{{ Soul Shadow }}

 

Link’s reasons for beginning to believe that the hour of his revelation was soon approaching came on the night when he trudged into an inn from the pouring rain and decided to stay and wait until the weather cleared, although he had boarded at this particular establishment on a previous occasion and found that its patrons were not always of the best sorts; gamblers, thieves, prostitutes, most of them worked out of or could be found hanging about the halls and stairs of the Gilded Goblet.

 

He put a few rupees on the counter and shouldered past the smirking faces and tawdry inquiries of the women who haunted the stairwell. “It’s been a long while since I seen you here, handsome.”

 

“Just staying the night,” he replied with a smile and a nod.

 

“Alone? That’s too bad.”

 

“Shame for such a good-looking piece like you to spend the night all by your lonesome.”

 

“Yeah. In that big, cold bed.”

 

“We could warm it up for you.”

 

“Special two-for-one deal we’re having tonight!”

 

“We’d certainly keep your hands full.”

 

“And your mouth!”

 

There was a burst of raucous giggles, and Link nodded and tried to conceal his eagerness to be rid of them until he reached his room. “This is where I get off, ladies,” he said upon arriving.

 

“Really? You haven’t even paid yet.”

 

“Oh, shut up, Rucia,” one of the other girls snapped.

 

“I was jesting.”

 

“Good-night, ladies,” Link said, stepping into his room.

 

“Fie. Well, sleep tight.”

 

“Be sure to let us know if you get lonely!”

 

“I’ll do just that.”

 

And the door closed. The girls moped and made their way back downstairs. “So much for that one. If he were the last man on earth the human race would be doomed.”

 

“I told you you’d never make it with him.”

 

“Oh, go snog your uncle.”

 

“He don’t sleep with anybody.”

 

“You s’pose he’s queer?”

 

“No, just… different.”

 

“Sounds queer to me.”

 

“He seems sad.”

 

“Must be sad to be wand’rin’ around all the time.”

 

“Aye, at least even us hookers have a place to call home.”

 

“I don’t think he’s sad.”

 

“Why not? He’s got every reason to be.”

 

“Maybe he’s already got a girl.”

 

“Or maybe he’s lost one.”

 

“Ohhhhhhhhh,” they all said in unison, followed by a brief silence.

 

“Well, if I ‘ad a rupee for every man I’ve lost I’d be the queen of this whole land.”

 

“I ‘ear you, sister.”

 

“Aye, let’s hit the bar. There’s always fair game there.”

 

“Ugh. You may call it fair. They’re mostly fat and ugly.”

 

“Ah, but ‘fair’ is all in the eye of a well-paid beholder.”

 

*                            *                            *

 

Link waited until he could no longer hear voices before tossing his knapsack upon the small wooden bed and lighting the lantern by his bedside. He removed his threadbare green cloak -soaked but otherwise intact- and hung it on a peg by the fireplace to dry. Taking up the lantern, he crouched before the hearth and kindled a fire to warm the chill in the dreary room. Once the fire was steadily burning, he peeled off his damp tunic and undershirt, using them to towel off the excess rainwater in his unruly blond hair before hanging them next to his cloak and removing his boots, sitting before the fire, rubbing his hands over the chilled, moist flesh of his arms to warm himself faster.

 

He turned his head and gazed out of the poorly-moulded glass window panes at the unpleasant night outside, grateful for the fire and dry bed no matter how unsavoury the reputation of this inn.

 

For a long while he sat before the hearth, gazing into the hypnotic orange flames and reflecting pensively upon his travels, on this day of days particularly, for it marked the anniversary of his departure from the Lost Wood, two long years ago. It seemed much longer to Link, more like three or four. Time was beginning to blur to him, and if he had not left upon his sixteenth birthday he would have surely forgotten how old he was. Of course, he never knew his actual date of birth; the Kokiri had decided upon the day that he was first brought to the Lost Wood to suffice for this, and for all Link knew they might be a year or two off, give or take.

 

I could be eighteen, sixteen, or twenty. I suppose it doesn’t really matter. After all, age is only a number, isn’t it? All I know is that I am caught in between; too old to be a child and yet too young to be a man…

 

His thoughts returned to Saria, and he went to his knapsack and produced a leather pouch; within it lay his most precious and priceless possession: the ocarina that she had given him. Reseating himself before the fire, he placed the ocarina to his lips and began to softly play a beautiful yet sorrowful song, a song from Kokiri Village, full of fond memories and unforgotten friendships. He poured out his heart and all of his sorrow into the wistful melody, for he had long ago decided that he was too old to weep. And so the ocarina cried his tears for him.

 

He was startled from his melodic eulogy by a door slamming down the hall and footsteps thumping down the stairs, raised voices but not in anger. Link was curious. He slipped his ocarina back into its pouch and took a dry shirt out of his knapsack, hastily pulling it on and stepping outside his room, descending the stairs with growing curiosity. A small mob was crowded about a table.

 

“Now, now!” an old man’s voice exclaimed. “Don’t go pokin’ it like that! Give it some air, you chowder heads!”

 

“Looks like it’s dead to me,” someone said.

 

“I’ve never seen a live one before…”

 

“They don’t usually live around these parts.”

 

“Poor thing. Did it drown?”

 

“Must’ve just washed down from the rain gutters.”

 

“I’ll give you 200 rupees for it!”

 

“You’re mad! It’s as dead as your brain, Rosco!”

 

“Not as dead as you’re about to be-!”

 

“Oh, shag off. I’ll give ya 125, best offer.”

 

Link elbowed his way through the mob and found the old man who had spoken earlier sitting down, dabbing at a small, rain-drenched something lying upon a towel. It took a few seconds for Link to realise that he was looking at a half-drowned fairy. His hair stood on end. He had seen them all the time during his living with the Kokiri, but this was the first he had ever seen one with its halo of light almost nearly extinguished. The actual body of the small being could be seen, such a tiny and delicate-looking thing with pale, almost pure white skin and pale yellow hair, probably as tall as his thumb. It was laid out on the towel, its wings limp as wet paper, barely glowing, a sign that it was desperately clinging to life. Upon closer inspection, Link saw that it was a female fairy.

 

“Excuse me,” he said, suddenly compelled for an unknown reason to save the poor creature or take down everyone who stood in his way. “I’ve lived around fairies my whole life. I think I can help.”

 

“You?” the old man asked, raising bushy grey eyebrows. “Well, all right. But I don’t think it will do much good—I believe she’s already beyond our help.” But he surrendered his position at the table and Link sat down in his place.

 

He very gently picked the weightless body from the towel and held her in his hands. People stopped talking and stared. Link, who for unknown reasons felt the urge to narrate, explained to them, “The ties between humans and fairies are deeper than you think. There is an old legend that tells of how when the Goddesses were creating people to populate the new world, they started by making the fairies, which were perfect in every way. But there was a curious fairy by the name of Ket, and he often disobeyed the rules set by the Great Fairies to satisfy his curiosity. Eventually the Great Fairies were forced to take his wings from him, but they were merciful in their punishment; they made Ket larger than the rest of the fairies so that he would not be impaired by his small size.

 

“So he lived, and he walked the earth and was still great friends with his fairy brothers and sisters. But Ket grew lonely after hundreds of years, and he went to the Goddesses and asked for a companion. The Goddesses agreed, but in turn he would have to give up his divine gift of eternal life. Ket was uncertain, but the Goddesses showed to him the image of his companion, whose name became Lan, and she was so beautiful that he immediately fell in love with her and gave up immortality to live with her on the earth.

 

“And so the legend goes that when the Goddesses saw the children of Ket and Lan they were filled with love for them, and moulded the bodies of humans in their image. Some people believe that the children of Ket and Lan mixed blood with that of divine-born humans, thus making certain people especially sensitive to fairies and fairy-kind. It is believed than anyone who carries a drop of Ket’s blood has the power to heal fairies, for he was a great lover of his kind.”

 

Rosco scratched his head. “I’ve never heard that one before.”

 

“So I guess you think you’ve got a bit of fairy blood in ya, eh lad?”

 

“Yeah, where’d you hear that, anyway?”

 

“Old Kokiri legend,” said Link. “Everyone knows it where I come from.”

 

“Kokiri?”

 

“Never heard of the place.”

 

“Do you mean Kakariko, the Sheikah village?”

 

“Will you shut up with your blathering, Ros? You’re irritating the shit out’ve everyone.”

 

“No I’m not!”

 

While the crowd bickered, Link returned his attention to the fairy in his hands. Her glow had grown stronger, probably more from the warmth of his hands than from any amount of fairy blood in his veins. Then to his surprise, the fairy stirred and sputtered, heaving out a great amount of water (at least a thimble’s worth); she held onto Link’s thumb as she crawled to her knees, still coughing and flitting her wings weakly. Once she had gotten the water out of her system, she slid herself across Link’s palm and took up the cuff of his shirt sleeve, drying off with it like a towel.

 

Link was transfixed by the fairy, and he felt lost in one of those moments of his again, those eerie déjà vu flashes that made it seem as if the whole world had stopped but he was still in motion. The fairy was drying her short white-blonde hair and gazing absently at Link’s palm when she suddenly stopped everything and said in a high, familiar voice, “I know these hands. They have held me many times before…”

 

She looked up at the young man with her pale blue fairy-eyes. “Link!” she said with happiness in her voice.

 

Link’s head was suddenly swimming. He felt dizzy. The room was still but he was moving.

 

The fairy stood upon his open palm and cried, “Link! Do you remember? It’s me, Navi!”

 

He opened his mouth to answer, but no sound came out. The world before his eyes went black, and the last thing he was aware of was the sound of his own body as it hit the floor.

 

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