Disclaimer: I do not own the Legend Of Zelda
His feet tread uncertainly through the forest, every twig snapping underfoot causing him to jump. He shouldn't have wandered away. He was told not too, he should've listened.
Now he was lost.
He stumbled back as a bright light zipped past his eyes, causing the strange fog that had fallen when he'd wandered off to swirl. The fog itself was mysterious and unnerving, but what creeped him out the most was the whispering laughter he swear he could hear. The feeling that he was being watched... He fell back with a cry as a young girl materialized before him as if out of the air itself.
She blinked down at him, her large blue eyes wide. "...Link? Is that you?"
He looked up at her, the pain of the stick digging into his side forgotten. "You know my name?"
The girl nodded, her bright green, almost grasslike hair and the small leaf tucked behind her long ear bobbing along. "Yes... You've changed." She sounded disappointed, and he grabbed at his arms and face in a hurry, suddenly worried he might've been turned into a monster like so many stories said happened to people who got lost in these woods.
"Don't worry you're not a monster." She giggled. "But you are different. You're not grown up anymore... and you're not that gold wolf anymore."
He stood and brushed himself off. "What do you mean? I've never been a grown up or a wolf."
The girls small smile fell "No... It's just you, isn't it."
She clasped her hands in front of her hopefully, and he noticed her skin almost looked as if it were made from freshly cut wood. "If you're here, won't you come back with me? Everyone misses you, even Mido! He says he sorry he picked on you so much when you were our size. When you stopped coming back Fado said you finally died and turned into a stalfos but I knew you couldn't have because you were that pretty gold wolf- I saw it and I just knew it was you- I just knew it- But now you're here again and you can come back to us!"
"Who?"
"They are-" Her face fell, her blue eyes downcast. "You don't remember, do you? You don't remember them? You don't... remember me..."
He shook his head. "I don't know who you are. But I do know that I'm lost, can you help me? I need to find my uncle
The girl turned her head away her face stony and her eyes closed, and it was then he realized that the leaf was not at all tucked behind her ear, but sprouted from her skin. The light of the fairy bobbing by her head illuminated a solitary tear that ran down her cheek.
She swiped it away as she opened her eyes and smiled at him. "Sure I can help you. My name is Saria."
The goal had been to get him unlost, but Saria was quick to point out a myriad of interesting things and before he knew it they were running around the forest, playing games and chasing each other until the filtered light from the trees had dimmed and evening began to set in. He hadn't even noticed that as he chased after her, laughing, that the dreamlike fog had lifted.
It was great fun, even though Saria seemed to have an unfair advantage to their game, somehow always slipping from sight if she got too far away.
He stopped, causing Saria who at that moment had been it, to crash into him. His ears twitched, trying to pick out a certain sound.
"Link!"
"Uncle!"
He turned around to face Saria and her fairy. "I forgot! He's going to be so mad. I have to go!"
Saria grabbed his wrist, her eyes filled with some emotion a ten year old couldn't place. "Before you go, I have something for you, and something to teach you." From some unseen pocket she pulled out a small oblong object and held it too her lips. "Listen closely, okay?"
He nodded, eyes fixed on her small fingers that were almost too small for the holes on the instrument as they moved and she played a light, airy song.
"Now you try." She held it out to him, and he took it uncertainly. "
He was surprised to find it almost felt natural to play it, mimicking her song with only a few mistakes that made him feel proud.
Saria clasped her hands in front of her with a grin. "That's it! That's my special song. Please, never forget it, even if you forget me again."
"I won't."
She stuck out her hand, sticking out her little finger. "Promise!"
He met her pinky with his own and they shook. "I promise."
"The Great Deku Tree told me that the reason you were here before was that you had a great destiny. You must have another one if you are here again. Please don't forget. You've got to wake up." Her voice changed strangely with those final words but The sound of something large crashing through the foliage distracted him. "Link!"
He waved his hands. "I'm here, Uncle!" He spotted his uncles large form between the branches not far away. "Over here!"
He turned to tell Saria goodbye, but where she stood not a minute ago was nothing but empty space. He held out the small instrument "Hey! I've still got your thing!"
He stared off into the distance, hoping she might come back until his uncle finally got to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Boy what are you doing!" He shouted. "You've had me worried sick! I feared that a wolfos got to you, or worse."
He looked up at his uncle. "It's okay, Uncle Alfon. I played with a nice girl and her fairy." He said. He held up the instrument. "She let me play on her thingy but I think she forgot it."
Bewildered, his uncle took the instrument from him, holding it up to his face. "Boy, where on earth did you get an Ocarina from?"
"It's Saria's. She let me play it and left without it."
"Well I'm afraid whoever that is is going to have to miss it. Its nearly dusk, we've got to get out of the woods before nightfall. It's not safe."
His uncle handed him back the ocarina and did the strangest thing...He grabbed Link by the shoulders and shook him...
He sat up with a gasp, and heard a small oof sound. His arm was met with a smack and Zanora crossed her arms from her spot on the floor. "Finally! I've been trying to wake you up for at least five minutes. I was practically throttling you in your sleep."
He rubbed at his arm. "You were?"
"Yeah. You wouldn't wake up. Kept tossing and turning and muttering." She stood up and he followed. "Who's Sareeah, by the way? Girl back home you fancied?"
"No! No, shes just a friend. She's the one that gave me my Ocarina."
Zanora stretched before dropping into a crosslegged position at the table. "Still, that must have been some dream."
He sat down across from her. "Felt more like a reliving memory to be honest."
She pushed the slate across the table to him. "Well, memory or dream, you should get started."
They ate as she made him run through exercise as they had nearly every morning in the week since she'd been given the slate and chalk to teach him with. He'd memorized a fair number of the letters. Enough that he could write his own name correctly anyway. Now whether he could write it in a way that was readable was another story. He seemed to struggle correctly writing the thick letters that swooped and curved in a way so unlike his own.
He had in his time thus far learned a handful of words, but the words heard as they would pass through the halls were lost on him. He knew he was a voe, and they were vai, but that was about as far as his vocabulary went. Something he was sure Zanora intended to fix. She was a stern teacher, but she wasn't cruel about it. In fact, She had been a rather attentive teacher, yet this morning, he noted, her mind seemed far off from his lessons.
"What's on your mind?" He asked, picking up his own fig, wishing slightly that there had been a bit of meat to the meal as there had been yesterday morning. Or even a bit of voltfruit, even if it had made his tongue tingle. "You seem distracted."
"I suppose I'm thinking about my own dream," She admitted. "I saw great clouds rolling over the hills, bringing darkness from above. Guess I'm trying to figure out if that is a good omen or a bad omen."
He bit into his fig, "Sounds like a storms comin'"
"I sure hope so."
"You want it to storm?"
"Of course," She answered. "Any rain we get is a blessing. So it would be nice to be able to fill some barrels for ours stores without having to go all the way to the river. Collecting from the river is a dangerous task you know."
"Because you guys can't swim?"
"Of course. Slip up and fall and all you can do is pray you don't drown." She shrugged. An independent group tried to get some from down river of the bathing area and lost a woman last year. They never did find her body."
He shuddered. If he had been terrified as he had been thrown around by the river, he could only imagine how that poor woman felt before she finally succumbed. "That's horrible."
"That's life." She shrugged.
Zanora rapped on a wooden beam as they entered the stable. Nanyas gaunt face appeared around a corner, a grin on her face. "There ya are. I've been waiting for you."
"You look like you're feeling well today, Nanya, that's good to see." Zanora smiled.
Nanya nodded, her shaggy mane of hair bobbing with her. "Yeah I actually feel pretty good today."
Zanora turned back towards the door, looking back over her shoulder. "I'll leave you two to it then, Sav'org."
Nanya waved at Zanoras retreating figure. "Sav'org!" She turned to him. "Learn any new words today?"
He shook his head "No, we went over the letters again."
"I see. Well, shall we?" She asked, holding a bucket half filled with water out towards him.
"Yeah, lets get to it."
He followed her to one of the chambers that held horses and she tossed him a brush. A few of the horses whickered softly at their approach, acknowledging their presence.
In his time in the stables he had learned that Gerudo bred horses typically only came in two varieties. One bred for speed, light on their feet and capable of going a fair ways out in the desert unhindered, and the other bred for battle, giant creatures with strong legs and thick muscles built for intimidation and strength at the cost of speed.
He'd seen far fewer of the latter, something Nanya attributed to the fact they were mostly reserved for nobility and high ranking warriors.
He unlatched one of the stalls and entered, setting his bucket down on the hay covered stone and dipped his brush in the water. Nanya did the same a stall over.
They fell into a quiet routine, a comfortable silence filling the air. He'd quickly come to enjoy his shifts. The familiarity of tending to animals was comforting. And the presence of a kindred spirit when it came to animals helped immensely in keeping his sanity in his captivity. They were a good team, often finding themselves with spare time by the end of the shift.
He didn't realize he'd been humming until Nanya spoke. "Thats a pretty little song."
"It is." He agreed. "Sounds better on my Ocarina though."
"Your what?"
He dropped his brush into the bucket, wiping the water from his hands onto his pants and reached into the satchel at his hip and pulled the small instrument from it. "This." He held it out for her to see.
"Huh, never seen one of those before."
"I've noticed that they're not too common. Aveilna's always nagging at me to play it for her." He chuckled.
"She's one of the dancers, right? No wonder she would want you to play it for her."
"Yeah, that and she keeps insisting Zanora play too."
"Oh, that would be a treat. She's good with that harp of hers. I heard her play it at the king's birthday celebration last year. She'll probably play again this year too.
"Maybe if you're good enough with it she'll have you play with her. Playing for the king like that would be a great honor. If I knew how to play an instrument that would be a dream."
"You don't play anything then?" He asked, changing the subject.
She answered with the shake of her head ""fraid not."
"... I could teach you."
She looked up at him in surprise. "You would?"
"Why not?"
He looked down at the litte brown instrument before holding it out for her over the stall wall to take. She took it carefully and held it up to her face. "So what do I do? Do I just put my mouth on that little piece and blow?"
"Pretty much yeah."
"Alright then."
Several horses let out startled noises and he flinched, ears twitching in pain at the high pitched, screeching note she produced. He put a gentle hand on hers and pulled the instrument down. "Not quite." He pried at her fingers, adjusting them. "You want to keep an even seal over the holes with the pads of your fingers, not the fingertips. Same with the mouthpiece, try not to let any air escape."
"Okay," She blew again, and while the sound didn't pain his ears like his first attempt he shook his head.
"Better, but you're forcing the notes, you've got to let them flow- like when you're whistling. And if you want to switch into another note, it'll sound smoother if you use your tongue to block the air."
"Got it."
Her attempt was warbled and stopped often and inconsistently, but she was trying and he stifled a chuckle at her expression. Her visible eye narrowed with her brow pointed firmly downwards, cheeks puffed out.
He turned away to keep from laughing. "I'm going to keep on washing, but you can keep playing if you'd like. I can give you tips while I work."
"That would be mighty appreciated, but maybe another time." She said. "I ought to keep working too." She passed the ocarina back over the stall and he slipped it back into his pouch and picked up his brush again. "But I would love another go at it sometime, iffin' you don't mind."
"Not at all."
They'd finished everything on their list except for cleaning out one of the rooms for cuccos when what sounded like an explosion rang through the air, sending off the cuccos.
"What was that?" Nanya asked, steadying herself against the wall.
"Zanora said she had a dream that might've meant a storm was coming." He answered. "It was probably thunder."
Her face lit up. "Truly? What are we in here for? Lets go!" She took off through the stable chambers.
"Hey wait up! He cried, taking off after her.
He nearly ran into her. She'd stopped a few feet outside, her staring up at the downpour.
"Looks like Zanora was right." He murmured. "It's really coming down."
"Yeah it is!" Nanya exclaimed happily.
"Hey, hey, Link," She turned to him, practically bouncing on her feet. "Race you to the end?" Nanya challenged, the rain already causing her hair to plaster to her face. "Loser has to clean Ol Howls cage."
He shivered, though whether it was from the cool rain or the thought of having to clean the cage was hard to tell. He had learned very quickly that the one dubbed Howl was the meanest out of all of the cuccos in the stable they worked. She'd been named for her tendency to let out an ear piercing screech at anyone who dared get close. She'd bitten him once already- hard enough to draw a small amount of blood, and from then he did his best to avoid the bird.
But he nodded in agreement anyway, finding himself unable to refuse her challenge. "You're on."
She jumped on her feet. "Go!" The moment the word left her lips she took off. He broke into a sprint. "Hey!" He took off after her, the water from the rain making the sand stick to his shoes instead of clouding up behind him.
He caught up to her, fighting to stay at pace. He was in better shape, but her legs, though short for her race, were longer than his and knew the sand well even in its wet state.
She fumbled for a fraction of a second and he took advantage of it. He forced himself to speed up.
He stumbled, losing his footing and falling forward as something hit his back with a heavy thump. He caught himself on his hands and Nanya's laughter mixed with the patter of the rain as she ran in front of him. "Like my little gift?" She taunted, looking back over her shoulder with a friendly smile.
He jumped to his feet, grabbing a handful as he did. "About as much as you're going to like mine!" He took up pursuit and lobbed the crude ball of sand.
He hit her, but not the back as he had intended. She pulled ahead just enough that it fell short, and the sand splattered against her bare calf.
The wall of rock at the end of the archery grounds was coming up quickly, and he knew he was too far behind to win at this point. He found he didn't mind much, he bent down and scooped another handful of sand, throwing it as she neared the rock. Small chunks of sand flew off her lower back from the impact as she touched the stone with a triumphant cry.
She turned to face him as he approached, a grin on her lips as her chest heaved. "Didn't think I'd actually win." She rasped, descending into a worrying fit of coughing. He relaxed somewhat as laughter mixed with her coughing.
He crossed his arms, turning his nose up, a tired smile on his own lips. "You had a head start."
"By three seconds."
"...And you've got longer legs."
She burst into another fit of laughing and coughing, and leaned against the rock. He followed suit, letting out his own breathless laugh. "It feels like it's been forever since I've done something like that." He mused. "It was almost like racing my friend Holden."
"You got a lot of friends back home?"
He turned his face up to the rain, letting the droplets roll down his skin with a small, wistful smile. "Yeah... My village is on the small side, so I know everybody pretty well."
"...Would you consider me a friend?" Her question caught him off guard and he turned to her as she looked away. "I mean, if you want... I would call you a friend."
He smiled as she looked back, cautiously meeting his gaze. He nodded "I'd like that. I'd like that very much."
She stuck out her hand as the sky flashed. "Well then, friends?" He met her hand, which was rough from the wet sand still coating it, and they shook as a peal of thunder shook the air. "Friends."
Perhaps Zanora was right about storms being good omens after all.
"Link! Nanya!" They both looked up as Zanora came running up, her clothes sticking to her. "There you are! I was right! My dream was right!" She cheered. "I came running to get you as soon as I heard the brontide. It's really truly storming!" Her light blue eyes were lit up with unbridled joy. Another woman came jogging up behind her, a smile on her face under a crude umbrella.
Her smile faltered when her eyes landed on Nanya. "Wait, nanya you probably shouldn't be out, it could irritate you're condition and make you sick." She went to Nanyas side, fussing like a mother hen. Her hair in it's bun bounced a bit as she moved.
Nanya waved her away. "Then it'll be my own fault for once if it does." Nanya motioned between the newcomer and Link. "Link, this is my sister, Guahar."
The woman looked down at him with critical eyes behind her glasses. "You must be the Voe called Link. Nanya has spoken of you."
"She has?"
Nanya gave him a hearty slap on the back. "'Course I have!"
"Oh, well..." He stuck out his hand. "It's nice to meet you. She's mentioned you too." She looked at his hand with a brow raised and he mentally cursed himself for offering the one covered with sand. Probably not the first impression.
Nanya only laughed and slung her sandy arm over her sisters shoulder. "You ought to be proud of your little sister. I just won a race against a healthy Hylian voe."
"Nanya, you shouldn't be exerting yourself needlessly." Guahar chided.
"Oh relax, like I said, if I get sick it'll be my own fault. I can live with that. Feel sorry for him if anything. He's got to clean ol howls cage."
He strode over to his mattress and threw himself down with a grunt, skin covered in scratches and loose feathers stuck to his still damp clothes here and there.
It had stopped raining by the time he'd wrangled old howl back into her cage. Zanora had offered to heal some of his wounds, after she had stopped laughing at him, but he had declined. They were mostly just light nicks that would be gone by morning anyway. Though perhaps he should have asked if she would help him pick the feathers out of his hair.
Most of the sand stuck to him had been knocked away in his struggle with ol howl. The storm had apparently set the bird in a far fouler mood than normal, and had taken it's anger out on him. Nanya kept to her word and let him deal with the bird alone, instead tending to the other cages and offering words of encouragement. Zanora and Gauhar and stayed to watch. Guahar had intended to whisk Nanya back to their home, but Nanya had insisted on staying, to watch him and finish up her duty since it was almost done anyway. Zanora had stayed partially because he would need an escort and partially because she found his situation funny.
He thought back on his handshake earlier with Nanya. It felt good to have someone he could call a friend. Her question had surprised him, but it was a good surprise. Four weeks ago he would've denied being able to find any kinship with these desert women. Perhaps it was some sort of preordained thing that he should find a friend in another outcast.
And he'd surprised himself with his offer to teach him to play the ocarina.
He sat up and dug the instrument from his pouch and ran his hands over the ceramic. Perhaps it was also poetic that the ocarina should be tied into a friendship. How many years had he held a strong connection to a special friend through it? He didn't know, but he knew it was a few happy years until his family had put a stop to it, on the basis that he was too old for imaginary friends.
...still though, it couldn't hurt to try it...
He took a deep breath and brought it to his lips. He forced himself to clear his mind as he played, letting the music overtake his senses until he was almost sure he could smell the trees and hear their leaves rustling softly. The notes echoed off his walls back to him even as he breathed out his last few notes.
There was a moment of quiet as the echoing notes softly died out and he pulled the ocarina from his lips, disheartened. He was so hoping that just maybe...
He shook his head at himself, he was silly to hope for her to answer, his family was probably right. An apparition of the forest, that's all it ever had been.
"...Link?"
He jumped at first, startled by the voice in his head. Then he smiled, falling back onto the bed. "Hello, I've got so much to tell you."
Sorry for the long time between updates, but you wouldn't believe how crazy busy everythings been for me
