The bright disk in the sky shone down with pride across the plains of Hyrule. The rolling hills covered in grass that was neither green nor yellow. And all that could be seen were bushes and trees scattered randomly across the plain. The only sign that civilization had touched this tranquil place was the dirt road that wound its way between and over the undulating landscape. Along this modest road trotted Link, now past his initial excitement of being out in the world, and suffering from extreme hunger. Breakfast seemed a very long time ago, with the events of the day so memorable and momentous that the day seemed like a week, and he hadn’t once stopped and thought about food almost the whole day. That decision was now harshly regretted, as he had no clue of either where he was going or how long it would take to get there, and his stomach was not coping very well. And with the sun getting progressively lower and lower in the sky, he began to doubt whether the Deku Tree was correct in what he had told Link to do.

He told Link to hurry, but maybe the Deku Tree, despite his abundance of knowledge and wisdom, didn’t quite comprehend how far he was telling Link to go.
And so, with his legs screaming out in tiredness, and his stomach on the verge of eating itself, Link sat down in the shade of a large tree next to the road. Taking his sword and shield from his sweaty back and laying them beside him, in the shade, he sat quietly, wishing he had never left the forest.

‘Why are you stopping?’ Navi asked.

‘Because I’m tired and hungry!’

Navi audibly grunted, obviously displeased.

‘Then I’ll go and try to find some food!’ Navi told him, before scooting off.

And it was not long before his eyelids started to droop and every second was a struggle to stay awake. It had been a long day, indeed, as physically tiring as it was emotionally, but all thoughts now turned towards food. Those thoughts quickly became dreams, in which he was feasting on food he had never seen before, but tasted just as good as the succulent fruit of the Kokiri Forest.

Link jerked awake suddenly, feeling very cold, and twice as hungry as before. The only difference was that it was night, now, and the moon hung heavily in the sky straight ahead of Link, giving off a dim, pale light that bathed the countryside around him in its glow. And where is Navi? He also felt very unclean, something he had never really experienced before in the forest, but now his sweat from the day still clung to him, dried and giving off an unpleasant odour. He stood up; stretching and then whimpering from the pain his stomach was giving off. I’m so hungry that I’m hallucinating, Link thought, seeing a bundle of fruit arranged neatly beside his sword and shield.

And from above watched the owl. In the treetops it stayed out of view from Link, but ever watchful of the boy. That boy needs to learn a lot about the world, the owl thought to itself. But for now he must reach the princess with all haste! Eat up, boy!

In a state of utter disbelief, Link was prodding the fruit nervously, as if with one touch it would disappear like a ghost. Indifferent, now, to the strangeness of the fruits’ appearance, Link snatched pieces of the fruit ferociously and began to bite huge chunks from the delicious food, moaning with pleasure at how tasty the food was. Apple after apple, grape after grape he chomped into, until the pile was merely a few leftover apples and pears that Link found that he now couldn’t eat, despite the hunger he had gone through. So with a full stomach, a wave of tiredness once again washed over his young body, a pleasant tiredness that only comes after being pleasantly warmed, or eating as much as you could…

The call of a rooster marked the next day, so close that it woke Link with a start, his tired eyes snapping open to find nothing but the open fields he had gone to sleep in. The sun was rising, giving a nice orange brightness to the grasslands around him. He was happy now that he was not hungry and his journey could resume, reflected by the beautiful bathing sunlight he was now in. And what a stark contrast it was to the pale glow of the moon when he was hungry and cold.

Still with no sign of Navi, he picked up his sword and shield, once more strapping them to his back and starting his walk again, this time with a little strut in his step. The little dirt road was a nice even walk for him, but after a few hours of non-stop walking, he had to stop and sit down, this time faced with a new dilemma: thirst. He had gone a full twenty four hours without so much as a drop of water, which would be disastrous even just sitting doing nothing in his tree house. But he was walking, exerting himself without replenishing his body, so he had been rewarded with a nasty taste of dehydration.

He sat on a rock on the side of the road and, looking ahead, he could see the road fork off in two directions. Oh, no! Link thought, which way? But it was a question almost instantly answered, by a slow moving carriage emerging from behind a hill on the road forking left. A portly looking man with a large, black moustache and a balding head sat at the front of the carriage directing a horse, which turned at the fork and headed the opposite way. Link leapt from the rock and ran after the man and his carriage, desperately wanting a drink.

‘Wait!’ Link called loudly after the man, who was unresponsive.

Link was gaining on the man, anyway, so the twenty-metre gap was quickly closed and he found himself running alongside the carriage, keeping pace with it and side-by-side with the man on top of it.

‘Please, stop!’ Link pleaded.

‘Oh, I’m sorry, lad, I didn’t see you back there,’ the man replied, stopping the horse.

‘Where could someone like you be going alone? Where are your parents?’

Link waited a moment to catch his breath.

‘And what’s with the sword? Aren’t you a bit young for that as well?’ he added.

‘I need to get to…’

But he couldn’t remember the name, or the name of the princess he had to deliver the stone to. His train of thought was then disrupted, however, by Navi, appearing behind the cart seeming disgruntled.

‘Navi, where have you been?’ Link asked, forgetting about the cart driver.

‘I found this guy, but he was sceptical and thought I was a fairy trying to lure him to his death.’

‘I’ve heard stories of your kind,’ the cart driver interrupted, ‘appearing on the road, tempting travellers off to the side where more of your kind waits to pounce on people.’

‘That’s crap, fairies don’t do anything like that,’ Navi argued.

‘Stop fighting!’ Link demanded.

‘I’m sorry, lad, where were you headed again?’

‘… Hyrule! That’s it!’ Link recalled.

‘What a coincidence, that’s exactly where I’m headed for! You can join me, but your fairy friend will have to stay behind.’

‘It’s okay, I come from the forest, and she’s my guardian,’ Link clarified. ‘She won’t try to kill you.’

The driver rubbed at his chin before giving up and telling them to get on.

‘If you’re thirsty, there’s some milk back there for you to drink, as well,’ the man told them.

‘Thank you!’ Link said gratefully, already taking the stopper out of a big glass bottle and gulping down the milk.

And on down the road they went, travelling smoothly and leaving wheel marks in the dust behind them. The driver remained sceptical of Navi, however, not letting her go to the front of the carriage where he was, but she was content to stay with Link, who was still marvelling at how huge the world actually was.

‘Now I can finally appreciate how big the world is, while I’m sitting on the back of a cart!’ Link laughed.

‘Lucky we found it!’ Navi commented.

‘Yeah, I couldn’t go another step without a drink, which reminds me, this milk is very good!’

‘Why, thank you!’ the driver called from the front. ‘It’s my own mixture, famous all over Hyrule for its freshness and its quality, which is why the King loves it so much!’

But Link wasn’t listening anymore, instead he was fondling around inside his tunic, fingering the emerald he had there.

‘Go and meet…’ he said quietly to himself, ‘was Zelda her name?’ he asked Navi.

‘Yep, and you have to give the stone to her,’ she reminded him.

Again, the driver at the front interrupted their conversation, but this time with better news.

‘Hey, we’re at the Hyrule Market Place!’ he informed them.

Link turned his head, then his whole body to kneel on the boxes now instead of sitting. They were crossing a large drawbridge, connected with chains to a massive cream coloured stone wall that continued on out of sight on both sides. And above the opening they were rolling through was a strange symbol Link hadn’t seen before. Three equally proportioned triangles, arranged to form a larger triangle, was positioned above two wings that joined together with no body in between them.

Nothing prepared Link for what was inside the walls, though. After passing along an empty little bit, they emerged into a crazy area; people everywhere and a cacophony of noise. Along the wide avenue were arrayed countless numbers of stalls with countless numbers of different items. Link said thank you to the unnamed driver and got off the cart to stand amidst all the people with his mouth wide open, looking completely flabbergasted.

‘Wow!’ Link mouthed to himself. ‘There are so many people in the “world”! So many buildings, too. Navi, which one is the… “Castle”?’

‘Um, I’m not sure…’

‘I’m suddenly very hungry again,’ he said, sitting down. ‘I can’t move…’

‘Hang in there,’ Navi told him, ‘You did just have milk, after all.’

He nodded, but he still felt very hungry.

‘Welcome!’ a booming voice interrupted from behind, making Link to get up and turn to look. ‘It’s cheap! If you don’t take a look, it’s your loss!’

‘Food!?’

Yes! Link dashed over to the stalls in front of him and started grabbing food from all of them and shovelling it down his throat, savouring the new taste of something other than fruit. A hundred times better than the forest! Link thought.

His feast was then broken up, however, by a group of men wearing aprons that appeared behind him, their arms folded and a surly look on their faces.

‘Hey, boy,’ one of them said, ‘you are going to pay us money, right?’

‘“Money”? What’s that?’ Link asked, still stuffing his face.

That was a wrong move, since, suddenly, their faces turned very angry, and they started shouting.

‘That brat doesn’t even care!’ one man said said.

‘He’s a thief!’ another said.

And then hands were all over him, ripping at his clothes and grabbing things from inside his tunic. And then all hands were off him, his sword and shield were on the ground, and everyone was looking at one of the shopkeepers. In his skinny little hands he held the Kokiri Emerald, holding it up to the light for all to see and marvel at.

‘You do have something nice, don’t ya?’ he said to Link.

‘Give it back!’ Link yelled angrily. ‘Give it back!’

‘If you want it back, you have to give us the money!’ the shopkeeper ordered.
Link struggled out between the surrounding bodies and lunged at the man holding his precious emerald, for he would never want to fail the Deku Tree. But his advance was stopped by other bodies, blocking the way while they too gazed at the green gem.

‘Hold it!’ a young feminine voice shouted from behind the group, which was now very large due to the commotion. ‘I will pay you, so give him back the stone!’ All faces turned in her direction, to regard with clear cynicism and disbelief that another child would pay off how much Link owed. But their disbelief was silenced when she pulled out a purple rupee from her dress and presented it to the shopkeepers.

‘Two hundred rupees!’ they said in unison.

Link grabbed his Kokiri Emerald from the man with ferocity, when his arm was grabbed around the wrist. Turning, he expected to see another shopkeeper, to whom he would yell that his debt has been repaid, but instead he was looking at a girl dressed in a simple white dress with a pretty, blonde haired face and sandals on her feet. He could only assume that this was the girl who had paid his debt, but since he never had a good view of her due to the obstructing bodies, he couldn’t be sure.

‘Who are you?’ Link asked her while she led him through the crowd.

‘It doesn’t matter, hurry!’ she replied, leading him through shoppers that snorted distastefully at them muttering things like ‘stupid kids’ and ‘get out of here’.
The girl led Link to a fountain in the middle of the avenue, but at the far end, away from the drawbridge. Sitting on the edge of the fountain, Link tried to catch his breath while thinking himself lucky that a girl would be nice enough to do what she did.

‘Thank you so much… this is a very important treasure!’ Link said.

‘It is a lovely stone,’ the girl agreed.

‘It’s the Kokiri Emerald. The Great Deku Tree told me to give it to princess Zelda.’

‘I see… so you’re from the forest, huh?’ she asked, looking very intent.

‘Yep!’ Link replied happily.

‘Hm…’

‘That’s why I gotta get to the castle! See ya, and thanks again!’

Link hopped off the fountain and started walking away, Navi trailing, before being pulled back.

‘But you can’t go to the castle by yourself, it’s very well guarded!’ she said.

‘Oh,’ Link said turning around with unhappiness, but looking straight at the ground. ‘What should we do, Navi,’ he asked his fairy, while the girl rubbed at her chin. Navi opened her tiny mouth to respond, when the girl interrupted her, annoying Navi incredibly.

‘Hey, I know! Why don’t you play with me today? If you do then I’ll take you to princess Zelda myself.’

‘You mean it?’ Link asked incredulously.

‘She and I are best friends,’ she said, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. ‘Look, here’s my proof!’

From her dress she retrieved an ocarina, very similar to the one Saria gave Link, save the fact that this one was a dark purple with a small mark on the mouthpiece. Taking the ocarina from her, Link examined it carefully.

‘Oh, this mark,’ he said to himself, seeing a strange triangle.

But the girl was looking in another direction, with her hand to her mouth.

‘Uh-oh,’ she said before darting around to the back of the fountain and hiding from view. Link looked in the direction she had been with confusion. Walking his way was a tall, masculine looking woman that Link found very intimidating. She was very well built and muscular, while keeping the curvaceous figure of a woman. But the most intimidating thing about her, though, was the cool, confident way she moved, which, paired with the lone dagger she had at her belt, gave the impression that she could kill anyone she wished with a single, fluent stroke.

‘You there, little boy,’ she said to him. ‘Have you seen a little noble girl around? She has blonde hair and blue eyes.’

‘Um…’ Link said, making it look as though he was thinking, ‘Nope!’

The woman looked at him with a half-smile and turned around to walk toward a road that led out of the marketplace.

‘Thank you!’ he heard the girl whisper from behind the fountain.

Navi, seeing the opportunity, flew out of Link’s hat to talk with him privately.

‘Link, are you sure about this? She seems a tad bit strange…’ Navi asked.

‘She said she’d take me to princess Zelda, so…’

Navi sighed and regarded the girl that was getting up from behind the fountain.

‘If you think so…’ she said.

‘Come on, let’s go!’ the girl said waving him over. ‘There’s some interesting looking shops around here!’ she said, running off towards some buildings.

Link sighed and ran after her.

The first place they came to was a big building with a massive sign above the door that said: “Bombchu Bowling” in large Hylian print with a picture of what looked like a mouse head.

‘Bombchu bowling… what’s bowling?’ the girl asked Link.

‘I haven’t got a clue either,’ he replied, just as confused.

Inside, it contained a wooden alley with objects moving around at the far wall.

‘Hey kids, want to play?’ a woman at the counter asked.

The girl ran over to discuss it with the clerk while Link observed men throwing things that scooted down the alley and exploded with a loud bang and a huge cloud, but, unluckily for them, on the side wall, away from the target objects. The men groaned and walked out the door with no money left. The girl appeared next to Link with two of the things the men threw down the alley.

‘We have to throw them down and hit the things at the end, and if we do we get a prize,’ she informed him. ‘But when these things hit the ground, they can go anywhere, so apparently it’s pretty hard.’

Link nodded and took one from her and lined up at the line.

‘Hey, about this princess, Zelda… is she beautiful?’ Link asked her.

‘Well,’ the girl said, preoccupied with aiming her bombchu.

And she threw the thing before she responded, which snaked off to the left instantly; exploding loudly only inches from an object.

‘Oh,’ she said unhappily, expressing her unhappiness.

‘Bad luck,’ Link said, stepping up to the line and hurling the bombchu down the alley, which landed perfectly straight and didn’t change direction an inch before blasting the moving wooden chicken at the end, sending it flying. Happy with his success, Link punched the air, laughing.

‘Cool!’ the girl said.

Rewarded with a red rupee, worth twenty green rupees, which was four times what they had originally paid, they left the alley and went everywhere in the market, having fun and enjoying their childhood. They bought masks, they played in the shooting gallery with Link’s slingshot and they ate expensive treats before emerging from the shooting gallery after their third visit. Now it was getting dark, ending their day of playing around.

‘That was so fun, even the third time!’ Link said, opening the door to find the marketplace darkened by the incoming night. ‘Night already? That was fast.’

‘Looks like the day is over… thank you for today,’ the girl said, clutching one of the masks they had bought and looking genuinely sad. She walked over to the fountain where they had first met and stared into the murky reflection.

‘I just wanted to know what it’d be like to buy things with my own money and play on my own for once… just like a regular girl,’ she said.

‘Please tell me your name!’ Link asked. ‘Mine’s Link. I want us to play again sometime.’

But the girl’s eyes were looking over his shoulder at something. Turning, Link noticed the advancing three women with enough time to draw his sword and shield to stand in front of the girl protectively.

The women looked like female ninjas. Each one held two curved, single edged swords, one in each hand. Each also wore a diamond on the forehead and a veil covering their noses and mouths, letting their long blonde hair free and their eyes to shine at them menacingly. Each of them wore a tight shirt covering their breasts, but separate long, loose pants. Their clothes were a dark purple with dark yellows littered amongst the patterns in their shirts, camouflaging them perfectly in the dark.

‘W-what are you?’ Link asked loudly, but timidly, trying vainly to sound confident.

‘Girl, we know who you really are!’ one said. ‘Give us the Ocarina of Time!’

Link was standing guard in front of the girl with his sword out, but she ran out from behind him towards a side alley with desperation.

‘Running away, are you?’ the same woman said, lashing out with one of her swords. But in mid-air, Link parried with his own Kokiri sword, showing a natural talent, and buying enough time for the girl to stop and get back behind Link, who now stood with confidence at a successful block.

The same woman scoffed before saying, ‘Who are you?’
But before Link could give a reply they were talking amongst themselves.

‘Someone is coming!’ the back woman said to the other two, before they all sprinted off with astonishing speed down the side alley the girl was headed to.
‘Hey, wait!’ Link called after them, running after them himself.

Once Link had disappeared down the alley, a shadow walked up behind the girl, who was now alone in the dark, quiet market.
‘Princess,’ the shadow said behind the girl, startling her.

Turning, the girl saw her bodyguard standing there, looking down on her, the same woman who had been looking for the princess earlier.

‘Impa,’ the girl sighed with relief.

‘I’m glad that you’re safe,’ Impa said to her. ‘Now, let’s head back to the castle.’

‘Alright,’ the girl replied, letting her bodyguard escort her away from the market.

Not more than a second after they disappeared into the shadows, Link came rushing back out of the alley to find it completely deserted, no sign of the girl he had spent the whole day with.

‘That girl’s gone! I wonder where she went?’ Link said to Navi, feeling a pang of sorrow at losing what he felt to be a new friend.

‘I’m sure she went home,’ Navi said in a comforting tone. ‘Little girls are fickle after all.’

Link sighed, agreeing with Navi without saying it, and put his sword and shield in their place on his back. Then, with no real destination, he started walking until, next to the fountain, he saw the object the girl had showed Link to prove her acquaintance with the princess. I’m sure that girl had this, Link thought, picking it up and holding it in his right hand. It looks like the ocarina Saria gave me, yet different.

‘Let’s just get to the castle, Link,’ Navi said, shaking him from his thoughts.

‘Oh, yes, I forgot about that,’ Link responded.

‘What time do you think it is, anyway?’ Link asked.

‘Probably close to nine is my guess.’

Geez, that day really did go fast, Link thought, as he walked off in the direction of the tall array of towers and spires that was the only building that seemed like the castle. It’s tall shape silhouetted against the navy blue sky, looking strangely ominous in the distance.

*

Sunlight came quickly to the kingdom of Hyrule, lighting up the world to allow the marketplace to bustle and teem with eager shoppers, the same as any day. Only the odd wispy, white cloud dotted the otherwise deep blue sky, and the day was already turning out to be a hot one.

Zelda was clothed in her royal garb that included an extravagant gown decorated with the Royal Family of Hyrule’s family symbols and decorations.

‘Father!’ she called out along the lengthy corridor while following at a distance. ‘Father, I beg of you, don’t meet with man! For some reason-’

‘Again with that dream of yours?’ the King of Hyrule yelled back, not stopping along the corridor. ‘Nonsense! It is a time of peace!’

And Zelda was left alone in the corridor, looking down at the floor with her hands held tightly to her chest and a glum expression writ upon her face.

‘Almost… there…!’ Link strained, grabbing the vine one hand after the other and pulling his body up the wall.

The previous night had been fairly frustrating for both Link and Navi. Guards littered the area even a kilometre away from the castle. There was so many of them and they were so well placed that even in the pitch black darkness of night a little kid couldn’t sneak past them. Instead, he had spent the night in a bush waiting for the guards to either tire or change between shifts. Unfortunately, that shift came at sunrise, so Link had spent the whole night in that bush, and he had a very sore back to prove it.

The castle was beckoning him now and, ironically, the guards were almost too easy to get past while inside the castle, so he found the princess’s courtyard after only twenty minutes searching.

The courtyard was a little grass island surrounded by a small moat, and at the back, beyond the half-dozen stairs to a dais, was a little alcove in the wall, with a window set into the stone that saw through to the throne room. On this dais was the princess, or what Link presumed to be the princess, with her back turned and her eyes staring through the window. Although, the illustrious gown was so regal-looking that anyone could have been forgiven for mistaking it to be the princess.

Stepping carefully along the mini bridge into the courtyard, Link had the Kokiri Emerald out, as if it were a letter permitting him to be here. Stopping in the middle of the courtyard, among the garden of flowers, Link stammered at his address to the princess, the most important girl in the kingdom.

‘Uh… excuse me…’ Link said, loudly enough for her to just her him.

Without turning from the wall she said, ‘I haven’t told you my name yet, have I, Link?’
While it was still registering in Link’s mind, the princess turned to reveal her face, to be none other than the girl Link had considered a friend the previous day.

‘Y-you’re…’ Link stuttered.

‘I’m Zelda, the princess of Hyrule,’ she finished.

Link didn’t move for several seconds, still trying hard to believe this.

‘Link!’ Navi hissed in his ear.


‘Oh, yeah,’ Link realised, remembering the stone he held in his hand. But returning her lost ocarina hung more heavily in his mind, though. ‘You dropped this yesterday, by accident,’ he said, handing the purple object over to her. ‘What a surprise it’d turn out like this!’

Again, her eyes were looking over his shoulder, at someone behind him.

‘Greetings, princess Zelda,’ a deep, commanding voice said from the entrance to the courtyard. ‘I’ve come to meet with your father.’

Link turned around to regard the stranger. In a way, he was reminiscent of the ninja women Link encountered the previous night, but it was a male, and insanely muscular and tall. His armour was very over-the-top, it covering every inch of his body except his face and it was the same colour and decoration as the swordswomen from the previous night. His skin was a dark, bronze colour; his hair was a flaming red; and his face was the kind that one could not trust fully, and one that irritated, with arrogance, to the point of screaming.

‘Sir Ganondorf, how ill mannered of you to enter this garden without permission!’ Zelda scolded the man.

‘I beg your pardon. Glory would be if you allowed us enter into a union with Hyrule. There is no other country as beautiful as this. And no princess as beautiful, either.’

‘There’s no need for flattery, stay away from me!’ Zelda ordered.

A smile crossed the man’s face, another arrogant thing that made Link dislike this man even more.

‘By the way,’ Ganondorf continued, ‘the secret treasure passed down through the Hyrule Royal Family, the “Ocarina of Time”… you have it, don’t you princess? Sometime… could you show it to me?’

‘I know not of which you speak,’ Zelda replied, very obviously trying to sound as adult as possible with her language. ‘However, I did hear the same things from the roughians yesterday. Could they be acquaintances of yours?’

Ganondorf’s smile quickly turned into a neutral expression, not openly betraying what Link thought was going through his mind. His eyes bore deep into Zelda’s, warning her against saying things like that. And then his threatening eyes turned to Link, who had largely gone unnoticed by Ganondorf for the conversation, but now Ganondorf took a mean look at Link before turning around and walking out of the courtyard. After he was gone, Zelda stepped down to Link’s level and looked on where he was looking.

‘Ganondorf,’ Zelda said, ‘the chief of the Gerudu race who reside in the deserts at the ends of the west. Right now he may pledge loyalty to my father, but what he really wants is the Tri-Force, which is in the country’s holy land.’

‘The Tri-Force!’ Link said alarmingly to no once in particular.

Then, is he the one the Great Deku Tree spoke of? Zelda then sat on the steps, to which Link followed.

‘I had this dream,’ she told him, ‘it was a frightening dream, in which Hyrule was over-ridden by black clouds. But then, a line of light appears and cuts through the clouds and shines upon the earth. There, I see the image of a person with a fairy holding a stone with green light.’

‘Fairy… stone…’ Link said to himself, piecing it together slowly.

‘I knew you were the one who appeared in my dream, from the moment I saw you. I… I am frightened. Ganondorf has to be the black clouds that were in my dream. I feel that his evil heart will destroy Hyrule.’ Zelda paused for a second, looking down at the ground. ‘But my father will not believe me…’

‘I believe you,’ Link said firmly. ‘The Great Deku Tree died because of his evil power.’

‘We mustn’t let him get the Tri-Force,’ Zelda told him.

‘Where exactly is the Tri-Force, where is the holy land?’

‘The entrance to the holy land is within the Temple of Time. However, the door is sealed behind a stone wall. In order to open it, it is said one must “collect the three gems and put them in their place in the temple”. But there’s one more secret. The Royal Family’s heirloom… the Ocarina of Time.’

‘Only two gems left, then eh?’ Link said, now inspired. ‘I will find them and bring them here. Princess Zelda, you keep that ocarina. I will go and retrieve the remaining two gems for you!’

‘Alright, Link… but you must keep the Tri-Force out of Ganondorf’s hands!’