers, and Spinners, our weavers. You'll meet more of them at Homestead."

"Wagon ears?" Navi posed.

"They make wagons and wheels," Malon explained, but boy and fairy did not know what those were. "Here comes Pa, look."

They followed her finger to see two horses pulling a trundling frame, Talon leading the beasts by halters on their noses. Link remembered when they entered camp, and noticing the wooden hoops beneath the frame, watching with more marvel how they turned and made movement easy through the grass. Travois were familiar to him, as some hunts required more strength than the Children had altogether, so they dragged platforms on two points around trees. These "wagons" achieved the same purpose: the Lons could move far more goods on wheels than their backs. He assumed canvas and boards would combine to form a huge communal travois, but he and Navi were about to be wowed again.

The bedframes were assembled atop the wagon, the rugs laid on the new floor and Ingo and Talon raised the long poles into fitted slots at the back of the box. Next, the canvas was tied to either side of the wooden frame and Malon and Gerick rushed to the driver's seat to install what were previously the rafters, as Talon and Ingo settled the canvas and poles on Malon's overhang.

The tent now rested sideways to its original orientation, a perfect shelter for their mobile convenience.

"Hop in," Talon offered as he pawed his sweaty brow and patted the driver's seat, more like a shelf on the front of the box. Link's foot found solid purchase on a wheel and he easily pulled himself into the wagon. The canvas sloped down from the front where he sat, the ceiling lowest at the back, but still room enough for the boxes piled up, plus places for them to sleep. Gerick rolled up the ground cover and stuffed it into Talon's waiting arms and he deposited his load into the front of the cart.

"Well," he said simply. "We're ready to go."

Link's belly flopped as he surveyed the rest of the Clan preparing to move out, goggled that this was for his benefit, pleased beyond measure that he would not be alone for his journeys anymore.

"You had me, first," Navi whispered, and he realized fairies could hear thoughts. Or did he hear hers?