LOZ:Ocarina of Time:Ch.1

----Chapter 1: The Boy Without A Fairy


The pitter-patter of the hooves underfoot played like a metronome in his mind as he rode toward the southern horizon.  There was still so much confusion murmuring within him which made concentrating on the road difficult.  A bright, full moon capped the veiling darkness like a great beacon in the night, and he took some comfort in its luminescence.

He saw every tree and flower and even the bricks of Lon Lon Village with new eyes, and it was strange how very unchanged he felt even though he knew everything was different.  He could feel it in the air and smell it in the wind whipping by him.  No, not different perhaps.  It was as if the canvas of his world had been submerged beneath a mask of water.  Unchanged but distorted and too deep beneath the surface to pull free.

Gently, he pulled his horse to a stop by the riverside.  They had ridden long and hard all the night, and only now, as he let her stop for reprieve, did he notice the waning night giving way to the orange clouds and violet sky of his first dawn in this new world.  After departing the castle and freeing the great crimson mare--a beautiful creature he fondly remembered as a pony from his childhood--there was only one destination in his mind.

As the light broke across the water, the cool blue shimmered in time with the tune of its trickling flow.  His horse tossed her head and reared when he clambered back up into the saddle and ushered her forward.  He could waste no more time.  Past the rolling hills of the plain and through the thick canopy of trees to the south, there lay a path through the woods, so dense, that it seemed like a tunnel crafted by the great Farore herself.  Deep within that path spanned a country far greener than a spring morning, a sky made of singing leaves, and the wind gentler than a mother’s kiss.

There, deep within the reaches of that great forest kingdom, he had left his most precious friend, a friend who he had never forgotten, a friend who had been there since before he could walk, the one true friend that had made the forest his home.  It was there he began, and it was there he would return … to begin again in a new world.

===  ===  ===  

SEVEN YEARS AND SEVEN MONTHS AGO…


He could hear it, that gentle chime on the wind.  It whistled through the leaves and brushed against their branches.  Like flutes, the breaks in their bark sang to the forest, a ringing hum, an octave rising and falling with the strength of the breeze.  If music had a color, he would have named it emerald.  It was as though he could see it shining under the sun, the splintering rays through the canopy above dancing as they stretched and moved across the floor of the meadow.  The verdant grass swayed, the tips made golden under the light. He felt he could touch that song, cloak himself in it, dance to its minuet.  It spread a smile across his face.  No matter how lonely he truly felt, how out of place, he had the green of the forest to soothe him and make him feel right once again.  The warmth of the sun.  The dusting of pollen floating through the air.  The flowers that waved to him throughout the rolling hills of this meadow.

A dense wall of trees secluded the meadow from the rest of the enshrining forest.  His own little spot of solitude, a place where he could be himself free from the prying eyes of the other children.  He had found this place a few years back when he had first entered the wood by himself.  No one had known he had left, but his curiosity had always boiled to breaking.  He remembered he had gotten lost as he traipsed its twining paths.  He remembered being terrified.

It was then that he had stumbled into this place, this lush meadow … where he had heard that melodic chime.  Here was the heart of the forest, a space large enough to give the forest’s song proper room to breathe.  He had realized then, beyond the understanding of a child, that everything else in the forest paled in comparison because those other paths, those other crevices where the breeze blew through too quickly and its song played hurriedly, were merely the veins that sustained life in the forest.  Here … here, things seemed to come to a standstill.  Here, everything seemed to have purpose.  Here was the only place he found ease.

He did not get lost anymore.  He knew the paths of the forest, knew the sound of its every leaf, knew the scent of every berry, knew the flutter of its very heartbeat.  Yet, no matter how well he knew the forest, he still felt lost, confused.  Even if he followed one of his fellow Kokiri, stepped in their exact steps, his feet pressing against the exact same blades of grass, his path still felt out of sync.  He supposed it was because of the aching in his feet that dared him to bolt off in every direction but the one that flowed in tune with the Kokiri.

He loved it here, the great vast forest of the Kokiri tribe, but his heart yearned to see what lay beyond the green.  Unfortunately, no tree he had climbed had proven tall enough.  To every height he climbed, all he could see when parting the leaves was more forest, a canvas of every shade of green.  There was but one glimmer of hope on the horizon, one piece of evidence that something even grander laid beyond the borders of the wood.

To the north a single peak rose.  It looked like a mound of dirt poking through the branches, but he knew it was far, far away, and he had never seen a pile of dirt rise so high.  It was to that height he wished to venture, that height he wished to climb, that new something he craved to see without the fences of the forest holding him so distant.

He was once told that the Kokiri could not live outside the confines of the forest, but the blood rushing through his veins would risk death if but to see a new world.

His ears, pointed and stretching back toward his head, twitched at the gentle wisp of air humming in time with the forest, a breath brought to life by she who sat next to him.  She played a few chords on her wooden ocarina until she knew she had caught his attention.  She smiled at him, a smile as bright as the golden grass embracing the landscape.

“You’re lost again,” she said.

Link pondered that a moment.  Lost.  He knew she was teasing him.  She knew perfectly how well he knew these forests, but she could always see his heart.  Behind her smile was a worry, and only she knew how best to drill his thoughts to the surface.

He played with one of those golden blades of grass, watched how the shade from his fingers turned it green again.

“I had another dream,” he said at long last.  “The same dream.”  A dream that had plagued him for a week now.

She let him linger there, and they realized how the song of the trees began to fade.

“Will you ever tell me?” she asked, and when he finally turned to her, he could see the hurt in her eyes.  Not the kind of hurt that pained her; it was sympathy, the worst kind of hurt he could ever see in her eyes.  He did not like that his feelings could make her as upset as him.

Precious Saria.  His longest and best friend in his whole world.  Her short hair fell in the prettiest curls around her pointed ears.  Her hair was the deepest green he had ever seen.  Everything about her was green--her sweater and tunic, her boots, her headband.  Everything … save her pale skin and sweet eyes as blue as the bluest sky.  All Kokiri had similar features, with the exception of her hair.  Perhaps that was why on the surface, he felt a part of the Kokiri community.  He looked exactly like one of them.  But he had never seen a baby; they all seemed so ageless.  None looked a day older than when he first remembered meeting them.

And he knew all that was true.  He remembered childhood, being a baby.  He could remember learning to crawl, remembered growing up here.  His memories were splintered, but he could recall the passage of time.

Perhaps that was the other reason this meadow felt so peaceful to him, why he felt more at home here than in his tree house among the rest of the Kokiri.

He had not been able to put his finger on it for a while after discovering this place, why it all felt so familiar.  As time had gone by and he spent more and more time here, it had rained one afternoon.  It was then he had remembered, the images jolting back into him as loudly as the thunder had struck the heavens.

A very long time ago, how long he did not know, he could remember watching as the stars sped by in the night sky, how the bolts of light in the darkness had terrified him, and how a warm arm had cradled him.  He could not remember a face; just a shadow in the night hanging over him, hair whirling madly, and a distraught cooing that aimed to calm him.

His first memory.

“I dream about this place,” he finally breathed.  “The rain pours and I’m cold.  But then the lightning strikes before I can see the face above me.”  He drifted into silence, closing his eyes, trying so hard to see the face now to no avail.  Why could he not remember that face?  Who was it?  Who had held him that night?

“That’s when it all turns dark.  All of a sudden, I’m in another field, a meadow without an end.  It’s still raining.  The lightning is closer.”  His eyes still shut up tight, he held his head in his palm as if trying to shield himself from the fear of his dreams.  “And when I turn around, there’s this tree house … but it’s made of big rocks.  There’s a face there.  He’s scary.”

He opened his eyes, focused on the grim face of Saria once again.  “That’s when I wake up.”

Saria grabbed his hand and gave a tender squeeze.  “It’s okay, Link.”  

Her smile made the fear subside, but he could not help but feel guilty.  He could still see the traces of worry in the lines of her grin.  Somehow, there always seemed to be a silent burden weighing in her eyes … every time she looked at him.  Her smiles, her laughter, her songs--they were all genuine happiness, but Link was no fool.  There was something underneath, something whispering behind those bright crystal eyes.

“Do you know what my dreams mean?” he asked, almost begging.

Saria considered his question, considered all that his dream could mean, but she could not bear to water the seeds of fear already growing in him.  There were things she knew, things she could not bring herself to say, and knowledge that was not hers to pass on.  She wanted more than anything for Link, her friend--her very best friend for all the years she had run the trails of the wood…. She wanted him to be happy, to bask in the sun of innocence, to have a childhood she could never have despite her appearance.

She, too, knew the pangs of loneliness Link felt, that invisible divide she could feel wedged between the other Kokiri and herself.  She was the wisest of the Kokiri, a trusted servant of their All-Father, the Great Deku Tree.  She deeply respected her place among the Kokiri; the one others looked to for sage advice, almost like a mother to a nest of hundreds, but … there were times when she gave pause to the question…. “Why me?”

A twinkling at her ear forced all sadness from her thoughts.  Link and she turned to see the fluff of light that was Lea, Saria’s guardian fairy.  Lea was a small sprite, a glowing body of yellow with white wings that shined like the sheerest fabric and flapped as quickly as a hummingbird.  To Link, Lea and the other fairies that lived symbiotically with the Kokiri were mere blobs of light, like miniature suns the size of his palm.  Their voices sounded like the buzzing of bees mixed with the jingle of a wind chime.  He knew, though, that there must be more to them and that perhaps because he did not yet have a fairy he could not see or hear them for what they really were.

At a certain age, each Kokiri was gifted a guardian fairy, a little sprite that would be their partner for the rest of their lives, to serve one another in harmony with the forest.  In the ten years that Link had lived in the forest, he had only ever seen one such ceremony, spying from the treetops out of sight.

Lea spoke to Saria then, the longing in Link’s heart scattering his thoughts once more, brought back only by Saria’s voice.  “We should head back.  It will be dark soon.”

Link nodded.  He stood and dusted himself off in silence.  He knew what she was not saying.  She had to head back because each evening, the Kokiri assembled around the Great Deku Tree to listen to his tales of myths and legends, stories fit only for the Kokiri.  Many of the other Kokiri had banded together and refused to allow Link to join them.  So many of the Kokiri did not--and had never--seen Link as one of them.  He had been treated as an outsider for so long by so many.  

“Don’t worry, Link,” came Saria’s soothing tone.  She clapped a hand over his shoulder.  “One day, a guardian fairy will come to you.  I’m sure of it.”

“Thanks.”

“Besides, fairy or no, you’ll always be my best friend!”  Saria’s smile was infectious, and Link grinned back at her.  Then she said with a wink, “Hey, I’ll race you!”

Before Link could react, Saria was racing across the plunging hills, laughter as loud as the wind singing wildly through the grass.  His depression floated away on the leaves, and he sprang after Saria.  No matter his misgivings about his place here, these were the moments for which he lived.  Moments where the sun shimmered down across the verdant hills and warmed him with its long arms.  Moments when he ran so fast he thought he might take flight into that sky and soar as high and swift as the birds who sang there.  Moments when the pitter-patter of his feet thumped with the rhyme of his heartbeat.  Moments with his best friend, when he knew that everything in his simple life was perhaps exactly as it was meant to be.

Moments he would never trade … even for the solitary peak on that far off horizon.

As they raced down the diving hills, Link tripped over a rise in the ground.  Saria heard his yelp, and just as she turned--a gasp on her lips--she saw his body twist and collapse into the ground.  Link disappeared beneath the grass, but up flew hundreds of tiny white dandelion seeds.

Lying there, Link forgot the pain of his fall as he watched the seeds snag onto the wind’s current.  They all drifted out like a puff of fog.  Some came snowing back down to him, landing on his nose and cheeks.  He blew out, and as the little flakes of spring rose back into the breeze, he stretched out a hand as if to push them along.  Then appeared Saria, leaning in with hands on her thighs.  She giggled as she offered a hand to him.

Link locked his fingers over hers and felt Saria give a strong yank.  Once again he rose to his feet, and they watched as the seeds swam through the sky.  Some caught the stronger winds and were carried up and over the treetops.  Others danced in more meager currents and dusted the hills spread out before them, promising to add their yellow faces among the white and blue and lavender blossoms that already gently surfed the tide of the breeze.  

Link watched it all with a smile, delighted in the sea of colors, and he wondered how he could ever feel so adrift from this place.  When he looked upon these hills, these forests, and smelt the radiance in the air, everything seemed so perfect.

Saria looked over to him.  She took in his smile like she welcomed the sun and moon.  She had lived a long time in these woods, had run the miles that encircled the Great Deku Tree since the dawn of her memory.  The last ten years, though, had been the years she most treasured.  She had never known true love until she had looked upon Link’s face, held his hand, and washed the dirt from his knees and hugged the tears from his face.  She clung to his arm, weaved her fingers through his, and felt him squeeze tighter.  Her love was beyond simple romance, beyond anything she could name.  Link was her friend, and she felt connected to him beyond explanation.  The forest was her soulmate, but it was as if she and Link had always been destined to meet.  Somehow, she knew that they walked the same path, and no matter where his curiosity led him and no matter how lost he might feel at times, she knew that the forest was his home.  Link would always be there for her.

She tugged on his hand.  “Come on, Link!”  She pulled him along behind her, their footsteps whistling through the brush as they reached the denser woods, the paths narrowing as the meadow shrank behind them.

The chime of innocent childhood laughter rained through the leaves wherever they went, weaving this way and twisting that way, ducking under this branch and leaping over that root.  Link and Saria raced in tempo with the tambourine of leaves as they slapped against each other in the wind.  Lea glistened by their heads as they sailed across the ever-changing landscape.  The sun peaked in every now and then, rays of its light wiggling through the leaves like breadcrumbs of warmth to guide their path back home to their village.

A great trunk rose up in the midst of their path, and rather than change course, Link’s fingers drew away from Saria.  She glanced his way, and a toothy grin was his response.  Without losing step, she realized his scheme, and together they leapt up opposing sides of the tree, bouncing from one branch to the next like they were simple stairs.  Then through the arms of the trees they danced, bounding up and down and around as they continued in the direction of home.  Their balance never faltered as they vaulted among the boughs.

Link sped past Saria, ever the showoff, springing from one branch to the next, bounding higher then diving lower, each maneuver more elaborate than the last until he took a leap backward.  He waved back at Saria as he sailed through the air.  He could see the worry in her eyes as her pace slowed to watch him.  A crooked grin appeared across his lips, and in the next instant, his foot made its landing on the neck of a jagged branch.  With ease, he steadied himself, leaning against the trunk of the tree with one set of fingers as his opposite fist rested on his hip looking ever the gallant champion of the wood.

“Come on, Saria!” he yelled back at her.  “We’re almost there!”

She shook her head with a giggle as she sailed through the boughs to catch up.  

He was right.  There were only a few more turns in the path now until they reached the heart of the village.  Beyond where Link waited, the path dropped off into a clearing where a few trees had fallen.  They had tumbled ages ago, so long ago that now their trunks and arms and lonely stumps had been given new life as moss and fungi blanketed their wood.  Past that clearing the land dipped into a gorge, and it was along that path that a network of wooden bridges would take them across the gap and into their village.

Just as Saria bounced through the last of the branches between Link and her, Link felt a sharp stab at the back of his head.  Instinct made him clap his supporting hand against the ache, and that was when his balance teetered.  His gut lurched as his feet wobbled, and he knew it was over.  He reached out to catch himself, but he was already falling.  Saria landed on the bough just as Link plummeted through the air.

“Link!”

He yelped as he landed--softer than he was expecting.  He lay there a moment, dizzy from the sudden fall.  As his senses returned, he focused on the tree where had stood just moments ago.  Saria was not there.  He looked around, searching for her, afraid that she, too, had stumbled from the branches.  He blamed his clumsiness, blamed his spirited bones, but truthfully, something had knocked him from his perch.

He looked around for the culprit … and ducked.  The deku nut that had soared through the air--aimed right at his head--cracked against the trunk behind him.  He caught sight of the creature that had shot it at him, a deku scrub.  Scrubs were puckish little creatures with portly bellies, stubby legs, and leaves for hair on their round bark-like heads.  The perfect camouflage against intruders lurking near their nests.  The mossy area Link had landed in was the kind of place one might expect to find their beady orange eyes peeping out among the undergrowth.

It shot another nut from its long snout, and Link rolled out of the way.  “Hey!  Stop it!”

Link popped up, grabbed a twig, and dashed straight for the little scrub as it prepared to shoot another nut his way, but as soon as he came close, the scrub gave a frightened squeak and vanished beneath its veil of leaves.  It hid flawlessly within the surrounding undergrowth, and even having kept his eye on his target, Link lost sight of the scrub, second-guessing himself on its location.

“That’s right!” boasted Link.  

As he took delicate steps backward, keeping his eye on the forest floor, a whistle joined the chirping in the trees.  It sounded much like Saria’s ocarina, and Link turned to face the source of the music in relief.  Yet, it was not his friend who greeted his sight.  Instead, there, on one of the taller stumps, stood a skull kid.

It was said that if a Kokiri were to wander off and lose themselves to the woods, they turned into skull kids, impish creatures that loved tricks, music, and leading their long lost Kokiri siblings astray.  They usually kept to the shadows of the forest, and this was the first that Link had seen up close.  It seemed as if it were completely made up of straw and branches rather than skin and bones.  It wore an orange hat and tunic with a green scarf and trousers, like a tree stuck between the spring and autumn seasons.  Its face was shadowed by its hat’s deep brim, but he could see its big lips as it puffed air through its wooden flute, and its gloved hands cultivated the wind into a melody that mirrored that of the forest.  Its little feet in pointed orange boots kept rhythm with its song, tapping along and dancing as it played.  It wore a belt and circlet made of carved stone circles and had even tied some to its ankles.  The stones jangled as they clanked together when it danced.

Link approached the skull kid, taking up a seat on the fallen tree opposite the skull kid’s stage.  His mossy seat cushioned him perfectly, and he forgot again the woes of his young life as the music drifted among the leaves.  Why did he have to be so different?  It was obvious to everyone, and only a few had made it an issue.  However, because it was Mido, one of the older Kokiri, an Elder as it were, who disapproved of Link, many of the other Kokiri had blindly agreed that Link’s disparities made him an outcast.  He was not a true Kokiri in their eyes because of Mido, and he resented him for that.  He did not understand Mido’s aversion to him.  He had done nothing to Mido; Link had only ever fought with him once Mido had antagonized him first.

Even with Mido’s revulsion of him, Link could still understand why the Kokiri looked to him for leadership.  He was fair in all other matters.  He made sure that their borders were safe.  He made sure that the Kokiri had the materials they needed, the food they needed.  He always did as the Great Deku Tree requested.  Mido was loyal, and though Link respected him for that, he did not have to like him.  In fact, he did everything he could to avoid Mido and his cronies.  Link was one who preferred the strategy of defense and retreat rather than attack, but lately … lately everything that came at him, like the poor deku scrub, suffered the brunt of his anger.  

He teetered on the edge of his tolerance.  Between Mido’s harassment, the whispers behind his back from the other Kokiri, and his nightmares haunting him day and night, he did not know how much more he could take before he went off to explore the woods … and never returned.