Chapter 2: The Great Arachnid Chapter 4: To the Mountain
Chapter 3: The Princess’s Premonition
Link and Rana made Hyrule Castle Town in about eight hours, which was dusk, by rushing. They were both completely exhausted. It was nine in the evening, and they entered just before the bridge was raised. Link looked around for a healer’s place. The wound in Rana’s shoulder had turned black. She was very pale and wanted very much to stop and rest.
“There!” cried Link, hurrying Rana towards a two story building on the edge of the town square.
“Hello there,” said the fairly young woman inside, smiling at the two children. Link did not waste time.
“My friend is hurt, badly,” he said quickly.
“I’m not that bad,” Rana objected weakly. The woman’s expression changed to concern. As she examined Rana’s shoulder, she began looking quite shocked.
“What have you been doing to get such a poisonous injury? And why didn’t you come earlier?”
“We couldn’t,” said Rana, rather indignantly. “We live in the forest. We were fighting a giant spider-thing–“
“Rana,” said Link. “Do you think anyone will believe that?”
“Actually, I do,” said the woman. “This is serious. If you live in the forest, you made here in good time if you started at lunchtime; that is how old this bite is. Come upstairs, dear, and we’ll have another look.” Rana followed the woman upstairs. Link sat down in a chair and fidgeted with his slingshot.
The woman came downstairs in a few minutes.
“Your friend will be completely fine by morning. It is quite a virulent poison in her, but I have some fairy magic on hand that can deal with spider poison as bad as this. She will stay upstairs tonight; you may see her tomorrow.”
“Thank you,” said Link gratefully. “Good night.”
He left, and, finding nothing better to do, slept soundly the rest of the night in an alley on a box. Stray dogs sniffed him, but didn’t bother him.
The next morning, he was up early. Not only did he have a sore neck, but he wanted to see Rana. He walked into the shop.
“Yay!” yelled Navi. “Rana!”
Rana was simply dancing around, exercising her shoulder. Link ran to her and patted her on the back; she gave him a hug.
“I’m so much better! And Lauri’s such a good cook! Where did you sleep?”
“On a box,” answered Link nonchalantly. Rana became indignant.
“What did you do that for? I got to sleep in a bed, and you’re the hero and you slept on a box? You’re nuttier than I am!” They both laughed. The woman smiled at them.
“She’s all better now. She’s told me everything, and I’d be happy to help you two.”
“Why?” Link asked. “It’s such a weird story!”
“You two,” said Lauri, “are wearing strange green clothes and you have fairies following you.”
“Yes…”
“Ancient lore in Hyrule tells of the Kokiri children, and I had to study that in second level potion-making. Anyway, you can come back here for meals, and to sleep, and definitely if you get hurt again.”
“Thank you!” stuttered Link.
Later, the Kokiri visited the market, and met a pretty young girl about eleven years old with red hair and big blue eyes. She asked them a hundred questions, but gave them ready answers to all the things they had to ask her: her name was Malon, and she lived on a ranch with real horses and some cows and chickens and her father, Talon. Rana liked her a lot, so Link left her talking while he went up to the white, spired castle on the hill behind the town.
“Please, sir,” Link asked the guard at the white gate, “I need to see Princess Zelda.”
“Ha ha, little boy, you think you need to see the princess? What put that idea in your head? Run away and play, now!” Link stood firm.
“It’s urgent. She’ll understand when she meets me,” he said determinedly.
“Don’t you mean you? There’s three of you!”
Link looked around and saw Rana and Malon had followed him.
“Silly boy, can’t you see? Nobody’s allowed into the castle unless they are summoned. That’s the new rule around here! See you later!”
“Wait!” said Malon. “I want to go in, anyway. My daddy’s in there, and he hasn’t come home for a whole day!”
“Who’s your daddy, little girl?”
“Talon, of Lon Lon Ranch.”
“Er… well… I suppose you could go in, but you’ll need an escort to ensure you don’t wander off.” The guard peered over his shoulder and blew a small silver whistle. Another solder came running.
“What? Are people trying to break in?”
“No, this young lady is looking for Talon, the milk-man. Get her an escort and be quick.”
“What about those other kids?”
“They want to see the princess.” The solder slapped his knee, giggling. “That’s a good one!”
“Yeah, but they’re just kids. Did she summon them?”
“No.”
“The Great Deku Tree sent us. He’s the guardian of Kokiri Forest!”
“S…o… w…h…a…t.”
Rana glared at the guard, but Link dragged her away. “We’ll wait a bit.”
They climbed up to the top of the town wall and waited for the guard to change. A stout man dressed in red and blue, with a beard, came running out of the castle frantically. Malon came out soon after, giggling. Rana waved to her.
At noon, the soldiers changed while bugles blew and fifes shrilled. Again Link tried to go into the castle, and again the soldier refused him entry. The boy was getting frustrated, and his fairy said so.
“Well, we have to go! The Great Deku Tree said so. We can’t just mill around because of some block-headed guards!”
“Yes, we do…” Link looked at the closed gate thoughtfully. “I wonder if we can sneak over the gate.”
“You’re not thinking of-!” Rana shivered. “You’ll get in trouble!”
“I know, if I get caught.”
“You’re crazy!” Even Navi thought this plan was stretching their luck.
“You can stay here, and then it’ll just be me who gets in trouble.”
“Yeah, I’d better stay here. If I trip, we’re dead.”
“If you want. I’ll see you later, then.”
Link crept off, climbing over the wall using every tree-climbing skill he had ever learned…
“Wait!” Rana whispered from below him. “I changed my mind! It’s too freaky waiting by myself. I’m coming.” Link smiled and waited for a few seconds for her to catch up before dropping lightly to the ground inside the castle wall.
Climbing around obstacles and avoiding the guards’ line of sight was a difficult, tedious process. Once they made it inside the inner wall and to the inner moat, Link relaxed a bit. Now he walked sturdily around, though close to the wall, looking for a way into the castle proper.
“I imagine the princess would live somewhere in the centre and up,” Naeri said softly.
“Look there!” Rana pointed at a small, clean drain emptying into the moat. “Can we crawl through that?”
“Don’t know. Navi, can you…”
“Sure!” The two fairies zipped away, into the darkness.
In a few moments they were back. “You can get in that way! It leads to a fountain in an inner garden, and then there are lots of guards, but after that, there’s a little courtyard, and the princess is there! We don’t have to go inside at all!”
“Thank goodness,” Rana said. “We’d never make it in there. I wanna see those gardens.” She slipped into the moat and tried to climb into the drain, but she was too short and splashed back in the water. Link hopped down behind her and gave her a foot up, then climbed up himself. The water was cold, though it was late spring.
Inside the gardens, they were surrounded by windowless walls, hedges, shrubbery, and brightly coloured flowers of kinds not usually found in the forest. The forest children were entranced, and before Link could stop her, Rana put a spray of small lilies behind her ear.
“Sorry, I couldn’t help it. They’re so pretty!”
“Let’s go,” Navi said. “This way. We’ll tell you when it’s safe to go.”
With the fairies’ help, they crept past the half-asleep guards and through the sunshine to a discrete archway in the wall.
“Look! There she is!” Naeri whispered.
Link, hugging the wall of the arch, looked and saw a small, slender person dressed in a pink frock and a white shawl and headdress.
The children felt suddenly shy. This was their destination, but how were they going to explain everything to the princess? How would they get her attention without alarming her?
Link inhaled deeply, trying not to breath in pollen, and walked forward firmly. Rana trailed behind awkwardly. He stopped about ten paces away from the girl staring fixedly through a tall window.
“Excuse me…”
The girl started, then turned and faced him, her skirt swishing with a delightful noise. Her eyes were very wide for a moment, and then she smiled.
“You’ve come!” she cried softly. “That’s wonderful! What are your names?”
“Er… This is Rana, and that’s Naeri, and this is Navi, and I’m Link.”
“What do you mean by ‘you’ve come’?” Navi asked.
“Well, I had a dream, a prophetic dream, and it was… uh… I’m sorry, I forgot to introduce myself.” The girl drew herself up with a slightly regal expression. “I am Zelda, Princess of Hyrule.” Her posture relaxed again into comfort. “There, I did it. Anyway, I had a dream where Hyrule was covered with dark clouds, but a bright light shone in the forest. There was a boy who looked just like you, with a green stone and a fairy friend…”
“Wow,” Rana said. “Are you magic, Princess?”
Zelda chuckled. “Just call me Zelda. I guess I’m a bit magic, but I can’t really do anything yet. My nurse is going to start teaching me some real spells soon, though. Do you have the green stone in the dream?”
Link pulled the Kokiri Emerald out of his pocket.
“Great! Oh, I’m so relieved.”
“Why? What’s going on? I don’t actually know much. The Great Deku Tree just said to tell you everything.”
“Look through the window… the clouds from my dream are in there,” Zelda said, pointing with a shudder.
Link looked, and saw a tall man, dressed in brown and khaki, with brilliant red hair and a jewel in the centre of his forehead. The man was smiling pleasantly, and bowing as he talked to someone Link could not see. Rana, who had crept up behind Link, backed away again. “He looks freaky,” she said to Zelda.
“He’s from the Gerudo people, so he does look different, but it’s not that that frightens me…” answered the princess.
Just then, the man turned his head slightly and his golden eyes looked right into Link’s!