The Legend of Zelda: The King's Sword

Part Eighteen: Tellers Of Tales

Zelda's POV:
The leaves gradually grow as we continue into the forest. The speckled, sparkling pink walls have been hidden by the woods of a similar appearance to Faron, lush and green. The forest canopy is only slightly lower than in the Red-Leaf Pass, and the golden sun twinkles have turned the color of algae in the luminescent illusion of the forest. We walk until the Pass is no longer visible, and the path is invaded by grass the same ambulatory comfort as the sand. "What time is it?" Link breaks the silence of the woods. "I'm not sure..." I look up again, and the sun (A. N. is a deadly laser.) has seemed to pass its highest point. "You hungry?" he walks more slowly until he stops. I turn to face him and wait for his speech. "...I brought your sweet bread." he smiles kindly again, and he holds my hand to usher me toward the root of a curly-branched tree. Link sits down and pulls out lumps of brown paper containing the saccharine delights. We eat in silence when I finally notice the faint chatter of bugs and a stream. We crumble our wrappings into Link's bag and continue. Only seconds pass of walking into the woods when Link almost whispers, "Oww!" he stops in his tracks to pick up a small acorn from the grass and eye it closely. "That's odd." I study it with him. "I don't remember any squirrels living in Eldin." he thinks I don't notice, but he drops the nut into his pocket. The swampy sounds get louder, and a round thing flies and hits Link in the right temple. "Agh!" he picks up the pebble and tosses it onto the ground, "Who's there?" he turns his head around, but not his body. I halt to look around, but Link steps forth a few to search for an assailant. He turns to face me but is hit in the chest guarded by a tunic and layer of chainmail. "We know you're out there!" he calls. I face what he does until I hear a high-pitched, "HEEYAAAH!" from where Link stands. A small person falls out of the loudly rustling trees and fires projectiles at him, but he takes no damage. The individual makes bird-like grunts as it lands on all fours and throws more things at him before scurrying up to another tree in the thick brush. The leaves and branches above flail violently, and an angry name is called, "JUNIIIIIP!!!" Link crouches in time to examine a few wooden shards that look like tiny knives, while also ducking the diagonal landing of the small person attached to someone new and struggling against them on the ground. The screeching one looks to be a girl, the other a young woman. Link stays crouching to watch them wrestle, holding four of the weapons in her right hand. The dark brunette juvenile pins the child on her stomach, then stands, holding her by the hooded collar of her light blue shirt while she tries fruitlessly to escape by flailing her arms and legs. "My apologies, travelers." says the older girl. "Forgive my little sister for disturbing your peace." she scowls at the child who growls, "Let me at 'im, Ivy! I can protect the woods all by myself!" "Quiet, you. What brings the both of you?" the older one asks politely. "Intruders! AGH!" the girl gives up pulling away from her sister and crosses her arms at the ground. "You're right that we're travelers." Link stands up before her at seemingly a few inches higher. He holds the knives for her to take. "The both of us are from far south of here; Faron Woods," I approach the rest, "Do you know of it?" "I do, and my town may know more. I had no idea that people liv- Junip!!!" The small one has scurried up another tree and into its silvery branches calling, "You can't catch me up here, loser!" "Goodness," the girl says, "If you're passing through, you should stop by our village." Link looks down from searching the trees to her and replies, "Are you sure we aren't any trouble?" "Of course not. We've never had human visitors before..." she squints at me, then at Link. "Come to think of it, wait! May I see your hand?" she steps cautiously toward him and studies the right hand of Link given to her. Upon turning the palm over to its backside, she gives a hoot as if terrified, turns away, then studies it again. I join them to see, then the girl resurfaces from the leafy ceiling, her dark ponytail swinging like a pendulum. "What's up, Iviya!" "He's- he's- he's-! LOOK!" she directs the back of his hand so that Junip can see. She drops herself from the trees, rolls backward, stands up, and turns to look, screaming as well. "What's wrong?" Link blinks in perplexed innocence when the taller girl with a brown apart from her loose hair drops to a kneel. "Master, you're the Chosen One..." she lifts her head to check. "Right?" His eyes shift to me when he answers, "Y-yes..." "Hey," the climber points to me to bring her sister's attention. "This one's pretty, so you should check her out too." Her sister gasps loudly with an open mouth and stutters, "Y-you, and y-you're! You're the- the-!" "The Goddes Lady?" Junip wryly finishes. "The GODDESS LADY!!!" Iviya squeals, laughing, "Oh, my goodness, I'm sorry for treating you like regulars!" she blushes. "Please," I try to conceal my worry, "Get off of your knees, girls." "Please." Link agrees. I hold my hand out for Iviya to take. She hesitates, then over-reverently stands with its lift. "I have heard tales of the both of you all my life." "I'm going to meet you guys over there," Junip dismisses herself up the tree behind Link and calls, "I can smell a roast already!" Iviya excitedly smirks at us, and down the path into the purple woods. "Follow me." she remains composed, but outwardly very excited. She starts at a brisk walk but slows in case we ever ask to. Her velvety, violet sleeve is much larger than her arm, and the garment wraps around her right shoulder and only covers that side of her body. She seems to be wearing a sleeveless tunic underneath, and shin-length pants as loose as her sleeve. She, like her sister, doesn't wear shoes, and something about this energetic girl reminds me of Impa. A wind with no warmth or coolness dances through the trees, finally filling the air with a sound other than words or footsteps. A few leaves sail through the air similarly to snowflakes. Could this girl be...a Sheikah? Junip startles us all when she lands in our stride and starts down a hill. "Look!" Iviya points toward a village nestled in a pink canyon, shielded by the forest hill from the sunset. "Welcome to Kakariko." The village sits in its own garden of autumn-colored trees and puddles of lagoons. It grows outward from a dirt path, with some buildings indented inside the mountain walls. In the distance, there appears a lagoon larger than I have ever seen, stretching almost further than the horizon. "It's beautiful." Link has never externally expressed this about a place before. When I see his mesmerized face, I see the truth. The beauty of this place reflects on his visage. "Come," Iviya smiles back at us, and trudges carefully with her arms out at her sides, down the hill. "I know quite a few who would die to meet you." There seems a faint, musical voice and strings plucking emanating from the village. "Can you smell the food?" Iviya calls up as Link holds my hand while slipping his feet down the hill. "Yes," I answer. "You'll be happy to know that it's nearly dinner time," she replies, and under the trees, the village reveals itself. Children and furry, four-legged animals scurry along and across the streets of flattened, green grass. On each side, families of golden and sandy-skinned people lounge before their houses in wooden chairs and stroll around, while few with hair tied into buns add ingredients to sizzling, steaming pots and pans over fiery coals. A warm smell an amalgam of meat and vegetables fills me with a sense of homey comfort and wonder as to what it could be. On the right-hand side of the street, five musicians sit under a white-bark tree in the grass, two strumming lutes with many more strings, one on a deep-sounding lute taller than the young man playing it, one wrapping a metal triangle that emits a light, morning-like sound, and a woman with long, braided silver hair that lays on the ground playing a string attached tightly to an upside-down club, rubbing the string with a violin's bow. The instrument with sounds like an impressively high voice. Her red lips smile her friendly teeth at me, and she resumes her focus on playing. The woman wears the same eye symbol Impa wore on her forehead. "Guests!" shouts down a sleeveless, barefoot boy hanging from a tall tree. "GUESTS!" fiercely responds a teenage boy wearing loose-fitting pants, a top that hangs from one shoulder, and a part of the hair on the side of his head is short and fluffy like down. The people of the town seem to wake from the dead, and we foreigners behind a local one are finally regarded. "Would you like to sample some of my roasted beef?" a tiny, white-haired girl holds up squared of browned meat on a stick and politely entrusts them to my left hand. "Thank you." I smile back nervously; I haven't a clue what it is. "This is our home," Iviya points to a wide tree with fibrous, grey bark, and leaves covering the sky, as the place is nearly tall as the Great Tree of Faron, "You should come in and see. Will you?" the girl turns back to us. "Of course." Link breezes, peering up at the windows carved through the wood. Iviya lifts a sheet and moves aside from the doorway to allow us entrance inside the dimly, yet fully lit chamber. Their home's interior is the hollow of a tree, meticulously and imaginatively carved and smoothed to the point where stairs, balconies, bookshelves, nooks, windows, and floors flush with the walls as if they were grown that way. Link bumps his forehead against a cluster of clinking wooden bottles hanging from somewhere on the ceiling and tethered to each other by ropes. He looks away from me, glancing back while both of us withhold laughter. "How did you get here so early?" Iviya calls up to several floors above. "I ran!" Junip leaps down from a nook on the third floor to the second with food in her mouth and clay jar in hand, "And I climbed." "I see," Iviya resumes her moon-like voice, "Master, Your Grace, you both are free to remove your shoes at any time and any hospitality you desire is yours. Do you wanna sit down?" she turns around and welcomes toward a sofa surrounded by furry blankets and giant pillows. "Yes," I smile in return, "Please." "I shall bring you some tea and then we can go to sup with the rest of the village," she scurries off to a corner with a fireplace and boiling pot and yells to her sister, "Don't eat all the almond cookies!" I hear Junip trodding the wooden floor above us shouting back with a voice crack, "Shut up and let me hide 'em!" "On the top shelf?" "On the top shelf!" the little girl appears as Link sits beside me on the soft, squishy couch, hanging upside down from the wooden edge of the floor above with her clay jar right-side-up by the brim. "Wanp ffome?" she offers us almond cookies, which clog her speech. "No thank you," I say, and Link agrees. We wouldn't like to spoil our appetites. Junip climbs up and disappears. "Forgive me for asking..." Iviya trails off. "Go ahead," I disclose, "Ask anything you like." "What brings you into the Red-Leaf Pass?" she briskly steps back toward us holding two tiny ceramic cups billowing with steam. "Oh. We have lived in the south of the Surface for three years," I reply. "We have seen the field and longed to go across." "Ah," Iviya hands me the warm, clay-red drink carefully, and the same for Link. "It led you to us." "Yes. Link?" I ask with my eyes for his input. "Hm? The tea is sweet. Thank you," he stutters, "Sorry. The journey. We only know the forest, desert, and mountain, but were curious for the longest about the area connecting them all." "Yes?" Iviya sits cross-legged on a pillow to listen. Link sips the tea again and continues, "We even climbed...what did you call it?" he asks, touching my hand. "An escarpment?" "Yes. A hike and a climb all to get here. Actually, we came to explore. We had no clue there were humans out here." The sheet in the doorframe whips away, and a teenage male bursts in, flustered. "Ivy!" he shouts, "Sorry to barge in with our guests, but I need some lettuce..." he's the boy with the partly-shaved head. "And some rice..." "You can't just-!" Iviya stops her irritation at the young man picking vegetables from the table beside the circular window beneath the stair. She sucks her teeth, "Fine, whatever, just-ugh. You still owe me carrots!" she calls after him--he seems a little older than she is--as he sprints back outside. "I got you, don't worry!" "We'll be out for dinner!" Iviya turns forward again to speak to us. "Who was that?" I ask. "Jyundak," she pronounces words with a certain finesse. "He's a really close friend." "He goes fast." "Hardly ever, actually," Junip speaks from upstairs disdainfully. "Only when he's about to make a promise he can't keep." "He follows up eventually," Iviya explains, "Except there are only a select few things he considers important enough for him to care about." "Such are many teenage boys," I jest. "Just ask Link." He smiles and giggles quietly as he can. "Speaking of, please continue, Master Link." the girl scoots her pillow forward. "Ah, yes," he begins. "The first sign of life we saw in the Pass was a small man in a wheeled house." Iviya's eyes widen, "The Demon Lorwock? Oh no." "What about him?" I ask. "He didn't curse you or anything, did he?" "He gave us a furry blanket and made funny gestures," Link flutters his fingers. "But no effects have shown themselves yet." "Great," Iviya sighs, "Master Link..." she stands up, "Your Grace. I would love to ask now, but if you wouldn't mind after dinner..." she laces her fingers together, "If you could...tell your story to the village at the campfire?" Link grins as if he had expected her to ask. I nod to him, and he answers us, "Of course." Applause emanates from the villagers when Iviya ushers us back outside.