Author's note: Updated 16th of July 2023

Chapter 1

There it was, nibbling calmly at a few blades of grass beneath the tall beech. A beautiful animal with soft, reddish fur and small antlers reaching like forks out of its head. The hooves were clean and glistened ever so gently; it had crossed the spirit spring before heading back into the woods.

Twenty yards away crouched a hunter with the wind blowing lightly across his smooth, beardless face. It was a good place. He hoped the deer would not move too soon or hear his belly growl with hunger. His blue eyes scanned the area, taking in every tree, every bush that could obstruct him. The path was clear. He licked his lips, brushing a stray strand of sand-coloured hair behind one of his long, pointy ears. He heard nothing but the crunching teeth of the deer chewing the grass and the quickened pounding of his own heart.

His right hand clutched the recurve bow tightly, the left one reaching back to his quiver to retrieve a long arrow. The point had been freshly sharpened earlier that morning, gleaming in the autumn sun like a polished knife. He let the shaft glide into position between the handle of his bow and his right index finger, hooking it into the string. His eyes never left the deer during the slow process. Taking a deep breath, he pulled his arm back, two fingers wrapped around the bowstring while the other hand helped bend the wood to create tension.

The shot was not perfect. The moment he let his arrow fly, a bird chirped in the trees above and covered the soaring sound of metal, wood, and feathers. As the lethal weapon struck the animal's chest from the side, however, it missed the heart, piercing the lungs instead. The deer let out a wail and staggered to the ground.

Reaching for the knife at his belt, he bolted from the coppice and ran towards the downed animal. Pressing his weight on the deer's flailing neck, he placed his knife directly under its jaw and made a quick, deep cut across the animal's throat. The motion was too strong for such a small deer, and he let go of the knife in shock. A few hitches made the creature shiver before it went still.

Sighing, Link of Ordon leaned back on his shins, his eyes rooted on the strong gush of blood that ran down the animal's tawny fur. Sadness overcame him as it always did when he took a life from Ordona's sacred forest. But there was something else, too, a feeling not unlike pride, and perhaps even… satisfaction?

He put a gentle hand on the deer's flank and slid the arrow out of its flesh. "Forgive me," he said in a low voice.

He looked at his left palm half-buried in the animal's thick winter pelt and slowly coiled his fingers, imagining vicious canine claws slice through the tender deer's skin and the excruciating pain it would have caused the young animal. Surely much more so than his botched shot to the lung which, at least, he had rectified quickly.

"Better me than a wolf," he added, and felt better about the kill.

He scanned the bloodied shaft for damage before wiping it clean in the grass and sticking it back into the quiver; arrows were valuable and expensive to make. Then he whistled the beginning of a three-noted song that echoed around him and lost itself in the treetops. While he worked to tie the deer's legs together with a hemp rope, a loud, powerful neigh resounded in response to his call, followed by the stomping of large hooves.

Link just straightened when a horse came into view. It was a massive beast, its fur a striking rust red with a silver mane flying in the rushing air of its hurried arrival. It skidded to a halt right in front of Link and reared up, tossing its legs about above the shorter youth's head.

Link did not even flinch. As soon as the horse touched down again, he stretched out a hand to pat its neck, smiling. "Aren't you a fearsome one, Epona? Now stop being so fidgety and help me get this fellow back to Ordon."

The mare immediately settled down, nudging her master playfully. Link let his fingers glide through her mane before kneeling and heaving the deer's body across her back. He then put a foot in the stirrup of her saddle and swung himself onto her. The reins were tied securely to the pommel to keep them from entangling in her legs while he let her roam free, but he left them untouched, instead leaning over her withers to whisper in her ear. "Lead on, girl, you know the quickest way back."

Animal and rider then set off at a relaxed pace, Link sprawling across her neckline to doze. Since it had been a long day for them both, he saw no need to hurry his mare onward. The sun was slowly making its way towards the west, turning crimson with every passing minute they strode along the path. He had noticed over the modest sixteen years he was wandering the world now that sunsets were always redder than usual in autumn, nearly bloody. They made the canopy of vividly coloured tree leaves shine and gleam like stained glass in a church, bathing the entire forest in ethereal light.

Link was soon stirred out of his light slumber by high-pitched screaming, and he watched his mare carefully to see how she reacted to the sound. She kept on walking calmly, so he just straightened and rubbed his eyes.

"Link, Link! You're back!" came a squealing, excited voice. "There's a merchant and some musicians that came here while you were gone."

Link smiled as little Talo came running towards him, followed closely by Beth.

"They say they come from Castle Town," the girl added, looking up dreamily. "And they want to play music and tell us stories."

"Sounds nice," Link answered as he slid off Epona. He would have liked to hear the stories of the travellers, but he wanted to go to bed early, hoping to get a better night's sleep. Besides, he knew they would still be there come morning.

"Shoo, children, give the lad some space," the friendly voice of the blacksmith resounded from the path leading down to the village.

Link was—as every traveller remarked upon arrival—the only resident in the hamlet not living right in the centre. His house, carved into the trunk of a large oak with a ladder leading to his lofty door, was set apart from the rest of town by a hill through which a dirt path led into main Ordon.

"Sorry, Rusl!" Talo called and ran off again with Beth in tow.

The smith smiled at them before stepping up to Link. "You found it then? What a nice young buck indeed. It's good we listened to you; you really are so much faster on your own."

"It took some time to track it down, but it got hungry and stopped beneath the big beech near the spring," Link said as he unloaded the deer from his grazing mare. "I just took the opportunity."

The older man noticed the weary look on Link's face. "You all right, son?"

The youth scratched his neck with a grimace. "I missed the heart and had to cut its throat. That shouldn't have happened."

He thought it best not to mention the sheer brutality with which he had delivered the killing blow, and the excitement he had felt while doing it. Rusl was no supporter of thoughtless violence, especially when it came to killing animals.

"Mistakes happen, Link, and they become more frequent if you work yourself too hard. We'll do just fine with our provisions until winter is over."

"I'll try not to worry too much," Link replied.

Rusl lifted a knowing brow, and Link cast him a bashful smile that the smith could only return with a chuckle. Both knew that a carefree Link would have been a miracle.

"How about you come on over and hear the musicians tonight? The merchant will also be there. He told me he is a bookseller, and I think he might have some books about Hyrule's history that could interest you."

Link's eyes lit up immediately, and Rusl laughed. Everyone in the village knew that the boy had a special fondness for books, especially when they told of the lands beyond the dense forest. Having never stepped into the country of his people, Hyrule was a source of fascination to him. And whenever Link could lay his hands on a book about Hyrule and its history, he would spend all of his free time immersed in the pages until he had soaked up every last bit of lore and knowledge he could draw from them.

"Shall I tell them you're coming, then?" Rusl smiled.

Link nodded with a sigh. "All right. But let me eat something first, I'm starving. And could you take the deer to Harold? It should be processed as quickly as possible."

Nodding, Rusl loaded the game onto his broad shoulders and turned around just to grin at Link one final time. "You did a great job today, Link. Mayor Bo will be pleased."

Smiling, Link turned around to tend to his mare. Next to his modest home, he had built a small stable just large enough for her to stand and lie in it. He had received his daily share of fresh hay from the barn that morning and got to work filling Epona's empty trough.

His own belly growled as he saw his mare dig into her meal, and he quickly made his way up the ladder and stepped into his home.

The circular treehouse was pleasantly warm, a nice contrast to the cooling weather outside. A pot of stew was hooked over the fireplace, still lukewarm from the burnt-down fire he had started that morning. He stepped across his scarcely furnished home to take a wooden bowl from the shelf to his left. As he leaned over to fill it with a generous helping of stew, his head banged lightly against his assortment of wooden spoons hanging over the hearth—as it always did—causing them to clatter and swing. He made his hundredth mental note to hang them higher before sitting down at his table with a sigh and happily tucking in.

While he ate, he let his eyes wander around the walls of his carved house. The fireplace, built like a clay hut so that his tree would not catch fire, and aerated with a crooked chimney leading outside, stood against the far wall of his home, flanked to the left by the crockery shelf, his oven, and his firewood stock, and to the right by the messy table at which he sat. Last night, due to his inability to sleep, he had rummaged through the bookshelf to the right of the table for a mundane tale of politics that would make him sleepy. A discarded volume still lay on the ground further to the right next to the door and had been sent sliding back the moment he had entered. The wooden door, whenever he opened it too harshly, always left marks on the long chest against which it banged as he turned his gaze further to the right, where a pitchfork was attached to the wall above a spare saddle. A cupboard with a pot of giant sage on top stood right next to a door-less frame which led to Link's basement, itself reached by a long ladder leading down into the bottom of the oak trunk. The doorframe's end marked the beginning of the crockery shelf and oven, and he looked at his meal again to resume quenching his hunger at the table.

The birds soon quietened to let the last crickets of autumn take over for the night. Link's head nodded forward several times until it collapsed onto the open book he had traded with the empty bowl. His belly nicely full with stew, it seemed he would likely sleep better that night.

A faint burning sensation on his left hand, however, brought him out of his slumber.

Annoyed, he bolted up and scratched at the grey mark that was imprinted there, on the back of his hand. Its grey colouration was that of a birthmark, yet its shape was almost too perfect to be one. Three triangles, two at the bottom and one towering over the others, were aligned so that, together, they formed a large triangle.

No one knew where his curious mark came from. He had known it was unusual ever since the day he was old enough to realise that his body was not just composed of two legs to stumble over, two arms to catch him, a head he could bang against table rims, and a hungry stomach that begged to be filled. And the symbol—known to everyone who had but scratched the surface of Hyrule's history—had been the catalyst that sparked Link's interest in his people's culture and history.

He had, however, long given up searching for an explanation concerning this quaint mark. In fact, the fewer people knew about it, the better. Gazing at it darkly, he recalled a visit from an old pilgrim on his way to the southern border, many seasons ago. A Hylian, the only one to ever cast Link's reverence of his own race into doubt. Wincing, he remembered the livid expression on the man's face as he had laid eyes upon Link's left hand, his screamed words condemning Rusl and Uli as child branders, as religious fanatics, as blasphemous bigots. The old man had threatened to send the royal prosecutors after them for torturing a child and committing heresy, and only after Mayor Bo had conjured his most refined diplomatic skills to try and explain that the mark on Link's hand could not be a brand due to a lack of scarring—that it was simply a birthmark coincidentally resembling that most holy symbol—did the pilgrim grudgingly leave to complete his journey.

The mayor had later taken eight-year-old Link aside and advised him to be careful about showing the mark around, especially to Hylians. An individual with such a symbol on their hand could attract a great deal of unwanted attention from devotees or religious extremists, not to mention the eye of the royal family whom he as mayor would have a much harder time convincing of the mark's harmlessness. This, and the lingering memory of the pilgrim's accusing screams drawing tears from Uli's eyes, had convinced Link to keep the mark hidden at all times.

Sighing, he rubbed his thumb over the triangles until the itch subsided.

His home had just one window, far up near the treetop where his mattress lay on a wooden platform. A ladder went down to a second ledge where another bookshelf also gave storage to his spare clothes. As he heard a strange noise coming from the open window, he frowned and stepped up the two ladders to gaze out into the night.

The hill blocked his view of the main village, but from his position, he could hear chatter and laughter sweeping up to his pointy ears. The musicians had to be getting ready for the evening, for he could discern a pipe instrument out of the other sounds coming from the hamlet.

He raced back down and reached two fingers into his hearth, smearing a layer of soot onto the grey mark before wriggling into a light cloak. If he did not hurry, he would be late. Damn those sleepless nights!

Epona snorted at him as he climbed down the ladder. He smiled and gently stroked her nostrils. "You did well today, girl," he murmured. His soul mate; what would he be without her?

As Link emerged from the passage into Ordon, he saw a large bonfire burning high into the night sky near Jaggle's watermill. All the villagers were settled down on tree trunks and rocks with the four children huddled together at the feet of one of the troubadours cradling a lute. Three other foreigners were preparing their instruments to get ready for the show.

"Link!" Rusl called and stood up to greet him. "We thought perhaps you'd forgotten about us."

From his seat next to Talo, Colin turned and grinned at him. Link grinned back widely. "Sorry, I nodded off again," he said to Rusl.

"Ilia volunteered to get you if you'd taken any longer," the blacksmith laughed.

Link smiled at his lifelong best friend, who was also sitting with the other children, and sat down next to her. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed how Colin carefully moved closer to him. He raised an arm invitingly and Colin snuggled close to him with a contented sigh.

Ilia nudged his shoulder with a chuckle. "He's telling the story of the three goddesses," she whispered and indicated the lute player sitting in front of the gaping children. Link smiled. It was his favourite story, the myth of how the three golden goddesses had created the world.

"Din, with her immeasurable strength, caused great fires, earthquakes, and thunderstorms that formed our land," the musician chanted, leaning over his instrument to pick up a stick and etching a perfect triangle into the dirt before Talo's feet. "Her Power is unmatched, and whoever dares challenge her shall feel her wrath." A collective gasp of awe arose among the children as the musician stared at them, his eyes widened.

"Nayru poured her Wisdom onto the chaos and gave the spirit of law to the world. With her reign, everything fell into place and order." The bottom right tip of the shape birthed a second triangle that the man drew just beneath.

"And Farore, her Courage strengthening her, split her rich soul into all life forms that would live on Din's earth and uphold Nayru's law." A third triangle joined the other two in the dry soil, completing it.

"The three goddesses, their labours complete, departed for the heavens where they are said to reside until this very day, watching over us, weaving our fates. The sacred triangles compose their mark, their virtues combined to a sign of perfect balance. It is known as the Triforce."

Link stared at the rough drawing on the ground, absent-mindedly clenching his sooty hand.

The piper reached out to tap the man on the shoulder, nodding, and the storyteller jerked up with a laugh.

"Are we ready? Fair enough. Let's play!" he cried and brandished his lute, beginning with a quick tune, and the children sprang to their feet to join their parents on the tree trunks. The lute player's melodious voice followed the song as he spoke to them all.

"My dear friends! I must thank you all for the kind hospitality that my partners and my humble self are honoured with. So you shall hear, in return, the songs that resonate across all of Hyrule, that glide across the deep waters of Lake Hylia to the vast desert in the west, echo against the fiery walls of Death Mountain to come back to you, my dear friends. May you sing, may you dance, we'll be happy to accompany you!"

The lute then intoned a fast rhythm, its musician glancing at his partners and shaking his head in the same pattern as his hand striking the strings. Then, the man with the pipes stepped in, followed by the fiddle, the drum, and, at last, the small flute. Gertie and Harold got up with a little effort and happily began to dance. Gertie yipped as her elderly husband slapped her rear, earning loud laughter from the others. Jaggle and Pergie joined them along with Moe and Kila and danced joyfully around the bonfire.

Next to Link, Ilia glanced in his direction and jerked her head at the dancers. A cheeky smile spread across her youthful face that made Link grin self-consciously.

"Maybe later," he said, and she pulled a grimace.

"It's either you or my dad!" she cried.

"You know I'm no match for him," Link answered, soon doubling up with laughter as Ilia grabbed the mayor's sleeve and dragged him to his feet. With Bo's bulk now among them, Jaggle and Pergie were forced to stagger out of the way. Gertie teetered precariously as the mayor bumped into her, and Harold was thrown aside and staggered into Rusl's waiting arms as laughter greeted him from all sides.

Link watched the dancers with a wide grin on his face. The smith beside him clapped his hands and howled whenever the musicians sped up and let the dancing Ordonians do the same. Soon, everyone was sweating profusely with effort and delight.

After the fourth rapid song, the Ordonians plopped down onto their seats again, rocking and swaying along with the players as they intoned a slow, quiet tune.

After Colin had joined his mother and dreamily played with a horse carving, Link leaned against a rock and sipped from a mug of goat's milk. He had pulled the hood of his cloak over his head and had wrapped himself in the wool, gazing at the fire dreamily and listening to the calm music. A tap on his shoulder made him look up to see Mayor Bo taking a seat next to him with a younger man in tow.

"Link, I'd like to introduce you to Valhansen, the merchant from Castle Town," the mayor said.

The traveller stretched out his hand in greeting, and Link took it as he returned his smile. "Nice to meet you," he said.

"My pleasure, Master Link. I'm very pleased to make your acquaintance," the merchant said, shaking Link's hand vigorously. His Hylian bore the feudal accent of Castle Town nobility. "The honourable mayor here told me you had a special interest in books. I own a print shop and a book store in Castle Town and am currently visiting all the villages in the southern provinces—for advertising, you see. Would you like to take a look at what I've got with me?"

"Yes, I'd love to," Link said, just barely stopping himself from imitating the Hylian's accent.

Valhansen retrieved a large bag from his shoulder.

"Let's have a look then…" he said, kneeling as he pulled out book after book from the satchel. Link took one of them in his hands. Blue leather with golden lettering glistened in the flickering light of the bonfire, saying Races of Hyrule – Their Customs and their Stories.

Another brown one read The Ikana Legend – How the Prosperous Kingdom Fell. Link looked at it with narrowed eyes, opening it in silent interest. The grotesque portrait of a skeleton smiled crookedly at him, causing him to quickly clap the book shut again.

"I would not recommend that one," Valhansen said, eyeing the volume. "Dark story, that is, the legend of Ikana. Unless you are keen to learn more about civil wars and bad leadership, I'd recommend this one here instead."

He handed Link a small yellow tome with a tell-tale circular goat horn painted on the cover, and Link's eyes grew big. "There is a book about goat herding?" he asked.

"Yes, of course!" the book-seller laughed. "And not only about herding. Where the race comes from, what its characteristics are, how to treat it right, and what to do with all the precious goods you can obtain from them. Did you know there are one hundred and sixteen different recipes for meals containing Ordon goat milk?"

Link knew a few, but certainly not a hundred and sixteen. He grinned as he leafed through the book, marvelling at the beautiful ink-drawn pictures of his beloved goats. He had always been fond of animals.

As he set the book aside again, his look fell on another volume lying beneath the Ikana Legend. It was green, looking old and used with what appeared to be a triangle imprinted on top of it. As Link pushed the other book aside, his blue eyes settled on a beautiful set of wings splayed around the triangle, which he noticed was not only one, but three golden triangles set together to form the big, perfect one. He felt his pulse quicken as he slowly reached for it, barely noticing Valhansen talking merrily about the goat book in the background.

Link's thumb grazed the crest carefully, brushing over the Triforce. He felt as if the symbol on his hand began to tickle, a fact that he took in with confusion. However, the little green book had caught his full attention, so he did not fully notice the reaction his curious birthmark was displaying.

Hyrule Historia – The History of the Golden Kingdom stood right beneath the flying crest in a foreign, curved script, very different from the Modern Hylian he had learned to read and write from Uli.

Next to him, the bookseller had noticed Link's attention drift away from his talk, and he watched the Ordonian stroke the cover of the green leatherback as if lost in thoughts.

"Ah, that's a curious one. Hyrule Historia – The History of the Golden Kingdom, it says. This is actually my very first print in Ancient Hylian from an antique found in the Temple of Time, and I admit I am rather proud of the lettering. Though I quickly realised there really isn't much demand for a book written in that language outside the capital. It's mainly a scholarly prototype, I would say."

Link looked up, trying to suppress the smirk that wanted to cross his lips. "How much?"

"I'm sorry?"

"How much for this one?" Link repeated, indicating the book.

The traveller looked between the volume and Link's determined expression. "And here I thought I'd have to haul it all the way back with me. I set the price at forty rupees, but for you, my friend, I'll make a special deal. Twenty-five rupees, if you have them, and it's yours."

Link gulped. Twenty-five rupees was a large sum for a modest ranch-hand with only his share of crops he helped to harvest each year. The few rupees he had found in the forest were barely enough to fill a small chest in his basement.

Yet he longed to learn more about his home-town than what Rusl's few books could teach him. If this really was printed off of an antique, it had to hold tales and legends dating from even before the First Civil War, when Hyrule still used its founding language; stories he would have given anything to discover.

"Done," he said, shaking the merchant's hand. "If you just wait here, I'll go get my rupee chest."

"Oh, dear friend, you don't have to pay me right now! No need to rush, there's plenty of time," Valhansen laughed, pushing the book back as Link handed it to him. "You hold on to that for now, and we'll settle the deal when the sun is up. Just tell me one thing."

He leaned forward, cocking one of his ears as if ready to listen to a secret. "How come that a young man such as yourself, from this small village, shows so much interest in this book? A book that not even I can properly read?"

Link smiled. "Maybe I don't look like it, but I can read Ancient Hylian."

Valhansen's eyes widened. "You can? How? Why?"

Link nodded, still grinning. "Life here is a lot of work, but in winter there isn't much to do. Since I live alone I have a lot of time to pass and so, out of interest—and a little boredom, I must confess—I just began to read one of these old books Rusl had brought from his time in Castle Town."

"But who taught you to read Ancient Hylian?"

"No one," Link answered plainly. "I saw the script and it just made sense, you know?"

The merchant sat still for a little while. "You impress me, my friend. Really. The scholars I know took years of study to properly read that tongue."

Link spun the book in his hands and eyed it thoughtfully. "Well, I don't really know how I learned it that quickly, it just sort of happened. Perhaps it has something to do with me being a Hylian?"

"I beg your pardon?"

Link remembered that he still wore his hood, so he lowered it to reveal his long, elegantly curved pointy ears. A set of tiny blue earrings pierced his lobes and jingled lightly with his every move; a gift he had received from a jeweller passing through when he'd been younger.

"Oh, what a surprise! Now that explains some things," Valhansen laughed, causing Link to cock his head in confusion.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it explains your looks, mainly; the smooth shape and colour of your face, and those sparkling eyes of yours. Hylians are more tender in their looks than Humans and not as roughly built. I wondered how it could be possible that a Human looked so… well, so Hylian as you do. What a pleasant surprise indeed…"

The merchant gave Link a sceptical look, and the Hylian raised his eyebrows, perplexed.

"How is it that you've come to live in a Human village?" Valhansen asked. "I mean, there is trouble in the north, I admit, but surely you are not worried about conscription, are you? You seem to be a bit young for that, and besides, so far the situation has been handled very well."

At that, Link shifted uncomfortably, his eyes darting around in search of an acceptable answer. His heritage was not a topic he felt comfortable talking about, especially not with strangers. "I… I've always lived here. I've never known another life than the one here in Ordon." Then, startled, he locked curious eyes with the merchant. "What sort of trouble do you mean?"

As Valhansen was about to reply, Bo turned around from his conversation with Rusl and hurried to interrupt. "Valhansen, my friend! Come and have a mug of ale with us!"

Before the merchant could protest, he was grabbed by the sleeve and dragged to a set of tree-trunks across the fire where Hanch was busy operating the tap of an ale barrel. Link smiled to himself while silently cursing the mayor's sharp ears; fresh news about Hyrule seldom reached the southern villages, and most of the time the inhabitants of Ordon had to put up with old, withered information that bordered more on rumours than facts. He would have to interrogate Rusl later about this trouble in the north and why the mayor clearly deemed the news not fit for Link's ears. He would secretly cherish anything that broke the monotony of life in the quiet, peaceful village.

He shrugged and turned his curiosity towards his new possession instead, eagerly skimming the index. The numbering system was foreign to him, but the book began like any other history book he had read before: with the creation of the world by the three goddesses Din, Nayru, and Farore. It continued with a poem about the great goddess Hylia who battled the foul incarnation of Evil, the source of all monsters in the world, and rid it of its malicious corruption. Link mouthed the rhythmic words under his breath, eyes twinkling with wonder. Hylia was the protector of all Hylians, who were said to have been formed in the image of Her Grace herself.

"I should have known that you would be stuck in a book on such a lovely evening," came Ilia's irritated comment from the side. She sat down next to him and leaned against his stone. Link grinned at her and turned the book over.

"Ancient Hylian, Ilia. Finally! Do you know how long I've been looking for something like this?"

"Long enough to get on my nerves..."

He nudged her with the spine of the book. "Wait until I read you the first story, then I'm sure you'll think differently about my passion."

She stretched with a yawn. "Come on, put it away, the man with the lute is saying something."

In the background, the lute player spoke in a sombre tone while the other musicians got ready to resume their performance. "We'll play for you now, dear friends, a little song we like to call Autumn Child. It tells the story of an orphan born under a bleeding sun in a darkened forest, left alone in the wilds…"

Link's eyes darted to the player and fixed him intently, until after a quick pause, the man continued happily. "… who is then taken in by a flock of fairies that teach him how to dance!"

The villagers laughed out before snuggling closer to listen.

A quiet tune, soft and beautiful, rang from the strings the player picked with the point of his fingers, so quickly yet playing so calm a melody that Link set his book aside, enraptured by the song. Everyone around the fire was silent.

Link was already lost in thoughts while he listened to the musician with closed eyes, but as his favourite instrument, a large transverse pipe known as a Hylian flute, joined in and sang in choir with the lute, he was overrun by a flood of images, thoughts, dreams, and feelings. His soul rocked along with the song, guided by the tones so calm and tender that he could clearly see the dark forest from the saga. The bleeding autumn sun, staining the imaginary sky with a deep purple, took his breath away.

On a tree trunk lay a child wrapped in a dirty blanket that rustled and flapped in the cold wind. The baby was shivering, too weak to cry, barely holding on to the life it had been given a few hours earlier. The protector spirit of the forest wept, a lament unheard by Humans yet faintly echoing in the tiny, pointed ears of the newborn.

Then, a man arrived at the spring, a bow in hand. He was young, perhaps twenty years old , with the traces of a full beard already forming on his chin. He saw the bundle, ran over to it, and took it into his arms.

In the village, his fiancée waited for him with dread on her features. Had her soon-to-be husband found enough game to bring them through the winter?

The sound of the opening door made her turn, and in came her sweetheart with no dead rabbit or partridge, but a bundle holding the smallest child she had ever seen. As she uncovered it carefully, a piece of torn birch bark slid out of the cloth with just one word scratched onto it. Her betrothed nodded, indicating the scrap of bark, and they both hugged the baby closely.

Time passed, and the little boy grew up under the protection of his surrogate parents. He was quiet, clever, and extremely curious, always asking about the forest and the lands beyond.

When he was six, another child came into his life. His parents seemed to treat the newborn differently, even if the foundling was never quite capable of discerning what divergence there was. And while his ears grew long and cusped, his brother's remained round like those of his parents.

Five years passed too quickly, and a storm formed inside the little boy. When his foster parents finally told him—much too late—he was broken. Anger burned up in him.

Link clenched his fists as the melody became sombre. The piper had joined in, droning a single minor note with his instrument while the fiddle accompanied the flute.

He ran away. A tree just outside the village gave him shelter and comfort whenever he climbed up its dense branches and hid in them. This was where he wanted to stay.

The lute changed the chord again, rendering the tune more hopeful.

Two seasons the building lasted. His saviour parents and his little brother helped him where they could, carving the foundations of his new life into the massive tree. This was where he knew he belonged, alone as he was, never knowing the truth of his origins.

One day, he had found that little scrap of birch bark, wrapped in the cloth so dear to him that he kept it locked in his basement next to his rupee chest. And on it was the only thing his true parents had left him.

His name.

Suddenly the pipes, loud and squeaky, drove Link out of his thoughts. They had intoned a quicker tune, more powerful and engaging than the first as they painted with their notes the image of dancing fairies and a giggling child. The villagers around him howled and stood up to dance along. Ilia noticed him sitting there looking dazed, and quickly grabbed his hands to pull him with her to the other dancing people. Link loved it when she understood him. She always knew how he felt, for she could discern his expressions better than anyone else. He grinned as he danced with her.

He loved it when she laughed.

000