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Chapter Text

...

Like every good story, it began with a birth. A coming into the world. Which happened on the brightest night of summer, naturally. For that is when the green of forest roiled with magic and mystery and could no longer contain it. Where the fairies of Hyrule picked up the seeds of trees and flowers and danced with them in a rollicking reel of life.

The brother-fairies would offer the prettiness flora to the sister-fairy he fancies, hoping that should she delight in his gift, her wings would flutter besides his own in the dance till morning light.

This was the most sacred moment for fairies, as they waltz in winding bands beneath the trees while the starlight peeped in. It was a night filled with love and light and companionship, the Great Fairies singing sweet melodies to encourage their children as they danced and paired up.

Yes, all the younger fairies agreed. The Fairy Dance was a magical time of the year. And this year, the little fairies trilled excitedly, was especially special indeed! For when else could the child of a Great Fairy be born? Even one who had given up her wings for the love of a man? Who took on mortal life with a Hylian man, a traveling potioneer?

~One who had skin as olive tan as a blueberry and curly brown locks. With strong hands and gentle eyes of farrowed earth. Who walked barefoot upon the earth and laughed with the strength of one who loves the forest.~

Yes, that was the one whom Tatl loves, who once wandered into her fountain, badly hurt but fighting to defend it from moblins who dare come close. Jac defended it well. For in those times, even travelers are well versed in the ways of swords. When it was over, his curly head had lain in her white lap as she healed him. And as she healed him those farrow brown eyes had opened, met her emerald ones, and loved her for light within them. And Tatl knew he would be the one she would give her wings for. Leave her brother for.

So she did, she gave up her wings and took his ring and dwells in his house deep in the Woods that border the lands of Calatia, and Hyrule. Termina once bordered the too, before the moon fell on it. Now in the fullness of time, she was bearing his child. On the night of the Fairy Dance.

...

The pains had begun at sunset, lasting throughout the night. Groaning, Tatl had stopped her work and hastened outdoors. Her husband was not here, traveling as he did to sell their wares, and even if he were not, even if he were here, no self-respecting fairy would give birth in a house, made of stone and dead wood.

No~ greenery and growing things would greet her child as he (she knew it was a he) came into the world.

Fortunately, she is well prepared, thanks to her family. Tael, her baby brother, who had been at her side since learning Sis was with child, flies past her to summon the aid Tatl will need, while she paces the soft bed of moss and bites back another groan. She knew this was unavoidable, the pain, knows that bone must bend and skin must break for this new life to come. It is the way of the gods, be it

                                                             Hylia:

                                                                            :or the

                                                   Golden Three:

                                                                               :or the

                                              Goddess of Time:  

Tael is soon back. And he has brought the Dance in his wake. A million dancing fairies, who "oooh" and "awe" and flutter with amazement as they watch their sister's labor.  Tael and the others took turns walking Tatl about the leafy grove, so as to ease out her suffering, leading her gently by the hand whilst braiding love and strength into knots upon her deep red hair. When the labor begins in earnest Tatl lays down, and they touch her with their healing magic again

                                                and again

                                                                                 and again,

as each wave of pain pushes the babe close and closer to the heartbeat of the forest. Rivers of dancing spheres float over her head, some bring scared herbs and flowers with blessed properties to help:

"Here's Hylia's Harp," chirps a fairy, holding a garland of rose-like buds and setting it on Tatl's sweat-soaked head and she heaves and gasps. "It will sooth the pain."

"I have the Goddess' Mantle!" chimes another, with a garland that was mostly sweet-smelling leaves. "It will protect the child."

"Is that the best you can do?! I got the Goddess' Love Flower!" crows another. "It will make her strong!"

One fairy tops them all, the old, odd fairy who doesn't chime much and never dances. She is raw and her light is lightening where they others are make of sugar. They say she once saw a child die, a Hylian child, with golden-yellow hair and sky blue eyes and it stole her joy.

"I got the Hero's Cap," Navi added gravely, holding up her laurel of Deku branches. She reverently sets it on Talt's straining stomach, where the skin is stretched beyond endurance. "To guide his way."

They bring her other things as the night goes on, funny stories as only the Fair Folk could know, a dry fruit with its seeds rattling inside, struggling to break free from its hard enclosure in a ceaseless, rather frantic attempt-the child inside Tatl's body seemed likewise determined.

"You're doing great Sis!" Tael cries. Tatl cries too, keens, head toss back in a silent wail. From the top of her scalp to the tips of her toes, the fairy was a tense line of agony, as if she lay on a bed of coals and not greenery.

"Breathe and push, child. Breathe, and push." Navi spoke in a disturbingly tranquil, disturbingly eerie voice, a mother who had lost her child to pain and death and blood to a mother about to gain him. All the Fairies began to dance frantically over the spent, swollen body of the mother caught in a state halfway between agony and bliss.

"Courage, sister! Courage!"

"Goddess Hylia!" Tatl gasps. "Goddess Hylia, show me your pity! Forore, please...strengthen me! Din - Nayru - Goddess of Time...somebody...HELP ME-!"

"Spirit of the Great Deku Tree," Navi whispers, heard and unheard. "Help this Child of Destiny."

Louder now, Navi turns to the assembly, ringing like a gong. "Hey! Listen! Alright Fairies, uncross your hands, uncross your legs and wriggle your noses! Little Brother is coming!"

"OHHHHH!" Tatl screams.

"Push! Push!" her brothers and sisters and true-brother implored her, a rising chant, more powerful than any spell. "Push!"

Tatl's body clenches now, brow furrowed with a willful sort of courage, the life raft of her figure telling it was time.

...

She pushes.

*She screams.*

"Push!"

*She cries.*

"Push!"

...

And her son slips from her like water, giving his own piercing cry, and two of her sisters catch him and settle him on the green moss.

"Boy! Boy!" the chime rings out, beneath the canopy of leaves and stars. "Sister has a boy!"

Boy! Boy? Boy! A baby boy!

"Little Brother!" they squeal. "Baby brother!"

The minuscule midwives clean the babe with dewdrops, and deliver him to his mother's arms. And Tatl sees that her boy has the soft brown curls of his father, the same berry tan skin. His eyes are shut, so she doesn't know his eyes yet.

"Huh," Tael said from over her shoulder, looking down at his nephew. "Are all Hylian babies this ugly?"

Tatl snorts and Navi smacks him with a wing.

"He's all scrunched up because he's new," the girls explain. "He'll even out."

"While he does, lets dance! Lets dance!" a sister fairy called Proxi calls out, already spinning in celebratory loops. "Lets welcome Little Brother!"

The congregation cheers, and they were off, weaving sugar magic and flower patterns over the heads of mother and child, leaving gifts at their feet.

"What'cha gonna call him Sis?" Tael asks him. Tatl licks her lips, then leans down to press a kiss to her baby's head.

"Jac wants to name him after the Hero," she said. Her husband was only half Calatian, his mother's family was Hylian, having fled the constant decay of the kingdom as many have done these days. But in his heart that accepted magic still hoped that the Legends of Old were true.

"He wants to name him Link."

Navi grew very still. "That is a fateful name. Are you sure you want to give it to him?"

Tatl, sweat soaked, exhausted, can only shake her head, and inadvertently, she show how human she has become since her marriage.

"I think he'll be Link no matter what I call him."

...

The very next year, baby Link attends the Fairy Dance with both his parents, when he's just mastered the ability to wander about on his own. You see, once Link learned to crawl, it was game over. He been going and going and going and if the door of the cottage hadn't been shut, there would've been no stopping him.

"Not until he reach Hyrule Castle," Papa joked.

 Mama didn't laugh.

But now he sits on the soft green moss, wide hazel eyes taking in the trees which climbed up foreeeever, night sky and stars and fireflies giggling around him. But it was the balls of bright lights near the tree tops that held his attention, remarkable, as his mother would say, giving how easily it is...

Oooh! Shiny!

There were thousands of them now - darting, spinning, looping, flying alone in its course, or two circling each other. Some of the balls of light came down to hover just in front of Link's tan button nose, revealing to be tiny ladies and gentlemen who smiled and laughed. Who kissed his cheeks and knotted his hair, calling him Little Brother, bowing to him before rejoining the dance. And the baby gurgled and giggled and clapped with delight under and unruly mop of curls.

His favoriteest was his Unca Tael and his new Aunt Proxi, who could weave the most beautifulist patterns around each other, like fireflies signaling their love in a language of light and chimes.

Of course, when the dance was done, and Link was asleep in his father's arms, tumb in his mouth, the grown ups could talk freely about less pleasant things.

"Hyrule is sickening again," murmurs Navi. "The Golden Age is official over."

"Ah, its been over for years," Tael tries to dismiss it, timorous with unease. 

"Not like this," said Proxi. "The very air is tense with fear. The royal family is weakened. It has been since the Sleeping Princess was Cursed."

"I think that whole land is cursed," Navi mutters darkly with a dangerous ring. "Maybe it deserves to be, for how it always sends children to fight the gods' battles."

And so they mumble on and on, deliberating the dark things of the world until they can't stand themselves anymore.

"So!" Proxi chips, in a pathetic attempt to change the subject. She flaps her wings brightly. "How is Little Brother?"

Jac chuckles warmly, shifting his sleeping child so his fairy relatives can more easily see his face. Like his mother and Navi predicted, his face has indeed even out, smooth and round with bright red cheeks and dark eyelashes that will be the envy of many young maidens when the time came for such things. 

He is all their joy and all their hope.

"Growing and getting into everything," Jac said with a fond look. "So far this week we've found him in the laundry basket, the cabinet, and the cooking pot. He's a little Traveler."

Tatl reached over to run the backs of her fingers over Link's hair, removing his thumb from his mouth. "Like his Papa," she said quietly.

"No," Jac denied. "He'll go farther than my feet ever took me."

"I know," Tatl mutters. "That's what scares me."

Chapter Text

Spring and Summertime in Hyrule was his favoritest seasons, which should come as no surprise, given that for the majority of his childhood, Link had grown up in the forest among his Faerie-kin; the seemingly boundless canopy of green and firm earth of a cave the only things over his unruly brown curls. Sheltering them and his tiny self from wind and from rain.

By any normal standards, the child should have long perished, the baby flesh of his then seven-year-self returned to the earth, the way Mama and Daddy's were, when the monsters came and burned down their house, deep in the heartbeat of the Woods.

...Link still didn't understand why the monsters did it. It was a nice house, with a fireplace and cooking pot and a big bed that he and Mama and Daddy had all shared; wrapped in lavender smelling sheets. Daddy's potion bottles had twinkled on the high wooden shelves, and Mama's magic made their gardens grown tall and full and surgery.

But when the monsters had come, Mama had pushed him out the window, while Daddy barricaded the door, and told him to run.

"We'll be right behind you baby!"

And Mama never lied, couldn't lie, so Link believed her.

So he ran, frightened by the monster screeches and leaping torches of red that sent flames to their thatched roof, flames going up, up, up.

He didn't know how far he ran into the Greenery when he finally fell down, and just lay there, curled up. Already old enough to known not to whimper, not to cry. Not even when the shrieks of Hylians and monsters and swords and Fairy bled through the night.

Not even when the short squat form of a moblin looked down on him, who was to exhausted to run...and left his cloak over him with some branches, all while pretending he didn't see him. 

"Secret to everyone..." the moblin whispered, as Link gazed back, astonished. The moblin quickly left, and there were horrible sounds and he crouched lower, shielding his sensitive ears as his instincts screamed. But they screamed to do the opposite of what Mama had said. It screamed to go back. To pick up a stick.

To fight.

But he was much too young to disobey his Mama, then.

His Mama's tiny brother, Uncle Tael, and his wife, Aunt Proxi, found him the next day, when the sky was whimpering a light pink, cold and shivering and lost and confused and alone.

"Oh Tatl...oh Sis," Uncle Tael had moaned, wings chiming long and low when he found his sister's half-Hylian child. He had already found what was left of her and her Hylian husband.

"Now, now, enough," admonished old Navi, jingling with warning despite the waver in her voice. "We must see to what is left to us."

...

That was two summers ago. Link was seven now.

And today was his birthday. So said the Fairy Herd who now minded him, deeper within the heartbeat of the forest.

"Happy birthday, Little Brother!" they chimed for him, the moment he woke up, deep in the cave they had taken him to after Tatl and Jac's end.

Fairies never spoke of death. Not around children. It had been long since those once under their care, the ageless children of the forest, passed into legend, but they still remembered the Rules.

They enforced new ones now, with this young Changeling who was trusted to their care. They taken to calling him Hyrule. Had from the moment they realize that the monsters had come to Tatl's and Jac's because the Prince of Darkness had ordered them to find any Hylian boy bearing the Hero's name.

Find him and kill him.

Naturally, fairies who knew well the power of names, and what they could do, so they hid Link's from him, telling him that he could have it back when he was bigger, older, stronger and Hyrule wasn't such a bad name right?

And because Hyrule was an easy going child, with the strong intuition for what would help him survive, he agreed without a fuse, slipping into his new name and tucking his old one way like an acorn for winter.

Pushing aside the lavender smelling blanket salvaged from his home, Hyrule sat up from his soft bed of moss, deep within the swaddling comfort of the cave, laughing.

"Thank you," he said lightly, hazel eyes sparkling. He stood up and would have burst from the cave like the light of Nayru, if Mama Navi hadn't grabbed him by his ear and a curl.

"Oh no you don't young man," she scolded him. "Wash first."

"Ah, but Navi," Hyrule whined. Cause honestly he just washed up last week! He should be fine for a few weeks more!

Unfortunately, his minders did not agree.

...

"Wash," come the unrepentant order, small bodies pushing and pulling and nudging him to the gleaming pool under a shaft of sunlight. "You want to be nice and clean for the Fairy Dance."

Hyrule beamed a blooming smile, delight shimmering in his forest-hue gaze. "That tonight?!"

"Of course it is, Little Brother," Navi said patiently. "The Fairy Dance is always on your birthday. But only squeaky clean boys can attend."

Hyrule never jumped into the water so fast. His fairy-kin laughed, the sound of bells echoing all around him as he forgot to take off his clothes first.

"Well, I suppose this saves us another time of washing them," Uncle Tael chuckled.

"Make sure to get inside your ears," Aunt Proxi chimed.

When their boy was all washed, bright eyed and curls fluffy, smelling of blueberries and honey, they get him into his new attire while his sleep tunic dried out. Its green as the unfurled leaves, soft as flower petals, yet strong as the spider's silk. His new shorts are the same, his boots heavy duty to withstand the exploring he so loved.

Its his favorite thing to go and do. There was so much to discover! Hyrule was determined that one day he would find the tallest tree, the swiftest creek, the prettiest flower.

He wanted to set out and see the things write down in Daddy's travel journal, lovingly kept and stored in his cave with his potions bottles and his magic pouch that could store anything. He wants to write the world down on his own mind and heart, taking in all the sights Daddy promised to show him when he was big enough to travel with him.

On roads that go ever on and on.

" Down from the door where it began.
                                               Now far ahead the Road has gone,
                                                                                               And I must follow, if I can..."

Daddy's walking song hummed through his lips as he scampered forth through the Greenery, jumping over logs, rolling down hills, swinging from branches, splashing in creeks.

Soon his hair is once more hopelessly knotted and full of leaves. Somewhere, his sensitive ears pick up Navi's long-suffering sigh and he muffled a giggle.

Then suddenly, the heartbeat of the forest sputtered, the chime and lightness and pulse laced through his home suddenly ringing with warning, warning, warning.

Like the night the monsters had come.

Hyrule froze on the path, not in fear but in shock, as on the trail ahead of him, a trio of moblins lay in his path, having somehow slipped past the barriers the Fairy Herd had woven around their home.

Hyrule immediately tensed, ready to run. That was what Navi and Uncle Tael and Aunt Proxi all taught him to do. Its instinct that makes him roll out of the way of a swinging club.

The monster snarls, rearing back for another blow when Hyrule suddenly locks his jaw and looks him dead in the eye.

Once, two years ago, he had been seven. To young to disobey his mother. To young and helpless to obey his instinct to face evil and fight.

Now he's nine. And in the two years he had lived with the fairies, he had learned some handy tricks for if he ever needed to defend himself.

So Hyrule lifts his hands and speaks the spell that sends lightning from their tips. Its not a storm yet, he's not big enough for that, but its a bolt that sends the enemy back. Blasting all three away from him.

Two don't get up. The third one lays on the path; gasping, choking for breath. Bleeding in some places. Cooked in others. The smell of burning flesh is horrible.

Hyrule stares. And stares.

"Oh," he said softly, chewing his lip. "Did I do that?"

He was torn in three parts. One part, a large part, that told him to fight told him to finished it. (The fairy part of him did not call it death.)

The second part, the fairy part and the Hylian part, that makes a little boy named "Link" wanted to fix what was broken. Wanted to make it right. Wanted to heal things.

The third part was silent, wanting to see which way he would go.

Navi would shriek if she saw what he was about to do. Tael and Proxi likewise. But Hyrule's tiny boots travel the short distant, and kneels down besides the suffering moblin, short and stout and to hurt to move. His wide black eyes is like a beast, lifeless, doll-like. It didn't seem to be living.

Hyrule's fairy sense could see deeper than that though, could see the dark and evil magic coursing through the raw material of the moblin's flesh. Pulsing it with the order to

destroy,

find,

kill.

It makes him wince, but doesn't surprise him. The fairies had taught him that the Demon King that created monsters long ago couldn't create new things. Not really. It could only mock what the other gods had created. So the Prince of Darkness crudely shaped monsters and animated them with his spit and his spite.

But he didn't give them Will or Sense or Awareness or Being. The were tools and pawns and easily discarded.

And Hyrule's stomach was sick and sorry with it, in a way most Hylians wouldn't be. But then, Hyrule is fairy-kin, healing the hurts of the natural world is in his nature. Resorting it is in his blood.

So once more he reaches out his hands, and touches the being who had just tried to kill him.

And he began to heal him.

Magic danced around Hyrule's fingers, green as growing things. Reaching in, sinking deep. Penetrating the malice that clouds the moblin's mind and warps his thoughts to murder and killing. His patient whines and squeals, the darkness holding it prisoner growling.

Hyrule's eyes narrow. Lighthearted though he may be, once he decided something, he would not give up.

He is also part fairy. Once he decided something is his, he will not give it up.

Begone, he tell the dark, piggish magic snarling and snapping at him, fighting his healing. This one is not your anymore. He is mine and will be my friend. He's mine.

And extra pulse of magic, bright and pure with the boundless potential of a child (no adult would've been able to do what he just did) and Hyrule is knocked on his butt, blinking.

The moblin sits up, blinking. He is healed and his eyes are not lifeless, evil things anymore. They are animated with the bright, golden spark that lights Hyrule's own heart.

Hyrule grinned, not understand that he has done something impossible.

"Hello," he greets his new friend, who startles in shock that he can understand the child before him. He startles further when he looks into the small tan face, taking in the bright hazel gaze and happy grin and realizes he has no desire to harm him.

The child giggled. Then he somber as much as a child can. "Navi and Tael and Proxi wouldn't understand this...I guess its a secret to everyone."

...

And it stayed a secret...until night fall, when Hyrule tried to sneak his new friend into the cave. His relatives' reactions... were not encouraging.

...

"HYRULE!!"

                               "!!!!!!!"                                   "Get back!"

                           "Get AWAY!"                    

                                               "!!!!"                              "Navi!"                       "!!!!!!"

                                                                            "HELP!"

...

"Its okay!" Hyrule shouted back, arms spread wide in front of the Friendly Moblin, who was in something of a daze behind him. "Its okay! I healed him!"

Once the panic and fear and flying spells settled, an uneasy murmur rippled through the gather Fairy Herd, the gathering Dance floating above and around them in bafflement.

                                                          "But..."

                                   "I've never..."

"How?"

"I donno," Hyrule admitted. He meet their gaze evenly. "But he's mine. He's my friend. I healed what was Wrong and got rid of what was Bad."

He laughed now, and the Friendly Moblin's snout carefully echoed the sound from around his tusks; his dark eyes warm and wondering and amazed.

"Y-y-es," he said gruffly, with effort. "Child...made the pain go away. Child...is...friend."

The Fairy Herd marveled...and because they sensed no lie, the majority of them rejoiced.

"Lets Dance! Lets Dance!"

And that was all it took to start the celebration off in earnest.

Chapter Text

Long before she was ever touched by the wizard's Sleeping Spell...

Princess Zelda Proserpina Zaranitsa of Hyrule...

Had a noticeable proclivity for highly vivid dreams...

Zelda, called Aurora by her family, both for the early hour of her birth and to separate her from her Grandmother, the magnificent Fable Queen of the High Golden Age, would travel far and wide in her sleep. But nevertheless wake up tucked in her own soft bed.

The first time it happened, she was five years old. Uncle Gustaf had died without an heir and Papa had just been crowned King, and so was flooded with paperwork. In order to distract the children and give them a respire from the sudden turn their lives had took, Grandmother Zelda and Great Uncle Link took Aurora and her big brother, Daphnes, out into hills of Korok Forest for a picnic, just beyond the North Castle.

It was a wonderful afternoon. With just Grandmother and Uncle Link, Daphnes and her. Two pairs of siblings on a blanket, laughing, singing, feasting on the apples Uncle Link brought for them from his orchard, and the cinnamon rolls Grandmother baked for them.

Filled with sweets and filled with love, Aurora soon cuddled up with Uncle Link. Her favorite stuffed toy, a pink bunny in a little red vest, was likewise cradled lovingly in her arms.

"You tired, 'Rora?" Uncle Link drawled, amuse, brushing her dark red waves behind her ears.

"Uh-huh," she murmured shyly, cuddling closer, eyelids fluttering, dropping like the sunset that danced on her pretty red dress.

She felt a warm kiss press to the top of her head.

"Then go to sleep, honey," Uncle Link told her gently.

Aurora did.

She dreamed.

And she met a boy.

...

When she open her eyes, she was to confused to be frightened at first.

Baffled, she looked around her...hadn't she been on a hilltop at sundown, its red coloring all around in flaming hues? Now she was deep inside a forest somewhere, engulfed inside its emerald heartbeat. Worse it was dark, an inky sky kindled with stars provided the only light through whispering leaves that shone with a brightness that didn't shine.

"Daphnes? Grandmother?" she called out in a wavering voice, fists clenching the red of her skirt. "Uncle Link? Where are you?"

There was no reply, save for the low chiming of life whispering around her, large and chaotic and echoing. Perfectly willing to swallow little princesses whole. Suddenly every shadow had a face, every tree was ten times taller than her. She was such a small, insignificant thing in this strange world.

Trembling, Aurora backed up until she was agaisnt the nearest tree, sinking down until she was as small as she could make herself. Papa and Uncle Link always said that if she was ever lost, she needed to stay exactly where she was until someone found her.

She hoped it would be soon. She didn't like it here.

She didn't like being alone.

She didn't even have Pinky.

Arms wrapped around her legs, Aurora buried her face in her knees, so she didn't have to look.

"Its okay..." she whispered to herself, trying to believe it. "Its okay, its okay. It'll be okay."

So focused was she on her mantra, she didn't hear the silent footsteps making there way to her,not until the boyishly brown boots were right in front of her.

"Hello!"

Head jerking up, her wide raindrop eyes zoomed over the tiny child before her with curly brown hair. He was about her size, clothed in green and brown like the branches of his environment, just as she wore red to match her own. Like her, he still had all his baby teeth. Beyond that, he was her opposite in every-way.

Where Aurora's skin was fair, his was tan as summer berries. Where her eyes were blue, his were hazel-brown, twinkling with green and gold and amber. Where Aurora had the air of being well-minded by fellow Hylians he...well...did not.

And where Aurora had taken one looked at this place and cowered, he stood in these woods as if he was a part of it.

"H-hello," she said timidly, still crouched down as he watched with wide-eyed interest in her. He had never seen anything like her. So clean and healthy.

It was like finding a red raspberry in brier patch, bright and sweet. He'd thought his in-to...in-tooo...in-tu-it-ion (yeah, that was it!) was sensing up something funny as his Fairy-minders laid him on his moss bed to sleep, deep within their cave.

He knew that it had! Tonight was the night of the Fairy Dance after all, where magic swirled in strange and powerful ways.

"Its nothing, Hyrule," the Faeries had told him, secrets hidden in half truths, for as long as they could. They couldn't stop his fate, but they would be wingless before letting it claim him before he hit double digits.

"But something's coming," he insisted, fighting a yawn. He still wiggled, insistent. "Something from far away!"

"Nothing's coming, sweetie," his Aunt Proxi chimed fiercely, flying over him in a firm arch of protective sugar magic. "Nothing getting through the latest barrier Mama Navi set up on the edges of the forest."

His Uncle Tael -his real Mama's little brother - rings in agreement, flying to hover before Hyrule's nose. His darker glow work wonders for nighty-night magic, often lulling Hyrule to sleep when he missed his parents the worse.

"Yeah, little guy," he promised. "You're safe."

"Its not anything bad," Hyrule tried to explain. "Its just coming. From far away."

But his words were in vain as his relatives merely flew down to kiss his tan button nose.

"Hush," they murmured. "Go to sleep."

Between the softness of the moss and the chiming of his family members and the hour of the day...he did.

And now he met a girl. A girl-child like himself, just his size, and something about the dark raspberry red hair around her round white face and baby-chubby hands made him want to both run away and shyly stay besides her.

Because Hyrule was Hyrule, the later part won out and he bounced closer, his skin and his clothes covered with dirt and tree sap from his wanderings that day, his small grin like new budding leaves.

"...Who are you?" he asked shyly. Fascinated as he was by her, she was still a Stranger in the Fairy Herd's section of the forest, and therefore needed to give an a-count for it. That was very important, according to Aunt Navi.

The little girl watched him huge eyes, awed and no longer so afraid. That made him feel fluttery in his tummy, like he had just eaten honey. Good. He didn't want her to be afraid of him.

"I'm Aurora," she told him, heedless of how powerful such knowledge was, or how a burst of power shot through the boy's veins from knowing her Name. It was if a sunrise had arisen in his magic, new and peeking eagerly over the earth to begin the day.

He didn't know any of what these things meant, too young to care if he did.

All he knew was that her Name was the same as the Sleeping Princess from his Mama's stories. And she was pretty enough to be the Princess in any number of childhood games.

"Hello," he said again, more excited this time. Even before Mama and Daddy went away, he never had anybody his own size to spent time with. She was just right.

"Wanna play Travelers?" he asked, earnest.

Aurora blinked, no longer curled up in fear, no longer so afraid. "How do you play?"

"It's easy," he beamed at her. "You just go around an' dis-cover neat things! Its my favorite game!"

It would be ever better if he did it with his new friend.

He held out his hand.

"Will you play with me, 'Rora?" he asked eagerly.

Aurora bit her lip, wavering. Well, these woods didn't seem so scary anymore, now that she had someone beside her. Still, she was lost. Papa and Uncle Link always said that if she was ever lost, she needed to stay exactly where she was until someone...found her...

Oh.

She looked at the boy in front of her, considering.

Well, someone had found her. So she wasn't lost anymore.

Everything was okay.

Smiling with relief, she placed her pale little hand inside his tan one, smile blooming like a silent princess.

"Okay," she agreed sweetly, and her new friend beamed as he pulled her up and to his side.

"Lets go!" he grinned, laughing. And the little boy in green and the little girl in red turned to ventured off together.

And they had a wonderful time.

...

"Aurora," a wry voice drawled, rubbing her back softly. "Wake up, sweetheart."

"Ermm," the little princess murmured, resisted. Not wanting to leave the no longer frightening playground, or the little playmate she'd found.

But Uncle Link coaxed her awake as he carried his grand-niece down the hill. Fable, his sister, carried a likewise snoring Daphnes. It had been a good day, and he was unusually content.

"Shocking," Fable teased him, when he mentioned it.

"Hey, it happens sometimes," the Hero of Legend retorted. But there was no real bit to his words.

Not anymore.

Of course, his equilibrium went the way of Koholint when his niece woke up, rubbed her eyes, and glanced around her, baffled.

"Hyrule?" she questioned, glancing around like she was looking for a person, not a place.

Link nearly fell the rest of the way down the hill.

"...Of course your in Hyrule, silly," he manged with a cracked smile. Hoping his niece was too sleepy to notice. "Where else would you be?"

Aurora shook her tiny head, auburn curls whirling.

"No, no Uncle," she said. "Hyrule's my new friend, he's really nice. Where is he?"

The Fable Queen laughed lightly, adjusting her hold on her grandson. "You must've been having a dream, dear. I'm glad it was a good one."

Aurora's brows furrowed, bewildered at the change of scenery, the absence of her friend, and why Uncle Link was suddenly holding onto her so very, very tight.

"Was it a good dream 'Rora?" asked Uncle Link, Hero of Legend.

Aurora nodded happily. "Uh-huh. I hope I see him again soon."

Uncle Link managed a weak smile at that. "I'm sure you will, honey."