The children of the forest, the Kokiri.
They were a race that never grew up, birthed by the Great Deku Tree. Once they reached age ten, they would stop physically ageing. They forever had the maturity of children. They played around in their forest all day, all their lives. Not once were they expected or pressured to get a job or study for an upcoming test.
The lucky lot of them!
All of the kids had a guardian fairy, who flittered around them and kept them company. Each of them was a different colour. Each of them was of a different personality. Each of them appeared as a ball of light the size of a tennis ball with a pair of insectoid wings on the back, their real shapes obscured behind their glow.
However, there was one boy who had no such luck.
The so-called outsider, Link.
The once defenceless infant had grown up into a ten-year-old, fair-haired boy in a green tunic, a green floppy hat and a pair of wrinkly boots. It had been a decade since he had been taken in by the forest. He was alone. No fairy, no friends, no nothing.
No, he did have one friend. A girl named Saria. She had pretty much raised Link since he arrived in the forest. She taught him how to walk, she taught him English, she taught him some basic maths and even a bit of history. This history was about a place called Earth. This is where the English language originated.
Aside from this one person who cared, everyone else avoided him like they avoided growing up.
Alone as usual, Link scooped up a pile of corn from a food bin and scattered it across his floor for his cucco, a Hyrulean chicken.
The next day was his "Anniversary Day". The Kokiri had no idea when his birthday was, since he was not born in the forest. For that reason, Saria suggested that they hold a special day for him on the date of his arrival in the forest. It was met with mixed reviews, some saying that it was a good idea, others saying that it was the least they could do and the rest saying it was a terrible idea. Strangely, they never gave any reasoning of why they didn't like it.
Link stared out of the window of his treehouse at the foggy, night sky. While everyone else set up shop in regular houses on the ground, Link, feeling like he wasn't one of them, went differently and built his house eight feet up in the air in a tree. Once again, everyone had used this as an excuse to ridicule him but Saria supported him all the way, even helping construct it, building a balcony while Link hollowed out part of the inside of the tree. He didn't even have a balcony on his list of plans for his house but he quickly adapted by building a ladder that went down from the balcony and to the floor.
As his cucco pecked at the food that had been freshly scattered over the floor, Link frowned a little.
Not out of loneliness, but because of one person.
Can you guess who?
Yes, it was that muppet who had called his mother a nutter all those years ago. Mido.
While the other members of the Kokiri didn't mind Link too much, Mido loathed this "Billy No-Mates". The other kids would ignore Link at most, but Mido was awful to him. For just a few examples, Mido would:
- Release a big spider into his treehouse at night.
- Cut a hole in the floor of his treehouse under the rug next to his bed so when he got up, he would go crashing to the ground below.
- Shove him in the pond when his back was turned feeding the ducks.
- Put Laxat berries in with his cucco's corn so that after feeding time, there would be one massive mess to clean up afterwards. Harmless, but deadly.
- Rub stinging nettles on the inside of his tunics at night so he would spend the entire next day itching.
- Sling yoghurt at him from a tree so he thought that a bird had gone haywire.
- Slam his window hatch shut at night to wake him up with a jolt.
- During snowball fights in the winter, cover cricket balls in snow and target him.
Despite all of this, Link would mostly always act kind to Mido. However, resentment built up quickly and he would relieve it at night.
"Blummin' Mido..." mumbled the boy as he sat down on his wooden bed. "He does not deserve to have a name that rhymes with 'meadow'. Meadows are nice and peaceful. He's the exact opposite. I can only imagine what he'll do to sabotage tomorrow for me..."
Something else that would happen with this clown is that on nearly every single anniversary of Link's, Mido would do something that would leave Link with less than half the attention. Over the last few years, Mido had:
- Slathered mozidva berry juice around the forest, resulting in an infestation of woodland animals.
- Swapped the sheet music for the forest musicians, causing them to play an incoherent jumble of notes.
- Spiked all the party food with supaisu berry juice, turning everyone into combat flamethrowers.
- Sneaked a snake into Link's tunic, resulting in him almost passing out upon noticing it.
- Slung a stone at one of the musicians that was playing. The fiddle thought it was the saxophonist and a full-on fight broke out, with bows being fired out of violins, horns being blasted in ears, cymbals being tossed at faces, all that.
All pretty low things to do on such a momentous occasion.
That's all he thought about for a long while. He got up and shuffled around his abode agitatedly. His cucco stayed on the table watching her owner pace around, who was now twitching with annoyance. Finally, Link stopped to look at his thin duvet.
The cheap sheet was caked in dust. "No wonder I've been sneezing at night so often!" thought Link as he sauntered over. He slid his finger in a straight line up the cover to gather some dust. "This could really do with a clean-up."
He was about to pick up the sheet and shake it silly, but then he noticed the straight line that he'd drawn. "All right, I should have a little fun first!" he chuckled. Using some rocks to stop the duvet moving about, Link drew some more lines on the sheet. A curved, horizontal line on the bottom that joined to the first, a vertical line parallel to his first on the other side of the curved line, a short circle to give the illusion of a 3D image, some straight lines that were all in the middle of the circle, some teardrop shapes atop the ten lines and finally, another curved line to separate the two halves.
Can you guess what it is yet?
"A nice cake with lit candles..." thought Link as he glanced at his homemade clock on the wall. The thing was made out of tree parts. A disc from a rather thin tree for the circle and two twigs from the forest floor for the hands. A bunch of bands and more wood later and it was fully functional. It had no numbers, but Link had learned how to read a clock thanks to Saria.
CLICK!
With a loud noise, the two hands jumped up north.
It was midnight. His anniversary of arrival.
"Happy anniversary, Link." said Link with a little smile. With a puff of air, he blew at the candles on his drawing of a cake. Not only did they disappear, but almost all of the dust on the duvet shot into the air and spun like snowflakes. Coughing and gasping from the dust, Link turned to get outside to fresh air.
CLANG!
Not watching where he was going, he stepped straight into a metal bucket that he planned to use for storage.
"Oh, flip!" wheezed the boy as he wobbled to the table with his foot stuck in the bucket. With a gasp of anticipation, Link tripped over the table. His cucco squawked and flapped away from her falling owner as he crashed over the table she was standing on.
SPLAT!
The impact shook a white jug, tipping it over and drenching Link in goat milk.
"Oh, badgers on a bike!" shouted Link as he hauled himself up. Grasping both ends of the bucket, he hopped up and down and pushed with all his might to try and dislodge the bucket-turned-bear-trap. In doing this, he veered backwards and stepped straight into another bucket.
"OH, MY GIDDY AUNT!"
Looking like a rather strange trendsetter, he clattered outside to his balcony, breathing in the fresh air. Calming himself, he shook one foot free from its bucket.
"Phew! We're getting somewhere!" panted the boy as he composed himself once more, grasped the other bucket and heaved with all his might, twisting his other foot as he did so. This worked rather well and within ten seconds, the bucket squealed off.
"At last!"
Link stared off into the foggy forest. It was his anniversary today. How would it be sunk this time?
Whooosh…
What?
No. Nothing was there. It was the middle of the night. No way would there have been someone else up at this hour.
Shf, shf, shf, shf, shf, shf, shf.
Footsteps?
"Who's there?" called Link through the thick mist as the footsteps got closer and closer.
"Link?"
KRRRT!
With a striking noise, a match was lit and guided to a lantern. When the oil ignited, the figure's face was revealed.
She was a girl with emerald-coloured hair and blue, twinkling eyes.
It was Saria.
"Oh, it's just you, Saria! Thank goodness! I thought there was a robber among us! What brings you here at this hour?" called Link down from his balcony. Saria simply smiled back up at him.
"We've all got something to show you over at the Woods of Spirits! Come on! Lets go!"
"All of you?"
"Yes, everyone! Now, follow me!"
With that, Saria turned and ran back into the forest, the little fire fading into the trees.
…
That's probably a bit dangerous.
"Saria, wait! I have to climb down this ladder first!" shouted Link after her as he scrambled down his ladder, crashed to the floor and booked it after his friend.
Crashing through ferns and piles of leaves, Link inspected his homemade map of the forest.
"Woods of Spirits, Woods of Spirits, Woods of Spirits..." he muttered as he scanned the paper. Where was the Woods of Spirits? "Gully Bluff, Adda Pond, Aha! Here we are!"
Using the map, he tracked where he was and ran towards the Woods of Spirits.
Even though the name suggested that the Woods of Spirits was haunted, it was pretty much the opposite. It was a little space of forest where celebrations took place. Most of the time, people went there to celebrate a big event like a birthday or an-
"Wait a minute!" mumbled Link as he crashed into his destination. Before he could process everything, there was the sound of a bonfire starting up, followed by cheering.
Deafening cheering.
"HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!"
"AAAAARGH!"
In complete and utter shock from this sudden celebration, Link tripped over the root of a tree and skidded along the floor to a stop, leaving a furrow in the ground behind him as if he were a farming plough.
Yanking his dirty face out from the floor, Link eyed what was going on ahead of him. A group of stunned Kokiri, a giant, wooden table, a great big bonfire in the background and a wooden house, decorated with a giant, handwritten banner that read "HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, LINK!".
Well, it had a lot more exclamation marks than that. However, I physically can't put them in. I don't really know why, but that really should get fixed!
"Whoa. Whoa! What's going on?" mused Link as he brushed a bit of molehill dirt off his arm. Saria and a few of her friends flanked him to help him up.
"Don't you remember? Today is your anniversary! Today is the date you arrived here! It's midnight!"
"What?" thought Link as he hauled himself up with a little help. "Are you sure? I thought it was tomorrow!"
"Why, no! This is why we didn't call you for dinner yesterday! Since most of these special days go wrong, we decided to make it up to you by celebrating this one as soon as it started!" explained Saria as she helped dust Link off.
"'As… soon… as… it… started?"
Link thought about this for a bit before finally, everything clicked into place.
"Midnight! The date changes at midnight! Of course!"
Now everything made sense. The Kokiri would usually call everyone around for dinner at around seven o'clock, but Link would always forget and would never be there in advance. It seemed that the Kokiri had used this to their advantage and delayed dinner until midnight so that they could have a massive feast for Link's anniversary!
"You… You guys are… y-y- I- oh, drat, I can't talk!" mumbled Link. He was so overwhelmed with emotion that he couldn't properly piece together a sentence. It was like trying to fit a piece of string through the eye of a needle with cold, shivering hands. "You guys are the best!"
Saria gave him a friendly smile and wiped a little happy tear from his face before guiding him to the table. "Now, come and sit down! What would you like to be cooked? Mido would be more than happy to make a meal, wouldn't you, Mido?"
Oh, no.
Really?
Link scanned the sea of heads at the table. They were all looking away from him at someone else. The only head that wasn't turned was Mido's. This was because he was the one everyone was looking at. He seemed to be zoned out, but when he had processed that Saria had said his name rather harshly, he sprung up. That was bound to get his attention, because Mido craved to be liked by the girl.
"Whatwhatwhat? I- um… what is it?" spluttered Mido with a rather delayed reaction. He sat completely upright, with a nervous, wide smile.
Flashing back to the spice incident from last year, Link quickly spoke up. "Actually, Saria, I have a better idea."
"What do you mean, no?" roared an armoured figure in the Great Deku Tree's meadow.
"I mean what I sayeth. The answ'r 's nay. This em'rald is a talisman of the forest and I cannot allow 't to falleth into evil hands. If 't be true thee w're to haveit, I wouldst beest allowing just yond."
"I mean what I say as well! If you don't give me that piece of ore, you'll be suffering in constant, never-ending pain until your slow death arrives, you freaky tiki!"
"I predict thou would not cast that curse."
"If that's your prediction, I hope you don't become a fortune teller!"
With that, the man, obscured by a thick cloak, raised his hand. Electricity crackled from his fingers like string from a spider as it congregated into a ball of energy.
"Out of my sight! Thou dost infect my eyes!" shouted the Great Deku Tree as the cursed projectile grew into the size of a watermelon.
"I shall infect more than that in a few short seconds!"
The man showed no signs of backing down, despite the insults of his target.
"Thou hast no more brain in thy head than I have in my branches. A hex like yond shall has't nay effect on a tree."
The man lowered his hand a little, about to call off his spell. The Great Deku Tree was right. This man had researched the deity before coming to raid it, and his sources had said the Great Deku Tree was immune to corruption.
Just before the magic dissipated, the mystery assassin noticed something crawling along out the corner of his eye.
An eight-legged spider. Eight eyes on the front of it, an exoskeleton protecting it from birds of prey.
"What do we have here?" whined the man in a mocking tone. "A crust spider. This is no deity. A simple, woodland creature. This shall be a prime example that you should always look for a solution."
The man fired the hex at the crust spider. At first glance, it appeared to kill it instantly as it flipped on its back and shrivelled its legs. However, it had survived. Its legs began shaking as it tried to right itself. As it thrashed, it seemed to get bigger.
With a sickening slurping noise, all of its eyes merged into one large, red eye. With loud scraping noises, its front limbs metallised. With teeth-grating sharpening noises, its second set of limbs grew sharp hooks on the tips.
It grew and grew and grew until finally, it was several times the size of a spider crab. One massive, bloodshot eye with a red iris, metallic forearms, a pair of hooked legs and one toothed mouth that could spit burning acid.
The crust spider had become a nearly mindless monster.
"Well, that's one ugly bug!" laughed the cloaked warlock. "Now, show this guy how strong you are by taking out a few of the villagers here!"
The Great Deku Tree said nothing as the man stepped into a liquid-like void of darkness that appeared and vanished with him. Either he knew something that the man didn't or he was just distraught.
"SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH!"
With an ear-piercing shriek, the shelled spider stomped away from the Great Deku Tree towards the Kokiri, leaving dents in the floor as it thundered along.
"Here we are! Tournedos Rossini!" announced Link as he stepped out of the mess house with a few others. To save everyone getting food poisoning thanks to SOMEONE making a meal out of the meal, Link had taken the food situation into his own hands. Link and the few that decided to help were carrying plates topped with some food. A small portion of steak, carrying some vegetables on top. Some brown sauce zigzagged across the plates. Finally, the meat was garnished with a mint leaf and some common vegetables decorated the side of the plates.
"Eh? 'Tornado?'" growled Mido. His red fairy, Yoi, flew out from under his hat.
"No, not tornado, Tournedos! It's a fancy, foreign language, Mido!" she tittered. Mido glared at her.
"I was joking, OK?"
The food was passed around the table evenly. Once they ran out, they simply returned to the mess house and bought out more.
"This is it?" muttered Mido as Link very intentionally placed his portion down last.
"Well, it may not be big, but what's there is top-quality!" replied Link, trying his best not to look suspicious. If Mido thought that he had spiked his food, he would probably fling it and scream "HE'S SPIKED OUR GRUB!" and that would ruin yet another anniversary.
Squinting suspiciously, Mido took his wooden cutlery, cut off a piece of meat and popped it into his mouth. As he processed the flavouring, all the others stared at him for a reaction. After what seemed like a minute of chewing, Mido opened his mouth to speak, but then appeared to stop and reconsider. If he were to say anything bad, he was bound to be kicked out.
"Well… 'S all right, I suppose." he muttered.
Mido saying this about Link's cooking meant that it must have been absolutely amazing! With nothing to worry about, the rest all dug in. Link sat in anticipation to see if anyone else liked it.
Considering Mido not throwing a wobbly at his cooking, it was really a given that no one would dislike it.
"What? 'All right'? This is delicious!"
"How did you do this?"
"Oh, my goodness! It tastes like heaven on a spoon!"
Phew! Link gave a relieved smile as Saria tasted his cooking. Immediately, her eyes widened.
"Link? What on earth did you put in here? This tastes amazing!" she breathed, inspecting the inside of the steak as if she was looking through the keyhole of a door. Trying to think of the ingredients off the top of his head, Link recited what he had used.
"Well, there's beef tenderloin, filet mignon, vegetables, truffle sauce-"
With no warning, Saria patted him on the shoulder. Link jumped a little at this. He didn't really like contact with another person because most physical contact he'd received involved being shoved around and nudged out of the way.
"Well, I think you're an absolutely amazing cook!" said Saria, reassuringly. Link slowly calmed himself.
Maybe not all physical contact involved landing in the duck pond.
"Hey!" shouted a high voice from off in the distance.
"Listen to us!" came another from the same direction. All the kids turned their heads at the voices. Like a spectacular light show, two fairies, one green and one yellow, fluttered towards the party at speed. They were frantically gibbering as if they had just seen a mutilated ghoul.
"Saria! Saria! Listen!" squealed the green fairy as it stopped around Saria and bounced up and down like a rubber ball thrown downwards in a room with a very low ceiling.
"Fado! Fado! There's a monster marching around here!" squealed the yellow fairy, quivering near a blonde girl with hair buns. The whole, entire table gasped in horror, all except for one.
"A monster? That's ridiculous! There's no monster in this forest! There hasn't been for years!" shouted the one kid, who had brown hair that went down over his eyes.
"Yes there is! It's big and it's scary and it eats everything in sight!" replied the green fairy as she shot over to the one plucky boy. Standing his ground, he still denied.
"That's Mido! Now, stop trying to scare us with these monster stories! We'll save them for the campfire part of the party!" insisted the boy. Mido shot a death glare at him across the table.
"You'll get a bunch of fours from me if you say something like that again..." he muttered as several Kokiri tried their best to not laugh at that stealth insult. Link, however, seemed interested in something.
A cup of fresh spring water.
Plop.
A drip of water permeated the surface of the drink, undoubtedly caused by a creature of great mass.
Rumble…
Plip!
An audible rumble caused a giant ring to appear in the centre of the liquid and scatter to the edges.
"Um… Saria?" gibbered Link as he tapped his friend on the shoulder. She turned to face him.
"Yes? Are you all right?"
"I think that fairy is telling the truth. Look!"
The two watched the cup of spring water for any more signs of movement.
…
…
…
Nothing.
Every time, isn't it? You bring your spluttering car to the mechanic and the second he looks at it, it purrs like a kitten. Every single time.
"Right… So, let me tell you all I know..." started Link. Mido snorted from across the table.
"Well, this shouldn't take long! HA, HA, HA!" guffawed the little terror.
Well, I knew that change of attitude was too good to be true. So did Link. Narrowing his eyes, he rolled one of his sleeves up. "Right. That's it. I'll flatten you if you say stuff like that." he threatened, but he felt Saria's hand on his shoulder.
"Don't worry about him, Link. Remember, 'Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me!'" recited the girl. This was something that she had told Link a lot. He didn't know what it really meant because Link would always think outside the box and get idioms all wrong.
"Right. Give me a minute." said Link, reaching under the table. Grabbing hold of a Y-shaped stick in his pocket, he nocked it with a twig and-
THWACK!
With the twang of strings, the small twig flew through the air and harmlessly knocked Mido in the head. It didn't really hurt, but the surprise caused him to topple off of his seat and onto the floor.
"Oh, that's not what I meant!" sighed Saria as she shook her head.
"As I was saying, I shall tell you all I know about this situation." finished Link. In his hand, he held a slingshot. A simple stick with two red tips and a strip of elastic holding a leather cup up. "Right, so I just felt a little rumble in the floor just now. It's shaking the cup of water there. Any time now, it'll happen again."
BOOM!
SPLASH!
A massive quake caused the cup of spring water to spring into the air and splatter onto the table. Link and Saria stared at each other in wide-eyed shock. Everyone around the table had now gone silent and was staring past them, hardly breathing from fright.
Scared out of their skin, Link and Saria slowly turned around.
"SHREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
A giant, armoured spider stood behind them. One bloodshot, narrowed eye, two metal forearms, two hooked legs and one giant shell of armour.
As soon as everyone saw the monster they got up and ran for their lives, screaming into the cover of the nearby trees. With a swish of metal, the giant spider swung its arm and smashed it into the bonfire, creating a massive explosion.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
Flaming shards of wood and ash shot everywhere. Over the table, towards trees and over the heads of the fleeing kids. A sword that was being used as a poker for the fire was also launched by the explosion and it spun through the air like a boomerang, straight towards Link and Saria, who were running alongside each other.
SwishswishswishswishswishswishSWISHSWISHSWISHSWISHSWISHSWISH…
Hearing the whirling blade, Saria hit the dirt, taking Link with her.
"Heads up!" she shouted as the blade whizzed overhead. The sword, red from the heat, jammed straight into a tree like a dart into a board.
Wasting no time, Link leaped back up like a spring, ran to the smoking weapon, gripped the bronze handle which was wrapped in bandages and tugged it out of the tree. Finally, he turned to face the behemoth behind him.
"Link! What are you doing? You're going to get yourself killed! You can't fight something that big!" cried Saria as she pulled herself up. Link turned back to her as she stepped towards him.
"Well, how else is it going to leave the forest? Everyone else has no weapon right now! Trust me, I'm ready for this. All I need is support and-"
With a tremendous scream, the monster pointed its eye at the ground and a blue laser shot out of it. A swift upwards motion of its head and the beam was ripping along the ground, straight towards the two once more.
"Look out!"
Link shoved himself and Saria out of the path of the projectile. It cut through the tree that the sword had lodged itself into, leaving a red, glowing line up the centre of it. With a burst of steam, the tree fell apart vertically, with the two halves clattering to the ground.
"That's it! No one kills our home like this! No one!" roared Link. As Saria watched helplessly, he charged at the spider, screaming "DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEE!" all the way. The demon beast did nothing. It simply stood there, eye narrowed. Within a second, it violently smashed the boy away with its metallic forearm.
CLANGGGG!
Link flew through the air like a ragdoll, sliding against the grass and coming to rest by the split tree.
"Link! Please! Stop! It's going to kill you! You may not think it, but NONE of us want that! Not one of us!"
Still recovering from the blow to the head, Link hauled himself up with Saria's help. "I… I can't just sit here and let this monster kill us all! I have a responsibility to everyone and I have to protect them!"
"Look, your life is not worth stalling the monster! Not nearly! We all care about you! A whole lot! Just… Let's go to the Great Deku Tree. He must be able to help us."
With those last two sentences, Saria calmed her voice down a bit. This also made Link feel a bit less wrathful. Not much, but still less.
"All right. If anyone can beat this guy, it's him."
The two were about to leave to beseech the Great Deku Tree but they didn't get far before a horribly familiar voice boomed across the forest.
"HEY, YOU! CRUSTACIOUS CREEP!"
It was Mido! Hiding behind the body of a fallen tree, he leapt out of cover and charged at the monster, wielding a sooty chimney brush as if he thought he could swat the spider into the stratosphere with it. "Don't touch the forest, you selfish shellfish! Take this!"
"Mido, stop! Don't!" called Saria after him. Link wanted to call after him too, but…
Not that he didn't want too, but it was something else. A green flash in his vision, and… he was watching what seemed to be a glimpse into the future. The edges of his sight were all blurry, but it was still obvious what was happening. As soon as Mido reached point-blank range, the spider released an acid bomb. Scene change. The monster batted a burned and battered Mido against a tree. Scene change. A scene from behind said tree, the monster trusted its sharp leg at it and…
Oh…
Oh, no.
Just before a clean strike, the premonition ended and colours danced before Link's eyes and drained from his face before he finally could see again.
"Wh-What did I just..." muttered Link as Saria continued screaming at the charging Mido. Just as it was doing with Link, the arachnid wasn't moving. Its eye was narrowed and slowly turning blue as it prepared to fire an acid bomb.
"No! Don't move! Stay back!" Link called, his eyes full of frightened tears. He ran straight at Mido, swinging the still-glowing sword around in front of him to scare Mido away. This worked rather well as Mido noticed Link running at him like a runaway monkey and began to retreat.
This left Link right in the way of the giant spider's attack. With a heart-stopping splattering noise, a giant ball of acid shot out of the demon's mouth. With a deafening hiss, the acid covered Link from head to toe, throwing him to the floor. Almost all of the Kokiri descended into screaming fits as he immediately felt it burning. It felt like an allergic reaction, only several hundred times worse. Like being in a fire, only dozens worse. He desperately tried wiping it off but as he did, he noticed that it was leaving awful wounds.
Then he passed out, the sound of screaming kids in his ears.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah..."
The monster stood over the unconscious boy, hissing wildly as its iris flashed electric blue. Electricity started to get sucked into a vortex, congregating into a big ball of electricity just ahead of the monster.
"Wait, that's it! Its eye! When its eye is blue, that must mean that it's committed to an attack and it's vulnerable!" deduced Saria. "Someone! Throw something at its eye! Quick!"
"I'm on it!" shouted Mido. Knowing when to draw the line at his own ridiculing, he raced over to the fireplace and heaved a giant log out of the pile, the end still flaming. With a spinning start, he swung the log around and around and around to allow the flame to spread and when the fire had reached halfway down the weapon, he hurled it at the shelled beast. The flaming pole whirled through the air like a fire dancer before smashing into the monster. It let out an awful shriek as the log exploded in spectacular fashion. A burst of ashes and wood obscured it as the monster thrashed in fury and pain. When the debris cleared, the spider was glaring furiously at the rest of the Kokiri, its lens dusted in black ash. It evidently couldn't see well because it was blinking furiously and looking in the wrong direction.
…
…
…
With a suspenseful pause, the monster stampeded into the forest, knocking down trees in its blind rage.
It was gone, and so was Link if something wasn't done fast.
All the other Kokiri seemed to forget about him in all the carnage and had sloped off, paranoid for their lives, but Saria stuck around.
"Please, tell me it's not true..." she whimpered as she shuffled to the wreckage of the fire, her whole body heaving. Next to it lay Link, covered in burns and a small amount of leftover acid.
"Say it's just a dream..."
No denial was ever going to change things.
"This is all my fault! I should have stepped in myself!"
Silently, she reached down, picked Link up as best she could and lugged him back to his treehouse, the acid burning her neck.
Quote Of The Day:
"Count your life by smiles, not tears. Count your age by friends, not years."
