Chapter 5 - Nate
That day would become marked as, quite possibly, the happiest day Link had experienced in the past couple of months. Not only did he finally feel at ease again, knowing Zelda hadn't completely forgotten about him, but there was much more. He found someone who was willing to trust the man who saved Hyrule.
But not only that, Nate also given him a new hope in the kingdom he had saved. Not a week ago, Link truly believed that all of Hyrule detested him, that they didn't trust him. But here stood a man who disproved that idea completely; A man who did not detest him, but a man who trusted him.
Who's to say there aren't any more Nate's out there? Could it possibly be that he ran into the one and only person out that that could stand to be in his presence? As the chances of that are very slim, Link could not help but feel slightly motivated.
"Umm, hello?" Nate said, waving his hand in front of Link's unseeing eyes. "Did you hear me?"
Link shook his head and cleared his mind. "Yeah, sorry, just thinking…" Link muttered distractingly, before replying, "Yeah, sure, you're welcome to come with me if you would like." He did his best to hide the overwhelming delight in his voice that was practically leaping off his tongue.
"Thanks!" Nate replied excitedly. "It just, in being a wanderer, I don't get many opportunities to travel with other people."
And he understood Link's pain…
"I don't think my horse will be able to carry the two of us," Link said when he finally took notice that Nate didn't have a horse. "We'll have to walk. Is that alright?"
"Hey? I'm a wanderer, remember?" Nate said, smirking. "I think I know how to walk."
Though he didn't think it wasn't all that funny, Link couldn't help but laugh. Nate thought he was just laughing at his small attempt at humor, but it was really much deeper than that. Nate was the real deal.
Link was as giddy as the small children of Ordon were when they saw Link's wooden sword as he put Nate's few belongings on Epona's back next to his own. He latched them behind his own knapsack and spent more time than usual tightening the knots, just to make completely sure that they were secure.
While he was doing so, Nate reached out one of hands to pet Epona. Immediately, she reared up on two legs and neighed loudly before backing away a few steps. Luckily, Link had strapped everything in place beforehand; else, it would have been all over the ground.
"Oh, don't worry, she just gets shy." Link said, wrestling with her in an attempt to calm her down. It took much effort but soon, she was calm once more and lazily grazing in the grass.
In truth though, Link had never seen her do anything like that before. Normally, she was great with other people. Hell, she endured the various prods, pokes and other tortures the Ordon kids had put her through without complaint. Link didn't think much about it though, and just shrugged it off.
"Well, that's alright." Nate replied, his voice still a little shaken. "Ready? It'll be a long walk."
"As ready as I'll ever be." Link said, grinning for the first time in a while. Guiding Epona's reigns on his left side and with Nate at his right, Link walked across the Kakariko Bridge.
The rest of that day was nothing short of a miracle for Link. The two became close friends and the whole while, there was no devoid of small talk. Minutes stretched into hours without Link's noticing, everything seemed to speed up a bit with Nate around.
"So, what do you do, Link?" Nate asked as they walked up the small cliff towards the bridge connecting Kakariko Gorge with East Hyrule Field.
"Me? Well, up until a while ago, I was a farmer. But, recent events have forced me to, err… take a brief vacation." Link replied rather quickly.
"Gotten into trouble with the landlord, eh?" Nate replied, smirking. Link grinned sheepishly, so as to not reveal the secret of the real reason why he was wandering the plains.
"Yeah," Nate continued. "It's best to lay low when something like that happens. I would know. I have had many experiences of similar situations."
"Oh yeah?" Link grinned. "Like what?"
"Well, I wasn't always a wanderer. I used to be a very reputable chef in Castle Town." Nate explained.
"Why aren't you still?" Link asked curiously. In his opinion, it would be better to sleep on a bed and cook food all day than to live out in the wilderness.
"Well," Nate said regretfully. "I was ruined by the war. It caused the prices of basic ingredients to skyrocket. And nobody had any money to buy fancy food. So, I was stuck on the streets, trying to sell all this gourmet and lavish food for a mere blue rupee each, nothing compared to how much it cost to make it. I lost it all then."
"Oh, I'm sorry." Link said, regretting having brought up the topic.
"No, don't be. It wasn't your fault. But I guess you can call this wanderer thing my 'permanent' vacation." He smirked.
"So you're just giving up?"
"What else can I do?" Nate replied. "I'm flat out broke."
Not now, but maybe later, Link would tell him that he had plenty of money.
In the blink of an eye, or so it seemed, the two of them and Epona were entering East Hyrule Field. It was the biggest of the Hyrule fields, and in Link's opinion, the most beautiful. The light of the setting sun was reflecting in the many assorted ponds in the big field and the full, bright moon was just visible in the dimming light. They picked a good spot near the bridge to camp for the night, one which was away from the threats of goblins and other creatures who roamed the plains at night. Link pitched the tent while Nate went out and found some firewood and started a fire.
Soon the tent was set, the fire was blazing, and Epona was nourished in one of the nearby ponds. As much as he hated it, Link hunted for food that night and snagged a deer. His stash of Yeto's soup was running low and with no other source of food currently available, so he was forced to.
They both sat around the fire and waited as the meat roasted on the fire. Link had gained a lot of culinary experience after his trials with Midna, so when it was ready, he knew and took it off the fire. And in silence, the two of them feasted.
But even after eating, neither of the two were tired as of yet. Epona sure was; she was already fast asleep next to the tent.
"That's quite a sword you got there." Nate said, pointing at the sword which Link had taken off and laid on the ground when he had set up camp. "Any reason why you would need such an expensive-looking sword to journey the wilderness?"
Link shrugged. "I just want to always be prepared, you know?" He lied. It hurt to lie to Nate, he seemed like a trustworthy man. But there were a few secrets Link wouldn't let go of lightly. "You never know what you might run into."
"Yeah, but," Nate said, looking at the sword that still lay in its scabbard with awe. "It's so nice! It would be a shame if you were ever to foul it with the stains of blood."
Link smirked. "I only use the best."
"Mind if I take a look at it?" Nate asked.
Link shrugged. "Sure, go ahead."
Nate picked up the sword and, slowly but surely, pulled the Master Sword out of its scabbard. He was stricken at once by its beauty.
Sometime after he had defeated Ganondorf, the shining light that had before emitted from the sacred blade had disappeared. He wasn't sure when, but it was either right after he had struck down Ganondorf or when Midna had destroyed the link that had connected the Master Sword with the Twili's mythical Light. Either way, the Master Sword had reverted back to the way it was when Link had first pulled it out of the pedestal. But that did not make it any less grand.
The sword did still give off a faint gleam of scarlet, only seen to the observant eye. A faded dye of blood red still lingered, seared onto the sword by the victims who were unfortunate enough to have crossed paths with Link. Even with vigorous washing, the faint tinge still remained, now a part of the sacred blade itself.
But Nate either didn't notice or didn't care. He sat, mouth agape and eyes expressing wonder, with the sword lying in his outstretched hands. With a cautious and steady hand, as if he might ruin it with his touch, Nate stroked the sharp side of the sword with his finger, and then took a look at the damage. The sword had left a thin, fine line of blood. It was truly the handiwork of a skilled smith to make such a sharp, durable blade.
"Why, it's incredible, Link." Nate said, running a finger over the making in the hilt. "I've never seen a sword like it."
'Probably because there is no other sword like it…' Link thought and grinned to himself as Nate continued to thoroughly examine the sword.
"It shows signs of much use, but yet it holds the sharpest edge. How is that even possible?" Nate asked to himself in amazement as he turned the blade over in his hands again and again.
"Where did you get it?" Nate asked as he finally took his eyes of the blade and put it back in its scabbard.
"Oh, it was my father's." Link lied. "It has been passed down in my family for generations. The name of its creator has long been lost in the sands of time."
"Yeah, 'cause I was going to say, it looks antique." Nate added. "Do you know what it is made out of?"
"No, sorry, I do not." Link said with a frown. To him, what it was made of didn't much matter, as long as it worked.
"Oh, that's alright. Do you know how it was made? Was it just smelted like normal swords, or was it folded into layers as is done in the more durable swords? Or possibly some other way?"
Link gave him a blank stare. "Swords can be made in more than one way?" He asked, shocked.
Nate sighed, but smiled slightly.
"Sorry, I don't know much about sword making." Link said apologetically. "But you sure seem to. I thought you were a cook?"
"In profession, yes." Nate replied. "But my true fascination lay in swords. I had a huge collection of rare makes and interesting designs of swords. I had every type of sword you could possibly imagine; some brand new, some historic, some sharp, some blunt, some basic, some ornamented. Longswords, shortswords, rapiers, sabres, two-handed swords, scimitars, claymores, I had it all. But I had to sell most of them when I lost my money. And the rest are probably still in the house…"
"House?" Link's ears perked up. "I thought you said you were a drifter. You didn't say anything about a house?"
"Well, it all goes back to me losing my money." Nate replied, sighing. "At one point, I had lost my money, but I still had my house and everything in it. It was nothing to brag about, just a small two-room house that I rented out. I thought that if I sold some of my rarer swords, I might be able to scrape by."
He paused. "One day, I showed up at my doorstep and found my door locked and my key didn't work. As it turned out, my landlord had kicked me out onto the streets."
'Wow' was all Link could think as he stared into Nate's unseeing and unfeeling eyes. The hardships that this man had to go through were astonishing. This was a man who could comprehend the pain that Link had to go through, and perhaps even shrug it off as nothing compared to what he went through. Because this man was no ordinary man.
He was a sacrifice for society, just like Link. The pair of them had each gone through hell, and perhaps even more than that, for no good reason other than that they weren't cared for by society. And if society ever learned a lesson from the two of them, they would become martyr, sacrifices to better society.
His was another life destroyed by the war Ganondorf caused. It almost made Link want to bring Ganondorf back to life, just so he could kill him again.
"Hey, Link?"
Nate's voice woke Link up from his little "daydream." Link shook his head awake and looked over at Nate from across the small fire they had set up.
Nate continued. "Don't you think we should douse the fire? We wouldn't want to attract goblins."
Link looked around. The sun was almost completely gone by now. The two had chatted the light away, so much so that his jaw was actually hurting after months of lack of use. But with goblins being nocturnal by nature, it probably would be better if they headed off to bed soon.
"Yeah, I got a bucket of water right here." Link said. "But one question for you before we go to sleep. How do you do it? How do you get through all that suffering?"
Nate grinned sheepishly and said, "I try not to think about it."
Link woke up the next morning to the sound of the early bird's chirp. Fresh sunlight was shining into the tent that he and Nate had shared and was beginning to reveal even the darkest corners. A sign of the good day to come.
Link sat up and stretched quietly, but he soon noticed that Nate was not in the tent any longer. Link got out of his sleeping bag and curiously poked his head out of the tent's entrance.
It did not take long for him to find the missing one. Once again, Nate had fallen under the drawing, tempting, alluring radiance that was the Master Sword. The sword, once again unsheathed, was being thoroughly examined from every which angle by the increasingly possessed Nate, who seemed unable to keep his mind off of the priceless sword of evil's bane. With his back to Link and the tent, Nate was entranced by its beauty; so much so that he had not heard the snap of a twig Link stepped on getting out of the tent.
Grinning at Nate's lack of awareness, Link walked up right behind him and said, "She's a beauty, ain't she?"
Nate spun around from his spot on the ground abruptly to face Link. "Oh, err…Good morning, there, Link." Nate stammered. A slight tinge of a blush of scarlet crept up to his cheeks. "I…I'm sorry, Link. I just needed another look at it." Nate quickly thrust the sword back into its scabbard and put back on top of the Hylian Shield, which was lying at the foot of the tent.
"Hey, don't worry about it." Link said, turning away from Nate and beginning to pull the tent's supporting stakes out of the ground. "Take a look whenever you would like."
"Nah, I think I've had a long enough look." Nate replied, and then quickly changed the subject. "Are you hungry? It's not much, but I cooked a little breakfast." He indicated the small roast he had made with the leftovers from last night.
Link grinned. "Thanks but no thanks, Nate." He replied, packing up the tent as neatly as he could. "I'm not that hungry right now."
"Are you sure? It might not be a while until we can eat again."
"Yeah, I know. But I've never been a big eater in the morning. Epona might be happy to have some, though."
Epona was up and ready to go even before Link had gotten up. Link urged her over to the roast and offered her some. Epona bent down to sniff at it, but stuck her nose up at it.
Link grinned. "Well," he said. "She's never been much of a meat-eater."
"Well, I'll just leave it for the goblins, then." Nate replied. He grabbed a bucket of water that he had probably filled earlier that morning and dosed the flame below the roast. "Are you ready to get going?"
"Hold on, one second." Link finished strapping the folded tent to Epona's back, and once he made sure that the ties were strong enough, he said, "Yeah, let's get going."