//------------------------------//
// Eyes Wide Shut 
// Story: Sleepless Nights And Speechless Angels 
// by thelegendarytoothpaste 
//------------------------------//

Applejack often smelled of cinnamon.

It was not something you would expect from one like her. You would probably expect her to smell like these things called apples. She worked with them and loved to work with them, of course, but she loved her cinnamon and would often use it to finish off any apple-based pastries she made.

Her hat smelled of cinnamon. Her formal dresses smelled of cinnamon. Her home smelled of cinnamon.

Link, though he had spent very little time in the trees he adored after being taken in by the natives of Equestria, still always smelled of the smoked meats the Kokiri were well known for. His home smelled of many herbs he was fond of using to make the air nicer. Under it all, his hat smelled of Saria, though that was a scent only he would know here.

Link hoped to never forget her scent. She smelled of the trees and of honey.

Applejack sat quietly next to Hinka on the Apple family’s couch. She looked at the wall across from her and smiled slightly at the pictures upon it. Her brother, her sister, Granny, her friends and distant relatives, and even her parents smiled down on her. 

She sometimes wondered if her parents were watching. Did they know Hinka? She had a feeling they would have loved him if they were still around. She had yet to introduce him to Granny Smith or Big Mac. Granny was asleep upstairs; Applejack could hear her soft snoring. Big Mac was on his way back from his vacation.

A cold nose nudged her side. She smiled and moved her foreleg so he might cuddle up to her. Then, she looked over at Hinka.

“I ever introduce you to this feller?”

Link, who had been holding his hat in his hands and thumbing at it, looked to her. He saw a wolfdog under one of her arms eyeing him curiously. His eyes lit up slightly and a hand instinctively went out to pet the dog, but he stopped himself from patting it on the head and instead went to stroke her neck so as not to be seen as a possible threat.

“This is Winona. She’s one of the smartest dogs you’ll ever meet.”
Winona leaned in as Link patted its neck from his awkward position. He had to lean over Applejack to do it, but he was, despite his mature personality, still a child, and one who loved dogs at that.
“She rescued a lost foal from the Everfree once. Timberwolves nearly killed the little guy. She had run off that day for whatever reason and stumbled upon him. She managed to escape them without injury, though the little guy wound up losing one of his forelegs.”
“How is he now?” asked Hinka in a soft voice.
Applejack shrugged. “I couldn’t say. He and his family don’t live here. They were visiting to see Twi’s castle and he decided to explore. Sort of like whatever it was you were doing when we found you.”

She frowned. “Only he didn’t have a sword or a shield, a bow or arrows. What are you, little guy?”
Link returned to his previous spot and looked down at his hat again.
“A monster,” he said lifelessly.

Applejack chuckled. “Monster? Like heck you are. You want to see a monster, make a mess at Rarity’s shop.”
He didn’t smile.

“I am. I was probably the most vicious monster to fight in the war against that evil tyrant.”
Applejack’s blood ran cold. “A war? Hinka, are you a child soldier?”
He shook his head, then, thinking better of it, nodded.

“It’s complicated. I fought to protect my home from that man’s tyranny. I failed. I fought to end his tyranny. I succeeded.”
Applejack didn’t make a sound. Winona whined softly, and she pat her side gently.
Link looked at her.

“You asked me if I killed any others when I told you of the wolf beast.”
She nodded. He squeezed his eyes shut.

“Every night when I close my eyes, I see their faces staring back at me. I look at my hands. One moment they’re fine. I blink, and they’re covered in blood that I can never wash off. The blood of monsters. The blood of animals.”
He took a breath to steady himself and looked at his hands. Only he saw the blood.
“The blood of my fellow man.”
Applejack inched towards him and put a hoof on his shoulder.
“How many have you killed?” she asked him softly.
He looked to the hat in his lap again. A tear splashed onto it.

“I lost count a long time ago.”
Applejack and Winona were quiet. Granny’s snoring had stopped as well. For a moment, all that could be heard was the ticking of the clock in the living room.
She put her arm around him and pulled him towards her. He did not resist.
“Have you ever killed an innocent person?”
He nodded. Applejack, to her credit, didn’t toss him away. Instead, she continued to hold him and waited for him to explain.
“I killed a woman guarding a fortress. I had to sneak through the fortress to get to the desert where the evil king had been born. I was trying to choke her until she passed out, then I was going to hide her behind a crate. She’d wake up with a sore back but would survive.”

Link pounded a fist into the couch.
“She moved funny and I resisted because I feared she was moving to stab me. Her neck snapped and she died on the spot.”

He looked to Applejack. “She and I were on opposing sides in this war, but she was otherwise a normal person, guilty of no other trespass against me than simply doing her job as a guard. She’s dead. Her family won’t see her again and there was no closure to be had. I escaped.”

Applejack patted his shoulder gently.
“Sometimes innocent people die. It’s an unfortunate fact, especially during war. I’m not trying to downplay it. I’m just trying to say that, though you did kill someone who may not have been a terrible person, it was not something you did willingly. She made a wrong movement while you were trying to spare her life. That death was a freak incident.”
Link didn’t respond.
“Okay, well how about this? What if she caught you instead?”
He looked at her.
“What if she found you? What would have happened?”
“I would have been thrown into jail. They probably would have wound up executing me as per Gannondorf.”
Applejack blinked.

“The tyrant.”
“He’d have called for the execution of a child? Just like that?”
“I swore a vendetta against him when he kidnapped Saria. Nothing would have pleased him more than to see me swing.”
Applejack was silent for a moment. Hinka appeared to be trying his hardest to hold his tears back. It was suddenly clearer why he did not like talking about his past. 

It was apparent  to her that Hinka didn’t just hate killing, he despised it. And yet he’d been forced to do it far too much in his short life.

“You’re just a foal, for Celestia’s sake,” Applejack whispered more to herself than to him.

“My point is this: If she was going to capture you for an… execution, then was she really all that innocent? I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead, but that’s the way I see it.”
Link said nothing. He only stared down at his hat. The two were silent for several minutes. Upstairs, Granny was snoring again; the only thing that woke her would be if you shouted her name. Any other noise or movement and she was dead to the world until she resurrected again.

“Am I keeping you from your chores?” he finally asked softly.
Applejack chuckled. “Nah. I deal with those trees every day. I think they can spare me for as long as our conversation takes.”
Link didn’t smile, but he looked up at her. Winona eyed him and tilted her head.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Ain’t nothing, Sugarcube. Please continue. I won’t tell anypony until you’re ready. This is all between you, me, and Winona.”
Winona barked. Granny Smith snored back.
Link sighed.

“I never fought in a war before, Hinka. The only one of us who have been to war is Fluttershy.”
He eyed her quietly. Fluttershy had mentioned it once before and had various photos of herself with other ponies and other creatures in green camo, as well as a Silver Star and a Distinguished Service Medal. Link prided himself in seeing these things; she kept it all locked up in her room and only allowed a select few in there. She did not like to talk about her service either, but nonetheless seemed like she had accepted whatever she may have had to do in the past.

“I don’t want to get into Shy’s stories, but I will say this: She’s one of the softest spoken and kindhearted ponies you’d ever meet. I know you agree.”
Applejack took a moment to pat Winona.
“Some ponies think being able to cry when you need and being able to show fear or talk when needed are signs of weak character. I say just look at her and you’ll know it’s untrue. Fluttershy is one of the strongest ponies I know.”
She smiled down at him again.
“I haven’t been there, but I know that war and combat are horrible things. People being ordered to do bad things for the greater good is terrifying. Then you have people seeing things they should never see…”
She pulled Hinka a bit closer.

“People also can heal physically and mentally from their wounds. You can heal too, little guy. That’s what we want you to do. We want you to feel better. It’ll be a long process, but it will be worth it in the end.”
Link was silent for several minutes more. 

“You’re right and wrong,” he finally said. Applejack tilted her head.
“People can heal after seeing the horrors of combat; after being in the presence of death for so long. People can, people do. People do often. You’re right about that.”
He finally released the death grip on his hat and set it down on the couch beside him.
“But you’re wrong about something else.”
He looked to Applejack with a frown.
“The terrifying thing is what someone isn’t ordered to do.”
This time it was Applejack’s turn to be silent.



“It was a hot and humid day when I attacked the base of the pirate band in the Great Bay of Termina. They had stolen the eggs of a Zora woman who was so distraught she lost her voice and they killed her mate when he tried to retrieve them. I’d heard of it on the winds.”

Link was quite good at sneaking around and hiding in plain sight. His footfalls at their loudest only ever sounded like soft pitter patters, and when he consciously attempted to stay quiet, would not be heard over the sound of a ladybug passing gas.

His shield and sword both did fine jobs of reflecting sunlight. He ensured to keep his blade in its sheath and his shield was wrapped in a fibrous cloth he interwove with seaweed and caked sand onto. When he was done it was almost as well camouflaged as he was.

Link himself wore a fibrous suit he spent a small fortune on to help prevent himself from being spotted. He spent time interweaving seaweed and grass within it as well. The hood over his head provided his eyes with some shade, but the whole garment became extremely hot extremely quickly. Tatl called it a ghillie suit1.

His time attempting to help the Zoras in Hyrule granted him another ability: the ability to hold his breath under water for about 3 minutes. It was exploited when he first entered the hideout and found four rapidly moving boats making a loud humming sound and emitting a black smog. As soon as he had an opportunity, he slid off into the water, and swam in the direction of what must have once been a pump of some kind. 

There was no roof over much of the base, and a lot of marshes or grass that he was able to hide in. Sometimes the greens would become so short he would have to slow down and move mere inches at a time. Other times they were taller than he was, and he could move just a little bit faster. On several occasions, groups of the pirates would walk near him. Some got so close they nearly tripped over him. On those occasions he would lie still, hold his breath, and hope his heart’s pounding was only audible in his ears.

On the rare occasion that there was roofing over a room, there was also no grass or mud for him to hide in, but tiled flooring. In those rooms, Link would draw his sword and shield, and make his movements quickly but quietly.

He had refused to allow Mikau control over his form for most of his time in the base, because Mikau had not minced words when he said he would kill every single pirate in the fort. Link preferred leaving that to the Terminian guard. He wanted to either sneak past all of those in his way or to knock them out.

Mikau was furious with him until Link let it slip that most of the pirates looked an awful lot like someone he had killed before, and he didn’t want to do it again. The Zora, realizing he was essentially asking a child to murder for him, apologized profusely. Link accepted, though he also assured Mikau he’d take pictographs of the inside of this place once Majora was contained, and then hand them off to the authorities before he left for home. 

He kept his word.

It was funny. The first time he made this trip, he managed to creep past the pirates without being seen. When he was gathering the pictographs he promised after he defeated Majora, however…

“It took me two and a half days to get all of the eggs. I didn’t sleep, I ate what crumbs or rodents I could find, and I sometimes drank drops of water per day.”

As he creeped into what looked to be the Captain’s room, he heard two footfalls behind him.
“That’s as far as you go!”
Link whirled around with his shield and sword up.
“A child? How did you get so lost in our hideout?”

Link said nothing. The pirate before him was tall; he only would have been taller had he been wearing Darmani’s mask. The man was over seven feet tall. She carried no shield of her own but instead two blades. Strange. He didn’t see her the first time he was here.

Kid, that’s her! That’s the one who did me in! Please, let me take control. I’ve seen her strategies and movements before. I’ll be more able to defeat her!

Link shook his head. No way. He didn’t want to kill this lady. He wanted no more blood on his hands.
The captain before him seemed to size him up.
“You’re well built for a child. I suppose you’d make for an excellent slave. Drop your weapons, and you’ll be allowed to live for as long as you are useful to us!”
Link took on a defensive posture and spoke back to her in ancient Kokirian: “ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ2.”

If the pirate understood him, she made no acknowledgement other than laughter. She approached him with her blades in hand and struck out at him with such speed and grace that Link wondered if she was a dancer in her down time. These strikes did not make it through his shield.

Link attempted to counter by stabbing, but she weaved out of the way of the attack quickly. Every one of her movements were truly like a dance. She struck his extended arm with her elbow, and by reflex he dropped the sword. He looked at her just in time to see her other blade coming for his neck. He immediately dropped to a knee and deflected it with his shield.
By dropping to his knee, he also was able to prevent her other sword from finishing him. He would have left himself wide open otherwise.

Link swept his foot out at her, and he managed to make her trip. She fell to one side but rolled through. Link too rolled and retrieved his sword on the way up again.

He turned to face her, and an explosion of pain blossomed in his shield arm. A throwing knife was embedded in it. Link never learned how to throw knives.

He held his shield up just in time to deflect the second one. It would have caught him in the heart if he wasn’t careful. His arm throbbed but wasn’t bleeding all that much. He reasoned that the knife itself was preventing much blood from leaking.

The pain began to fade away as his adrenaline kicked in in force. Link ran towards her with his shield up and his blade up. By tossing throwing blades at him, she had to sheathe one of her twin swords. This left her especially vulnerable.

Kid, no! She’s going to be expecting-

Too late. She outstretched her foot and kicked at his shield hard, forcing it into his chest and sending him back to the floor wheezing. She knocked the wind out of him.

Link immediately shrunk himself behind his shield as she hammered away at it. He was rapidly becoming alarmed. He’d struggled in fights before, but he always came out on top. 

She almost seemed to know his every move before he made it.

His thoughts were interrupted by his own screaming. She had retired one of her blades again and began forcing the throwing knife in his arm to move around and go deeper.
“Give up, kid! It doesn’t have to be like this!”

Link frantically sliced at her with his own sword, and by dumb luck managed to catch her in the leg. She shrieked and leapt off him. He looked to his arm now. It was bleeding much more.

Link didn’t have time to deal with the wound now. He got to his feet again and looked to her leg. It was a wide cut, but he only saw blood seeping from it, not spraying from it. This was good. It meant he didn’t clip her femoral artery. He still wanted to spare her if he could.

His idea was to use his shield mostly for offense as well as defense. If he could disorient her with it enough, he might be able to choke her out. 

Kid, please let me help. You’re making the same mistakes I did.

“No!” he shouted. He cautiously approached her again and she struck at him once more. He surprised her by blocking the strike with his blade instead of his shield, and he bashed the shield itself into her exposed side. 

Looking back, he knew that it was an incredibly stupid move but also very lucky. If she hadn’t been surprised by his counter, she could have killed him with her other sword easily. He didn’t make the same move again.

As it was, the counter managed to force the wind out of her instead. She was on her heels now, and Link saw it. He began bashing at her on the regular with his shield and not allowing a chance for her to strike back. She was on the defensive now. If she fell to her back, she was as good as done.

Fortunately for her, she had the balance of a cat and was known throughout the hideout for her grace in battle.
She finally had enough of his offense and forced him forward by crossing her swords in front of her and pushing her weight into his shield. He didn’t fall to the floor again, but it did make him stumble. She went to strike at the throwing knife with one sword, but he managed to dodge.

He couldn’t dodge her other sword though. It opened a large gash on his right leg above the knee, and by reflex it buckled.

Kid, it’s now or never! You need to let me help you! Look, I’ll try not to kill her, but I can’t guarantee it won’t happen. Sometimes they leave you with no choice.

She dropped one blade and gripped him by the throat. His breathing was cut off and she lifted him of the ground to meet her eyes. His free hand flew to hers and he tried to loosen her grip.

“I’m impressed. You lasted a lot longer than I thought you would. Once we break that spirit of yours, you’ll be a fine slave to sell.”

She began to walk towards another door with him in hand. Link’s eyes began to droop.

Please kid. This can’t be how your story ends. I’m begging you, let me help you!

Link did not respond. The door came closer and closer, and the darkness began to invade his vision.

What would Saria think?!

Link’s mind wandered to his friend. What would she think? She had told him that one day he was going to do great things. Was being enslaved one of those things?

No.

He couldn’t fail here. His pictograph had almost all the evidence he could have needed to destroy this place. He couldn’t let them get away with their crimes.

He gripped Mikau’s mask from his belt, and weakly held it to his face.

The pirate shrieked in surprise as she saw the transformation take place. His flesh became scaly, his body became more toned and he became taller. His bangs looked no different from his scales other than the same color as his hair had been. His arms grew two razor sharp fins, and in the chaos the throwing knife fell from his arm.

All in a moment, it was over. Mikau was still shorter than her, but not by much.
The shock left her face after a moment.
“You. I thought I killed you.”
Mikau held his arms up, fins prepared to strike back as blades. 
“You shoulda checked your work,” he spat. 
She drew her blades once more, and the two resumed their dance.

This time was different. Every move she made was matched by Mikau, and Link found himself in awe of the musician’s combat prowess. He was dancing. He would twirl around and block with his fins and whirl around to slice back. 
She blocked many of his strikes, but a few managed to open gashes on her body. They were nothing life threatening.
Meanwhile, the wounds Link had received carried over to Mikau, and they put him at a disadvantage. 

Mikau wasn’t backing down, though. Even when she did open new cuts on his body, he powered through. He fought back with such ferocity that Link had to think he probably would have been able to put Ganondorf down before he took the Triforce.

He fought with love, and with a father’s devotion. He fought with parental instinct. Mikau regularly checked on Link and made sure he was eating and taking care of himself, and he did so from when they first met- as he lay dying on the beach, he offered Link some jerky. Dying Mikau had some weird priorities.

Link began to wonder what would have happened if he arrived in Termina a day earlier. Had he done so, perhaps he could have saved the lives of Darmani or Mikau. Darmani had died about twelve hours before Link first arrived, and Mikau received his mortal injury a few hours before he arrived. Maybe he could have stopped them from making rash decisions and helped them go about things in a safer manner. He wondered how Majora would have reacted if not one, but three mortals  came to confront her atop the Clock Tower. 

He knew he never had a chance to save Neki. To do that, he would have had to come months ahead of time, would have had to happen upon the exact place Majora and the deku boy met, and would have had to surprise them both.

Mikau let out a yell and dropped to a knee. The pirate placed both blades to each side of his neck.

“I always tell my girls that once you kill someone, there’s no need to kill them again. For you, I must have to make an exception.”

Mikau, as quick as he could, summoned his own magic and forced an electric charge through his body. The current danced along the blades and into the pirate, and her grip tightened on the two of them as she shrieked in pain. He forced as much power into the blades as he could, until her body could take it no longer and it flung itself aside, her blades leaving her grip.

He had no energy to stand, and he slumped to the ground, gasping for breath. The wounds Link sustained earlier plus the battle itself and the use of his magic was exhausting. One of the pirate’s blades was just a few meters ahead of him, but it may as well have been kilometers. He began to pull himself towards the blade; he felt it would be more reliable to defend himself with than his fins until he got his strength back.

He was turned over onto his back by the pirate woman, who was panting heavily just like he was. Gerudo Pirates were always hard to kill.  She steadied the throwing knife above his heart, and Mikau’s already sore and tired arms went up to stop her. He gripped her hands with his own and pushed back, but it was a losing battle. The knife sunk closer and closer to his breast, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

Images of the strange child warrior he’d grown so close to so quickly raced through his mind. Images of Lulu, of Japas, of Tijo…

Images of the eggs. Of his eggs.

He was fighting so that they may live, and that justice may be served to those who would bring harm to them.

He opened his eyes again. The knife was a centimeter above his scales when he finally managed to push back against her. He heard her straining to keep up, but he was managing to push her away. He rolled her off to one side so that he was atop her, and he reversed the blade so that it was facing her chest. Link too began to add his strength and determination to the mix, and with both working together, the blade kissed the pirate’s chest. Mikau shut his eyes; not to protect himself from the sight, but so Link wouldn’t have to see her breathe her last. 

He could feel it though. He felt the resistance of the blade as it met bone then nudged through. He felt the quivering of her heart through the handle before it fell still.

He felt her breathe her last in his face. And when it was said and done, and Mikau relinquished control to Link once more, the boy fell to his rear, still in the form of the Zora, held his head in his bloody hands, and wept.



Link’s hat was damp from the sweat of his hands and the tears from his eyes. He’d picked it up again somewhere during that tale. He had rolled up the sleeve on his arm during and showed her the scar left over from the throwing knife. It looked awful.

Applejack had pulled him against her side and rubbed his arm comfortingly. She had many questions. Link had suggested there was one other with him during that fight. She would ask him about it another time, though. There was more he wished to say.

“Hinka, the way you describe it, that pirate was aiming to kill you.”
She cringed when she spared another look at his scar. Maybe Twilight knew a spell to remove scars? She didn’t know. She knew apples, not magic and medicine.
“Kill or enslave,” he muttered. She nodded.

“You ask me, she forfeited her right to live as soon as she struck out at you.”
Applejack squeezed him gently. “But I know that doesn’t make it better.”
She cringed again. She was not there when he was being treated after his attack by the timberwolves, but Zecora, Fluttershy, and Twilight had all suggested that the scarring on his body was indescribable. Zecora had outright begged them not to send him home, not that they could at then.

The more she listened the more she understood why he was so quiet, why he was so closed in on himself, and why he seemed to hate himself. She did not condone any of it and she never would. 

The clock struck 5. With each chime, Granny snored back upstairs, as if she and the clock were having a heated debate.
“I can save my last story.”

Applejack shook her head. “Please tell me. I won’t tell anypony else. But first, how are you feeling?”
He shrugged at first, then blinked. “I feel lighter. I feel like a weight’s been lifted off my shoulders. But there’s still so much more I’m carrying.”
“Then give me one more of them weights. I’m an Earth Pony and a farm girl at that. Trust me, I’ll be able to handle it.”
Link was silent for a moment and wiped his eyes.
“There was an undertaker in the village of Kakariko by the name of Dampé...”



“The village was a few kilometers away from Hyrule Castle Town, the capital of my home. It sat nestled in the valley beneath an active volcano called Death Mountain. Hyrule Castle Town never slept. When the people went to sleep, the dogs would come out.

Kakariko was a quiet little village though. It was modest, and the home of one of the mysterious Sheikah of old, Impa. It was known for its cemetery. The Royal Family of Hyrule made it their final resting place. It’s supposed to be the place that I will be entombed when I make my final journey.”

Kakariko’s populace was so small that almost everyone knew everyone else. The only real enigma was the undertaker. He lived in a small shack in the graveyard which he always kept locked. He would occasionally come to town to buy himself some food or to buy alcohol. He loved Kakarikian Mead3. 

Dampé was a hunch backed man with a lazy eye and a massive underbite. Who he really was or where he came from was not known to anyone else. He wore a simple brown shirt and matching pants and had a massive fleshy frame destitute of hair and all expression. He brought his shovel everywhere and, despite his frightful appearance, seemed to be pleasant company. He ran a small side business called “Dampé’s Heart Pounding Grave Digging Tour” which, in spite of the name, never involved the digging up of someone’s grave. Dampé would simply bury odds and ends at the foot of a few graves and leave it up to the customer to decide where he should dig. Whatever he dug up was yours to keep. It was usually just a blue rupee, though he did once accidentally dig up a fossilized fish that he had no idea was there.

There was a child in Kakariko who idolized him and wanted to be a gravekeeper too when he grew up. He would stalk the graves most days while Dampé slept (the man worked the graveyard shift because he thought it was funny) and would try to adopt some of his mannerisms. 

The child was quite strange, but Link decided that he was a nice kid anyway. He always made a point to visit the boy at the graveyard on his trips to Kakariko, though he never did get his name.

The boy had a route he would stalk through the graveyard, and he was always calculated in how he managed the graves. He was known for pulling the weeds from the plots and bowing his head in respect for a moment. Though Link could not prove it, he could feel the appreciation of the dead. 

The boy in the graveyard never did these things for award or recognition. He did them because he liked to. He could not see the evil in the world, and he had no reason to think any less of his fellow man, because the only ones he spent much time with were already in the dirt.

Though he idolized Dampé, he rarely ever saw the man. He was always fast asleep when the boy visited in the day, and his door was always locked. 

Link himself and Dampé also rarely interacted, though, from what he saw, the man was nice if a little strange.
The illusion would come crashing down the evening before Link opened the Sacred Realm and played into Ganondorf’s hand.

Link had stopped at Kakariko on the way back to Castle Town so he could resupply. He was low on food and he wanted to get a new tunic as well; his favorite one reeked of whale gut courtesy of Jabu-Jabu and it wouldn't wash out. The rain began to fall when he got there and it became a downpour by the time he finished his chores. Navi hated rain. It made it harder for her to fly.

He never figured out why he went to the cemetery that day. He felt pulled towards it, as if the dead themselves were beckoning him to either kill him too or have him do them a favor. He looked to Navi for clarification.

“The dead are summoning you, Link. I’d be careful if I were you.” She knew better than to try and talk him out of it.

He could sense the foreboding in the air as each step brought him closer; it was the feeling of hair standing on end. He put a hand on his blade and walked until he looked upon the graves. Due to the rain his visibility was limited, but he could see nothing out of the ordinary yet.

The boy in the graveyard was nowhere to be seen, though. This was unusual. He often wandered the graves even during storms like this. If he was asked, he would gesture to the graves and say, “If they can stand a little rain, it’s only fair I do too!”

He squinted his eyes. In the distance, Link could see a Poe, one of the mysterious and mischievous spirits that often wandered the graveyard. Though many were hostile, some were benevolent; it was especially true of those in the Kakariko Cemetery4. The one he was eyeing was frantically pointing to his right…

“I don’t like this,” said Navi. 

Link looked to the gravekeeper’s shack. His blood ran cold. Though nothing unusual was outwardly happening, he felt himself drawn towards it. He looked at the Poe once again, and saw it nodding and pointing in what appeared to be a panic. If it was enough to frighten the dead, Link felt he had no choice but to intervene.

He put his hand on the doorknob expecting it to be locked. Then he would turn to look at the Poe who would be pointing at him and giggling madly or approaching to try and bring harm to him. To his surprise, the door opened…



Applejack frowned. Hinka was shaking like a leaf in her embrace. She wanted him to finish his story, but she also didn’t want him to work himself up so much that he had a panic attack.
“If it’s getting to be too much, Sugarcube…”  
Hinka shook his head. “No, I have to finish.”

He looked up at her, his eyes and jaw set. He took a breath to calm his nerves.

“The boy was lying on the gravekeeper’s cot. Dampé had disrobed and stood before him with his shovel in hand. A trace of blood was on the end. In his other hand was an empty bottle of mead. The gravekeeper was woozy…”

Link wasted no time. Behind him he felt the presence of the Poe5. Dampé had not noticed them yet.

In Link’s pocket was a handful of deku nuts. They doubled as snacks that never went bad and a poor man’s flash bang capable of blinding and disorientating those who looked upon them when they hit the ground. He looked to the Poe by his side, and the Poe looked back at him. They nodded to each other.

“Hey old man!” called Link. Dampé turned about to face them, and, upon seeing Link, opened his arms as if to embrace him against his terrible body.

Link covered his eyes with one arm and tossed the deku nut to the ground with the other. Dampé swore and stumbled, and he lost his balance and fell into the wall. Link sprinted past him and grabbed the boy’s hand. He appeared disorientated, but still alive. A bit of blood came from a cut on his head.

Link pulled the boy outside while the Poe swung its trusty lantern in a circle while Dampé slowly worked off the effects of the deku nut. The drunken man threw the bottle at the spirit while Link half dragged the boy, half ran from the shack towards town. The Poe vanished.

His legs were suddenly trapped, and he fell to the mud with a grunt. Navi shrieked; Dampé had tackled him. The boy, meanwhile, had managed to fall free. The fall seemed to jar some sense back into him, as he shook his head and looked around blearily.

“Run!” shouted Link. The boy did not need to be told twice. He ran as quickly as he was able towards town, and Link was pulled onto his back by the drunken gravekeeper. Navi bopped into the man’s head repeatedly while begging him to let Link go, but Dampé swatted her out of the air. Link’s concern for his fairy companion was immense, but so were the hands of the gravekeeper. He had Link by the arms and lifted him and began to stumble back towards his shack while grumbling about a special treat.

Link frantically tried to kick at him, but he was being held too far from the man’s body to connect. He began to utter a prayer to Farore for help, and help arrived in the form of a lantern impacting the back of Dampé’s head. The man let go of Link and fell to the muddy ground with Link atop him. He regained his bearings quickly and put a hand to one of Link’s arms. To his side was a large stone. Link wasted no time before his other arm was grabbed, and he took the stone and drove it into the side of Dampé’s head. The dull thud caused the man to release his hold on Link’s arm, and his eyes squeezed shut in pain.

Link, gripping the stone with two hands now, drove it down again into the head of the gravekeeper. He felt the man’s body spasm beneath him. He struck him again, and again, and again, and again. With each strike he felt less and less reaction from Dampé…

…and yet he kept going. He kept striking the man with the stone even as the Poe reappeared and tried to get him to stop. Gray matter had begun to leak from Dampé’s nose, and his breathing was labored.
“Link, please stop!”

Link struck him once more with the stone and it split into two pieces. He looked to Navi. Though he couldn’t see her, he could hear the worry and horror in her voice. He suddenly felt very small.

He turned to the Poe next to him and only then noticed he was hyperventilating. He collapsed into its arms. The Poe stroked his back gently as Navi stroked his head.



“I never saw the boy or his family again. The next morning, they left Kakariko. Dampé the Gravekeeper survived my initial attack, but he died of complications from it sometime afterward. I put him in a coma from which he never woke up.”

Link did end up meeting the gravekeeper again in the future. Dampé himself had become a spirit after his death and he appeared to Link to beg forgiveness. He appeared to be genuinely regretful of his actions that night and offered him his first hookshot as a sign of good faith, though he also admitted he knew it wouldn't undo the things he did.

Link told him that he was not the one he should be asking forgiveness from.

Winona whined and leapt from the couch as Applejack suddenly turned to Link and put both hooves on his shoulders. He eyed her quietly.

“Hinka, I need to ask: Did that man, or anyone else… touch you somewhere you didn’t want to be touched?”
Hinka stayed silent, and tears fell from his eyes. He shook his head.
“He was the first and last to try.”

A tear fell from one of Applejack’s eyes, but she did not break out into sobs. Everything until then had rang true to her, but she wasn't certain on that simple statement. Maybe he was being truthful? Maybe not. She cursed herself. The one time she could not afford for her truth-finding to fail her...
She cleared her throat.
“Know what I think, Hinka?”
He was quiet.

“I think you’re a hero. Not a monster. You risked your own neck to fight to free your country. You snuck into a guarded pirate fortress to ensure it was destroyed and to save the lives of kidnapped children. You were nearly accosted by a pervert trying to save his initial victim. You’ve continuously thrown yourself into harm’s way to protect your peers.”

She gave him a kiss on the forehead.

“A monster wouldn’t do those things. A hero would. And as proud as I am of you for doing these things, I don’t ever want you to put yourself at risk like that again. Okay? Can you do that for me?”

Link smiled through watery eyes and gave a nod.

“I can do my best.”

Applejack returned his smile and wiped a tear with the brim of her hat.

“That’s all we can ask, Sugarcube. As I promised, I won’t tell anypony else the stories you’ve just told me. However, I want you to think about telling the others. If you need help, you can come to me. But I’m getting ahead of myself. How do you feel now?”

Link thought of everything he told Applejack. He brought himself back to every grisly detail, examined every moment he told her of, every weight that had been on his shoulders.

…and he felt light. He felt a little cleaner. He could feel three demons that had haunted him for ages now; they were gone, if only for a time.

“I… I feel good,” he said, and for the first time in a long time, he did! 

He had many more demons haunting him, many more terrors that weighed on his mind, but he learned a long time ago that some things were just not worth dwelling on when there was a good to celebrate, and sharing some of his burden with one of his new friends was surely a good he could celebrate for!

Navi always told him to focus on the good, because focusing on the bad only brings trouble. She was right.
He threw his arms around Applejack and hugged her tight.

“Thanks for listening, AJ.”