Fan Fiction Spotlight: Courage: A Hylia’s Day Carol

There echoes a legend around these parts, betwixt these trees and within these dark woods. Yet, it wasn’t one of those legends of heroes, stories meant to inspire courage into wide-eyed youths. It was meant to breed cowardice, warn children of the dangers that may befall them should their curiosity lead them into the dark woods.

Far distant from any kingdom, a village sat. In its shadows, deep into a forest no one dared venture, there was said to be a dark cabin, enshrouded in the chasm-like onyx of the trees whether it was day or night. No one had ever seen someone living there, but yet feared what sort of person would keep to themselves in such a sinister manner. Often referred to as the “Prince of the Shadows” or the “Harbinger of Demise”, the stories often told of the resident murdering stray children and decorating the cabin with their remains or robbing people blind and leaving them with nothing.

There were some who figured that a lonely man lived there, and some who even claimed to have seen what he looked like. Yet most stayed away, out of pure fear of what they figured he must have been, an animal on the prowl, a Venus flytrap disguised as a homely cabin.

But those were stories only echoed by the nearby village. Travellers heard no such warnings, nor were influenced by such fear.

In fact, a little boy ran to the dark cabin as soon as he saw it, thinking it his salvation from a dark, unwelcome forest.

He knocked on the door and specks of dirt fell from it, as if it hadn’t been opened in a very long time. The innocent boy, however thought nothing of the anomaly as crows cawed above him.

“Hello?” The boy asked. “Is anyone there? My name is Timm.”

“Go away, boy,” a gruff and deep voice said. “You know the tales. I’ll eat you alive. Go before I get too hungry.”

“But I can’t go,” the boy replied. “I can’t find my parents. We were travelling through these woods and the next thing I know, I’ve lost track of them. I’m real scared of these woods.”

The door opened so quickly that the boy staggered backwards. His heart pounded as he looked up at a man, features shrouded in a brown cloak.

“Good,” was all the figure said before slamming the door in the little boy’s face, who was only slightly taken aback. Timm bowed his head as he thought of what to do next, fear running so rampant in his heart he wished he could make it stop. He looked at the dark woods behind him, the dark woods that seemed to cave into him, move him, belittle him into the tiny, helpless child he was. His eyes teased tears, not because of the threats of the man behind the door (in fact he didn’t believe those). He cried at the forest he looked out at, his parents lost somewhere within it.

The man on the other side of the door, however, felt satisfied at the thought that the annoying boy must have left by now and readied himself for one of his favorite past-times, which was sleep.

He sat by the fire, eating his meal with very little spark in his own eyes. He sauntered over to his bed, careful not to let his brown cloak slip, to keep his identity shrouded in mystery. He checked for likely the millionth time the security of the overly boarded up windows, the door locked with so many locks that it was no wonder it took him so long to open the door, and, of course the fireplace that must be extinguished. Hearths were warm and inviting and, although he needed the heat to survive, he wasn’t eager to let anyone else share it.

Crowned prince of the shadows and heralded harbinger of demise by the fear of the others who lived at the nearby village, this mysterious man slept in his cabin, on edge and terrified of the day to come.

He woke what seemed like seconds later to a bright white light, so blinding that it was hard for him to open his eyes, and thus he did so very hesitantly and slowly, sitting up.

The light seemed to emanate from a small, angelic figure, somehow all at once as youthful as a newborn and yet as old and wrinkled as someone who had lived a thousand years.

“Who are you?” The man practically barked. “How did you get in here?”

“There is no need to fret,” the angel said. “Link.”

The man grabbed the sword resting by his bed and charged forward, holding the sword to her gauzy neck

“How do you know my name?” Link growled, his voice rough with anger.

The angel gave a smile, slowly floated forward into the sword and yet, Link felt nothing and saw nothing, no pierced skin, no blood. She was just like a breeze. Link’s sword clattered to the floor.

“Do you know what day it is in Hyrule?” The angel asked.

Link furrowed his brow.

“I left that place a long time ago,” Link said, his voice coarse and his brow tense. “Why should I care what day it is there?”

“It is Hylia’s Day,” the angel said in reply, “and I am the ghost of Hylia’s Day past,” the ghost said, offering her hand. “By the command of Hylia, I am meant to show you what you have lost.”

“Hylia isn’t real,” Link said darkly. “Besides, I know very well what I have lost, what does showing it to me now do?”

“Perhaps you don’t know what you lost,” the ghost said calmly as Link narrowed his eyes. He tipped his head daringly and, in a stroke of courage he had not used in years, he touched the tiny hand.

Immediately, he was transported somewhere else entirely, with a gust of wind that knocked off the hood of his cloak, revealing his blue eyes and blonde hair.

But the marvel was where he found himself, a bright forest dotted with fireflies and forest fairies, eclectic with life and joy that instilled Link with nostalgia he had not felt in decades.

“Do you know where we are?” The ghost asked.

“Yes,” Link said weakly. “Yes, I…”

He couldn’t quite finish as he looked all around himself, speechless with parted lips to find himself in Kokiri Forest.

Link’s eyes lit up like they hadn’t before.

“There’s Mido!” He exclaimed, excited at the recollection, how things flooded back to him so easily. “And Saria! Saria, hey! It’s me, Link!”

“She cannot hear you,” the ghost said to Link, who had taken a couple steps forward. He looked back at the ghost. “These are only visions of the past.” Her gaze lingered on Link before she voiced a command.

“Come,” she said, leading Link away from the center of the small forest to a particular hut with a ladder. Link stopped in his tracks as soon as she saw it.

“This…this was my home, I…I lived here.”

Link and the ghost watched a small boy crawl down the ladder with boundless energy, before running with a smile right through Link. He couldn’t keep his gaze off this boy, turning his head to follow him with his eyes with parted lips.

“This is before, isn’t it? Before I got a fairy. Before I left the forest…I look so happy.”

“You do,” the ghost agreed.

“I was a child,” Link argued, turning his head to his shoulder. “I didn’t know any better.”

“Perhaps,” the ghost said. “Or perhaps not.”

“What is the point of showing me this?” Link asked as he turned around.

“To show what you’ve lost.”

“What, my youth? My…happiness? Yeah great, thanks.”

“Try courage,” the ghost stated simply.

That seemed to trigger Link, to press a button he did not approve of. His head had popped and his eyes fumed with anger.

“Courage ruined me!” Link yelled. “Do you understand?! It destroyed me! What I went through killed me!”

The angel seemed to be unphased by Link’s harsh words, even replying in a soft voice.

“You were only a child,” she said, with an underlying sadness. “But yes, you did go through a lot. I wager you now believe cowardice and caution is better for you…for everyone…but perhaps there are some parts of your courage that you have forgotten, important parts.”

“Like what?”

“Compassion,” the ghost said. “Love.”

Link felt all the blood in his body flee from it at that word, his face pale and his heart panicking. He began to shake his head.

“Please,” he begged. “Don’t…don’t show me that, I…”

But the world around him had already began to change.

Link plopped to sit on his heels when he faced him and Zelda in the clouds, saying their last goodbye.

He felt tears in his eyes and he felt the ghost beside him.

“Everyday I wished I would have spoken up,” Link said as he watched the interaction with sad eyes. “I loved her and…I just let it happen.”

Link gazed at her beauty with longing eyes, the way her golden hair dangled around her waist, the way her silhouette curved, her elegance, the way she shone, the blue hue of her eyes, the lovely way she held herself.

“So you curse your cowardice then?” The spirit asked, poking and prodding at Link’s fragility.

“No,” Link said defensively, turning his head. “No, I…”

Link couldn’t keep his tears restrained any longer, placing his weight on his hands as his tears dropped into the illusion of clouds, soon dropping onto the wooden floor of his cabin.

“Why did you show me that?” Link asked as he continued to cry. “I had almost forgotten…why did you show me that?”

“Oh ho! Why so glum!” A booming voice asked. Link looked up slowly to see a burly, stout man sitting on his bed.

“You another ghost?” Link asked as he stood up and faced the man.

“Why I am!” The ghost said excitedly. “How astute you are.” He placed his hand on his chest proudly. “I am the ghost of Hylia’s Day present, but you can call me Pres.”

“All right, Pres,” Link said, fully convinced that this was but a dream. “What do you have to show me next?”

“Ho ho, the present of course, ah ha!” The ghost said with a jolly laugh as he stood up, bringing an arm around Link.

The ghost led him through the front door and yet, it opened to a bustling town instead of a dark forest.

“Hyrule Castle Town,” Link said as he stepped forward, the ghost beside him sporting a permanent smile. “This must be what the Hylia’s Day celebrations look like.”

“Have you never been?” The ghost asked.

“No,” Link replied. “I didn’t leave the forest until I was nine, and then…well I had a lot of things to do.”

“Courageous things,” the ghost prompted.

“You could say that.”

“Well,” the ghost said, offering his bent arm. “Why don’t we have a look around?”

Link was surprised at how much he enjoyed the festivities, even if he couldn’t partake of any of the food. He found himself smiling, genuinely smiling at the joy surrounding him, the music, the dancing, the games, the laughter, the peace of Hyrule he had never quite reveled in.

After what seemed a short hour, Link and the ghost sat on a bench observing the festivities, enjoying from a distance the exuberance.

“Do you know who made all this possible?” The ghost asked.

“You?” Link guessed.

“No. You,” the spirit said as he poked Link’s chest. “You saved Hyrule from Ganondorf. You fought countless battles against his forces and then went back in time to warn Hyrule of his malfeasance in the first place. Technically you saved Hyrule twice. And of course Termina. You’re a hero three times over. You caused this enjoyment on three separate occasions! All because of your courage, your compassion, your love!”

“Maybe, but…I’m not that same hero anymore. I’ve changed…alienated myself into cowardice.”

“Why?”

Link shrugged.

“No one has ever seemed to want anything to do with me afterwards,” Link said. “Zelda sent me back in time, Navi left without a word, Tatl couldn’t wait to say goodbye to me…I’ve always been left alone.”

“Besides,” Link continued. “if you ask anyone that lives near me they would tell you I’m a monster. Maybe I believe them, everything I’ve done.”

“Like what?”

Link shrugged.

“They say I kill children, kidnap them, steal from people,” Link said. “I’ve never done any of that but I let them believe it because they will stay away, and…well that’s for the best. I don’t even want anything to do with me. You all say I need my courage back but, for what? I’m not an innocent hero anymore, it was too damaging, battle after battle after battle. I mean what do you expect me to say? I’m glad I saved Hyrule but I can’t live my life constantly fighting. Every day I’m so tired of me, of my past. Forgetting my courage is the best thing for me…until I die of course.”

Link thought the following silence was odd for such a boisterous spirit. Link thought perhaps he had depressed the spirit, yet he looked over and saw him gone.

Link sighed, hunching over so that his forearms hung off his knees.

“And neither did you.”

The people bustling in castle town had gone as well, Link sitting on his bed thinking over all he had seen and heard and said and done.

It wasn’t long before he saw a pair of feet standing right before him.

“I suppose you are the ghost of Hylia’s Days to come, huh?”

The ghost did not respond, Link looking up to see a tall, hooded figure, yet with no body. The cavern in the hood, which should have had some sort of head, was pitch black, empty and unyielding to Link.

Link stood up slowly, eyes swimming in fear. He attempted to chuckle away his anxiety, but it didn’t work.

“Are…are you going to show me something?”

The ghost didn’t budge at first, and when he did move it was slow and purposeful. All the ghost did was step back and gesture towards a mirror, as if inviting Link to look in it.

“You…want me to look in the mirror?” Link asked, thinking it quite simple. The ghost gave link no affirmation nor discouragement, standing as if he’d always been a statue, chiseled into that position.

“Okay,” Link said as he paced his way to stare into the mirror, seeing nothing but his own reflection.

Link looked back at the spirit for clarification, and, as it hadn’t moved at all, Link wondered if it really was a statue.

Link returned his blue gaze to the mirror, this time truly staring intently at the way his nose bridged, the way his eyes were shaped, the freckles across his cheeks, the age in the dark circles under his eyes, his messy blonde hair and scruffy inklings of hair around the bottom of his face.

And yet, somehow, he was watching himself age, watching his hair grow and his skin wrinkle until his hair fell out and his skin was no more. He was just bones and he was continuously more horrified. At the sight of himself as an armored stalfos, one eye red and one eye blue, Link started breathing heavily, shaking his head, what was left of it anyway.

“No,” he said. “No…I…this isn’t possible, I…I’m becoming what I used to fight against, but…I’m not that empty, really I’m not, I…” Link stopped himself, breathing heavier as tears collected at his eyes. “This apathy it…it’s eroding at me…worse than my courage did, I…I don’t know who I am anymore.”

Link turned around to the ghost.

“Ghost I want to live, I want to help people like I did. I was forgetting the value of compassion, I was being selfish and self-serving and…please let me change my life. I traded courage for apathy. I thought it was the right thing to do but I’ve been hurting the people around me. Please give me a chance to make up for it. I can still be someone people want around. I want to try again.”

The ghost said and did nothing.

“Please,” Link said, on his knees. “Please. I was wrong to wish my life away. There’s so much I can do with it. Let me live past my trauma, please…”

Link woke up to an empty cabin, no angel, no spirit, no ghost, not even the mirror. Link breathed a sigh of relief and yet this was the place were he reveled in his cowardice. He looked around ashamed.

“Zelda didn’t want this for me,” he said, before suddenly remembering something.

He shot out of bed and ran outside.

“Timm!” He exclaimed to every corner of the dark woods, circling around himself. “Timm!”

He faced his cabin again and the little boy was still there, hugging his knees against the wall, shaking with fear.

Link breathed a sigh of relief before running to kneel before Timm. Link offered his hand.

“I thought you wanted nothing to do with me,” the boy said in a small voice.

Link smiled.

“There are things far more valuable than self-pity,” Link said. “Like helping others. Like looking to the future. I can’t believe I forgot that.”

And so little Timm took Link’s hand. Link guided the boy through the forest to his parents, who were more than relieved that their son was safe. They thanked Link for returning him safely and when they offered something in return, Link refused. Although changed from who he used to be, Link felt more like himself than he had in a long time.

And Link never returned to that old cabin in the woods.