Chapter 10: An Interlude: A Conversation

Scritch, scritch. Link's ears twitched. Scritch, scritch. He woke up slowly, opening his eyes, seeing the red-haired human sweeping the floor. She picked up something colored silver, putting it inside her pocket. He blinked his eyes, noticing that the pain in his side was bearable, finally. The colors that had danced before his eyes were gone. He could think clearly again.

Testing his good luck, he tried sitting up, causing the blankets to fall from his torso. He hissed in pain as his movements tore at the wound on his side. Too much, too soon. You think he would have learned the first time, not to move so quickly.

"I don't think that's a good idea," the red-haired creature said. "You're still quite injured, you know."

He did know. Link shifted, feeling oddly exposed without his fur. He attempted to speak like did before, but he couldn't quite manage it; his mouth felt bone dry, the tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth when he tried to speak. It felt wooden. It stifled his mouth like the thickest leather.

The creature made her way towards him with something in her paws. Link eyed her warily, the corner of his lip twitching up involuntarily in a half-snarl. As she approached him with it, he kept his mouth firmly closed when she tried to give it to him. If he had the strength, he would have knocked it away.

"For the love of the Giants, it's just water. See?" She took a long sip, sloshing it around loudly in her mouth before swallowing. "Not poison. Drink up."

She reached out slowly towards him. He didn't have the will to do anything more than grunt at her. He was weak. Even if he wanted to try something, she could easily overpower him. And it really did seem like the water was safe. It had been so long since he'd stopped for a drink at the spring. She knew how thirsty he was. And since he'd turned human, he hadn't been tied or bound in any way. Even the chain from his paw was missing. She'd jerked back her hand when he grunted, but as the angry look faded from his face, she'd reached out again.

She grabbed the nape of his neck and tilted his head up. She held the tankard out again, giving him time to sniff the water. Not being able to detect anything with his human nose, he parted his lips slightly and drank the water. As the first drops hit his tongue, he greedily tried to gulp the rest, pushing his mouth to the edge of the cup. She pulled it away slightly. He nosed after it, trying to get more, but the woman wouldn't tilt the cup up any further.

"Not so fast. You'll choke yourself. Take it slowly; there's plenty more where that came from."

Link downed that first glass. Then he downed another. By the time he was finished with the third one, his thirst had abated somewhat. Just in time for his stomach to growl loudly. The creature just rolled her eyes, grumbling something like "men" under her breath. Puzzled, he watched as she left the room, reappearing a short time later with a bowl in her hands. She set it down on the table beside him.

"It's been a day since you last ate anything, maybe longer. Can you handle eating yet? Do you like porridge?" Link stared blankly at her. "Goddess knows what you ate as a wolf. Link told me you were probably originally human, and I know you'd vomit anything substantial." She sighed. "Let's try to get you sitting up." She grabbed him under the shoulders, pulling him up against the headboard, straining with all her might. The way she held him kept his chest from twisting. It wasn't painless, but it was better than when he had tried to do it himself. She fluffed the pillows that were sitting behind him, placing them behind him to support his back, leaning him back on them when she was done. "There. I'm Anju by the way."

Link didn't respond. He was looking at her strangely. "...Why?"

"Why what?" Anju asked. "There are whys for a lot of things. Why am I here? Why am I injured? Why can I turn into a wolf? Why is Anju being silly? Granted, I don't know any answers except for the last of it, but I'll try to answer any question that you have."

"Why help?" Link asked, bewildered by her slew of questions. She was being nice to him. She didn't hurt him like the mean thing, or try to question him like the purple one. How could he have any answers if he didn't know himself? She reminded him of someone. Uli, a little voice whispered inside of him. Who? He tried to think about the face behind the name, but all he could picture was a bit of blonde hair and a kind smile. It was the kind smile that was the same, he thought.

And just what exactly was he, anyway? He thought he was a wolf, but now he was human. Was it some strange magic of theirs, or had he been human all along? It made his head hurt thinking about it.

"Why not?" Anju grabbed a spoon and dragged her chair next to the bed. "Can you handle eating yourself?"

Link clumsily grabbed for the spoon from her, only for it to slip out of his hands and fall on the bedspread.

"Guess not." She sighed. "Open up." Link opened his mouth obediently, making a face as he tasted the porridge. "What's wrong?"

"Tasteless."

She laughed. "Yeah, it's tasteless, but it's filling. I didn't add anything to yours except cucco broth, because I wasn't sure you'd be able to keep it down otherwise. Here," she tried giving him another spoonful. He just looked at her with sad eyes. "Puppy eyes! You're very good at that. I wonder why?" She giggled. "C'mon, you have to eat, Link." As if on cue, his stomach growled again. "See? Eat up." She fed him another spoonful. He grimaced, but swallowed it down. A little bit dribbled down the side of his mouth. Anju took a cloth and wiped it away. Another pang of nostalgia hit him. Why was she so familiar? She fed him the rest of his meal in silence. Link soon got past the taste, eating voraciously. He had been hungry. The food disappeared in short order.

As he slurped the last dregs from the bowl, Link found his voice. "Thank you." He didn't know where the urge came from. It just seemed like something he should say, so he said it.

Anju just looked at him, her eyes lingering on him for a long time. "You're welcome," she said finally. You're quite polite, considering."

"I guess. I don't know," he said honestly. "Where is this place?

"A good question!" Anju said cheerfully. "I can answer that one. You are in Termina, in the village of Clock Town, in the Stock Pot Inn." She tapped her chin. "You know, you're a lot different than I expected you to be."

"...Different?" Link asked.

"A lot less 'grr' and a lot more friendly, for one."

"I..." Link made to speak, and then he trailed off. Again, he decided to be honest. "You remind me of someone."

"Who?"

"That's the thing. I don't remember. But she had blonde hair. And she was human." Link said. "You feel...safe."

"So that means you're not going to attack me or my daughter?" Anju asked. She tensed, and Link felt the need to put her at ease.

"I could never harm a kid," Link said. "Or a child, for that matter." Where had that come from, he asked himself. Flashes of goats pranced behind his eyes. It seemed like something tired, something he'd said often, like the earlier "thank you."

"...Did you just make a joke? It was lame, but you did." Anju said, shaking her head and smiling. "Fine, fine, I believe you. You know, I'm starting to think Link was right."

"Link...?" Link asked confusedly. "But I'm Link."

"The other blond-haired, green-wearing man. They're starting to crop up everywhere." Anju said seriously, but a twitch at the corner of her mouth gave her away. "Link told me on the way out that you called him 'mean.' I guess he would seem that way to you, considering."

Link thought about what she had just said for a second. The other blond had introduced himself, hadn't he? It all seemed like a big blur: the chase in the forest, his transformation, passing out, waking up only to pass out again. He truly couldn't remember a time where he'd been without pain. "Okay," he said.

"So what where you saying about the woman?" Anju asked. "Do you think that maybe she was your mother?"

His mother? He thought hard, probing his mind for an answer to the question. "No," Link said after some time had passed. "That doesn't seem right."

"Were you her pet?" Anju asked.

Link frowned. "No," he said firmly. That felt more wrong than the mother question. "She had a kind smile." He thought harder. An image of a rounded stomach appeared to him. "She was heavy with child."

Anju just looked at him, unsettled. "Were you courting?" she asked slowly.

"No!" Link said, shuddering. "That's definitely wrong. Not right at all."

"Still, that's more than you've remembered before. And you're starting to remember more." Anju hmmed. "You know, it does point to the fact you are human. I mean, if you weren't a pet, that's really the only explanation. If you were wild, you wouldn't have had such close contact with a human. What's the first thing you remember?"

Link just sat quietly in thought. Why was he even opening up to her? She seemed to be the only one who had really listened to him. He supposed she was questioning him, but she seemed really concerned about him. And really, who else did he have to talk to? He knew she'd only tell the other two, but maybe they could help him remember. Maybe they could help him find that tantalizing dark scent. Maybe they could help him figure out why he was running, how he had ended up in that forest. So he'd talk with Anju, set himself straight. Maybe he'd find out why he was here. What was the harm? He'd already been slashed to ribbons. They were keeping him alive for some reason, and she seemed genuinely nice. If they'd wanted to kill him, they could have. And maybe he had lashed out and attacked without provocation, seeing the flash of green as a that monster with the horns. He'd decided pretty quickly he was a wolf. Was deciding he was human any different?

"Waking up in a forest, feeling like I was missing something. Like a weight. I see flashes of things. There's a green flash, and I'm choking. A dark scent and a husky laugh. And I'm running. Always running."

"A forest, huh? And that's where you came from, behind the door?" Anju asked.

"Yes," Link said.

"And you do have the Triforce, whatever that is. Link was right. You are from Hyrule." Anju said.

"Hy...rule?" Link asked, testing out the word.

"He's from there, you know. Never made his way back. He got here the same way. Does the name sound familiar?"

As a matter of fact, it did. An image of rolling grass came into his mind with a large castle in the distance. But that was all he could see, no matter how long he strained his mind. "Yes. A field, and a castle. But I still don't know what it all means."

"You'll figure it out," Anju said brightly. "I think you've made some significant progress, really. We know you're from Hyrule, and if you got here, we can get you back. You remembered more than you've said before. And I've learned I can trust you. That's pretty important." She stood, walking over to give him some more water. "You just need to focus on healing right now."

He yawned loudly. Anju adjusted his pillows, leaning him back down, frowning at the bloody linens. "I need to change these. You're filthy, and it won't do us any good to have you get an infection after I've just spent an entire day and a half trying to save you." She poked and prodded at him, unraveling the bandages. "You're actually healing faster than I thought you would," she said, eying the reddened edges of the stitches. She took a clean wet cloth and wiped the excess blood from his wound, spreading a topical potion before taking a clean roll of bandages and carefully wrapping them around his torso.

"I'm exhausted. You're heavy. Like one big lump of muscle," Anju said.

Not long after she had finished, Link stopped trying to fight the heaviness of his eyes. He was already feeling better. More hale, more hearty. He was remembering things, even if they were small. For the first time since he awoke to his new existence, he felt like he was sure of himself, sure of his identity, even if he couldn't remember all of it.

And maybe, he thought as he glanced over to where the red-haired—where Anju was keeping vigil over him, maybe I have a friend. With that, he let sleep take him.