Zelda: The Tigress Unveiled

Asuka Neko

Chapter One

Rainy Morning, Sunny Afternoon

Link

Hyrule field sometimes seems never-ending to me. The sky is as wide as could be, and the sun beaming down, not too hot, though. That day, however, was not such. It was gray, stormy, and a light rain was clinging to everything, making it even more unbearably dingy. The usually beautiful features of the valley were drowned out by the fog and overcast light, and the palace was unlived in since the recent siege. It was altogether uninviting.

But rain did nary a thing to dampen my spirits. As luck would have it, I was doing something of interest (though the journey was quite unbearable). I was on the road back to my hometown, Ordon, a little village set deep in the woods. I slowed my horse Epona to a halt momentarily, wondering what I was leaving behind and what I was traveling towards.

I glanced back at the palace for a moment, the crimson flags flapping loosely in the wet wind. I was leaving behind a life where I was a hero. And I was leaving Zelda. She was more than a little attached to me, but I felt quite otherwise. My heart was empty with love for her as the castle was empty of life that day. But I was going home. To people who had known me for my whole life, and saw the inside of me, not just the hero who'd saved Hyrule from the shadows threatening to overtake it. So it was better to go forward.

I sat there for a moment longer, watching as the sky began to clear over the vague direction of Ordon Village, in amazement at how blue it had become. The rain was beginning to end. I smiled, and shook the water out of my hair before continuing to ride without further hesitation.

Ilia

Dismal day, really. The rain came down in buckets all that morning, until about noon. Then it slowed to a drizzle, and then it finally stopped, thank goodness. I stepped outside, not even trying to avoid the mud that had been stirred up by the rain. After it rains in Ordon, everything is soaked, so it's practically impossible not to get the least bit wet. I stood next to the path, feeling the wet, cold mud squish beneath my toes. Wet and sunny is possibly the best combination of the weather.

I wondered if the winds that had blown across had knocked the ladder off Link's house. It did fall so very often. Well, I would find out later. Right then, I was just enjoying the atmosphere around me, especially the very smell that rain causes, when the ground gets all wet and everything is clean. The sun began to warm me, all except for my feet, which were still in the mud. There was not a chance that I wouldn't be bathing later on. Obviously, when it's all wet like such, I was one to get filthy in all of the mud.

Ladylike did not suit me well, I thought as I began to walk down the path. I didn't bother putting on shoes as always. Besides, my feet would only get wet again, and shoes take an age to dry out.

I opened the gate, which must have been blown shut, as it was never really closed. The ladder had blown over, so I replaced it, and attempted to retie the ropes that held it in place, though they always came undone again whenever I tried it.

I'd been home in Ordon for about a fortnight now. It was rather lovely, back here, but boring. Without my friend Link, there was positively nothing to do. He was the one who thought of new things to explore, and I was the one who held him back, so he didn't do anything foolish. I could barely imagine the trouble he must have gotten himself into without me on that journey he went on. I sat underneath the place by his door where the tree jutted out a little. Link's house was perched in the hollowed-out trunk of a very old tree. I shook one of the branches and watched the water drip off of the leaves before going inside.

Maybe it would have seemed foolish to go into his house without him knowing, but I did so anyway. It was just the feel of the place, slightly disoriented, but lovely all the same. I quickly glanced at the photographs on the wall. They'd always hung there, one of Link and his family when he was very young, and another of him and I.

I smiled a little and climbed up another of the many ladders that he used to access the different levels of his house. When one lives in a tree, there's not much room for stairs. I was kneeling on his bed, looking out the window. He could see the entire town out that spot, and I could pick out each and every house. Ordon was so small that I knew very well where everyone lived. I pulled my head back inside the window and flopped onto the bed, inhaling deeply. Even though he'd been gone nearly a year, the place still smelled like him. It reminded me of how the forest smells on an afternoon when the sun's been shining all day, and everything is golden and just starting to cool.

Silly thoughts, really. Recollections of when I'd believed he would come back. Now he was a hero, the word had spread around Hyrule like wildfire. And he wouldn't come back after that. I sat up, and leapt off the ladder without bothering to climb down, before leaving the house. Who knows, I'd probably be back there soon. I always was.