Chapter 2
Link headed for the market and bought some fruit; enough for two or three days’ breakfast. He gave most of it to Tatl to carry. She protested until he reminded her that her magical carrying capacity was far greater and less inconvenient than his.
“We should go to the swamp first,” she said after that.
“Why?”
“It’s the first one Tael said. You see, there’s a legend that says that there are four protector giants. We need to get their attention, and one of them lives at each of the cardinal points, so we need to go in those directions! I guessed that was what Tael meant.”
“I suppose I understand.”
“You’re just a kid, but you have a sword, and you look competent, so I’ll let you through,” said the guard at the gate. “Be careful, now!”
“Hm,” grunted Link, jogging through.
He headed south for the line of trees at the edge of the circular Field of Termina.
As they passed a huge old dead tree, Tatl veered aside to look at it. There was a rough drawing of a Skull Kid and two fairies.
“He was lonely when we found him,” she said. “He just wanted to play, but everyone was afraid of his strange face, even the Deku people, who look kinda similar if you ask me. He was cold. So were we. We knew we weren’t supposed to talk to strangers, but we felt sorry for him.”
“We got to be good friends. We had lots of fun playing in the long grass. That’s when we made this picture.”
Tatl shut up and wouldn’t say any more.
“I know something like that,” Link said quietly.
They carried on south.
They came to a swamp, but the water looked bad, and smelt bad… more than bad, poisonous.
“Um, this would be not normal,” Tatl said. “It shouldn’t be acidic.” Continue reading
