Blank pages of book leaves unfurl upon the desk of oaken hue. And a steady hand dips a quill into a well of fine quality ink, and the hand’s owner smiled.

However, quite honestly, there were scarcely times when he did not smile. His grin would vary from one of simple joy as that of a father watching children in play, a great grin of pure enthusiasm, or a broad grinning smile as one who smiles upon winning a sport of argument. Only in moments of dire need and subjects of great gravity was he found to either frown, show hints of anger, or become furious. Only in his keeping of books and records had he adorned a straight face.

In public occupation he was a salesman, and he could be quite persuasive if not influential in the least. Many did not understand his smile due to its continuous and persistent manner. Sure, it made sense as it was fit with his character in making sales, but on or off season, it would ever be adorned as though it had been plastered upon him. For this, many called him “The Happy Masked Salesman” as none knew him by name or in any personal manner as he only interacted with the public on business. He was honestly pleased with the title and took it upon himself to name his business after it. After all, a product of his was indeed masks of mysterious depictions of great arts, life itself, moods, and some were in depiction of more abstract aspects of life regarding one’s soul and spirit: a depiction of character. The man was astute as well as vigilant with a notion of brilliance; whereby, because of his smiles and mysterious nature, many shunned him as odd and strange. But others, though few, were actually attracted to the gentleman in curiosity, yet most of his company was often attended by children of adventurous heart. In addition to his mysterious aura, it was rumored by a few how he was the ageless. For of truth, he had been present about the world for many ages under one guise or another, disappearing and returning when after being long forgotten from one generation to the next. But while the rumors ran, non could confirm its truth as he was very subtle about it.

          Within his quarters, however, he was one who kept track of history with great knowledge that excelled the most dignified scholars and the most skilled cartographers.

The salesman’s hair gleamed a bright orange, and his attire was of a noble scholarly tunic with a white collar that represented his store of knowledge, yet the tunic was of vibrant violet with a necklace crested with many jewels in signifying his status in society as a master salesman. About his quarters in the wooden shop, newly built and still in progress of furbishing, he had a quaint living environment with a few arrangements for eating, relaxation, and bedding. But there were no means of luxury, not even for recreation, save for his documents, studies, and writings. He had a wealthy library of books, most of which were formed and scribed by his own hand. To his left, at the other corner of the room, stood another desk with papers of business and calculated statistics of his business and projects. Yet before him, he attended a desk surrounded by his studious pursuits. Many works he produced of history, containing many secrets that only he knew. He told no one, and none knew of his more scholarly side. However, he would tell his stories to children here and there, but to children only. Children only got to hear his stories within a short period of their childhood in youth. The stories were always too marvelous, or beyond their years, for their parents to take them seriously in any belief, and the children would ever forget them as they grew old. But often as it may be, for those who listened closest, though the story forgotten, the lessons and truths of those stories would instill their hearts to find understanding and wisdom or to do great things.

And so the hand bears down today in recalling the line of history since events of the last ‘Great Legend’, for his spirit has been moved in this generation of time as time’s telling presents the ripening of events that should tell of the next ‘Great Legend’:

‘History, the narration of Time itself, save that it pertains specifically to the tier of Time’s “Past”.' The Masked Salesman penned. 'What many a young fellow would regard to be as irrelevant. An irony that I find so amusing since every term of reference is based upon a point of reference. For every term gives a name, and every name has meaning. Context matters. In order for any term to have meaning, it must have context whereby the term is defined. Otherwise, the meaning is lost. For “one does not know where he is if he does not know where he has been”. Just as a traveler navigates himself through the thick of the woods. As a rule of thumb he must know where he is as he wanders grounds unknown (just as one wanders the future). And he must carefully keep track, as a rule of thumb, of where he has been lest he should be lost and complete circles even if he should forget his course. Keeping track of where he has been defines where he is. For how can a man deal with the unknown if he can’t focus on what he does know? Indeed, the Past gives “Context”, defining the Present and that which follows, the Future. One cannot understand them in their more complete meaning without the context that defines them.

So then, where does it begin?

In the beginning, there were the three goddesses: Farore, Din, and Nayru.  

Together, the three created the world. Din cultivated the land and created the red earth. Nayru poured her wisdom onto the earth and gave the spirit of law to the world. Farore produced all life forms who would uphold the law.

With their work complete, the Golden Goddesses ascended to the heavens, and left to the world, the Triforce. And by it, the world had access to the divine power of the goddesses.

Whoever possessed the Triforce had the ability to shape reality and fulfill any desire.

Although the supreme power of the Triforce was created by gods, all of its power could never be wielded by a god. For the goddesses specifically designed it so that their own kind could never use its power. And this was to give hope to mortals.

The goddess, Hylia, served the three in protecting the Triforce, and in offspring of her thought, she created a race of men of noble hearts, the Hylians. And they were elflike with pointed ears. And the Hylians served Hylia.

Yet while the Triforce was not intended for immortal deities and spirits, there was one, Demise the Demon King, who sought the Triforce as he would use it to hold dominion over the world. So, Demise and his demons battled with Hylia and the Hylians. The battle waxed hot, Hylia was gravely wounded, and the Hylians came nigh to perishing from the earth while Farore’s children hid themselves. But there was also a legendary Hero who aided the goddess.

Though Hylia could not succeed in terminating the Demon King, she managed to seal him away into the earth. But that seal would eventually break as Demise was indeed powerful. It was not a victory, but rather they survived to fight another day. So, Hylia created a spirit and a sword, and that spirit resided in the sword. The remnant of the Hylians she took along with a portion of land that she tore away from the earth, and she reared them up into the sky away from Demise’s servants. And that land became known as “Skyloft”. Moreover, the Triforce was hidden therein.

As wounded as she was, Hylia would not be able to confront Demise by force again. So, she set a plan in motion as she would choose a Hero, in the future when the time would come, and the sword was set in Skyloft for him to use. And Fi, the sword’s spirit, would guide him. Additionally, Hylia gave up her immortal form, as she would become born among the Hylians in that coming generation. Hylia would be incarnate.

A thousand years passed when the events of the “Great Legend” took place. For Hylia was born among the Hylians under the name of Zelda, and her loyal friend, Link, would be her chosen Hero. And when their time was right, they were led by Fi and Impa, the Shiekah woman. For the Shiekah were a race relative to Hylians, and are agents of Hylia. Tragically, they were pursued by Girahim, the demon lord and Demise’s chief servant, even through a gate of time into the past where Demise is brought again from his prison, and Link confronted him. But Hylia blessed the sword as it grew to its full purpose as it became the Master Sword. A sword that no evil can touch as it is embued with light as it had been bathed in the three lighting fires of the Three goddesses. And when Demise came forth, he and Link dueled in a legendary battle. But Demises was defeated by the Master Sword; wherefore, as he was impressed in fall, he declared to the Hero of Sky how he was a paragon among Hylians. Yet Demise’s wrath also burned forth as his shadow expelled from him, and he gave his malice to Link and Zelda stating that their descendants would ever be pursued in tribulations that would cycle for eternity. For an incarnation of his malice would ever return to haunt them. Then as he ended, his darkness was sealed in the Master Sword, earning itself its name as “evil’s bane” and “the sword that seals the darkness”

Link, the Hero of Sky, and Zelda, Hylia incarnate, were wed and established a kingdom upon the earth. And the Hylians ruled the land over the children of Farore according to the laws of Nayru, and they safeguarded the Triforce in service to Hylia. The realm of their kingdom was called Hyrule.

Generations after the establishment of Hyrule, there was a disruption in challenge of the kingdom and the children of Farore, who the Hylians protected. For a certain people had interloped upon the land as they had practiced magic in arts that were unnatural, and they had devised their power in a Fused Shadow. With it, they devoured the lives of those they had encountered, and they exploited it as a means to obtain the Triforce for their own purposes in gain. The Interlopers’ power was overwhelming for Hyrule.

In answer to the prayers of the Hylians and the children of Farore, the goddesses banished the Interlopers into another realm of the world in parallel to its light, the Twilight Realm. For when the Hylians lived in the world of light, in a parallel dimension, the Interlopers now lived in a world of Twilight, never to return for their continuing generations. So, their descendants would physically adapt to this new realm as they would become known as the Twili. The Fused Shadow, that had given the Interlopers strength, was confiscated and split into shards. And the shards were committed into custody of spirits that watched over Hyrule as they stood ward against shadows.

Hylia had herself already, in the past, been reborn immortal, though she did not attain to her former stature. And seeing how the Triforce was at risk among the desires of mortals, Hylia had instructed the Hylians and folk of Hyrule in ordaining six sages in representing the elements of the creations of the goddesses. The sages would safeguard the Master Sword and the Triforce. The wisest of these was Rauru, and it was in direction of his counsel that they would hide the Triforce in another realm of another dimension. A realm independent of Time and Space. And so they built the Temple of Time, which keeping sanctum could only be accessed if one possessed three Spiritual Stones of Forest, Fire, and Water. Furthermore, an ocarina was made as an instrument of key value as it possessed power in the music it would play. Therefore, if the Spiritual Stones were set in place and the Song of Time was played on the Ocarina of Time, the inner sanctum could be accessed.

The inner sanctum of the Temple of Time housed the Master Sword, evil’s bane, and only the Hero, of the same spirit of the Heroes of old, could draw the sword from its dwelling place and access the Sacred Realm and the Triforce. And thus it was said that as wars for the Triforce would prove inevitable, the need for a hero would come. And that hero would prove to be the Hero of Time, the next age of the “Great Legend”

Now, as an age passed, Hyrule’s kingdom composed of an alliance of peoples, the children of Farore, in allegiance to the crown of Hyrule.

There were the Gorons of Death Mountain who gave the appearance of a rock when they roll up to conceal their presence and identity. Their main source of diet, though strange for any man to fully conceive the idea, is actually the rocks of the mountain. And as the material became of a richer ore as one digs deeper into the mountain, the more delectable it became for the folk of the mountain. Moreover, the rock was always of good supply as the mountain actively fountained volcanically in production of both crust and rich ore. They were usually a jolly tribe as they hailed each other as brothers. But eventually, they would advance as a civilization to raising their own king.

Zoras inhabited a domain in the rocky clefts to the south east where they hailed from the waters and were known as the fish people. For they were generally blue or pink in color, and grew scales upon their flesh. Fins would also grow upon their limbs wherewith they maneuvered swiftly in the fresh waters. They were a sophisticated people and were unique. Most famous the Zora were for their skill in architect. From their domain, the mountain gave mouth to the Zora river which was channeled to the city of Hyrule and eventually fed into the lake of the land, Lake Hylia. That lake was a sacred place for the Zoras as they hallowed it to Hylia’s memory.

Other spirits there were who watched over the lands and the children of Farore, save for the Gorons. For they once had Valoo the great dragon spirit who guided them, but then came the dragon Volvagia who wrested the mountain from Valoo. And Volvagia was their arch enemy who devoured Gorons. But a mighty Goron wielded a great hammer in cracking the skull of the beast. The Zoras, however, were overseen by a spirit, who they regarded as a deity, Jabba Jabba, the great fish of their domain. And only the Zora could understand him in speech when he spoke which was rare.

Then there was the Great Deku Tree who watched over the forests of the province of Faron. For in Faron stood the Lost Woods, woods of mystery where strange things happen. For the forest spirits of that wood do not take kindly to outsiders, and one who is not native to the forest will find himself in winding paths that maze. Sometimes, the path takes one someplace he did not expect or seek. Sometimes, it will take him back to where he began and had entered. Others become lost, never able to find their way. A lost man, if he cannot find his way, will become a stalfos, a living skeleton of his former self. But lost children become ‘Skull Children’ as they inhabit the woods in a wild and mischievous life.

The Great Deku Tree managed the spirits of the woods, and among the most dear, he fathered the Kokiri. The Kokiri were spirits born as children in the forest. They would grow to about the size of a ten or twelve year old Hylian, and they were eternal children as they never aged nor left the forest as they housed under the spirit of the Deku Tree. They were witty, happy, adventurous in mind, but they were also mature at heart and bore more knowledge of forest and nature than even the wise can study.

All Kokiri had fairies to help guard their minds and hearts if perhaps to give them a little more aid in wisdom. When the Great Deku Tree was in figure as their father, the child’s fairy was in figure as like a mother.

So, the Kokiri lived in great deku stumps that had been hollowed out, and thus they housed a village before the meadow of the Great Deku Tree. And they would frolic and play for either merriment or mischief before the great tree. However, according to the word of the Deku Tree, they could not leave the forest into the rest of the world or they would die. Why that was? No one knew, nor did the tree elaborate, not with a single soul.

Sigh…the story of the Kokiri is actually quite the mystery to many of us in Hyrule. And few there are who are at all acquainted with them.

And yet now shadow looms over many hearts in unease. For sorrow lingers after a Fierce War. Sigh, even the queen mother of Hyrule fell in fatality of it. Though even now, our enemy speaks peace with us, and yet this only seems to be a respite before a great peril that grows against Hyrule. So ready are Hylians for peace that they have become blind from being capable of discriminating between darkness and light and to discern ill intent. The princess Zelda, who bears the legacy of Hylia’s blood, knows this full well.

Yet while darkness pervades to blind and daunt all in Hyrule, it has yet to prevail upon the mysterious forest, though I alone perceive it. Yes, the narration of time ripens as the next “Great Legend” draws near. The Hero of Time will awake and shape the fate of the world in name above any hero in the land so that there shall be none like him, neither before nor after him. But where shall he rise? Aye, it would seem that great deeds will awake from those unlooked for and help rise from where it is least expected. If any could understand the signs, they would indeed look to his coming. But not yet, for still he sleeps and abides in the most humble of abodes.

A Boy of the Forest.'