Chapter Three: Seeing Red

"Alright, Malon, you take care of delivering the eggs, okay? I'll handle the milk deliveries," Dad said after pulling over the cart at the side of the market.

"Okay! But don't fall asleep this time!" Malon replied, hopping off the cart and taking her own smaller one off the back before loading it with cartons of eggs, while Dad began to unload the crates of milk bottles.

Today was their weekly trip to Castle Town to bring the people their supplies, although this particular week they would actually have to make another delivery run to the castle, where there would apparently be some important event involving a lot of guests. They seemed to have a lot of important events all of a sudden, since Malon and Dad had already brought them more goods just two days earlier, so it was lucky they had plenty of supply this time of year.

But for now, Malon focused on the task at hand. She pulled out the list of addresses and saw many of the usual names, but also a couple of new ones. It always made her happy to see new names, since it meant their products were doing well. The first customer on the list was a familiar one, however: Mr. Kakos, a retired soldier who had fought in many engagements in the civil war.

Malon knocked on the door and took the usual unintelligible grunt as her cue to enter. Mr. Kakos sat in his usual seat near his fireplace, above which hung his sword and shield.

"Good morning, Mr. Kakos," Malon said with a smile. "I've got your eggs for you."

"Two dozen, yes?" Mr. Kakos asked, narrowing his eyes at Malon.

"Yes, sir," Malon said, still smiling brightly as she put the cartons on the counter next to the rickety stove in the corner of the house.

"You didn't skim any?"

"No, sir."

Mr. Kakos got up and limped over to Malon, who took a step back and watched as he lifted up the first carton and counted the eggs in both. Apparently finding nothing to complain about, he withdrew his wallet and began counting out rupees.

"Very well then. I will pay what I'm owed, unlike your people's customs," Mr. Kakos said with a glance at Malon's red hair.

Malon's expression didn't change, but inwardly she sighed. Every single time she saw Mr. Kakos, he'd make a remark like that, but he'd been through a lot in the war, so maybe that was why he was a bit slow to trust people.

Malon thanked him for the money and went on her way to her next customer, who was another regular.

Miss Cimel lived in a slightly bigger house than Mr. Kakos and made beautiful clothes, and today as well she was hard at work on a dress when Malon entered.

"Good morning, Miss Cimel," she said with her usual smile.

Miss Cimel briefly looked up and said, "Ah good. Put the eggs over there in the corner, please, and don't touch anything! I'll know it if you take something!"

"I won't, Miss Cimel," Malon said. Miss Cimel was probably just very focused on her work, so maybe that was why she was a bit snappy.

Malon put the eggs in the corner as Miss Cimel had asked her and then walked over to collect the money.

"That's a very pretty dress, Miss Cimel," Malon said while Miss Cimel was looking through her wallet.

"Well, be happy you get to see it, then, because you certainly won't be wearing it," Miss Cimel said. She handed over the money for the eggs and said, "And now I need to get back to work. Goodbye."

With that, she picked up her needle and thread again and carefully resumed the work on her dress, completely ignoring Malon's wave as she left.

Malon checked her list, and to her excitement she saw that her next customer was someone she didn't know yet, a Mr. Jorroh. She headed over to the house and knocked on the door, and a friendly voice called out, "Come in!"

Malon opened the door and stepped into the house, where a man she presumed was Mr. Jorroh sat at a table which was covered in scrolls and broken quills. He looked up when Malon entered and immediately his eyes widened as he pushed back his chair with a jolt.

"Who are you?" he asked, his tone suddenly wary instead of friendly.

"I'm Malon from Lon Lon Ranch," Malon said, smiling as always. "I have your eggs for you." She held up the carton to show Mr. Jorroh the eggs.

Mr. Jorroh nodded slowly, seeming a bit embarrassed about his reaction but still wary of Malon.

"Right…Okay, yeah," he said. He cleared his throat and said, "I'll make some room here. You can, um, put the eggs on the table."

He got up from his chair and began to clear away some of the scrolls, but he kept his eyes on Malon the entire time, causing him to drop several of the scrolls on the floor. He didn't stop to pick them up, so Malon guessed they were just not that important.

Once he'd cleared a space out on the table, Mr. Jorroh gestured with his head and Malon put the carton of eggs there.

"There you go, Mr. Jorroh. Your job looks very difficult."

Mr. Jorroh gave single slow nod and he said, "Yeah. Keeping track of expenses and revenue… Though it's not as profitable as some professions…"

"Well, our milk and eggs are the best in Hyrule, and we invest a lot of time and care to make sure they stay that way," Malon said proudly.

"I wasn't talking about your prices," Mr. Jorroh said. He sighed and shook his head. "Never mind."

He handed Malon the money for the eggs and said, "There you go. Now, I really need to get back to work…"

"Of course, Mr. Jorroh. Have a nice day," Malon said cheerfully, before leaving the house and closing the door behind her.

She looked at her list again and went from house to house, delivering the eggs, and just past noon she returned to the car just as Dad was putting some of the empty milk crates back onto the guard. He gave a cheerful wave when he saw Malon coming over.

"Hey there, partner! Did the deliveries go well?" he asked.

Malon nodded and handed over the pouch of money. "Everything went well," she said. "I'm sure our new customers will be placing orders for next week, too!"

Dad gave her a hug and said, "Well done, Malon! I'm proud of you."

Malon beamed at him and wanted to start telling him about her day, when someone said, "Hey, Talon! Done with work already?"

Malon looked up to see another person she knew, Mr. Oran, approaching.

"Hey there, Oran! Not yet, I'm afraid. Delivering the product to you lot is the easy part," Dad said with a grin.

Mr. Oran grinned back. "Yeah, sure, and my mother is a Zora. You're just going to spend the afternoon napping," he said.

Dad cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. "You know, I do think I see something fishy about you," he said, and Mr. Oran smacked him on the shoulder while both of them laughed.

"Hi, Mr. Oran!" Malon said.

Mr. Oran glanced down at her and his smile seemed to freeze for a moment when he said, "Hi."

Then his smile thawed again and he talked with Dad for a bit longer before going back to work 'like a proper person', causing Dad to roll his eyes good-naturedly at him.

On the way back home to the ranch Malon told Dad about her day, as she always did, and he did the same. Somehow, his stories always featured a lot of people like Mr. Oran, who happily joked around with Dad when he came to deliver the milk. Malon always made a point of telling Dad how busy and hard-working the people she visited were, but Dad still sometimes got a somewhat pained expression when she mentioned things like Mr. Kakos being grumpy, even though it usually quickly faded and he went back to his usual self.

Once they were back at the ranch and had unloaded the cart, Malon went to check up on the horses, laughing when Epona immediately came trotting over to her and nuzzling her.

"Hello, girl," she said softly. "I'm happy to see you too!"

She slowly petted Epona and her smile, which she'd had on her face all day, began to falter a bit.

"Hey, Epona… Do you think…there's something wrong with me?" she asked.

Epona softly nudged Malon with her muzzle.

"I don't know… The people in town just never seem happy to see me, but when they see Dad they're always smiling."

Epona gave a soft snort. "It's not just Castle Town, either. Kakariko Village too, and Aldan Town, and Hillshade…"

Epona whinnied quietly and Malon kept stroking her, trying to ignore the burning in her eyes. It didn't make any sense. She was always friendly, always smiling, interested in the people she delivered goods to…and yet everyone seemed to think she was going to steal things from them or afraid she'd break stuff. If it had only been one person, it would've been fine, but for every single person she came across to react like this…it must be her, then, right?

But she'd never told Dad about any of it. She didn't want him to worry about her. She hadn't told Mr. Ingo, either, because even though Mr. Oran had been joking about Dad napping all afternoon earlier, it was pretty close to the truth some days, and Mr. Ingo would end up doing a lot of the work, so she wouldn't want to bother him. Only Epona knew how Malon felt, and Malon was grateful she was there to listen. It even felt like she understood what Malon was saying.

"People should be more like horses sometimes… Thank you, Epona. I have to feed the others now, but I'll sing for you later, okay?"

Malon quickly took care of her other chores and then helped Mr. Ingo finish the last of his work, for which he gave her an appreciative nod, sang for Epona like she'd promised earlier, and after a cheerful dinner — well, Dad and Malon were cheerful, Mr. Ingo was reserved as always — she went to her room to go to bed, taking care to brush her hair before she did.

She liked her bright red hair, since it reminded her of Mom. In fact, her hair color was all Malon could really remember of Mom's appearance, and Dad didn't have any pictures, either. She wondered how Mom would react if she knew how people acted around Malon. She'd always been very kind, but Malon had a single fuzzy memory of Mom being really angry with a man who visited the ranch, and she'd been really scary then, with that big knife in her hand. She couldn't really remember what happened afterwards, but she'd never seen the man again, and Mom had never gotten that angry again, either. But maybe she would have if someone was mean to Malon, because Mom had always loved her, to the point where the last words she remembered Mom saying were, "I love you so much."

For the second time that day, Malon felt her eyes burn. She really didn't want to cry. She preferred to laugh, and she was happy living on the ranch with Dad and Mr. Ingo, but some days were just…harder than others, usually days where she'd gone into town.

She sighed and lay down in her bed. She turned the lantern off and looked outside through a crack in the curtains, staring at the glittering stars in the sky. Just when she was about to look away again, she saw the thin white streak of a shooting star, and she quickly tried to think of a wish.

I wish I'd meet people who like me.

The thought shot through her head before she'd even really processed it, but she knew it really was something she wanted. She smiled faintly and turned onto her side. Hopefully the stars had heard her wish…

Pretty early in the story to go this heavy on the angst, but if you look at how people in-game react to the Gerudo Mask I wouldn't put it past them to have the same reaction to Malon. I used a name generator to get the customer's names (though I'll probably go back to making them up myself going forward), but I especially liked the first one, Kakos, because it's Greek for 'bad' and he's an asshole. In any case, that's the last viewpoint character introduced, so now we can get into the actual plot. See you in the next one!