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The King of Red Lions hadn't been in favor of another side-trip to Windfall Island, citing urgency in a very well-trodden argument, and Link pretty much agreed. But the King of Red Lions was also, Link had found, utterly terrible at remembering that humans needed things like food, and not only were they in the area but Windfall was basically the best place around to get supplies anyways.
And, if he was being perfectly honest with himself, Link was lonely. The King of Red Lions tried, but he wasn't very good at talking and was also made of wood, even if he was the spirit of a human person living in a boat. And most of the rest of the alive things they met were trying to kill them. Link was pretty sure the last time he'd been for-real around a normal person was when him and Medli were making their way through the Earth Temple.
That sucked.
He was the Hero, and things were probably supposed to suck for him, or something, and it was true that he got to see all sorts of cool things like Great Fairies and secret temples and ancient Hyrule. And he saved Aryll! But now he had to save the rest of the world. And he didn't feel much like the Hero when it was just him, and a tiny, silent boat, and the vastness of the ocean, and wind.
So, they docked at Windfall Island a few hours before twilight.
The King of Red Lions saw him off with a few grumbles about not wasting time, but Link ignored him, like he was pretty sure the King of Red Lions expected him to do. He patted his back for the Master Sword and his sleeve for the Wind Waker and his satchel for the letters and his rupees, and set off up the hill into town.
Like always, Windfall was bustling, this time with housewives running back and forth to get last minute ingredients for dinner and children enjoying hard-won freedom from school, which they hadn't had on Outset because Grandma taught him and Aryll everything they needed to know, and all sorts of people just getting done with work. Link bought fruit and bread and dried meat, even though they didn't have the really good smoked fish from back home, and he'd had to get used to all the weird fruits that didn't grow on Outset. Even the bread was different. He missed Grandma's soup. Maybe he'd be able to get the King of Red Lions to agree to visit there next time they were sort of near, even though they'd stopped by for a few minutes in the middle of the night after Link left Medli in the Earth Temple.
He also got more thread to repair the new rips in his tunic like Grandma had taught him how when her hands started getting too shaky for fine work, and some more sword-taking-care-of supplies, even though the Master Sword didn't seem to need any cleaning, which was kind of creepy. And lots and lots of paper, for letters, because writing on a boat meant mostly he made a mess.
Once all his shopping was done, he walked down to the postbox by the docks, ignored the King of Red Lions swinging his head around to stare at him, and took out the stack of letters from where he kept them safe from seaspray and blood and getting cut deep in his satchel. He weighed them in his hands, names and addresses in big wobbly letters on the front. Grandma. Aryll, which would hopefully get to her even though she was with the pirates. Komali and the Rito Chieftain, to explain about Medli. Another one, that the King of Red Lions had super patiently helped him write, to Valoo, to also explain about Medli. He wasn't sure how such a big dragon would manage to read that tiny piece of paper, or if he could even read, but the Rito would hopefully find a way to get it to him even with Medli not there. Another one to Grandma, if he decided to not send the first one, and a whole package of letters for the rest of the island, with some weird souvenirs he'd found stuffed inside also. A blank envelope with a letter for Tetra, or Zelda, or whatever, that he wasn't gonna send at all, because even the Rito couldn't get under the sea. A short one for Medli, except he had the same problem with sending it as the one for Tetra. A third one for Grandma, asking her how his parents died and how to make soup, that didn't even have an envelope. He shoved that last one back to the bottom of the stack.
“Link?” said an almost-familiar and definitely-shocked voice, and Link spun around, reaching instinctively to the Master Sword. Then he recognized Quill, with all his grey-white feathers like ash and his fancy purple postman uniform, and lowered his hand as fast as he'd brought it up. He grinned sheepishly.
“Sorry for startling you,” said Quill, all apologetic.
Link shrugged and made a face he was pretty sure conveyed the emotion of sorry I almost stabbed you.
“I hadn't expected to see you here, although I don't know why I hadn't. Even Heroes need supplies.”
Link snorted a laugh. Maybe the King of Red Lions would listen more if he heard Quill say it too. Probably not. The King of Red Lions hardly listened to anyone, even Link who he let do most of the sailing.
Quill laughed too, then commented lightly, “Yeah, I should have thought of that, huh?” He touched down from the air finally and leaned up against the postbox. “So, how are you, Link?”
Link thought about how good he was getting with the sword, and about the new scar on his ribcage from when he'd been too slow in the Earth Temple that still stung, and about the way Medli looked when he left her behind, and about how happy he'd been to see Aryll again and know she was safe, and about the legendary things he'd seen and the amount he'd almost died, and about the fact that he had to sew his birthday-present-tunic back together again, because it was one of the only things he had from before this all started and he refused to stop wearing it. He shrugged.
Quill sighed, and put a hand on Link's shoulder. Link watched the way the feathers dripping from his elbow swayed in the northwest breeze, to focus on something that wasn't interrupting him, even though having his shoulder touched when he didn't ask was making him almost twitch. “I don't know what you're going through,” said Quill, as Link thought about how it would look if he reversed the wind's direction and got the feathers all confused, “but know that the Rito will always give you whatever aid we can.” Quill shut his eyes. “You saved us, when we didn't ask you to, from a problem we should have been able to solve ourselves. You've already been told this, I know, but Dragon Roost Island is in your debt, and we will always be happy to help you out, even if we're dealing with our own problems.”
Quill had always been Link and Aryll's favorite of the postmen who stopped by the island, because even though he looked stern at first, if he wasn't so busy he would always spare them a few minutes to tell them about some distant island he'd been to with the mail. Blinking, Link realized that he recognized nearly all the islands he could remember from Quill's stories. Had he visited that many places? That was weird. He wasn't sure he liked that.
He grabbed Quill's hand with its long fingers like talons with his own hands, wrapped them around the wrist, and lifted it off his shoulder.
Quill jumped a little, then said, “Oh, I'm sorry, Link, I forgot.” He paused, so Link nodded. “That reminds me, though,” he continued, drawing his hand back to his side. “Have you heard anything from Medli recently? It's a bit of a long shot, I know, but she's been missing for a week or more now, and the whole island's in a frenzy.”
Link closed his eyes, wrapped his arms around himself, and rocked back and forth on his heels, one hand messing nervously with the Wind Waker hidden in his left sleeve.
“It's alright if you haven't heard anything!” said Quill. “I just thought—”
“She,” interrupted Link, and like always it was difficult to form the words between his mind and his tongue, but this was important, so he had to try, “stayed.”
That had been one of the hardest things about losing Aryll, and going away from Outset Island. Link had never been much good at talking, so Aryll had always done the talking for both of them, and sitting way up in the lookout tower surrounded by seagulls they had made up a secret language out of gestures that only they could understand. Well, them and Grandma, and the rest of the village too, a little bit, but there were some bits that were secret to just the two of them even still.
Luckily, the King of Red Lions was good at learning languages without being taught them, or maybe they were just out on the ocean with nothing to do but watch each other for that many hours, but Link wasn't so lucky with the rest of the world. He missed Aryll. She always knew what he wanted to say, even without their secret language.
“...she stayed?” repeated Quill, turning a sentence into a question like people sometimes did. “Link, what do you mean? Where did she stay?”
Link opened his mouth to try and answer, but like usually, the words got stuck like spiderwebs in between his lungs. He nearly stamped his foot in a sort of panicked frustration, would have done before this birthday, but nearly dying a lot had got him a weird sort of self-control even when he was angry.
So instead, he slipped the Wind Waker out of his sleeve. His eyes still closed, he ignored Quill's shocked gasp at the sight of it, and concentrated.
Called by its power, the winds came, hovered impatiently around him and played in his hair, lawless and familiar and waiting for direction. And for them to play, he conducted the Command Melody, heard it echoed back to him in the wailing keening pitch of high north winds, the gentle susurrus of Windfall Island's own breezes, the hissing tug of sunset zephyrs from the west, the deep note of an easterly wind to ground the phrase.
He'd not tried this song on anyone alive but Medli before, but with how it had worked with her, a way to skip past words entirely to let her know his ideas for puzzles or pass encouragement to her so they could make it through the Earth Temple together even with him being bad at talking, he guessed it would work similar on other people too.
As the last note faded and the winds scattered, he felt the careful link form between him and Quill, and he answered Quill's question with a series of memories. Ganondorf, looking all contemptuous at the Master Sword. The Earth God's Lyric. Medli and him sneaking out of Dragon Roost to not disturb Prince Komali. The horribly still, dank air in the Earth Temple, heavy like it hadn't been moved in centuries and centuries. Him and Medli falling over giggling after she accidentally blinded him with light off her harp and he ran straight into a wall, then almost stabbed her. The look on Medli's face when she told him she was staying and asked him to look after Prince Komali. Leaving her. Being alone again.
Opening his eyes, Link brought the Wind Waker up and to an abrupt stop to draw the melody to a close, which left Quill blinking over and over like Link and Medli had both done the first time they tried it. Link felt only a little sorry because the rest of him was busy trying not to cry. Or maybe trying not to yell. He wasn't sure. He was for-sure shaking, though.
“Link?” asked Quill, his voice all light and airy like he didn't know what to think. “Was that you? Did you—”
Link cut Quill off by biting his lip and shoving the stack of letters at him. Quill took them, and Link was pretty sure he looked confused, but instead of looking more, Link sank down until he was sitting on the road's cold cobblestones, his face pressed into his knees and the Master Sword's hilt caught at a weird angle so that it dug into his back.
He hated. No, he didn't, he was just sad, except it was the kind of sad that made him want to sail with his face in the wind for days and days and hit things with his sword a lot. Tetra was down in ancient, dusty Hyrule, stuck in some weird hidden room and maybe safe or maybe not. Medli had to stay in that horrible dark Temple that didn't even have any air currents to lift her wings, just skulls and mist and undead monsters. He didn't know who the Wind Sage was gonna be, but they'd have to do the same thing as her, and he hated that too. Was sad about that too. And he had the winds and the seas but he had no friends that weren't underground, and Aryll was with the pirates and safe but he hadn't even really been able to rescue her properly, and they couldn't even go home together, not yet.
Link wondered if it was like this for the Hero of Time, too, and thought it probably was. The King of Red Lions would know better, and he'd never had any comfort to offer. So. It was just a Hero thing, being lonely was, probably.
“Link?” Quill was saying, his voice a different kind of soft now. “Link, are you alright?”
Link moved his face from off his knees which had got all wet from crying at some point, and looked up to see Quill crouching in front of him, his face wrinkled around the eyes kind of like Grandma always got when him and Aryll stayed out too late climbing cliffs or trying to catch lizards. One of his hands was hovering between them, like he wasn't sure if he should touch Link or not.
Link took a deep and sort of shaky breath. He nodded.
Quill didn't look convinced, but Link stood up, trying to breathe steadily, and slipped the Wind Waker back in his sleeve. It was chill to the touch even though he'd been holding onto it so tight his hand felt stuck for however long he'd been crying, chill with the south wind he had called on to get here and the westerly breezes rolling in with the reds of sunset. He had a big heavy blanket on the King of Red Lions. That would be nice, tonight. He nodded again.
Quill stood up too, still looking dubious. He glanced down down at Link's stack of letters in his hands, and then said, “Were you going to mail these?”
Link nodded, shaking almost not at all. He grabbed the letters back and sorted through them, stuffing the ones he couldn't send back into his satchel, then shuffling through the rest over and over.
“I'll take them for you, for free,” said Quill. He was moving his weight from foot to foot like Link sometimes did when he got impatient. “It's the least I can do, if you won't let me help elsewise. Please, let me do this, at least.”
Link nodded, and handed the letters back. That was really nice of Quill, and Link knew he would get the letters where they had to go, safe.
He nodded again, to make sure Quill knew he was saying thank you, and then shoved his hands in his sleeves. The sun was a sliver on the horizon now like a slice from one of those oranges that grew all over some of the islands near Forest Haven. It was getting cold. He pretended all the leftover trembling was just shivers.
Quill frowned again, looking kind of helpless, sort of like the way he'd looked at Link after rescuing him and Tetra from Ganondorf. “...stay the night at Dragon Roost if you're ever in the area,” he said. “You'll have a bed and a hot meal. Link…”
Link made a face and shrugged, even though he really wanted to follow Quill back there right now, Wind Temple be damned. But Medli was deep in the Earth Temple now, and even without the King of Red Lions telling him how they had no time, it would be really weird. And Prince Komali would be really sad. And.
“Link,” said Quill again, so Link looked at him again. “May the winds of the Goddesses blow always in your favor.” He sighed, shut his eyes. “Stay safe, Hero. There are people waiting for you to come home to them. In the meantime, I'll get your letters to their destinations, okay?”
Link made a wan smile, and in a loud flutter of wings, Quill took off, and Link was alone again.
So he walked back to the King of Red Lions, and unfurled the sail, and wrapped his blanket around himself, and wondered as all the stars came out when he would see Aryll again.