Coin-Operated

7.0

In the Doldrums Waiting for Me

My fingers go numb.

I jerk my hand out of the water just in time before frost cracks over the surface right where my fingers were. The orbs of light move in a startled frenzy, shooting into the water. The pool of water freezes over, and in a huff, my breath puffs out from me in a white cloud, but I strangely don't feel cold at all. The only light remaining in the cavern comes from the glowing, golden water. Cautiously, I lean back down towards the pool and let my fingers skim across the water's frozen surface. It's normal, if it could be called that. It's cold, it's slippery, just like ice should be.

I jump at the sounds of the ice cracking. The light under the ice begins to shift, pulsing into a massive shape in the center of the pool that's pushing against the layer of ice. Water gushes upwards when the ice finally breaks away, splashing me. But it's not cold. It's warm. I scramble to my feet, but before I can so much as take one step, I'm pulled back and thrown into the hole in the ice. Bubbles scatter from me as I thrash in the pool. The golden mass quickly coils around me and my vision goes black when it constricts me.

…

"Page!" I jerk at the voice and wrench open my screwed shut eyes. It's a courtyard of sorts. Spring air wafts under my nose, carrying the sweet scent of newly bloomed flowers and dew. Birds chirp and chatter from their posts on the edge of the roof of the surrounding building. A little red one in particular seems to cheer with its chatter. Standing next to me is a boy no older than thirteen. He wears a rusty orange colored tunic with a red shirt and hose. Brown leather slippers cover his feet. In his hands is a practice staff which he brings up and skillfully swings one way and then swoops back another. The whole pattern of the exercise makes him move in a complex dance around the courtyard. "Page!" the voice calls again, and the boy immediately slams the staff into the stone as he straightens up to greet a man coming out of the building.

"Yes sir?" he squeaks, his voice cracking as he quickly swipes his scraggly, dirty blond bangs out of his face.

The man crinkles his nose at the boy's disheveled look, but he says nothing of it and shoves forth a sealed envelope. "Take this to Sir Raven immediately," he instructs the boy, "and, by Din, there will be hell to pay should you break the seal."

The boy takes the sealed envelope with only a slight hesitation. "Yes sir," the boy obliges and hurries off towards the building. The man, the birds and the courtyard begin to fade into white, and I take off after the boy where the world continues to remain solid when the world of white begins to crawl under my feet. I rush after him and see him place the practice staff in a room before hurrying down the corridor, the envelope firmly in his hand.

He gives a small of yelp of surprise when he turns a corner, and when he comes into view, I see him stumble back from a small, almost frail and mousy looking boy. Immediately, he stoops down to pick up the books scattered about on the floor. The other boy is dressed in the same uniform as the one I followed. The blond boy holds out to the other one the small stack of books and mumbles, "Sorry." His face is tinted a slight pink as the mousy boy takes the stack.

"It's fine," the other page says, and I suddenly realize from the pitch that the other is actually female, her hair chopped to her earlobes. "It's my fault, I was reading and walking." Clutching the books to her chest, the female page holds out the sealed envelope. "Running an errand?"

"Ah- yes," the boy says, fumbling over himself as he takes the letter. "The training master asked me to take it to Sir Raven."

"Well, you're going to wrong way now. I think he's actually down by the stables right now instead of his quarters," she tells him. "I saw him not too long ago."

The boy looks a little surprised at this. "Really, that's odd."

The girl shrugs, tucking a lock of one of her strawberry blonde curls behind her ear. "Come on, then," she says brightly, moving forward. "I'll walk with you."

"Um… alright."

"Have you been studying?" she asks as the other page jogs to catch up to her brisk pace. "Exams are coming."

"I know, I know," he says, falling in step with the female page. "I'm a little worried though."

"You'll be fine. You're a natural-"

"At everything but the books," he interjects. "You know they make all the pages do an oral exam now in front of the court to prevent those with magic from cheating. With your brains, you'll pass that with flying colors next year."

The girl laughs, a slight bitterness edging it. "I worry that no knight will take me on."

"What? Why? You're the-"

This time the female page cuts him off. "My station doesn't matter. Even though by law girls are allowed to be pages, did you forget that I was on probation my first year? People still have tradition shoved so far up their ass."

He comments, "That's uncouth."

"What is uncouth are the attitudes surrounding female knighthood," she says hotly as we reach the end of the corridor. "I barely got a sponsor my first year, and no boy wants me to sponsor them now." She stops and looks down at her leather slippers. "If it's such an issue as a page, what'll it be like as a squire?" she asks, her voice suddenly soft and meek.

And as the boy opens the door at the end of the corridor, the white light fills it up and engulfs the whole scene.

I blink, and, suddenly, I find myself in a new room… or tent. I turn to see a young man pouring over a map on a tree stump that serves as a makeshift desk. Light flickers from a candle in a lantern that sits on the stump to illuminate the map. With the mop of messy, dirty blond hair, I recognize the young man as the boy I saw before, just a few years older. The baby fat in his face is gone and his features are more defined and sharper. He sniffs a little as his brow creases. He no longer wears a page uniform, and instead sits wearing a plain green tunic. Chainmail rests between the tunic and the cream pants and shirt. Worn, brown leather gauntlets cover his hands and forearms as he cracks his knuckles absently.

The tent flap whips open. "Doing that brings pain in your later years, dear," a woman calls out as she enters the tent.

"Lady Knight," he says in greeting, not even looking up from the map as she stalks into the sparsely furnished tent, letting the flap close behind her. She flops onto the man's bedroll. Her strawberry blonde hair has grown out from behind her earlobes, stopping just under her shoulders, but the resemblance is still there. It's the female page and, like her friend, no longer wears the page uniform. She, too, is dressed in a similar tunic uniform with the only difference between the two being that hers is a deep navy.

"They're going to have you map out those woods?" she asks after a minute of quiet.

"Mm…"

She frowns at him, rising up from the bedroll. "I'll see if the duke will let me come with you," she offers.

"It's fine," he mumbles.

"They say those woods are magicked though," she tells him, plopping herself down next to him at the stump. "And if you get lost, you turn into a skeleton of sorts." She pinches his side, and he tries to swat her hands away. "But I suppose you're not too far off from that, are you?"

"I eat fine, thank you, milady."

"Why're you so formal with me? You know you don't have to be."

"You do realize what all the other knights have been saying about us," he sighs, "don't you?"

She says flatly, "But they're not true."

"I know that, but it's still problematic."

"How so?"

"You say 'How so?' when you won't even keep the flap open?" he asks her in disbelief, gesturing over to the entrance.

She casts a brief glance over at the tent's entrance and rolls her eyes. "Oh come on, now. We're not squires anymore."

"You're still an unmarried lady," he sighs in exasperation.

She blinks at this, but then cracks a smile. She pinches his cheek as he sneers at her. "Aw, it's nice to know that you care enough about my reputation, but I don't think I'm the marrying type." She continues to tease him, saying, "Unless of course you're willing, love."

"I made a commitment to duty, sorry," he retorts, turning away from her with the map to get away from her grasp.

"Oi! Brother!" The tent opens back up and another man steps in, dressed in a similar tunic uniform. Upon seeing the female knight in the tent, he quickly ties the flap open.

For a moment, my heart stops at the sight of him. I say, "Link?"

My interjection goes unnoticed by the other three in the tent. My nonexistence is confirmed when the man I believe to be Link walks right through me as if I am nothing more than a mere ghost.

"You ought to cut that hair of yours," Link says to the other man.

The young knight in green scoffs. "You're one to talk," he replies in reference to Link's untamed head of golden blond hair. I look between the two brothers, and I can see the resemblance. While one clearly looks to be younger, less haggard by the life of a knight, they could be mirror images of one another if their hair was the same shade of blond.

"Well I hope you're treating the lady with a little more respect than that."

"Yes!" she exclaims, throwing a hand to her forehead. "I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't interrupted and saved me from his brutish ways."

"You're the one who never leaves the tent open," he reminds her sharply, his back still to her.

"Hodgepodge, love!" she says with a swat at his back as Link comes around to look at the map in the other knight's hands. "He's really most foul; I'm forever in your debt, Sir Knight."

Link chuckles and grins at the woman before focusing back on the map. Link opens his mouth to say something to the knight in green when we all jump at the sudden blast of a horn. The three knights wait a moment before the horn sounds again, and Link says, "They need archers. Grab your bows."

Link and the female knight rush out of the tent while the knight in green quickly throws on and secures his equipment belt, strapping his sword and shield to his back. He picks up his longbow and scrambles out of the tent while he slings his quiver over his shoulder, leaving his armor behind. I try to follow, but the world goes black when the tent flap shuts closed behind him.

…

"So it is you." The voice is neither male nor female. The feeling of its omnipotence washes through me as I break the surface of the water. I cough a little as I'm set back onto the grassy ground. I hack a little more at what lies before me with what little breath I still have in my lungs. The golden mass spiraled up from the water, coiling this way and that.

"Are y- are you the guardian?" I ask, stumbling stupidly over my words.

The golden mass slithers fully up onto the ice, and the golden snake rears its head at me. "I am," it says to me. "I am the light spirit Lanayru."

"What was that that I was seeing before?"

"Memories," it tells me simply.

"I saw one of my friends in one."

"Indeed." The golden snake slips quietly up onto the grass. Its golden scales shimmer and shine, lighting up the cavern. "The friend that waits for you outside my lair is fairly special."

"Because of what he is?"

"Yes and no," the snake tells me, and I feel a twinge at its vague responses.

I ask the guardian, "Why won't you let him come in?"

"Now is not the time for him and me to meet, young one," the guardian replies. "While it has been lifetimes since he and I have spoken, never have I had the pleasure until now of speaking to you."

"What're you talking about?"

"Have you not noticed how your magic has been changing?"

"I have."

The snake bobs its head as it regards me. It swoops in from behind, and I watch as it coils itself around me again. "The magic you possess is of ancient quality," the snake whispers to me. Its scales ripple with light as it closes in on me. "A true masterwork in itself, but it will be completely useless to you if you do not figure out how to control it."

"Are you talking about the gold magic?" I ask.

"I am," the snake replies. Its tongue flickers out of its mouth, and I feel the edge of it tickle my cheek. "Containing the magic is one thing, but to master it is another. Do you understand?"

"I do," I breathe. "But why did it suddenly change? Link mentioned I must have come into contact with something prior to set it off."

"That is not for me to answer," the snake tells me, and I groan in frustration. The guardian gives me a little squeeze, but whether it's to comfort me or to get me to attention, I'm not sure. "But I shall tell you this: the contact does not have to be physical. It could be something intangible."

"Something intangible," I mumble to myself.

The light spirit unwinds itself from me and slithers back down to the pool. Its tail flicks absently as I turn back to face it. "That is all for now," the guardian says. "There are other light spirits in this land. Visit them if you choose, and maybe they, too, shall impart some wisdom to you."

"Wait!" I shout out, scrambling to the edge when I see the spirit begin to make its descent back into the water. "My friend though. He's stuck like that. Isn't there anything that can be done to return him to normal… or- or something!"

The light spirit Lanayru pauses and regards me for a moment. My heart sinks a little at his reply. "That is also something that I am afraid I am not allowed to impart at this time. Do know that that is Her Will," the spirit says. "Farewell, young one." And with that, the snake sinks back down through the hole in the ice.

When the last bit of gold disappears under the surface, the ice begins to crack. It shatters in a massive wave, and my arms fly up to protect my face, and I turn on my heels. When the pool settles back down, I lower my arms and turn back. Slowly the small orbs of golden light leave the water and go back to silently drifting throughout the cavern, continuing to shed it in their ethereal glow. Looking back down into the water, it's almost as if none of that ever even happened. No signs of the ice remain, and I shove a hand into the pool. The water is warm as it ever was with no hint of there being a chill.

My hand in the water also does nothing to bring forth the light spirit once again. It really is done speaking with me for now. So pursing my lips, I hurry back out of the cavern, stumbling a little in the dark.

…

"I want to leave," I say to Link as I stir my soup around in the bowl. The professor was gone from the laboratory again when we returned, and he'd actually left a note saying he'd gone out on the lake to try and investigate something or other this time around.

Link quirks an eyebrow. "Why?"

"Please. Let's just get your arm covered and go," I say.

He cocks his head. "So… did you meet with the light spirit?" he asks me.

"I did. And it's real. And it's a snake," I tell him.

"What'd it tell you?"

"Nothing really," I lie. "It said it had been waiting a long time to meet me."

"So where you wanna go then?"

"I want to go to the woods around Ordon."

Link grunts. "Nonsense, love," he says, and almost immediately, I can hear the woman's voice in my head saying, "Hodgepodge, love!" He shakes his head. "Those woods are strange," he tells me, his eyes flicking around the diner as he eyes the other patrons. "They're a total maze and very few people have ever been able to navigate them and then get out alive."

"I have a feeling about the woods though," I insist. "They're magicked. What better place for two people living in a place where magic is hunted?"

"You talkin' about them squads?" a man asks from the next booth over. Link turns around and shoots him a look. "They're terrible really."

"Haven't seen much of them around here though," I say to the drifter.

He swipes under his nose before saying, "Yeah, well…" He leans in closer towards us and drops his voice some. "You know they took a few Zoras not long ago. Makes no sense. They're just innocent laborers."

"Who probably possess magical abilities, and therefore pose a threat," Link says. "Face it," Link whispers harshly to the drifter, "this is some crazy plot for oppression and power."

"Isn't power what any man wants?" the drifter asks, and then he turns back to his food.

Link looks over at me, his brow knitted. I merely shrug in response.

He sighs. "Ordon it is, love."

…

Link stares in shock at the bustling town Ordon has become since he last patrolled the little village as a knight.

When trying to leave for Ordon, Link and I had originally planned to take a train out to the sleepy town, only to find out through complaining residents that squads are located at every station throughout the country. They stand waiting for each arrival and departure, checking every person and bag with Lenses for any sign of magic. If Link were still actually human, when I looked at him upon hearing this information, I'm sure he would have been drained of color.

"What's your opinion on hitchicking?"

So hitchhike it was. We walked, sticking our thumbs out at any passing vehicle until one stopped. Most of the time, the cars would whizz right on by us. We generally had better luck when it came to truck drivers, and the truckers were usually able to take us father than cars were willing to. While it took exponentially longer to get to Ordona Province from Lanayru, we made it in one piece with next to no mishaps. There was the occasional weirdo we got a ride from, and rather than risk anything, Link and I would cut our rides from them short and find a new one.

While the professor sent us off with some cash, a good chunk of it coins to keep Link running, we worked up a lie, telling our potential rides that we were out of cash and gave them the biggest sob story would could come up with on the spot for them to let us into the vehicle. It usually worked. I mean, we got to Ordon, didn't we?

"It's changed a lot, huh?" I ask Link.

"Yeah," he breathes, looking all around him. "It has."

He points over to a watermill, saying to me, "That mill right there… that building used to be a house."

"Looks old."

"It's the same building," he tells me. "I can see they've done repairs on it over the years, but I doubt it's still somebody's home. They family that lived there was the one that was most responsible for the pumpkin fields and tending to them. The whole village would help out during harvest time, though."

Drinking in the town, I could see how some of the sights might be familiar to Link. There were buildings clearly ages older than the other buildings all around them spattered here and there. "It's so mismashed," I chuckle. "They kept everything and just built around it."

"Still so different," Link mutters. "There used to be only dirt in the place!" He gestures to the cobblestones under our feet, and I let out a soft laugh.

"Come on," I say. I grab his arm and begin to drag him down the main road. "Let's go find that inn you were talking about earlier. I feel filthy."

It takes a while to find it on the winding streets of the old town, but Link and I finally come across it. Link heads to the reception desk to take care of the room, but from the moment I set foot into the Ancient Ram Inn, I'm struck by a certain portrait hanging on the plaster wall in between two wooden support columns.

With slow and shaky steps, I move towards the portrait of a knight dressed in ceremonial armor. Fierce and feral cobalt eyes draw me in to the portrait's allure. Golden blond hair spills out from the knight's head, his helmet tucked under one arm and his broadsword in his left hand. The light spirit said what I had witnessed were memories, but I was shocked still to find living proof of what I'd seen. "Oi! Brother!"

I squeeze my eyes shut.

"You know, love, I'm still kind of surprised to know that this place is still standing after… Zelda?"

I whip my head over in Link's direction.

His eyes are locked onto the portrait, just as captivated by it as I am.

"Is this you?" I ask him just above a whisper.

Link looks back at the receptionist, who eyes a little warily. He steps up next to me in front of the portrait. "No," he tells me. I look back at the portrait. I could have sworn that this was Link. Link as he was when he was a living breathing being. The Link that I saw in the memory.

"But it looks almost identical to you!"

He quickly looks back at the receptionist one more time and sees that she's back to lazing behind the counter, flipping through a magazine. "It was actually this portrait that the professor based this body off of," Link tells me.

"Then who is that?"

"I was never important enough," Link says, "to have a portrait commissioned of me, and Termina coveted the technology for a pictograph at the time. There is nothing but written records about me.

"My brother, however, was something else. This is his portrait."

I swallow the lump in my throat. The man I originally thought to be Link wasn't Link at all. "Oi! Brother!"

The knight in green.

"We looked similar enough," Link says, "that I had the professor base the mold for this body off it."

"Why was your brother so much more important than you?"

"Sir Raven saved the king's life on more than one occasion." Link admits to me, "While I made it into the King's Horos as a knight like my brother, I was often chosen to chart out the territory that my squad was sent out in."

"The King's Horos?"

"It was a band of elite knights chosen by the king," Link explains. "It didn't take them long to pick me out for the group's cartographer."

He jumps a little when the door to the inn opens up, and the receptionist gives a tired greeting. "Why don't we talk in the room?" he mutters, eyeing the newcomers that are laughing amongst themselves.

"Fine," I sigh.

I follow him down the narrow halls to our room. Once inside, Link locks up the door and double checks the window. "What're you doing?" I call out to him as he rifles through the room. I sit down on the bed, watching as Link rushes around the room.

"Just double checking for anything odd," he mumbles as he rips open drawers. Then he slams them shut with resounding snaps before flinging the wardrobe open.

I turn my sight inward. The vines that protected me during the fire have retreated, and my core, while much larger now, looks much the same. Everything looks normal. There is no fluttering of wings, no warnings cawing at me. Everything is contained. Everything is clean. Trusting that my instincts are right, there is nothing threating in the room, and I pull my eyes back out.

Satisfied that there is nothing in the wardrobe, he throws the doors shut and moves on to the bathroom. Link's shoes click on the wooden floors and then the tile as he enters the bathroom. The shower curtain scrapes on the rod when he pulls it back. He rummages a little more before coming back into the room.

"Happy?" I ask, craning my neck to look at him.

He sighs and then walks over to the window where a large armchair sits by side table and a radio. He runs his hand through his hair as he plops down into the chair.

With no sign of a response from him, I say, "So you were a cartographer."

"I like to think I was an adventurer of sorts."

I flop back on the bed and then roll over onto my stomach. "I thought knights were supposed to be trained for war and stuff?"

"I was born during a peacetime, remember love?" He grunts, laughing a little. Link says, "Peace with other countries. There were issues regarding monstrous creatures attacking on the outer borders of the country at the time." The war horn blares loud and clear in my mind. Sir Raven's voice cuts through me deep, calling for Link and the lady knight to arm themselves with bows.

"Mapmaking and scouting were some of the most important things a knight could learn outside of combat, and I had a knack for both," continues Link. "Due to the magical properties of the woods surrounding Ordon and Faron, my squad from the King's Horos was sent to try and push back the invading monsters. My particular task in the group was to try and chart the woods." I close my eyes, and the flickering of the flame from the lantern sparks to life. It dances before me, illuminating the knight in green. Illuminating Link as he was, as he should have always been. Messy hair and feral eyes that swim with human emotion.

I open my eyes. Link flicks his gaze over to me, look up from his feet. He sighs again, but there is nothing but the cold glass reflecting back.

"Did you?"

"The woods would change almost daily, dear," he laughs. "A map I made one day could be suddenly useless the next.

"The one thing I learned I could count on though," says Link, "was that there was a certain area that changed with the days. The forest closest to here is normal to say the least… but…" Link rubs the back of his neck as he thinks over on his explanation.

I press, "But?"

He purses his lips into a thin line, and then says, "Think of Ordona and Faron as two points on a triangle."

"Okay…"

"Faron is the top left point, Ordona the bottom. This area of woods is the top right point of the triangle. Make sense?"

"I suppose."

"All the woods surrounding this particular area didn't change, but within this point, the magic flowed freely, altering paths on a regular basis."

He says nothing more, and for a while, I allow my mind to wander. The information I've been given today is a lot, and I take advantage of the silence and the momentary peace in the room to process everything. There is nothing in the air but the soft calling of birds outside the window and the sharp tick-tock of the room's wall clock. I close my eyes and roll onto my back, falling into a meditative state. My thoughts drift back to my first conversation with Link on the subject of his past and his knighthood in particular. My mind turns over the information like a well-oiled machine. Link's voice slides through the pipelines of my mind as one particular mentioning pops up. My fingers tingle with energy.

"Does the point have anything to do with that ancient sword you had?" I ask.

There's a slight pause before Link replies in a mumble with, "Clever as ever, love.

"It has everything to do with the sword," Link tells me. He further explains, "The magic that flowed through the woods to alter it day by day was put in place as just one layer of protection in keeping the wrong hands from ever grasping it."

"Where's the sword now?"

"I was able to put it back to rest in the woods," says Link.

"I'm going to shower," I say softly, dragging myself from the bed to the bathroom.

Link calls out from the other side of the door as I strip down, "Why don't we pick you up some new clothes when you're done?"

I holler back that that sounded fine. While I could fit in Malon's clothes, they were a little irritable being so baggy on me.

With my hair still wet and my dirty, borrowed clothes, Link and I leave the inn. We wander around town, passing by stores and glancing in their window fronts. Link groans as we pass another storefront, "There has to be some sort of thrift shop around here."

"Link, have you noticed anything?"

"'Bout what?" he says, frowning as we come upon a general store.

"About the people." Link takes a brief look around us, but he makes no other reply but a soft grunt. Unlike Lanayru Province, down here in Ordona, there seems to be a bigger population of round ear humans over Hylians. A small group of boys clamber past us, laughing and hooting as they chase one of their group down the street. Each of them holds in their hands a trashcan lid like a shield. It's a mixture of Hyruleans and Hylians. "It seems less discriminatory around here," I comment.

"Less capital influence," Link replies.

"Ah! Finally!" he exclaims, and he leads me into a thrift shop. He pulls the green tweed cap Mido left him off of his head as we begin to float through the racks of discarded clothing.

"Do you need anything?" I ask him.

Link says, "I don't think so." He frowns and glances down at his clothes. "I don't smell or anything, do I?"

I snort. "I guess not, but maybe we should get you at least one change of clothes," I suggest, "in case you get dirty."

"Of course, Mother."

"Will you quit it with the nicknames?" I snap, hearing the female knight echoing in my head. "Hodgepodge, love!"

"Terms of endearment, darling," he drawls.

I roll my eyes, picking through the racks. "Whatever you say, lemon sherbet."

"I don't even know what sherbet tastes like," he mumbles with dejection.

With a few changes of clothes and small duffel to carry what little we have on us, Link and I leave the thrift store and wander back to the inn. Link settles back into the arm, flipping the radio on. News prattles on, but Link quickly changes the station. He stops in his dial turning to listen for a minute to a children's radio show. Gun fire and roaring calls from pirates sound out in the background as I go into the bathroom to change clothes. He settles on a music station where a trumpet blares like a live wire in time with a thumping double bass.

"I think I'm going to go outside for a while," I say, looking out at the green space beyond the inn's property where a creeks flows. "May I have the key?"

"Sure," he says, and digs the key out of his pocket. I take it from him as he tells me, "Just don't go too far."

"I just want to go down to that creek for a little while and maybe get a Po' Boy," I tell him. "I haven't eaten dinner yet."

"It'll be dark soon," Link reminds me as I walk out the door.

A half hour later and I'm sitting on the bank of the creek, already almost through my sub sandwich. I sit, munching on my food like a rabid animal, and I watch the water drift by in the creek. Eventually, it will flow down to the watermill house Link pointed out to me earlier. Little Ordonian fireflies flicker in the fading light, and in this moment in time, it's almost as if I never met some mechanical man, had my flat broken into, abandoned my job and survived a wildfire. A part of me lets me wander to the more comforting idea that I've just taken a long holiday to get away from the city life and enjoy the more rural areas of Hyrule.

I snort and crush the paper wrapper that once contained my sandwich.

A giggle floats to my ears, and I turn my head to see a little girl flying down the hillside in a full fledge run, a bottle in one hand, the lid in the other. She scampers across the green space in one direction, then another. I watch as she zigzags all around me until I finally call out to her, "What're you doing?"

She stops, and blinks as if noticing me sitting by the bank for the first time. The little girl moves a little closer to me, huffing and puffing as she tries to catch her breath. Her hair, pulled back into pigtails, is an unruly mess and matted to her forehead in sweat where she makes a quick swipe at her bangs. "I'm trying to catch the bugs," she tells me.

"Well, it's getting dark," I say. "Shouldn't you head on home soon? Your parents might be getting worried."

She looks up at the sky.

"Here," I say getting up from my spot, "why don't I help you catch a couple?" I wipe my bottom clean of stray blades of grass.

"How?" she says. "They're too fast."

"You see how they flicker with light every now and then?" I ask her, and she nods her head. "That's their way of talking to one another," I say. "They're trying to find a mate."

I hold out my hands as if cupping an invisible ball and close my eyes. I search out my magical core, and I begin to pull a little from it. The magic pulses through my chest, it slithers down my arms and then tingles at my fingertips. I open my eyes as a small ball of light winds itself to light in between my hands.

The little girl next to me gasps in delight as she watches the golden light come to life.

"And now let's see if we can call them," I tell her. I let the ball of light fade out almost completely before igniting it again. The light pulses in between my hands, and soon there are a number of small Ordonian fireflies flickering back at us.

The girl squeals in delight as she catches a few in the jar and then she plops herself onto the ground to watch as the bugs flutter around us, attracted by my light.

"Agitha!" a sharp shout sounds. The little girls jumps a little. "What are you doing?" a woman yells as she rushes down the hillside.

"The nice firefly lady is helping Agitha catch bugs," she says.

I drop my hands, extinguishing the light magic as I see the woman glare at me.

"Get up this instant!" she barks as she pulls the girl up from the ground. "Come on," she ushers, "we're going home."

Agitha worms her way around and calls back to me, "Thank you, firefly lady!"

But her I hear her mother grumble to her, "Don't speak to her, Agitha."

I got kind of stuck for a bit after the light spirit scene. When it came to Link's past, I was like, Is it too soon? What should I reveal? Is that too much? And blahdiblah. I just went for it. It seemed like otherwise Link and Zelda would just be kind of floundering around. That's just boring. And I'd been mention going to Ordon for like the last two chapters.

Anyway. I feel a little mixed on this, but I am really happy with how some of the details are starting to fall into place. I feel like I'm setting traps. Bahaha.

Also, I posted an update on Crab Claws if you guys are interested in what I've been doing this summer. I've been training and doing training on making donuts. So for all you ZC people, more bakery goodness. ZC's chapter is like more than half way there, but I'm not totally sure when I'll get around to finishing it. We had a guy get fired yesterday and the other donut maker has MIA, and she was declared to have abandoned her job yesterday too. SO. MEGA OVERTIIIIME. I need the money.

Whelps. I should have gone to bed like two hours ago. SO YOU BETTER HAVE ENJOYED THIS.

8D