:: starter for @cerisetheai ::
Cold fog wafted over the Royal Valley. The woodland wildlife sung their discordant howls and crowing now that the rain had died down for the time being. The ground still damp, muddied the young adventurer’s boots and clothing. The sage on his shoulder scoffed and shuddered, attempting to fill the air with something to distract him from the eerie atmosphere.
“I still don’t understand how you could feel at home here, Link, you really are a strange child,” Ezlo muttered.
Link hummed, doing his best not to shrug back and rock the little minish off his perch. He considered it a special occasion, bringing his good friend to meet his parents for the first time. A meeting in a graveyard of all places, Ezlo already deduced these were permanent residents. He watched Link sadly from the corner of his eye while pity pulled at his heart. Yet the boy himself was in a particularly jolly mood, almost oblivious to the whole situation. They came upon a humble headstone in the part of the valley designated to the great service of knights and guards of the royal family. Link grandiosely gestured to it with a proud “Ta-da!” making Ezlo squint at the inscription.
“... Robin,” he read, keeping the part where he ‘perished in the line of duty’ to himself. “Your father was a knight, hm? Now I see where you get it from.”
Link set his hands on his hips beaming with laughter. Finally the sage started to warm up and thought it endearing of the boy. He took a breath to ask more about ‘Sir Robin’ before a sound caught his attention and he cast a sharp glance in its direction ahead. The moment of peace died too as Ezlo panicked, “There’s someone else here! Hide--!”
The boy looked at him from the corner of his eye with doubt. Ezlo smacked the blunt side of his cane to his cheek and amended, “Fine, I’ll hide. You do-- whatever it is you do.”
With that, the sage vanished with a simple Minish trick that allowed his kind to stay out of the sight of people for ages. Link, however, a mere boy approached his father’s tombstone and peeked carefully over it at the next row of graves.
While true, someone else was there, it was merely a young woman. Hardly anyone to hide from. Though her back turned to him, Link’s brave and sociable nature drove him to call out a quick and quiet chirp at her, “Hoy!”