Author's note: we are slowly but surely coming to the parts I am more comfortable keeping intact. This chapter was trimmed, improved, and put to the current quality standard, with a few scenes and plot elements added here and there for character development, but its role as catapult into Hyrule was preserved. We get a glimpse at Link's romantic side (if you can call it that) and learn a little more about Midna and her realm.
I'm quite happy with how the rewrite is progressing, and I will hopefully have less work the more we advance.
NOTE ON BOOK 2: I have hit a little roadblock in the plot and will take some more time to refine the next chapters, therefore breaking my once-per-month upload streak. To make up for this, I will post new chapter of the rewrite in their stead. Hopefully I can keep THAT up too. We'll see.
Enjoy!
DR
Chapter 11
Now rid of its age-old, darkness-imbued parasite, the Forest Temple seemed to puff out a sigh of relief, as if a festering wound had been opened and the pus finally freed to allow for healing.
Link could feel the change of atmosphere in the carved tree as he woke up crowded in beams of sunshine within the totem chamber. The very air he breathed smelled fresher, no longer imbued with fear and danger. Nevertheless, he had a strange feeling of being watched, scrutinised. A glance at his shadow revealed nothing out of the ordinary. Midna's pulsing aura was absent, for now.
He had fallen asleep in a lush corner next to the second exit, sheeted in clusters of ivy and clover. Stretching, he became aware of just how much of a battering his body had endured the day before. Every muscle burned; his back was bruised blue from the Bulblin club; his many scratches rimmed red with scabs; tiny acid perforations on his arms; and when he coughed wetly and spit, a glob of bloody phlegm landed in the grass.
From the poison fog, he surmised grimly. His chest felt like he'd swallowed an anvil.
A low cackle sounded behind him. He turned sharply and found a most unwelcome guest; Ook the baboon sat by the exit, his tiny eyes unmoving and planted on Link. The boomerang was clasped loosely in a clawed hand. When Link frowned darkly at him, the baboon stiffened and tucked in his large red posterior, scratching it idly.
The room was, apart from his unwanted observer, deserted of monkey or human presence. Link gathered up his gear and went in search of the temple caretaker whom he found, thirty seconds later, performing heart-stopping balancing acts across the creaking ropes of the broken bridge securing new pre-drilled planks with twine. The old man did not seem fazed by the gaping void below him in the slightest and greeted the young Hylian with an upside-down smile and a wave that made his whole suspended body sway like a bag of clothespins in the wind.
"Hang on, Oi'll be roi there!" he called.
You hang on, please, Link thought as he waited with bated breath for the elder to brachiate across the creaking rope. Several monkeys appeared through the hole in the main tree, scrambling over their caretaker in a chaos of furry limbs before milling around Link. One of them, he saw in delight, had a red rose attached to her head.
"Hey there, Minsuk," he chuckled as the female ploughed into him and nuzzled his face happily until Link, giggling and pawing, finally managed to coax her off.
"Minsuk, behave yerself," Harish chided and immediately dropped to the grass, arms splayed out before him. "Oi hope ye'll forgive me for leavin' yer alone so long, Chosen One. Oi assure yer dat Ook kept a close mince pie on yer an' wud 'av defended yer tooth an' nail if somethin' 'ad come creepin' up on ye."
Before Link could quietly beg the old man to stop his prostrations, Harish ushered him across the repaired bridge into the chamber of offerings and sat him down before an upturned wash basin that was stacked with open preserve jars and dried fruit.
"Oi raided our storage," Harish grinned proudly, munching on a desiccated prune that looked like a charred slug. "Wanted ter return de favour. Hang on."
He exited his tiny living space at the edge of the chamber a moment later carrying a steaming board of grilled… something. Link eyed the oblong meat skewers suspiciously, unable to place their smell or shape. His growling belly shortened the decision time, however, and he dug in. They tasted passable, if perhaps a little swampy.
"Ook's been a deadly help fendin' aff de Skulltulas in de area," Harish said fondly. "Most av de vicinity raun de temple has been cleared oyt."
"Have you seen more Moblins?" Link asked while glaring at the baboon, ripping off some flesh from his skewer with savage force. Ook chortled nervously and scratched his butt.
"Sum blue ones, nathin' me gang can't 'andle. But Oi've sent me fastest monkey oyt wi' a note ter Palaguard ter request military support. Oi'd bloody not have any soldiers tramplin' de chamber av worship, but Oi understan' these are dire times, an' their help'll be appreciated. Last time they jist caught us by surprise. There won't be a second. Ye're enjoyin' yer frog legs?"
Coughing, Link forced himself to swallow the stringy meat he'd been chewing, groaning when the origin of the swamp taste was revealed. "Frog legs?"
"Aye, Oi've come ter enjoy them durin' me captivity. Snails an' caterpillars too. Sautéed wi' sum dandelion leaves makes a gran' salad. Whadabou' tya? Want sum?"
Link averted his eyes and inched his hand closer to a slice of peach instead. "I'm good, thanks."
Even if hardly sharing his culinary tastes, Harish at least seemed to have forgotten to be worshipful for the time being, to Link's profound relief. He even failed to ask the young Hylian about the Fused Shadow piece altogether, as if Link simply absorbing it into some nether tucked away in his pants was the commonest thing in the world. The monkeys around them, in their peculiar animalistic sentience, came and went through the open door where Link could hear them outside producing a fluctuating wave of cackles and screams.
Only Minsuk remained close to him, resting her chin on his forearm like an oversized cat, and was subjected to more of the caretaker's good-natured jealousy.
"Daft gal, always pinin' after de mighty hero. Yer an ungrateful little lass, aren't ye?"
She did not stray from Link's side even as he gathered his gear and decided to bid Harish goodbye before the old man could come back to his senses. Harish, at least, had enough awareness, after listening to a particularly heart-wrenching coughing fit during which Link's buffeted lungs rasped in distress, to give the youth a honey tincture which the caretaker fetched from his personal medicine cabinet along with an old, tattered map.
"De other two light spirit springs are in Eldin an' Lanayru." he told Link, perched over the map with a charcoal pencil, and made two circles northeast and northwest of Faron. "Eldin's is likely de closest one, here in a wee canyon village named Kakariko. The spirit'll guide yer ter de next piece af de forbidden power, I'm sure af it."
"Thanks, Harish, for everything."
"Oh," and, suddenly remembering, the Forest Temple's caretaker once more flung himself to the ground, his thin, braided white hair trailing across the moss like a mop, his gnarly fingers searching Link's knees. "Me saviour, me hero, Oi'm not worthy af thy thanks…!"
0
Pursued by a thinning trail of primates, Link was eventually left with Minsuk alone to accompany him on his way north. The female monkey perched happily on his shoulder, sharing dried fruit snacks with him, cackling and pointing whenever she saw a bird lounging in the tall trees above or a squirrel hopping from branch to branch. The animal's serenity was infectious, and Link wished dearly he could swap Midna with her. But when, in the far distance and duly at sunset, the mighty Palaguard walls spanned the horizon like a barrage of grey, he gently set her down and ruffled her furry head.
"The city is no place for a monkey," he told her. "It'll be best if you go back to Harish so you can keep him out of trouble. I'll be fine on my own."
She bleeped unhappily but seemed to get the message. With a few last glances back at him, she hopped up an elm tree and was soon gone.
Watching her, Link felt as if he had just said farewell to much more than a friend; the life he had always known, the safety of the forest that had cradled him ever since he was a child, seemed to disappear in the distance with her. Turning around, he faced a new world full of dangers, enemies, and unknowns. The many large trees he knew so well of Faron had dissipated, gently whittling down in number and size to be replaced with maples, elms, and brush that would accompany him for a dozen more miles north until, finally, the border into Hyrule was at hand.
The city lying in the way, widespread across the street and beckoning, was the last obstacle that separated him from the land of his dreams. Once he entered those gates, he had no idea where this new, paved path would lead him.
What did Hyrule look like now that it was overrun? What would await him in the vast plains beyond the forest? He was no longer sure if it would still match his fantasies and be able to satisfy, as it might once have, his expectations built over an entire childhood. The few glimpses he'd seen of Hyrule Castle, stuck in his wolf body and doused in Twilight, had been a manifestation of a nightmare more than a wonderment. It pained, infuriated, and disgusted him.
What did we do to deserve this? he thought. Where did this Twilight king even come from? Why would he invade us? And, will I truly be skilled enough to stop him?
Taking a deep breath, he approached the torchlight rimming the city gate. He had been to Palaguard numerous times, but rarely did the guards ever shut the gates. In a city straddling the Southern Road where carts and riders came and went at all hours, the portcullis was only lowered when the crown mandated a population count or wished to assess the wares that travelled from the south into Hyrule. Rusl had tried to explain to him the deeper meanings of business politics, little of which had ever snared Link's interest. The fact that the gates were closed only amplified the feeling of danger lurking outside and how the city had isolated itself from the world.
The handful of guards stationed outside approached and surrounded him, suspicious at first of the sword hilt poking over his shoulder, until one of them shone a light at his face.
"You're just a bairn," the guard said and waved at the men inside the gatehouse to lift the latticed portcullis. "What are you doing out here all alone, laddie?"
The guard, a Human outfitted in the standard red and white tabard bearing Palaguard's rupee emblem, listened to Link's hastily assembled tale. Link took a page out of Sir Govan's book and simply claimed he was a squire summoned by a knight of Hyrule, which the guard could neither verify nor find a reason to question considering how Link was dressed. From that assumption, however, the guard decided that Link was to be taken in by the city's barracks for a meal and a bed and remain there until the few Hyrulean knights stationed in Palaguard had time to inspect him and decide what to do with the stranded boy.
Link was taken along the many convoluted, dusty roads lined by timber houses, most of them alight and buzzing with sound. A fast-growing city with an origin in trade, Palaguard was young compared to the more well-known cities in Hyrule like Eldara, the capital of the Eldin province, Vigjaro in Lanayru which was renowned for its vineyards and music, and of course, Castle Town, whose filigree chateau was wreathed in history of more than two thousand years.
But Palaguard was special to Link, not because of its grandeur, which was mediocre at best, but for the impact it had had on him; for a boy who'd grown up in a village of no more than a dozen houses, it had been an overwhelming display of extravagance, abundance, and size. His first market-week six years ago during which Ordon had taken their goats to Palaguard's bazaar to be sold along with artisanal goods, crafts, and raw materials, had been one long experience of all that city life entailed: the countless stalls selling everything from hairpins to shoes to wooden swords to exotic food to candy to instruments; the fountains in the squares used by basket weavers for softening their reed or amblers to cool off inside them; Link's first visit to a real church worshipping the three goddesses as well as a small temple dedicated entirely to Hylia since the fourth goddess in the pantheon, the Goddess of Light, was revered especially by Hylians; the castle and keep where, during his seventh market-week three years later, he'd assisted Rusl in replacing the prison bars in the dungeons, an occurrence that had given him a first impression of what crime was like in the kingdom, and how severely it was often punished.
Walking through the city, bathed in firelight from treetrunks cut crosswise and set ablaze in the street centres, Link saw all these familiar buildings and places now darkened and rendered unrecognisable in the lambent light, ominous and unwelcoming. Fear was imprinted on every hooded face he crossed.
"Were you attacked as well?" he asked his escort.
"Many times," the guard, who'd introduced himself simply as Piers, said as he ushered Link towards a walled compound. He was built like a wardrobe and spoke like a fisherman, giving Link a good indication that Piers likely originated from Bando. "We were overrun first by Moblins, then by skengin black creatures that… did sly things to the soldiers. It anny slowed down when the sky returned to normal."
Link shuddered, recalling Coro's child-like whimper of fear facing the two looming, nightmarish Shadow Beasts. "What did they do to the soldiers?"
"Whey, I'm not sure I should be telling you that, son. But if you see one, you better run as if you've just stolen the queen's jewels. These things are ney to be trifled with."
"Did you, perchance, also see a very large Moblin leading a train of carts with cages on them?" Link asked as casually as he could.
The guard glanced at him sideways. "The green one? Whey aye, we saw him."
Choking on a gasp, Link could not keep the desperate hope from his face. "Did you manage to stop him? Were there children in the cages? A blond boy?"
"I assume you've seen him, too?" Piers cleared his throat and waved Link through a small manned gate. "They went not through but around the city, believe it or not, just out of sight in the woods. We couldn't shoot at them because of the bairns, and meanwhile, those black creatures went around the houses snatchin' more bairns off the streets, and even out of houses, vanishing right before our eyes with them. Thankfully we decimated a canny number of them before they retreated."
Link felt sick with hope. "Where did they go?"
"We sent a whole cavalcade after them, but they haven't returned. All I know is that they headed north, most likely into Hyrule. They…"
Piers stopped and folded his arms, looking grimly at his plate boots. "They used those weeny bairns as shields to stop us from pursuing. It's real sly business. Come along, it's through here."
Link hadn't been to this part of the city yet simply because it was off-limits to civilians, but he hardly took notice of the organised group of buildings strung neatly around a wide paved road and a sand-covered training courtyard.
All he could think about was how he would shake off the friendly but inconvenient guard, find a mount, and race after that Moblin demon as fast as he could.
Piers eyed Link with mild wariness as he showed the youth to an empty bunk in the barracks' dormitory building. "You know, it's kind of reckless, don't you think? Plodging through the forest all on your own?"
"I didn't have much of a choice after my horse ran off," Link answered, which was painfully close to the truth. His heart ached for Epona and her unknown fate, but the comment had been made with an ulterior motive. "Could you, by chance, direct me to the stables? I'd like to see if perhaps someone in Palaguard found her and picked her up."
"You sure you don't want a meal first?" Piers asked, frowning at Link's many scratches and bruises. "You look like you've been through the wringer and back."
Upon Link's kind insistence, Piers shrugged. "Suit yourself, laddie. I had a nag once, myself. Loved that filly to bits."
Before he left, Piers informed him that, next to the barrack stables that occasionally took in wandering horses, the bazaar grounds and cattle market were being used by a large refugee group from neighbouring villages driven from their homes by the raids, and Link should try his luck there as well.
"Don't run off too far, laddie, the commanding officer will want to take a look at you in the morning."
Link agreed innocently, well aware that he had to be long gone before the sun was up, and hurried back to the dormitory once Piers had left to retrieve his travelling bag, where he was involuntarily reunited with his unwanted shadowy companion.
"Did you seriously think you could get rid of me that easily?" she hissed from somewhere inside his shoulder bag, prompting him to slap it instinctively.
"Midna? Weren't you with me this whole time?"
"No, idiot. Since I am kind and considerate, I slept beneath one of those totems to keep the Fused Shadow away from you, and when I woke up I found out you'd left without me. Took me the entire day to find you. How stupid do you think I am?"
He sighed and suppressed a cough, absently taking a sip of Harish's honey tincture. The velvety brew slid down his throat with buttery ease and soothed everything on its way but left behind a tangy lichen taste. It made him remember—and crave—Uli's cough syrups; only his foster mother could make medicine taste delightful.
"I'm sorry," he muttered, hurrying back out into the street. "I had no idea you weren't with me."
"Well, you just lost the privilege of ever being rid of me. You've only got yourself to blame."
Now that she'd mentioned it, he could indeed feel a subtle, but distinct rumble emanating from below his feet that had been absent throughout the day. The familiar pinprick of pain on the back of his skull arose at once, making him feel like someone was tugging at his eyeballs from inside his head. He pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Will it be like this, always?" he asked, grimacing.
"Get used to it," she sneered, and said no more.
He set off to find the expansive market grounds that took up the majority of the city's trading district. The houses became fewer and simpler along the road, uncovering the city wall's merlons like spikes on a crown cresting a vast gathering of torches and campfires. More than a hundred tents, illuminated milky white like lanterns, had been haphazardly pitched over the trampled field next to the cattle fences that held sheep, cows, oxen, and a surprising number of horses. With the night came silence, but Link could see many of the campfires still used for cooking and company, their occupants creating barely more than a murmur of voices.
"Why are you heading to a refugee camp?" Midna inquired, sounding annoyed. "Shouldn't you be on your way to the next spirit spring?"
"I had a horse, a sorrel mare called Epona, before she disappeared during the raid," Link answered and stopped by the cattle fence, studying the many horses dozing inside. "She might have been brought here."
But as much as he strained his eyes in the dark, he could not see the bulky, muscular outline of his mare anywhere. He even tried whistling her melody, to no avail other than attracting the attention of a pretty young woman from the camp, who, after ascertaining that he was no thief, directed him to the three other stables Palaguard held.
The longer he walked through the now deserted streets, the more doubts amassed in his mind. Even if he found Epona here, how would he prove to whomever had caught her that she was his horse? And if he didn't find her, how would he travel the hundreds of miles across Hyrule to his next destination? He would have to go on foot, which would not only take weeks but leave him without any form of escape should he get attacked. He could hide effectively in the forest, but southern Hyrule was renowned for its vast, treeless plains which offered no safety of cover.
If he couldn't simply rent a horse from one of the stallholders, he might have to resort to something he'd never done before; stealing. And horse theft was a very serious crime.
The chosen hero, a criminal, he ruminated absently, scoffing at the sheer stupidity of it, and kept walking. His feet were aching by now, and that dormitory bunk didn't seem like such a bad idea anymore. If only there wasn't his lie about being a squire attached to it, which would likely keep him shackled within the rigid military body with little chance of escape…
The only places still feeling somewhat alive in the deserted town were the numerous inns that Link passed. Looking through the windows at the many people sitting at tables and counters, the sweating barmaids running around to refill mugs or serve food, Link realised with a sigh that he wouldn't have much luck getting a bed at the taverns either, not with the number of refugees Palaguard had been driven to shelter. When he made the snap decision to enter a random inn, he was startled by the loud creak of the door that betrayed his entry, followed by a man's gruff voice barking across the noise, "No more rooms free!"
Link felt the heat of shame rise to his cheeks as faces turned in his direction, the people at the counter or tables eyeing him mockingly. He hurried through the door and into the silent night once more, his heart drumming painfully.
"You're not exactly the social type, are you, my little wolf?" came Midna's quiet hum from the ground, and Link looked down to see a red eye looking up at him from his shadow. Grunting, he continued down the road; he would very much prefer to sleep in the open rather than having to face another mass of drunken people with taunting grins and vilifying looks.
"Are you?" his shadow insisted, and Link sighed.
"No, not really."
"A lone wolf, then?" she snickered. Link rolled his eyes.
He had no luck at the remaining stables either, and after finding no one to speak to for renting a mount, Link had to admit defeat; his feet would have to carry him for hours more to the Hyrulean border and then across the largest kingdom on the continent. He shuddered at the thought of the legendary blisters he would gather along the way.
"Hey, wolf boy! Look ahead," his hidden companion hissed. Link halted in his tracks. A male voice in the distance arose faintly, howling something unintelligible, and soon Link made out two figures staggering down the porch of an inn.
"What's wrong with those two?" Midna asked quietly. Link felt her presence creeping up his back until she settled inside his cloak's hood next to his ear, watching the pair now heading down the street. Her Fused Shadows drilled painfully into his brain.
"They're drunk, that's all," Link answered, grimacing. He prided himself that he had never been drunk in his life. He was still too young to drink strong alcohol, anyway; Rusl and Uli had been keen on keeping his innocence in that regard.
"They're what?"
Link turned to her. "Drunk. Do you not know what that means?"
Her red eye, projected comically onto one of his bangs, narrowed in suspicion. "How should I know, huh? I'm not versed in every one of your silly Light Dweller customs."
"It's when you drink too much alcohol. It inhibits your control over your body movements and makes you forget your name."
"Really?"
"Yeah. It's dangerous, like poison. At least that's what my foster mother says."
"Why would they do it, then?" She sounded honestly curious, motivating Link to explain to her what Uli had told him of alcoholic beverages, how they were a mild form of poisoning with appealing side-effects that put a lot of strain on the liver and, if consumed carelessly, could cause a great deal of trouble for someone's health, and surroundings.
"You're right about the wonky body movements," Midna chuckled as they both watched the drunkards holding on to each other, singing a discordant tune, before tumbling into the mud under booming fits of laughter. "It's actually really funny."
Link tried to suppress a smile, but Midna's quiet giggling made that difficult. "It's not nice to mock people who're drunk," he chided her… and himself.
The carousers suddenly straightened, inexplicably regaining hold of their spinal cords, and began to whistle and catcall. Link pursed his brows, a cold shiver running down his back.
"You don't like to talk? Come on, don't be shy," one of them called, and the other one cracked a booming laugh, reaching out to a smaller figure huddled into a cloak hurrying along the street.
"Don't touch me!" A woman's voice, sounding frightened.
Link stopped abruptly when the men stormed forward and seized the girl, dragging her behind the next house.
"Are they hurting her? Stop them!" Midna called, too shocked to keep her voice down.
Link was already running, feeling Midna's headache-inducing shadow shifting left to the house wall and hurrying alongside him.
"Look at you, you beauty. We're gonna have some fun with you," Link heard the first man croon just as he rounded the corner. The woman, her hood torn from her horrified face, was twisting desperately in the attacker's grip until her bulging eyes fell on Link. The second man's hands were holding her dress's collar and froze in an unmistakable ripping motion when he noticed the intruder.
Snarling, feeling an overwhelming tension in his bones, Link propelled himself at the closest man. His momentum sent the drunkard reeling to the ground with a frightened gasp and unbalanced the first one still holding the girl.
"Let her go," Link growled, grappling with the much larger man's hands and, surprising even himself, managed to tear the rigid fingers off with ridiculous ease. He dragged the woman behind himself and drew his sword, struggling to calm his percussive breathing.
"Who the hell are you?" the first man drawled and made Link gulp when he yanked a knife from his belt. "You're definitely in the wrong alley, mate."
"So are you," he called back, gripping Rusl's sword tightly, drawing courage from the warm horn hilt. Not that he needed it; anger, unlike any he'd felt before, burned in his body like wildfire, banishing any fear he might have harboured. "Leave, now, before I hurt you."
"I don't think so."
The knife came forward, directed at Link's stomach. The woman screamed out. He twisted around and drove the pommel into the man's arm hard enough to draw blood. The knife grazed his middle, but Link felt no pain; a moment later it simply—vanished.
"What the—?"
The confusion allowed Link to step forward, his sword still twisted around and struck the man soundly across the temple with the hilt. He drew his own knife in the same movement and pointed it at the other attacker.
"Leave, now." He barely managed to stop himself from hurling the knife at the man's chest.
Finally, the two drunkards backed off, hands lifted in surrender, and stumbled away.
"Sweet Hylia, are you okay?" the woman called, grabbing Link's shoulder harshly and twisting him around. He let go of his sword in fright and barely managed to avoid hitting her foot with it. He felt feather-light, the douse of adrenaline making him dizzy.
"He cut you, didn't he?" she asked and prodded around on his torso until he gently pushed her hands away. The red-hot rage in him slowly dissipated and left him feeling barren and exhausted.
"I'm okay," he assured her. "Did they hurt you?"
She laughed out, a frantic note to her high-pitched voice, and leaned against the nearby house with her eyes wide open. "Nayru, I thought you were done for. I'm alright, just happy I wasn't the cause of a young man's death."
Death hadn't even remotely occurred to Link, but when he replayed the whole altercation in his mind, his mouth became uncomfortably dry with bewilderment. If it wasn't for my chain-mail, that man would have gutted me. I wasn't afraid, not once. All I felt was anger so powerful I could barely control it.
He grimaced as he saw the horizontal gash in his tunic. I'm definitely using my shield next time.
His eyes settled on her face and he lifted his brows in recognition. "Wait, you're from the refugee camp."
She was in her early twenties, several inches taller than him, and crowned with ruby-red hair that fell in unwashed clumps around her Hylian ears down to her shoulders. Link hardly minded; suddenly it became very hard to look anywhere else but her face. The fight with the two drunkards wisped from his mind like fog in the sun.
Her dark green eyes narrowed in amusement. "I am," she said. "You asked about a sorrel mare earlier. Did you find her?"
"No." Stooping, hiding his blush, he sheathed his sword and knife, looking around for the attacker's weapon. It lay in the mud a distance away. "Maybe you should keep this on you," he told her, placing it into her open palm. "In case they come back."
She did not object and slid the unsheathed blade into her belt before stretching out her hand. "From the bottom of my heart, thank you. Those two were the last people I wanted to run into tonight. I'm Malon Rancher."
"Link."
"Just Link?"
He smiled, the tips of his ears growing hot. "Of Ordon. I… don't have a last name."
Lawfully, Link's last name would have been the same as Rusl's, but through convoluted circumstances involving their two diverging races as well as, crudely speaking, money reasons, Rusl had never officially filed the expensive adoption papers for Link. In larger towns, it would have made sense to do it, from a purely demographic standpoint, but Ordon was an ink dot on the map with its name printed larger than the relative size of the village. The chance of having someone with the same first name was either negated at birth or resolved with neighbourly understanding and nicknames. Thus, no authority in the province had ever demanded the legal documentation of their fosterage. Link partly believed, now that he understood most of these procedures and his foster parents' reasons for teaching him their real names, that Rusl and Uli had likely also kept Link free of a last name to preserve his right of choice. A noble gesture Link had, growing older, eventually related to after a whole childhood spent wondering if he should call himself Of Ordon, Of the Forest, or Of Nowhere.
"Ah, Ordon. I've heard of it, but I've never been," Malon said.
I'd have remembered if you'd visited, Link thought, clearing his throat and hastily turning aside, pulling her by the arm back onto the street. "You know these two?"
"Fleetingly."
She told him of how she and her father had been forced to abandon Lon Lon Village, situated in Central Hyrule Field, with their herds of horses and cows and a majority of their neighbours after the first great monster attack, following the refugee wave to end up in Palaguard. She spoke of the week they had been living in a tent, watching as more people from the many villages in South Hyrule Field pitched their tents around them or were taken in by charitable families, while their herds slowly decimated the city's supply of fodder.
"We've had to let them graze outside the walls most days, but that bears the risk of getting attacked. Try moving a herd in a coordinated manner through a gate when ten enormous boars are chasing after you. And what brings you to the city, forest boy?"
Link saw no need to stick to his squire story with Malon and disclosed as much as he could without giving any hints about heroic deeds or forbidden artefacts. He hoped dearly that she would not belittle him like so many others had done before, but after having rescued her from the two miscreants, Link seemed to hold a level of capability in her eyes he had rarely been accredited with by anyone else. It did strange things to his heart, which began to flutter pleasantly at her approving nod.
"A lone wolf, you are," she said wisely, unaware of how much that statement made Link squirm. "I don't blame you. I have to convince myself every morning that taking my horse and riding back to Lon Lon to look for my little sister is a terrible idea. She, too, was taken by the raiders, though I believe it might have been a different wagon train."
She became thoughtful, gazing out at the large paddock lying in darkness before them. "I can barely wield a pitchfork, let alone a sword, to defend myself, but I've seen enough proof that you can, Link of Ordon. Let me talk to my father. We sold most of our horses to the city for contribution to the war, but a few of them we've kept. I'm sure some of the men from our village will happily join you in your search."
She turned to go, but Link held her back. "I have to leave tonight," he said, shifting uncomfortably. "I lied to the guards that I was a knight's squire so they'd let me in, and they'll come looking for me soon. If they learn the truth, they'll never let me go. If you can spare it, I would borrow only one horse from you."
And after having witnessed Harish's near fanatical prostrations, he could not in good conscience take anyone else with him, however helpful they might be. The risk not only of becoming an icon to blindly follow—whose every misstep would be witnessed and unscrupulously judged—but also of exposing any potential followers to unknown dangers only he seemed to be adequately prepared for, was too great for him to justify. Midna was with him; that had to be enough.
Malon hesitated, looking at his bruises and scrapes. "You want to leave on your own?"
"Yes. I've managed so far, and I'll be faster on my own. The Moblins might notice a group of riders following them, however small, and hunt it down. But a single rider can easily stay out of sight. I'm the best hunter in my village. And I have a real sword." He didn't know where half of those declarations even came from and bridled his rambunctious tongue before it could breach wolf or hero territory.
"No, that's insane. You're so young."
Link gritted his teeth, staving off his disappointment at, once again, being labelled by his age. "I have a little brother who was also kidnapped. I can't just sit around and do nothing while he gets carted away. I know you only just met me, but I could really use one of your horses. And if I find my brother, your sister won't be far away. I'll bring them both back. I…" I was chosen to do this. The goddesses will guide me. "I promise."
Malon pursed her lips and frowned; out of hesitation or refusal, he could not tell.
"I can't just give you one of my father's horses without asking him," she answered, turning to the camp and plodding stiffly towards a field pavilion sheltering several crates and barrels. Just as Link's heart sank to his boots, she reappeared with a bridle and saddlecloth in her hands. "But I can give you one of mine. Padraig is fast and hardy. Are you comfortable riding bareback? Unfortunately, his saddle was… left behind. I only have a pad with a clasp."
Link could barely believe his luck. "Epona and I used to ride bareback all the time," he smiled, eagerly following Malon into the paddock where she approached a black shape nibbling listlessly at a hay bale. The stallion looked up and tossed his head, contently letting himself be bridled. He was a fair size smaller than Epona and not nearly as muscular, but his legs were long and strong.
"Epona?" Malon inquired. "That's a very pretty name. I dearly hope you find her. Several of our mares are pregnant. I might just have to steal that name from you."
"Be my guest. It's the least I can do in exchange for your trust."
Her answer, delivered in a cold, bitter voice, caught him thoroughly unawares and would have had an even stronger impact if he'd been streetwise enough to understand her full implication. "You may not quite have saved my life back there, but some experiences are worse than death. It is me who owes you, Link of Ordon."
Malon ushered him through the compound and stopped before the gate at the back, the black stallion eagerly following. "This is the livestock gate for market days. We've been using it to bring our herd in and out for grazing. Once I open it you'll have to hurry, because everyone will see it. They likely won't follow you out, but they might try to shoot at you. Make sure they don't see you."
Nodding nervously, Link took a running start and bounced onto Padraig's back. Struggling to process both his luck and the heavy responsibility Malon had just put into his hands, he remembered an important fact he had overlooked this whole time; Eldin Province likely was, just like Faron had been, entirely engulfed in Twilight. Once he passed the threshold into the shadowy realm, he'd be a wolf again. What would become of Padraig then?
"If the worst happens," he began, looking down at her sternly. "If I don't make it or I have to set him loose, will he find his way back to you?"
Malon's eyes widened as she nodded dazedly. "But that's not going to happen, right? You'll be fine. You'll make sure of that. Otherwise, what letter would I have to write to the people in Ordon? That I sent one of their own to his death?"
He shook his head. "This is my choice alone, not yours."
"If you have to let him go, write a note and attach it to his bridle so I know you're alright. Will you do that, forest boy?"
Smiling, he nodded and watched her swing the large gate open. He nudged Padraig's flanks and sent him into a full gallop.
"My sister's name is Marin!" Malon called to him while, above them on the ramparts, surprised shouts sounded from overhead guards. A single arrow was shot from the wooden hoardings and twacked into the ground as Link passed, before the darkness took him and his black steed in its cloaking embrace.
Only much later, while stopping at a half-burnt farmhouse within the thin, breezy forest where he would rake in a few hours of sleep, Link realised he had taken with him neither paper nor charcoal to write Malon his note.
0
"Why is it doing that? What is the purpose of it?"
Midna's voice startled Link out of his light slumber. The smells of animal life and burnt coal drifted around him, and in the misty darkness breached by his small campfire, the beams of the barn's half-crumpled roof reached across the nightly expanse like fingers. Padraig lifted his head and glanced at where the disembodied voice had drifted from, swerving his ears nervously.
"What do you mean?" Link muttered, nuzzling his cloak aside.
"That. Don't you see it? You call it rain, I think. But what does it do?"
It was her inquisitive tone, so unlike the vile sarcasm he had been subjected to before, that drove him to disentangle from his cloak entirely and join her at the bare doorframe. She hovered just out of the water's reach, looking up at the gently pattering rain.
"It waters the soil," Link said. "It keeps the rivers and lakes fed. Without it, I don't think we would survive."
"Why?"
He thought for a moment as he wrangled with his surprise at her curiosity, which seemed to once more dominate her usual disinterest. "Because we all need water. It's a vital part of life. Everything uses it, the plants, the animals, and all the races."
"But there are places in the world where it doesn't rain," she answered. "Yet there are still people living there. How do they manage?"
"You mean the desert? Even there they have water, though far less than the plains of Hyrule. You…" He paused, seeking her eye. "You know about the desert, but you don't know what water is?"
Her head whipped in his direction as if suddenly realising how close he was. Snorting, she drifted backwards and made a dismissive gesture. "Nevermind. It's not my business, anyway."
He followed her to the campfire. "No, please, tell me more. How does your race survive without water?"
"We are not a race. We are a people," she replied haughtily. "And we are in every way superior to your crude, uncultured, barbaric Light Dweller ways. Unlike you, we are not fettered by worldly needs. Food, water, medicine, illness, are all obstacles we have long overcome. Pathetic, really, how a lack of food or a single scratch can make you utterly useless and melt down into a whiny puddle of self-pity. You have no idea what real pain is."
She paused, her single eye widening as if she'd just told him one of her darkest secrets. "Shut up! Stop asking me!"
Link sighed. "Why are you always so antagonistic?"
"There. Whiny and pathetic. Like I said."
"I just wanted some answers." He caught himself with a grunt, smothering his adolescent tongue before it could further validate her claims. He stood up and plodded back to his straw pile, rubbing absently at his aching head. Whenever she was near, he could acutely feel the prowling, creeping power of the Fused Shadows wallowing like a fire inside an oven, contained but steadily growing hotter. It was beginning to strain his nerves.
"What kind of answers would satisfy you, I wonder?" she sneered.
He lifted his brows, surprised to be presented with this sudden olive branch from the unyielding creature. Countless questions flowed along his stream of thought and through the debris of their cautious alliance; he picked the first that stuck. "How did you bring me from Castle Town to Faron in just a few seconds?"
"Twilight magic. With living creatures, however, it only works inside the Twilight, and only with the help of very great powers like the Fused Shadows, otherwise, we'd have shortened this whole journey to a few blinks and a finger snap, hehe."
"Is that also how the Shadow Beasts move around? The guard said they vanished before their very eyes."
"Yes."
He frowned. "But if you're using the Fused Shadow to make it work, what kind of great power are they using?"
She grinned, for once mildly impressed with his reasoning. "Now that's a question worth asking. I've been trying to figure that out myself for a while."
"How…" Link gulped, picturing the mighty black beasts uneasily. "How powerful are they, really?"
"They're savage corruptions, nothing more. Pawns in a greater game." Her voice sounded bitter. "Whatever power they wield does not come from them. That's why, despite their grotesque form, they are… so easily killed."
She snapped up from a short introspection. "Twilight magic works better with objects, even outside the Twilight. That's how I saved your hide during your tussle with the two drunk men."
Link's mind flashed with recollection; the knife, disappearing in mid-air. "That was you?"
"You're welcome."
"Does that mean you can carry other things, too? Like my bag—"
"I'm not your pack-horse, whelp! Any more answers I can regale you with?"
Link thought quickly, but before he could open his mouth, Midna's shadow hovered past him. "Don't waste your breath. I have one for you, little wolf. What did that silly girl mean when she said you saved her from a fate worse than death?"
The question caught him off-guard. "What?"
"Don't pretend you didn't hear me. What could possibly be worse than death for a Light Dweller?"
A small part of Link's mind was convinced womanhood had been the root of Malon's declaration—he was not completely oblivious to the differences between the genders—but that was where his knowledge ended. It was a vast monument he'd never been compelled to gain access to; given only small glimpses into it from Uli or Ilia, like an inexplicable self-consciousness about revealing specific body parts or what to do with hair, he'd found in the females around him more similarities to the men than discrepancies. A small feeling, too weak to find it worth pursuing, hinted that there was much more to it. He couldn't possibly find a solution when he didn't even know there was a problem.
As he was growing older, Uli had often perplexed him with winks and surreptitious smiles whenever he brought Ilia home to play, and had even taken him aside one day, when he was twelve, to talk about—of all things—children.
"You know where they come from, right?"
He'd heard his brother being born, even though, six years old at the time, he'd been deeply confused to learn that children did not, like him, come out of the forest but out of big-bellied women. A few years on the ranch had given him a basic knowledge of procreation, but Uli's innocent question had come with a long string attached.
The next few hours had been a blur of confusing questions and attempts to make him accept things she labelled beautiful but Link, however hard he tried, only found gross. Rusl, intercepted from his hurried passage through the kitchen and pulled into the discussion rather forcefully, had also been unable to make Link understand what was supposedly so appealing about girls in general, and Ilia, his best friend, in particular.
"Okay, well… What about boys?" Rusl had asked after a long silence.
"What about them?" At that point Link had utterly lost any meaning of that tedious conversation.
"Do you… like them more than girls?"
"Huh?" Neither was better than the other; surely Rusl knew that.
His surrogate father had turned to Uli sometime later and declared cryptically: "Either he's still too young for all this, darling, or he might just be completely impervious to sexuality. Let's call it a day. What's for dinner?" And the matter had been dropped and rarely ever taken up again.
Which made Link feel modestly unqualified to answer Midna's question. "I don't know. Sorry. Those two men would have hurt her, I'm sure, in a way she never wanted to be hurt. But what that means is beyond me. I just wanted to help."
He'd certainly felt something… different about Malon once he saw her oval face and that exotic red hair. The feeling seemed dangerously close to what Rusl had described in that kitchen three years ago; an attraction, like a magnet, but for people instead of metal. Had that been this strange romance thing Uli had so vehemently praised? And if that were the case, why did Link not feel the need to do all these other gross things with Malon?
He would have to take some time to think about it.
After his hesitant reply, it was Midna's turn to suspect a malicious withholding of information until she lowered her gaze, as if catching on to what she had been doing since day one. "Oh, forget it. Then answer me this, instead."
She stopped once more in the doorway and pointed at the weeping sky. "What is that?"
Link followed her outstretched arm, yet saw in the dim moonlight nothing but the clouds gently splitting into wads of cotton wool.
"What do you mean?"
"That one tiny spot of light. What is it?"
In between the parting clouds, a single star had found a peephole to gaze down at their upturned faces. Link watched it for a quiet moment, remembering the acute, painful sense of loss he'd felt upon looking into the Twilight sky and seeing nothing, not a single celestial body gilding the vast, eternal vault of heaven.
"That's a star," he said, glancing down at her, a minuscule smile flitting across his lips when the silver dot reflected in her wide, shimmering red iris. His heart sparked, now for the second time that day, with that strange, alien feeling. His face went pale; what in Hylia's name is wrong with me today? Attracted like a magnet, to her? Never!
"Why is it just one? Shouldn't there be more?" Midna, oblivious to his inner struggle, blinked and made the star imprint on her eye shift.
"There would be hundreds on a clear night," Link muttered tiredly.
"Why are they there?"
He sighed as he realised he'd have to disappoint her yet again. "I… don't know. Everyone I ask seems to give me a different answer. Uli says they're other worlds just like ours, so far away that we can only see them as tiny dots. Rusl says they're remnants of our world's creation. Ilia says they're fireflies caught in a gigantic net. Mayor Bo believes they are the souls of our dead in heaven, looking down upon us."
She raised her brow at him. "And what do you believe?"
"I think…" he began, unaware of the intense gaze she fixed him with. "I think they're one of those many things in our world that can't be explained."
Like what's so fascinating about where children come from, he added inwardly. "We can explore the remotest cave, the highest mountain, the deepest forest, but every time we look up, we see a place we cannot yet reach. They're always something to wonder about. They're an ever-changing constant, not always in the same place in the sky, but ever present. Something to capture our imagination."
He looked down at her, smiling apologetically, and found in her single eye nothing but contempt. However hard he tried, he could not fathom a reason for it until Midna floated higher, contracting into a black ball of misery before the dancing fire, and glared at him.
"In our world, everything can be explained. There is not a single mystery we haven't uncovered, no wonder we've yet to witness, nothing remotely unpredictable or unexpected. Nothing that could ever change the outcome of every life lived and every death reached. You should consider yourself lucky."
Midna's shadow floated back to the door, observing the firmament with fierce hate.
It didn't occur to him until later, when he had been soundly denied his requests for more answers and had returned, defeated, to his nest of hay, that her statement made no sense.
"You're wrong," he countered softly. "Something unexpected happened, didn't it?"
She turned to gaze at him, staying silent. Her shadow was nothing but a phantom, yet humming with the pulsing, tangible power she harboured. He could feel her all the way across the room.
"Why else would you be here?" he concluded.
It seemed, for once in their short time together, that instead of withholding an answer from him, she could sincerely not give him one.
He got the distinct feeling that whatever had caused this irregularity in her never-changing, ever-constant world, was the crux of his very existence.
000
