Archive of Our Own ^beta

Aryll knew her brother could See things.

Once, twice, thrice, she’d caught her brother staring at nothing for a moment too long, sometimes he just looked like he was following the path of a butterfly that wasn’t there, other times he’d go pale and not look again until long after she and Link left.

Grandma told her not to ask about what Link saw unless he brought it up first.

Link never did, so Aryll never asked, but if she pointed out a pretty or funny thing whenever he looked like he’d seen a ghost so he didn’t have to look. Well, he never mentioned that either, so neither did Aryll.

Once, maybe twice, late at night, he came home crying. He told Grandma that he had seen someone scary, but they weren’t scary because of something they did or how they looked. He said they were scary because of something that happened to them.

Aryll didn’t understand how someone could be scary because of what happened to them. Wouldn’t the thing that happened be what was scary?

Aryll had wanted to ask, or at least comfort her big brother, but she’d been up way past her bedtime and she didn’t want to get in trouble, so she’d went to bed.

Once, just once, Link told her about what he saw. He said he saw people, old people, but they didn’t always look old. He said they looked blue and see-through, and that they shouldn’t be there, but they had to be for some reason.

Why do they have to be there if they aren’t supposed to be? She’d asked,

Because they need to do something, He’d said. But usually they can’t do what they need to, so they just.. Wander. Sometimes I can help them, and then they disappear when I do, but...

He’d trailed off then. Aryll didn’t pry, so they’d just looked at the stars until it was bedtime.




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Aryll hadn’t known she could Feel things.

Not for a while anyway,

How was she supposed to know it wasn’t normal to be able to hold something and just Know what it had gone through?

Sometimes knowing what something had been through was comforting, like when she held her spyglass and felt the way her mom’s hands once wrapped around the wood, she could almost imagine her mom was wrapping her own hands around it, showing her how to hold it just so.

And when she looked through the glass she swore for a moment she could see distant islands, places her mother had been to and spied with the glass, and later on, what her brother had seen with it.

Sometimes it was overwhelming. Like when Tetra threw her a loose bag of rupees and it had spilled, she’d tried to pick them up, but every gem had so many feelings in them, different enough that she heard them all and similar enough that she couldn’t sort through them, instead they echoed off each other so loudly she could barely hear the ship around her until she managed to shove them back in the bag so she wasn’t touching and hearing them anymore.

Sometimes it was useful, like when Link sent her to open up a few bottles of something or other they’d gotten from Tetra. But the bottles hadn’t been closed with cork or tops or anything Aryll knew how to open.

She’d gone back and asked Link how to open them, he’d said something about a bottle opener, which was apparently wrench shaped.

She’d searched through their little toolbox, running her hands over the items until she recognized a pop-fizzle-pour that felt like opening a cork stopper, and triumphantly returned with the opened bottles.



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Aryll had just been discovering she could Feel things others couldn’t when the Helmerock King swept her away from Outset, away from Grandma, away from Link. Away, away, away.

Aryll tried to be strong her first night but, stuck in the lonely cold wooden cage before the other two girls were brought there too, she couldn’t help but cry.

She wanted her brother, she wanted Grandma, she wanted anyone to hold her and tell her it was a bad dream, that she’d wake up and it would’ve never happened at all.

She didn’t quite get her wish, but she did get something, some one who helped.

She woke up somewhere in the night, the feeling of what felt like warm mist carding through her hair. She opened her bleary eyes and looked up, up, up at the person sitting above her.

For a moment she thought she was Seeing the way her brother did, the person— woman? Was see-through the way Link said the people he saw were, but the lady above her wasn’t blue and pale like Link told her they always were, instead she was hazy, and almost pink-ish? It was too dark for Aryll to be sure, she couldn’t even see the lady’s face properly.

But she could make out a sundress like hers, and a large flower like the one on her dress in long, long hair that should’ve tickled Aryll’s nose, but seemed to trail into nothing before it could.

The lady shifted a bit and Aryll realized she was staring.

Aryll tried to sit up, but the cold stone floor made her achy and stiff, so it took a little while. She could tell the lady tried to help, but her hands only passed through her like warm air.

Once she was sitting up, Aryll and the lady seemed to find their voices at the same time.

“Who’re-”

“Are yo-”

They paused.

“..Are you okay?” The lady continued after a moment, concern and confusion written on her face.

Aryll didn’t know how to answer that. Her knee-jerk reaction was to say ‘fine’ the way you did every time someone you didn't know asked, but she was trapped in a wooden cage at the bottom of some weird pit because a giant, stupid, terrifying bird swept her off the ground and over the ocean away for her home. She wasn’t fine.

The lady seemed to realize this too, the longer it took for Aryll to reply.

“Okay, yeah, that was kind of a stupid question huh?” She said, glancing at the bare floor, the barred walls, Aryll’s own tear marked face.

“..Mhm.” Aryll mumbled, tears threatening to return.

The lady seemed to think for a moment, brows drawn together and a hand fidgeting with her dress, Aryll noticed her eyes were brown.

“Alright, let’s try something different.” She started,

“My name’s Marin, I’m not really sure how I got here, or where here is. The last thing I remember is, well. Nothing? I mean, I remember but— ugh, that’s not the point.”

The lady —Marin, paused, gathering herself again before starting a third time.

“ The point is. My name is Marin, and I want to help you if I can. What’s your name?”

Oh, Aryll thought. No wonder she hadn’t questioned if she could trust this strange lady, she was already so nice.

She didn’t even know Aryll’s name yet and her first thought was to run her hands through her hair, an attempt at comfort that made her think of Grandma.

The tears that were threatening before had receded as Marin spoke, but now they returned full force. At least now they weren’t only tears of sadness.

Marin looked panicked as Aryll started to cry, especially when she leaned forward, trying to hug Marin —and passed right through her.

Marin tried to catch her, and when that failed, curled around her as best she could without phasing through Aryll.

Aryll cried harder as she felt Marin’s ghostly warmth around her, staving off the cold of the cobblestone and open air.

She wanted Grandma, she wanted Link, she wouldn’t get either of them.

She wanted to leave the wood cage she was in and just climb up out of this hole and look at the stars with her big brother, even if it was just on the rim of the pit she was in, anything would be better than only the small disk of sky above her and the cold floor beneath her.

Aryll leaned more into Marin, or, well, attempted to, it was the thought that counted.

As the stars turned above them Aryll slowly calmed down, enough to lean back

(Right through Marin’s arms) and remember Marin’s question.

“My—my name’s Aryll.” She said with a final sniffle.

Marin smiled, “That’s a pretty name, Aryll.”

And as the night went on, the two talked, trying to puzzle out how Marin was there.

Aryll explained her Feeling and Link’s Sight as best as an eight year old could, and how she’d ended up in the wooden cage.

Marin told Aryll what she knew as well, that there should only be one person left who remembered her, that maybe because Aryll could feel memories she might be able to see one like Marin too.

But they couldn’t explain why Marin was only there now, Aryll had never Seen before and there was no telling how long Marin had been drifting, only existing on a technicality.

Ultimately, they didn’t get far on that front, but Marin was determined to stick around no matter why she was there.

Slowly, slowly, the night turned to day, and Aryll fell asleep for a while, and then it was night again, then day, then night, again and again.

On one of those days the other girls were brought there by the Helmaroc King.

Once they were there Marin and Aryll could only talk when the two girls were sleeping, they bickered so much Aryll dared not risk gaining their attention,  especially not to risk making them think she was crazy.

But just Marin being there made things so much easier than they might’ve been, a warm hand hovering where it would usually rest on her shoulder but no less comforting.

A hazy, pinkish form to follow when looking up at the patch of sky above was too much.

And a calming voice, heard by no one but her that distracted with stories of a pink haired boy with a sword and shield.

Eventually, Link came, he came to finally take her home, home, home.

Marin never left, she kept Aryll company when she couldn’t sleep from the rocking of Tetra’s ship.

Marin stayed and returned Aryll’s look of delight when Link came home.

Marin watched, as nine boys and men stumbled through a portal onto Outset, and giggled with Aryll at their nicknames, especially Link’s —or, Wind’s.

Marin smiled, melancholy, at the boy with pink hair. Aryll didn’t understand why the boy made her sad, but he was gentle with her beloved gulls, and Marin never seemed upset with him, so Aryll didn’t say anything.

And one day, while Link, Wind, her brother, was still off with those eight Heroes, Aryll felt a tingle in her hands, like her Feeling, but more like she was feeling something that was to come rather than long past, she turned to Marin and said,

“I want to find out why you’re here.”

Marin just nodded, and watched patiently as Aryll packed her things, helped her spell the word she couldn’t remember in her letter telling Grandma where she was, and pointed out the gate to somewhere new standing just in the forest of their little island.