Chapter Text
She was alone, yet not alone.
Link squinted against the light. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. The light simply was.
“Hello?”
She shouted, and her voice echoed back to her. Hello, hello, hello, hello...
She shuddered, suddenly afraid. “Where are you?”
There was nothing else, nothing but white emptiness and light as far as the eye could see. A vast, endless void of nothing. She was alone…and yet...
Link turned, and saw her.
Link knew it was a she , whatever the shimmering figure was. She didn't know how she knew, but she knew it as surely as she knew the sun would rise each day and set each night.
Master .
The figure had not spoken, but Link had heard it. Heard the word in her head as clearly as if it'd been spoken right next to her. And with a thrill in her gut, Link knew her.
Master , the figure said again, and there was warmth in Fi’s voice. I am pleased to see you remember me, for I have never forgotten you.
“How…” Link swallowed in a dry throat. Fi . That was her name. Link knew it. How did she know it? She had no idea, but she did. Link tried to speak, but the figure Link knew to be Fi spoke first.
The time is near. I calculate a ninety-seven percent probability that Ganon will return within the next ten years.
“What…” Link began, but Fi continued as if she hadn't heard.
Find her , Fi said. She is waiting for you.
“Who?” Link croaked, forcing the words out. “Who is waiting for me?”
Find her , Fi repeated. Her form began to recede, to grow fainter, her voice quieter. She is waiting.
Link was suddenly desperate, full of a terror she'd never felt before. Now she shouted, “ Who?! How will I know?”
You will know. Fi’s voice echoed as if from far away. Because you have always known. Because she has always known you.
A flash, and Link gasped. A head of shining golden hair. Eyes green as emeralds. A smile as bright as the sun. And an ache in Link’s gut, a desperate longing.
Find her, Fi said, voice barely audible now. Find her. She is waiting.
Her voice faded, and her final words came as if on the wind.
The time has come for you to awaken, Link... Wake up!
“Wake up!”
Light. The soft sunlight of the far-too-early morning. Link forced her protesting eyes open, rolled over and sat up cross-legged on the floor of the wagon, staring blearily at her mother's stern face.
“Time to get up, Link, Aryll. We're here. Eat your breakfast and get dressed. Your father and I will need help setting up the stall when you're done.”
The wagon flap closed.
“Aryll,” Link yawned. She jostled the shapeless lump of her little sister on the blanket next to her own. “Aryll, get up.”
“Buh,” Aryll grunted. She sat up, blinking. Stared at Link as if not recognizing her, slowly took in the rest of the wagon. Her eyes landed on the breakfast their mother had left for them: a piece of dried meat, a hunk of cheese, a heel of bread, a small apple, and a cup of water each. She blinked again.
“We're here?” she asked, looking back up at Link, who nodded.
“Yep.”
Just like that, Aryll was wide awake and tearing into her food like their parents had starved them before that morning.
“Chew!” Link laughed, watching her wolf down the cheese.
Link took her time with her own food, but Aryll was done, presentable, and out the flap in minutes. Link smiled, watching her go. Every stable looked the same to Link: a large, ramshackle tent in the shape of a giant horse-head, out-buildings and side-rooms glommed on willy-nilly as needed. But to her sister, every stable was an adventure.
Fifteen minutes later Link herself left the wagon, apple in hand, wooden sword strapped to her waist. She munched as she walked.
Even this early in the morning, with the sun barely above the horizon, the stable was a riot of activity. Dozens of stalls were being erected, guided by shouted commands from their owners. The smaller merchants had already gotten theirs set up and were yelling incentives and welcomes at the few stable guests who'd begun to trickle out.
Their own stall was a smaller wagon hitched behind the main one. As Link appeared she saw that the sales window had already been opened and the shelf set out. Aryll stood beside their mother, arranging bolts of cloth.
“There you are,” her father said as Link walked up. “You can help me put out the clothing.”
He'd already made quite a bit of progress on that front, Link saw. The man could carry more in one hand than most people could in two arms. But Link tossed her apple core aside and hopped into the stall to get the rest of it.
Shirts, dresses, trousers, underthings, hats, caps, gloves, and much, much more besides. They'd spent all winter in making the next season’s wares and now, as Link hauled another box of socks from the wagon, she was starting to rue all that work. But with her help (and her mother's and Aryll's after they'd finished their own job), they had the entire contents set out for sale in twenty minutes. Link’s final task was to put up the sign she and Aryll had painted of a royal guard with sword in hand.
Lifted by her father, Link hung the sign on the hook above the sales shelf, and the four of them surveyed their work. Her parents declared it well done, and then her father turned, drew in a deep breath, and bellowed “Hateno Guard Clothiers, now open for business!”
Link's job while the stall was open was to entice customers to come. This she did, as always, by standing well out in front of the stall and screaming.
“ HATENO GUARD CLOTHIERS, THE FINEST CLOTHING FROM THE CENTER OF HYRULE FASHION!! ALL YOUR FASHION NEEDS, RIGHT HERE AND FOR A PRICE YOU'LL NOT FIND BETTERED ANYWHERE! HATENO GUARD CLOTHIERS!”
She liked it. Screaming was fun. She always got results, too – a scrawny blonde girl waving a wooden sword around and screaming was hard to ignore even among the din and racket of the marketplace. Soon there was a steady stream of men, women, and children examining their wares.
“Oh, this is lovely ,” a well-dressed elderly woman said, feeling a bolt of cloth that Link’s mother had handed her for inspection. “Such vivid color.”
“From the famed dye shops of Hateno village,” Aryll dutifully and proudly recited. “You won't find better quality anywhere.”
“I'll say not,” the woman agreed. “I've seen cloth half this quality for twice the price from other merchants. I'll take the entire bolt.”
Aryll earned a caramel candy for that.
“I told you,” Link’s father whispered. He'd come up next to her to see how she was doing, but his eyes had been on the elderly woman. She now walked off happily clutching her purchase as three more equally well-dressed customers arrived hot on her heels. “I told you,” he said again, ruffling Link’s hair. “This close to Castle Town, we're bound to get all the rich customers. Didn't I tell you that?”
“About a hundred times,” Link replied. Close indeed – Hyrule Castle itself was just across the river. Its towers rose above all else, visible from wherever one happened to be for a radius of miles all around.
Her dad was too focused on business to hear her. He ruffled her hair one more time, then lumbered off to address a man who was very intently looking through their selection of belts.
By the time the marketplace finally closed down for the day they'd run through almost half of their supply and Link’s father’s joy was equaled only by her mother's. It had been a long, hot, exhausting day, but all four of them were in such a good mood that Link was practically skipping when her mother sent her and Aryll to the kitchen tent to get food for their dinner.
“I think we can afford to splurge a little,” she said, eyes sparkling as she closed and locked the cash box. She dropped a number of rupees into Link's open palms. “Get something tasty for us. You both did very well today, I'm so proud of you.”
Aryll beamed at that, and a fierce flame of pride burned in Link's chest at her mother's praise. It lasted all through dinner and was still burning when her father set his bowl down and gave her the look that Link had been waiting eagerly for since she'd woken up that morning.
After the day's business was done, it was time for relaxation and fun. At a stable this meant traveling musicians with pipe, fiddle, and drum. It meant dancing, games, and gambling. It meant beer, ale, and wine that flowed like water. The food carts did a roaring trade.
“This way,” her father said, directing her into the main thoroughfare. He bulled his way through the crowd, thick arms and shoulders clearing the way easily, until they'd reached the center of the marketplace itself, ringed by the wagons and stalls all around them.
“Step right up!” he called, and the bullhorn of his voice made several nearby people jump. “Step right up and face the Tiny Terror! Try your luck, if you think you can win!"
A few people smirked. Several others snickered. Link, however, planted her feet wide and the tip of her wooden sword in the dirt in front of her and affected a look of such fierceness that a good number of people began gathering around them in curiosity.
“I get the tiny part,” one man called back, “but what makes her a terror?” Link's father flashed a grin at him.
“You're looking at the youngest swordsman,” he said, “in Hateno history.”
Scoffs at that, and several open laughs. “Swordsman?” the man snorted. “Hardly.”
“Then why don't you come up and test your luck?” her father challenged. “She's a little thing, but she's never lost a fight, even to men twice her age and three times her size.”
“If I were 30 years younger, maybe,” the man replied, eyeing Link. “Now, though, it'd hardly be a fair fight. But my Kenred here will take a whack at her.” He chuckled to himself. “ Several whacks, most likely.”
The Kenred in question was a boy who looked about fourteen, two years older than Link herself. He had a good few inches of height on her too, though Link had always been short for her age. The boy gave her a curious, but not unfriendly look. His father, however, was wearing a rather smug grin.
“Place your bets!” Link’s father cried, and the bets started rolling in.
“Fifty on the boy!”
“One hundred on the tiny one! She looks quick as a Lizalfos!”
“Twenty-five it's a draw!”
“Forty on the girl!”
Link’s father took down all the bets in a little book, noting clothing, hair color, hats, and whatever else he needed to identify the betters later. Her mother watched from the edge of the crowd, disapproval in her eyes. Link smiled at her, flashing her teeth and a thumbs-up. Her mother shook her head and muttered something under her breath, but she seemed more amused than anything.
Aryll was nearly bouncing in excitement at her side. “You can do it, Link!” she yelled through cupped hands. “Kick his butt!”
Link’s grin widened.
At last her father snapped the book shut and the fight began.
Kenred twirled the wooden sword Link’s father had supplied him, regarding her intently. Even so, there was an air of casual good humor about him as he sized her up. Raising a hand, he brushed a lock of sandy hair out of his eyes.
“Are you really as good as he says?” he asked, nodding towards her father, though his eyes were still on her. Link returned his gaze, grinned, and shrugged. Kenred laughed, softly.
Link brought her sword up, studying the boy. His stance was good. Solid and firm. Confident. Link was starting to think that maybe the boy had had some actual training. Her suspicions were confirmed a moment later when Kenred's father leaned over to the man beside him and said “Been giving him lessons myself since he was eight. I'm hoping to get him into the knight training program.”
Link's father raised his arm. The crowd went silent.
“Ready…fight!! ”
Link was on Kenred before the word fight had even left her father's lips. The boy’s face registered surprise, but then he was on his heels and his only concern was keeping her away from him. Their swords clashed, once, twice, three times. Link was driving him towards the crowd.
The crowd parted, bystanders leaping aside shouting as the two crashed through. Kenred's father fell backwards into the man he'd been bragging to and both of them went into the dirt looking terrified. And all the while Link kept driving Kenred before her.
There was naked fear in his eyes when his back hit the side of a wagon and he realized she had him cornered. He ducked. Link's sword cracked against the wood. “Hey!” the owner of the wagon cried from the pile of fallen people, but Link was already after Kenred again. He'd managed to roll under her strike and get himself back on his feet. His hair was a mess of sticks and dirt, his cheeks were smudged, and there were scratches on his arms from the roll. But as he righted himself and met her again, there was a fire in his eyes that hadn't been there before.
“I'm impressed,” Link said, and meant it. The same fire was in her gut. “Most people lose in the first few seconds.”
“You don't fight fair,” Kenred huffed, catching his breath.
“Dead is dead,” Link shrugged. “In a real fight, fair doesn't matter.”
She flew at him again, but Kenred was ready this time. He knocked her thrust aside easily and twisted, and as Link went past him Kenred's own sword came at her back. He'd gotten her off balance, there was nothing she could do to avoid it. The crowd was roaring. She could see Kenred's father, dusty and rumpled, and there was a look of triumph on his face.
It was a strange thing, but at moments like this, time always seemed to slow for Link until it moved like thick molasses. She could see every mote of dust in the air, hear the rustle of leaves on the trees and the ripple of water in the river, smell a thousand different smells – wood smoke, sweat, alcohol, roast meat. She saw her mother, hands over her mouth in fear. Her sister, screaming encouragement. Her father, shouting.
She was aware of it all, and she was aware of the sword now mere inches from the back of her neck.
In an instant, time began to move again.
She fell, boneless, like a puppet with its strings cut, the sword passing through the space where her head had just been. The crowd was screaming, but Link paid them no mind. In a second she was on her feet again. She took Kenred around the waist, bullrushing him entirely off his feet. Into the dirt they went, rolling and scrabbling and twisting and clawing at each other.
It ended in moments with Kenred on his back, Link straddling his waist, both wooden swords crossed at his neck.
The crowd erupted. Aryll was jumping for joy, screaming and cheering. Her mother merely clutched her chest in relief. Her father was already going around collecting money from a very large, sullen-looking group of men, which included Kenred's unhappy father. But for Link, all that mattered was the boy she'd defeated.
“Good fight,” she said, grinning toothily at him, allowing him to stand again. He looked stunned by what had happened, which turned to confusion when Link offered him her hand. What else could he do but take it?
“You're really good with that sword,” she said, giving him a firm shake. “I hope you get into the training program.”
“You're nuts,” Kenred said, but he was smiling. “Thanks.”
---
Her father was practically vibrating with glee when he showed them the winnings back at the wagon.
“ Two thousand!! ” he laughed, dumping another small purse into the cash box. “Two thousand! Link, my girl, you would've made your great, great, great grandfather proud. Maybe we should take a note from that smug guy’s book and have you try out for the knight program too! Did you know, your great, great, great grandfather was–”
“The King’s personally bodyguard, Sir Ranulf of the Guard,” Link drawled. “ Yes , I know, you've told us, like, a million times.” Yes, she and Aryll had heard the story over and over and over. Her father never seemed to tire of telling it. Whether it was actually true or not, though, Link had her own private doubts.
“Well,” her father continued, unfazed, “you did him proud today. And us. Your mother and I are very proud of you. Do you know, Freydis–” He handed the cashbox back to his wife. “--There are a couple more stables in the area. I bet they get people from Castle Town too. If we have the same luck with them as we did here, we could sell our entire stock. And if Link here–” He ruffled Link's hair again, making her giggle. “--keeps winning fights like this, we might make enough for a year or more!”
“Don't count your cuckoos before they're hatched, Arnolf,” Link’s mother said, but even she looked thrilled as she locked the cashbox in a small chest.
Link was glad to see her parents so happy. The winter had been long and harsh, and with the taxes to the Crown on top of all their other expenses they'd eaten through almost all of their savings just keeping food in their bellies. The previous year’s market season had been lean, the stables they normally travelled to less busy than before, the money Link won through her fights only barely enough to keep them going. It had been her father's idea to risk the journey to the stables near Castle Town in search of better profits.
It was all starting to work out, at last.
There was a commotion – from outside their wagon came the clamor of raised voices.
“What on earth…” Arnolf threw open the flap and hopped out, followed closely by the rest of them. As soon as they were out they could see a crowd gathered near the main road.
“What's going on?” Freydis asked a woman at the back of the crowd as they came up to join it. The woman didn't look at her, but nodded towards where the road curved away into the distance behind a hill. Link, craning her neck, could see nothing there…
A horse emerged from behind the hill. Atop the horse was a rider, and though Link had never seen such a rider as this before, she knew immediately that it was one of the Royal Guard. The blue-on-red uniform, the blue cap, the armored gauntlets and greaves – Link had seen drawings. The sword, however, which the rider carried was unmistakable.
It was said that the Royal Guard’s sword was a replica of the fabled Master Sword itself. A lesser copy, of course; no one had the actual Master Sword to examine. There were depictions, though, and stories. And so every Royal Guard wore a version of the Sword of the Goddess with which to defend King and Kingdom.
More horses came behind, and more again, each one with its rider, many dressed in the same uniform with the same sword, while others wore suits of gleaming armor; knights of the realm.
The procession was long, and took a great deal of time in passing the stable. Soon there were wagons and carts too besides armed and armored guards and knights, and in many of these wagons and carts there were men. Men who looked only half conscious, or addle-brained, or injured. Several of them lay in cots attended to by doctors. One had his head bandaged. Another seemed to be jibbering incoherently.
The crowd murmured as the procession passed. And now Link saw that to a man, all the mounted guards and knights were regarding the gathered people with unconcealed suspicion and distrust. Many of them had one hand on their swords as their eyes scanned the crowd. All of them seemed tense.
At long last the procession had passed, but it wasn't until the last rider had crossed the bridge over the river that the talk began.
“Did you see how the pigs looked at us?”
“Fucking Guards.”
“Probably just looking for an excuse to cut a few of us up. You know they get off on that, practically one of the perks of the job.”
“Taxed out the ass and it all goes to the bluebloods and their knights, eating fancy while we starve."
The crowd slowly dispersed, but the uneasiness didn't abate. “Come on, Arnolf,” Freydis said, wary eyes on the people nearest to them. “Let's go.”
“Yeah,” Arnolf agreed. “Yeah. Back to the wagon.”
---
“Why were there so many injured people?” Aryll asked, later, as they all laid down to sleep. “In the carts. Was there a battle?”
“No,” Freydis said, on the blanket next to Aryll, nearest the wagon flap. “Your dad and I heard from one of the other merchants, who heard it from the stablemaster. The story is that the King wants to find the Master Sword.”
“The Master Sword?! ” Aryll gasped.
“That's what they say,” Arnolf told her. “Apparently this wasn't the first royal procession that's come through here; they say the King sends one every month. Knights, Guards, noblemen's sons..."
“Where?” Link asked.
“The forest,” Freydis said, nodding her head towards the wall of the wagon, but Link knew she meant Korok Forest. It lay at the end of the road, a few miles north of the stable. In the heart of the forest was said to be the Lost Woods, the home of the Great Deku Tree and resting place of the Master Sword.
“It’s said only Hylia’s chosen hero can wield it,” Arnolf continued. “It's said the Master Sword will only be found in a time of great need. Of great evil and disaster.”
“Well, clearly they haven't found it,” Freydis said. She didn't elaborate, but they all knew what she was thinking. That the King wouldn't have sent so many guards and knights to find the Sword if there wasn't some imminent threat to the kingdom. That even though they hadn't found it, whatever they had found had wiped out a large contingent of the realm's finest warriors.
---
Link's sleep, when she was finally able to sleep, was troubled by the sounds of laughter. Laughter all around, like the mischievous laughter of children. She turned, but she couldn't see where the laughter was coming from. There was a light, though. A small point of light, bouncing and dancing in the air, and a sound like the rattling of nuts in a shell.
She awoke, suddenly and completely. The wagon was silent except for the soft breathing of her parents and sister. She sat up, looked around, half expecting to hear the laughter again, but there was nothing.
She lay back down. And then she heard it, a soft rattling noise. It was coming from just outside the flap. She looked, and there was a light. A small point of light shining through the spaces around the edge of the flap. And now there was laughter.
Again, she sat up on her blanket. Her parents didn't stir, nor did Aryll. “Mom,” she whispered, shaking her mother's shoulder. She didn't wake.
Laughter. Rattling. Light.
Link knew she should've been afraid, but oddly, she felt no fear at all. She knew that, whatever it was, it wouldn't harm her.
Throwing off her blanket, Link stood up. Carefully, quietly, she padded over to the flap. Her eyes fell on her wooden sword; she'd propped it up against the wall before going to bed. For a moment she considered taking it, but then she decided against it. Somehow she knew she wouldn't need it.
Laughter. Rattling. Light.
Link opened the flap and stepped out.
—
When Link’s parents woke in the morning and found Link missing, they weren't immediately worried. “She probably stepped out to relieve herself,” Arnolf said. So they woke Aryll and set to getting dressed. When they'd sat down for breakfast and Link still hadn't returned, Freydis started to worry. “I'll go find her,” Arnolf said, and stepped out of the flap. When he returned twenty minutes later and Freydis saw the look in his eyes, she knew something was very wrong.
The entire marketplace and stable put aside all else that day to find Link. They divided into groups and searched the entire countryside for miles around. They dreaded the possibility that news might come that a body had been found in the river or in the woods, drowned or torn apart by some beast. They even went as far as to enter Korok Forest itself, but no matter which direction they walked they always found themselves back where they'd started.
“She couldn't have gone in there, then,” Kenred's father said. His smugness had dissolved entirely in the face of such a terrible event. He and Kenred had planned to leave that morning to head to Castle Town, but they'd put it off to help in the search.
“Don't worry,” he said, and clapped Arnolf on the back. “We'll find her.”
But they did not find her, not all that morning or all that afternoon. By the evening Freydis was inconsolable and Arnolf was almost beside himself with anxiety. Aryll had cried herself out long ago; now she sat in a corner of the wagon, knees held against her chest, eyes red and staring at nothing in particular.
“We'll stay as long as we have to,” Freydis said. “I'm not leaving until we've found her. We'll go to the Castle for help if we have to.” Arnolf only nodded.
And then, as the sun was disappearing behind the horizon, a shout went up from the main road. A group had been set there as watch, just in case Link happened to return from that way. Arnolf, Freydis, and Aryll ran, hoping against hope.
There she was, tiny and shaking. Her clothes were torn, her hair and skin dirty. There was a distant look in her eyes, a lack of awareness of her surroundings that terrified them. Across her back was a scabbard and there, clutched against her chest as if she was afraid she'd lose it, was a sword.
“Hylia above…”
Freydis’s horrified whisper was loud in the sudden silence that had fallen over the gathered crowd. For all of them knew that sword, though they'd all only ever seen lesser copies of it.
Link had returned with the Master Sword.