Chapter Text
The Faron Grasslands were alive with the kind of green that made you want to forget the rest of the world existed. Golden sunlight spilled across tall grasses that whispered secrets when the wind passed through. Mineru, ever the curious explorer, trudged through a thicket near the Lomei Ruins, brushing cobwebbed leaves from her path with the sort of determination usually reserved for treasure hunters—or people trying to avoid chores.
Her fingers traced the cracked stone walls of the ruins, relics of a time when the Lomei had supposedly thrived. “Extinct,” she muttered, kicking at a clump of dirt. “Poof. Gone. Nothing but bones and rumors now.”
A sudden rustle froze her in place. She squinted. Something small darted across her path—too quick, too careful to be a Korok, too… alive.
Mineru knelt, peering into the tall grass. There, trembling under the shadow of a crumbling wall, was a child. Not just any child. This one was small, feral, with wide, startlingly blue eyes, streaked with white markings across greenish skin and wild, tangled red hair.
The child’s chest rose and fell in shallow, uneven breaths. Mineru’s heart twisted—starvation had left him frail, a whisper of a being, but his gaze… it was intelligent. Curious. Watching.
“By Hylia’s hair,” Mineru whispered, kneeling closer. The child hissed, low and catlike, ears flattened, but didn’t run. Not immediately.
After a long, tense pause, Mineru extended her hand, and the small being sniffed, unsure. Then, with a cautious leap, he scrambled onto her shoulder, clinging to her like a shadow. Mineru stood, brushing off her clothes.
“Well,” she muttered to herself, “this is new.”
Returning to the castle was easier said than done. By the time Mineru stumbled through the gates with the feral child clinging to her back, the guards had drawn their weapons, and King Rauru himself emerged from the throne room, frowning.
“Mineru,” he said, voice clipped. “Explain why you’re carrying a—”
“Not a what,” Mineru interrupted, stepping aside so the child could be seen. “A Lomei.”
The crown nearly slipped off Rauru’s head. “A Lomei? They’re—extinct.”
“Apparently not,” Mineru said with a shrug, ignoring the gasp from nearby courtiers. “And yes, I plan to rehabilitate him. Help me figure out his biology, maybe understand why the species disappeared. You know… science.”
Rauru’s sigh was a mix of exasperation and fascination. “Sonia,” he called. His wife, a serene Hylian descendant of the goddess Hylia, appeared at his side, hands clasped. Her eyes softened at the sight of the trembling child. “He’s… beautiful.”
Mineru grinned. “I was thinking of naming him… Link.”
“Link?” Sonia echoed.
“Yes. Simple. Fits him.” Mineru didn’t mention that the child’s red hair and greenish skin made him look like someone who had stumbled out of a Zonai mural.
And so, the kingdom’s newest—and very last—Lomei had a name.
Over the following days, Mineru worked to feed and clean Link, marveling at every strange habit: his catlike movements, the way he communicated with wild cats outside the castle walls, and his almost mystical wariness of any sort of technology. Rauru, meanwhile, found that just being near Link stirred something long dormant inside him—a flicker of instincts he had never understood. Mineru felt it too. Something primal, a connection to the world beyond what mortals could see.
Sonia watched quietly, guiding and comforting, but she could already sense it: this one small child would change everything. The castle, the kingdom, even the very lives of those who had thought themselves in control.
And for Link, the world was suddenly full of new smells, sounds, and hands that meant safety instead of hunger.
Little did anyone know, chaos had just arrived on tiny, clawed feet.