In Nayru's Palm

For the next week or two, I adapted to village life, or at least as much of it as I could, being “handicapped” as I was. Rue grew quickly until her shoulder easily brushed my knees, growing rapidly with the steady supply of food and exercise. She listened readily to me, and tolerated Impa, but didn’t like many others, though she understood that yes, my friends were allowed to come into my presence. Really.

To me, playing the harp was somehow easier than the ocarina, despite its complexity in comparison. I loved the feel of it in my hands, the sounds it could make, the contours of its golden-yellow frame…it was definitely worth the constant brushing of my burns. Impa was impressed with my progress with the instrument. She told me that when I went to go see Kaepora again, I was to take it with me.

Creen, Ralt, and Soun came and visited me every day. When they found out that I was learning to play harp, they insisted in what Impa insisted was a sibling-like way that I play for them anything new I learned, and I always did, even if they teased me afterward on occasion.

I still dreamed often, but the dreams grew more and more mundane. I dreamed of days at court, and then nights watching fairies flit about in a grassy forest I could only assume belonged to the Kokiri and their Deku Tree. I dreamed that the Deku Tree died. I dreamed of lessons with Hylian, Goron and Zora tutors, learning mannerisms and language of peoples that I wasn’t likely to see under my father’s strict protection, and then in the next instant I was playing a chipper tune for the biggest, grisliest goron I had ever seen, and he was dancing to it. As I dreamed, I lived two lives—the life of the girl I had been, and the life of the one who could save that girl.

“Sheik, get up!”

I rolled and landed on my feet on the wood floor. A quick change from the slow-waker I had been, one would think, except that just the day before I had been too slow and had gotten ice from the cold room slid down my shirt and breeches.

Rue rolled to her back right to the spot where my body had been. She looked the image of bliss, her forelegs in the air like a pair of fuzzy sickles, and her nose stretched as far back as it could get without snapping her own neck. Grinning, I left her to her rest.

Impa came over and helped me wrap the bandages around myself—something I should learn to do myself, she now informed me. I nodded as usual.

“You have your magic tutor today,” she told me, fixing any error I managed to make in my wrappings.

“Okay.”

“Be respectful.”

“Okay.”

“Try hard.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t burn her house down.”

I grinned again, though more sheepishly this time. “Okay,” I laughed. I looked forward to magic tutorial—with it, I was certain that no more problems like the kitchen incident would be likely to happen again. Besides, I wanted to know how to do more than leave a memory of myself in an object. I doubt Impa knew I had put a spell on the Ocarina of Time, but there had been no error. Link had gone to the Temple of Time. Message relayed. Spell faded.

If only a flawless spell meant no consequences. I just wished that, along with being allowed to move around the village again, I would be able to visit the gossip stones again. I wanted to check on things again. Wanted to make sure that Link was…

Still here? Did I want that? Or was I going to be looking for that odd shadow of his usual self, or even, perhaps, no Link at all?

Terrible thoughts.

I let Impa usher me out the door.

The tutor was a woman with white hair, looking rather old despite how tightly formed her skin and muscle seemed to be. The only wrinkles I could see on her were on her face, and even they were scant and shallow. Her hair was loose, and seeped to the floor in moonlit veins. She bore no weapons like most Sheikah I had seen, but there was a sharp edge to her still, somehow. Being in her presence made me subconsciously square my shoulders and try to raise my head. I did not want to appear weak to her.

When we reached the center of her living room, I felt…something rush up my spine, and a shimmer hummed through the air, like a plucked string. The woman’s eyes opened.

“It is safe to speak, Impa,” she said. Her voice was remarkably gentle, like an eddy of wind. Impa sat. “Sheik, move the tables and stools aside, so we can have a clear space.”

“With magic?” I asked dubiously.

“Manually would be fine,” she said, a smile tugging at her lips. I immediately started moving tables and chairs, instantly liking her. When a space was cleared and I was already panting, I planted myself next to Impa and sat as she did, with her legs crossed in front of her.

“Sheik, this is Letta.”

“My sister has told me much of you,” Letta informed me, her eyes crinkling at the corners. Even as I returned her smile, I panicked in my head. Like what? What did I have to pretend to know now?

Wait…sister?

“Letta was one of the women that…helped you settle in,” Impa said delicately. I stared. “Yes, Sheik, she knows who you are. It is necessary, since so much mental contact is required between a student and teacher of magic.”

“Who else knows?” I inquired.

“Our other sister,” Letta supplied cheerfully. “She will teach you to fight.”

“Listen to Letta, Sheik,” Impa said, rising and walking out.

“I heard about your incident with fire a week or so back,” Letta said, without preamble. I swallowed. Her eyelids lowered. “I hope it doesn’t happen again.”

“I do too,” I said, for lack of anything better. What was her point in asking that?

“Certainly. What about the pup? How is she doing?”

“Pretty well.”

“And your harp lessons?”

“I like them.”

“Good. How about your memory spells?”

“They…” I tailed it off, watching her. She broke into a wolfish smile.

“You’re good at them. You took the opportunity to learn the moment Impa taught them to you. That is commendable, but remember that you should be careful what spells you fling about. Minor magics are not as dangerous, but others can be fatal.”

I nodded again.

“Good child. Now, you have looked into gossip stones before?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Don’t be formal. Now, since you have peered through their eyes, you have a sense of how it feels to use magic, but needless to say you will not have their aid whenever you need your magic. Now, I’m going to have to get more accustomed to your magic, since you are not full Sheikah as most of my students are, but I think, if you meditate, I should be able to get a measure.”

“How do I meditate?”

“You put yourself into a state of mind in which you are separate from your body.”

“How can I be separate from my body? If my soul leaves my body, I’m—”

“Superstitious is what you are,” Letta interrupted. “If you meditate correctly, you do not die for it. You are aware of much more around you. You should be able to do this, since your success with magic has already made itself evident. Now, do as I do…”

I left my lesson with a headache. I had gotten to the point where I wasn’t focusing as much on how much my clothes itched, or how the house was just a tad too hot for my comfort, but Letta informed me rather dryly that I should be able to distinguish sleep from magic by now. Impa apparently wasn’t surprised by my lack of progress, and led me quietly to the grove of stones. I balked at it, but she sat me down in front of the main stone.

“Search,” she told me simply. I sighed and glared at the stone, and again it glared back. Then I felt that tingling sensation in my head, and I succumbed to it like one would give in to gravity while stretching a sore muscle.

Link.

…the castle bloomed in front of me. The white walls gleamed still, though somehow it seemed duller. Guards still stood at their posts, though they seemed more erect, more alert than usual. Next to me sat a boy in green.

He didn’t really move. He just sat where he was and seemed to marvel at Hyrule castle from afar. We were on a ledge, next to the inner gate. My vantage somehow changed slightly, and I could see his face. The same, foreign blue eyes stared unmoving at the castle, and it was like it pained him. His fists were clenched around his wrists, a sort of clasp that held his knees to his chest. He looked determined, but to do what, I could not tell. He just stared at what was my home. We stayed there for what seemed like ages, until he slowly got to his feet again. In his hand was the Ocarina of Time.

Before I could understand, he had raised it to his lips and begun to play. The notes surrounded me like a luxurious shroud and made my eyelids grow heavy. I knew the tune. Had seen him learn it on the other side of my courtyard, on that fateful day we met.

My link with the stone broke as my lullaby sent me to oblivion.