Chapter Three. Ghost Town

Aryll was crying. Link rocked her as best he could, but his arms were too short to really hold the girl properly.

"Look," he whispered to his sister. "There she is."

Aryll sniffled and raised her head to look at the white horse passing by. A little girl sat atop it, dressed in pink and white and lavender. "Prin?" Aryll said.

"Yeah, that's the princess." Link said. "She's ten, just like me."

"Pridy." Aryll rested her head on her brother's shoulder.

"She is pretty, huh?" Link rubbed her back. "Let's go home, okay?"

"Mm."

As Link and Aryll walked back through the crowd, princess Zelda hunched over her saddle.

"Sit up straight, your Highness," Impa said beside her.

"Do we have to do this?"

"Yes we do. The people need to see you. Sit up straight and smile."

Zelda did, ten years of training taking over. She couldn't quite talk without moving her lips, the way Impa could, but she was getting better. "But why?"

"You're the princess. You're the symbol of the future of this country. Plus, you're cute. Everyone wants to think they'll be having a cute queen someday."

"I won't always be cute." Zelda stuck out her lower lip. "I'm gonna grow up and be sexy."

Impa's eyes narrowed, just slightly. "A lady shouldn't talk that way, or aspire to such things."

"I will though. Mama was sexy. You can tell from her portrait. I'm gonna-"

Impa made a warning noise in her throat.

"-I'm going to look like her."

Impa was silent for a while as the procession moved through the city. "Yes," she said finally. "You probably will. And your mother was a beautiful woman."

"See?" Zelda smirked.

"Smile nicely, your Highness."

"Yes Impa."

zzz

It was a lot less tense traveling with a companion, Sheik decided. When you were alone, every sound could be an attack. But when you had company, you filled the silence with chit-chat or whistling, and somehow the fear just flew away.

Not that Sheik would ever have admitted to being afraid. He had sworn his life to this mission; it was silly to be afraid. If he died in the course of it… he had prepared.

Link was good company, aside from being easy on the eyes. He knew more about woodcraft than Sheik did, and was much better at making traps. He also knew when to let a subject go, so after his first attempt to learn about Sheik's mission he didn't bring it up again.

It was about a week after they'd met up when they started to get close to the next town. Here in the outlands towns were few and far between, and the ones who lived on them a harder kind of people. The still-unfinished railroad bisected Hyrule in two, and would, in theory, bring people and business to places it hadn't been before. But even that iron ray of hope hadn't reached out here.

The town Sheik was bound for was an old one. It was called Sawmill, and local legend claimed it had been founded as a town of Kokiri. Unfortunately the Kokiri had been one of the first races to start to vanish, and no one had seen or heard from any of them in decades.

The town still had a lot of history, as well as an old temple on its outskirts. It was as good a place as any to look for what Sheik was trying to find.

"You'll like this place," Link said. "They've got a decent local ale, and this thing they do with milk that will curl your toes."

"Is alcohol the only standard you judge a town by?"

"No, but a lot of the time it's the only part I remember."

Link was frowning slightly as they walked, looking around them. Once he bent down and brushed some leaves off a stone.

"Is something wrong?"

"I'm not sure. I expected to run into people long before this." He pointed at a rock by the side of the road. "Mile markers. The town usually has someone clearing them off every week. These are covered in leaves and moss."

"That's not good," Sheik said. "That's…" He swallowed. "Should we go back?"

"Don't know. If something really has happened, maybe we can help."

"I know, but…" Sheik shook his head. This was not the time to be indulging his survival instincts. "You're right. Let's keep going."

They reached the town, or what was left of it, about an hour later. It was still light, thankfully, and from a distance the small cluster of buildings looked like any other frontier village. But doors were torn from hinges, windows broken. One building had burned down to its frame, all the others near it scorched from the heat.

There were no signs of people, except a few dropped objects in the street. Link and Sheik searched a couple of the buildings and found more abandoned objects, some food, and long-dried blood. But no bodies, no bones. Nothing but the blood.

They gathered up some canned food and found a rain barrel full of water, and Link led the way to what had been the inn. It was torn up inside, whether from fight or flight was hard to tell. But the upstairs rooms were mostly all right, and after trying to make conversation for a few minutes, both men gave up and claimed a room for themselves.

Sheik lay awake for what felt like hours. He stared at the dark ceiling and tried not to imagine what had happened to the people of the town. They weren't all dead; they're clearly run away from something. But there'd been injuries, blood spilled. What could have hurt so many people enough to get them to abandon their whole town?

He couldn't sleep knowing whatever hurt the townspeople might still be out there. Would it be too cowardly to ask Link to let him sleep on his floor? Maybe he could just sneak in there, claim to be sleepwalking if Link caught him. It would be better than not sleeping at all.

Shiek took a blanket from the bed and wrapped it around himself. He was trying not to think about the other connotations of sleeping in someone's room, and shook his head at himself as he pulled open the door.

Link stared down at him, hand raised to knock.

"Um."

"Uh."

They were thankfully saved from further conversation by some kind of bellow from outside. The two men glanced at each other and immediately ran for their packs.

Whatever it was, they were going to face it armed.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

AN:

Sorry sorry this is taking me so long. I have a lot of projects going at once, and it's hard to make this thing as epic as I WANT it to be. Short chapters mean faster updates.

Question. If I were to make hardback books of the Weekly Hyrule News on lulu, would any of you buy them? Please be honest, I need to know how many I should order. So if you WANT one, but know you don't have the money (around twenty dollars) just say so. No hard feelings.