A memory.

A sword pulled, an army led. Scores of monsters slain, crowds of folk saved.

Kneeling before a king, drinking with fellow knights.

The adoration of his family, the disdain of his charge. The gallop of his horse.

A castle bathed in light. The light of the Goddess caught in her smile.

The first death, a premonition, a prophet.

The first finger of filth stretched in a pristine river.

Ancient knowledge unveiled, destiny unfurled.

Soldiers readied, titans unleashed.

Fire, blood.

The rumbling of a thousand pounding feet. The roar of thunder, the shrieks of the dying. The deafening booms of cannons. The heat of a million suns slicing through flesh, wood, stone. The cry of scared warriors, the wail of a lost child.

The sword never stood a chance.

The sky swirled black, thundered red as a gaping maw opened to devour the now-ruined castle. The vast, roaring maw, swallowed all, bird, beast, tree, house, spear, shield, swallowed him whole.

And all memory disappeared from thought.

All turned to black, silent. It remained silent for a long, long time.

…

Yet, a speck of light flickered, shimmered pure, clean, untouched, undeterred.

From the light a faint voice, a whisper.

“Open your eyes.”

The light grew brighter.

“Open your eyes.”

The voice in his mind pierced through the stillness, bright white engulfed the inky black.

“Wake up, Link.”

The boy opened his eyes, and the white light gave way to a soft, cloudy blue. His eyelids were heavy, and he saw spots in his vision as it cleared.

He lay in a pool filled with incandescent blue liquid with only his head poking out from its surface. A sudden chill pierced his now-exposed body as the liquid began to drain away with a deep rumbling, nipping his naked nose, ears, and lips. Looking down, he saw pale arms and legs, and a pale body only covered by a cloth wrapped tightly from his hips down to the uppermost part of his thighs, bathed in soft blue sheen.

He felt nothing save the chill air and bedrock below, heard no sound save a hollow breeze and a gentle drip.

Get up.

A voice came suddenly, tersely, from a place deep and unknown.

The boy lifted himself up above the height of the pool. He flexed his wakening limbs, finding them stiff, cracking as he attempted to move them. Painstakingly, he swung his legs over, sitting now on the edge. Soon, the stiffness in his body started to ebb away. He realized his body’s capabilities and wanted to test it, push it past its limits.

First, he needed to know what he was working with. As he sat, he ran his hand across the rest of his body. His thin arms were corded with muscle, and his stomach and chest were flat and hard as the stone beneath, with warm skin that grew colder by the second. He felt his face; cold lips and long pointed ears, then the top of his head, drawing a lock from his bushy hair, light brown.

Stand.

He nudged forward at the voice’s command, placed his feet onto the ground. They complained about the biting cold of the cave floor for only a second before it passed out of thought. He put most of his weight on his toes, then the balls of his feet, then his heels. His legs cracked as they straightened and his spine popped as he stood, snapping in place to support his weight.

As he drew himself to full height, his head pounded as a sudden burning overcame him, piercing his temples. He squeezed his eyes shut, gasped and stumbled back, grabbing the side of the pool for support. Eyes blurred, ears rang, and dizziness overcame him. However, as quickly as it came, it had gone.

As his senses finally returned, he finally took stock of his surroundings. He stood within a dark room lit by glowing great blue swirling patterns adorning the walls. Some rose and fell like waves, and others crept up to the ceiling like great pillars. A sharp, bittersweet smell hung in the cold, damp air, carried by a thick gray fog wafting through the cavernous hall. A blue vapor hung in wisps over the drained pool he had painstakingly risen from as the blue glow of the lingering liquid ebbed away, along with the lights above. It wasn’t until it went completely dark that he realized that a subtle hum had been emanating from it. Now, the only perceptible sound was the tiny droplets of water that fell from the ceiling.

Now that his physical senses returned to him, his mental sense emerged from the recesses of his mind. Everything here was unfamiliar, strange. His eyes darted around the room. The walls seemed to enclose him, no opening to be found.

“Link, can you hear me?”

He froze.

Who is that?

“Link, please, do not panic,” it was the same voice that had urged him awake. It didn’t originate from the hall or anywhere near him. In fact, it seemed to be emanating from his mind, yet he did not have any control of the same voice that commanded him so tersely.

Words appeared in his mind, and he tried to emulate those thoughts on his lips, flexing his tongue as he opened his mouth to voice his mind.

"W…whe…a…y-”

The noises he made were raspy, cracked, derived from a throat ragged and dry from unuse. His voice was deeper, with none of the melodious grace of the voice he heard.

Where are you? He’d meant to ask.

“Where am I?” the voice finished his thought, “I am quite far away at the moment and speaking to you by the power of my thought.”

The boy realized that the harsher voice that commanded him and was asking the other voice was his own. It was his voice that urged him to keep moving, pounding into his head the singular goal to begin moving forward. Yet, he noticed his inner voice was softer, gentler when beckoning to the external voice.

His legs, now used to the burden of standing, now needed to learn, or relearn, the labor of walking. He flexed the muscles in his thighs and shins and, despite an initial stiff hesitance, he stepped forward. The first step went smoothly, but he nearly stumbled after the second step, flailing his arms in the air to keep himself from meeting the ground. From that, he learned the importance of swinging his arms while walking.

With increasing poise and balance, he walked to the edge of the room and in front of the pedestal, a chest-height pillar with a circular surface. There was a small recess in the center of the pedestal, a small, rectangular shape lodged in it. He reached out to touch it, but before his fingers could brush its surface, the lights on the pedestal flashed, and emitted a rough grinding noise. Startled, he stepped back as he noticed an inner ring in the pedestal rising up several finger-widths, and the strange rectangular object suddenly stood up on its end. It was illuminated by the pedestal now, and he could see what looked like an eye on its surface. The iris glowed a brilliant blue, with three blue pointed eyelashes glowing above it. Beneath the eye stretched a single teardrop. Additional lines of orange light glowed softly along its top and bottom edges.

This looks familiar…

“That object in your hand is a Sheikah Slate. Take it. It will help guide you after your long slumber.”

A rectangular outline around the object was visible now. He pressed it, and the object inside it sank a little deeper into its groove. Then, the object turned, revealing a smooth, black surface. Then, it shot up, now standing on the edge of its groove vertically. He reached out and picked it up.

The object he held in his hands did not seem at all familiar with his hands. However, he had nothing else at his disposal, so he held it in his hand as he scanned the cave. It enclosed him from all sides. Every second he remained in the cave, he felt imperiled, as if he was never supposed to be there.

“Where…am I?” he asked nervously, trying to get used to the sound of his own voice, the folds in his throat flexing as if working after an eternity of unuse.

"You are in a shrine,” said the voice, “Here you have been revitalized after a long rest. Go through this room and take what you need. There are some old clothes for you to wear. There’s a shirt for you to cover your upper half, as well as a belt and trousers for your lower half.”

“...Huh?” he croaked.

"All will be clear to you in time. For now, please do as I say.”

The cold forced him to ignore his questions and heed the voice’s command. He wrapped his arms around himself in a pathetic attempt to warm himself and huddled over to a bundle of fabrics draped over a similar pedestal in this room.

Not caring where they came from, he quickly crossed over and grabbed the clothes, setting the Sheikah Slate down. He grabbed the lighter piece of cloth. Dirty, wrinkled, with two long sleeves, either for his skinny arms or his slender legs. He measured the sleeves to his arms, they seemed to measure up. There was a hole above the arms that seemed just large enough for his head. He poked his head through. This must be the shirt.

It fit. Barely. The fabric seemed a bit tight around the shoulders.

The darker fabric, longer, all sleeve with a stitching down the middle; like the first one, was old and wrinkled with a few holes here and there. This must be the trousers.

It fit. Almost too well. The large hole in the top was too loose and the edges were baggy and reached his feet. He then strapped on a long, tough, skinny object which he surmised was the belt. There was a hook on one end of it that he could attach the Sheikah Slate to, freeing up both of his hands.

His feet were especially tender and cold, begging for protection. It was by divine providence that he saw a pair of brown items shaped similarly to his feet by the base of the pedestal. He put them on. They seemed to be fabric but were harder and shapelier than the shirt and trousers.

Then, he stepped on something wet. He looked down and saw a puddle of dark, cold water. He knew, somehow, that this liquid below could heal his dried throat, so he stepped back and crouched, the pangs of thirst throbbing in his throat. He scooped some water into his hands, brought it up to his lips, and sipped tentatively. It seemed safe enough, so he drank his scoop of water heartily, drinking twice more. Immediately, the dryness in his throat ebbed away. Clearing his throat, he felt the vibrations of his voice run smoothly against this throat once again. The tone of his voice became clearer and clearer as he exercised it. The raspiness soon went away.

He noticed then that the pedestal was at the far edge of the room. He walked up to it, confused on what to do. It seemed to be made of rock, roughly chest height, and completely unremarkable. He expected something to rise up from within it, but nothing happened. He held the slate up to it. A pang of awkwardness arose in his stomach as he waited a few seconds, unsure of what to expect.

“Link, the Slate can only work when you press it on the screen.”

Screen?

“The screen is that black surface on the top. Press anywhere on it.”

The voice seemed able to read his mind.

The Slate began to glow blue as soon as he pressed his index finger against the glossy, smooth surface. The formerly black slate had a blue eye now glowing in its center, similar to the eye on its opposite side. Then, the pedestal glowed blue as well and a slate-shaped groove was revealed. He placed the slate on the groove and the screen illuminated the darkness of the cave. The eye seemingly appeared from within the Sheikah Slate. The pedestal flashed briefly.

A new sound filled the chamber now, and he looked up quickly for its source. He found it a moment later as his eyes fell on the wall near him. The orange light from the room illuminated what he had originally thought to be just another swirl in the wall’s pattern but was what he now realized to be now an archway. As he watched, the section of wall that had previously occupied the center of the arch now rose into the stone above it. It rumbled loudly as it rose until it stopped with a reverberating thud. Where there had been solid walls before, now a simple arch opened, and a shaft of piercing bright light streamed in from under the door as it lifted, illuminating the cave.

He squinted at the sudden assault on his eyes, approached the arch carefully, scanning it up and down. There was no sign that a wall even existed here before.

As the door rose, he glanced back down at the Sheikah Slate, surprised to see blue text written across the smooth black surface.

“Sheikah Slate confirmed.” The text remained for another few moments before disappearing.

With a boom that echoed beneath his feet, followed by the harsh grinding of rocks, a bright passage was revealed before him. The mouth of the cave stood open some distance down what appeared to be a simple passage with rock walls.

A white light streamed into the shrine, piercing through the dark, and Link held his hand over his eyes, shielding them from the sudden brightness. He blinked rapidly to sweep the spots in his eyes out of his vision.

As soon as his eyes adjusted, he could sense something beyond there, something massive, something dangerous. And he knew that he wasn’t prepared. There was an overwhelming fullness, a chaos in the air that streamed into the once empty cave that filled his lungs nearly to bursting. Suddenly, his feet felt as though they were planted to the ground, as if taking another step would mean jumping into some unknown terror.

The boy didn’t know why he’d woken up in that chamber. He couldn’t remember where he was. He couldn’t remember what had led to his falling asleep in such a location.

He couldn’t remember…

He froze, eyes growing wide in alarm. Looking for anything recognizable, his heart thumped against his chest and breaths were short, rapid gasps. In front of him, he could see the brilliant white light streaming in through the cave entrance, too bright to make out any details beyond the faint outline of vegetation. Behind him, the mysterious chamber remained open, the dim light growing ever brighter.

Why am I here? Who am I?

“Link.”

He whirled around once again, hoping that he would see her this time. The speaker was not there.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“I know you must have many questions, and I promise that answers will come in time.” She sounded more distant now. Strained. “I have arranged for a guide for you outside the shrine. Please, you must keep moving forward.”

Stillness filled the cavern as the voice faded. He finally found his own voice.

“I… hello?” he called, “Please, are you…there?” The first sentence and his voice had become clearer, though he was still stumbling over his words. His mind was frantic, moving faster than he could express with words.

“Where am I? I don’t—I don’t remember…anything!” he cried.

"Listen to me…”

"Is Link my name?! Please tell me!”

“Link!” The voice, now stronger, echoed in his mind, “Hear me.”

He listened.

“You are stronger than you know,” she said more firmly but with no less warmth, “Yet, you are well within your right to be scared. You have a great task ahead of you. However, you are brimming with strength, and are more than capable of facing what is beyond this cave, you must see it.”

The boy gazed at his left hand, then clenched it to a fist. Though he did not remember it, he knew this strength well as if it were engraved in his bones. It was what compelled him to keep pushing to escape this cave.

“I have full faith that you will find your purpose. Though you do not know it, things have been set into motion thanks to your awakening. We are waiting for you.

“Link. You are the light, our light, that must shine upon Hyrule once again.”

He shut his eyes to brace the overwhelming might that entered him. Her words awakened in him a power greater than he thought possible, and a newfound sense of purpose. A point of clarity, a beacon in the fog of his mind. He still didn’t know anything, but if the voice couldn’t tell him, he’d have to find out for himself. No matter who he was or where he came from, he had to move forward, to go into the light.

“Now, go…”

His eyes shot open, and he took a step forward. The pat of his footstep echoed on the cave walls. He took another step, then another. The light grew less oppressive. A wave of crisp air blasted into the cave. This time, the cold did not bother him.

He walked, jogged, ran.

Sprinting he splashed through a shallow puddle, but he paid no mind to the water that soaked through his pant legs. He did not care for the chill anymore, nor the remaining spots in his vision as the light attempted to assault his eyes. The outside became clearer and clearer.

The stone of the cave turned into soft soil, and strands of grass tickled his ankles as he ran. He ran up the hill to its zenith. At the very edge, he stopped in his tracks. Still as a statue, his mouth agape, heart pounding in his throat, he held his breath.

And the boy beheld the majesty of the wild.

Beyond stretched a vast, verdant country. He stood atop a hill, which overlooked a forest with trees whose boughs were laden with glistening emerald leaves and a bubbling stream of water slicing through the forest floor. The trees tapered into a meadow dotted with crumbled stone structures overgrown with ivy and great hills of gold-green grass and wildflowers of violet, pink, and gold, all of which cut off at a crumbling stone border. Beyond lay a vast grassland stretching as far as the eye could see, forests sprouting on its fringes. To the West lay brown cliffs stacked atop one another. Across the Northern horizon stretched an impassable wall of misty mountains covered in white. To the East stood a singular mighty mountain billowing plumes of black-red smoke, with rivers of red flowing down its sides into great pools of flame. To the Southeast lay vast wetlands, green with flowing rivers and lakes. The sun rose from the farthest corner of the East, spilling vibrant white light over the land. The grass beneath scintillated in the fresh sunlight, sparkling with morning dew. A breeze flew past the boy, rich with the scent of life. Small birds chirped merrily as they flew across the branches of the forest below as animals scattered amid the brush.

Yet, one sight stood out above all.

In the center of the vast land stood a lone castle with many spires, stark against the vibrant country with slithering strands of inky darkness encircling its spires. It was encased by several massive black pillars that seemed to erupt from the ground, utterly cut off from the rest of the world.

He remained still for several minutes as he strained searching through the gap in his mind where he felt his memories should have been. Thus, he latched upon his one lead.

I need to find the guide.

And just then, he saw out of the corner of his eye a dark shape.

Immediately, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. His heart pounded, fist clenched, eyes diluting until his vision became crystal clear. He could see even the tiniest insects, the finest blade of grass with the utmost detail. He spun with break-neck speed to see the shape.

It was an old man. Dwarfing over the nearby bushes, he stood out against the greenery like one of the trees. In his hand he held a black staff with an unlit lantern. His white, scraggly beard stood in stark contrast to his dark garments, his face covered by a dark hood.

And he was looking directly at the boy, as if he were expecting the boy.

Uneasiness crept through his body. Was the old man waiting for him?

The boy didn’t know whether or not the old man was something he should approach, but there was something about the massive figure that drew the boy to him. The old man not only looked massive but felt powerful, his countenance great and terrible, yet calm as the clear sky above. The mere way the man stood seemed to issue a command to the boy, unconsciously beckoning the boy towards him. The two stood there for what seemed like hours but was more likely less than a few seconds.

The old man stood so still for so long, the boy half-expected him to be a statue. So, when he turned and walked away, the boy gasped in surprise. He noticed a stream of smoke at the base of a hill. The old man was walking in its direction.

From here, the old man didn’t seem a threat, but still the boy felt uneasy. Perhaps the terror did not come from the old man himself but rather from all around him; a sense of unease pervaded the very air around him. The pristine calm of the hills held some sort of malice in its roots, soil, and water. Perhaps it was in the dancing shadows under the canopy of leaves in the woods. Perhaps it was related to that dark castle off in the distance.

The boy’s fingers tightened, as if searching for a grip, suddenly feeling a longing for a weapon, his hand was as naked and vulnerable as he was when he awoke. He didn’t know whether it was a trick of his still-waking eyes, but he thought he saw dark shapes in the forest.

What else is out there?

The thought of what else could lurk in the shadows beyond his sight put his mind under even more duress.

He searched the ground as if given an order by his own body. He could find nothing other than a stick the size of his arm. It lay on the roots of a tree with white flower buds sprouting from its branches. The stick probably wouldn’t last long, and it still had leaves, but it looked sturdy enough.

So, he set off after the old man.

He passed by a grove of trees, disturbing a small creature with a bushy tail that had been chittering in the brush. It scurried up the trunk of a tree dropping a small, hard item, hollow with a musky smell that awakened a new primal need of his - hunger.

Slowly, he picked up the item in his fingers. He waited for a second before carefully placing it on his tongue. It was slightly sharp due to its jagged edge, and it lacked taste. He flexed his tongue, using it to carry the object between his teeth. He closed his mouth and clamped down. It smelled like the bark of a tree yet tasted somewhat sweet. It was tasty, but it was just a crumb. It barely made a dent in his overwhelming hunger. He couldn’t find any more of those little snacks on the ground, so he moved on.

His eyes then met the creature’s. It was staring at him eating the food it had dropped. The creature seemed intelligent, but its eyes seemed utterly blank of any thought other than that of food. He paid it no second thought and moved on.

He made it to a rocky overhang before he ran into the old man. He sat cross-legged next to a cook fire beneath a rocky overhang, his staff on his lap. The man seemed to have fallen asleep, his eyes closed, snoring softly. The boy studied the details of his face more closely, his wrinkles accentuated by the firelight that painted the shaded rocks red. He seemed older and more weathered than he seemed from a distance, and his white beard flecked with dark gray.

His eyes then fell upon several dark red seared objects strewn about the fire. From their sweet smell, the boy knew that they were edible, though he couldn’t recall their name. The scent of the fruit was intoxicating. A warm steam emanated from it. Freshly cooked, it had a beautifully sweet, smoky aroma that wafted into his nostrils, causing his mouth to water. Its hue was a bright, sweet red painted with blackened marks. Out of instinct, the boy snatched the object closest to him. It felt comfortingly warm with a dry, wrinkled texture. Parts of it were blackened, and the sweet aroma stormed up his nose and into his brain. He was about to eat it before his eyes fell upon the old man again.

A pang of guilt opened in his stomach. This object probably belonged to the old man just as the nut formerly belonged to the squirrel, yet it felt even more wrong for him to take something from the man, a regret that he didn’t spare for the squirrel. For a split second, the boy wanted to ask the man for his permission before he simply snatched the fruit. But before he could open his mouth to ask, his stomach grumbled loudly. It was begging him to open his mouth and bite. At that moment, he needed food more than anything else in the world. The old man was asleep anyway and had plenty of others, so perhaps he wouldn’t notice if one was gone.

He hesitantly lifted the object to his mouth. His whole body screamed at him to take the bite. So, he opened his mouth, and-

“I BEG YOUR PARDON!!”

The sudden roar of the old man made the boy jump in terror. He dropped the apple and held the stick up in self-defense against what he now knew was a threat. The old man’s green eyes were open, blazing with fury.

“I do believe that is MY baked apple, you cannot simply go around taking whatever you like!”

Link still held his stick aloft, but his stomach dropped with a new feeling, guilt. He knew he should have had at least had the courtesy to ask before he simply took it. It wasn’t his to begin with…

“Oh…ohoho! Hahaha!!”

His fear was replaced with confusion as soon the old man threw his head back in hearty laughter. When the old man opened his eyes, they were sparkling with mirth.

“Haha…oh, please, forgive me, boy. I could not resist pulling your leg! Please help yourself, a baked apple over an open flame makes for a succulent treat! You seem starved for food anyway, so I wouldn’t’ve minded if you had taken one. I made this one with melted cane sugar, very rare on this plateau!”

The boy more hesitantly picked up the apple. He glanced at the old man again, who smiled with a reassuring warmth, gesturing to the apple.

He sank his teeth in and experienced what he would later describe as euphoria. The tart, smoky juice of the apple exploded in his mouth, the sweet, charred flesh of the fruit flooding his tongue and slamming against the roof of his mouth. A rich sweetness, which he surmised was the sugar, melded with the tartness of the fruit, elevating the flavor even more. His nostrils flared as his stomach begged for more. He took one bite, then another, and another.

“Nothing beats a lovely baked apple on a nice, crisp morning!” said the old man, “I heard there’s a particularly scrumptious recipe with courser bee ho-- and you’re done…don’t swallow the seeds.”

He'd devoured the apple, core and all, and spat out the seeds and tossed them and the stem into the fire.

“...Sorry…” he muttered quietly.

“Ah! The young lad speaks!”

He was flushed with embarrassment. Talking to another corporeal person seemed to make him tense. Perhaps he wasn’t talkative before he woke up in the shrine? Whatever the case, he had no one else to communicate with about his confounding situation and, since the girl’s voice didn’t answer his questions, he could start with the only living soul before him.

“My boy, please don’t be embarrassed for speaking sparingly. Some are simply less talkative than others and that’s only natural. Besides, I’ve already had my share of sustenance a short while ago, as you can tell,” he said, patting a rather large yet firm belly, “meanwhile you haven’t looked like you haven’t eaten in ages…”

The old man’s voice had a casual tone to it, putting the boy at ease. Now curiosity overwhelmed any nerves that stunted his speech before.

“Who are you?”

“Me? I’ll spare you my life’s story, I’m just an old fool who has lived here, alone, for quite some time now. Though, I hope you may permit me a question…if I may be so bold…what brings you here in such a state? It’s a rare sight to see a young lad emerge from a cave.” the old man asked, raising an eyebrow, looking the boy up and down.

He shrugged, only knowing about as much as the old man about his own situation.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“Answering my question with a question? Fair enough, I suppose. Your emergence from that cave there -,” he said pointing to the cliff where the shrine was, “-and meeting me here cannot be a simple coincidence, so I shall tell you.

We stand on the Great Plateau. According to legend, this is the birthplace of the kingdom of Hyrule.”

Hyrule.

The name struck him deep in his heart. Hyrule was a place, a kingdom, and, according to the voice, the very thing that the boy needed to shine his light upon, whatever that meant.

“Young man, if I may be so bold, may I ask…have you any memory at all?”

The boy hesitated, unsure about how to tell him. He looked into the old man’s eyes, soft green as jade as the leaves of the trees. Though the boy had his reservations, the old man seemed trustworthy at best, knowledgeable at worst.

“I…do not. All I remember is waking up from some water in that cave there. Then, I heard a voice that instructed me to come out here. I don’t know…” The boy trailed off.

"I don’t know anything."

The old man stroked his beard.

“That is most peculiar, indeed. Strange water containing amnesiac young men is certainly not what I’d expected to have heard today, but I suppose destiny is a funny thing. So, you don’t know anything at all, do you?”

The boy shook his head. For a second, he'd wondered if the fluid he'd awakened in was drinkable. Alas, he'd never know.

“But I saw the look in your eye when I mentioned the name of the kingdom. The name Hyrule does strike you as familiar, does it not?”

The boy nodded.

“Then it is most likely that you were born here, or at least have heard of it sometime before you emerged from the cave there.”

The boy scoured his mind for the name Hyrule in his mind, but the most he could find was the vague familiarity the name brought him, nothing else.

“Was I... born...in that cave?” he asked tentatively.

“Hm, well considering you are able to speak and look like you’re in your adolescence, I’d assume that no, you weren’t born in that cave. Most likely, you had a life, parents who birthed you before you woke up, a house you grew up in. Perhaps you lived a normal life, but something happened - some magical spell or some trauma - forced you into a deep sleep for a long while and wiped your memories clean…not completely as I can see. You have some vague familiarity with the things you see around you, despite not knowing the names of them all.”

The old man was right. Everything seemed familiar, but he did not know their names.

“That thing right there, can you tell me what it’s called?” the old man pointed to the thing with a brown trunk and green leaves. The boy knew what that was called, he’d known it right when he emerged from the shrine.

“A tree,” he said without hesitation.

“Ah, but what kind of tree?” the old man held up a finger.

The boy was now unsure. He looked at the tree more closely, seeing bright red fruits among its branches, piecing together the fruits that lay about the old man’s fire.

“A…not-baked-apple tree?” The boy said with less surety.

“Well, we just call it an apple tree, but yes. It proves that you have these memories hidden in your mind, you just have to awaken them with a bit of tinkering,” the old man chuckled. Then, his green eyes fell to the boy’s belt. Suddenly, his eyes flickered with an emotion the boy could not recognize. It seemed grim yet inquisitive.

“That thing on your hip…may I see it?” the old man asked.

The boy, choosing to trust, handed it to the old man, who began to study it, tilting his head as he gazed at its screen.

“From what you’ve told me, I believe there’s something in this plateau that pertains to it in some way. I’ve never paid much attention to such matters; this was more the forte of my daughter. But perhaps it may be of some significance to you.”

The boy looked at the device again. He did not know how this device was to help him. The voice had instructed him to take it, but why? What could it do? It only had a map of the plateau, but it had to be capable of more if it were to help him after his slumber. The old man was right, he was intrigued by it, and wanted to know more. The boy nodded.

An odd expression flashed across the old man’s face. Satisfaction, perhaps, or amusement—the boy wasn’t sure.

“Come, young man, the day’s still young, and I’d like to collect some food for my cabin from the Forest of Spirits. We can converse while we walk.” The old man said, gesturing for the boy to follow, “You are welcome to stay at the cabin for a few days as you piece your memory back together.”

“Ah, and by the way, what are you called?” the old man asked.

The boy looked at him, confused.

"You do have a name, do you not?" the old man tilted his head.

The boy paused. He had no other memory of his name or any marker of his identity, so he went with the name given to him by the voice.

“Link.”

The old man closed his eyes and nodded.

“And you?” Link asked.

The old man paused, then he started stroking his beard, pondering whether to reveal it or not. Then, he seemed to decide.

“I am perfectly fine with you calling me ‘old man’ or something along those lines,” he said with a smile, “Though if you insist, you may call me Rhoam.”

The name, as with everything else, sounded vaguely familiar.

Rhoam gripped his staff and used it to help himself up. Only then did Link realize just how enormous he was. The top of Link’s head only reached the man’s chest, if he was generous. He was broad-chested, and his arms were as thick as Link's torso. He stepped back in awe, but the Rhoam simply turned and gave him a curious look, a small smirk upon his face.

“Very well, Link, now that we’re better acquainted, I have a task that I’d like your help with: I’d like to gather ingredients for my dinner. I’m feeling the need to indulge my gastronomic exploration tonight. I know that you have a number of questions about where to go next, but perhaps we could answer them while scrounging up some dinner that isn’t just mere forest refuse. What say you?”

This was as good a starting point as any. He nodded.

“Thank you, lad. Let’s be on our way,” Rhoam said, gesturing to Link to follow.

Together, they entered the woods, and Link’s journey had begun.