Wherein we follow our future travelers through a new day.
On a hot summer morning, Nuruli discovers that her favorite black Cucco named Violet escaped from the pen. She uses her keen senses to track the Cucco to the edge of the nearby river, one of the few water sources left in Lower Hyrule, just north of the old Eastern Palace Ruins.
There, Violet is distressed, pecking and scratching at the exposed root systems of a tree growing from the cracked earth. Nuruli tries to collect Violet, who begins squawking and flies from her arms into the higher branches of the tree, then flies down the opposite and begins again to peck at the roots.
Nuruli drops down to investigate what could possibly be under the tree. It is very dark, despite the strong sunlight and exposed nature of the root system, and there is an unnatural cold which gives Nuruli a bad feeling in her stomach. She tries to clear a root out of the way, and although Violet couldn’t peck through, Nuruli’s touch causes one of the roots to crumble like ash. Attempting to figure out why she can’t see, Nuruli reaches forward, and the shadow reaches toward her. Startled, she withdraws her hand, and the shadow vanishes.
In the haze of Twilight, Marah is sent out to investigate a flaw in the warded wall surrounding the cemetery. The neighbors on Lon-Lon Ranch have just been by to complain of a stray Poe who is harassing their horses.
With some exertion and little well-placed magic, Marah gets the felled iron portion of the wall propped and fused into place… and then sees the stray Poe out in the field on the other side. She takes her shovel and goes out to try and herd it back into its proper resting place.
The Poe weaves around, laughing, and moving backward and backward toward a tree whenever Marah gets close by. Eventually, it points aggressively at the tree, waving its lantern around. She continues to try and corral the creature, even swiping it once with her shovel to try and get it to listen. However, the Poe only responds by becoming more corporeal and physically shoving her back toward the tree. This startles Marah, as Poe are not known for physical contact of this type, but she avoids being pushed directly into the tree.
The Poe tries to shove her again, and she sidesteps, sending it directly at the tree– whereupon the Poe vanishes. Feeling very drained as a result of the direct contact with the Poe, Marah returns to the safety of home.
Karin has had a very boring day so far. It seems no Octoroks are in the area, and she is out of harvested balloons to use for target practice. However, she notices a tendril of smoke coming from the chimney of a nearby house.
This house, she had noticed, had been abandoned when she moved into the area, but appeared to be occupied lately–except she could never catch a glimpse of whoever it was performing upkeep on the cabin, and then either never responded to her knocking, or were never home.
So, she goes out to try again. Karin attempts to peer through the windows, but they are so grimy on the inside that she can’t really see in. But, she hears a sound inside. So, she tries knocking on the window, but there is no reply.
Karin hatches a plan to try and lure the occupants out into the open. She goes around the side of the house and tugs on a log in the center of a log pile, intending to make a noise loud enough to lure them out, and she just narrowly escapes having the entire pile crush her. Tumbling out of the way, she runs around the back of the house. She can hear someone moving around to the outside, but not see them, so she decides to climb up onto the roof. Scrambling up deftly, Karin looks over… the yard, but sees nobody. Still, she can hear someone around the wood pile. So, she drops down and decides to wait by the front door– and notices it is open!
So, she goes inside– but it is totally and completely empty. There is nothing but dust– no furniture, no nothing! And then the door bangs shut! A laugh, pleasant and friendly, but eerie given the circumstances, fills the air, and Karin whirls around, trying to find the source.
She squints very, very hard– and begins to see the outline of a small figure. A small, floating figure. She exclaims, and hears “You can see me?“. As it comes into focus, she can see it is floating as if sitting backward, but then comes down to touch the ground. It is becoming more and more solid, and seems to look like a child. “It’s been so long!” Karin is understandably confused, but the figure is visibly delighted: “I’ve been watching you!” he announces.
Necluda Village has been having a long, irritable day, and Impa has gotten to hear all about it. If her customers aren’t bellyaching about small annoyances ( “I stubbed my toe!” “My husband chews too loudly!”) they’re directly complaining to her about impossible things. One customer burns their mouth on a stew they let sit until it was no longer steaming. Another says the mild food is far too spicy today. Another starts telling a joke about how Impa’s food is going to make him fat, but the joke turns into an actual complaint halfway through.
The day draws to a close, and Impa cleans up. She takes her pots and pans to the river to scrub them out, only to be yelled at by Rekon, a local woman, for polluting her eventual bath water. Everyone is doing their washing up in the river at this exact moment, and has always done so, but before Impa can point this out, Rekon storms off in a tizzy. Somehow, Impa burns her hand on one of the pots she is cleaning, even though it has been off of the heat for a long time and is not hot to the touch.
Perplexed, she returns home, noting Rekon berating an uninterested dog for sitting in an otherwise empty street. She thinks to herself that something is clearly not right, and begins sorting through the local legends she knows to figure out if there is a spirit or curse that could be causing misfortune and ornery behavior. She cannot recall its name.
At first, she can only recall something about the local woods, and a memory of a tear in her mother’s dress the day she learned this lesson. Focusing hard, Impa manages to recall that there is a spirit that thrives on fun interactions, and may cause mischief when bored, but not what it is.
She is considering waiting to deal with the problem until morning, when it will be safer, when a baby’s thin wail carries down the street, followed by a dog, then another, then some arguing…
Impa gathers her knife and lights a torch, and heads off to the woods. She manages to make it there without incident, luckily not encountering any monsters. Once there, she sees a blue light and calls out “… Forest spirit?” . The light goes out, and she gets an acorn dropped on her head for her trouble. Again, she calls out “Forest spirit?” and another acorn whizzes from a tree and hits her in the head. This repeats for a total of 12 acorns, one of which she manages to catch, and then Impa notices rustling through the trees ahead. She runs forward, and the rustling moves away. She attempts to chase the unseen spirit, and then notices it is no longer rustling the leaves ahead of her, but behind and off to the left, as though she is the one being chased!
She manages to leap upon the spirit and catch it. It laughs, but then squirms and struggles. Impa demands that the spirit show itself, since she caught it fair and square while it was invisible.
The spirit concedes, revealing it’s fox-like form. “A Keaton!” it seems pleased to be known. They exchange some words, where the Keaton refuses to stop getting up to mischief, then chides Impa for suggesting it ‘must not’ do these things. Impa changes tactics when the Keaton complains that it was bored, pointing out that they just had a fun race.
The Keaton concedes that it was fun, but not as much fun as watching her get chided earlier. Impa accuses it of spying, and the Keaton says it wouldn’t be much fun if he didn’t watch. The Keaton begins to sulk, and Impa offers to tell the villagers about it. He asks if they would visit to play, and Impa says she doesn’t know, but points out if the villagers know about it, they’ll be much harder to prank, and he can do much better, more fun ones, but can’t hurt people anymore. They shake on it the deal.
Going to bed after a strange day, you fall into a dream. In this dream, colors are all wrong. It isn’t that things are the wrong color, but that the colors themselves are not correct. Although the sky is blue, blue is not blue. Trees are green and brown, but green and brown are not green and brown. Everything is wrong without being wrong.
A place with street upon street upon street and many buildings comes into view, and creeping in from the edges of those streets are tendril like shadows. As they move over the streets, the shadows rise up over the buildings, consuming them.
When the shadows converge in the center, a laugh echoes out across the world, and you wake up.