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Majora's Ghost - Chapter 8

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Chapter Eight: Dawn of the Second Day

Vean turned over in his straw bed, feeling too tired and sore to get up. Link could do enough damage when he wasn’t under the control of some laughing sorcerer and Vean hadn’t exactly fought back.
A rooster caw sounded and Vean sat up in annoyance. He rubbed his eyes, trying to clear his head. The room he was in was cramped and cluttered, rough drawings of grassy fields and oceans covering most of the wood paneling. It was his new friend Kafei’s room.
He started to feel a little claustrophobic in the small room so he made his way over to the door and opened it just a crack so that he could see into the main room of the house. He spotted Kafei’s grandmother walking around, probably making breakfast. She was right between him and the front door. Great, he thought tiredly. He was thankful that Cremia had given him a place to stay for the night, but he didn’t want to stay any longer than necessary. Especially not with Kurai on the loose.
There was a knock at the door and Cremia went to answer it. “Good morning, Cremia,” said a young woman as she walked into the house. She had short wavy blond hair, bright blue eyes, and was dressed in a long pink dress with a violet scarf hanging on her shoulders.
Vean shut the door as quietly and as quickly as possible. The woman that just stepped into the house flooded his mind with memories just like Rohe had done the night before. Her name was Aryella and she was his mother back in his own world. He’d been wondering if she was alive in this realm as well.
“Is our guest still asleep?” Aryella asked.
“He went straight to bed after Rohe brought him here,” Cremia replied. “I don’t blame him with all he went through last night. A sorceress with Kurai’s face, can you believe it?”
“Where do you suppose he came from?” Aryella asked.
“Kafei said some nonsense about him coming from Clock Town, but I highly doubt that’s the case,” the old woman sighed. “My best guess would be that his parents went in there and left him behind. He was reluctant to speak of them.”
“But how could they just abandon a child like that?”
Vean had his back to the door, but he could hear everything they said. He slid down on to his knees when his mother expressed her distain for anyone abandoning him. She had died after being terribly sick for months. She hadn’t truly abandoned him and his siblings, but he had always wondered how much she really cared. How could he have ever doubted her like that?
“It’s nearly midmorning,” he heard Aryella say when he started listening again. “Should we wake him?”
“No need to bother him until we figure out what we’re going to do with him,” Cremia sighed. “I can scarcely care for Kafei as it is and I promised his parents that I would do all that I could to watch over him.”
Vean looked around the room at all the drawings hanging on the walls. There were crudely drawn pictures of what Vean assumed were Kafei and his parents. The small blue haired boy stood between a man with the same hair and a woman with long red hair. He’d never have guessed that Kafei was also an orphan. At least he had the good sense to stay with his grandmother instead of running away.
“You don’t have to worry about that Cremia,” his mother’s voice came softly through the door. “Rohe and I already talked it over and we decided that the boy can stay with us.”
“With you?” Cremia asked in surprise, echoing Vean’s own thoughts. “But you two haven’t even had a child of your own yet. Are you certain that you can take on a rambunctious teenager? And one that’s already been through some sort of trauma no less! Don’t you at least want to meet him before you make such a choice?”
“He needs a mother and a father, Cremia. That’s all I need to know of him.”
Vean found himself on his feet and opening the door before he knew what he was doing. Aryella and Cremia both turned to him in surprise as he stepped into the main room of the house, unable to push himself a single step further.
“Mom, I…” he started to say, but something was holding him back.
Link was still in Clock Town with no idea that their parents were alive. Link wasn’t even himself at the moment, he was under the control of an evil creature called Majora and he could be attacking Yoru and Tetra at that very moment. He couldn’t just abandon them behind that dome…could he?
“Mom?” Aryella asked as she stepped towards him. “You called Rohe ‘Dad’ last night as well, didn’t you? Do we really remind you so much of your own parents?”
She knelt down to look the boy in the eyes, staring questioningly as if she thought he reminded her of someone she knew. Vean wanted nothing more than to thrown his arms around her and tell her everything about what had happened to him since she left. He almost hated Link and Yoru for being the thing that held him back.
“You can stay here in the Deku Village with Reho and me if you want,” Aryella said with a smile. “We won’t let that woman from the canyon anywhere near you.”
The woman from the canyon was Kurai. That sorceress was still out there and he knew that she’d be coming after him as soon as she was able. He couldn’t put his parents in danger like that. He couldn’t lose them again.
“Can…can I think about it first?” he asked.
“Of course you can,” Aryella nodded. “In the meantime, you must be hungry.” Aryella stood back up and then walked over to the dining table to retrieve a small basket. She pulled a sweet smelling pastry from the basket and offered it to Vean. “Muffin?” she asked brightly.
Vean took the muffin gratefully, but he didn’t feel like sitting down to breakfast to answer a lot of questions. “I’m just going to go for a walk,” he said as he went towards the door. Aryella nodded in reply and Vean went out onto the porch and closed the door behind him.
He finished his small breakfast within seconds and then decided to survey the rest of the town. Deku Village didn’t look that different in the light of day, except that the place looked a bit dryer. The ground was cracked and there was only grass scattered across shading places between the houses. Being a farmer in the middle of the desert must have been rough. Still, maybe things were better off in this realm. Maybe he’d been brought to this place for a reason. Maybe that reason was so that he could have his family again.
“Vean,” he heard Kafei whisper loudly. “Come here! Hurry!”
He spotted the young farmer at the edge of a wheat field behind one of the small houses. Vean walked over to the boy slowly, glancing around to see if anyone was watching.
“Quick!” Kafei urged as he offered his hand to Vean. “We need to hurry before the grownups notice we’re missing!” With that, Kafei jumped over a small trench and into the field, still holding his hand out for Vean to take.
“You want me to follow you without knowing where we’re going?” Vean asked skeptically.
“Please!” the boy begged. “A friend of mine has been dying for news from Clock Town! You’ve just have to come talk to him! Please!”
“Who is this friend of yours?” Vean muttered in annoyance.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you!” Kafei assured him as he reached his hand out even further.
“Fine,” Vean sighed, figuring that a kid like Kafei couldn’t get him into too much trouble. He hopped over the trench and the young farmer took off through the field, following a path that had obviously been made long before they had come through.
Kafei zigzagged quickly through the tall green grass and Vean was beginning to lose track of just where they were. Finally they made it to a clearing where the wheat stocks had been bent back in a perfect circle. Sitting in the middle of the circle, wearing clothes and a hat made of straw, was a Skull Kid.
“This is him!” Kafei announced to the scarecrow-like creature. “This is the boy from behind the dome!”
The forest child leapt forward and stared Vean directly in the eye with two bright eyes on his dark wooden face. The Skull Kid giggled at him lightheartedly and then stepped back and began hopping up and down excitedly.
“I’m so happy to meet you!” the Skull Kid said. “Did you really escape from…Majora’s trap?”
“What do you know about Majora?” Vean asked, intrigued. He’d met a Skull Kid before so he wasn’t the least bit phased by the scrub, but he did want to know more about the ghost that was controlling his brother.
The Skull Kid looked down at the ground, shivering as if he was cold. “That demon…it had such power within the mask… It’s free now. I feel it laughing when the wind blows, whispering that you should come and hide behind the dome.”
He looked back up at Vean again, long and hard this time. “Tell me… Did the Shadow Walker follow the whispers? Was he in Clock Town?”
“Shadow Walker?” Vean asked, though he could guess who they were talking about.
“His name is Kuro,” Kafei interrupted. “No one’s seen him in almost a year! He used to live here.”
“What else can you tell me about him?”

Kuro had come to Deku Village from somewhere beyond the Great Desert when he was just twelve-years-old. He’d been getting in and out of people’s houses all week without being seen and without opening the locks on anyone’s front door.
One night, the boy tipped toed into the large tent that was set up at the edge of town. It was decorated with soft pillows and brightly colored rugs all thrown around in a hodgepodge around a large apothecary table. Kuro went right for the draws of the table and started grabbing every medicine and herb that he could fit into his pockets.
“If you’re thinking of selling that stuff, the most valuable products are in my medical bag,” a voice called from the shadows.
A woman stepped out of the dark corner of the tent and despite her blank expression her violet colored eyes were piercing. Kuro ran for the door, but he tripped on one of the many decretive pillows on the floor. He opened up a portal before him and jumped into it to make his escape, but the woman caught him by the wrist and yanked him back out of the shadows.
“So that’s how you’ve been doing it,” she stated as if magic portals were an everyday occurrence for her. “You’re certainly a unique thief, I’ll give you that.”
“Let me go!” the boy demanded, kicking at the woman desperately. He managed to muddy the yellow flames stitched into her blue dress, but she held him up off the ground undeterred. His wrist was starting to hurt and he had already been tired before he broke into the tent. Now he was too weak to break free, let alone open another portal. He stopped struggling.
“Now that’s better,” the woman said as she lowered him to the ground again, though she kept a firm grip on his arm. Her long black hair was tied in a loose ponytail behind her and she was wearing a pointed purple cap on her head that matched her long flowing cloak.
“My name is Kurai,” she said in a friendly manner. “So, do you feel like telling me yours?”
The boy turned away from her, still unable to pull free from her grip. “I’ll put it all back,” he said instead. “I won’t bother you again.”
“Wrong answer,” Kurai sighed. “Now, hand over the Magic Mirror or whatever magical item you’re using.”
The boy glared up at her and then began to empty out his pockets. He threw the medicines and herbs down on the ground along with a few other valuables that he’d taken that night. He took a deep breath, clearing his head and gathering the last of his strength.
“See?” Kuro insisted. “Nothing up my sleeve.”
He then snapped his fingers and the items were all swallowed up by a pool of darkness. Kurai didn’t even have time to speak before the items all came raining down upon her head from above. She lost her grip on the boy and he sprinted out of the tent. He had hardly taken three steps before he came face to face with another boy. It was one of the farmers and he had a slingshot drawn and ready to shoot Kuro in the gut.
“Don’t move!” the younger boy shouted.
Kuro stopped in his tracks and put his hands in the air. He couldn’t allow himself to be captured, but he hardly had enough power for that last shadow portal. He closed his eyes, focused, and another portal opened beneath him. He dropped through, but he wasn’t as fast as the boy with the slingshot. He felt something hard hit him in the head and he blacked out.
When Kuro finally awoke, he was once again in the doctor’s tent. He was lying on silk sheets with a cloth bandage wrapped around his forehead. “So, you’re awake,” a voice whispered. Kurai walked up beside him and offered him a glass of water. Kuro took it thirstily while the doctor watched him almost thoughtfully.
“Where is your guardian, young Oracle?” the woman asked.
“Oracle?” Kuro asked, confused.
“Only those who are practiced in magic or those with magical items can walk the shadows,” she explained as she walked over to a small pile of books. “Unless you are the Oracle of Shadows.”
Kurai pulled a book from the top of the pile and flipped through it for a moment before continuing. “The Keeper of the Shadows. The Oracle is one who was entrusted with the task of cleansing the darkness from its own demise.”
Kurai closed the book again and then came to sit at the boy’s bedside. “Will you please tell me your name, young hero?” she asked.
“It’s Kuro,” he said as he thought about everything that the doctor had just told him. The woman smiled and for the first time her harsh face gave way to gentleness.
“It is an honor to meet you, Kuro,” she said with a slight bow of her head.
The doctor would later tell him that he had suffered a minor concussion, but that he’d be well enough in time. The boy who had shot him was named Kafei and he really hadn’t meant to hit him in the head. After several apologies the two boys even became friends.
Kuro never left after he recovered from the injury. Instead he stayed on to learn medicine from Master Kurai as her apprentice. He’d been an orphan for as long as he could remember and his powers had made it easy to travel from one place to another while stealing and selling things to survive. He’d never had a place to call home before and in spite of all he’d done, the people of the Deku Village had welcomed him. Kurai taught Kuro all she could about the oracles and what his powers were meant to do, but much of it was a mystery even to her.
“Evils have crept from the darkness since the beginning of time,” she would say. “The Oracle of Shadows stands against such things.”
Kuro knew of the evils that prowled throughout the Great Desert, the very thing that had driven the Four Giants from the land more than a century ago; Major’s influence. How could any one person stands against such a force, Oracle or not?
At least that was how he felt about the matter until the day Kafei’s father became ill. The man had been patrolling the canyon just beyond the boarder of the town when was attacked by a monster. No one had ever gotten a clear answer as to what sort of creature it had been, but Kafei’s father had picked up some terrible disease from the encounter. No one had been allowed to see him except his wife and the doctor. Even Kafei and Kuro were denied entry into the tent. The man died within a week and by then his wife had succumbed to the illness as well. Kurai locked herself away with the woman as she struggled to help her, but in the end Kafei had lost his mother as well.
It was only thanks to Kurai’s strict precautions that no one else in the village fell sick, but that had done little to help the doctor in the end. Kurai became sick as well and absolutely refused to let Kuro anywhere near to help her. After she died, her tent was burned and that seemed to be the end of the disease.
Kafei went to live with Old Lady Cremia and Kuro took over working as the village’s doctor.
After a time, everyone seemed to move on from the tragedy, but Kuro never fully recovered from the loss.
“We never even found the monster that caused all this!” Kuro shouted in frustration to Kafei and the Skull Kid. “What’s to stop the same thing from happening again?!”
“Kafei’s Dad did kill the monster,” Skull Kid pointed out. “That’s why they walk the canyon with spears.”
“But Majora just causes more and more of them to appear!” Kuro argued. “Even trapped behind that dome he causes suffering!”
Skull Kid shank back at the mention of the ghost and Kuro immediately felt guilty about drawing out his friend’s old memories. “I’m sorry, Skull Kid,” he apologized. “That was thoughtless. I just wish there was something I could do.”
“There’s no stopping the laughter lurking in the shadows,” Skull Kid said with a shiver. “It’s too powerful.”
“Lurking in the shadows…” Kuro whispered to himself, making his friends uneasy. “I bet I could use my shadow portals to get into Clock Town and then teleport out again.”
“Kuro, no one’s ever come back from there!” Kafei insisted. “Ever!”
“That’s because Majora is keeping them trapped,” he agreed. “But if someone were to defeat the ghost there’d be no danger.”
“You mustn’t give in to its whispering!” Skull Kid said in a panic. “It wants you to enter the dome!”
“Then he’s underestimating my abilities,” Kuro replied confidently. “I have to at least try.”
Kuro disappeared through a shadow portal, leaving his two friends alone in the fields.

Vean hadn’t expected them to tell Kuro’s entire life story, but between Skull Kid’s interjections and Kafei’s rambling he’d had little choice. “So you have seen Kuro, right?” Kafei asked again when he finally took a breath. “Was he in Clock Town?”
“He was, but…” Vean hesitated.
“So Kuro’s alive? Is he still looking for Majora?” the boy persisted.
Vean never would have guessed that Kuro had been in Clock Town on a mission to stop the masked sorcerer. The young man seemed very content in his little apothecary shop. Had he completely abandoned his friends to live out the rest of his days beneath that dome? Was he as trapped as everyone else?
“He’s fine, but he never mentioned… What made Kuro think that he stood any chance against Majora’s Ghost?” he asked, thinking back to how helpless he’d been against the sorcerer.
“Kurai taught Kuro how to use his powers to help people,” Kafei said with a shrug. “So I guess that he had to at least try.”
Vean thought back to the time he had spent as Kurai’s apprentice in his own realm. She’d never done anything other than manipulate him so he could hardly imagine another version of her watching over Kuro. Was the oracle of darkness supposed to help the oracle of light?
“So how did you escape from Clock Town?” Kafei asked eagerly. “Could you do it again if we all went back?”
Vean got up from where he had been sitting and shook his head. “I can’t...” he began, but he wasn’t sure of what he wanted to say. I can’t face Kurai or the evil sorcerer Majora, maybe? I can’t save Link or Yoru. I can’t leave my parents now that I’ve found them.
Link hadn’t hesitated to rescue Vean when they had first met. Tetra had even been there for him despite her better judgment. And Yoru was just a kid who needed someone to look after him.
“I can’t take you guys with me,” he said at last as he started walking back the way he had come.
“Wait!” Kafei shouted as he rushed over and grabbed Vean by the arm. “You can’t leave without me! Kuro’s my friend!”
“I need you to cover for me while I sneak back to the canyon,” Vean insisted. “The Miniblins shouldn’t be a problem during the day.”
“But how are you going to get past the pirates?” Kafei asked.
“What pirates?”
This is a spin-off of The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker about my OC Vean.
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My favorite part of any story; the character's origin story!
Writing Kuro, Kurai, and Kafei's names over and over again got a bit confusing for a while there. I hope that problem didn't persist for you readers. ^^;

Zelda Universe and Characters (C) Nintendo
Vean, Kuro, and Kurai (C) *SuperheroGeek13

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eightcrows's avatar
Whaah!! This is so cute! What with Vean's parents and Kafei and Skull Kid and Kuro all being friends! And I LOVE the way Skull Kid talks! Poetical creepiness! Fantastic! And more insight into the real duty of being the Oracle of Shadows! I love it!