Founding a Dynasty
(As told by the elder in the inn)
With the darkness lifted and the great threat passed away, the humans sheltered in the sky were free to return to the surface once more.
Such joy… such child-like wonder they felt – seeing the vastness of the earth before them and the abundance of life that still moved upon it. For days, the small community of humans wandered the forest beside the great Temple of Hylia – where the demon had been destroyed.
In the beginning, food and water were easy to find. The forest included scores of fruit-bearing trees and lay near the ancient lake called "Floria." But, without any homes or storehouses, the people were soon hard-pressed to find a way to survive the changing seasons – something which had not occurred within the refuge provided by her grace.
During that first winter, they sheltered within the Temple itself – pleading with the goddess to protect them and to deliver them from the bitter cold. It is said, that she came to them in a dream; offering wisdom and guidance for their survival. The hero, the elder, and several of the other men set to work building crude houses and workshops, while the women tended to the fruit trees and tubers in the forest – preparing to gather for their own farms.
Their lives were hard and not without peril. Illness – which had been a rare thing in the sky – now stalked them at every turn. The first plants to be taken for farming yielded little and the people were left frail and hungry. But by the fourth year, the people had managed to create a modest community and began to truly believe that her grace had delivered the world into their hands.
The hero and his beloved were married in that summer and by the following spring their first child had been born. The maiden would bear him seven children – sons and daughters – and they would be the pride of the entire village; accomplishing those feats that only the progeny of a hero could make.
In honor of her grace, the people adopted the name "Hylians" and pledged to always serve her grace and to pay homage to the elder gods that had created her. In his own time, the hero himself became the village's elder and oversaw the community's growth and expansion until the end of his days.
For centuries, the Hylians continued to multiply and spread outwards. Rough wooden homes turned to brick and then to stone. Grassy pathways became cobble stone roads and hunter's bows were soon replaced with bronze swords and shields.
It was in this time that the first 'Kingdom of Hyrule' was established – with its capitol in the same village (now a stone city) wrapped around the Temple of Hylia. Though peaceful and modestly prosperous, the ever-expanding Hylians had begun to encroach upon and suppress others who lived upon the surface.
During the reign of Daltus the First, the diminutive spirits of the forest were angered by the Hylians' willingness to 'slaughter' their trees in mass, and pleaded with the men to stop. But the king's soldiers and workmen could not hear them – their hearts had become closed and they could no longer perceive the fairie folk.
The crown was briefly overthrown, and young princess Zelda was turned to stone. But a young hylian – who had only just begun to apprentice as a blacksmith – rose up and defeated the vile sorcerer that had taken hold of the kingdom. These were the darkest days since the release of the arch-demon, and many of the people hailed the young lad as 'having the spirit of the hero within him.'