"Tell me… Do you ever feel a strange sadness as dusk falls? They say it's the only time when our world intersects with theirs... The only time we can feel the lingering regrets of spirits who have left our world." Rusl moved his gaze from the waters of the spring to the reddening sky. The look in his eyes...was it hope? Sadness? Link couldn't be sure. This whole conversation was confusing to start with. "That is why loneliness always pervades the hour of twilight… But enough talk of sadness…" Rusl turns to Link. "I have a favor to ask of you, Link." Link's stomach tightened. The people of Ordon village asking favors of him was nothing unusual… but the context and tone of this conversation made Link nervous for what might be asked of him this time. "I was supposed to deliver something to the royal family of Hyrule the day after tomorrow… Yes, it was a task set to me by the mayor, but… would you go in my stead?" Link's stomach relaxed a bit. Certainly not what he had been fearing, but this...he didn't know what to make of this quite yet. "You have… never been to Hyrule, right? In the kingdom of Hyrule, there is a great castle, and around it is Castle Town, a community far bigger than our little village. And far bigger than Hyrule is the rest of the world the gods created. You should look upon it all with your own eyes." Rusl stood from his spot in the sand. "It is getting late… We should head back to the village. I will talk to the mayor about this matter."
Rusl turned from the spring and headed for Link's horse, Epona. A strong, hardy horse. But also wild and unruly. Epona was picky about who she trusted, and who she would allow to touch her. So far, the only people approved by the stubborn mare were Link himself, and Ilia, a young girl from the village, about Link's age, with a strong love for animals. And equally as stubborn as Epona, according to anyone of the village whom might be asked about her. It wasn't much of a surprise to anyone that the two girls got along.
Link stood himself up as well and took one last long gaze at the twilight sky.
"Odd, isn't it?" Rusl piped up from where Epona stood, noticing the way Link looked at the sky. "In all my years...I've never seen the sky turn this color, this… wine red." One hand grasping Epona's reins, Rusl lifted his face to the sky. "It's almost unsettling. I've heard of smoke blotting out the sky and turning the sun red, but not like this. Not this deep, or this vivid. Not to mention that the air is clear as can be." Rusl sighed through his nose and turned towards Link, holding Epona's reins out to him. "Come on, son, it's time we get back to the village before the wife has both our heads."
Back to Ordon village they trekked. Across a long rope bridge, decorated in flowers and vines, through the trails that led from the spring to the village and through the woods.
Upon reaching Link's house on the outskirts of the village, the pair said their goodbyes and went their separate ways. Rusl, meeting his wife and son—Uli and Colin—by the entrance to the village, and Link leaving Epona to graze and relax as she saw fit outside of his humble home. With nothing else to do at the moment, Link climbed up the rope ladder to his house and headed inside to relax before turning in for the night.
"Hey! Link! You there?" Fado called from outside Link's house. And Link, without missing a beat, popped his head out of the small window on the top floor. "Hey, you mind helpin' me herd the goats? They ain't listenin' to me lately!" Link disappeared from the window. He was never one for talking, and the villagers understood this. It was just his way. But regardless, Fado knew that Link was coming out to help him.
Outside the house, Fado did a double-take at the empty post where Epona normally stood. "Hey, where's Epona?" Fado asked hesitantly.
When Link emerged from his front door and saw the space empty, deep confusion furrowed his brow.
"C'mon now, hurry up an' bring Epona with you." Herding the goats at the ranch had always been a two man job. Two man job meaning Link and Epona. Link on his own wasn't a very intimidating creature, not to mention the time and energy it would take for Link to run around the ranch on his own. From personal experience, Link's found that running and flailing his arms doesn't do much good against a herd of stubborn goats. He'd found (repeatedly) that their fragile goat pride demands they'd sooner ram him into oblivion than be herded into the barn without Epona to set them straight.
'I'll bet Ilia took her to the spirit spring again…' Link thought to himself. Epona suddenly disappearing wasn't horrendously uncommon when living in the general vicinity of Ilia. Link had teased her for being a bare-footed horse thief on multiple occasions. 'To the spring, then.'
A short walk through the wooded trails and Link was at the gates of the spirit spring. As predicted, Ilia stood ankle-deep in the spring, facing Epona. As she began to reach for Epona's face, Link caught her attention, watching quietly from the spring's gates.
"Oh, hi, Link." Ilia turned away from Epona, facing Link with a soft smile. "I washed Epona for you!" Pleasantly surprised, Link returned her smile. "Epona works really hard, so I thought she deserved a treat! Oh, but listen, Link… Could you do something for me? Can you use a piece of grass to play that song for me? You know, the one that Epona likes?"
Link looked to the small patch of horseshoe shaped grass beside him and grabbed a piece. Putting the grass to his lips, Link played a short, simple melody. Epona whinnied in delighted response.
"It's such a nice melody… Epona looks happy," Ilia trailed off. "Well, she's all prettied up now, so I suppose you can ride her back. But don't you make her do too much, OK?" Silent as ever, Link only nodded, reaching for the mare's reins. Reins now in hand, he steered Epona towards the gate, away from Ilia and the waters of the spring.
Link took a single step forward, Epona's reins still in his grasp, before halting. Every hair on his body stood on end, goosebumps covered his arms and a shiver ran through him as a sudden breeze blew past him. Every instinct told him something was very wrong, and that that gust had been far from natural. Releasing Epona's reins, Link whirled around to face the spring, expecting nothing more than to be laughed at by Ilia for being too jumpy. When Link's eyes met hers, it was like gazing into a mirror. The same clammy unease had settled onto them both. Clearly concerned, Ilia opened her mouth to speak, but cut herself short when the sight of a white blur falling into the spring caught her attention. Ilia hadn't seen much more than a blur out of the corner of her eye, but when she looked to Link, his usually blank expression twisted into sickened horror, her insides twisted in fear and confusion. Afraid to look, she whispered to him, "What is it?"
"A girl." Link croaked the words out.
"What?" Ilia spun around to face the mass of cloth and hair that had fallen into the spring, Link already sprinting to her side.
The water was red. Blood. So bloody, as if her entire insides had been ripped from her body. In her sheer panic and horror, Ilia had been frozen to the spot, unable to so much as avert her gaze away from the bloody girl.
"Go get help! Get on Epona and ride to the village as fast as you can! Alert Uli as well, tell her to get her med kit ready!" Link was looking at Ilia now, moving to crouch next to the bloody girl. "GO!" The assertiveness in his voice snapped Ilia out of her trance of terror and at last she began to move. Still shaking, but determined, Ilia hauled herself onto Epona's back and took off towards the village.
"Poor thing. The child has been through so much already." A disembodied voice rang throughout the hollow. The Ordon Spirit himself. "There is not much I can do for wounds like these, no, but I can seal her wounds just enough to stop the bleeding. Be careful with her, young Link." Startled, Link stepped back from the girl's body as the water around her began to glow. When the glow began to fade from her outline, the blood stopped flowing from her wounds, and the blood that had already spilled from her body into the spring began to disperse.
Still shaking, Link reached for the girl's jaw, fingers fumbling for the hollow between the jaw and the throat and praying for a pulse.
One…
Two...
Three....
Her pulse was slow and weak, but it was most definitely there. Somehow, this bloody and brutalized girl who had fallen from the sky, was still alive, still fighting for her place in this world. Link thought she might have one hell of a story to tell should she survive her wounds. Realistically, he would acknowledge the fact that her wounds were too great and would soon take her. But today was hardly a day to be realistic. A half-minced girl falling from the sky into the healing spring of a spirit once thought to be dormant… No, today was not a day to be realistic about anything.
Hand still resting beneath the base of her head, Link curiously examined the girl's face. Her expression was soft, peaceful even. Shocking, considering what seemed to have happened to her mere moments before falling through a crack in the heavens. Evermore the curious young man, Link examined her facial features. Tan skin—though paled from blood loss—softly arched and neatly groomed brows, long, dark and fluttering lashes. He wondered what color her eyes were. Still pondering, a thought struck Link like a blow to the chest. What shape were her ears? Carefully, Link brushed her long hair away from her ears, and his heart skipped a beat. They were beautifully long and elegantly pointed. Like his. He had never met another person with ears like his. Everyone in Ordon Village had round ears, and Link had been utterly alone in the village with this trait.
The sound of panicked shouting accompanied by the pounding thunder of Epona's hooves snapped Link from his curious trance. Illia and Rusl burst into the clearing atop Epona, with a gaggle of concerned villagers in tow not far behind them. Rusl drops himself from Epona's back, carrying a makeshift stretcher under one arm, Mayor Bo emerging from the crowd to grab the other end, red faced and panting from the hurried trip.
"Link! Bring her here!" Rusl and Bo each gripped one end of the stretcher and waded into the water where Link stood. "By the gods…" Rusl didn't allow himself to finish his thought. Bo stood quietly in stunned silence. Carefully, Link hooked his arms underneath the girl's body in an effort to pick her up. When the feeling of flayed flaps of skin brushed against his bare arms, he nearly dropped her back into the water.
"Her back is covered in wounds. Big ones." Link stared at Rusl, wide eyed and fearful, his eyes searching Rusl's for what he should do.
"Flip her over, lay her on her belly. We can't afford to upset the wounds any more." Link did as Rusl told him, trying carefully to set the girl on the stretcher in his panicked state. With a quiet twump she was laid on her front, head turned to the side and arms flung out beside her. Rusl looked up at Link, still in shock. "Good enough, I suppose. Let's hope she won't remember you manhandling her if she wakes up." 'If…' The word echoed in Link's thoughts, followed by a sense of dread and premature guilt. Hearing the word from Rusl before his own thoughts was not a comforting realization.
"Alright, let's get this poor lass back to Uli. She's setting up as we speak." Rusl set his mouth into a thin line, eyebrows furrowed and eyes focused on each step he took.
A parade of villagers followed Rusl and Bo back across the bridge and through the forest, gathering outside of Rusl's house as he helped carry the unconscious girl inside. The villagers whispered worriedly amongst themselves, the commotion filling the area with a soft buzz.
Uli used her apron to wipe the sweat from her hands before motioning to the men where to set the stretcher down in her living area. Seeing the girl's wounds up close, Uli's eyes widened in horror, a hand flying to her mouth to cover the startled gasp.
"Dear gods... I'm going to be sick…" Uli reaches for a nearby bucket, emptying her stomach into it, the image of the girl's wounds burned into her mind. After her retching had ceased, Uli reached for a towel to wipe her mouth.
"Uli… don't force yourself if you can't do it. I can… if you'll walk me through it, I can care for her."
Without looking to her husband, Uli holds up a hand and reaches for a pair of cloth cutters. "I can do this just fine. Grab me that towel and bucket of water, would you?" With no words left to be said, Rusl silently did as Uli told him, and sat quietly as she worked on the numerous gruesome wounds the girl had received.
When the sun had gone down completely for the night, the gaggle of villagers outside of the home dwindled, until the only one left was Link. He stared at nothing in particular as he sat on Rusl's porch, bouncing his leg impatiently, wracking his brain for ways to help, or things he could have done better when he found the poor girl. If she died, would it be his fault? Did he not act fast enough? Did he pick her up wrong and upset the gashes further? Around and around and around his thoughts went, until the creaking of a door behind him finally broke the cycle of self torment.
"Link? You're still out here?" Rusl poked his head out from the doorway before carefully stepping out and shutting the door behind him. Sitting next to Link on the porch, Rusl sighed heavily. "We don't know if she'll make it. She's okay for right now, but the wounds were so deep… and she lost so much blood… The lacerations on her back have been cleaned, stitched, and dressed. We found two more wounds though… Bites, it looks like. Big ones. One on her calf and one on her shoulder. I can't for the life of me figure out what did this to her, Link. And she looks so young, if she doesn't make it I don't know-" Rusl trails off, looking at the ground. "I don't know what I'd do with myself if she didn't make it," he whispered.
Link paused for a moment, contemplating his next words. "I've been thinking the same things, Rusl. I've been thinking about what I could have done differently since you took her inside... I haven't found a single answer, to any of my questions. At this point… we can only wait for her to wake up. If… she wakes up." Rusl gave Link a sympathetic look, placing a hand on the boy's shoulder.
"Go home and get some sleep, Link. You won't be of any help in this state. Eat something, sleep, and come back in the morning to check on her. Alright?" Link said nothing, but nodded dejectedly, before hopping off the porch and leaving for his home at the end of the village. Rusl was right. He would be no good to anyone in this state, much less the girl.
Link could only wonder if he'd manage to fall asleep at all tonight. He just couldn't shake the weight of his growing dread, feeling that the day's events were only the beginning of something terrible