Disclaimer: I do not own Legend of Zelda or Holes. Meh.

IF ONLY, IF ONLY

If Only, If Only, the woodpecker sighs,
The bark on the tree was as soft as the skies.

Shadows began to consume the few golden sunbeams that still penetrated the forest. At any other time, Saria would've have taken this as a sign to return to the village before nightfall, but not tonight. Tonight she sat alone on a treestump, long having stopped playing her ocarina, though she still held it to her mouth in thought, as if she were playing a soundless melody. She knew it might be one of the last times she ever got to enjoy peace like this.

She could feel the temple calling to her...she knew she was destined to ascend....but she didn't want to. Inside the Temple of Time was the boy she loved...and if she were to ascend....she'd never have a chance. When Link had first arrived at the forest so many years ago, she had treated him like a little brother. But over time...she knew her emotions ran deeper than that. To what extent, she didn't know, as when she last saw him they were young. But now....as that little boy slept within the body of a adult, inside some crumbling temple, she couldn't help but feel angry at the goddesses for choosing Link. Why Link? He was just a boy from the forest..despite, as she secretly knew, he wasn't a true Kokiri, that didn't change the only life he had ever known. The simple forest life. It wasn't fair on him to lock him away. She mentally cursed Rauru for doing it. He shouldn't have even been the destined hero anyway. There were hundreds of brave and courageous warriors more suited to the role.

Nearly seven years had passed since he'd been sealed away and she hoped he'd be out soon....she wanted to see him before she became a Sage...she wanted him to remember her as his best friend, not Sage of the Forest. She yearned to see him again, what he'd become...her dreams were filled of memories of a more peaceful time, of playing in the forest with the boy without a fairy. He occupied her every thought, word and dream. She missed him so much. The forest had never been the same without him. Even Mido had come to regret what he did to Link...and he strived for redemption for his misdeeds. It was only when you lost something did you realise how much your world needed it.

But the temple called...and she knew sooner or later she would succumb. And she'd never be able to love him.

---

She opened her eyes to be greeted with a pair of oh-so-familliar blue ones. A face she'd thought she'd never see again, but now it was older, more...beautiful. Link helped her up as she awakened, and she felt nothing but love for him. Whether it was the sisterly love she once held for her "Little brother", or the love she'd been harbouring in uncertainty for seven years, or a mixture of both...she couldn't tell. But now, she knew, as she stared up at him, that her dreams about him would no longer be "Hopefully" and "Maybe", but "What if?" and "If only...."

As the wolf waits below, hungry and lonely,
He cries to the moon "If only, If only"

Authors notes/afterthoughts/cheese

So those ideas...yeah, you know em. The ones you HAVE to write down. This is one. I was humming "If only" from Holes, and I love the lyricy bit (the chorus if you include the full lyrics) and I wanted to write something to it. Then I randomly got Saria into my head and yeah.
I don't really touch LoZ pairings, simply because I am very...attatched to Link and everything canon in LinkxPerson shippings is normally all the other side. Saria's affections for Link is CANON. Go play Ocarina of Time f00. But as we know from Ruto, Sages cannae love. So in true nintendo shippings fashion, she gets screwed over. Ah, young love =D

So yup. This is my drabble. Go enjoy it and leave a review. Reviews make me write more, you know!