Chapter 3: Left and Right

                                    

                                          
   Morning came creeping in with a special sharpness from the  corner where age had warped the boards in the lean-to's wall. Zelda  hadn't slept deeply in the hours since pulling Link back under the  covers after their awkward pre-dawn talk; her father's words to Link  kept playing around in her head. 
   Or rather, the whole mess of their relationships, dictated by  her status as a teenager in a high-ranking family with every sort of  expectation on her shoulders. 
   Link had joined the school of knights under extraordinary  circumstances five years ago. His father and the Commander-At-Arms had  escorted him in a hurry from the Royal training grounds with the Master  Sword in tow, but the castle was in a mess of gossip and rumors for  three months each time a trainee returned from the camp to start their  service.  
   A         boy       had wandered into the Lost Woods. The calamity has fallen on all  of Hyrule and it's going to cut everyone's tongues out. The hero is a  toddler and was killed in his first battle. The commander of the royal  training grounds found a moblin and was nursing it back to health.  
   Zelda herself was fed up with and told off her maids multiple  times for ramping up the storytelling by the time the mystery was  solved. Her friend Hannah from the kitchens had delivered news with her  breakfast that the Master Sword had just been unwrapped in her Father's  council (a firsthand witness' account, even!), and Zelda fled her  quarters before her hair was even properly set to see for herself.  
   Sure enough when she'd barged past her father's personal guard  (despite his protests) the near-glowing royal purple of the handle was  under the intensive lights of the King's war table. A few of his most  trusted commanders and advisors were seated around in their informal  wear - they shuffled as King Rhoam rose and gave his daughter a talking  to. She managed only by the skin of her teeth to get his permission to  linger at the meeting, on the promise of her secrecy. A seat was drawn  to the table for her to settle in, and across the papers, maps and mugs  of coffee and quillpens were a set of unfamiliar faces, both framed by  sandy-blonde hair. The one was a knight just over his middle age, his  helmet still bearing some of the scuffs and minor dents that came with  ages of use. His colors and the symbols stitched on his arms marked him  as one of the knights-at-arms in charge of training recruits at the  various sites about her father's kingdom  
   The much shorter figure beside him was dressed in less  distinctive hues, likely from a village outside of the normal trading  routes that brought dyes and trinkets of all types to Castle Town. A  simple red-and-brown patterned shirt covered the common undershift, and  his sandy locks were pulled back in an unkempt ponytail. His eyes  mimicked the striking shade of blue of the knight seated beside him,  suggesting a familial relationship, but he was markedly paler than the  older man. A rich blue scarf with tracings of gold tracings in the cloth  was bunched around his neck, distinctly out of character with his plain  clothing, and when he recognized the princess was staring at him the  boy gripped and played with it until his father pushed the small hand  away again.  
   She learned that day that the young man across the table had  indeed pulled the Master Sword in the lost woods - and suffered a  grievous injury. He had nearly died, but instead had healed over several  weeks from a deep gash at his neck from a monster he was helpless to  name. A shekiah had been summoned to help with antidotal herbs over the  season of his recovery and lingered to teach him basic signs in the  meantime, until he was well enough to travel.  
   The council's main concern was how to coordinate damage control,  given how common the legends of the ancient battle where the master  sword had last played a role. The throne had to coordinate which details  were to be released to the public to avoid fostering a panic; as for  the boy himself, '        Link      ', the matter was simple.