Note: This is largely an experiment that I don’t expect to continue, but depending on where it leads me and itself, who knows where the pen shall lead?

Summary: His name wasn't Link. He wasn't a hero. He failed.

The Legend of Zelda is property of Nintendo Co. Ltd. I claim no rights.

His name wasn’t Link.

He wasn’t a hero.

He failed.

Suburbia

He was one of the city’s tregetours, thrown out affectionately to the orphanage in the corner where he never arrived. A name was something he lacked, and for a boy his age disguise was easy, as was hiding, so finding him was not an easy task. Nor was it a priority. The orphanage he had been assigned to could barely cater for the few children it already contained; there was no point in finding a child who did not wish to be found.

Still, the boy was a common site amongst the suburbans, and was even a common subject of conversation. Often times he would be spotted at the small ice cream shops, for example, glancing hungrily at the soft, home-made vanilla cones in a child’s fat hand while he munched ravenously at his tiny sample. The people around him soon began calling him Hermes – (unbeknownst to both the orphanage and the boy himself) – though no one seemed to know who had dubbed him such. Hermes the traveler, and Hermes, the thief.

For it was no secret that it was this boy – Hermes – who was stealing from the suburbans, taking from restaurants their food and from smaller stores their clothes, though only from time to time. For nearly a year, the people of the town and the boy had reached a silent agreement that it was okay, however, as long as he went not too far and kept his distance from the children. No one actually spoke to him, but he understood.

It lasted for a year, this tacit agreement; a year, during which the boy spoke to no one but himself. A year, during which he was taken care of by himself. A year, give or take a few months, where he was alone.

And no one seemed to care.

Which, to him, was sublime. He enjoyed this solitude, and in his ten-year-old lifetime had never felt so in charge of his own self. In the large city he had been trapped by the adults with whom he had taken shelter, and he found he did not like them very much. He did not like anyone very much. So silence was very much appreciated, and solitude was his shield, and loneliness, he convinced himself, was merely a precaution. There was no negative connotation in the word ‘lonely,’ he told himself. It meant only that he lived alone.

It did not mean that he craved a companion.

Every night he told himself this, and his heart began to believe him.

It was one year after his arrival in the suburb that he was spoken to by a person, a real live person, and not by his self, because he did not consider speaking to himself as being spoken to. It was on the far corner of the avenue a block away from an orphanage (a different one, from what he gathered). He had been walking, as he often did, to the tiny ice cream shop that had free samples every Saturday. A bright red ball had suddenly flown over his head and a girl appeared just as suddenly from the bush, yelling the first words directing at him in so long it took a moment to register: “Look out!”

At first he did not realize what she was telling him to look out for; the ball had just flown cleanly above his head and into a nearby tree. Then, as she came stumbling forward he realized she meant to look out for her, as she was tripping on a long branch and then fell unceremoniously on top of him with a shriek and they both slid to the ground.

Perhaps if he was any other boy in the town he would have shouted, “Watch where you’re going!” but instead he was quiet, and did not even push her off of him after he sat up.

She, meanwhile, was talkative, murmuring quickly, “I’m sorry! So, so, sorry, I didn’t mean to run you over, I was supposed to chase after the ball, because we knew Dark’s would go far, and—” she paused, a defeated look on her face as she looked into his eyes imploringly and moaned. “Oh,” she finished. “I’m so sorry.”

Her ramble gave him some time to actually take her in – his initial impression had been nothing short of “green.” And she was green, upon inspection, but it wasn’t her face or anything involving sickness, unless green hair was a sign of a new one. Green hair, yes, the bright green of a deciduous forest in the spring time, which made him feel awfully cheerful for no provided reason. On top of her odd hair, she had green eyes to match, and donned a green uniform blouse and skirt. She looked to be just a bit older than he, and as she helped him up she was taller.

“I’m Saria,” She provided when he still did not speak, showing to him her kindness – and perhaps a want to be his friend? Frowning, she asked, “Don’t you talk?” She looked a bit worried, thinking perhaps something outrageous that her fall on top of him could have hurt him. “Oh,” she moaned, “you aren’t hurt, are you?”

She sure did talk a lot.

He shook his head, and finally spoke. “I’m okay,” he admitted, checking himself.

Saria smiled, a big smile that lightened up her face more in the light of the sunny day. Then, her face fell at the sight of something behind and above him. “Oh no,” she said, “Dark won’t be happy about that at all…”

Turning around, he saw the cause of her displeasure. The bright red ball that had flown above him – that had sent her crashing into him – was perched up in a tall, leafy tree, high above the roof of the house the tree shaded. It was definitely not to be reached by the hands of an eleven-year-old, or any normal sized human, for that matter. He scanned the location around the tree and found nothing helpful. Even the trunk proved to be thick, tall, and rough. There was no reaching the ball without a tall ladder, or perhaps an extremely long stick.

Saria let out a cry and stomped her foot. “That’s hardly fair!” Kicking a small rock on the sidewalk, she said, “How am I supposed to get that back?” The rock she had kicked soared through the air and hit a mailbox, which shook and snapped open, revealing the contents. The boy’s eyes grew wide as the beginnings of a plan struck him.

Nonplussed, Saria asked, “What is it? Why are you smiling like that?” He did not reply – he was not one for explaining himself. Instead, he scurried to the mailbox the rock had vandalized and found the offending rock. It was a small thing, he found as he picked it up and weighed it in his palm. It was sharp, too, but if aimed it correctly…

Before Saria could figure out what he was doing, he threw the rock at the branch of the three, just a bit off from the ball. There was a loud snap of a branch and then the ball fell out obediently, bouncing one on the ground before landing safely in Saria’s arms.

Eyes wide with childlike astonishment, Saria seemed to look at him differently. His smile began to melt into a frown, as it hit him that he must have been doing something he ought not have – he was not minding only his own business, as was the optimal choice.

Saria shook herself and grabbed his hand, grinning.

“You’re on my team for kickball.”

Saria’s team, he found out later, was terrible. In fact, it was the worst team in the league. The only thing the frail green children had going for them was their not-so-frail team captain, a short fuse with dark hair and red eyes, whom they called Dark. The boy did not like Dark very much – and Dark did not like him, either, from the looks of it. All of the other children were afraid of him, and not without reason. It did not look like Dark would hesitate to yell at them.

When Saria returned with the ball, Dark yelled that she had took too long. Saria told him, stupidly, the truth, to which he scoffed and glanced oddly at the boy beside her.

“Who are you?” Dark asked, narrowing his eyes. “I’ve never seen you around here before.”

He opened his mouth to respond – but was he supposed to say?

Luckily, Saria cut in. “He helped me, Dark. You’ve got to see his arm.” She was pleading with him, but he sneered and gave the silent kid another stare. Dark made a sudden movement and then he was right at the boy, looking him down. He was taller, only barely, but his attempt at intimidation still did not succeed. The boy looked back at Dark fiercely, not even flinching.

Saria said, “Dark?”

First they ignored her, but then Dark said, sensing a challenge, “Let’s see it.”

For the next hour, Dark and the boy threw balls, kicked balls, ran as many drills as Dark could remember – and the boy showed Dark up in every one of them. The whole team gathered around the field and watched with wide-eyed interest. They had never seen anyone best Dark at anything. He was the best in the league, though on the worst team.

In an instant, he became a star. He suddenly found he had friends, people to talk to, people who talked to him. They bombarded him with questions: who was he? Where did he live? What was his name? For most of the questions he couldn’t answer, and then they told him to join them. With him and Dark, they would win. All he needed to do was buy a green uniform from the one place, have his parents drive him to that other place, and before he knew it he wasn’t sure what was going on anymore.

“No,” he found himself saying, “No.”

He turned to Saria, said, “I don’t know,” and then he ran away from his chance.

The next day he was on another walk he passed by the same tree, the same ball, the same girl. She took him, once again, to the same park, and they played kickball as though the day before had never happened. At the end he admitted to her he knew nothing, he was nothing, he did not even have a name. The children were silent.

“You’re not special,” a short, orange-haired boy – Mido - snorted. “We’re all orphans.”

He tried to explain himself. He wanted to tell them about how he was fine alone, how he was capable of handling himself without the so-called help of the adult world, but Saria would not have it. She was the leader among them – or at least, the second-in-command to Dark, but Dark led through intimidation and she through respect. She dragged him to her home, to their home. They called it Kokiri Forest – a place for children abandoned up to the age of seventeen. Most, of course, were adopted before then, taken into strange homes with strange people they didn’t know. (Did that not bother any of them? the boy wondered).

Kokiri… none of the children knew what the word meant, but it had an odd sort of ancient sound that they found comfortingly familiar. He would never tell them, but he just found it odd.

By now he had taken a liking to Saria, who showed him to the office of Mr. Deku, the man who had founded the place. He was a tall man – one could tell even as he sat behind his desk – with bushy grey eyebrows that covered his eyes and a large mustache resting on his upper lip. Mr. Deku immediately struck the boy as old and wise.

“Ah, Saria,” Mr. Deku said in a calm, even voice, “Who might we have here?” From his desk he lifted up a small monocle with which to look through. “I do not believe I have seen you before, young man.”

Saria said, “Oh, please, Mr. Deku, do take him in? He’s all alone. I found him, and he doesn’t even have a name.”

For all the world the boy felt like a lost puppy, and Saria was a small excited girl who dearly wished a friend. The boy knew Mr. Deku’s answer already – it was a no. Adults never paid him mind outside of business, and even if they did, there was their silent agreement, and –

“Is that true?” Mr. Deku asked the boy, meeting his eyes with his monocle.

The boy nodded.

“You don’t have a family.”

He shook his head.

“Would you like one?”

The boy looked at Saria and found himself saying, “Yes.”

“Then,” Mr. Deku said, reaching into his desk for some papers, “wouldn’t you like a name?”

For the first few days he remained without a name, because he still had not decided whether he would actually stay here permanently or not, and even more, he honestly had no idea what to choose for a name. The other children all had colorful names that expressed in some way or another that they had been given their names by their birth parents – with the exceptions of Saria, who had been named by Mr. Deku when he found her as an infant, and Dark, who had named himself.

Even without a name, for the most part Kokiri Forest was a nice change of pace for him. Instead of spending his time alone, searching for the essentials he needed to live another day, he was surrounded by children his age who all treated him like a friend, and he was provided for by the adults, and at night he slept in a bed, not a box. The only thing he wasn’t fond of within a few days was Dark, and the rules, but they did not bother him more than the luxuries pleased him. Kokiri Forest was well provided for, unlike the orphanage that he had once been sentenced to. They even had 24-hour internet access, which was very helpful for his search to find a suitable name – or at least, that was what Saria insisted.

“What does your name mean?” he asked Saria once when she was browsing another baby name database. “I’ve never heard of anyone named Saria before. It sounds made up.”

“It’s not!” she answered immediately, sounding hurt. “It’s an old name. Probably as old as Mr. Deku’s. I don’t know what it means, but Mr. Deku says that it was one of my ancestors – the one I’m named for, I mean.”

He thought about pointing out that Saria was getting awfully defensive, but then thought against it. It also vaguely occurred to him that if Deku named her after he’d found her abandoned, how could he have known something like that? – but he did not speak of that, either. Finally, he decided to ask, “Who is ‘she’?”

For a moment Saria was silent. Then: “I don’t know.”

Again there was silence. “Maybe we could look it up,” suggested he, “if she’s so important, there’s bound to be something about her on the internet.”

Saria nodded and pulled up a search engine on the computer. Carefully, she typed in her name, nearly afraid of what might come up. She pressed the enter key. Instantly a list of hundreds of websites popped up – all of them read something or the other of Saria the Sage, of forests and of green, of youth, and of a legend of some sort, something neither of the two had ever heard of.

“‘The Legend of Link,’” read the boy aloud. Saria did not need him to say anything else. She clicked it.

The page brought up read much about a mythology, of an ancient land called Hyrule that resided underneath their modern day establishments. A lengthy explanation of the land’s history included mentions of three goddesses, of princesses, of heroes, and of evil. They mythology told of a young hero – who was referred to constantly as simply ‘link’ throughout the original histories – who went on quests to save and protect the land. It would take days to read and understand the entire site, which included glyphs and explanations that got only lengthier as they scrolled. In the end, they found a section on a sage of forests, a youth, named Saria.

More importantly, they found him a name.

“‘Link,’” he told Mr. Deku the following day, “I think it means ‘hero.’”