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The sound of soft giggling draws Link’s attention, echoing over the buzzing of the insect wings and the chirping of the crickets that hide in the tall grass. The dirt beneath his sandals puffs up in small clouds with every step he takes into the clearing. He hesitates, his ears straining for another sound, knowing that he’s closer than he’s been the whole afternoon to finding all of the village children in record time. He has all the patience in the world to wait for another slipup.
He only has to wait a few seconds longer until the sound of rustling leaves catches his ear. A grin creeps across his mouth, and he turns toward the tree that he knows for certain is hiding the penultimate child he is searching for.
Crouching low, he covers the small expanse between himself and the tree with agonizing slowness, careful to keep his steps softer than the sounds of the surrounding forest. Another giggle, stifled behind a hand, makes his ears twitch. His muscles tense in anticipation of the discovery.
“Aha!” he shouts, jumping around the tree with his arms outstretched. Beth squeals, her voice scattering the birds roosting in the tree high above them, and Link seizes her by the arms and whirls her around before she can bolt for it.
She kicks and screams, but Link tosses her over his shoulder like a sack of grain and emerges triumphantly into the center of the clearing.
“Aw, man!”
“C’mon, Beth, you said you had a good hiding spot!”
Malo and Talo trudge into the clearing before Link’s house, their expressions drowning in disappointment when they see Beth squirming in Link’s arms. Link can’t hide his amused smile as he sets her carefully down on her feet. Her pants are littered with burrs, and there are leaves in her otherwise perfectly arranged hair, and she brushes the dirt from her clothes with an air of aggravation.
“I would have had a good hiding spot if you didn’t take it, you stinker!” Beth shouts at Talo, kicking dirt toward the two boys.
Link ignores their petty squabbling and shifts back onto his heels, his eyes already tracing the surrounding forest for signs of Colin, the last to be found. He rubs his palms together and turns in a circle. A kernel of worry is trying to expand somewhere in the pit of his stomach, but he stomps it down. Colin is usually the first to be found, but after relentless teasing from the other children, he had set off on this round with a look of utter determination on his face, claiming that this time, he would be the one to win.
When Colin has that look on his face, he’s usually about to do something reckless to prove himself to the other children. Link just hopes that he had the common sense to stay near the village.
“Where’s Colin?” Beth asks, swinging her arms in a wide circle.
Talo huffs a laugh. “He’s probably back at home whining because Link found him first again.”
Link casts a wary glance to the three children, one that none of them miss.
“You did find him, right?” Malo asks.
Worrying at his lower lip, Link shakes his head. Instead of expressions of anxiety, however, the three children burst into a fit of giggles.
“What a dork! He probably got stuck in a tree somewhere trying to prove Link can’t find him,” Talo snorts.
“Or maybe he’s using Ilia to hide him, the cheater,” Malo adds.
Link sends a withering look toward the three children, which has all three of them shutting up in no time. In the distance, the sun is barely a sliver above the horizon. All of the children have curfews to make, and their parents will be none too happy with Link if he’s the one responsible for them being out after dark.
“You three head home,” he says, sweeping his arm toward the village proper. “I’ll keep looking for him on my own.”
Malo stomps his foot, sending a puff of dried dirt scattering about his too-long tunic. “No fair! Colin gets to stay out later!”
“Link is right,” Beth interjects, crossing her arms and sticking her nose up in the air. “If Ilia finds out we missed dinner again, she said she’s not going to show us how to ride Epona.”
Link huffs, shaking his head at the notion that Ilia would let the kids anywhere near Epona. She’s his horse, but somehow Ilia always finds a way to be in charge of her.
The sound of the nighttime creatures of the forest is slowly rising. Cicadas call from the treetops. Fireflies flicker between the trunks. Link has a much more pressing problem to solve than the question of the kids riding Epona.
He turns toward the path to the Ordon spring, ready to start calling for Colin, but Malo tugs on the seam of his pants, drawing his attention back down.
“Tell Colin that this doesn’t count,” Malo grumbles, even as Beth’s hand gropes for his arm. “He can’t leave the village, it’s against the rules.”
Link presses his lips together. “Pretty sure there were no rules about that,” he says quietly, and Malo’s whine of disappointment almost has a smile curling the edges of his lips.
Leaving the children to return to their parents, Link sets off deeper into the woods.
An hour later, Link is no closer to finding Colin than he was before. Night has finally fallen on the village, and Link has no choice but to report what happened to Rusl and Uli and assure them of his quest to find their son. Though Uli is worried, and though Rusl’s face pinches together with fear, they do not begrudge Link’s game of hide and seek. They know better than anyone that Colin’s determination rivals that of Link himself.
And so, with only a simple oil lamp in hand to combat the harsh shadows of the trees, Link climbs atop Epona’s saddle and faces her toward Faron Woods, the only place that has not been searched for any sign of Colin.
A chill runs down Link’s spine as he enters the woods. The sound of Epona’s hooves on the tightly-packed dirt trail and the huffing of her breath as her ribs expand between his thighs is the only thing that drives away the oppressive chirping of insects and the ominous rustling of the leaves overhead.
Link holds his lantern high, flashing it this way and that, and calls, “Colin!”
He knows that the child can’t have gone far. The children are admonished to stay close to the village at all costs, what with the uncertainty of the wildness that separates Ordon from the rest of Hyrule.
“Colin!” he cries again, raising his lantern higher.
He follows the path deeper into the woods, his heart pumping harder with every step Epona takes. He is not fearful for himself, but he is fearful for the child, that he may have gotten himself into trouble. He could be hurt…or worse.
No, best not to think about it. He’s a smart kid. A little too determined to prove himself sometimes, but a smart one nonetheless.
Sure enough, as Link guides Epona closer to Faron’s spring, he can hear the soft, trembling voice of a little boy.
“Link!”
Link spurs Epona into a gallop, covering the distance between him and the voice in record time. When he comes to the clearing before the spring, he swings the lantern left to right, searching for the blonde hair that would certainly stand out amongst the dark underbrush.
“Up here!” comes a wobbly voice.
Link tilts his head up, toward one of the taller trees. Relief floods his entire body, so much so that he nearly drops the lantern. He hops off Epona and hangs the lantern on the horn of her saddle.
“Colin,” Link calls, stepping up to the tree. The boy in question is straddling a thick tree branch, hugging the bark so tightly that his little arms are shaking. A gash runs the length of the poor boy’s calf.
Link wastes no time in beginning the climb up the length of the bark. “What happened? We’ve been looking all over for you.”
In the light of the moon overhead and the yellow glow of the lantern far below, Link can see dried tear tracks on the boy’s ruddy cheeks, a smudge of dirt on his chin, and dust coating the front of the boy’s tunic. He must have taken a tumble.
“One of the wild monkeys chased me out here,” Colin says, his wide eyes shining with fresh tears. “I climbed up here, and it went away, but…um…”
But the boy was scared of heights. How he managed to get himself all the way up to this tree branch was astonishing to Link, but the adrenaline that comes with being chased can overcome plenty of normal fears.
Link holds an arm out to the boy, fitting his sandals into cracks in the bark and holding his weight upon another tree branch that sticks out at an odd angle from the trunk.
Slowly, Colin releases his grip on the tree and leans toward Link. In the brief moment between the safety of the supporting tree limb and the safety of Link’s strong arms, Colin lets out a miserable whimper that has Link’s gut twisting with guilt. He should have known not to let the kids tease Colin so much today. He should have known to go after him when he saw that look on his face.
“I got you,” Link says, pulling the boy against his chest. Colin twines his arms around Link’s neck and locks his legs around his waist, and he buries his face in the crook of Link’s shoulder as Link carefully climbs down toward the ground.
When his feet touch the soft earth, he makes to set Colin on his feet and turn toward Epona, but Colin clings to him even tighter than before. Link can feel the poor boy’s chest heaving with quiet sobs, ones that he is no doubt trying to hide.
“Hey,” Link soothes, wrapping his arms around the boy’s torso and holding him close. “You’re okay now. You’re safe.”
Colin rubs his nose on Link’s tunic and sniffles, “The other kids are gonna make fun of me for getting lost.”
“No, they won’t make fun of y—”
“They will! They’ll say I’m such a scaredy cat that I got chased off by a monkey.”
Link pulls Colin closer, breathing in the scent of resin that clings to his skin, and carries him toward his horse. “No, because they won’t know that’s what happened. For all they know, you were the only one brave enough to go into Faron woods. Even though it was a reckless decision, by the way.”
Colin’s fingers card into the hair at the back of Link’s head, searching for something to ground him. “I didn’t mean to. The monkey chased me across the bridge.”
With Colin still clinging to his front, Link heaves himself into Epona’s saddle.
“I won’t tell the others about the monkey,” Link assures Colin, wrestling himself out of his iron grip. He sets Colin down on the saddle in front of him, facing the horse’s strong neck, and wraps his arms around his little body to grip the reins. “They’ll think you just went further than any of them dared to.”
Colin leans back against Link’s chest, and Link doesn’t miss it when his fist comes up to rub the tears from his eyes. With a tug on the reins, Link turns Epona around and sets back off toward the bridge that separates Ordon from Faron. Colin’s breath shudders out of him like wind through a half-open window, unsteady and with the distinct notion of trying to hold back something far greater.
Link squeezes him closer. “Did I ever tell you that I used to be scared of Fado’s goats?”
Colin glances up at him, his lips parted in shock. “You did?”
Link nods as he steers Epona onto the bridge. “They were so big, and they can be pretty mean when they want to stay out in the pasture. The first time Fado tried to teach me how to wrangle them, I climbed under the river dock and hid for hours before Ilia found me and turned me in.”
Colin fiddles with the front of his tunic, brushing at the dirt that has collected there. A yawn stretches his mouth. “But…you’re not scared of them now, are you?”
Link shrugs. “Not as much, no. When one of them is charging straight at me, ready to run me through, sure. But that’s my point. When you’re afraid, that doesn’t mean that you’re a coward.”
“Well, Malo thinks I’m a coward.”
“Yeah? Did you know Malo is scared of Sera’s cat?”
Colin presses his hand to his mouth and snorts. “Really?”
Link nods, an amused smile creeping across his mouth. “Yep. Everyone’s afraid of something. You’re no different. Having courage means that you choose to face your fear, not that you don’t have fear at all.”
Colin’s body is growing heavy in Link’s arms, his head lolling slightly against his bicep. “Do you think that I could be brave like you one day?” he asks, and his voice is slightly slurred, his eyelids growing heavy with sleep.
Epona clops into the clearing next to Link’s own house, and Link smiles down at Colin fondly. “I think you already are, buddy.”
By the time they arrive in front of Rusl and Uli’s house, Colin is sound asleep, snoring lightly against Link’s sturdy chest. Link slides carefully down from Epona and pulls Colin into his arms, cradling him close as he walks up the dirt path.
“Oh thank the spirits,” Rusl says, bursting through his front door. “Where was he? Is he alright?”
Rusl stands to the side as Link carries the boy into the house. “He’s fine, just tired. I think the adrenaline finally left him when I found him. A wild monkey chased him into Faron.”
Uli stands to her feet when Link walks into their cottage, moving to lean over her son when Link settles him down on the bed.
“What would we do without you, Link?” she asks, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “I’m so glad you got to him before something terrible happened.”
Link leans over and brushes a hand across Colin’s forehead, smoothing back an errant strand of hair. “He’s a brave kid. And a smart one. I knew he could handle himself until I got there.”
He stayed in the house while Rusl and Uli bustled about their son’s bed, wiping the dirt from his skin and cleaning the wound on his calf. And Link just held Colin’s little hand, sure that this little boy would grow up to be braver than them all.