Chapter 16

The chamber was still, the air stale. The echoes of his footfalls absorbed into the moss and died. Even Link's thoughts seemed to fade into nothingness. There were no decorations, no tapestries, no vibrant springs. There was only the Great Fairy.

She sat, resting almost, though in truth she had no need of rest. On anyone else, her bright red hair flowing down her back to coil on the ground would have roused attention. Her clothing of living ivy—covering little more than necessary—would have been alluring to the most stoic of sages, if not for her overwhelming serenity.

When she opened her eyes, Link felt he ought to kneel.

She rose, gently as a vapor from a tea kettle.

"Welcome Hylians," she said. "We have not seen your like in many an age."

"Thank you for sheltering us," Link replied.

She floated over to them and rested a hand on each of their faces. Her touch was cool. It seeped into Link's head and washed away the remnants of his unease. He no longer seemed to care that he had just killed a bokoblin, that he had been walking through the desert for days. It was not that his blisters healed or that the aches subsided from his body. They just didn't matter any more. He simply was.

"Welcome, Link. Welcome, Desi. Flueckli has told me of you, and from that I have guessed much. But I would hear your quest from your own lips. What brings two Hylians so far from home, to the heart of the Forgotten Realm?"

"We seek the Master Sword," he said, all reticence to speak of Zelda's plan gone in an instant. He knew he could trust her. She had been a friend for a very long time, longer than he could imagine.

"Speak, Link. There is but one reason to seek that sword. Speak! Tell me the doom which my heart fears has come to pass." Her voice quavered, but her eyes shone clear and true.

"Ganondorf has returned," he said. "The Gerudo have attacked Hyrule."

He told her as much as he knew, with Desi chiming in on some of the more recent developments. All the while, the fairy soaked them in with her gaze, as if they were the only two people in the world. When they were finished, she closed her eyes, inhaled a deep breath, and planted her feet on the ground.

"You have done well, Hylians," she said. "You are safe here. As safe as any being may be in these wastes. For an age and more have I sheltered my children here, and many beings besides. Never has any who sought shelter in my domain been harmed. Rest."

"The Master Sword-"

"-will not be found tonight, child. Tonight, share our bread. Tomorrow, you will know what it is to receive the aid of the Great Fairy."

She escorted them out of her room and introduced them to the various beings waiting outside.

He felt no shame in staring at them now, Gorons, Zora, and even an aged Twili from another world. All creatures said to have died out centuries ago, if they had ever existed at all. He felt no shame, for they stared back with just as much wonder.

It was a Goron who broke the silence. "Then welcome, brothers!" he said, clapping a large, stony hand on each of their shoulders. "An honor. I am Kharack, from the line of Darunia, who held Death Mountain against the evil king."

Link bowed slightly, not understanding the reference. Desi, beside him, gasped, and he resolved to ask her about it later. Then the others started crowding around, each eager to introduce himself. The faces replaced each other in a blur, and for all his effort Link could not remember one from another.

"Enough," the Great Fairy said at last. She laughed gently, a soothing ripple that spread out through the motley gathering and silenced them almost at once. "We did not invite these travelers to our cave, only to pester them to death. Let them eat, and tell their tale."

This pronouncement was met with general applause. They all proceeded deeper into the cave, while fairies darted down various side tunnels.

"They're off to rouse the others for dinner," Kharack explained, speaking in a low voice. We don't always eat together, but when we do… Well!"

The tunnel opened into a circular room, torches of blue flame spaced around the walls. Two Zora had just finished carrying in a large wooden table, and a swarm of fairies flew the food in.

Link had expected whatever the Great Fairy had to offer them to be meager. After all, there was only so much you could grow in a desert. He was wrong. He could pick out dates, prunes, and other fruit he couldn't recognize, along with several platters heaped with fish.

They fell in line for the food. He noticed it was mostly the Zora and the lone Twili standing there. The Gorons hung back to the sides, as though waiting. Link shrugged and moved to help himself.

There were no plates or silverware beyond the scant platters used to serve the food. Instead, he followed the Zoras' example, plucking up a fish with his hands. The heat of it nearly burnt his fingertips, but he held on, then snagged some dates with his free hand. Desi frowned and wrinkled her nose ever so slightly, but followed suit quick enough.

Hardly a feast, but it was filling and fresh. Within seconds Link had his mouth stuffed with scalding fish. Desi was somewhat more composed, nibbling at her portion as she tossed the hot fish from hand to hand.

"I'm surprised you can find this much food," she said.

"None of us expected it either," said a Zora next to them. "But the Great Fairy can do marvelous things for her children. Well, most of them." For a moment, it looked as though he were staring past them into a distant memory. Then he shook his head. "A pity it is not the season for salmon, or you might have a true feast."

Once his stomach was full, he and Desi began to tell them of their quest. Or rather, Desi did, mostly. Link was beginning to feel she rather enjoyed all the attention. If anything, she seemed even more energized by the tale, gesturing animatedly as she described Rusl's training.

"Oh, and before that Link and Zelda went to see a Sage! You wanna tell them that part, Link?"

"Not much to tell," he said. "Zelda took me out to a forest. Told everyone else it was a camping trip, but in the middle of the night we snuck off to see Sahasrahla."

Several of the audience gasped. "Sahasrahla?" "The Sahasrahla?" "Still alive?"

Link waited for the whispers to die down.

"He said he'd been there for centuries," Link said. "You've heard of him?"

Desi shoved him. "Have you even opened a history book?"

"His foresight saved Hyrule more than once," the Great Fairy explained. "Near the end, there was no Hylian more concerned for the plight of the more magical races. There are many here who revere him."

Link opened his mouth to ask "What end?" Then he closed it. They had been driven from their home, from a beautiful country, out into this wasteland. Of course they would call it an end. And the Gerudo… had been driven off in a different direction. Was Ganondorf their Great Fairy, then? Did he give them this comfort? Link supposed he would find out eventually.

After their story, a number of Zora started to play music, and they taught the Hylians a strange dance. Though he had walked all day, Link had no trouble keeping up with their energetic cadence. He leaped and kicked about with the most graceful of the dancers, and his muscles did not complain one bit. They felt free, as though he were finally putting them to use after hours of sitting down.

Desi did even better. She picked up on the pattern after seeing it just once, and even added her own improvisations that flowed naturally from the Zoras' style.

"You must dance with us again on your way back," the leader of the dance said. "Long has it been since I beheld such grace."

"Long has it been since I tasted such awesome fish!" Desi said in return. They laughed together.

After far too short a time, it was time to sleep. "Dawn comes early," the Great Fairy said, "and our guests have much ground yet to cover."

Flueckli led them down to a small room where she assured them they'd have a bit of privacy. "No pillows or any of that comfy stuff," she babbled as she flew. "The Great Fairy's awesome and all, but she's not that powerful. Of course, fairies don't really need that stuff, but I remember some of the Zora complaining. Gorons just sleep wherever. Whenever. It's so weird. I mean, I like naps too, but it's just… excessive, you know?"

Link nodded along until they finally found the room, and she bade them good night.

"Funny group," Desi said.

Link set down his pack and tried to arrange it into a pillow. No matter what he did, there always seemed to be something pointy sticking out, but eventually he found a tolerable configuration. The temperature was colder than he was used to, but somehow that didn't bother him. He just stretched his legs and let the chill lull him into a deep sleep.

Link woke to a gentle hand on his shoulder. The Great Fairy floated above him, smiling down, a single finger pressed on her lips. She beckoned, and Link followed, leaving Desi sleeping behind them.

They walked in silence until they entered the wide, cavernous chamber where they first met. The stone doors swung shut behind them, and the Great Fairy turned.

"I am sorry to disturb your rest, Link," she said. "I promise, you will feel no less energized for this disruption come morning."

Link inclined his head. "I know you wouldn't have brought me here if it wasn't important." It was hard to feel grumpy when he felt this light. Even though he had only gotten what he was sure was a couple hours of sleep, he felt like he could have run the rest of the way to the Master Sword right then.

"I have a gift for you, if you would take it," she said.

"What gift?"

"The gift of knowledge. The knowledge of ages." She extended her hand. "Will you take it? Will you learn of heroes past?"

Link extended his hand to take hers, then stopped. "You sound like there's a reason I would say no."

"It is polite to ask."

He waited a moment longer, then took her hand.

Instantly, his vision fill with stars, cascading across the night sky. He hovered in the void of space, neither moving nor breathing. He simply existed in a blissful serenity beyond comprehension.

Then a golden light descended from everywhere and nowhere all at once. Where it touched him, he fragmented, and hundreds of visions overwhelmed him at once. A young boy engaged in swordplay above the clouds. A scarred hero fought bandits from horseback. An adventurer pursued a prodigious thief underwater. A child sat in the forest and cried over the loss of a friend.

They all ended the same: the boy, the hero, the man driving a sword into the heart of darkness incarnate. And then, the stars. Always again the stars. Then the light returned, and he shattered once more.

On and on the cycle rolled, over a lifetime, or a dozen, or a thousand. At some point the boy from Miss Rebecca's orphanage became lost, and the new Hyrule forgotten. Who he was, he could not say. Did that even have an answer in this vision? The stars existed. The light existed. The heroes and the darkness and the love and the pain existed. That was enough. The avatar of evil rose to power, and a green-clad boy struck it down. Over and over. The cycle was neither good nor bad; it simply was. As he was, fragmented and torn among the stars.

An eternity passed, and then an eternity longer, and finally Link returned to the boy in the Great Fairy's cavern. His memory extended from his entrance, back through the desert voyage, all the way back to his earliest days in the orphanage. The fragments remained in his head. He could not recall them. He could not even picture the face of the foe he had defeated time and time again. But they were there, and they were his. They were him.

He opened his eyes.

"Are you well?" the Great Fairy asked.

Link considered. He felt stretched, somehow, a tiredness that went beyond exhaustion. But already the Great Fairy's presence began to transform him, sliding the fatigue off, buoying him up.

"Yes," he said. "I think I should thank you, but I don't know why. Does that make sense?"

She placed a hand on his shoulder. "I understand completely. Now rest. Dawn comes early."


A/N: A question for anyone reading: where do you think the Great Fairy is with respect to Hyrule? The Gerudo who are attacking Hyrule? Just trying to get a feel for how well I've been communicating certain things.