-II-_The Wind Waker

"LINK...LINK...Link..."

Link slowly opened his eyes. He had fallen asleep on the lookout tower.

Again.

With great effort he stood up, rubbing his eyes.

"You were looking at the stars again," his little sister said. Link closed his eyes as he stretched his arms over his head.

"And you took my telescope again too," she accused. Link reached into his pocket to give it back, but Aryll stopped him.

"You can have it for the day," Aryll said smirking, "it can be your birthday present."

Link placed his palm up to his forehead.

"Was that today?" he realized in astonishment.

"You forgot your own birthday!?" Aryll shouted. She threw her hands up in the air. "Woooow. Who forgets their OWN birthday?"

"I - I didn't," Link said in reply, still half asleep. "I've just been distracted lately."

"That's for sure," Aryll said, shaking her head. "This is only the biggest birthday of your life Link! Today you're all grown up!"

Link glanced out over the ocean.

"I'm not really grown up Aryll," Link corrected.

"Yeah, but still!" Aryll said unrelenting. Link heard her mumbling, but he ignored her.

Link sighed and sat down, dangling his legs over the edge of the platform. Aryll followed, unfearful of the edge, and tucked her blue flowered dress under her, resting her hands on the handrail.

"Are you excited?" she asked happily.

Link closed his eyes and listened to the sound of the wind blowing. He breathed in the smell of the ocean.

"Link?" Aryll said. He opened his eyes, looking back to his sister.

"Sorry," Link said. "I'm just a bit nervous"

"Nervous? Why would you be nervous? All you have to do is put on a silly outfit."

Link tensed up, but cut off a response. Aryll was still only eight. She didn't know better.

Aryll got up from her place and walked to the center of the tower. Link smiled as a thought came to mind.

"You know what I want for my birthday Aryll?" he said.

Aryll put her hands on her hips.

"I already got you a present!"

"Yes," Link said, "because you know I use the telescope in the daytime."

Aryll put on her best scowling face.

"You can see lots of cool things in the day!" she said. "You can watch the seagulls fly, look at the clouds, look at seagulls again..."

Link spun around and tried to tickle her foot. After chasing her around the platform for a moment, he caught her, tickling her foot as she giggled.

"You know what I want for my birthday?" Link said.

"For daddy to catch a giant Loover for dinner?" Aryll tried to wriggle away from his grasp.

"Well, that would be nice," Link laughed, "but I want you to promise me something."

"What?"

"That as long as I have those clothes on," Link said, "you won't laugh at me the whole day."

"Ahhh...," Aryll moaned, "That's awfully hard..."

"You don't even know what they look like," he pointed out.

"I just know they'll be silly though! You'll probably have to wear a purple cape and a big poofy hat!"

"If you laugh at me," Link said, "I'll tell mom and dad that you were the one that snuck that jar of soup."

Aryll folded her arms, forced to comply. "Fine," she said.

Link yawned. "Can I go back to sleep now?"

"Nu-uh," Aryll refused. "It's your birthday! We've got so much to do!" Link yawned again and laid back down.

"I changed my mind," he said. "What I want for my birthday is an extra hour of sleep."

"Okay," Aryll said. "I'll enjoy the skippyjack that daddy caught for breakfast."

Link stood bolt upright, and made his way to the ladder.

"Are you ever not hungry?" Aryll asked.

"No," Link smiled, "even when I'm eating I'm thinking about what I'll eat next."

Link began climbing down. It always felt a whole lot higher on the way back to the ground.

"Oh I know when you're not hungry!" Aryll said, several rungs above him.

"When's that?" Link asked, pausing anxiously for a moment as Aryll's hasty climbing shook the ladder.

"Whenever the thing you're eating is green," Aryll said.

"Oh I'll eat something green," Link said, "it just needs to be covered with a thick coat of salt!"

Aryll laughed as they reached the bottom and ran down the jetty back to the beach.

"No wonder Zill named their family's pig Link!" Aryll added, laughing more.

As they walked, Aryll said hello to one of Rosa's kids and they began talking. As they talked, Link looked back out at the distant horizon.

He walked up the shore. He pressed his feet into the damp sand, there seemed to be a ripple of sunlight coming out around his foot. He walked up to the water's edge, exhaling slowly, letting the cool water wrap around his ankles.

He was fourteen.

Fourteen years old.

He knew his whole childhood that this day was going to come, and here it was. He had watched as other boys on the island had received the clothing of the hero.

It had always seemed a long ways off. As if that was something fourteen-year old Link was going to experience, like he was going to be a different person.

Yet here he was.

He didn't feel any older. He felt exactly the same he had the day before when he was thirteen.

"Link?" Aryll said, prodding his arm impatiently.

"Sorry," Link replied. "Thinking."

"You think too much," Aryll muttered to herself.

Aryll, and everyone for that matter, loved to point that out. Most of the time it wasn't that mean, but it hurt sometimes, like the time when dad had said Link was like an elderly man that occasionally forgot what he was doing.

Link knew they were just teasing, but still. Some things he just couldn't explain with words.

Link walked up to the door of their home and grabbed the doorknob.

"Link," Aryll reminded.

"Oh," Link said, wiping the sand off his feet onto the door's woven mat. They walked inside, and Link blinked to adjust to the light.

Grandma was sitting in the corner, sewing something.

"Hey!" She said, covering the cloth with her arms. "You can't see this yet."

"Oops," Link said, covering his eyes. "I didn't see anything."

Grandma tucked the bundle of cloth into a basket beneath her chair. Mom was sitting at the fireplace, frying breakfast in a pan.

Mom gave him a look, and she motioned her head toward grandma.

"Oh," Link said hastily, "thanks for sewing my hero clothes grandma."

"You're very welcome Link," grandma replied.

She set down her sewing tools. "I'm still a little disappointed that your father's clothing didn't fit you."

Link wasn't. When grandma had pulled it out of the closet it had been caked in dust.

"It's a shame it's only used once," mom said.

"Yes," grandma said, "but it would lose its meaning if it were worn more than this special day."

Mom began taking the fish out of the frying pan.

"Okay," mom said, "once you and Aryll finish breakfast, stay out of the house for a bit. Grandma needs to finish."

"Got it," Link said, glad to have an escape to be free from working today. Link and Aryll sat down at the table as mom took a plate of food to grandma. Mom sat down, and then they all closed their eyes.

"We thank the goddesses for all that we have," mom spoke.

"We thank you Din, for our strength to work every day. We thank you Nayru for the wisdom to know what is right.

"And lastly," she continued, "we thank you Farore for the courage to face all of life's challenges. We also ask that on this day, Link will be invested with bravery from you. May our cry to the goddesses be heard, as we hear the goddesses."

They opened their eyes and began eating. The others began to talk, but Link stayed quiet.

Once he finished, he asked to be excused, then went outside and walked to the other side of the island.

He went up to the higher plateau on the east side of the island, where there was a nice overlook.

Link enjoyed being up here, the wind whipping through his hair. From this height, he could see dad and Mesa working in the field.

He hoped dad couldn't see him. Mom and dad didn't like it when Link went up here, near all the cliffs, and they certainly didn't let Aryll up here.

Link began searching the undergrowth beneath the trees for good forked sticks.

Let's see, he thought, how does one go about making a telescope mount? It would probably require a nice sturdy base, he could probably do that with three sticks tied together in a triangle.

Link heard the sound of crunching sticks. He was still.

He slowly grabbed a long thick stick, trying to make it look like he was still going about his business.

After a moment of "examining" it, Link spun around, pivoting his weight on one foot. As he did so, he sprung upward, and connected with Joel's weapon, having just enough force to snap it in half.

"Fletch!" Joel said, throwing his broken stick to the ground and running to find another. "You were supposed to be totally oblivious as I stuck my sword in your back and said something cool."

"You mean something cool like 'I'm such a master, it takes me a full ten seconds to be bested?" Link taunted in a haughty voice as he chased after Joel.

Joel ran into a thicket of trees, and as Link approached the tree line, Joel came running out with a large stick with a heavy knot of wood at the end.

So heavy in fact, that Joel couldn't even lift it over his head. Link laughed. "Methinks sir that thy ax is pointing the wrong direction," he joked.

"No," Joel said, "it's my new invention, the kicking axe!"

"What does that even mean?" Link snickered.

"Well," Joel explained, "you swing it like someone kicking."

"Shall we see how it compares to my longsword?" Link goaded.

"How it compares," Joel countered, "is that mine is a weapon, and yours is a stick."

"Ha!" Link said, "then I'll just have to 'stick' it to you!"

"Ugh," Joel said, "what a horrible pun! Thy words sir are more painful than the fiercest battle axe!"

"Then it shall be answered with another!" Link said with a laugh, "I'm going to 'de-feet' you!" Link mimed himself cutting off a foot.

"Oh dear," Joel said. "Just for that, I'm going to challenge you to a duel!"

"Your 'dual' is accepted!" Link said holding up two sticks.

Joel began attempting to hit Link, but his large "kicking axe" was very easy to dodge, especially when Joel was holding and swinging it so awkwardly.

Link quickly skirted Joel's swings, even after Joel decided to use his weapon properly.

Joel swung his knotted stick sideways in large arcs.

One of the older islanders, Orca, had trained him occasionally on swordsman ship. From that practice, Link how to stay out of reach in such a situation.

He repeated backed away from Joel, and sure enough, Joel's swings soon became sluggish, and Link lunged forward, wacking Joel with his stick.

"There goes your arm," Link said, "now your leg." Joel pretended to limp like he was missing a leg.

Out of nowhere, Joel grabbed one of Link's two sticks and stabbed him in the gut with it a second later.

"Ha ha!" Joel said. "Let it be known throughout the Great Sea that Link was defeated by a crippled man!"

"Ugghhh," Link said groaning, "I have just one dying wish - that you'll never use the word 'kicking ax' ever again - ugh."

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Joel set his weapon on top of Link's chest. "At last!" He shouted, "Link is dead!" Link opened his eyes and laughed.

"Well I certainly hope not."

Link turned his head to find his mom standing there. Link hastily got up and Joel tossed his stick behind him.

Mom sighed. Link braced himself for a scolding.

"We're ready Link," she said, a stifled annoyance in her eyes

Link felt a chill run through him, and his casual fun attitude vanished. He shouldn't have been doing something so... normal right before this.

Link quietly followed his mom, and Joel followed as well.

He would normally have felt relief that his mom hadn't gotten mad, but instead Link felt guilty.

He should've been doing something like quietly thinking about the ancient hero, or thinking about the goddesses. Instead he had been acting like...

A child. The child he still felt like he was.

As they walked back towards home, Link felt still. What had remained in the back of his mind just became very, very real.

They came up to a circle of all the islanders, gathered around Link's father and grandmother. Link let out a deep breath. Joel patted him on the shoulder.

"Good luck," he whispered, joining the rest of the group. His mother joined his father in the center of the circle. Link stepped into the enclosure. His parents had a solemn expression on their faces.

"Link," his father said stepping forward, "on this day, we gather together to support you as we have throughout your life." Father retrieved a sword from behind him.

"Kneel," his father whispered, helping him. Link went down on one knee.

"As I've raised you," he went on, "I've strived to help you grow into strong, able-bodied young man, so I give you this sword, so you may always remember to increase in strength."

Link accepted the sword.

"Link," his mother said, stepping forward, "as you've grown, I've taught you, and loved you."

She handed Link a shield.

"I give you this shield, so you may remember to use wisely what I've given you, and use that love and knowledge to help and protect others."

Grandma stepped forward with a bundle of cloth.

"Link," grandma concluded," from your parents, from myself, and from innumerable ancestors, you have inherited a courageous spirit." Grandma gave him the clothing.

"As you wear these clothes today, remember the bravery of ages past, and strive to lay the foundation for those who come after you."

Father stepped forward again, and placing his hand on the bundle of clothing and gear, uttered the final words of the ceremony.

"Link of Outset Island, do you promise to seek to follow the guidance given to you today?"

For a brief moment of eternity, the world hushed to hear Link's response.

"I promise."

The islanders silently moved aside to allow him through.

He went up to the door of his childhood home, and walked inside.

He stood before the mirror in the front room, and carefully set down the bundle of cloth on the ground.

He looked at his reflection.

This was his childhood self. He was about to become a young man.

He took off his current outfit and began to change.

He put on a pair of white trousers, then a long sleeved yellow-green shirt.

Over that, a dark, earthy green sleeveless tunic.

Then, a pair of boots, then a belt around his waist. He then slung the sword's sheath and the shield over his back. One thing remained.

A pointed cap, the same color as the tunic. As he put it on, he looked in the mirror.

Any other time he would have thought that the outfit looked silly, old-fashioned, and way too warm to be wearing in summer.

But...

He looked at his reflection, and although he never wore clothing like this, he felt the significance of the clothing he was wearing. It was different from normal clothing for a reason.

With a deep breath, Link walked up to the door, and walked out into the rest of his life.