Work Text:
It’s a windy day, as it often is on the island. Link likes the cold air, the salty smell, the sky tinged dark from a coming storm, it’s all he’s ever known.
Their parents used to tell him about lands beyond Outset Island. Of fairies and monsters and pirates, of legends from long ago that Link only half believed, of the story behind the green tunic and hat the boys on the island wore when they turned twelve.
They were simple stories. Ones that everyone knew and that Link would relay to Aryll when she asked about the world. He could do that. What he could not do was answer other questions she asked.
“Who was the boy in the green tunic?”
“What kind of monsters?”
“What’s it like out there?”
And most difficult of all: “What were mum and dad like?”
Link knew that the boy in the green tunic was a hero, that monsters came in many varieties and that there was more to the world than the little island he was born on. After all, their father wasn’t from any species found on Outset Island, having wings and feathers but capable of speech unlike the Cuckoos they bred for food. According to Grandma, their grandfather wasn’t from Outset either but Link had never met the man so he couldn’t tell any stories about him.
Aryll was content with vague answers for the other questions, but telling real, personable stories of their parents was difficult. Link was six when their parents left to find new land and never came back. Maybe they ran into monsters or the sea drowned them, but they weren’t coming back and Link couldn’t find it in himself to mourn people he didn’t really know. Why Aryll cared was a mystery to him considering she wasn’t even talking when they left.
“They were our parents. Is there anyone who knew them?”
Grandma knew them and as far as she told them their parents were regular if rather adventurous people that felt suffocated on the tiny island. People felt that sometimes and would island hop for a while before settling down. Link himself would probably do that at some point in the future. He was already getting a bit squashed here.
“It is a bit cramped here, isn’t it? Maybe that’s why mum and dad wanted to leave?”
As far as Link was concerned he only had two family members, Grandma and Aryll, and he didn’t need any more. Grandma with her delicious soup and Aryll with her music made his life worth living. They were his life. He would grow and provide for them once he was old enough. Though he was only ten and had another two years before he could put on that green tunic and become a productive member of the island, probably a defender in case pirates decided to bother looting an island focused mainly on farming and carpentry.
“What about the tunic? Won’t they want to steal that?”
He hated that tunic. Not for what it represented – the end of childhood, which in Link’s opinion was pretty boring – but because the older boys said it was itchy. Link hated itchy clothing. Why anyone would want to steal that he didn’t know. It was old and that was it. The only semi-interesting thing about it was how it had survived so long, since before the Great Sea was made if the legends were to be believed.
Link lay back on the grass of Aryll’s Lookout (technically the Watchtower, but Lookout sounded better) and watched the clouds change shape and darken further. They should be getting back home soon. A storm was coming.
“Why? There’s nothing at home. Grandma’s only going to want me to do needlework. I wish I would practice swordfighting like you, Link.”
Link didn’t have it in his heart to tell Aryll that she probably wouldn’t be a good swordfighter. Not only was she not focused enough to read the scrolls or observe the movements necessary to become a master, but last time she picked up Link’s practice sword she gave herself a splinter from the wood and cried as though she had been stabbed in the gut.
Though, to be fair, she also cried like she’d been stabbed in the gut when the pricked her finger on a needle. Grandma was thinking of switching her over to medicine but Link wasn’t supposed to tell Aryll that until her next birthday. She was young and had time to find her calling. Link had gone through blacksmithing, farming and herding before finding his inexplicable proficiency with the sword.
“Do you think there’s anyone under the Sea?”
Link sit up and looks out at the vast, blue nothingness. According to the legends, the Great Sea drowned miles and miles of land until only the tops of mountains could be seen, turning the once interconnected lands into an archipelago of islands.
Not everybody could have gotten to the mountaintops before the Goddesses drowned the land. Grandma had told him that there used to be such things as ‘fish’ and ‘fish people’ who were poisoned by the Sea until the few survivors turned to the land or the sky for survival. Link doesn’t completely understand that. Vague words and strange drawings could only convey so much when potentially thousands or millions of bodies were trapped under the rolling waves.
It was probably just a story, only a legend. Besides, everybody knew that the only safe water to use was inland. The Sea had always been dangerous.
Link couldn’t answer any more questions. For some reason the idea of there being bodies under the Great Sea, no matter how ludicrous an idea that was, made him feel ill. Like he was responsible somehow.
It was stupid, the Great Sea had always been there, hadn’t it?
A raindrop fell on Aryll’s forehead and Link ushered his sister back home before the Goddesses became even angrier. Aryll complained but Link didn’t listen, his mind still at Aryll’s Lookout looking out at the Great Sea and wondering what lay beyond and below it.
Grandma had soup ready for them when they returned. Link happily put his thoughts away in favour of devouring it.