He sternly reminded himself not to think of anything unnecessary as he carefully studied each of the food vendors in turn. Deciding what to try for was always the hardest part for Link; especially now since he hadn’t eaten in two days, and everything looked good and smelled better. Yet he had to choose carefully because if he got something too small everyone would still be hungry when it was gone, but if he went for something too big it would be almost impossible to get away clean. Bread would be best, since it was filling and a little could go a long way, but the only loaves he saw on display were of the long, stick-like variety, which were impossible to hide. The dense, round loaves he sometimes saw were easier, because he could slip them in his dingy, ill-fitting tunic, and he would just look like a starving orphan whose stomach had been unnaturally bloated by malnutrition. Link had even spent hours of practice on convincingly acting the part, and had met with great success on several occasions. His staggering, empty-eyed gait was so authentic, in fact, that some people had even hurried to get out of his way; convinced he was bearing some dreadful plague.

More important than choosing what, however, was choosing who to steal from, because, while some merchants would give you a hard smack so you wouldn’t choose their stall next time, others would beat you so badly you never got a next time. Link shuddered as he remembered all the times he had come across beggars and other orphans, lying broken and bloodied in the street, and, as their lifeblood drained away, passers-by would step over or around them, never giving a second thought to the life that had just been snuffed out. During those moments he was always overcome by grief, sympathy, and a seething rage at the horrible injustice of the world, and he knew that all it would take was one bad day for it to be him laying dead in the gutter as people calmly strolled by without a second glance.

Shaking his head vigorously to clear away the depressing thoughts, Link once again focused his attention on the task at hand, and, making his decision, darted into the crowded avenue. Keeping his head low, he drifted this way and that, following the currents of the crowd, and slowly made his way for his chosen target; a man, lazing about beside his stall filled with nuts and dried fruit, who had the sunken cheeks and glazed eyes of someone high on milkflower sap; a weed-like, thick stemmed flower whose sap produced a powerful narcotic effect when swallowed. Link’s lop-sided grin made a brief appearance. It didn’t get much easier than that, because he could sneak in, shovel a few handfuls of the stuff into his small sack, and run off before the addict even knew he was there.

Heart hammering in his chest, Link darted out of the crowd when he was close enough, and hurriedly set about shoving all the food he could get his hands one into the small sack that was one of his few possessions. It didn’t take long. Just a few seconds and the bag was completely full, and all the while the merchant just grinned stupidly at the ground. Still, Link didn’t breathe easy until he was safely back in his alley, spoils in hand.

Grinning happily as he inspected his haul, Link couldn’t help but feel a little smug. And Layfa thought I needed help, he thought to himself. There was enough food here to get all four of them through the day.

Layfa was Link’s best friend, and, at nine years old, she was one year his junior. Sadly, even though she was younger than him, she was already a few inches taller; a fact that she reminded him of every time she got the chance. He always replied that, while she might be taller, she was also skinny as a rail, and gangly as a wall spider, which never failed get a rise out of her. Still, he had to admit – to himself if no one else – that he got a warm feeling in his chest whenever he thought about her. She was just so full of life. So happy in spite of their dismal circumstances. When he was around her he couldn’t help but feel that everything was going to be okay.

Thinking about her led Link to recall the events of the day before, when she had stormed up to him and demanded that he let her help with getting food. Hunger and lack of sleep had eaten away at him and put him in a rush, and because of it he had had a string of unsuccessful robberies of the past couple of days.

After one such failed theft, Layfa and the others had found him nursing a broken nose. She had marched up to him, and, without preamble, said, “Link, teach me how to steal.”

“What?” he asked, not sure if he had heard her correctly. Although because he was pinching his nose shut to keep blood from dribbling down the front of his tunic, it came out slightly garbled

“You heard me. Teach me how to steal.” she said, clearly irritated at having to repeat herself.

“Why do you want to learn how to steal?” Link asked.

“Because you need help.” she stated matter-of-factly.

“Do not!” he yelled back, getting irrationally angry, “Besides, you’re a girl! You’d only mess it up anyway!”

Layfa’s temper flared in response to the harsh words, and she got right in his face, screaming, “Would not! You take that back, Link!”

“No!” he shouted, his hands involuntarily forming fists at his sides, “You just watch! I can get more than enough to feed all of us, you octorok kisser!”

Layfa’s head snapped back, as if the insult had been a physical blow, and tears began streaming down her cheeks even as her face went red with fury. Link had already opened his mouth to hurl more insults at the infuriating girl when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the two younger children, Jarec and Elfin, crying openly. He took a deep breath and unclenched his fists, trying to force himself to calm down so he wouldn’t scare the little ones.

Jarec and Elfin were twin siblings who Link and Layfa had taken in, and, at five years old, they idolized the two older children; seeing them more as parental figures than friends. He remembered the day they had found them, wailing pitifully in the streets several months before. For reasons no one could guess, their mother had brought them down to the slums, and had simply left them there. He hadn’t wanted to get involved, but Layfa had completely ignored all his arguments, giving what little food they had to the crying children and telling them not to worry, because she was going to take care of them from now on. In his more uncharitable moments, Link thought that when she said she would take care of them she had really meant he would take care of them. But when he looked into their wide, adoring eyes, he was secretly glad she did. Even if he would never admit to it openly.

When he saw the two young boys crying, Link instantly felt contrite and regretted his too harsh words, so he adopted a gentler tone, and said, “You don’t get it, Lay, I’ve seen what they do to girls who get caught stealing. They don’t always just hit them. Sometimes they do…things…to them first, and I’m not going to let that happen to you.”

Layfa drew in a shuddering breath and dried her tears on the sleeve of her shirt, and replied in a shaky voice, “I know, Link, but lately you’ve just looked so…so tired, and it scares me to think that you might get sick.”

Link had to cringe at that. He wasn’t just tired; he was completely exhausted, and even he was starting to worry that he might come down with something, and down here getting sick was pretty much a death sentence.

“I’ll tell you what, Lay,” Link said, desperately hoping she would accept the compromise so they could avoid further arguing, “I will spend the rest of the day and the whole night resting so I don’t get sick, and tomorrow I will get so much food that we’ll be able to eat like kings.”

Layfa hadn’t looked convinced, but after a significant pause, she had nodded, saying, “Okay, Link, I guess that’ll do.”

When Link came back to himself, he realized he must have been lost in thought for some time, because his back was stiff and his legs were starting to go numb from crouching in an awkward position for so long. Standing up, he cinched the bag of food closed with a length of thick twine so that none would spill out, and he was just about to leave to rejoin his friends, when an unpleasant thought occurred to him. Layfa had always had one hell of a stubborn streak, and, in all the years Link had known her, she had never given up an argument that easily even once. Now that he thought about it, it seemed likely that she had agreed only for the sake of keeping the peace, and fully intended to try her hand at thievery. With or without his help.

Starting to panic, Link once again rushed to the mouth of the alley and began scanning the bazaar intently. A flash of movement that seemed somehow out of place drew his attention, and sure enough. He spotted Layfa attempting, rather clumsily, to sneak up to a stall selling a wide variety of cheeses, and in her inexperience she had targeted Aleppo. The most vicious merchant of them all.

He was a tall, lanky man with big, knobby knees and wrists. Add to that his sallow skin and fever-bright eyes, and he looked like nothing so much as a scarecrow made from a human corpse. The ever-present, cruel smile that twisted his features did nothing to improve his image either. Link could see him busily regaling the owner of the stall next to his with grandiose tales of how he regularly did business with the royal family, and could come and go from castle town at his leisure. Aleppo may have fancied himself some world-class merchant, but everyone knew he was just a hawker and a fence; no better than the rest of them.

The bastard didn’t seem to have noticed Layfa yet, and Link only hoped he could get to her in time to steer her away before he did. Aleppo loved nothing more than catching would-be thieves in the act. He always made a grand spectacle of beating them to death on the spot, and even kept a wooden plank with rusted iron nails jutting out of it at various angles specifically for that purpose.

Link quickly ran back into the crowds milling about in the road, but, in his haste, didn’t pay attention to where he was stepping. He went sprawling face-first to the ground after tripping on one of the many clumps of weeds that had wormed their way up through the cracks in the weathered flagstones that paved the road, and was promptly kicked in the face by an adult who didn’t see him as they walked by. Link’s mouth quickly filled with the taste of copper, and, standing up shakily, he spat blood onto the dusty ground before continuing on his way. When he finally broke through the crowd, however, he realized that he was too late. Aleppo had a hold on Layfa by one of her delicate wrists as she struggled desperately to get away, and he was already reaching for the nasty wooden plank with his free hand.

“Aleppo, wait!” Link called out just as the merchant raised the nail-studded plank high to deliver the first blow.

Both Aleppo and Layfa’s heads whipped around at the sound of his voice. He with blood-lust gleaming in his sunken eyes, and she with sheer terror and a small, desperate hope.

“Well, well, well. If it ain’t yer lordship, comin’ down to mingle with us peasants,” Aleppo purred, “Am I to take it that ye know this thievin’ whore?”

Link gritted his teeth at hearing the nickname he hated, and his hand unconsciously went to his long, greasy hair, making sure it still covered the sharply pointed ears that marked him as a hylian. With racism running rampant throughout the kingdom, it didn’t pay to be a hylian in the human part of town. Especially here in the slums where most of those humans were downtrodden wretches eager for a little revenge against their hylian oppressors. Before Link had learned to hide his ears, getting beaten up had been a fairly regular occurrence.

Deciding to return insult with insult, Link replied, “Yeah, Niner, I know her. What’s it to you?”

Link had the satisfaction of seeing his twisted smirk falter, just for an instant, before it was once again plastered across his face. If anything, Aleppo hated his nickname even more than Link. He was called that because he was missing the pinky of his left hand, courtesy of a serving wench he had gotten too frisky with some years ago.

“Well why are ye here, boy?” Aleppo asked with a sneer, “Did ye come so ye’d have a front row seat while I bash ‘er brains in? Yer a nastier boy than I thought.”

“There’s no point in beating her, Niner,” Link replied, thinking quickly, “she only did it because I told her to. So if you’re gonna hit someone, hit me.”

“Oh? Is that right?”

“Yeah it is,” Link replied, and he threw a quick glance at Layfa, silently begging her to stay quiet, “I got tired of feeding her all the time so I made her try her hand at stealing some of your cheese.”

Layfa’s eyes widened with renewed horror as his words sank in and she realized what he was trying to do, and she started babbling, “No, Link, don’t! I’m really, really sorry. I didn’t realize this wa-”

“Shut up, Lay!” Link snapped, cutting her off mid-sentence

Aleppo, who had watched their brief exchange with amusement, finally interjected, “Stupid boy. Even if I believe ye that doesn’t mean I’d let the girl go. It just means I get to kill two little guttershites for the price o’ one.”

Layfa began sobbing quietly at his words, and Link was getting desperate, so he said the first thing that came to mind, “would you be willing to let us go if I gave you something valuable enough to make it worth your while?”

Aleppo’s curiosity was piqued, and he said, “May-hap I will. Let’s see what ye have, boy.”

“I don’t have anything yet, but I can get something.”

“Bah! I don’t work on credit boy! Either ye show me something now or deal’s off!”

Link doggedly continued on, saying, “Tell me something, Aleppo, I always hear you boasting about your dealings with the royal family…does anyone actually believe your tales?”

The man’s grimace told Link that, indeed, they did not. So he leaned in and whispered conspiratorially, “You know, a signet ring from a member of the royal family would go a long way towards convincing people you are who you claim to be.”

“Yer bluffin’,” Aleppo scoffed, “There’s no chance in hell ye could pull that off.”

“You know I can do it,” Link said, “I’m quick enough and smart enough. Do we have a deal?”

“And if I refuse?” Aleppo asked.

“Then you refuse,” Link replied, and something in his voice made the sadistic merchant stop and take notice, “But if you do decide to kill us here, just know that I’m going to make you work for it, and, if I’m lucky, maybe I’ll take you with me.”

Having made the threat, Link’s hand blurred, and reappeared holding a small knife. Aleppo’s eyes widened slightly, telling Link that the man was surprised at his speed.

Aleppo shifted back and forth nervously for a few seconds before saying, “Bah! Fine ye little rat, we’ve got a deal!”

“Excellent!” Link replied brightly as he grabbed Layfa’s free hand and turned to leave. His heart was pounding away in his chest and he felt like he might pass out at any moment, but it seemed like they were going to make it out in one piece after all.

“Not so fast,” Aleppo said, his malicious smile back in place, “the girl stays with me as insurance. Can’t have ye skippin’ out the moment ye’re out of me sight.”

Layfa let out a low wail at his words, and Link started to despair, but he forced himself to remain perfectly calm as he said, “Fine, but if she has so much as a bruise when I get back; I’ll cut your throat if it’s the last thing I do.”

Aleppo let out a loud, cackling laugh at that and said, “Certainly, boy, certainly. Ye have five days to get me the ring. After that I can’t guarantee the girl’s safety.”

“Fine.” Link growled as he turned to walk away, Layfa crying mournfully at his back.

Just as he was about to round the corner, Aleppo threw some parting words his way, saying, “Don’t disappoint me, yer lordship!”

Link ignored him and kept walking. As soon as he was out of sight, though, he broke into a run, already making plans. He had five days to pull of a nearly impossible theft or his best friend was going to die, but he wouldn’t allow himself to give in to his doubts. His plan was finally taking shape, and if he was going to make it before the deadline, he was going to have to start putting into action right now.

It was time to get to work.