Days bled into one another under the relentless, indifferent gaze of the desert sun. A new and arduous routine settled over the forge, a tense duet played out in heat and silence. From the first light of dawn until the last embers of dusk faded in the furnace, Korgon worked, his colossal hammer rising and falling in a rhythmic, earth-shaking beat. He hammered out great, crude blades for monster hunters and reinforced shields for the few Gerudo caravans brave enough to still travel the Ashen Plains. And through it all, he pointedly, resolutely, ignored the small boy who had made the forge's dusty entrance his home.
Link did not waver. He accepted the Goron's silence as a challenge, a wall to be worn down not with words, but with unwavering persistence. He made himself useful. He rose before Korgon, hauling the heavy buckets of water needed for the quenching barrels. He sharpened every tool in the forge, from the smallest chisel to the largest axe, his work at the grinding wheel a quiet, constant whisper against the roar of the furnace. He swept the forge, organized the scattered piles of scrap metal, and learned to patch the great leather bellows, his small, nimble fingers doing the fine stitching work Korgon's rocky digits could not.
He endured. The days were a blistering ordeal, the sun a hammer that beat down on the anvil of the plains. The nights were a sudden, biting cold that seeped deep into his bones. He ate sparingly, foraging for what little sustenance the harsh land offered, and slept curled in his cloak in the shelter of the forge's entrance. Korgon watched him from the corner of his fiery eye, a flicker of grudging respect warring with his deep-seated cynicism. He was waiting for the Hylian twig to snap, to give up and flee the harshness of his world. But the boy did not snap. He bent, he endured, and he remained.
The turning point came after a week of this silent standoff. A critical leather strap on the great bellows, dried and cracked by the heat, finally split with a loud tearing sound. The furnace, starved of air, began to dim. Korgon let out a furious roar of frustration, yanking the broken strap free. It was a complex piece of harnessing, and he was about to hurl it into the scrap pile in disgust.
Before he could, Link stepped forward, his hand outstretched. Korgon hesitated, then slapped the broken leather into the boy's small hands with a grunt. "Useless," he growled.
Link said nothing. He took the strap to a sunlit patch of ground and sat down. He took out a small leatherworking kit from his own pack—a simple set of tools for mending his shepherd's gear. For an hour, he worked. His hands moved with a focused, patient precision, stitching the thick, oiled leather with a practiced skill. He reinforced the weak points, his work neat and strong. When he was done, the strap was no longer just repaired; it was stronger than it had been before. He walked back to the bellows and, without a word, began the complicated process of reattaching it.
Korgon watched, his hammering forgotten. He watched the boy's sure, competent movements, the quiet dignity of his labor. He saw not a child seeking glory, but a craftsman taking pride in his work. When the bellows were fixed, Link gave the handle a few experimental pumps. A great rush of air blasted into the furnace, and the coals roared back to brilliant, white-hot life.
The Goron grunted, the sound a low rumble in his great chest. It was the closest he had come to a word of praise, a small, hard-won crack in the wall of his dismissal.
That evening, as the sun bled a violent orange across the horizon, the true test arrived. They came with no warning, a slithering, screeching pack of them, emerging from the cracks and crevices of the canyon. Lizalfos. Fast, reptilian warriors with scythe-like claws and cruel, intelligent eyes that glowed with the familiar red taint of the shadow. They were drawn to the forge, to the renewed activity, to the faint, dormant power that slept in the rocks nearby.
Korgon reacted with the explosive fury of a dormant volcano. He dropped the sword he was working on and seized a colossal, two-handed war hammer from the wall, its head a solid block of iron. "Get inside the cave, boy!" he roared, his voice a battle cry that echoed through the canyon. "And bar the door! This is no place for you!" He fully expected to fight this battle alone.
But Link did not run.
He drew his own small sword, its blade a sliver of silver in the firelight. He strapped his father's steel buckler to his left arm and took up a defensive stance near the entrance of the forge, his back to the furnace, his face a mask of calm, deadly focus.
Korgon had no time to argue. The first Lizalfos lunged, its claws extended. The Goron met it with a deafening, horizontal swing of his war hammer that turned the creature into a cloud of green mist and shattered rock. He was a force of nature, a whirlwind of destruction, each blow landing with the force of a landslide. But the Lizalfos were fast, their movements a blur. They swarmed him, their numbers a quick, green tide, their blades and claws scraping uselessly against his rocky hide as they tried to overwhelm him with sheer ferocity.
It was then that Korgon realized he was not fighting alone. A flash of brilliant white light erupted from his left flank. A Lizalfos that had been about to leap onto his back shrieked and fell, blinded and stunned by the magic of Link's enchanted shield. From his right, a sharp whizz cut the air, and a monster perched on a high ledge, preparing to spit a glob of acid, tumbled down with a slingshot stone embedded in its snout.
The boy was not cowering. He was fighting. He moved around the larger battle like a hornet, a constant, stinging distraction. He was not meeting the creatures' strength with his own; he was using his speed and his wits. He darted in to slice a tendon in a creature's leg, disabling it, then danced away before its companion could retaliate. He was protecting Korgon's flanks, seeing the threats the great Goron, in his focused fury, was missing.
One of the larger Lizalfos, its scales a darker shade of green, saw its chance. It ignored the rampaging Goron and lunged for the easier prey, a blur of claws and teeth aimed directly at Link.
Korgon bellowed, turning to intercept, but he was too slow.
Link did not panic. His training, his battles, his very nature, all came into focus in that single, crystalline moment. He parried the creature's initial lunge with his sword, the impact jarring but held. He used his father's steel buckler to block a vicious slash from the creature's free hand, the screech of claw on steel setting his teeth on edge. He did not try to push it back. Instead, he used the creature's own forward momentum, pivoting on his heel and shoving with his shield, deflecting the beast's charge. The Lizalfos, unbalanced and overextended, stumbled past him, straight into the roaring, open maw of the forge's fire pit. It let out one, horrifying, piercing shriek before it was consumed by the flames.
The battle ended a moment later. The remaining Lizalfos, seeing their champion defeated and their numbers dwindling, broke and fled back into the canyons.
Silence fell, broken only by the crackle of the forge and the heavy, rasping breaths of the Goron. Korgon stood amidst the wreckage, leaning on his great hammer. He was unharmed, but he knew, with absolute certainty, that the fight would have been longer, harder, and its outcome less certain, without the impossible courage of the boy.
He turned and looked at Link. The boy was not celebrating his victory. He was staring into the fire pit, at the smoldering remains of the creature he had sent there. His expression was not one of triumph. It was one of somber, grim necessity.
And in that moment, Korgon finally, truly saw him. He saw the unbreakable spirit. He saw the fierce, protective heart of a shepherd defending his flock. He saw the cold, clear eyes of a warrior who fought not for glory, but out of a deep and terrible duty. This was the spirit the Great Deku Tree had shown him in his vision.
A long, slow breath, like the sound of gravel settling after a landslide, escaped the Goron's chest. "The Great Tree..." he rumbled, the name a reverent whisper on his tongue. "...it showed me a hero's spirit in the body of a child. I thought it was a riddle." He looked at Link, and for the first time, his fiery eyes held no cynicism, only a deep and profound respect. "I was wrong. It was a warning."
He walked over to Link and placed a hand the size of a shield on the boy's small shoulder. The weight was immense, but it was a gesture of acceptance, of alliance. "You have a good heart, boy. A brave one. Like your father, whoever he was. But a good heart in this world is just an easy target."
A slow, cracking grin, the first Link had seen, spread across his rocky face. "Let's see if we can make you strong enough to protect it."
He turned and looked into the forge, his eyes blazing with a new, rekindled purpose.
"The real work begins at dawn."