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Link's hand shoots out to catch the rough wood of the crate, attempting to steady them as they land on the other end of the rickety bridge. Marin's surprised yelp gives way to breathless giggles, the warm puff of her breath brushing against his neck, and Link trembles, suddenly struggling to find his footing on the wobbling planks. Stumbling, Marin presses closer to him, and he forgets how to breathe.
"Goodness!" she says, calming down as her laughter fades. "That was a surprise."
Link rubs the back of his neck nervously, flush creeping up his ears as they step off the bridge and onto solid ground. Maybe the hookshot had been a bit much. The jerky chain mechanism certainly hadn't been the most graceful way to escort a lady–
"Thank you!" she chimes, dragging Link out of his internal turmoil. The warmth of her waist lingers on his skin even after he awkwardly pulls his arm away, nodding in acknowledgement. Marin's smile falters, disappointed.
"I just visited the Wind Fish," she says, gaze drifting towards the peak of Mt. Tamaranch, where the Wind Fish's Egg rests. "I sang to it and asked it to make my dream come true."
Link's face falls at Marin's innocent expression. Dreamer, you should know the truth…
"But, the thing is…" she laughs nervously. "Well, my dream, it's–"
"Maaaaaaariiiiiiin!" a man's voice echoes from lower down the mountain. Link groans.
"Dad?" Marin startles, blushing in embarrassment. "Er, never mind! I'll… see you later, Link!"
Link watches her descend, etching the curve of her smile and the sunlight catching the copper tones of her hair into his memory. If what the mural on the wall of the Southern Face Shrine says is true, it will be the last time he ever sees her. Her confession, whatever it was meant to be, will remain unspoken, forever.
"Just as you cannot know if a chest holds treasure until you open it, so you cannot tell this is a dream until you awaken…"
Link glances over the blunted peaks of the Tal Tal Mountain Range and towards the distant silhouette of Turtle Rock. He tastes the salt of the sea breeze on his tongue and feels the burn of the bright sunlight on his skin. It seems real enough to him. If he truly cannot tell the difference between a dream and reality, what will it matter if he never awakens?
"Marin!" he calls out, hopping down the ledge after her. "Wait up!"
When the sun sets and the residents of Mabe Village settle in for the night, Link and Marin slip away to the beach, stifling nervous laughter as they sneak out of Tarin's house. They creep past glowing windows, the diligent sweeping of Grandma Yahoo and Old Man Ulrira's snores fading into the distant night air as they pass. Once free from wandering eyes, Marin bolts towards their secret spot, Link following close behind until a sudden misstep sends them both tumbling into the sand.
"You klutz!" Marin giggles, smacking him playfully until he manages to untangle his limbs from hers. He settles on the cool sand next to her, a sigh escaping him as his gaze drifts upwards. Tonight, the sky is clear, the dark expanse painted with planets and galaxies shimmering around the soft glow of the moon.
"You're going to wake the Wind Fish soon, right?" Marin questions. "Where will you go next?"
Link thinks of his house, of his uncle, who he hasn't seen in years. He thinks of Princess Zelda, who he still does not really know, despite her earnest attempts to bridge the distance between them. He thinks of every place he's visited, every place he's been so determined to leave behind, and the friends he'd made along the way who still, for some reason he cannot comprehend, believe that they will meet again.
"Actually," Link swallows, throat dry. "I was thinking of staying here."
"Staying?" Marin's eyebrows raise in surprise.
"With you," he clarifies, blushing. Marin turns her head, gazing into his eyes, then laughs.
"W-what's so funny?" Link stammers, heart sinking.
"It's just–" Marin reassures him, also blushing. "When I sang to the Wind Fish, I wished…"
…to fly to faraway places and sing for many people!
"…for the same thing," she admits, smiling.
Link huffs, a half-laugh. It is funny. It's funny, that after so many years of never sitting still, he's contemplating settling on an island so small you could traverse it in mere minutes.
An island more vivid than any distant memory, its inhabitants more real than the ghosts of estranged family and distant peers. Marin's breath is warm on his face. Slowly, he reaches out to cup her cheek.
Listening to the gentle rhythm of the waves, they fall asleep, cradled in each other's arms.
Link's blade cuts through the last moblin, the Mysterious Forest teeming with quiet satisfaction. The Nightmares still linger along Koholint, stirring up trouble where they arise, though they now seem more like desperate pests than the genuine threat they'd once been. Link can hardly believe he'd found fighting these monsters a challenge, once.
That doesn't sound right. The Nightmares are supposed to keep getting stronger, one day growing so powerful as to consume the island entirely. For the first time, Link considers if the owl had actually been lying.
The guide's persistent presence had suddenly disappeared after his decision to stay. Link had expected its cryptic demands to hassle him until his dying breath, a relentless call towards a destiny he has since rejected. Link merely shrugs at the realization. The silence is a welcome relief, after all.
He sheaths his sword, wincing slightly as the motion tugs at an old injury across his chest. Thinking of Marin and how nice it will feel to finally rest after a long day of work, he turns toward home. In the corner of his vision, he spots a man with a scarred face and gleaming armor.
No one on Koholint wears armor, he realizes, something cold settling in his chest. By the time he whips his head around to examine it more closely, the figure has disappeared.
"Link," Marin asks him, her legs kicking over the edge of the cliffside where they sit together, watching the sea. "Do you think, maybe one day, you'd like to…?
Link has spent over a third of his life on the road. The word home carries very little meaning to him, even the walls of the house he'd grown up in seeming foreign in his memories. He'd come to accept that such a thing wasn't meant for people like him, for… heroes.
"...but what about when you get older?"
"Yeah, I'll be sure to remember that when I'm one hundred and seventeen–"
But, he thinks he's finally found it. They walk back to Tarin's house hand-in-hand, nervously considering how they're going to break the news. It's all pretense–both Marin and Link know that Tarin will be so excited, he'll agree in a heartbeat.
A young man, about his age, with burn scars marring his face and arm, huffs from his perch in a nearby palm tree when they pass by.
"Told you," he teases fondly. Link ignores him.
Even a small wedding is built off a thousand, tiny tasks, each one a papercut on Link's already-fraying nerves. Never one for public ceremonies, he dreads the idea of public vows, the constant congratulations, the attention. He can't simply slink away into the corners this time; he has to make this perfect–for her.
"What should I do…?" he mumbles to himself. Public speaking is an enemy more perilous than any Nightmare. He'll be lucky if he manages to stammer out "I do," much less convey the depths of his feelings.
"Just be yourself," the absentminded harp player says, daydreaming about his own crush. "No matter what you say, she'll understand exactly how much she means to you."
Link knows this man's name. Recognition itches at the back of his brain like a peeling scab. When he opens his mouth to question him, however, the man is gone.
The passage of time on Koholint is a curious thing. As an island, it never witnesses the changing of the seasons. The sun rises and sets at the same time, every day, tracing the same arc across the sky. The very air seems to hold a stillness that makes it difficult to grasp the turning of hours, let alone days, and Link quickly loses himself in the haze.
Didn't he clear out the nightmares on Toronbo Shores yesterday? Or maybe, that was a week ago. Regardless, the monsters are back, and he's there, fighting them. Again, and again. The scar on his chest aches.
He doesn't remember how old it is, or what battle it's from. It must be recent, to sting like this, but when he traces the line of pain across his chest, he finds nothing.
"Link!" Marin calls to him, waving from the upper cliffs. He waves back, smiling. It's not so important; just a distant memory.
"Red sky in the morning," a boy comments, tone oddly grave as he peers through his telescope at the horizon. "Sailors take warning."
"Who are you?" Link snaps, pivoting on his heel. The boy is gone before the words leave his mouth.
Koholint isn't real.
…But he knows that, right? He'd decided it was real enough that it didn't matter. Within the Wind Fish's dream, he'd found peace, and so long as it never wakes, it will be his forever.
Except… the Wind Fish's dream never had so many… seams. There are places on Koholint Island he doesn't quite remember so well, and when he visits them, they shimmer and stutter as his eyes rake over them, struggling to maintain their form. He reaches his hand underneath a log, searching for any new, unexpected sensation, but instead, he finds himself thwarted by… something. Something screaming there is nothing here, turn away, just don't look.
The dream is unraveling. Or maybe, it was never quite together in the first place.
"Marin," he asks his wife one day. "What do you think lies beyond the sea?"
"Beyond the sea?" she hums, considering the question for a moment. "I don't think there's anything."
His heart twists in his chest.
Link writhes beneath the sheets, groaning in pain. Just a fever, Marin's calm voice assures him as she holds a cool hand to his forehead, but that can't be true. His chest feels like it's been ripped open, a blade taken to his vitals and dragged right through, yet his skin remains unbroken, perfectly smooth where it stings the most.
He wants to accuse her of lying, of keeping something from him, but there is nothing she can tell him that he doesn't already know. Instead, he wishes her away and curls up in bed, alone.
But he isn't alone. A young man his age, wearing a green tunic, sits by his bed, his gaze like warm honey.
"You're not supposed to be here," Link chokes out.
"I know," the boy admits, nervously threading his fingers through greasy, brown curls. He's dirty, a bit scraped up–too messy for this illusion. "I wanted to, anyway. Don't tell Time?"
Link has many things he wants to ask. Who are you? How did you get onto Koholint Island? Who the hell is Time? Instead, he asks,
"Are you real?"
The boy chuckles. "Yes, I am," he answers. "And so are you."
Link knew that, of course. He just… just needed the confirmation.
"This world is beautiful," the boy says, gazing out the window towards the ocean and its shimmering waves. "Is this your home?"
"No," Link finally admits. Home is… somewhere else. Along a road, whispering stories around a fire pit.
"...Did you want it to be?" the boy asks next.
Maybe, at some point, he did. But the truth is, even the Wind Fish's dream hadn't been perfect. He remembers an incident where he'd been knocked back by an enemy and landed inside a wall. Unable to move, he'd screamed, then woken up back at Tarin's house as though nothing had happened. He'd written it off as a nightmare at the time.
Maybe if this was the Wind Fish's dream, he would have lasted longer. The illusion, more complete. But no, he knows his own heart. One adventure had not been enough for him. Three, even less so.
"Where am I, really?" he asks.
"You already know that, don't you?" the boy says, smiling sadly.
"Yeah," Link sighs. "Yeah, I guess I do."
The boy nods. "We'll all be there when you wake up," he promises.
When. When. Not if.
…but, verily, it be the nature of dreams to end.
"Yeah," Link croaks. "See you there."
This is not the Wind Fish's dream. Still, it is Koholint Island. Link treks up to the peak of Mt. Tamaranch, ocarina in hand, and gazes up at the egg, still inert, still asleep. He brings the ocarina to his lips, plays Marin's song, and–
Nothing happens. The egg does not crack open. The nightmares do not spill out. Maybe he's played the wrong song, or maybe, he's just misremembered it–
But, suddenly, he can't breathe. He's standing in the middle of the open air, and he can't breathe. His hand rises to his throat as he struggles against the phantom sensation of water in his lungs, chest heaving.
–e's awake! Drain the spring, hurry!
He sits up, breaching the surface with a strangled cough, and retches until all of the liquid has emptied from his chest. The strange, luminous pool he'd been lying in drains, leaving him bare and shivering against the cold grate of the basin. Though the dream had been difficult to tell from reality, now that he's truly awake, he realizes there is no comparison. His senses are dreadfully clear, and all of them are screaming pain.
"Holy fucking shit," he gasps once he is finally lucid enough to speak. "I am never falling asleep again."
"Legend!" someone cheers. "You're okay!"
He raises his head, struggling to focus through his blurry vision. A familiar brown-and green blob takes shape against the backdrop of neon blue and grey smudges.
"Hyrule…?" he asks, voice scraping out of his throat. "Where…?"
"Don't freak out!" Wind quickly interjects. Hyrule smiles nervously.
"You're at the Shrine of Resurrection," Hyrule answers. "Wild's time."
Legend stares at him in confusion. Why would he need…?
The memory is hazy, almost faded. Or maybe, it simply never had the chance to be remembered in the first place. A long scar runs from the side of his ribcage past his heart and into his collarbone.
"What the fuck," Legend whispers, running a finger down the roughened skin in horror. No one could survive an injury like that. How had he…?
Right. Shrine of Resurrection.
"It wasn't as bad as it looks?" Wild offers, hesitant. "I mean, compared to me, healing you took no time at all…"
He shakes his head in disbelief. "How long was I out?" he asks.
"Couple weeks, maybe?" Warriors suggests.
"Ten days," Time answers exactly.
Ten days. He'd been dead–or maybe just dying–for ten days.
"We rushed you here as soon as we could," Hyrule says. "Sorry it took so long."
"No, I–" he chokes out. Ten days. His first time on Koholint had barely amounted to fifteen minutes. But this time, he had spent years there–ageless, unchanging years, but years nonetheless. It's too much to even comprehend, much less unpack. "I'm fine," he groans, and leaves it at that.
It's easier than he expects, the second time. He'd thought it'd hurt more. But in the Wind Fish's dream, he'd never felt like he'd had a real choice. Koholint would have been lost, either way.
"Sorry, Vet," Twilight rubs his head nervously as he brings him an unfamiliar set of spare clothes. "You'll need to close the hole in your red tunic yourself."
Legend stares blankly as his brothers help him stand, guiding him out of the basin and fawning over him. Wind complements his cool new scar, and Hyrule shares a glance with him, knowing. The first time, he'd woken up in the middle of the ocean, alone. This time, he'd had people out there waiting for him, and he'd chosen them. Despite himself, Legend smiles.
Somewhere far away, a seagull caws, watching the sea lap gently at the shore.