Chapter 2: Old Friends and New Challenges

Unlikely as it seems, it turned out that some Kokiri children did happen to pay attention to the events happening outside of Link's household that morning. Word quickly spread throughout the forest that generous amounts of Kokiri had noticed a fairy flying towards, and into, Link's home. By noon, the whole forest was buzzing with the news that the un-partnered boy had finally found the company of a fairy. But, of course, the gossip hadn't travelled by word of mouth quickly enough to reach the very depths of the Lost woods, where Saria sat practicing on her ocarina.


I had gotten up earlier that morning, sooner than the sun had risen, to play my ocarina in the Lost Woods. It was a peaceful session- something that I longed for after the past week of anxiety. I hadn't been able to sleep properly in the past six days, which was odd for me; I usually had no trouble sleeping in until late afternoon. There was something in the forest that was changing: great forces that were brewing under the peaceful surface of the village. I knew these woods well, and I noticed when something had changed in them. It was as if the entire world was shifting to make way for an event of astounding proportions that would upset the balance of time. Someone, or something, was rising out of the depths of Hyrule, and I knew that that epic force was coming from these woods.

When I had finished my session, I sighed quietly, unwilling to leave my sanctuary and face the chaos of the outside world. Most Kokiri children were afraid of these woods, but I was not. Somehow, when I came here, I felt a sort of strange wave of ease and peace wash over me. I loved having my music sessions in these woods because of the untouchable feeling I got when I came here. I felt like I was being watched over by a supernatural being.

My favourite spot to play was on a lone tree stump in the back of the woods. It's a secluded area, with ruins of an ancient building crumbling from its point on the wall and ivy snaking through the cracked cement. But most mysterious of all about it is the platform in the shape a medallion built into the ground. There was something about this place: I feel as if it was created just for my eyes, and I know it will be a significant place in my future.

With my energy returning I stood up and tucked my instrument into my pocket. I began to make the journey out of the forest and back home.

Sunlight washed over me when I reached the entrance to the woods. I squinted carefully, giving my eyes time to adjust to the sudden change in light. When they had, I stared out into the distance to catch a figure running towards me. A Kokiri child.

The Kokiri reached me, panting, and bent down to rest his arms on his knees. When he caught his breath, he straightened and eyed my excitedly.

I gave him a curious look.

"Hey."

"Saria! Something's happened! You'll never guess!"

I cocked my head towards him thoughtfully.

"Really?" I found it hard to believe that something that could cause the child such excitement had come to pass within the hour.

"Yes! It's... the no-fairy boy! Link!"

My eyes widened in question, then rolled. What did Link get himself into now?

"He's! - I mean!-" The boy spluttered, and then paused to manage his words.

"A Kokiri this morning saw a fairy flying into his house! He's finally been partnered!"

I stared at him in shocked silence. The Kokiri's grin widened in amusement at my reaction. With satisfaction I crossed my arms and smiled to myself.

It was about time.

We left the house briefly after Navi had told me the news of the Deku tree. She suggested that I packed a few of my things on the spot, in case we had to leave somewhere later in a rush. I nodded my head at her suggestion and began to pack a satchel with a few of my little belongings. As I did this, my mind raced with questions: Why did the Deku tree want to see me now, after so many years of waiting to be partnered with a fairy? And why was it so urgent? They were subjects I meant to bring up with Navi later, when we were walking to the meadow, as she seemed pretty rushed to leave now and was nagging me to pack faster. I packed swiftly, with her badgering, and carefully- not really needing time to sort my things, as I had so few. We left about fifteen minutes after she had first appeared.

We were greeted to the outside world with a burst of sunlight and a wave of shouting Kokiri. Navi and I both stopped abruptly outside the door, shocked at the amount of people waving at us from the ground below. Hundreds of Kokiri were crowded around my tree house, all of them shouting and congratulating me in a crash of sound.

"Hey Link!"

"There he is!"

"Look! He does have a fairy!"

"When did you find out, Link?"

"Is that Navi? I think it's Navi!"

"Link! Good job, buddy!"

"Congratulations!"

The noise was enough to drive anyone out of sleep, and I watched with a sickening stomach as yawning children wandered out of their houses to see what all the commotion was. Still more shouted at me from doorsteps, shaking their angry fists in the air. It was an utter mess! How could have word of Navi and I travelled throughout the forest so quickly? I knew that the throng of children below me meant well, and that they all just wanted to congratulate me on receiving a fairy, but the mob of onlookers was starting to seriously freak me out. And it was waking up half of the forest. I was certain that pretty soon, the crowd would turn chaotic, and a fight would break out somewhere below. It wouldn't be the first time. I had to do something to get out of here, quickly, but I couldn't decide on what to do or where to go.

I glanced at Navi for help, but all she returned was an exasperated flutter of her wings. I turned my head back to the crowd and swallowed a cold lump in my throat. Was I going to have to make a speech or something?

Suddenly, out of the crowd came an authoritative cry of annoyance.

"Hey! What 's going on? Get out of here! All of you! Ouch! Get off my foot!" The voice snarled with anger.

A green haired Kokiri girl was pushing through the stiff crowd, gradually making her way towards me. When she had reached the front, she stared straight up at me with green eyes and a smile that I would recognize anywhere.

Saria.

I grinned back at her and we both shared a moment of relief. If anyone could get this crowd under control, it was her.

"Okay, listen up everyone!" Her hair bobbed up and down as she shouted above the crowd. The yelps of the Kokiri instantly died down to a softened whisper.

"I think it's pretty obvious that we all know Link has received a fairy," The whispering grew louder and cheerier with her words. She raised her voice further to be heard over the crowd.

"Which is great and all," Excited whoops drifted from the crowd.

"But, we don't need a mass of people out here to congratulate him!" The cheers immediately ceased.

"Everyone, let's all get back to what we were doing before this, sleeping or otherwise..." She gestured towards the growing swarm of sleepy Kokiri building to the left of my house. They raised their fists in angry protest.

"...and return to our quiet, peaceful morning, okay? This is a forest, not a protest ground. Everyone, go back to what you were doing! We can all congratulate Link, personally, later."

With her final words, the crowd began to thin, and the inhabitants of the forest returned to their morning activities. The awakened group near the houses to the left of the forest nodded approvingly and grumbled back to their beds to sleep. Finally, when most of the children had left, or had shifted to the side of the house in whispering pairs, Saria turned to me triumphantly.

"Pretty good, huh?"

I smiledat her gratefully. Relief washed over me from the comfort of her expression.

"Thanks, Saria."

She nodded.

"No problem."

Her gaze drifted upwards to where Navi hovered shyly behind my hat.

"And who are you?" she asked kindly.

Navi peeped at her from behind the fabric, then flew slowly out from behind it. I glanced up at her from behind my shoulder and smiled encouragingly. She nodded in my direction, realizing that this girl was a friend, and flew down to Saria's level to introduce herself tentatively.

"My name is Navi."

Saria smiled and raised a cautious hand to the fairy. Navi accepted the notion with a flutter of her wings, allowing the girl to pat her gently on the head with light fingers. As the two met, a second fairy began to reveal itself from hiding behind Saria. The other fairy was a soft green in colour, with translucent wings as thin as paper. She hovered over Saria patiently for a minute, and afterwards flew down to her level to nudge her on the cheek. The girl gave her a silent look, then turned back to face Navi, who had fluttered back to my eye level. She addressed us both.

"Link, Navi, this is my fairy, Lera."

I waved my hand in a friendly gesture and Navi nodded towards the fairy. Both had met before when they had served under the Deku tree, in the days before they were partnered. Lera fluttered her wings in brief recognition.

I turned my attention to Saria after the quiet exchange.

"How did you know about the partnering?"

She smiled and flicked her fingers through the empty forest air.

"The woods told me." I laughed and she pouted playfully.

"That's something you wouldn't understand unless you spent more time in the Lost Woods. The trees have a way of communicating too, you know. How else would they know when the seasons change that it would be time to drop their leaves? Some people even say that..." She paused dramatically. "The trees whisper to each other on the breath of the wind!"

I eyed her carefully with a smirk, unconvinced.

"Okay, Saria."

"It's true!" She punched me lightly on the arm, laughing. I grinned, and took a few warning steps forward. She raised one eyebrow in response and lifted her arms in front of her in a light defence.

Engrossed in a potential battle with Saria, my thoughts strayed from the far more serious situation at hand. Navi exchanged a few brief words with Lera, and tried to catch my glance with an urgent stare. When our eyes met, she motioned towards the forest beyond, where the Deku tree lay in wait for us to return. I nodded unwillingly and turned back to Saria, who dropped her battle stance in response to the change of mood. She stared at me with a confused look and I shifted my eyes to the far forest with a blank expression.

"Is there something you're not..."

"The Deku tree has summoned me." I interrupted quietly.

Her eyes widened in surprise, and then excitement.

"What? Really? That's great!" She stepped towards me and put both of her hands on my shoulders. I didn't look at her. She sensed my un-enthusiasm and shook me gently.

"Link? What is it?" I glanced at her hurriedly, my face displaying my conflicted thoughts. She stiffened and frowned at my sense of agitation.

"What's wrong?"

"It's just..." She let go of me and stepped back, staring into my eyes, confused. I looked away again and paused for a few seconds to figure out just how to voice my feelings.

"It doesn't make sense!" I blurted out. I threw my hands into the air in frustration. "Why would he summon me now, after all this time of me waiting around for a fairy? After twelve years, Saria!" I turned to meet her gaze, and noticed that her lips were pursed in thought.

"It's been twelve years since I came to this forest." My voice lowered a few notches. "And I've never received a fairy until now. Why is that? I've been waiting for so long, I had already given up hoping for a fairy to come to me, and then all of a sudden, one does. Out of total thin air. No explanations. Nothing. It's like, what the hell took so long? You know?" I studied her body, slouched in concentration. She held her arms close to herself with one hand concealing her lips. Her eyebrows were bent in thought.

I let her ponder my words for a few minutes, watching her patiently and waiting for a response. After a while, she looked up at me again with a weak smile displayed upon her face. I felt a sudden, cumbersome weight in my chest when I saw her bleak expression. I didn't like that face on her. I knew she probably thought I was being ridiculous right now, and I guess it sounded like I was, but it was so hard to explain exactly what I was feeling right at that moment. It was difficult for me to even place a finger on my emotions, much less explain them. I felt this nervous, sick, churning thing in my stomach that made me choke with anxiety, but was, at the same time, incredibly exciting. I felt as if my life was going to turn around in some strange, twisted way, but also, that it was about to crumble beneath my fingertips. I had an unsettling feeling of dread in my stomach, a feeling that had gradually crept inside of me during the past week of uneven sleep and horrific nightmares. Something was definitely going on, something that I had only begun to scratch the complicated surface of. I wanted answers to my questions, and it seemed that the only way of getting them was to go to the Deku tree with Navi. But something about that, too, gave me a queasy feeling deep inside the pit of my stomach. I was stuck between two places- like a rock, balancing on the very tip of a mountain, inches away from plunging into the unknown- and seeing Saria like this just made everything even worse. I hated seeing her worry about me, but I could sense that there was something deeper below the surface of her expression that she had been trying to hide, something that, she too, had noticed lately. Something that was more complicated than I could ever imagine. I knew that she understood my point; she knew something was going on as well.

Saria looked at me with blank eyes and a weak smile. I stared back at her, feeling something shift inside of me at the sight of her this way. Her eyes looked lost and very far away as she took my hands in hers and tightened her grip around them. The action caused a shot of panic to run through me in response to the sudden change about her. And then, almost as if she could feel the worry inside of me that her notions had caused, her eyes became readable again, and a small smile crept around her lips. Her expression warmed to reassure my doubts, and the old Saria that I knew so well slowly started to return as she opened her mouth to form words.

"Link, listen to me." She spoke slowly but with a small sense of urgency. I nodded my head in response.

"Something is happening in these woods, a strange force that has come to me in the past week... something that I am sure you have felt as well." My thoughts reluctantly drifted back to the nightmares of the past week. I stiffened in automatic response to the terrible images that came to mind, but Saria's strong grip drew me back to her words.

"The forest has been uneasy: the trees are rustling their leaves louder than usual, and I can hear the animals whispering to each other urgently in the night. Something is rising out of this forest, and though I am sure that it is something major, I have no idea what it is, or when it will come to pass." As she spoke, the warmth in her face began to cool. I listened carefully until she finished, and when she did, she looked away from me with a deep sadness displayed in her eyes.

"Link, tell me. Do you remember what I always used to say to you? How... you don't have a fairy because..." She turned her gaze back to me and smiled weakly. "...something better is going to happen to you in life?" I nodded, and she sighed and closed her eyes. She continued to speak again, raising my hands to place them on the left of her chest. Her beating heart pulsed below my palm.

"I believe that the recent events have something to do with... you. And you receiving a fairy today has confirmed those beliefs for me. Something incredible is about to happen to you, finally, after all of these years of waiting. We spent twelve years together as friends, and during that time I watched you grow up with the pain of not having a fairy, and not knowing what your destiny would be. But now, the day has come. The day you discover who you truly are..." She opened her eyes slowly and looked up at me with a tearful smile that crept about her lips. Her words left me with a shocked look upon my face. I noticed a crystal tear escaping from her eyelid, replacing shock with a smile.

"And now Link," she continued with an honourable, but still very sorrowful, glow. "You have a fairy. So how will your life turn around? Will something incredible happen to you, or will you let this forest contain you forever?"

With that the young Kokiri girl lowered her head and lets the tears fall freely. She had now found herself confused by the intensity of her emotions. She was happy for her best friend, happy that he would soon discover his destiny. But where would that leave their friendship? Would the beautiful bond of it stay with him throughout his life, like it would for her, or would he just let the memories slip away?

Her questions were answered when she felt the cool touch of her friend's fingers under her chin. Her eyes wandered upwards, where the strange boy lifted her chin to look at him, and gazed into her eyes with gratitude. Another tear escaped from her melancholic eyelids. The boy smiled and raised a hand to catch the glittering liquid on his finger. With the opposite, he embraced her cheek with a feathery touch. The girl tried weakly to speak, but words did not form at her fumbling mouth. The boy, however, voiced the words she could not say.

"Saria... thank you."

I stared into the emerald eyes of the girl before me with a deeper sense of appreciation than I had ever felt before in my life. I was faintly aware of Navi above me, trying to signal that it was time to leave, but now, I didn't feel the slightest urge to go. The heartache of my best friend was holding me back, tying my feet to the ground with a bond that was unbreakable to anyone other than ourselves. I wanted to stay with her, to comfort her in the ways that she had always found the time to do for me. We both knew that it was almost time for us to say a permanent good-bye. But what I didn't realize before now was that Saria always knew that this day would eventually come: the day when we had to be separated. We were just too different. We were two of the same, except that one of us lived where they belonged and the other did not.

I swallowed a growing lump in my dry throat and tried to fake a comforting smile. It seemed to work, as Saria's face gained a little composer. Her eyes hardened and I moved my hands away from her face. She wiped the remaining tears from her cheek with the sleeve of her tunic and stared back into my eyes with the same sense of appreciation that I felt. Together, though, our expressions held a sense of determination, and we turned them together to the outside world, ready to face its hardships: some that we understood, but most that we didn't.

The vision of our companions was almost comical. Lera's eyes were widened in a mixture of shock and horror at the emotional scene that had just taken place in front of her. Navi's gaze kept drifting to the forest in the distance, her wings twitching randomly; she was itching to return to the approval of her guardian. The sight of our partners in this state caused Saria and I to glance back to each other. We both tried desperately to stifle our laughs from behind our concealed lips. But after a few moments, it was too much to endure, and we both broke out in a shower of uncontrollable laughter. The sound was loud enough to result in a large amount of Kokiri heads turning in our direction, staring at us with strange looks. A few of the late-sleepers from earlier were, again, driven outside, and they began to shake their fists at with abhorrence.

Navi's focus was broken due to our laughter. Her face wrinkled in annoyance in response to our hysterics.

"What? What is it?" she questioned heatedly.

Neither of us heard her over our amusement, unable to gain control of ourselves just yet. Navi's normally clam blue shade turned to pink as she demanded to know what was wrong with us. Lera stared at us in horror, unable to comprehend the varied array of emotion that was just displayed before her.

"Oh, I see!" Navi spluttered, now enraged. "I guess that we're just the laughing-stock, now that your little tear session is over. You know, it's enough to make any fairy sick! You humans! Your emotions are completely unbelievable!" She turned her back to us in a huff. Lera gave her a silent look of disbelief. Navi rolled her eyes in response.

It took another few moments, but eventually, when Saria and I were under enough control to speak coherently, I tried to explain our outbursts.

"I'm sorry Navi. Your expressions were just hilarious."

"Oh yeah, hilarious all right!" The fairy flew to me in a split second and looked at me straight in the eye. "I suppose your tears, mouths agape, dumbfounded looks are just totally..." she raised a wing to her heart and sighed sarcastically. "...heartbreaking!" I prevented another set of laughter from escaping and responded cynically.

"Yeah, totally."

"You little brat-"

"Okay! Guys!" Saria raised her voice above our bickering. Instantly, all attention was turned towards her. She smiled dimly, and pointed towards the beckoning forest in the distance.

"Link, Navi, isn't it time that you both got going?"

That cold, pitted feeling of dread returned to my stomach as she spoke. Navi's expression changed from annoyance to recognition in an instant, remembering the real reason that she had come to my house that morning.

"Oh right."

I took a step back from Saria reluctantly, unwilling to say the good-bye that I knew would eventually come. Navi seemed to sense my indisposition to leave just yet, and offered to meet me below the tree house. I nodded and she flew off, leaving me alone with the friend that I had known for as long as I could remember. Slowly, I turned my head and studied her eyes with worry. She stared back at me for a long while, seeming to hear the very words of doubt that repeated themselves over and over inside of my head. My expression was grim as I, again, realized that this might be the last time I would ever see her. She was someone that I didn't want to let go, someone that I felt I couldn't live the rest of my life without. She was the food that nourished the sense inside of my head, telling me to stay where I was and never leave. I looked into her eyes and saw a small piece of myself, clinging onto the life that I thought I knew. She was everything to me, the very force that sewed my feet to the floor in a stubborn reality. I couldn't leave. I couldn't be in a place that she wasn't. If that happened... I didn't think I would know exactly who I was. And that scared me.

It was then that something in her eyes changed. It was like a spark of light in the dark, the first sliver of sunlight on a cloudy day, the rainbow at the end of a thunderstorm. My body was stone, and it stayed put, but hers moved in the rhythm of life, coming towards me in a dance. I reached for the life in her eyes, my movements sluggish, dry and dull. I reached for her in the hollowness of my body, but she was too fast, and I felt the entity of her, and me, slip away. I realized then, that part of her was also a part of me, and that, by losing her, I was also losing a piece of myself. I tried to move my arms, to reach for her, but they stayed by my sides like a statue. I was moulded into the moment like a fissure in time, unable to move, to breathe, to speak.

She came to me in an embrace, the very touch of her skin bringing movement back to my body. I looked at her blankly, seeing her in a world that seemed alien to me. When she stepped back, the numbness travelled up my arms, to my face and my eyes. She looked at me with a smile and the same sense of life in her eyes as before, but this time, it was different. I no longer found a piece of myself in those eyes. I was no longer bound to my life here. I was free to lead a new life: the life that I was destined to.

She spoke, but her voice held no sound. I could only decipher the words by the movement of her lips.

"Good-bye, Link. And... good luck."

She smiled again, weakly, and tears came to her eyes, blocking out the light. I couldn't answer her. I couldn't speak.

She walked away from me in a slow movement, so unlike the way she had moved before. I watched her go, with eyes drowned in a blank stare, until she finally disappeared into the listless woods, sapping away the final strokes of color in my life.

The old me was gone, robbed by the cruel reality of the world. My hollow body stood still, in my new life, devoid of all that I used to know, all that made sense.

As I stood there numbly, my body an empty shell of a person, I watched the world go by around me in slow movements and felt nothing. I saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing but the numbness.

It was then that a new spark ignited in the embers of my soul, revealing a new, strange world that I did not recognize, and a new me, free from the ties of the life I had left behind.

My lips moved in response to the tears leaking from my eyes, settling in pools upon my mouth.

"Saria," I whispered towards the lonely, forgotten trees.


I didn't understand why humans were so slow.

The boy had been saying good-bye to his friend for more than half an hour. I didn't understand what was taking so long; I had waited patiently below his house for too long, staring into the direction of the woods where the Deku Tree was waiting for me to finish my task. I decided that I had waited long enough when the shadows of the trees had lengthened their reach towards me upon the forest floor. I heaved a sigh of impatience, and turned back towards Link's house, flying hastily as the sun rose ever-higher into the brightening sky.

I immediately noticed that there was something different about the boy. He stared, unmoving into the distance as I flew up, not noticing me until I flew directly in front of his expressionless face. I waved my wings in front of him, trying to initiate some sort of movement. After moments, he seemed to notice me flying in front of him, and his eyes turned towards me in puzzlement.

"...Navi?" He mumbled.

"Yes, it's me." I replied huffily, expecting to give him an idea of how long exactly I had waited for him below. My motives disappeared when I noticed that the girl was long-gone, vanished, as if she had never been there in the first place. My eyes were incredulous as they took in the sight of the boy. I wondered what was wrong with him, and what things had passed that would turn him to such an odd, grave state. He seemed cold, lifeless and fragile: hardly like the old Link at all. My head whipped accusingly into the distant trees, trying to locate the girl, to ask her what she had done to change him. What had she done with my partner?

Suddenly, Link's weak, quavering voice broke my concentration.

"Can I ask you something?" He asked. I turned my eyes to him, wondering why he had suddenly chosen to speak.

"What is it?" I questioned tentatively, in a tone like that an adult would use when talking to a very fragile child on the verge of tears.

A change took place in Link then, and the color seemed to return to his eyes in a splash of movement. I blinked my eyes in disbelief, amazed at the change that he seemed to undergo in the split second that it took to take a breath. When he spoke again, his voice was hard, and determined: ready to begin the journey before him.

"Are you ready to go?" he said with a smirk.

I sighed. The old Link was still here, all-right. I grimaced as my hope of a new, calmer Link faded.

"Let's head out," I sighed wearily, motioning towards the direction of the darkening forest that we were headed.

Link nodded in silent agreement, and together we headed into the thickening foliage.

A new journey, a new life.