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They travelled a long way to be here. As the crumbling wall comes into view, the group stop and take it in. It’s known as Hyrule’s last stand. The beautiful untouched villages beyond this point owe a lot to the brave men and women of Hyrule’s army who had held this fort.
Tillin has heard a lot about it. His own great grandfather had survived the Calamity right here at Fort Hateno. He can’t help but feel a little…disappointed, if he’s honest with himself.
There isn’t much to look at. The stone wall is not as impressive as the Great Plateau. What’s left is crumbling and what is still standing seems to be only by the grace of the timbers someone has placed next to it to help prop it up.
Salla takes out her sketchbook, plops down on a tree stump and starts drawing. Typical. The other four look at each other, shrug and spread out to explore the area.
Tillin walks through the arch and trails along the wall from one end to the other trying to picture the bloodbath that had taken place here one hundred years ago. Kurth is busy examining the architecture and stonework with Chigg while Laila digs around at the base of the wall with her little trowel, pulling up rusted swords, shields and armour.
As Tillin climbs the creaking ladder to reach the top of the wall, he wonders not for the first time why he had wanted to come. He supposes it’s because of the stories. He doesn’t remember his great grandfather but his grandpa’s stories of the battle at Fort Hateno had always interested him as a boy. Tillin considers himself something of a historian, if anything.
He loves hearing about the Old Kingdom. About the royal family who had ruled Hyrule and the brave knights. He’s heard other stories of the Old Kingdom from elders in the village and while travelling and his favourite kind are of the Champions.
As he looks out over the stretching grass of Blatchery plain he feels his breath catch at the sight. He can see the whole plain from the top of the wall. There are a lot of guardians- more than he could have guessed from the road.
He tries to imagine what it might have felt like standing here a hundred years ago facing those monsters and he can’t. Even looking at their decaying hulks he can’t. A shiver runs up his spine and he spends the rest of the afternoon helping Laila dig.
The group decides to camp on the bank of the Squabble River near the wall and spend a few days there before moving on to Hateno.
That night Tillin has a dream. He is walking through the grass on the plain and it is full of people. They just stand there and stare as he walks by. They are a mix of soldiers, knights and villagers. He spots a variety of colours and uniforms that he recognizes; Soldiers, Captains, Knights, Royal Knights and even a few Royal Guards.
Tillin knows, in the way one knows things in dreams, that these people are dead. They are the spirits of the Old Kingdom who died here. He’s not afraid, necessarily, but he does have a sense of urgency. He’s searching for something. In his dream Tillin searches the entire field and he can’t find it.
In the morning, Tillin keeps his dream to himself. He’s not entirely sure what to make of it anyway. And it bothers him to no end that he still has no idea what he was looking for.
The others are happy to putter around doing their thing so Tillin decides to go walk through the field. It’s all grass and bits of ruined structures. He spots wild horses far out in the field and he can just see the tip of Dueling Peaks Stable in the distance. The sun is bright and warm on his back and there is a summer haze to the air as it drifts up to its zenith.
His boot catches on something and Tillin crashes down into the muck. It’s a skull. He tripped over a skull half buried in the mud. Tillin is too used to seeing hylian bones across Hyrule that this doesn’t bother him. But he is still humbled by the fact that someone died here.
He starts digging around, uncovering more bones and armour. He finds a jeweled brooch and pockets it, promising whoever might be watching that he is not grave robbing but rather holding onto it for safekeeping. He and his friends had talked about erecting a memorial in places like this, where many people had died. He would place it there.
Tillin spends the rest of the morning meandering through the tall grass, picking up a few things. It was all very enjoyable, considering. That is, until he stumbled on a monster sleeping in the grass. He tripped over that too. The monster was a small red one and it jumped up in surprise screeching.
Tillin just manages to roll to avoid a club to the head and stumbles to his feet with his sword in hand. He hated to admit it but he is not very good with it. He takes a few awkward swings at the monster, which avoids them easily. With one last battle cry, the monster lunges at him in a great leap. Tillin fumbles with the sword and manages to swing it at the right moment and with considerable luck, the creature impales itself on his sword. It disappears in a sickening puff of purple black smoke.
Tillin doesn’t have time to relax. The monster’s yells had alerted other nearby monster and, Tillin realises with growing horror, these ones are on horseback. He turns and runs.
He knows he can’t outrun a horse all the way to the wall but if he can just get to high ground, he might stand a chance. He sees a standing arch and heads for that with his feet splashing in the puddles.
Just as Tillin reaches the wall, an arrow whizzes past his left ear causing him to duck. He swings around the wall for cover and comes face to face with another traveller.
He is young, a teenager at most. The boy is just as surprised to see Tillin as Tillin is surprised to see him. He is standing stock still, eyes wide and eyebrows raised high, holding a squirming frog in one hand and a handful of herbs in the other. He is also armed to the teeth.
“Mon-“Tillin puffs, pointing, “Monsters! Run!”
The boy frowns and steps carefully around Tillin on light feet to look around the wall. The monsters are almost on them now. “What- what are you doing? Run!” he huffs out. Tillin has an awful stitch in his side and he can’t run any further.
The boy glances over at him as if remembering he was there and pushes his prizes into Tillin’s arms. Then with ultimate confidence, he steps fully into the opening of the arch and draws a beautiful golden bow. With perfect form, the boy knocks an arrow, aims and picks off two of the riders. The monsters are thrown right off their horses.
Tillin feels his jaw drop. He’s never seen anyone use a bow with that kind of skill. With a speed that screams of practice, he efficiently stores the bow and draws a small blade from somewhere around his belt. He advances on the mounted monsters, standing his ground even as the horse speeds towards him. Tillin stands and stares in morbid fascination convinced that he’s about to watch someone get cut down.
The boy does not get cut down. He stands his ground until the very last moment and sidesteps the massive horse easily. The blade swings out so fast Tillin only sees the glint as it catches the sun for a second and the monster explodes in a puff of purple smoke before it hits the ground. The spooked horse runs off and the boy watches it go with an appraising and wistful look.
Tillin is staring. “What are-, that, that was amazing! Where did you-”. He stops when he catches sight of the blade in the boy’s hand. He’s seen blades like that before. A vicious sickle. It starts to come together in his mind; the skill with the bow, the confidence.
Tillin takes a step back. “Are you Yiga?”
The boy looks surprised for a second, then wary as he looks Tillin up and down in turn. Then he looks at the blade in his hand. It’s seen better days. The metal is chipped and cracked in a few places and the handle looks about ready to splinter. He throws it away carelessly and it shatters where it hits the ground. He shakes his head.
The boy holds his hand out expectantly and Tillin remembers that he is holding a frog and herbs. Well, herbs anyway, he must have dropped the frog at some point. He hands over the wilted greens. “Er, sorry about your, um, frog.”
The boy just shrugs and pockets the herbs before turning away. He goes to pick through the monster’s weapons, picking up a crude wooden spear and giving it a few test swings. Tillin follows him cautiously, intrigued.
He notices a beautiful sword sheathed on the traveller’s back and wonders why he hadn’t used that against the monsters. It looks extremely well crafted and well above the level of swordsmithing available anywhere in Hyrule. A relic from the Old Kingdom, then. Actually, now that Tillin is studying the boy more carefully, he is wearing a lot of gear that are clearly relics of the Old Kingdom. A Royal Guard’s shield. Soldier’s greaves, though Tillin doesn’t recognize the squadron by its colour. And a beautiful blue tunic the colour of the sky with a pattern on the front he finds familiar though at the moment he can’t place.
“Where are you from?” It’s an awkward attempt at a conversation mostly because the boy doesn’t look at him or interact in the friendly way that had become a sort of code among the Hylians. He looks up as he squats down to pick some mushrooms and makes a gesture with his hands. His eyes are a brilliant blue, a rare colour indeed.
He looks away again without answering when Tillin gives him a bewildered look and clears his throat. Then he points vaguely west and continues picking mushrooms.
“Uh, Thanks, by the way,” he tries again, fidgeting with his pack, “for taking care of those monsters. You saved me. I wish I had something to offer you as thanks.”
The boy nods to show he heard but doesn’t look up. “Bokoblins,” he says hoarsely.
“Pardon?”
The boy looks at Tillin finally, his bright blue eyes settling on his for a second before drifting over his left shoulder. “They’re called bokoblins.”
Tillin can sense that he should just say thanks and leave him alone but there’s something just so intriguing about this traveller. In fact he doesn’t look like much of a traveller at all. He carries no pack, no supplies save the weapons strapped to his body. He looks like he just walked off a battlefield. The gear and armour are relics. Tillin’s never even seen a Royal Guard’s shield in person before, just old drawings.
“Umm,” he fidgets with the hem of his shirt thinking of his dream last night, “are you…”
The boy looks up from a thin slab of metal that looks like ancient tech, the same as the guardians.
“Are you a ghost?” Tillin blurts it out before he can stop himself.
The boy laughs at him and shakes his head. But there is a bit of sadness there too. When he’s done laughing, he studies Tillin from head to toe. “Be careful.” He says with a nod. He waves and walks away, head down, busy with his ancient tech.
Tillin watches him go a short distance. His heart stops as he watches the boy be engulfed in a bright blue light. The light is so intense it lifts him off the ground. Then he explodes into hundreds of tiny streamers of blue light that drift up into the sky.
Tillin can feel that his mouth is hanging open and he stands there for a very long time staring at the spot where the boy had stood. “What in Hylia’s name…” he mutters. He wants to go investigate the spot, wants to make sure that what he saw was really just a trick of the light and that the boy is just crouching low to the ground catching frogs. But he’s too scared to move.
Salla finds him there a while later and he startles violently when she places a hand on his shoulder.
“Whoa, easy there.” She takes a few steps back and looks out over the plain for what Tillin had been staring at.
“What’s up with you?”
Tilliin turns wide eyes on her. “Salla, I think I met a ghost.”
She gives him a concerned look.
“Let me see your sketchbook?” he asks holding a hand out.
She reluctantly agrees, handing it over. Tillin flips through it until he comes across her drawing of the Royal Guard sword and shield. “He had one of these, and,” more flipping. Salla had travelled more than any of them, making money on the road with her skills as an artist. She sought out older people who might remember the Old Kingdom and asked them for stories, putting them down on paper through drawings based on memory.
One of the drawings is a likeness of the Hylian Champion, gleaned from people’s memories. He doesn’t look quite like the boy Tillin saw but it was very close. Most telling though, was the sky blue tunic that was the Champions’ uniform. It was the same.
Tillin shows Salla the drawing. “That’s him. That’s the guy I saw.”
She raises an eyebrow. “I think you’ve been out in the sun too long hun, why don’t you come back to camp, we’re about to have dinner. She takes her book back and beckons him to follow her, leading the way.
After a few more moments, Tillin goes.
“Yeah, must be the sun…”