The next morning, Link and I reported to the horse pen just before sunrise. Malon was already there, and she gave Link a sisterly embrace when we arrived. After they separated, Link whistled a descending three-note sequence twice. In an instant, a reddish-brown mare with a grey mane came trotting up to the fence. Link began stroking the horse's muzzle, to her contented whiffling. Malon looked at Link with the horse and told him, "Epona has been waiting for you for a while."
Then she looked over at me. "You'll need a horse for the ride back to Castle Town too." She whistled a repetitive ascending sequence of three notes. In response, a sandy-brown stallion galloped over.
Link looked up at the whistle. "You trained him to respond to Saria's song?" he asked.
Malon nodded, then gestured for me to call the stallion. I echoed her whistle, and was rewarded by the horse trotting about five feet over to me. He butted my arm, and I started to stroke his muzzle and run my fingers through his mane. "He is called Dagda," Malon told me. "He and Epona were fathered by the same stallion through different mares in the same year."
Link looked over at her, surprised. "Epona has a brother?" he asked, to which Malon nodded.
Then Malon looked back at me. "You should take him for a ride before you go to Castle Town today," she said.
"Why don't we both take our horses out?" suggested Link. I was quick to nod, climbing over the fence into the horse pen, and copying the way Link mounted Epona as I swung myself onto Dagda.
I had a basic idea of how to guide a horse, and getting Dagda to go where I wanted proved to be simple enough. Link and I trotted our horses around the pen for a few minutes before Link said, "Let's take them on a real ride." Without any other warning, he wheeled Epona around, set her at a gallop, straight at the fence. When they reached it, Epona performed an impressive jump over the wooden barricade.
"How do I get mine to do that?" I called over.
"He'll do it on his own," answered Malon.
So I wheeled Dagda around and spurred him on towards Link. When we got to the fence, I felt Dagda gathering his strength before launching himself over the wooden beams of the fence. I had never felt such a sensation like it before; it felt like jumping on a trampoline, but with a little more raw physical power.
But the real joy came when Link and I spurred our horses towards the gate. Epona and Dagda galloped slowly out the gate, then gained speed on the open plains outside the ranch. The grass blurred beneath us as we rode south, and the crosswind we stirred up gave me a sensation similar to riding my bike at home, but so much faster and higher off the ground. It felt like the closest thing to flying as I could imagine.
After a while, Link and I slowed our horses down to a walk, going side-by-side. I saw that he'd changed into a new, untorn tunic, and he had an alert look to his face that hadn't been there the day before. I had noted then that he looked heroic enough to be real. But now, he looked like the type of hero I could take pride in, one I would follow to death's door.
He took a long look at me and said, "You look a lot like me, you know that?"
My eyes went wide. I had never really thought about that. But he had a point. We had the same hair and eyes, my complexion was only a subtle shade darker than his, and, though he was definitely shorter than me, I could see how any casual onlooker might mistake us for brothers. Then I realized that my time in Hyrule must have shaped my face, given it a sharper, hardened, determined look, and made it akin to Link's own to complete the similarities.
I said nothing – and neither did Link – for a few minutes. We just continued to ride as the sun began to peek over the eaves of the Lost Woods on our left. Then Link found something else to say. "How does it feel to be a hero now?" he asked.
I looked at him, wincing inside at being called a hero, as if it was another condemnation to live the rest of my life in Hyrule. But I said nothing of this. I gave a cursory glance to the Triforce on my hand before replying, "Can't complain. But if it weren't for Zelda or Nabooru, we might not even know where you were. Either that or we'd all be prisoners right now."
Link nodded in acknowledgement, and we continued on in silence for another minute. Finally, I decided to speak up. "Can I ask you a few things?" I inquired.
Smiling, Link replied, "You just did." We had a good chuckle before Link continued, "Sure. Ask away."
Getting over my laugh, I asked him, "Does having a piece of the Triforce keep someone from moving between worlds?"
"I don't really know that," Link replied. "Is there a reason why?"
I shrugged. "Oh, it's just that I came from a different world than this one," I responded. "Zelda and Impa convinced me to come over here to get you out of bondage so you could take down Ganon and all. And then this happened…" I showed him the Triforce on my hand briefly. "…Rauru thinks it was some defense mechanism on the part of the Triforce, and the only way any of us can think of to get rid of it is to intend to misuse it."
Link began to nod slowly. "So you're saying," he asked, "that you want to be able to go home, but you don't want to even intend to misuse the Triforce of Courage?"
I nodded. "Exactly. So I want to know if having this means I have to stay here. Because if I can't leave with this, then I have to either want to misuse it, which isn't going to happen, or let Ganon try to take it again and hope its defense kicks in again."
A corner of Link's mouth went back in thought. At length, he replied, "I don't rightly know if the Triforce of Courage will be able to avoid Ganon twice within a month. Zelda and Rauru know more about it than I do, but I've personally noticed that the Triforce seems to channel some sort of spiritual energy."
"Like a life force or something?" I asked.
"Maybe," answered Link. "But I wonder if this energy doesn't get exhausted when parts of the Triforce get transferred between people. Next time Ganon tries to take it, the Triforce of Courage may not have enough energy stored up to be able to withstand the pull of the Triforce of Power. Your attempt at getting it to return to me may backfire. But who knows – you may be able to return to your world without having to get rid of it."
I sincerely hoped he was right about his last point. We continued riding for a while in silence. When the sun's lower edge had finally cleared the eastern horizon, Link said, "We should probably head back to the ranch. The others will be wondering where we are."
So we turned our horses around. And I rode north at a gallop, side-by-side with the Hero of Time.
