While she could avoid the gruesome sight of their mangled bodies by closing her eyes, there was no way for Jylene to avoid the smell of burning flesh. Attempting to hold her breath only exacerbated her predicament. She turned her gaze to the only spot not softly glowing with the dying embers of charred bodies. There he stood, the child warrior, Link. After his display of poise, skill and power in the face of the band of highway men, Jylene found his claims of being a simple tracker, laughable to say the least. Appraising him for what had to be the dozenth time this night, she took note of how his muscles relaxed and his eyes though still alert, lost their hard edge that had brought fear into the hearts of grown men, twice even three times his size.

He must have felt her scrutiny, as he turned to face her, his expression one of innocence and curiosity. It was a strange sight indeed, when you considered the corpses around them. Link saw the Termina Princess about to say something and decided to head off any questions she might have had. Odds were good the questions would be about him, not one of his preferred subjects. “We should get going. If we follow the river, we should eventually…”

“Whatever you think is best,” Jylene interrupted. The boy had long since won her trust in such matters. She took two hesitant steps toward him, wanting to know more about the young man, not only for the sake of Termina, but her own growing curiosity and need. “Link,” she started to say and reach out timid hand to him, but that was as far as that conversation was allowed to proceed.

“Link!” For such tiny beings, fairies could project when they wanted to. Both Jylene and Link turned in the direction of the excited voice to see two glowing balls of light head in their direction. Link had recognized the voice and knew the green glow to be his friend and companion, Navi. He couldn’t recall ever seeing a fairy with a golden glow.

Jylene could not prevent a pout from darkening her face as she watched the boyish smile blossom on Link’s face as he quickly left her side to join the two fairies. They could hardly be considered a rescue party. They were just fairies after all. More to the point, they had interrupted her conversation.

Jylene was not the only one angered by the display in front of them as Feylin begrudgingly held her own emotions in check. After all she and Link had yet to be properly introduced, at least in her true form. Link continued to smile as Navi quickly circled around his head down to his feet, giving him a quick inspection. Jylene took note that neither of the two fairies seemed disturbed by the carnage of the scene. While the majority of the brigands had survived the encounter, many still lay unmoving with third degree burns. Perhaps fairies were used to the smell of cooked flesh.

“Heard you got eaten by a Wolfos,” Navi began teasingly. From her inspection he didn’t appear to have any lasting injuries, not that she expected to find any.

Link smirked but didn’t take the bait. “You know the way back? We should get the princess back before more of Hyrule’s finer citizens show up.”

“I see,” Navi commented examining the corpse of one of the robbers. Jylene was beginning to feel like an intruder or an unwanted guest, which to at least two of those present was not far from the truth. As a princess, she could not recall a time when she had been ignored like this. It was not a feeling she approved of. She was thinking of ways to reinsert herself into the conversation, when Link’s fairy Navi worked a piece of magic that left Jylene stunned.

She hadn’t quite heard the incantation or even understood the language she did hear, but the body of robber and would be rapist that Navi had been floating over suddenly burst in a display of energy that then flew into Link. The only thing that remained was dust. “What? What was that? What did you do?” Jylene asked with both wonder and dread.

Navi ignored the question and repeated the procedure with another body. Finally, Jylene noticed that some of the cuts and abrasions Link had on his face had disappeared. For reasons she did not understand, her dread continued to build. There was just something wrong with what she was seeing… something dark.

Feylin nodded her head in approval, both at Link’s absorbing of the remaining life force in his defeated enemies and at Princess Jylene’s confusion and slight revulsion of the display. It was a very old magic, older than some of the rocks that strewn the ground. She could count the people who knew it on one hand. The defeated deserved their fate