There was something incredibly isolating about those first few moments being on your own after being alongside someone for so long. To go from constant companionship and the revelry, comfort, and joy that being with someone you trusted, to being alone was such a drastic, harsh change that it was jarring, so much so that it shook me down to my very core, or nearly.

Truth was, I was used to being alone. I was. It was something I was used to. Living by myself, I spent a lot of time alone - on most days, it was just me and my chickens, my chores, and the dormant house left to me by my family.

...The dormant house that had been the only thing keeping me there.

That loneliness was different from the loneliness I was feeling right now, though. This was an isolating one, one where I nearly leapt at every shadow, stiffened at every noise, and one where my heart rate was elevated damn near constantly.

But then I remembered who I was.

I was (Y/n), she who had left the only home she had ever known to go on an adventure, to see the world she was born into, to enjoy her life while she was young and had the capacity to. I was (Y/n), she who had picked up a weapon to defend her village and who had vowed to repay the debt to he who had saved her. I was (Y/n), she who had remained in Hateno for my family's sake but not for my own but was now living for herself, and herself alone. I was (Y/n), she who now held a spear in hand, proudly seated atop a horse well-trained and well-couraged; (Y/n), who would not startle at every noise because she was not scared; (Y/n), who would not run away. Not anymore.

Selfless, though not defenseless.

Now more selfish, but not unkind.

Strong and... and brave, with both attributes surely growing by the day.

When Link was out of sight, I was left with nothing to do but wait. I did not have a slate like he did, something that would lead me back to Epona if I wandered. I did not have a map on me - mine was tucked safely in the saddlebags of my charge, who was nestled away in that canyon with a pile of food and a bucket of water before her and probably didn't even notice our departure.

I figured a good first step to take for now was to take in my surroundings. Everything here was dusty, as though this place was somehow suspended in time and had remained untouched for a long, long time. I couldn't dispute it, not really. There was a strange sense of otherness here, of distinct strangeness and something larger than myself.

It was the same feeling that I had felt around Link when we first crossed paths, back when he saved me from those monsters on the beach. He had a soothing sort of aura to be around, but he was altogether rather enigmatic. I got glimpses of a bubbly, bright, enthusiastic adventurer who traveled for the love of Hyrule and what it had to offer. But I also got glimpses of something darker, something haunted but he kept that part of himself well-hidden.

He was a hard boy to read. But the air here felt like Link felt like: unassuming but weird, old but young, plain but enigmatic.

I wondered, for a moment, if I would ever know him as he truly is, and if I would know all sides of him. The mischievous boy I was getting to know, but also the man so clearly hiding so much of himself for whatever reason...

It seemed selfish, but I wanted to know. I wanted to learn who he was. I wanted to know what haunted him. I wanted to know why he was so reluctant to indulge in any information about himself. I wanted to... Well.

At any rate, this rocky bluff left little room for something to surprise me, so I was able to let my guard down, even slightly, and just for now.

Still, there was nothing left to do but wait.

—

Link was in the Shrine for much longer than I'm sure he intended, and certainly far longer than I had anticipated. With Epona resting nearby, I leaned back against a rock, cool now without the sun to warm it. With little else to do to occupy my time, I'd taken to weaving a mat out of some of the dry grasses I'd found nearby.

This bluff was like any other, perfectly ordinary in every way. The rock here was weathered by wind and rain and waters long gone. The lines etched across them told geological stories, ones that scientists and researchers would love to get their hands on but for now, it offered only something plain to look at while I got lost in my thoughts.

The immediate area I was in was devoid of vegetation, but earlier I'd scaled the rock downward, where a dense pocket of trees and underbrush, though dry and rather barren, resided. It was there that I gathered the materials for my little project, weaving like my mother had taught me so long ago. If nothing else, it provided something for my hands and mind to focus on even as my mind wandered.

Far off, there was a tree with white bark, a thick trunk, and proud branches that reached towards the sky. It was definitely by nature a deciduous tree, but where there should have been leaves, there was only the skeletal frame indicative of past pain - a lightning-strike, perhaps.

Illuminated though only barely by the glowing lights of the Shrine, it was actually rather pretty, and more than a bit ominous if someone saw only the tree and not the Shrine that was offering the glow itself. I wondered if maybe the tree remembered such orange, if it had in fact been fighting flames after a wildfire or during a summer storm that had stolen the life from it.

I sighed. Theorizing about trees, honestly. What was happening to me? I needed to keep my eyes - and my guard - up. Though I was close to it, I could very well miss it if Link emerged from the Shrine if I wasn't paying attention, not that I thought he would leave without me or anything like that.

The mat was by now quite large, large enough to be a blanket, honestly. The grasses were thick, the pattern well-spaced and evenly placed, if I did say so myself. Pushing my pride and the mat aside, I gathered my feet beneath me and stood. I made my way back towards where I'd climbed down earlier, and once again, I scaled the rough rock. This time, I looked to find some small rocks, some kindling, and some larger logs. Into my pockets I dropped the rocks, and into my arms I gathered dry leaves and twigs for kindling.

My search for logs brought me to the base of that dead tree. My eyes traveled upwards, towards its bare branches through which the sky was crystal clear, but fragmented. Along with the stars and the moon, perfectly framed in the dark blue canvas by those stark white branches, I could see galaxies far off, cutting across our own, a stroke of glittering paint against the otherwise dark sky.

It was beautiful.

Several of the tree's branches had fallen already, and I piled them up. It took one trip, and then another, but soon I was seated against the boulder once more, a roaring fire before me - its flickering fiery glow competing against the steady brilliance of the Shrine.

And I got back to weaving, just as dark clouds rolled in.

—

A mechanical whirring came from the Shrine and through the persistent sheet of falling rain I narrowed my eyes to see it. When out stepped Link, I made to get to my feet, worried that he would need help but he was perfectly fine, if only a bit tired. I called to him, and right away his pointed ears caught the sound and I smiled when our eyes met.

He jogged over, the weapons at his hip and back jostling around with his movements as he rushed over. Beneath the canopy - the mat I weaved - he ducked, and as he settled down next to me, already soaking wet even from dashing through the rain for only a few paces, he was soaked.

"Wow," he said, "look at this! Did you make this?"

"I did," I answered right away. By the time I noticed the rain clouds, I had made a big enough mat to stretch over the fire from the top of the boulder and so that's exactly what I had done. After fastening it to the boulder, I had propped the other end up with some sticks and now, we could sit comfortably before the fire with a roof over our heads.

"This is great," he said, looking up at the mat. "You're good at that, (Y/n)!"

"I guess I am," I couldn't help but agree as I looked up at it. "My mom taught me how, a long time ago. She used to weave baskets so she could gather things from the beach. As soon as I could, I learned to make my own so I could join her."

"Cool," Link remarked, but as always, whenever I spoke of something of my past - an old story, for example - he would grow melancholic, almost.

"I didn't have much else to do while I waited," I said, steering us away from that conversation. "I had no idea it'd end up being so useful, though."

"I'm glad you did," he said, sending a smile, a true one, my way. Perhaps he was grateful for the change in subject, subtle though it was. "I want to head back to camp, but..."

"The clouds are moving quickly," I told him. "The rain shouldn't last much longer."

"Good, then," he said, his smile growing mischievous.

"Oh, why? Hungry again?"

"Maybe," he chimed, not at all hiding the fact that it was most certainly the truth. I shook my head not with disbelief, but because this boy was ridiculous even as a smile bloomed on my lips. "At least we've got a good view to wait it out with."

"True," I said, following his gaze and looking out past the bluff, away from the Shrine and towards where I'd gathered my materials, that ditch where the vegetation was sure to be taking grateful gulps of water before the sun would inevitably dry them back out tomorrow. And in the center of them all... that skeletal tree, stark white against the dark backdrop behind it.

"You know," I said, my gentle voice breaking through the quiet atmosphere we'd settled into easily, "there was a tree like that in Hateno."

"The white one?"

"Yes."

"Where? I didn't see it."

"It was a long time ago," I told him. "Village elders decided to cut it down, saying it was unsightly."

"Maybe they were right to," Link noted. "Make room for fresh growth."

"It wasn't about that for them," I said. "It was purely for how it made the village look."

"I see."

I tossed some kindling to the fire. "There's no new growth there, even years later," I explained further, my voice quiet. As though to ensure he could still hear me, Link leaned closer, a movement unassuming and easy-to-miss, if not for our already close proximity. But I spoke nothing of it, and neither did he. "Just the stump."

"You seem to be sad about it," Link noted softly. "Did it mean anything to the village?"

"No," I answered right away, shaking my head. "Not at all. It was just a really old, really tall tree. I have some childhood memories climbing it with my friends, but it didn't mean anything to me besides that."

"So why do you seem so sad, then?"

"That tree there," I redirected, gesturing towards it with a movement of my head. "It was either struck by lightning or was caught on fire during a wildfire."

"Those are common in the summer around here," Link said. "Seems likely to me."

"But it's not dead."

"Hm? Sure it is."

"No," I said. "Look at the topmost branch."

"There's... Oh."

Link's eyes found it, just as my own settled on it, what I had seen earlier, silhouetted by the infinite cosmos above while I'd been gathering materials for the fire. It was simple, really. Incredibly easy to miss. Insubstantial. Inconsequential, even.

It was a single leaf, green and fresh, alone but alive.

"However long ago it lost all its leaves and all its bark and was burned, it's regained its strength now. It's got fresh growth."

"So, the tree in Hateno..."

"Maybe with time," I spoke softly, "that tree could have been reborn again, too." I looked to the fire, where now singed with ash, the white scarring of the tree was visible, even as its old branches burned to keep us warm and dry.

At that, Link slumped back against the boulder, and I wondered why it had impacted him as such, or if it had at all, and so I looked at him. With my arms wrapped loosely around my knees, I had to crane my neck to see him properly, but I'm glad I did.

He looked terribly, incredibly conflicted.

"Link," I called, "are you alright?"

"I don't know," he said.

I wondered for a moment if something about that tree - falling victim to fire in some capacity surely - spoke to him. If this tree had burned once before, but had survived, perhaps that spoke to him. If in its survival it eventually came to rest here, in our fire, keeping us warm and dry, ultimately falling victim to the same thing that had tried besting it once before. Trying, though perhaps futilely, to survive - for the tree had faced fire before and survived, but faced it now and had lost.

What I had said was so simple. All I had done was see a tree and relate it to something in my past.

But it was clear in his eyes that what I had said had struck a chord in him - or perhaps several chords all at once, revealing and painful.

Alright, my curiosity would only continue to gnaw away at me if I kept avoiding asking. I didn't want to offend him, but I reasoned with myself that I wouldn't push him for answers if he didn't want to give any. I would not - I could not. I would not jeopardize the relationship we currently had, the trust we shared in each other; and I could not ask him to satiate my curiosity if he was not ready to or did not want to.

"Link," I began, trying to sound surer of myself than I felt, "where are you from?"

"I don't know. Not for sure."

My eyes softened at the realization that perhaps he had memory loss, or perhaps some awful trauma that blocked those memories out... but what could have happened? It was not my place to ask, it wasn't. But what could have happened to him? Unless it was something else entirely? Perhaps his family was nomadic. Maybe he really just didn't remember. Maybe he'd only been told it once, a long time ago.

"Why don't you?" His eyes met mine, asking me to elaborate. "It's not often that someone doesn't remember where they're from."

"I just don't remember. My memories don't go back that far."

"Well," I provided, "no one remembers their birth, Link." He smiled at that, briefly, recognizing the humor in it. But then the brief amusement faded from his eyes and his gaze traveled downward, towards the fire. "So, no childhood memories then?"

"No," he answered somberly. "None at all."

"And... what of your family, Link?"

"I don't know them."

My heart constricted painfully at the thought, and I couldn't imagine what it must have been like. To not know who you were, only who you currently are. To not know how you became who you are, to not know your family, to not know where you're from or what you were like as a child. There was no growth there, nothing to compare yourself to.

And... perhaps it was incredibly and unknowingly insensitive of me to be so dismissive of my own family? To not want to see them in Kakariko, to leave behind what they had left me to care for.

Only... no. He had never seemed to hold any of that against me. And his kindness... Goodness, just what had this boy been through?

"I'm sorry," I said softly.

"No, don't be," he said, his eyes meeting my own. "Something about Hateno's hills felt familiar to me while I was there. It almost felt like home. I might have lived there once."

Reflected in those sapphire blues was the warm glow of the fire and something about the way they flickered in his eyes seemed very reflective of the turmoil and uncertainty he was surely feeling inside.

"But I... I just don't remember," he continued. "I know who I am and what I'm supposed to do and... that's all. It's not your fault, and I don't blame you for being curious." He lifted one hand, scratching his cheek with one finger rather sheepishly as he glanced away. "I suppose I've been pretty mysterious, huh?"

I laughed lightly, shrugging a little. The sound seemed to put him at ease, and I could see the surprise written on his face as he looked my way once more. "Just adds to your charm, I think."

"R-Really?"

"You're a strange boy," I said. "I told you that before, haven't I?"

"I think so, but... Well, I may not know much about my past, but I'd like to hear about yours, if you don't mind...?"

"Oh, you know," I began, looking out past the fire and at the dark landscape beyond our little shelter. "Growing up in Hateno wasn't very exciting. I had enough fun, but I felt like I was always meant to leave. Of course, that's probably how a lot of people who grew up in a small village feel."

"Boring or not," Link said, "I like listening to you talk." Likely realizing how it sounded, he began to backpedal immediately, holding his hands before his chest rather defensively as a fine blush rose up his neck. It was a good thing he seemed more embarrassed than I was, but even I couldn't deny the way my heart leapt up into my throat. "Um, I mean! Your stories are always nice, and as someone with no memories, hearing about yours is fun and-"

"Link," I cut in gently, smiling. "I get it." He seemed to deflate, and I bit back my laugh and looked away again to provide him some space to pull himself together without being watched. "My childhood... Well, my early years are blurry obviously, but I remember my dad letting me sit on his shoulders so I could pick apples. And we'd use those apples and make pie together."

"Your dad's a good baker, right?"

"Mm-hm," I hummed. "I learned mostly from my dad on that front."

"And your mom taught you how to weave, right? Like you did with the grass."

"Right. It's strange, really. A lot of the time, I'd be at the stove with my dad while my brother would make things like that with mom. He's useless in the kitchen, though. He'd always had more skill for crafts and things, anyway."

"Your brother? What's he like?"

"We call him Pan," I said. "He's named after our grandfather and he was always a real adventurous kid. We'd play at the beach together a lot and we loved to swim. Actually, he still does, and he's a traveling merchant now, but spends most of his time along rivers and lakes, fishing and finding things to sell."

"Well, when next we pass a body of water, we'll take some time to swim," Link offered.

"I'd like that," I said, meeting his eyes at last. I leaned back against the rock, angling my body towards him slightly as I got comfortable and got lost in story after story. Sometimes, I didn't even finish them, I would get sidetracked and find myself on a completely different tangent than the one I was just on.

Link didn't seem to mind, though. He got comfortable beside me, offering me his full and complete attention. It was strange, holding someone's undivided attention like this over something so distinctly unserious. But the topic didn't matter, the fact it was endless rambling from my end didn't matter - his words were true, he did enjoy listening to me talk.

And something about that had warmed my heart, and it remained as such. Though we did continue to tend to the fire, I had a feeling that even without it, I would be thoroughly, completely warmed by the intent focus of Link's eyes on me, taking in each and every word I spoke as though I was the most interesting person in the world, and the rain poured steadily down.

—

"Once my parents left for Kakariko," I continued, "Pan decided he wanted to explore on his own. So, he left. He took only what he needed, gave me a hug, promised to be back, and left. I remember that day really well. I never felt so alone."

"I can't imagine," Link said. "Why didn't he bring you along?"

"At the time, I was terrified by the thought of adventuring," I said. "Honestly, even asking you, though I was so sure I wanted to, I was terrified."

"You're still sure, right?"

"Absolutely," I said. "I've never been more sure of anything in my entire life."

"So what changed for you?"

"I've always felt like I needed to leave," I said, "and it was that exact thought that terrified me. Uprooting myself meant uprooting my family and I didn't want to do that. But in recent months, that nagging feeling only grew stronger, especially as I was ridiculed for wanting to know the truth."

"The truth about what?"

"What happened a century ago," I answered.

Something strange crossed his face, but maybe it was just from the sudden chilled wind that blew through our shelter. I paid it no mind and continued.

"No one knows for certain what happened," I continued, "but everyone seems content just living as we are. But I can't live with that. Those heroes gave everything they had, and how do we remember them? As failures who fell in battle? No, no way. And no one is even trying to reclaim Hyrule from evil, it's sick!" I caught myself and glanced away, suddenly embarrassed. "Er... sorry. I know it's silly."

Link shook his head. "I don't think it is."

"I just... in all our history books, it's always so fragmented. Our champions fell, but that can't be the end of our history. This peace... it's not real. We'll never know peace, not while we live under Ganon's thumb, not while monsters roam the land."

"I agree."

"In every other story I've read," I said, "the Hero of Hyrule prevails. That knight... he didn't fail. I don't buy it. The goddesses wouldn't leave it at that."

"No," he agreed solemnly. "They wouldn't. You... seem to like those words."

"What words?"

"As far as we know."

"Oh, well... Lots of folks back home find it obnoxious, but I'm just curious, and..."

Link smiled warmly at me, though his eyes were still concealing some conflict, something deeper happening within his heart. "I don't think it's obnoxious. I think it's really noble."

"Noble?"

"To want to know the answers, to not take those books at face value," he explained. "But to also know that no one will get them for you, so you took it into your own hands. I think you really were meant to leave Hateno, (Y/n). And... with me."

I couldn't help it. I smiled, warmth overflowing from my heart and finding its way to my cheeks. "Yeah, well... even so, my life in Hateno must seem so boring to an adventurer like you."

"No," he said. "Not at all."

"Really?"

"What you lived... It was safe. I know you don't want to live that way, not anymore, and I understand why. But I would give anything to be able to live like that, even for just a while."

"What's stopping you?"

He smiled almost ruefully. "My orders."

It struck me then, that he would like the monotony, the safety, of a life mundane and simple.

And I wanted the opposite. I wanted the adventure, the excitement, of a life ever-changing.

We each wanted what the other had.

We came from different worlds, he and I.

"You like adventuring, don't you?"

"Oh, I do," he said. "More than anything. But I was never given the chance to... to live like you."

"That's awful," I murmured. "To never have the choice..." I heaved out a breath, summoning up my courage to say what I wanted. "Listen, Link. When you're done with what you need to do, you can come live a normal life with me in Hateno. For as long as you want."

His eyes widened slightly, and I realized what that sounded like. Goodness, it sounded like a proposal, almost. To invite him to live a life with me... What was wrong with me? What had gotten into me?!

"I, um... I'm sorry!" Embarrassed, I began to withdraw into myself, to backpedal as he had after his flub, but he grasped my wrist in hand gently.

"(Y/n)," he said earnestly, "I'd really like that."

He took my hand in his, guiding our pinkies to lock. He glanced down at our hands, then back up into my eyes. I remembered then, something he said before: promises meant something to him. They did. And this one... something about this one seemed to mean everything and more to him.

"And I promise I'll give you the adventure of a lifetime before then."

I nodded, not trusting my voice to speak at that moment. When he smiled, he glanced back down at our pinkies, still looped, and I let my gaze linger on his eyes for only a brief moment longer before following his own, at our hands still locked in that promise. And yet I knew in my heart that it signified something greater - something far greater than that.