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Chapter Text

Bombs
(set in the world of Twilight Princess)
Barnes takes great care to construct his wares according to Goron traditions.

Rupees
(set in the world of The Minish Cap)
Ezlo ponders the nature of magical artifacts and reflects on the ambition of his young apprentice.

Joy Pendants
(set in the world of The Wind Waker)
Miss Marie is content to let the Great Sea keep its secrets, but she knows treasure when she sees it.

Deku Shield
(set in the world of Ocarina of Time)
The Kokiri have no need of a shield until a small child without a fairy is delivered to them.

Golden Leaves
(set in the world of Link's Awakening)
On an island that may not exist, there is an owl who is more than he seems.

Quake Medallion
(set in the world of A Link to the Past)
The catfish in the Lake of Ill Omen has no patience for wish seekers, but he fears the boy whose form has not changed.

Fortified Pumpkins
(set in the world of Breath of the Wild)
Paya is one of the few teenagers in Kakariko Village, but she has her reasons for not leaving.

Sand Rod
(set in the world of A Link Between Worlds)
Osfala is more than ready to embark on a proper quest when the moment finally comes for him to meet his destiny.

Pictograph Box
(set in the world of Majora's Mask)
Koume listens to the woes of Tingle's father and reflects on what it might have been like to have a son of her own.

Keaton Mask
(set in the world of Ocarina of Time)
The guard standing watch at the gate to Death Mountain has Seen Some Things.

Life Tree Fruit
(set in the world of Skyward Sword)
Groose becomes the hero he was always meant to be.

Lynel Mask
(set in the world of Breath of the Wild)
Kilton has spent years observing monsters, but the most frightening creature he’s ever encountered is Link.

Chapter Text

Unlike other suppliers, Barnes made a point of painting the outer casing of his bombs with a thin coat of iron oxide paint. The Goron who had accepted him as an apprentice taught him to do this without any explanation, and Barnes adopted the practice without question. It was only later that he learned the source of this tradition, which was intended to mimic plants called “bomb flowers.” These plants used to grow in the shade of the foothills of Death Mountain, and their fruits were as large as a Hylian hand. It was said that they released their seeds by means of a violent explosion powerful enough to cause avalanches. Overharvesting eventually resulted in shortages, so the Gorons made artificial versions; not everyone is strong enough to blast through rock with their bare hands, after all. It was rare to see bomb flowers anywhere outside of the most isolated caves of the Eldin mountain range in this day and age, but Barnes still painted the bombs he made to resemble their fruits.

The paint he produced from ferrous salt was a rich blue, so deep it was almost black. There was no trick to applying it evenly, just patience and intense concentration. Barnes was a practical man, but he sometimes imagined himself to be an artist as he sat alone in his sprawling house in the shadow of the mountain cliffs. He would ignore the tickle of his glasses sliding down his nose as he focused on his paintbrush in the light of a candle flame flickering in the breeze created by the overhead fan. At such times his mind was prone to wander, and his thoughts would occasionally turn to the nature of gunpowder. Who could have invented such a thing? If bomb flowers had been a gift from an ancient goddess to a legendary hero, as the Gorons claimed, where had this artificial substitute come from? But such questions were no more than idle curiosities to pass the time, for Barnes had far more interest in the work of his own hands than he did in fantastical legends of forgotten eras.

Chapter Text

The great sage Ezlo did not exempt himself from occasionally leaving the odd rupee under a bush or in a patch of wild grass during his travels. It had been a daily chore during his apprenticeship, as it was for all Picori, and Ezlo continued the practice out of habit. Rupees were trinkets molded from crystallized Chuchu jelly. They were shiny and pleasantly smooth to the touch, but they had no more than symbolic value. Nevertheless, Hylians adored them, and they had used rupees as currency since the era when they lived in the skies. Only a child would think to look for them in the thick tangles of underbrush that served as pathways for the Picori, and it was for the happiness of children that young artisans continued to make them as part of their training.

Ezlo had long since moved on to grander projects, of course. He drew inspiration from stories of the masterworks crafted by legendary Picori sages: a jar that could store great gusts of wind, gloves that allowed the wearer to tunnel through the earth like a mole, a cape that could render even a full-grown Hylian as light as a feather. Ezlo had spent his life studying the principles of magical artifacts, and he felt that he was finally on the verge of understanding their true potential. If former Picori sages could imbue an object with the magic of a single intention, might it not also be possible to create something that, precisely because it was devoid of a specific utility, was therefore endowed with the ability to allow its user to customize it to do anything? Something like a wish-granting cap, perhaps.

Despite the loftiness of Ezlo’s ambition, he harbored doubts concerning the wisdom of such an undertaking. Many of the gifts the Picori gave to Hylians over the ages had been sealed away so that they would not be misused. After all, Hylians threatened to go to war over something so frivolous as rupees, which were nothing more than shiny baubles. This is why the Hylian royal family kept the knowledge of its sacred Light Force under lock and key, as even rumors of its existence could be devastating if they found their way into the wrong set of ears.

So Ezlo believed, but he had recently taken on a new apprentice who was far cleverer than he had any right to be. He wanted to provide a demonstration of his skill to the bright young lad, whose keen interest in advanced magic was contagious. He began to work on his magical cap in secret, justifying his actions to himself with the rationale that its purpose would surely be revealed at the proper moment. In the meantime, his apprentice needed to learn a bit of humility before working with true power, so he set the boy to making rupees before sending him out on trips to distribute them. If nothing else, perhaps the chore could help the fledgling Picori magician learn about Hylians and the ways of their world.

Chapter Text

Even on this empty stretch of ocean, there was wealth if a woman knew where to find it. The area her charts referred to as “the Great Sea” might be devoid of interest to most travelers, but it was precisely because it was so empty that Marie’s salvage operation was successful. She came from the north after hearing rumors from Goron traders about an isolated region littered with mysterious debris.

As it turns out, these reports were true. The small islands dotting the surface of the waves were surrounded by shallow reefs, and the water was so clear that she could see the shine of metal in the moonlight with her bare eyes. The chests she pulled up with the salvage arm attached to her small steamboat were oddly undamaged by the elements, almost as if they had only recently been tossed overboard. Marie never came across an actual shipwreck, however, and the entire region was shunned by pirates – and most other sailors, for that matter. Marie didn’t consider herself superstitious, but she couldn’t help but wonder if the Great Sea might not be cursed.

Despite her occasional apprehension, nothing untoward ever happened to her, so she stayed. Windfall, the small island she used as her base of operations while in the area, sustained a small population that lived in relative comfort despite its provincialism. Trade of all types flowed in and out of Windfall, with no one questioning the provenance of the goods that appeared at the public market or the identity of the sailors who docked their ships in the natural harbor. The town was prosperous but lawless, and its children ran unsupervised along its cobbled streets until the sun set, at which point they disappeared into whatever burrows they occupied within the warren of passages dug into the sloping hill of the island.

Having nothing better to do with her days and no better way to spend the money she’d accrued through her salvage operation, Marie set up a school. But what, she wondered, should she teach? Letters and numbers, certainly, and a bit of natural philosophy, but what else? The children would more than likely never leave the island, so they had no need of geography or language. History was a possibility, but what sort of history could such a secluded stretch of sea possibly have?

As she grew older, Marie settled into the rhythms of life on the island, and she grew to accept the lack of curiosity exhibited by the townspeople of Windfall. She’d attempted to learn more about the town, asking the children and their parents how it was founded, and who had first settled the island, and when their families had come to live here, but no one seemed to know or care. “There was once a kingdom,” people would tell her, “with a castle and a princess.” Their accounts of such “history” were wildly fanciful, and she listened more out of kindness than any real interest. At times, as she watched the sun sink below the horizon from the top of the island, she tried to make connections between the legends of a lost kingdom and the treasure she pulled from the sea, but these desultory notions were far too outlandish to entertain.

In recent years, however, a few items that found their way to market reignited Marie’s interest in the secrets of the Great Sea. Bokoblins had been spotted on rafts far from land, and she had even heard rumors that they were constructing watchtowers on the ocean. These rumors coincided with the sudden appearance of spyglasses and picto boxes equipped with beautiful lenses made of flawless glass, the likes of which no one had seen in decades, if not centuries. Marie heard rumors that these devices were sold to the traders by the Bokoblins, who had discovered a way to dive deeper under the waves than anyone ever had before. Whatever method they used, they certainly weren’t telling.

But Marie was a practical woman, and she knew treasure when she saw it. Along with the items of a more utilitarian nature, the Bokoblins who traded with the Windfall sailors and merchants exchanged supplies for lovely necklaces they strung together from gleaming glass and glossy enamel. Marie bought as many as she could get her hands on whenever they appeared on the market, and she employed agents to sell them on the distant mainland as exotic curiosities. There was never a shortage of demand, and she became a wealthy woman within the passage of a few seasons.

Marie purchased the claim to a small island south of Windfall for a pittance and set about building a luxurious private oasis. By accident, she discovered that the foundation of her cabana was situated on top of a much older structure. What she saw in the underground tunnels was unspeakable, and she sealed the entrance to the best of her abilities. Marie came to the pragmatic conclusion that it was best not to dwell on what might lie beneath the waves of the Great Sea. If legends were only legends, they could not hurt her.

And then one day a boy came to Marie’s classroom, a stranger to the island with salt in his hair and wind in his eyes. He carried a sword on his back, a rare sight in this age of pistols and cannons, and he wore clothing so green that it looked almost as if it were lifted from a page in a storybook. Everything clicked into place as soon as she saw him, the sunken chests and the half-forgotten legends and the otherworldly Bokoblin glass and the horror in the basement.

Still, she needed to test him to be sure. She decided to give him a quest, but she was at a loss concerning the details, as her own dreams of heroism were far behind her. If she knew anything about adventurers, however, it was that they love treasure. “To tell you the truth,” she told the boy who offered her the Joy Pendant she’d hidden for the amusement of the town children, “I’d actually like about twenty of them. But that would probably only happen in my wildest dreams.” He didn’t say anything in response as he nodded and turned to leave, but the grin on his face was all the answer and explanation she needed.

Chapter Text

There were no monsters in the Kokiri Forest.

Deku Scrubs conducted their business in root-lined burrows, but they were only interested in trade. Ghosts filled the stone ruins with their chittering laughter, but they kept to themselves and didn’t involve the living in the silly games they played. There were Moblin villages hidden away from Hylian eyes within the maze of the forest, but Moblins hunted only what they needed and traded with the Deku Scrubs for everything else.

Skulltulas dropped from their perches in the upper canopy when they heard movement, but they were no more dangerous than the pale mushrooms that adorned the mossy trunks of fallen trees. The Stalfos were doomed to wander forever within the thick undergrowth surrounding the Forest Temple, but these lost souls were more to be pitied than feared. Skull Kids lured travelers away from the safe paths through the woods, but they held no malice in their straw-filled hearts. They were no more to blame than the Kokiri themselves, who happily led curious youths deep into the mists and shadows between trees. Like any living creature, the forest needed to eat.

Monsters were creatures that attacked without reason, and nothing attacked the Kokiri. The woodland children carved shields to honor ancient traditions, but they had no need to defend themselves. For the Kokiri, the forest was the safest place in Hyrule.

But a new child had been brought to them, a special child. The Great Deku Tree asked the Kokiri to care for the boy and raise him as one of their own. Even clothed in the bright green of fresh leaves, however, he would never look or smell like them. He would need to defend himself, just as he would need the sword that had only been used in ceremonies.

The Great Deku Tree requested that a shield be fashioned from his own wood. The Kokiri cut a small slab from his roots even as the fairies flitting above their heads flashed with alarm. They adorned its surface with the emblem of their sacred treasure and painted its grooves with a gooey sap as red as the fires that burned on the plains beyond the safety of the trees.

One day the child would leave. He was destined to become a hero. But perhaps, after he finished his business in the outside world, he would return to them. Perhaps he would stay with them forever. Until then, no one who would bring harm to the boy would set foot in the Kokiri Forest. No one would dare.

There were no monsters in these woods, but it was a terrible place to lose one’s way.

Chapter Text

Once upon a time, there was a grand castle, and in that castle lived a princess.

No, that’s not quite right. In the castle lived a prince.

The prince had been cast out of his rightful place in the castle, and he needed to collect fragments of golden…

Triangles? No, not triangles. What use would anyone have for golden triangles? Leaves. He needed to collect five golden leaves. More properly, fragments of golden leaf that could be fashioned into a crown like the crown worn by a princess, perhaps. Or a prince, if the prince were proud enough to wear a crown.

The prince’s name was… What’s that, now? No, it couldn’t be that name. That’s far too common a name. It might be suitable for a country squire, I suppose. The prince’s name was Richard. That has a princely ring to it, doesn’t it?

The prince, having left his castle, set out to sea. Or did he? Perhaps he only retired to his villa, where he felt safely removed from the pressures of court life.

Won’t you go and help Richard find his golden leaves? If you can locate them all, perhaps he’ll grant you access to the underground path leading to the marsh spreading across the lowlands to the north of his villa like a puddle in the rain. I hear the tall grass hides a constellation of sinkholes, so try not to lose your footing. It might surprise you how deep the pits on this island can be. Why, you could fall forever, so do be careful.

It goes without saying that Richard will aid you on your quest. The key to the cavern by the lake was left in his keeping, if I remember correctly. You’ll find the prince’s villa to the south, but first you must head east across Ukuku Prairie.

Oh, what’s that? You want to know why that region of your map is blank? That’s an excellent question. But it doesn’t matter, does it? It’s important to go yourself to find out what’s there. After all, how can you know that something truly exists unless you see it with your own eyes?

Who am I to know all this, you ask? Just an owl, lad. Just an owl.

Chapter Text

The catfish had lived in the lake at the base of the waterfall for as long as anyone could remember. It was said he could grant wishes, but this wasn’t remotely true. He was just a catfish, and he spent his days sleeping contentedly in the deep pools rimmed by the rocky shoals. He loved listening to the murmurs of the earth while buried in the warm mud, and he loved sticking his head above the surface of the water and feeling the cool air coming down from the mountain on his whiskers.

But it was true that he had been in this world longer than most, and perhaps this was why the rumors of his wish-granting abilities spread. The fox-eared merchant who ran a small shop downstream came to the lake to bottle water for his potions, and he and the catfish often shared a pipe together. The catfish asked him to put up a sign requesting that no one disturb him in his favorite pond, and the merchant was happy to do so. He even added a warning that anyone who threw rocks or rupees into the shoals would be cursed.

There was no curse, of course. The catfish was just a catfish, albeit a rather large one.

The catfish had accrued some manner of wisdom during his long years, and not everyone who sought him out in the foothills of Death Mountain wanted a wish granted. Some people just wanted to know how to go home. Upon arriving in this golden land, they realized that whatever they had come for wasn’t as important as what they had left behind. Some people thought they would become heroes, but this world belonged to the monsters, and these aspiring heroes had given up once they understood that they’d become monsters themselves. One of them tossed a magic medallion into the catfish’s pond in despair, and the catfish kept it. He used the tremors it generated to scare away wish seekers. Most were not deterred.

The catfish pitied these people. Didn’t they appreciate the value of the wish that had already been granted? Not everyone was able to take the form of their inner heart or act according to their truest nature, at least not in the world they’d left behind. Isn’t that why they sacrificed everything they had to come here in the first place?

The catfish sometimes wondered if he himself had once been a man. Could he have come from Hyrule in an age so long past that it had faded from his memory? Wherever he came from, he was happy where he was, and this place was all he knew. It was peaceful here, with the king on his mountain and none of the wars that the wish seekers spoke of.

But then one day a true hero appeared, a young man whose form was not changed. The boy boldly threw the merchant’s sign into his pond, and the catfish was afraid. To get the hero to go away, the catfish gave him his magic coin, which was the only thing he owned.

Later, when the merchant came to see him, his face was as troubled as the catfish’s heart. Neither of them spoke of the boy, for there was nothing to say. There was nothing that could be done, and there was no sense discussing their shared sense of unease.

After all, if the hero succeeded, what would happen to this world? What would happen to them?

Chapter Text

Paya was one of the few teenagers left in Kakariko Village, and everyone doted on her as if she were still a child. She didn’t mind, as this allowed her to see things that other adults could not, and she even found herself feigning immaturity when it suited her purposes. Her grandmother seemed content to sit on her throne of pillows, as inscrutable as she was wise, while allowing Paya to conduct her elaborate performances of shyness.

The villagers all came to her grandmother with their problems, telling her only what they wanted her to hear. Meanwhile, no one paid any attention to Paya as she polished the wooden floors and washed the stone idols on the cliff above the river. To the people of Kakariko, Paya was as ever-present as the soft sound of the waterfalls flowing down the stern faces of the mountains surrounding the village. Why would anyone think to watch what they said around her?

This is why Paya knew, for example, about the trouble between the owner of The Curious Quiver and her husband, who’d consented to marry her despite already being well past his prime. Paya also knew that Lasli, the greeter at Enchanted, dreamed of leaving the village, and she knew about how Dorian, one of her grandmother’s own gatekeepers, routinely crept away into the forest under the cover of darkness. Paya knew that Dorian was one of the few people to return to the village after having left it in his youth, and she sometimes wondered what he would tell his two daughters when they were Lasli’s age.

Paya knew about how Olkin hated the husband of the woman who managed the general store, and she knew that he would pace through the town in a huff if she happened to mention something Steen said in passing. She knew the exact route he took, and she knew exactly when to climb over the fence into his field and cut a pumpkin or two from the vines. Paya may have been one of the only teenagers left in the village, but she still kept in touch with her childhood friends, and pumpkin vines struggled when planted in the sandy ground of the place they lived now.

When the hero finally appeared in the village, as Impa had long assured her he would, Paya was careful to blush and cover her face with her hands. She was supposed to be shy, after all, and it wouldn’t do to allow the young man with the piercing gaze to look into her eyes.

Chapter Text

Osfala was born to be a hero. When he was a child, his mother told him tales of the noble deeds of the Seven Sages, and she made no secret of the fact that he was a direct descendant of a sage himself. As she shared the storied history of their family, she assured him that there was no reason he wouldn’t enjoy a peaceful life, but Osfala knew he was destined for greater things.

Osfala’s first test of courage was to descend into the darkness of the dried-up well by the woods. He crawled through the secret tunnel at the bottom of the stone-lined shaft on his hands and knees before emerging into the small cave that served as a communal storage space for the village. When he bragged about this to the other children, however, he learned that this tunnel wasn’t “secret” at all and had been abandoned by them a few months prior in favor of a less worm-infested hideout.

Osfala therefore decided to challenge himself by exploring the forest. He remembered having once heard a story about a magical sword that lay sleeping in a hidden clearing, and he resolved to find it for himself. He had the blood of a legendary sage in his veins, and the sword was obviously meant to be drawn by his hands; he knew his heart would surely open a path to the sacred grove where it waited for him.

The old woman who managed the potion shop at the mouth of the river returned Osfala to the village the next day. She’d been gathering mushrooms in the woods when she heard him crying inside the hollow trunk of a fallen tree, hungry and frightened.

Perhaps he wasn’t meant to be a hero just yet, Osfala reasoned. Nevertheless, once his parents were willing to let him out on his own again, he approached the village elder Sahasrahla and begged the old man to take him on as an apprentice. Sahasrahla more than likely agreed as a favor to Osfala’s parents, but the boy was serious about his studies and soon came to know more about the ancient Sealing War than anyone save the elder himself.

Osfala waited for a dark interloper to appear at the castle, a mysterious stranger who would bend the royal family to his sinister will. The young princess was untroubled by ill omens, however, and her advisors helped her manage the kingdom with as much grace and wisdom as a child of her age could possibly possess. Osfala had once been impatient for evil to rear its snarling head, but he found that peace troubled him less as he grew older. Nevertheless, he remained vigilant.

When the castle was suddenly enveloped in a malevolent aura and the priest’s daughter disappeared into thin air, no one responded with more celerity than Osfala. He knew that three tokens of bravery were necessary to wake the Master Sword, and he knew exactly where to find them.

On his way to the old Eastern Palace, he happened to take shelter from a passing storm at the residence of a merchant who had set up shop on the outskirts of the castle. The man hid his face under a thick hood, but he was more than willing to show Osfala a magical artifact he had acquired on his travels. The wand, which the cloaked merchant told him could manipulate sand, would most certainly come in handy in the desert ruins. Osfala knew the hero’s legend better than anyone, however, and he knew that everything had its proper order.

Osfala was more than happy to take the wand from the merchant, of course. Such a powerful object was worthless in the hands of someone who couldn’t make use of it, and Osfala had never met anyone less like a hero than the shady merchant. People want to believe that the underdog will always win, but Osfala didn’t think that was fair. Why should some nameless nobody aspire to glory because of nothing more than a random twist of fate? Osfala had been preparing to embark this quest his entire life, after all, and hard work and perseverance meant more than destiny when it came to being a hero.

Chapter Text

“The boy is 35 years old, and do you know what he tells me?”

Koume tapped her fingers on the countertop without answering. This wasn’t the first time she’d heard this rant.

“He says he wants to be a fairy!”

Koume examined her nails. “I thought he wanted to be a cartographer?”

“That too! What will it take for him to settle down and find a proper job?”

I wonder who he gets it from, Koume wanted to say, but she kept her mouth shut. The owner of the Swamp Tourist Center wasn’t charging her rent to keep a small office here, and she saw no point in antagonizing him; it wasn’t her business to tell other people how to raise their children.

The “boy” in question was genuinely odd, to be sure, and Koume found his mannerisms and sense of style bizarre. He fancied himself to be in the map-making business, but she couldn’t begin to imagine what sort of person would be interested in buying a map of the eastern scrubland or the glacial cliffs to the north. Even to someone of her advanced years, 35 seemed a trifle old to spend your life pretending to be someone you weren’t.

Not that her own family was any better. Take Aveil, who amused herself by using a rusty hookshot she’d stolen from Hylia knows where to catch fish. She and her idiot cousins had recently taken to calling themselves pirates, although the only conceivable people they could pirate from were the Zora, who wisely ignored their antics. She and Kotake had finally given up on the lot of them and retired to the swamp to run their small potion shop in peace.

It only took about a month of quiet before Koume started to grow restless. Kotake, annoyed with her complaints, suggested that she set up a stall at the Swamp Tourist Center to help guide customers to the potion shop. That was almost as boring at sitting at home, so Koume planned and launched a boat tour of the swamp. It was a marvelous tour, if she said so herself, but it hadn’t quite caught on yet. A few people from Clock Town bought tickets out of curiosity, and every so often a few young Deku Scrubs would board her boat on a dare, but business was slow.

Koume leaned forward on her elbows and rested her face in her hands as she watched the owner of the Tourist Center tinker with a pictograph box. He was always making impulse purchases, Din knows where he got the money. He seemed to be operating under the delusion that a novelty like a pictograph box could somehow become a magic device that helped him connect with his wayward son, but it never was. No matter how rudely that boy of his dismissed him, however, he kept trying.

Maybe, in another life, she and Kotake would have had a son. What would that have been like, Koume wondered. She’d always wanted a son. A daughter would have been nice too, but she was partial to boys. If she had a son, she would teach him everything she knew. He would be weak at first – all boys were – but she would bring him up to be stronger than anyone. He would lead an interesting life, she was sure of it.

Come to think of it, a boat cruise wasn’t exciting enough. Koume thought it might be fun to incorporate target practice into the route she took through the swamp. That might be a little too ambitious, though – who could even use a bow these days? Shooting pictures might be a bit more reasonable. Given the Tourist Center owner’s silly obsession with manliness, she thought he would probably be up for the idea. She might even be able to convince him run a contest, but she would have to wait until his son disavowed any interest in the pictograph box.

Koume wanted to think that she and Kotake wouldn’t be rejected by a son they raised, but who could say? No matter how carefully you raise them, children grow up to be their own people, after all.

Chapter Text

He was a teenager when the fighting started, and he still remembered what Hyrule had been like before the war. Back in those days – not so long ago, really – Hyrule Field was filled with farms and orchards. Not much was left after the war, and what remained was haunted. A lively city sprouted like a mushroom in the shadow of the castle, but not everyone who’d lost their home could afford to live there. By order of the king, the old Sheikah village at the foot of Death Mountain began to welcome newcomers, but it was strangely empty when the first refugees arrived. Years passed, but few stayed.

He had become a soldier by choice, but he only took the post at Kakariko because he was ordered to do so. He hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary when he was first stationed here, but he could see a great deal from his post at the top of the hill overlooking the village.

There was a woman who never left her house, claiming from the other side of a locked door that she was waiting for her child to come home, but he had never seen anyone enter or exit the building. Equally odd was the young woman who said she was a farmer but was allergic to the cuccos she supposedly raised, allowing them to roam free through the village while she stared at the entrance to the graveyard with a gaze made of steel. There was a potion shop that never sold anything, and well as a group of carpenters who never built anything.

The Gorons from the mountain came and went as they pleased, always pleasant and polite as they passed through the gate to the village. They were so large and imposing that he couldn’t have stopped them if he tried. What was he guarding, exactly? Was he supposed to be a spy? If so, he was never asked to report to anyone. Why was he here?

It got worse at night.

The village was infested with spiders, and he could swear some of the ones that came out after dark were as large as cats. There was a steady hum of activity in the market square during the day, but in the shadowy silence of the night he could hear low moans and frantic rustlings, faint but distinct. The bumps and bangs in the shuttered house on the edge of town were so loud that they sometimes startled him, and he sometimes thought he could hear screaming coming from inside the empty well, Hylia help him. Eerie lights flickered in the graveyard in the hollow of the valley, where he had never set foot and hopefully never would.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing he’d seen was an underfed child in filthy clothing clutching a letter with the seal of the royal family. A short note written in elegant cursive on the thick parchment demanded that the boy be admitted to Death Mountain. Not knowing what else to do, he opened the gate and played the incident off as a joke. The path leading up the side of the volcano wasn’t safe, but there was something feral and dangerous about the child, who would surely have found his way past the gate regardless.

Now the boy was back and wearing a mask to cover his face. He’d been told that something called the “Happy Mask Shop” had opened in Castle Town, and he offered to buy the brightly colored mask, which was fashioned after a popular storybook character that his son favored. As he slipped the mask over his face, he thought about how happy it would make him to be able to give a present to his child the next time he saw him.

He saw his son less and less these days. He became a soldier to protect the people he loved, but it had recently occurred to him that he was one of the only people in service to the castle who had a family. What would happen to him if he left his post? Would he end up as one of the strange noises he heard in the night? And what would happen to his son? He was afraid of the village, but he was even more afraid to go home. He decided that he would hold onto the mask for the time being. Certainly no one who lived in Kakariko would judge him too harshly for keeping his eyes hidden.

Chapter Text

Groose didn’t believe anything the old woman said at first. It was improbable enough to be on the surface to begin with. He never really believed in the stories he told himself about being a hero, which made it all the more difficult to process that Link was actually destined to become one. He’d lived under the same roof as Zelda for years, and it still didn’t register with him that she was the reincarnation of a goddess. The thing at the bottom of the pit was unfathomable, and he’d prefer not to think of it at all if he didn’t have to.

The daily rhythms of his life with the old woman didn’t feel legendary. He woke up every morning, helped her braid her hair, and made breakfast for them both. They took walks together in Faron Woods, and he did his best not to be surprised by every new thing he saw for the first time. The people who lived under the clouds had fantastic appearances, from the fuzzy tree-dwellers who waddled like overgrown nuts to the rock-eating giants with skin as hard as stone. The travelers he encountered told tales of a world vaster than anything he could imagine, with “mountains” and “deserts” and expanses of grass so wide that it would take weeks of walking to cross them.

The concept of open land made his head spin, and it was much easier to occupy himself with the task directly in front of him. Wielding a sword was never his forte, but he could work wonders with a stick of charcoal. At night he propped his elbows on the slab of polished stone he used as a drafting table and worked on various formulas to improve the design of his magnum opus, the Groosenator. He had to admit that it was a ridiculous name, but the old woman found it amusing, so it stuck. He would never be able to battle the monster in the valley outside the temple – that was Link’s job – but he could most definitely Groosenate it.

As he became accustomed to Link’s comings and goings, his resentment of his former rival faded. It wasn’t as if he understood any of this time travel stuff anyway. First there wasn’t a tree, not even the hint of one, and now it was right there in the temple courtyard. He and the old woman kept it carefully watered and pruned and watched as its fruit grew slowly, ever so slowly, day by day by day. Sometimes, when he sat with the old woman in the evening and watched the moonlight create silver rainbows on the fruit’s luminescent skin, his mind was filled with visions of everything he could build, houses and roads and towns, perhaps even a castle. He could imagine that anything was possible while the old woman, a visitor from an age long past, sipped her fragrant tea beside him.

The tree and its fruit were everything Skyloft could never be. The island, beautiful though it was, had fallen into decline decades before he was born. Before he decided to try for knighthood, he’d wanted to be a mason, but there was no point. The stone houses had eroded from exposure to the elements, years of sun and wind and rain unbroken by clouds. No one still living knew how to repair the relics of antiquity. Even if the knowledge existed, where would the materials come from? Every tree was precious, and only a fool would try to dig into the ground separating the soles of their feet from the hostile sea of sky. Skyloft may have once been a divine wonder created by the goddess Hylia herself, but its days were numbered.

He loved Zelda, and he probably always would, but he never saw a relationship with her as a goal to work toward, and he’d given up on the academy years ago. He wanted something larger and grander than Skyloft, and he’d found it. Everything on the surface was new and fresh and green and filled with potential. Once Link dealt with the creature in the pit, their true work could begin. The mysteries of the tree and its strange fruit were all well and good, but what people really needed were four walls and a roof over their heads. Now that he had all the space and inspiration he could ever ask for, he would be able to build something magnificent.

If Zelda was a goddess, then she needed a kingdom worthy of her rule. The old woman agreed. Even though she only sighed and shook her head at the suggestion, he still thought it was a good idea to call it Grooseland.

Chapter Text

There was still deep magic to be found in Hyrule, but only if one were adventurous enough to go looking for it.

Over the course of his journeys, Kilton had been back and forth across Hyrule countless times, and he discovered many strange and secret places along the way. Hidden far from the more modern remnants of the Calamity were ruins of a different era, and some structures were so ancient that they seemed to belong to another world entirely. Kilton puzzled over the dragon totems deep within the seaside forests and stood in awe of the gargantuan maze looming over the cliffs of a desert canyon, but he was never in doubt that these monuments were the work of human hands. The memory of the people who erected mighty granite columns and carved their dreams into stone may have been lost in the flow of time, but that was the natural order of things.

Nothing about the demon that haunted Hyrule Castle was natural, so it stood to reason that the source of its power must be supernatural. Kilton began his research by attempting to understand the Blood Moon. There were no records of the phenomenon occurring before the Calamity, so it was only logical to conclude that it was somehow connected to Ganon.

Like most people in Hyrule, Kilton believed the nights of the Blood Moon were random and unpredictable. The only certainty anyone could agree on was that the bodies of Moblins and Bokoblins rose in the crimson light of the phantom moon, almost as if they had been reborn. After years of observation, Kilton realized it was actually the death of these creatures that caused the phenomenon to occur. The more monsters slain by armed travelers, the more likely it was that the Blood Moon would rise. It couldn’t be predicted with any measure of precision, but the cycle of death and rebirth was a numinous conservation of energy in its own bizarre and confounding way.

Solving this riddle brought Kilton no closer to understanding why the Blood Moon loomed over Hyrule, so he turned his attention to the resurrected creatures themselves.

As far as Kilton could tell, the monsters pulled by the tides of the Blood Moon established small colonies in every region and climate. Most of them were doggedly territorial. They would attack him as soon as they noticed his presence near their settlements, so he had to be clever. He wrapped himself in scraps of clothing discarded by the creatures to disguise his smell, and he stained his face with soot so that his skin would not reflect the light of the moon.

The more he observed, the more questions he began to ask. Did these creatures have a shared language? What was the extent of their communication? They hunted and slept in groups, and they forged their own weapons and armor. They had their own cultures and alliances and hierarchies, just like any of the other tribes of Hyrule. But where did they come from? And what were they doing here?

Everything started to make sense once the hero appeared.

Impossible towers rose across Hyrule, a mystery accompanied by the appearance of dozens of eerie structures formed of rough stone and gleaming onyx. People called them “shrines,” but it was unclear what deities they were intended to venerate. Kilton had become wild and strange during his long sojourn in the wilderness, but bits and pieces of the gossip of his fellow travelers still found their way to his ears. Rumor had it that all of this was for one man, the hero destined to wield the legendary sword sleeping at the center of a forest so forbidding that not even he had dared to set foot within the shadow of its trees.

Kilton kept watch, and his patience was rewarded. The first time he caught sight of Link, he was surprised to find that the legendary hero was only a boy, short for his age and dangerously lean. He watched as Link fled from the monsters whose hunts he gracelessly interrupted, but before long the boy became the hunter, shaving away horns and claws from the bodies of the creatures he killed.

This behavior was perplexing. What did the hero have to gain by fighting these creatures when he could easily have avoided their territories and simply passed them by? But the boy killed, and the Blood Moon rose, and the boy killed again. He never paused to observe his prey but seemed to confront the world as an endless series of challenges – and the world obliged him.

This won’t do, Kilton thought. This won’t do at all.

Kilton was aware of what people said about him, and he knew it was only a matter of time before Link sought him out. He therefore found a way to make himself useful. After much trial and error, he was able to stitch together a collection of masks that would help Link blend in with the various creatures he insisted on pursuing. His methods of manufacture were cruel, to be sure, but the boy aided him by delivering raw materials that greatly facilitated his research. The more data Kilton collected, the closer he could get to understanding what these creatures were and where they came from. During the rise and fall of many Blood Moons, he and Link thus developed an exchange of sorts.

Eventually Link made it clear that he wanted a Lynel mask.

Kilton was ambivalent. He had never been attacked by a Lynel. They were solitary creatures who tended to their own ineffable business on the edges of Hyrule, and they always let him pass in peace if he kept his distance. They dwelt in places so far away from human habitation that none but the most ambitious of adventurers would ever encounter them, and they were always surrounded by the animals that benefited from the safety conferred by their imposing presence. Lynels were the guardians of Hyrule’s wild and open spaces, and Kilton respected them.

When Kilton gave Link the maned mask he created from the hides and fur of other creatures, he knew it wouldn’t work. Lynels were far too intelligent to fall for such an obvious ruse, and their senses were much too acute to be fooled. Perhaps an encounter with a Lynel would help Link understand that the world did not revolve around him and his shrines and towers.

He was shocked when Link began to bring him Lynel horns and hooves, and once even a Lynel heart, but this was nothing compared to the fear that clenched his stomach when the boy presented him with a shimmering collection of dragon scales. Who was this child? 

Kilton realized then that he hadn’t gotten close to the true magic of Hyrule. Such secrets were the provenance of the hero and not meant for the likes of him to know or understand.

Kilton almost pitied the thing in Hyrule Castle. No matter how terrible it might be, it didn’t stand a chance against Link.