The Deku Tree
by Kihmiitehra no Vehra Dyonasis
Sun! Beaming on me with all its yellow-golden glory, filling my mammoth leaves in the golden, golden morning!
Another morning in the Kokiri Forest, and I, the Great Deku Tree, its protector and god. The never-aging Kokiri Children, who live in the village, look up to me for wisdom and guidance. They are like my grandchildren, and the rest of the creatures who live in the forest pray to me as the deity that I am.
I hear the pattering of small footsteps. It is Mido, the self-proclaimed leader of the Kokiri. The Kokiris need no leader, so not a one minds. He sits on the ground in front of me, and speaks.
"Saria didn't find the flower I left for her," the young boy grumps. He flicks a grasshopper off his knee. "I left it right on her fence and she didn't even see it!" He grumbled and pouted as the nicrolights, part of my lifeforce, floated around him, trying to soothe the hard lines in his face.
"My child," I say, "Thou art quite impatient with love. Kokiri are slow to mature romantically, and she was but a seedling when you were 100. Have patience, and in coming years she will notice your affections."
The boy slowly smiles. He stands. "Thank you, Grandfather!" he runs out, back to the village. His red hair gleams in the sun.
Ah, the sun! Father of this world as the Earth is the mother! I soak my warmth-seeking green foliage in its intensity. I sigh, peaceful and content. The nicrolights, the faery-like motes that fly through the air, dance slowly, content as well.
I sense my death approaching. Quickly.
I fan out my awareness for danger closing in. The image of a Gerudo man on a black horse coming towards the forest comes to my mind.
The dark-skinned man notices my awareness of him. He grins, and chants a spell over his hand, black energy crackling in it. He flings it at me before I can pull out.
Filled with dread, I feel the crackling black seep into my body, into my ancient roots. Eggs form, and parasitic arachnids multiply, eating at them, my ancient roots that connect me to the Mother Planet's warmth, up into my body, hollowing me . . .
I am paralyzed while this is happening. It is part of the curse that Gerudo man laid upon me. I cannot call for help, not to the Mother and Father, not to other deities . . . until it's too late.
I am dying.
With a portion of what remains of my strength, I summon Navi, the faery, to find the boy, the boy without a faery, to aid me, for he is the only one now who can.
The curse must be destroyed before it spreads to the rest of the forest, killing my children and Grandchildren. The boy arrives, sword and carved wooden shield in his small hands. The shield is emblazoned with the symbol that was etched on my seedpod before I became a sproutling. I smile.
The boy looks up at me, determination and duty in his deep, cerulean blue eyes. His blonde hair ruffles under his green Kokiri cap. "Hello Great Deku Tree," he says, respect in his voice. Navi floats at his side, glowing softly.
"I'm here. What do you want me to do exactly?"
My body cracks a doorway leading to my interior. "You must destroy the parasites that have infested my body. Once the Queen falls, all others will parish. She crawls in the hollow where my roots once were. You must . . . " I shudder as the Queen bites into another root. " . . . destroy her before her children come to the surface and attack Kokiri village. Hurry! There is no time!"
The deep concern in the young boy's eyes becomes fierce determination once more, and he runs into my interior, my interior that is ripe with decay.
………………
I couldn't believe my eyes as I stepped into the Great Deku Tree.
He was hollow. Completely. An immense wave of sorrow washed through my body, and Navi, my new faery, glowed in mourning.
The place crawled with armored spiders, eating away at the Great Deku Tree's flesh. Everywhere, webs hung like ghosts, and other parasites, like Deku Babas, had taken root in the soft rotting.
The musty stench of decay permeated everything, and the walls crumbled at my touch.
"Oh, Deku-sama . . . " whispered Navi. A Deku Baba awakened at my footsteps and lunged at me. I chopped its drooling, eyeless head off and watched it roll on the floor, vanishing in a burst of flames; the sign of an unnatural creature.
I climbed the inside of the Tree, slashing up spiders as I went, until I was finally high enough to break the thick web that blocked me from going below, to the roots.
What felt like miles below on the floor. I gulped, preparing myself on the ledge, and leaped! I couldn't help it, I screamed. But I landed right on target; the web sagged and tore under my weight and I dropped again (screaming), this time into an underground pool.
It was so cold, having never seen the sun. There was no light in this place, or in the Great Deku Tree's trunk for that matter, yet I could see perfectly. It came from the holy glow of the Tree himself, proof of his godhood. I remembered, as I faced off a wild trio of Deku Scrubs, that Deku-sama had once told me he was related to a species called the World Trees; mammoth Trees that grew passed the clouds, and guarded the planets they rooted on. He was a cousin of sorts, an inferior breed that didn't grow nearly as tall as the originals.
The Deku Scrubs slumped to the ground, yellow glowing eyes going dim, then dead. At last, the Queen's lair! I stepped through the entrance.
Mist floated around my waist in the dank, dripping damp. The ceiling was high and tangled with half-eaten roots. Pillars stood here and there to keep this enormous cavern from collapsing.
The door slammed down behind me, locking me in with the shadows. The Tree's holy Light had less of a presence here, the air thick with the Queen's presence instead.
I looked around. Where was she? I heard her skittering, but couldn't see any obvious shadows moving.
I felt an eye on the back of my head. I began to sweat. Slowly I looked up.
A single, enormous, fire-colored eye with red pupils stared down at me. Queen Gohma! On the ceiling! The eye rolled, focusing, and she dropped. Four thick armored legs and a black, scorpion-like tail made up her form. The eye . . . That enormous red and green eye! Round and bulging, haunting like a nightmare. She screeched at the intrusion and the battle began.
I aimed with my slingshot for the vulnerable eye. She screeched and fell, eye red and swollen. I moved in and slashed it with my sword; she convulsed, and I knew the thing held her lifeforce — destroy that and the rest of her armored self would die.
She picked herself up before I could do any more damage and retreated to the ceiling. I growled and watched her, wondering if she would come down again. I heard slimy noises, and three of her eggs fell around me.
Cracking open with a sound like paper, they crawled from their shells, hatchlings, unevolved spiders that chirped and attacked. My blade ended them quickly. I watched Gohma, waiting for a reaction.
She dropped, screaming, enraged at her children's quick demise, and attacked with her claws; one on each foot. I parried them and slingshotted her eye again, moving in for the kill.
My sword stabbed through her pupils, blinding her, but she could not take any more. She reared and screamed one last time before disintegrating into a blaze of white energy.
The battle over, I sat to rest. Navi told me that we should go tell Deku-sama what happened, as with his roots eaten away, he might not know.
The door now open again, we ascended the dungeon-like place, out to the Deku Tree's meadow.
Navi told him what happened. The Deku Tree smiled, but as though in pain.
"Thou hast done well," he said in his great, earth-deep voice. He looked pleased. I smiled.
"Are you going to be okay now?" I asked, eyes bright with hope.
He sighed deeply. "Alas, no. I was doomed before you even began. The curse has already made me hollow; I will die soon. But the forest is safe, and that's all that matters to me."
"Die?!? You can't die!! Who will protect the forest??" I cried. Tears welled up in my eyes. I wiped them on my torn sleeve.
"It's alright, my child," he said. He closed his fathomless eyes and breathed, leaves rising with it, and falling again. I asked if he was sure there was nothing else I could do for him. He just smiled, full of sorrow.
"I must go," he said. "The cosmos awaits me. Farewell . . . young warrior . . . "
The meadow was silent. Yes, as a grave.
A settling sound was heard, wood creaking against itself. Goddess . . . He even looked dead.
The air was still and lifeless. The nicrolights danced like ghosts. His presence was gone. His leaves didn't look as green, either, and his bark did not glow with holy life.
The Great Deku Tree was dead.
………………
Instantly, all the Kokiris knew what had happened. Some cried. Others just stared into the air in stunned disbelief.
The forest was a less magical place now, without him. That presence . . . that presence of wisdom and love, that was as constant as a stone's hardness, was wiped from the world, poof — gone without a trace.
Except for the nicrolights. But they moved like lost spirits. Shards of the Tree's shattered lifeforce.
Link wept in his room. Navi comforted him, and reminded him that the Tree's attacker was still out there somewhere (He had told the faery about it), and they needed to find him and destroy him before he could do any more harm.
Nodding through his tears, face set with determination, they set off on their journey.
It was on the quiet bridge out of the Kokiri Forest that Link heard someone behind him. He turned around. It was Saria.
She looked at him, deep blue eyes full of love, and held out an ocarina, a little potato-shaped musical instrument for him.
"Take this," she said. Her green hair caught the dusty sunlight, and the nicrolights swirled around her. "So you will always have something to remember the forest, and us."
And me, she wanted to add, but the words never passed her lips. This bridge was so quiet. She could hear Link's breath as it passed in and out of his lungs. His brown boots made echoing, hollow thumping noises on the wood as he ran towards her. He took the present from her.
"Thank you!" he smiled, beaming. His face glowed when he smiled. "I'll remember! Goodbye!"
He ran out the exit, boots echoing on the wooden bridge, Saria watching him go, wishing him a safe journey and that she were not a Kokiri, bound to the forest, so she could go with him.
………………
Seven years passed.
The Deku Tree still stood, a crumbling corpse, casting its eternal shadow on the meadow. Birds sang in the brown-gray, slowly shedding leaves, and the branches creaked like rusty doors in the wind.
The nicrolights floated still, still as ghosts drifting without meaning or purpose.
This place was comforting, at least to me. I often came here to be alone, when I didn't want to play with Koko or Mido.
Mido kept trying to get me to forget about my sadness over Link leaving. But I wanted to feel my sadness. It was a part of me, y'know? Mido was fun to be with, but I would always miss Link.
The nicrolights sometimes whispered. They told me Link was really a Hylian, an outsider to the forest. He would be a teenager if he were here now. I guess we couldn't play together anymore, then . . .
The nicrolights had told everyone what had happened to the Great Tree. They were all sad that Link couldn't be there to celebrate, and mourn. But they knew Link, and celebrated his future success in catching the Gerudo man. I joined of course. Link was a hero, and I wanted to shout it out. But I know now, seeing how much time has separated us, that we could never be Hikonos, the Kokiri equivalent of Soulmates.
Link . . . I wept silently in the shadow of the dead Tree. The smell of rot drifted everywhere, mainly from the large opening in the Tree. It was funny. I always thought the Deku Tree was too much of a god to ever rot like an ordinary tree. I guess some things are more ordinary than I first thought. Like me and Link's relationship. (sigh)
I moved into the sunlight, as it was getting cold in the shadows. The bright beams warmed my green clothing, and my body with it. I stretched my green boots out in front of me, and leaned back against my palms.
I stared up at the gray-white clouds. The Deku Tree . . . Was the Kokiri Forest really doomed to be without a protector for the rest of time? I could scarcely imagine . . . I shuddered, even though I was warm. That couldn't be. I refused to believe it.
I had only known Link for three years, and by his change in height I should have known he wasn't a Kokiri. Kokiri are born looking exactly the same for their entire lives. We grow in seed pods from Kokiri Flowers. Kokiri flowers descended from the Great Deku Tree.
Riri once told me that the Deku Tree had come here from space, maybe from another planet. Another planet . . . I studied the sky, in all its crystal blueness. I could scarcely imagine a world outside the forest and the Great Deku Tree might have come from a whole other planet?
I drew my legs up to my chest, feeling lonely. I heard footsteps behind me and turned to look. It was Mido.
"Hey Saria! What are you doing here?" he asked, sitting next to me.
"Just . . . thinking," I said.
"About Link?" he said, a negative tone in his voice. I nodded.
"He's a hero," said Mido. "He was born to travel and fight evil! It was his destiny! You don't have to be sad . . . " he looked at his lap, realizing his words weren't helping.
I knew Mido had feelings for me. The way his eyes shone when he saw or spoke to me. But he had those blue eyes, the ones that always reminded me of Link. I would only see Link when I looked at him . . .
Saria was so beautiful. The way her leaf-green hair curved around her face, her pale skin catching the light and sparkling in her ocean-blue eyes . . .
But I knew, deep in my heart, I would never get her heart to forget that blonde boy. She'd thought about him so much after he'd gone, and the look in her eyes, like they had now, when she did, I knew she was deeply in love with him.
The Great Deku Tree had been wrong. She wasn't just unmature, she was in love with someone else.
We sat in silence, letting the wispy nicrolights play around us.
A whimpering sound made me look up. Tears were streaming down Saria's face, thick like rivers. She sobbed openly and loudly, her sorrow pouring out of her soul.
"Saria . . . " I put my arms around her shoulders, and she cried into the space between us.
"Link . . . !" she sobbed occasionally.
He was gone forever, and I realized it now, that's why I was crying so hard. The wind swayed the Tree's branches, making that hollow creaking sound. A branch snapped off and crashed on the ground, startling both of us. It rolled slightly, exposing its yawning hollowness.
I withdrew from Mido's arms, sniffling. "Thanks, Mido-chan," I said.
"Are you finished crying?" he asked. There was tenderness in his voice. I nodded.
"Come on," he said. "Let's go to the flower field and I'll pick you some flowers. Okay?"
I nodded, knowing the smell would get my mind off Link. The smell of dead wood faded as we walked out of the meadow.
………………
I drifted through the cosmos, not knowing where I was going, and barely recalling where I had come from.
In this realm where time had no meaning, I could have been dead for a minute or a thousand years; it would not have mattered. The stars twinkled their hellos as I passed, drifting through space. I gave my greetings back and floated on.
A giant Tree came into my vision. Recognizing it, my breath caught in my throat.
It was the Star Tree. The mother of all the World Trees, and my aunt, of sorts. I humbled myself in Her presence.
"You needn't do that," She said in her purring voice. I complied.
"Finally, I have met You," I said in awe. "It is a shame it had to be in death."
She smiled, that smile that could not be seen on Her physical form, as She had no external face. Her endless branches shimmered with a thousand tiny lights, and Her roots were shrouded in a white mist, like a cloud.
"Come with me," She said. "You have one last task before I can lead you to Heaven."
I followed Her.
………………
Saria was in the Great Tree's meadow again.
This was the only place that comforted her, the last place Link had been before he left. And the Deku Tree's corpse was comforting in a way, too. Like being close to the Tree God when it had been alive.
It was night, and she was laying on her back looking at the stars through the skeleton branches of the dead Tree. Seeing those skeleton boughs made Saria very sad, as if she were looking at Link's bare ribs as an old man, dying without her there for him.
It was still seven years since he'd left, and she missed him more and more every day. She knew she had to let him go. He would never be hers, he was not a Kokiri. He would eventually die, and she would be devastated when it happened. She wondered if he would ever return to the forest, and if he even remembered who she was. Seven years was a long time to a Hylian, maybe he'd forgotten about her. Maybe he'd found someone else to be his Hikono, or whatever the Hylian equivalent was.
The stars twinkled in the heavens, and she could swear she felt the Deku Tree's presence. "Deku-sama . . . ?" she whispered.
I am here, came the response from the sky. How are you, Saria? You look down.
"Just thinking about someone," said Saria. "What's Heaven like, Deku-sama? Did you meet any other gods up there?"
I have not reached Heaven yet, said the Deku Tree. I have one more task I need to complete before I ascend. Take this, a seed dropped from the sky and landed at Saria's side. Plant it in front of my corpse. The decaying wood will nourish it while it waits for Link to complete the final step for its sprouting.
Saria blinked. Then her eyes widened and her mouth opened.
"I— . . . Is this your seed?! Your child?!" She took the precious brown thing with the symbol of the Deku on it in her hands, turning it.
It is. he said. Please plant it now.
Saria went to a good spot and dug in the grassy earth. She put the seed, which was the size of her fist, down in and covered it up.
"There you go, Deku-sama!" smiled Saria, blue eyes shimmering with joy. Finally, the forest would have a protector again! The seed sprouted, a shoot with two emerald leaves on it sticking out of the ground. Saria wondered how fast the new Tree would grow. She hoped it wouldn't take a long time. The forest needed to be kept safe from people like the Gerudo man.
Thank you, child, said the Deku Tree, and Saria swore she could feel him smile. She felt his presence fade from the sky.
Laying back down on the ground, Saria let her mind wander.
Link had to come back, eventually. He had the ocarina with him, and would remember her. And the others . . . She coughed. Was she getting a cold? Being outside all night might have made her catch something. She decided to head home for now, and come back in the morning, when the sun was out. She looked back at the dead Deku Tree, standing there, bald and rotting, nourishing the little sprout that had just begun its life.
She smiled. She walked out of the dark meadow.
The sun was warm and bright, and shone like a beacon across the land. Saria was sitting in the Deku Tree's meadow again, this time with Mido.
Saria stared blankly at the heavens, sometimes looking directly into the sun and letting the fuzzy gray spots dance in her vision. Mido was staring at the ground, looking concerned and angry.
Saria became more and more dazed as the days went by. Had Link really been so important to her? She seemed to be losing the will to live . . .
Her dazed blue eyes stared lifelessly into the sky. Her eyes were a much darker, deeper blue than the sky, and Mido wished holding her would make her wake up and realize he was there.
"Saria . . . " he said in a voice hoarse with hidden tears. She didn't blink.
He took her hand. "Saria! Please look at me!"
She shifted her gaze to his face, which was hard with restrained tears. "I have to tell you . . . "
If he didn't say it now, she might slip away from him forever. She had to come to her senses, and he didn't see any other option that might work. He could lose her for good, but he couldn't stand to see her like this! Lost . . .
"I love you, Saria!"
She blinked. "I've loved you for decades, but I could never get your attention! You are the most beautiful girl I've ever seen, and I want to be your Hikono some day . . . . . " he stopped, seeing that her eyes hadn't changed.
She smiled emptily. "You're a nice friend, Mido. But that's all we'll ever be; I'm sorry."
Mido turned away from her, releasing her hand. His face scrunched up with the effort of holding back the floods. It wasn't in his character to cry openly. He was the type who liked to hide what he perceived as weakness, putting up a tough front. But the girl of his dreams had just rejected him after opening his heart to her, and he couldn't keep it in for long. He broke, and wailed into his fists.
Saria turned back to the sky, laying on the ground and staring blankly into the clouds. She began to speak. "Link loved to run. . . . He would always beat me at our races to the fields . . . I wonder if he still likes to run . . . "
She prattled for a few more minutes before falling silent. Mido stared at his lap, tears streaming silently down his cheeks. The wind blew, ruffling their hair, and a blue light emitted from the Great Deku Tree's sprout. Mido and Saria looked up.
A 17-year-old boy in a green tunic appeared. Saria's eyes went wide. "L . . . Link?? . . . " she wondered aloud. Mido stared.
Link knelt by the Deku Sprout, watching it. Suddenly the sprout SHOT up, and Link was blown back with a cry. His voice was deeper, Saria noticed. She also noticed the ocarina on his belt; a purple one. Where was her present? He had forgotten about her . . .
The Deku Sprout grinned its youthful grin. It talked about how he was the new protector of the forest, and thanked Link for awakening him.
"Thank you for planting me, Lady Saria!" the sprout beamed at her. Link saw her and smiled. Those familiar blue eyes, on an unfamiliarly mature face. They were the same, and she knew that he had not forgotten her. She smiled, real and happy, for the first time in weeks.
The Deku Sprout was a chubby-looking thing, if trees could be chubby. He had bright black eyes, and a catty smile, and glowed with holy light. The nicrolights began to come back to their real selves, glowing bright and full as they attuned to the Deku Sprout's lifeforce, like ghosts no more.
Link agreed to play one more game of tag with his old friends before continuing on his journey to find the Gerudo man. Saria's blue eyes were bright and lively again, and Mido knew she would be okay, at last.
The Deku Tree smiled as he watched them, and the Star Tree led him up to Heaven, to find his place among the gods. His work was done, his Grandchildren would be alright with their new protector.
The sun glowed brightly in the heavens, and the Kokiri children plus one Hylian boy played in the trees, and the 3 Goddesses watched over all.
The nicrolights swam and danced, floating among the playing children, glad to be alive once again.