Twink still has enough money left to give the game another try, but the poor lad needs to recover what’s left of his dignity before that. I mean, if you’re already a shitty shot, having no confidence on top of that is not going to help matters. I’m not talking about myself here or anything. It’s all Twink. So he leaves the gallery and promptly runs into a little girl with long red hair and a vacant expression. The little girl is sharp enough to realize that nobody in Hyrule Castle Town dresses like a pantsless Peter Pan, and deduces that Twink must be new to the big city. After about twenty ellipses, she concludes, “Ohh… You’re a fairy boy from the forest!” Gee, what gave it away, all the green? Or the jittery little ball of light bobbing around behind his shoulder? The girl introduces herself as Malon, and name-drops that her father is the owner of a place called Lon Lon Ranch. Though it’s not much of a name-drop, when Twink has no clue what Lon Lon Ranch is. Maybe it’s a dude ranch? With dudes? Ranching? Twink’s hopes flutter further into the skies when Malon adds, “Dad went to the castle to deliver some milk, and he hasn’t come back…” Twink’s imagination now has Malon’s father firmly rooted in the Porno Delivery Man category. Though it’s kind of creepy that he’s making his daughter wait for him while he attends to his…business.
This is, of course, Twink’s cue to head toward the castle itself and meet Malon’s hopefully studly dad…oh, and talk to Princess Zelda. Whatever. We know where that ranks on Twink’s priority list. But before Twink can get to either of his errands at Hyrule Castle, he is again stopped in his tracks by Blathers the Owl, perched on a tree up ahead. “Hey, Twink! This way!” cries Blathers, who has turned his head entirely upside down just to fuck with Twink’s mind. Blathers feels the need to tell Twink that Princess Zelda is in the castle–you don’t say, Blathers–and that he needs to be careful not to get caught by the castle guards, adding a “Ho ho ho hoot!” Blathers loses me for a minute here–Twink is the special messenger sent by the Great Dicku Tree himself! Shouldn’t Twink be able to march right up to the castle guards, whip out the Kokiri Emerald and demand an audience with the princess? But then I get a hold of myself and realize that, even in the fantastic land of Hyrule, there are plenty of people who think talking trees and fairy boys are just way too out there to be real, and that Twink would get laughed out of town if he took this approach. Sneaking past the guards it is!
Oh, while I was failing at fanwanking, Blathers was still talking. Surprise. Something about the flow of time here in an open area versus the flow of time in towns and such. I like that Blathers doesn’t even try to come up with some half-assed in-game explanation of why time stops if you’re in a town. He’s just all, “It’s like this, so you’ll have to exit town if you want the sun to come up ever again. Deal with it.” And with that bit of uselessness, the owl takes off again, no doubt to wait, spinning his head like Linda Blair, at the next bare tree Twink will come across in his adventures.
The guard at the gate down the dirt road basically tells Twink that he’s too lame to see Princess Zelda and that he should go home. Well, that was unexpected. Twink shrugs and heads back the way he came, only to find some convenient vines snaking up the towering cliff to the right of the gate. The perfect solution to Twink’s problem, except that they’re currently being blocked by young Miss Malon. Talking to this girl again was not part of the plan. Sigh.
Malon, again using that big ol’ brain of hers, has figured out that Twink is trying to get into the castle. “Would you mind finding my dad?” she asks. “He must have fallen asleep somewhere around the castle. What a thing for an adult to do! Tee hee!” If Malon knew what had worn out her dad so much that he’d fall asleep in the middle of the castle, I’m sure she wouldn’t find it very funny. She then propositions Twink, “Oh yeah, if you look for him, I’ll give this to you.” Yikes! “I’ve been incubating this egg very carefully… Tee hee!” she adds. Triple yikes! Run, Twink!
Of course, Malon is actually talking about an egg of the white-shelled, chicken variety, not something she wants to combine with Twink’s panic-stricken sperm. She hands over the Weird Egg, which the Disembodied Item Describer says feels like there’s “something moving inside.” The way things have been going, my money’s on a full-grown Moblin hatching out of there and attacking Twink. How about you guys?
Loading ...As we transition from dusk to nighttime, Twink leaves Malon, who seems to be bobbing along to the beat of a song only she can hear, and runs to something surely more appealing to him than Egg Girl–a tree containing a Gold-Assed Spider. Poor Twink. When he knocks it out of the branches, it lands right on top of him, twitchy legs flailing and trying to grab all the Twink-flesh they can. Again, not unlike Malon. The spider stabbed to death and the commemorative coin collected, Twink runs past Malon (who is now actually singing a song instead of just dancing to it in silence) and climbs the vines to the top of the cliff. The top of the stone gate has a hole in it with a ladder leading down to a small guardhouse within the structure. You’d think it wouldn’t be smart to use that path to get to the other side of the gate, considering the door out of that room is all of ten feet away from the guard who previously dismissed Twink, but he must be jamming on his iPod or something, because he doesn’t so much as blink when Twink emerges from the gate guardhouse. At this point, I am going to assume that you don’t want to hear about me getting busted by the guards four or five times because I wasn’t watching where Twink was going, and we’ll skip ahead to me getting it right. At dawn, just as Twink is jumping from the top of a hill over the castle’s main gate, the egg he received from Malon hatches, producing a fully-grown rooster. I’m sure parents the world over wish that it really worked that way.
Hopefully our new rooster friend will not drown in his first few seconds of adult life, because Twink plunges into the moat, again escaping the notice of the completely oblivious guards five feet away. Out of the moat, the first thing Twink notices is a troll of a man fast asleep next to several crates with bull heads branded on them. The man is crazy ugly. Given that Twink is still viewing the man (who we know is Malon’s dad) through the porno lens, he looks like Ron Jeremy, if Ron Jeremy were less concerned with weight gain and more with hair loss. In his sleep, he mumbles nonsense about how his ranch is “so fun.” Five minutes ago, before he had gotten a glimpse of the owner, Twink would have been interested in this “so fun” ranch in the middle of Gaye Olde Hyrule, but there’s no way a place run by this colossally unattractive old man could bring in the beefcakes.
More annoying still, Twink has spotted the hole in the wall Mr. Teal told him about–to get in, he needs to stack up some of the milk crates and use them to jump across the moat. And this not-hot dad is very much in the way. Kicking him doesn’t seem to do any good, so Twink resorts to rifling through his knapsack for something appropriate. When that fails him, he takes out the rooster just to see what it’ll do. The rooster, spinning in place on Twink’s palm like it’s glued to a lazy susan, crows excitedly, jolting the old man awake. So we immediately pick up on the man’s country bumpkin vibe, the first words out of his mouth are the Yosemite Sam-esque “What in tarnation?” and then he yells at no one in particular (he hasn’t even noticed Twink at this point) about just wanting some shut-eye.
Once he’s calmed down, he finally addresses Twink. Malon’s dad introduces himself as Talon, and repeats to us all the stuff Malon’s already said: he owns a ranch, he was “delivering milk” (right), and he fell asleep here. In response to a smoldering glare from Twink (I suppose), Talon shouts, “What?! Malon was looking for me? I’m gonna catch it from her now! I messed up bad, leaving Malon behind to wait for me! She’s really gonna let me have it!” And the chickenshit runs screaming toward the castle gates, toward a severe beating at the hands of his prepubescent daughter. And Twink thought he was afraid of Malon.
Malon’s taking over the Dicku Tree’s ‘enterprise.’
By the time Twink finishes hauling the crates into bridge formation, it’s nighttime again. Big deal, right? Well, not when Twink shimmies through the hole in the wall, drops into the fountain, and smacks headfirst into the two guards standing there waiting for him. The scene fades out to spare us the sight of Twink getting the Mr. Teal Treatment from the guards, and we skip ahead to our boy being kicked out of the castle like a hooker getting thrown out of a limo. On the bright side, the guards were nice enough to just dump him back by the milk crates. They could have made me sneak past all the guards outside again. What an unusual show of mercy from the game designers.
Twink stretches and does toe touches in an exceedingly gay way to pass the time until dawn, at which point he crawls up on the milk crates and gives this thing another go. This time there are no guards waiting to pounce on Twink in the courtyard. I guess they’re worried about people sneaking in through a gutter at nighttime, but they don’t think anyone would be so stupid as to pull a stunt like that in broad daylight. Well, Twink is stupid enough, thank you very much.
From the courtyard, Twink proceeds to the next screen, where he finds a lone guard walking a slow lap around a rectangular hedge. Hidden behind a convenient line of hedges on the right-hand side, Twink watches until he has the pattern down before skirting his way around the path to avoid the guard. I can only assume that castle security had no idea they would have to defend the castle against intruders under five feet tall, or they never would have green-lighted this garden design.
At the next divide in the courtyard, a hedge separates Twink from two fabulous spraying fountains and two more guards. Instead of patrolling around the perimeter of the whole area, the two sentries instead decide to keep a close watch on the fountains themselves, like Carmen Sandiego is going to slither in and lift them clean out of here. Seriously, if Carmen Sandiego wanted to stage a grand Hyrule heist, she would steal the entire castle, leaving nothing but ripped-up plumbing and some very embarrassed guards in her wake. Duh.
Anyway, Twink makes it past this obstacle while the guards are examining every inch of the fountains to make sure no chips of marble are missing. Up next is a little grotto of sorts, bookended by hedges, with a lacework of ivy forming a ceiling over the guard’s head. Twink uses the (again) convenient set of steps leading over the hedge to the top of the grotto and simply walks over the guard’s head to safety. The guard, natch, does not notice the Twink-shaped shadow running past him. He’s too busy keeping watch over the green Rupees by his feet.
I really think the royal family should hire some new guards. These guys are not getting the job done.
Next stop is a large statue of someone-or-other (possibly some other incarnation of Twink, I don’t know), barricaded by a cement wall. You know, I appreciate that it would be difficult to accomplish this stealth mission without any hiding places, but it’s almost insulting how these things are obviously here just so Twink can hide behind them. Christ, at least make him go all Solid Snake and huddle inside a box. From this obstacle it’s a mere jaunt through the hedges and past another buff male statue to Princess Zelda’s personal courtyard hangout.
Ugly Stick Alert!
This area of the courtyard is full of butterflies and beautiful flowers, but to her credit, Zelda is not sitting amidst the flowers singing with the bluebirds or anything. She’s actually pressed up against a window opposite the entrance, spying on adult matters like a proper nosy kid. When Twink addresses her, she turns around, all Surprised Face. Also, all Ugly Face. I’m sure it says something about me and my shallow nature that I expect the princess of Hyrule to be a stunningly beautiful young lady, but the fact is, she’s not. Her eyebrows are a disaster and that headpiece makes it look like she’s going bald. Then again, we’ll see throughout Twink’s adventures that trying to find a good-looking person in N64!Hyrule is like trying to find a fat protagonist in a Final Fantasy game.
Zelda asks Twink how he managed to get past the guards. Twink doesn’t answer, because “Working legs and more than one brain cell” might come off as a little too smart-assy. But Zelda is not deterred by this young stud’s silence, as she switches to a new conversational tack: “Oh? What’s that? Is that…a fairy?!” Princess Mensa Member then deduces, “Then, are you… Are you from the forest?” I, for one, am in awe of Zelda’s stellar mental faculties.