Apparition of a Stranger

Hosa treaded carefully down the shaded lane, watching his step to avoid the soft, fallen apples underfoot. On either side of him, stretching eternally beyond the horizon, were rows of bountiful apple trees, their branches hanging low from the weight of their ripe fruit. The sun shone through their foliage, casting the rito in soft, dappled light. Glancing through the gaps between the trunks revealed nothing, all that existed here were these endless apple trees. It was peaceful… but even a charming prison is still a prison.

He had never been to a place like this before, but the vision was vivid. Parting his dark gray beak, Hosa could taste the sweetness of the apples in the air, carried down the lane on a warm breeze that ruffled his black feathers. Only the shimmery haze around his periphery betrayed the fact that it was a mere dream. “Interesting…” Hosa hummed, hopping further along with a single beat of his wings. He was unperturbed by unfamiliar scenery appearing in his dreams. The dreaming realm was the one that connected their mortal one to all other, hidden planes, after all, and as a seer, he was accustomed to receiving messages and visions in this space. The questions in his mind were not about that, but rather about whatever message must be hidden there, and who… or what… it could be from.

No matter how far he walked, the orchard’s end never came into view, not even with his keen avian sight. Instead, something new appeared on the horizon, just as unreachable: a shadow against the pale yellow sky. It wavered, undiscernable and formless, but it somehow seemed to be reaching forward. Was it beckoning him towards freedom, or merely taunting his entrapment?

Was it him it was beckoning?

Hosa blinked, and blocking his view of the mysterious, tantalizing shadow was a girl standing in the middle of the path. If Hosa were not so accustomed to spirits appearing suddenly before him he likely would have startled and squawked, but as it was he simply took in the sight calmly. The girl’s back was to him-- she, too, watched the distant shadow. She was a human-- a hylian, as her long, pointed ears revealed. Her dark hair hung down her back in two plaits, each only braided about halfway down, leaving long tails of hair trailing from the ribbons holding the braids in place. She wore peasant’s garb, her apron stained from grass, her shoes and socks stained from splatters of mud. This girl must have been the spirit that was trying to reach him.

Except… Hosa peered closer at her with more than just his physical sight. His eyes widened. “That’s strange,” he blurted out, surprise stealing away his tact. “You’re alive.”

The girl gasped and whirled to face him, her hair and skirts billowing out as she spun. Her face was plain, lacking the doll-like features that were the image of ideal rural beauty, her cheeks pockmarked by the telltale, little round scars of the shedding of youth. Wisps of hair escaping their twists floated in front of her ears. “Who are you,” she demanded, “and what are you doing in my dream?”

“Your dream?” Hosa countered, crossing his wings in front of him, “this is my dream.”

“Don’t kid,” the girl was adamant. “I always have this dream. I know exactly how it always goes. Whoever you are, you’re not supposed to be in it!”

The wind kicked up, sending orange and golden fallen leaves flying up all around them, the vortex of dead foliage creating a barrier surrounding the two strangers, and the leaves whirling against one another was so loud if they closed their eyes, they might have thought they’d stepped into a waterfall. Like the wind and the leaves, the girl was agitated, fists clenched at her sides and chest heaving. Hosa maintained his composure.

The sun dipped lower, and the sky above them turned violet. Hosa tilted his head at the girl, his eyes narrowing in cool disaffection. “Aren’t I?” As he spoke, the dreamed world began to crumble away under their feet, like pieces of dry dirt breaking apart, carried away by the wind still blowing against Hosa’s back, pushing him-- pushing the girl-- towards the sun, the horizon, and the shadow. “My, my,” he murmured as the girl, and the dream, disappeared, and he felt himself tugged back towards the waking world. “This just keeps getting stranger and stranger.”

When Hosa awoke on his perch in the lower Castle Town inn, the starchy sweet-tartness of overripe apples lingered on the back of his tongue.