My life has always been easy. And for a time, I loved it. It was predictable, it was safe, and it was routine. I woke up at the same time everyone else did, and that was with the morning crow of the rooster and sometimes even before that. No matter the occasional urges to sleep in, nor if I was sick, nor if I simply wanted to laze around, I had things to do, and so I did them.

Oh, yes. Every morning, duty prevailed over anything else. The needs of others came before my own - that was how it always had been, and as long as I was here, that's how it would remain.

The day usually started with a light breakfast, something to get me going enough to do my morning chores. I tended to my cuckoos, those dear darling hens of mine and that damned rooster, then checked in on my garden. 

If there were things - flowers or my vegetables and the like - ready to be picked, I picked them before the day's heat could even think of coming, then watered and fed the plants. Then came general housekeeping (not that there was ever much to be done), my full breakfast, then more daily tasks, other things that I took to daily to stay ahead of them.

Those tasks would often entail going to the beach to check our traps in the shallows and collect anything that had been caught, heading down into town for general shopping, or whatever odd job I'd picked up for the week. To name a few, sometimes that would be helping with the bovines, doing inventory in our various shops, running the inn for a day or two so the owners could rest. I was, simply put, the town's all-rounder; I did anything and everything I could around here, just to keep it interesting.

Or, you know. However interesting the same old, same old could be after however many years doing it.

So, yes. My life has always been easy, as life here in Hateno Village always was.

But lately, well...

Alright, before going any further, allow me to retract, because perhaps it's not entirely accurate to say lately. Pretty close to near an entire lifetime ago, I had gotten bored of all this. I used to love the predictability, the safety, the routine. But it was so damn numbing that it was growing intolerable to bear, more and more, day by day.

It seemed those around me had started to notice, too. While my growing unease was obvious to anyone with eyes, it was Leah - my best friend - who really noticed first, started to pay attention to it, and notified the rumor pool the most, I'm sure. As my dearest friend and closest confidant, she tended to notice such changes in my behavior and as I've grown ever increasingly restless and impatient for Hylia only knows what, she's definitely noticed.

She doesn't approve, nor does she get it, but she's noticed.

Leah, like the other inhabitants of the town, was perfectly content here. That's what I didn't approve of, and what I didn't get, and what I noticed. I turned it over repeatedly in my mind, so many times that I could not recall or even hope to count - not that I needed to, because even once was enough for me to realize that I would never understand such things.

I could not understand, and I could not even hope to begin to.

We only had so many books in our humble library, so certainly we'd all read the same books? We'd all gotten the same education surely, so how could they hear of the wonders Hyrule had to offer and not want to go see it all? We'd all remained here - to my knowledge - for our entire lives respectively, so how were they not all as bored as I was?

Hateno was peaceful, I had to at least grant it that. In a land ravaged now by monsters, safety was something good to count on, but goodness, if it wasn't stifling. Nothing changed here. Nothing ever happened here. We rarely got visitors, so the people I grew up knowing would be the same people I'd be with until I die. I'd never meet the Gerudo, the Zora, the Rito, or the Gorons either. I'd never even meet Hylians other than the ones here - only the dozens I'd known since birth, the handful of working dogs, the cattle and the pigs and the hens and the cats that resided here, and nothing else. No one else.

And with such like-minded folk, it was as though they were all the same person, honestly.

The only visitors were family, like my parents. They weren't really visitors though, because they'd lived here for years. My father had grown up here, and when they got married, they settled right in and started their family here.

Here... here, here, here, goddesses I was so tired of being here.

Visitors were the most exciting thing to happen here, and they weren't even exciting! The next best thing, I suppose, would be the occasional fight between the men or argument between the women but honestly, those were short-lived, as was the drama that came with them. The environment here was so serene that it seemed all feelings or anger and murmurs of conflict seemed to dissolve in the warm sun and get carried away by the breeze that rolled through our hills.

Hylia, even if people held grudges here, they wouldn't last long, they couldn't last long. We all depended on each other too much for that. The whole codependency thing sucked too, by the way. Oh, your chair is broken? Well, you're clearly not qualified to fix it yourself (though all it needs is for a screw to be tightened), so go to the carpenter, Jon! He's the only one who can! Ah, and you need something painted? Go to the only painter in town, for she is the only person who knows how to properly hold a paintbrush!

Hylia help me, being here is awful.

Living somewhere shouldn't be a chore, a droning, miserable kind of existence. And in a place like this especially, with beautiful rolling hills covered in grass that swayed with the breeze, the open ocean at our backdoor with rocky cliffs to overlook the stunning expanse of blue waves that eventually bled into the starry expanse of the sky. With the houses tucked away between the hills and valleys, the lantern light did not oppose the starlight, nor the moonlight, leading to absolutely gorgeous nights with the sound of crashing waves and whistling wind carrying pleasant floral notes and the scent of pine in the air to occupy the other senses.

Hateno was quaint, it was safe, and it was beautiful.

It was home, and yet...

Somewhere deep in my heart, I longed for more. How could I be satisfied here knowing what I knew? How could anyone? Though nestled away in the farthest reaches of Necluda's lands we were well-protected, especially with Fort Hateno keeping monsters at bay a century ago, very few beasts ever wandered their way here. Hell, other than in diagrams and drawings in books, I don't think I've ever seen a Bokoblin, let alone a Moblin. With rich soil spanning our fields, we would never be left wanting for food, which by itself was a blessing.

And yet...

And yet.

Those damned words. No matter how I rationalize it, no matter how often I tried making myself realize that this was home, my heart refused to believe it. It always followed up with those damned words.

Ah, well. There was no use lazing about in bed all day, and I had things I needed to do. So, I got up. I sat up, stretched my arms far above my head, and only when I heard a satisfying series of pops and cracks did I relax them. I slid out of bed, turned and made it nicely, then crossed the room to reach my wardrobe. The wood beneath my feet was cold, the air inside my house cool, and my body was now thoroughly chilled without the warmth of the blanket around me.

I got dressed into nothing more than my usual work clothes: pants, a loose-fitting shirt with long sleeves, the boots that went to my ankle and had served me for many a season, and a scarf, at least for the morning. Hateno mornings tended to be cool, situated by the water as it was, but once I got to work, I'd likely warm right up, especially as the sun drew ever higher into the sky.

After tying my hair back and grabbing an apple, I stepped outside. The morning air was crisp, and despite my few-minute delay, it seemed as though I hadn't missed much - as usual. Thankfully, though I'd woken up with the call of the roosters about town and stayed in bed with my musings, my cuckoos had been more than patient with me.

I stalled for a moment just outside my home. The house, though rather secluded, offered a pretty view of the hills and trails leading down into the main part of town. Just a bit further up these hills one would find the lab, but people rarely went there, for work or otherwise. Despite living here my whole life, the old bag that ran it and her assistant were all but strangers to me.

It was strange, but not strange enough that I wanted to do anything about it - not now, at any rate, and honestly, maybe never.

Anyway...

I tossed some feed to my poultry, and just as with any spring day, they swarmed the scattered seeds and food like they'd never been fed before - which was absolutely untrue, of course. Still, with that done, I went to my garden. Crouched down in the dirt, I ensured my recently planted seeds had settled well into the soil, then found myself sitting back on my heels to redirect my gaze upwards.

As I'd learned, the morning sky said a lot about what kind of day was coming. The morning fog hadn't yet burned away, and the sky was still the pale blue-gray indicative of dawn and coming sunrise, and right away I picked up on one very simple fact: it was going to be a warm day. It wouldn't be much longer before the sun poked up above the ocean and chased the fog away, and it wouldn't be much longer after that before the heat would settle on the land.

I figured something else out, too: today was likely to be a very long day - another long day of the same monotonous chores I'd always done in the same plain village I'd always lived in.

I stifled a sigh at the thought. Why were they, meaning those thoughts, so damn pressing today? There was no reason for it... or was there? I was restless, though my hands were now back at work watering my plants in preparation for such a hot day, and it helped to give my hands something to do and my mind something else to focus on. But even through the chores, simple though they were, ingrained into my muscle memory like something as natural as breathing, I found myself looking over my shoulder often, as though someone or something might show up.

But each time I looked, the outcome was the same. There was never anything there, not anything worth noting, anyway.

And each time, I bit back a curse and returned my focus to my chores... or, I'd try to, anyway.

Even when back inside, the breakfast I made for myself was messier than normal. It was rushed and poorly put-together and although edible, I found myself not caring about the taste or washing it down with anything. I just ate, and hurried to get myself back into my chores as soon as possible, because simply eating was not enough to keep my brain distracted from the ever-pressing thought that something was going to happen today.

And I wanted to find out what it was, and as quickly as possible.

Once done eating, I washed my dishes, dried them, then put them away; after that, I tidied up the inside of my home. A quick sweep, the quick swipe of a rag across the windows, and a simple dusting - only, my attention was captured by something strange. Was that where my restlessness was coming from? Something off in my own home? Surely not, right? I appreciated a tidy home, yes, but to feel so wound-up because of something so simple?

What it was, of course, was something I found while dusting, because I no longer had something there to dust. A framed portrait of my family usually sat on the wall. It was finely painted (by the only painter in town, of course), and incredibly well-done. But now... it was missing. I set the duster down, pulled the dresser away from the wall, and there it was, sitting on the floor. It'd been pinned between the dresser and wall, suspended and sitting up.

When I grabbed it, I checked right away for damage, only to find none. The nail was even still in the wall that it'd been hung from. Perhaps it'd gotten knocked loose during the last thunderstorm, and I'd slept through it? That was the only explanation that made sense, so that's what I went with.

After pushing the dresser back in place with my hip, I leaned against it for a moment to look at the painting in close detail. My mother and father stood together, with me by my mother's side and my brother by our father.

Whatever features he had taken from our parents, I didn't have, and what few he'd left behind were the ones I had inherited. I was a stunning mix of my parents, of that proud man and that beautiful woman, and my brother was a mess, even then.

It was clear we'd all been outside playing instead of tidying up before the planned appointment to sit for the portrait, because there was dirt streaked across my face and dress, and the same went for my brother, though he and my mother seemed to have played in the mud, instead.

Though I didn't really remember the early part of the day, I did remember the feeling it brought: and that was happiness. I would never be able to recall the exact details of that day, of what games we might have played and how many times my mother might have called for us to come in and get cleaned up before she decided to join in, but I would never forget how fun a day it had been.

My brother and I had been so young, then. And my parents, oh, I missed them dearly.

And yet...

"Can't believe you two went off to Kakariko," I lamented to no one in particular, looking at the smiling faces of each of my parents in turn. 

I trailed the pad of my index finger across my father's painted cheek, wondering what he and my mother were up to right now. Of my family, I was the only one in Hateno currently; my parents were, as I mentioned, in Kakariko village while my brother was a traveling merchant.

Huh. Thinking about it, maybe he got tired of the monotony of the village, too. My brother, older than me but stupider too, was named Panton - named after a grandfather from however many generations ago, but was known by everyone as Pan. Technically, he lived here too when he wasn't traveling. Every few months, he'd return home and spend a couple of weeks home to recuperate and catch up, and of course, rest.

As a matter of fact, he was here recently - about a week ago, now - but had left already, so it'd be a long, long while before he came back. So the excitement a sibling brought, the fun we had, the wonderful way the hours bled away and day became night and we would laugh and talk all through the night, was gone, just like he was.

So I was back to waiting for his next visit.

It seemed like I was always waiting for something, honestly. 

I pulled away from those thoughts and returned my focus to the portrait. We certainly looked like siblings, and when we were together, we acted like it, too. But of course, could you blame us? The elders of Hateno often looked down their noses at us and our antics, but we had to fit weeks upon weeks of sibling-related antics into only a few precious days, and didn't ever care who was around to see it. Of the people who broke the monotony of this village, it was Pan, and it was Leah.

Physically, Pan looked like a traveler, with strong legs built up from years and years of living on the road, traveling by foot with his donkey with a pack on his back. But all the same, he was still my goofy brother.

As for my parents, well, they were in Kakariko because that's where my mother grew up and she missed it dearly. In her youth, she'd been a handmaiden to Impa, someone I had never met but may as well have for as many stories as I'd heard about her. It was only when my father - a traveling merchant, if you can believe it - came to Kakariko for an extended visit that they fell in love. And it was only when they fell in love that they ran away together to elope. After a while, they settled here, in the home village of my father and his family.

So, that's their love story.

For a moment, I wondered about my own, and my eyes found my mother's. She was a beautiful woman by any standard, and I wondered if I held any of that grace she did, her kindness, her heart. I mean, she'd made a man fall for her in only the short time he was there in the village. She'd made him extend his visit, only so they'd have more time together. He'd bring her flowers from outside the village because she couldn't leave, and he'd write her poems and read her stories from other parts of Hyrule, and the rest... well, the rest was history.

"Love, huh?" I shook my head indulgently even as a smile found its way to my face. "How about that, mom? Me, settling down somewhere. Can you imagine that?"

There was a certain level of irony to my words, for I already had settled down somewhere. I was here. I was settled. I had a house.

And yet...

I sighed, pushing away from the dresser only to reach upwards to set the painting back into its rightful spot on the wall. "There, now," I said quietly. "The whole family back together again... who'd have thought?"

—

Link found himself not at a loss of things to do, because there were a million directions to go in and just as many ideas coming to his mind at once. Actually, he found himself at a loss of what to do first, specifically.

After taking those blinding, blinking, bleary few steps into the sun, he'd taken it all in for a time that was probably longer than it needed to be. But after so long away from Hyrule, how couldn't he just take it all in? And... how long had it been, truly?

Unfortunately, there was no way for him to figure it out by looking out at the landscape alone. Maybe if he'd cut a tree, he could count the rings and... oh, wait. That wouldn't help. He didn't exactly know where he was, so to cut down a tree to see how old it was wouldn't help unless he knew how old the exact tree had been before he... before he what? Went to sleep in that weird pool?

Hylia, what had happened to him?

All he knew was that he had orders. Only... what were they, exactly? He hadn't been able to recall at the time, and thinking about it now, he seemed to trigger this awful pain in his mind. He shook his head as though to physically remove the thoughts from his mind before continuing on down the trail.

That had been his first decision, because without orders, what was a knight to do?

That voice - that familiar voice - had told him that he was Hyrule's light. But what did that mean? And what did he have to do? He didn't know, and so... well, without orders, he wasn't sure what to do now. He figured finding out where he was would be a good first step, so he started walking.

He wasn't walking for long before he found a stick, and that was as good a weapon as any, so he took it. Oh, and there was an apple tree. The apples growing along its branches were bright red, ripe and inviting, and he was terribly hunger now that he allowed himself to think about it (for a good knight thought not of his own needs, of course, so he had long learned to repress such feelings), so he climbed up the tree and picked some.

After dropping down to the grass once more, he saw a few mushrooms hidden away near the trunk of the tree, so he remained crouched to grab them as well. He'd be the first to admit that his skills with a knife were not as good as his skills with a sword, but he could certainly make something with these ingredients right? At any rate, apples were apples, and he could eat them right now.

So he did.

He was so engrossed in his meal that he nearly missed it when he passed a campfire. The warmth was welcoming, and wait - was that a baked apple? Oh, some deity must have been looking out for him today! First, he woke up. Then, he got that incredible view. Now, a baked apple!

It'd been... probably a long time since his last meal. He couldn't wait to eat that apple! Was a blessed instance this was! Link took it in hand, finding that it was still warm and-

"I beg your pardon!"

—

The dirt of the path crunched beneath my boots, the sound rhythmic and slow, for my paces were even and measured as I trudged up the hill towards my home. At this point in the late morning, the sun was high in the sky, a pale dot against the clear blue sky it traveled through. It was a beautiful day to be sure, complete with a gentle breeze that countered the warmth of the sun.

Because it was a weekend, the children hadn't bothered me today; there weren't any around to do so. With no lessons today, they'd all slept in as late as they could - until their parents woke them up, they awoke naturally, or until the sun's rays forced their way into their rooms and woke them up themselves.

As for me, my work in the village was done, at least for now. After helping in the general store, I was released for lunch, and was told they could handle it from there. So, my schedule was clear. With nothing else to do, I figured I'd go to the beach. It was finally warm enough to do so, and though the water would still practically be ice cold from the winter, I could at least walk the dunes and reset any traps that needed it. Besides, the fruits that grew in the coastal bushes and trees were always delicious at this time of year, and if no one else was going to pick them, then I certainly would.

Ah, the beach: a perfectly normal destination for a perfectly normal day in a perfectly normal village. For a gorgeous day, one without rain and with plenty of sun, it was in actuality a great day for it, truly.

And yet...

There was no way for me to know that on that perfectly normal day, the perfectly normal trip to a perfectly normal beach would be one that would change the rest of my life. There was no way for me to know that what I might see there and who I might meet there would alter the course of my life for as long as I had it.