Legend of Zelda Deluge: December part 7

     Link opened his eyes to pitch darkness all around him. After staring blankly for a moment, he rolled over, looking at the fireplace. The unattended fire had burnt low overnight, leaving only lingering embers behind. In its absence, the chill from outside had crept in, its claws gripping the room. Slowly Link rose up into the cold, noticing that his neck had gone stiff. Yawning, he rubbed his neck methodically, and reached around blindly for his shoes until he realized he was wearing them.

    He stoked the fire for a while, slowly remembering all that had happened last night. Recalling his disorientation from the mulled wine, he noted with relief that he only had the slightest traces of a headache. After the fire was stable, he got a spare piece of wood and lit it, using it as a makeshift torch as he rose, searching the room for the oil lanterns and lighting them.

     The light swept the shadows away, revealing that the entire interior of the small building was a single room, separated into two parts by neatly stacked wooden crates. The larger section had a long wooden counter, with large drawers built into its far side, several of them locked. Behind the counter was an assortment of clean, though clearly not new, fishing equipment, including sealed bait. On the opposite side of the room was the door, and again it's the far wall between door and counter was an empty glass tank, spotlessly clean, though still bearing a strong smell of fish.

     Link had slept in the smaller half of the room, where all kinds of fishing tools, bags of salt, wood, heaps of old junk including threadbare blankets and carpets were strewn about haphazardly. The heat from the now lively fireplace did not stay in this area, instead up rising and encompassing all the room. After he finished lighting the oil lanterns, he opened the shutters and let the outside light in.

     Outside the frosted window panes, sunrise was still a while away, but it was beginning to grow light as the stars disappeared. He could see the wind gently brushing the newly fallen, powdery snow about in cloud-like wisps. He walked back and set his gear, save for his lantern, aside, covering it with a clean blanket, then a dusty one. Pulling his cloak up around him and buckling it, he looked down and saw his hat on the floor by the fire. It had a small bulge in it that rose and fell slowly, indicating that Truett was still inside.

    He leaned down and poked at her, making her snort in her sleep.

    “Truett, I need my hat,” he said. “It’s morning. Wake up.”

    “Go away,” she mumbled, her voice muffled by the hat. She did not move.

    Link waited a moment, then picked up the hat and pulled it on his head, Truett still inside. She grumbled, squirming a little, but eventually muttered, “Whatever.” As Link went outside, a small, lit torch in his hand and his lantern on his belt, he could hear the very faint, high-pitched sound of her snores.

     Outside, he lit the two lanterns on both sides of the door, and then headed to the frozen pond. It was faintly covered by the powdery snow, which was whisked about by the wind so often that it did not settle on the ice. Around the pond were four iron lampposts, each on a far side of the pond. Minding any trace of ice and the water’s edge, Link lit the lanterns, the size of the pond and the lack of a pathway making the task take ten minutes. By then, the clear sky was turning pink, and almost all the stars had faded.

     On the far side of the pond, Link had drawn near to a small, neat house in the corner of a fenced off area. Lighting the lantern nearest it, he spotted smoke trailing lazily from its brick chimney and realized it was where Hena was still sleeping. Remembering her warning that she was not to be awoken, after he lit the lantern he turned back to the pond immediately and quietly continued his work.

     Afterwards, he headed to exit the Fishing Hole. The path leading to the small door in the stone wall that encompassed the area was mostly clear of ice, thanks to a heavy salt coating. Opening the door, he stepped outside, bracing himself against the when as he headed slowly down to the three docks, taking his time to look around.

    Lake Hylia was all around him. It seemed to go on forever, save for directly across on the far bank from him where he could see a dark forest, pitifully small in the distance, and then to his right, where the shoreline spread out and away into the small stretch of fields and woods which either were cut off by the Hyrule Field plateau to the north or the wooded hills to the north-east. The frozen center of the lake and all the land were covered in sheer white, looking unusually bright in the soft early morning light, though not yet sparkling, as the sun was hidden behind clouds. If it weren’t for the town nearby on the shoreline, as well as the small dark settlements he could barely make out in the far distance, the snow-covered, featureless fields would easily rob him from any sense of distance.

      When he went back inside after lighting the lanterns on the end of the docs, he noticed lights were on in Hena’s house. Going back into the building he had slept in, he quickly grabbed some of his dried food for a small breakfast. Heading back out as he finished, he spotted Hena walking across the area in the snow, heading straight for him, her olive green overalls and coat brightened by the orange scarf around her shoulders that was the same wavy, slightly coarse texture as her dark hair.

     “Did you sleep well?” she asked, stifling a yawn.

     He nodded. “Definitely the warmest I’ve slept in a while.”

     “Right. So you lit all the lanterns? That’s great!” She yawned once more, then smiled at him. “Thanks for being quiet when you did all that. So, you ready to get to work?”

     Link spent the morning clearing the snow off of areas of the pond, where afterwards Hena showed him how to cut holes in the thick ice for the customers to use for fishing, which was something new to him, since Zora’s River never completely froze over in the winter. After cutting out as many holes where she directed, he cleaned any dirty fishing tackle needed for the day. By the time he finished with clearing a path connecting the cleaned pond, the business building, and the entrance, the sun had risen halfway to its peak.

     “I’m expecting a few more people before the hunts start tomorrow, but not too many,” Hena told him. “So I’ll let you go for today, but make sure the path to town is clear first. And I’ll need you back before dark to salt the pathway from here to the village. At the least, there will be one or two customers using it tomorrow morning.”

     After agreeing and promising he would be back on time, Link grabbed the shovel for clearing the path and headed out of the fishing hole again. As he stepped back outside, he could see that the scenery had changed very little, except for the light of the sun in the partly cloudy sky making the snow dazzle and sparkle. Walking towards town, he progressed steadily but slowly, making sure every trace of snow and ice was off of the path.

    Halfway to the town, with no one else in sight, he spoke aloud to Truett, “Are you awake?”

    There was silence, and then, “Barely.” She fluttered out of his hat, and began circling around his head, her teal fairy light shivering slightly now and then, as if she were cold.

     He frowned. “You’ve been really sleepy lately.”

     “It’s the cold, okay?”

     “So, you're cold?”

     “Kind of. Yes.”

     “But the cold didn’t bother you until recently, and it hasn’t gotten all that much colder.”

     “I don’t know. I don't know why I've been feeling so lousy. How am I supposed to know everything?”

     Link paused in his work, frowning, racking his brain for anything else that had changed. Unable to come up with any answers, he asked, “That light around you, that keeps you warm, doesn’t it?”

     “Usually.”

     “So you don’t need to eat to keep warm, do you?”

     “Well…not really.” She flew around him one more time, and then swooped over, sitting on his head. “Fairies only need water to survive. We don’t need food at all unless if we’re sick, which I am not, but during the winter we’re always underground or somewhere else to keep warm. We don’t go out much, except for holidays.”

     “So, you don’t know if food is needed for warmth?”

     “I’ve never really had the need to find out,” she said carelessly, beginning to fly around him again.

      Link looked back down, and pushed away a couple small heaps of snow off of the path, starting to walk down it again as he asked, “When was the last time you ate something?”

     “Sheesh, I don’t know. Five hundred years, give or take?”

     Stopping dead in his tracks, Link slipped slightly on a patch of black ice, which he slowly turned to chisel away as he asked, “You…weren’t kidding when you said fairies don’t need food much.”

     “Well duh. Did you ever hear about fairies pigging out?”

     Frowning, Link tilted his head. “No, what I read on fairies never mentioned food. Still, once we get to the village we should find you something to eat.”

     “If you insist. Just as long as it doesn’t have any alcohol in it that isn't cooked down; I get completely drunk way too quickly these days.”

     By the time Link finished clearing the path, returned his tools to the Fishing Hole, gathered some of his gear to take to town with him, including his sword and shield, and got to the village, it was nearing noon. Crowds of townspeople and tourists were out and about, roaming the decorated town. From their chatter, Link found it was two days before Yule. There were several outdoor food vendors, from which he got a hot mug of wassail (which he offered to Truett, who rebuffed it, saying it smelled too spicy and that she never liked Hylian drinks anyways), he roamed the vendors looking for something that seemed suited for a fairy.

    “What kind of food would fairies eat?” Link whispered to himself when he was in the middle of a crowd too busy and noisy to notice him.

     “I really don’t know Link; do you just expect me to remember something as unimportant as what I ate last?” asked Truett from inside his hat.

     Link frowned. “Do you eat meat or not?”

     “Well, that’s obvious. Have you ever heard of fairies going on a hunting party to kill and eat an innocent herd of mountain goats or chipmunks?”

     Not answering, Link bought a mountain apple from one of the closest booths. Looking for a place where Truett could eat it without being seen, he ducked into a nearby shop crammed full with people, shelves, and merchandise. Holding his breath, he inched his way along the wall past the shoppers into a corner near the fireplace, next to a small counter covered with cheap wooden carvings. He placed the apple down on the counter and took off his hat. Truett fluttered out, landing and approaching the apple. The sound of her biting into it was hardly audible, but it continued for a half a minute until she took a step back. The side of the apple was covered with tiny bite marks, as if a large bug or a very tiny mouse had been nibbling on it.

     “Wow, not a bad choice. I couldn’t eat any more if I tried,” Truett said. A small burp came out of her, sounding like a high-pitched hiccup.

     “Really?” Link picked it up. “You barely ate anything.”

     “Oh, so first I'm not eating at all and it's strange to you, and so now I am eating, but it's still strange just because they have tiny stomach? What you want from me? To shamelessly swallow it up like a starved pig?”

      “Okay okay,” he answered. “Get into my hat before someone sees you.” 

The Legend of Zelda and characters copyright Nintendo

"The Legend of Zelda: Deluge" writing and original concepts and characters copyright Mahira / Mahira-chan