Chapter Text
The first time he encountered one, Link was hunting for hightail lizards with his slate.
He wasn’t sure exactly where he was – he had been going for a few days now in the same general area, and thus hadn’t needed to check his map that often. One might think it was stupid not to know where one was, but Link kind of liked the excitement of being just a little bit lost.
He had just finished his lunch and was paying very close attention to the hot-cold mechanism of the slate telling him if there were any pesky lizards nearby, when he saw something unusual flicker out of the corner of his eye.
Instinctually, Link looked up from the slate. Much to his confusion, there seemed to be nothing there, and when he looked around, his surroundings were clear too.
He blinked a few times. Maybe being isolated for so long wasn’t such a good idea after all.
Link decided that it was in his best interests that after a few more lizards, he should find the nearest stable to spend the night. As much as he liked going on exploration adventures, it was never a good sign when he started questioning his own vision.
He turned back to the slate. According to the sensor, there were no lizards nearby. Link frowned. Just a few seconds ago, it had been telling him that there were several of them –
The flicker appeared again, this time more profound.
Link’s head shot up. This time he knew he wasn’t imagining it. It had been kind of weird, kind of like –
Turning around again, this time Link stopped short.
A little ways away from him, a person that Link was 100% sure hadn’t been there before was kneeling in the grass, examining something.
He wasn’t a very imposing person. Quite the opposite, in fact; Link’s immediate first impression of him was that he was… soft. He had soft, curly light brown hair and skin softly dusted with freckles. His clothes would imply that he was merely a traveller, with his tunic being made up of dull browns and greens, but at his waist were a myriad of doohickeys that Link was sure no mere traveller would be able to get their hands on.
“Who goes there?” Asked Link, more curious than afraid. This guy could easily be a Yiga – but even so, Link could handle the Yiga no problem.
Surprised, the man – was he a man? He could just as easily be a teenager – looked up, and with the movement Link noticed something he had failed to register immediately.
The teenager, crouching in the grass, was saturated in an ethereal green light most obvious where it gradually covered his feet. Around him, little ghostly fires danced in the air, and Link’s eyes widened.
A ghost.
Now, obviously Link knew ghosts were around. He had plenty of experience with them to know that – however, he had never seen one randomly in the wild before. Theoretically, he knew they must exist, but the thought of possibly encountering one had never crossed him.
Link watched, slightly stunned, as the ghost’s eyes widened. “Wi-” he began, but abruptly cut himself off. “Oh, um, h-hi,” he went for instead, his eyes darting around nervously, looking at anything but Link.
“Hi,” Link said back, finally shaking off his surprise.
A ghost. A ghost! Link broke out into a grin as the ghost scrambled to stand up from where he had been crouching. With a jolt, Link realised that he could vaguely see the grass and trees straight through him, as if he were a faded painting.
“Uhm, uhh, you… you can see me?” The ghost tried nervously. He still wasn’t looking at Link, instead staring intently at his feet.
“Didn’t you make yourself visible or something?” Asked Link, his grin settling into a softer smile.
“I’m not exactly… really sure,” said the ghost, raising his hand behind his head in embarrassment. “It’s not like… being a ghost gets explained to you or anything…”
Finally, the ghost raised his head to meet Link’s eyes. The two stared at each other for a few seconds, before both breaking out into giggles.
“Fair enough!” Link chortled, striding forward to a more comfortable conversation distance. The ghost didn’t move, watching Link with a smile.
“So, what brings you way out here?” Asked Link, motioning to the mountains and trees surrounding them.
“Oh, nothing much,” said the ghost. “I’m just hanging around, I guess. I really like looking at the different wildlife and plants you can find around here – I could stay here for days and never get bored…”
Link’s smile grew. A man after his own interests!! He could always appreciate someone who loved nature as much as he did.
“I know!” Exclaimed Link, excited. “Right now I’m looking for lizards, but I always come out here when I need to find something to cook with, as well!”
“Yeah, there’s heaps of stuff around here that’d be good for that,” smiled the ghost. “You look like someone who really values what you put in your cooking, right?”
Link nodded, but frowned. Normally he could find random ingredients all over the place, but around here specifically there didn’t seem to be any.
“Wanna help me look for lizards?” Link asked, holding up his slate. The ghost broke out into a smile, and nodded eagerly.
The two began making their way over to the nearby rockface, where lizards liked to lay in the sun. Link couldn’t help but notice that his companion moved completely silently, and his feet left no indication he had been there in the grass.
“What’s your name, if you don’t mind me asking?” Link asked, the question having been on the tip of his tongue for a while. The ghost smiled again, and Link was glad that he hadn’t been rude or something.
“Uhm… Hyrule,” said the ghost softly, a nostalgic look on his face.
“Hyrule?” Link asked, blinking. It took him a moment, but he realised that the ghost was telling him his name – not just giving a random non sequitur. “Cool name!” He offered, because it was.
Hyrule chuckled. “Yeah, it’s certainly… unique. What about you?” He asked back, stopping as the two reached the rockface.
“I’m Link!” Exclaimed Link. “Nice to meet you, Hyrule!”
Hyrule smiled, a glint of something unreadable in his eyes. “Likewise,” he said, and Link grinned.
The two knelt down, and Link started scanning the rockface for a flash of red lizard. “Is this nearby where you died? Oh wait –” he said bluntly, his eyes widening. “Is it rude to ask that to a ghost?”
Hyrule laughed. “I don’t think anyone minds that much,” he chuckled. “I certainly don’t – it probably just depends on the person.” Link sighed in relief, and Hyrule continued. “But to answer your question, no – this is nowhere near where I died. In fact, where I died is long, long gone by now…” he trailed off, sounding nostalgic again.
“Really?” Asked Link. “This might sound weird, but I was around 100 years ago – maybe I know it?”
Hyrule let out another laugh. “Thanks, but you wouldn’t,” he said. “When I say long gone, I mean really, really long. Thousands of years sort of long,” he smiled, crouching down to examine the bottom part of the rockface.
Link’s eyes widened. “Seriously?” He said, turning to look at Hyrule in shock.
Link hadn’t thought it was possible for a ghost to stick around for that long – and why would anyone want to? Surely anybody would go insane from boredom, right? “By the Gods, not to be rude, but what are you still doing here?” He asked, unable to fathom it.
“I’m waiting for someone,” smiled Hyrule, turning his head back up to look at Link.
Link couldn’t imagine how anyone Hyrule knew when he was alive could possibly still be around for him to wait for, but decided not to ask, even though he desperately wanted to know. Hyrule offered no answers, and the two turned back to the rock in silence. Link’s mind was filled with questions as he resumed his examination.
“Found one,” muttered Link, collecting a hightail lizard. “Only need a few more, I think…”
“There’s one over here, too,” said Hyrule, waving at Link and pointing over to the side of the rock Link couldn’t see. “I can’t touch them, so you’ll have to come and grab it,”
Link obliged, stepping over to join Hyrule. He quickly spotted the lizard Hyrule was referring to, and added it to his collection.
“Wait a second…” said Link distractedly, crouching down. He needed to take inventory of what was in his slate. He couldn’t feel or hear him, but out of his peripheral vision, Link saw Hyrule step to stand over him and peer curiously at the slate’s screen.
A small smile couldn’t keep itself off Link’s face. He couldn’t imagine Hyrule would have seen anything like his slate before. But wait – this was ancient technology, right? And Hyrule said he had died thousands of years ago – did that count as ancient? Were the two from similar time periods –
Quickly needing to distract himself, Link swiped a few times and found himself at the food section of his slate. “Uhm, earlier you said something that confused me a bit – I mentioned collecting ingredients, and you said there were lots around here, but I don’t see them – are there things around here that I don’t know are edible or something?”
“Ah!” Said Hyrule, sounding excited. Link stood up, turning to face him. “I was quite the traveller once, you know. I like to think I’m good at identifying things that are edible,” he smiled.
“Yeah?” Asked Link. Link enjoyed foraging, but truthfully, he relied on his slate to do the heavy lifting. If it didn’t recognise something, he wasn’t eating it.
Hyrule nodded. “Where I come from, food was really hard to come by. Any traveller worth their salt knew how to tell if something was edible or not – I imagine you use… your…”
“Sheikah slate,” supplied Link. “Yeah, this thing is great – but it also means I don’t know much without it, unfortunately,” he finished, glancing to the ground a bit awkwardly. A lot of the time he remembered things it had previously identified, but there was so much that it was impossible to remember it all.
“Oh!” Said Hyrule, a bit shyly. “Well… if you want, I can teach you some basics on how to tell if you can eat something?”
Link looked up, surprised. “That – that would be great, actually!” He exclaimed, already feeling his passion to learn beginning to flare up again.
Hyrule grinned, then began looking around the area for a suitable plant to teach from.
The two spent the rest of the afternoon in the small clearing, identifying bushes and plants Link wouldn’t have considered as edible before. He figured his slate didn’t pick up on them because they weren’t exactly most beneficial to him as food – the slate didn’t pick up on things like grass either, so it was probably just the same reason as that.
He learnt a lot about rough foraging from Hyrule. He learnt that it was better to split any plant he wasn’t sure about into parts, to cook them if possible, and to press them against his lips before putting them into his mouth. It seemed like common sense, but Link knew that common sense wasn’t all too common.
Several bushes he had passed many times before but had never given a second glance were entered into his slate as possible cooking material. Hyrule was clearly enjoying passing on his knowledge to someone – Link couldn’t imagine how lonely he must have been up to this point. The thought burned at him, filling him with an irrational sense of guilt at the realisation that he was talking to a dead person. A dead person who had been around for much, much too long.
The two ended up crouched back down in the grass where Link had first seen Hyrule, and he could now see that Hyrule had been examining a weed that had small, purple flowers. He didn’t recognise it.
“Aren’t you lonely?” Link blurted out, then winced.
Hyrule looked up at him with a smile much too old for his youthful face. “No… I’m alright,” he said, his hand attempting to fiddle with the weed but finding nothing. “My brothers are still around, as well. They keep me company,” he said, glancing away almost shyly.
“Oh,” said Link, dumbfounded. He hadn’t even considered that there would be other ghosts around from that long ago.
Hyrule’s hand stilled where it had been fiddling through the weed, and he turned his head to look up at the sky. “It’s nearly nightfall,” he commented. “You should find a stable soon, don’t you think?”
He was right, of course, but Link didn’t want to leave his new friend. Hyrule was the most interesting thing to happen to him in weeks – and he would feel terrible leaving him to be alone again, even if he had his brothers.
“Want to come?” Offered Link. “I’m sure, uh, I could find a way for you to keep up with my horse –”
Hyrule laughed. “Thank you, that’s very thoughtful!” He said, smiling. “But you don’t want me along – and I have things to do. I’m not even sure how you’re able to see me right now – it could wear off at any moment…”
Link couldn’t imagine what Hyrule could possibly have to do, but he had no rebuttal to the visibility argument. It looked like he would have to go back to running it solo – not that he minded that, either.
“Ah, that’s a pity, but I understand,” said Link, already getting up and beginning to readjust his gear. “I hope we can meet again someday, though – I’ve really enjoyed chatting with you,” he smiled, and Hyrule gave a bright smile in return.
“And I’ve enjoyed chatting with you, more than you can imagine,” Hyrule said happily. He stood up to meet Link. “I know we’ll meet again,” he said, and he sounded so confident that Link couldn’t help but to believe it too.
Link smiled, briefly turning away to re-check something on his slate. “Until then – I’ll see you later,” he said, finishing his fiddling and turning back to face Hyrule.
“When – oh,” said Link, his eyes finding themselves coming to rest on nothing.
Hyrule was gone, and the clearing held no evidence of him ever being present.
Link stood in silence for a second. “Bye, Hyrule,” he muttered eventually, turning to step deeper into the forest, towards the exit.
-
Hyrule watched him go, smiling sadly.
“See you later, Wild,” he muttered, before turning back to the weed he had originally come here to study.