The Ocarina Tale

by Laina Inverse

Raiha is old, far older than she lets on. When thoughtless words trigger an old memory, she gives permission for the people closest to her to learn a little more about the life she lived before she was finally able to have peace. (A retelling of Ocarina of Time, through the eyes of an OC. Bonus polyshipping?)

4. Three

Three

Impa escorted us out of the Palace, and all the way down to the drawbridge that was raised every night to prevent things on the plains from wandering into the town. She didn't say much, but there was a faint air of pride around her, and I caught her glancing at me more than once.

Me, I was nervous as hell. I had never been, never wanted to be, outside of the town. It wasn't home the way the Gerudo compound was home, but I had spent two years there, living careful and cautious, and I didn't want to have that all ruined.

Stepping across that drawbridge, I knew that nothing would ever be the same. Link seemed to feel it as well, because he glanced at me, and offered me an uncertain smile. I gave a nervous one of my own in reply.

"I have prepared as much as I could in the small amount of time I was given," Impa said, handing him a pack, and then me. "There are maps, money, dried foods, and bedrolls for you both. You both know the song of the Royal Family," Link glanced at me in surprise; I shrugged a little nodding. Zelda herself had taught me the song, and it was very soothing, all things considered. I hummed it to myself on particularly bad days, "and are as equipped as we can make you. Raiha. I apologize for entering your home without permission, but it was necessary to secure your belongings."

And she handed me my weapons. I wanted to be annoyed, but mostly I was relieved I wouldn't have to turn around to fetch the items I knew best. I would soon outgrow the bow, but the throwing daggers would always be relevant, and I think if I'd gone back to get them myself, I would have ended up not leaving...

I pulled them on, fastening the quiver to my hip and the daggers so that I could get at them quickly, then pulled on my pack.

"Go west," Impa said, turning us in that direction, and pointing. "At the base of Death Mountain, you will find the village of Kakariko. It is my village, the place where I was born and raised. There are people there, though they are not Sheikah, that will help you if you but ask them."

She was quiet for a minute, then patted both of us on the head. I squeaked in surprise, and glanced up at her.

"You are very brave children," she said. "We await your return eagerly."

I knew what was coming next, and covered my eyes as she flung the Deku nut to the earth. Link squawked in protest at the bright flash, rubbing furiously at his eyes.

"She's... gone!" Navi chimed in surprise. "How?"

"It's a Sheikah thing," I said quietly, shifting my shoulders to adjust the pack more securely. "They do that a lot."

"O-Oh..."

She bobbed a little in somewhat subdued understanding, and Link looked first to her, then to me. I looked back, then shrugged a little.

"Don't look at me, I'm just here cause two people are better than one," I told him. "I don't know anything out here..."

To my surprise, he grinned.

"That's okay! I'm just glad to have someone else to talk to. It was lonely getting here... Mr. Talon kind of saved my butt when I passed out from hunger. I got really really lucky."

I couldn't help but smile a little as we started walking westward.

"Yeah, he's a nice guy. Really lazy though. He can fall asleep anywhere, and Malon gets really annoyed at him cause of it. He pick you up off the side of the road?"

Link's expression turned sheepish, and I couldn't help laughing.

"Too bad he's not doing a Kakariko run this week," I mused, lacing my hands together behind my head. "Otherwise I'd say we could go to the ranch, and then hitch a ride with him! It's a lot safer to ride with adults..."

Now Link grimaced.

"I'd believe it," he grumbled a little. "My first night out here, there was weird things that climbed out of the ground and attacked me! I had to climb a tree to get away from them..."

I shuddered a little. Climbing a tree was not my idea of a good time. After a moment I reached over my shoulder into the pack, and found the folded maps that Impa had packed, opening the one labeled 'Hylian Plains' so I could get a better idea of where we were going.

It was a pretty detailed map, with a compass rose and distance marker that helped me work out the fact that it would take us three days at the least—probably longer because we were both pretty short—to make it to Kakariko village, at the base of Death Mountain.

The news wasn't particularly cheering, but Link was amazingly optimistic, and insisted that we could handle anything that was thrown at us. I was... much less optimistic, but he was trying so hard to be cheerful that I let it pass.

In truth, it took us four and a half, and it was not a pleasant trip. Creatures popped out of the ground at night, driven away only by fire and sword, and the rising sun. Staying on the road mitigated them to an extent, but nighttime was fraught with danger, and sleeping in shifts.

During the days, people in carriages, carts, and on horseback passed us easily, some yelling at us for being in the way. No one stopped to offer us a ride, and a few even threw things when they noticed the color of my skin. Hylians don't attain the ruddy bronze of Gerudo, let alone my more coppery shade, without many hours spent in sunlight, and even then, their tan is only a bare imitation.

"Don't you ever get mad about that?" Link asked on the second day.

I shrugged.

"There's no point," I told him. "My people have a bad reputation, and jerks like them buy into it because it gives them an excuse to look down on us."

"...is that why you hide your hair, and why you were covering your eyes in town?"

I nodded.

"Hylians aren't all bad, but the majority of them don't really look beyond their borders or try to understand that it's not easy for my people. We don't have all... this," and I gestured at the swath of land we were passing by, fields filled with crops, and people working hard to care for them. "We have sand and stone, and if we're lucky the sandstorms don't completely fill in the watering holes we've managed to dig."

"Wow..."

I just shrugged again.

"I'm used to it. I get annoyed, sure, but I'm just a kid. No way there's anything I can do to change their minds when the other adults of my race have to live up to that reputation to survive. Besides... I have to too."

"But..." Link's expression was baffled. "Aren't you the princess's friend?"

"Yeah, but I'm kind of a secret friend. It could go one of two ways, and I'm not brave enough to want to know what would happen if they reacted any other way than thinking Zelda was taking pity on me," I said dryly. "S'why I sneak into the palace, instead of just walking up. Well, that and cause it's fun to sneak past those guys who think they're the eagle-eyed masters of the world."

And I snickered a little.

"Some of em can't see their nose in front of their face."

He grinned a little, nodding. Given how easily I had gotten him past the guards, his agreement was gratifying.

Reaching Kakariko in the middle of the fifth day had both of us relieved. We were dirty, tired, and approaching very hungry, as we'd eaten most of the provided food by that point. Crossing the bridge over the river, and then climbing up the many stairs to reach the village was the last challenges we were willing to entertain for that day.

There was no inn, but somehow Impa had gotten word ahead of us, and a very polite guard—as in, he took no notice of my skintone or yellow eyes—escorted us to her house where we got baths, clean clothes, more food, and the chance to sleep for as long as we needed, which was pretty much the rest of that day and the entire night. The next morning there was more food, and a message from Impa that said Ganondorf was settled into the palace as firmly as a stone, and if we could, we should hurry.

Link managed to acquire one of the Hylian shields, somehow stuffing it into his pack—magic is wonderful, let me tell you. That spell was entirely too useful in the days to come—before we went to the gate guard and showed him the letter Zelda had given us.

"...'Link and Raiha are under my orders to save Hyrule'?" The guard looked from the letter to us, then back to the letter before he burst out laughing. "What sort of funny game has our princess come up with this time?"
I was tempted to kick him in the shin. Link's expression said he was thinking the same thing, but the guard only grinned at us as he passed the letter back.

"Fine, fine, you can go up the mountain," he said, chortling a little. "Far be it from me to disobey the princess!"

He turned and unlocked the gate, pulling it open so that we could go through.

"By the way, if you're actually going to head up the dangerous part of the mountain, you ought to get a real shield, not that wooden thing," he said, pointing at Link's Deku shield. "It is an active volcano. That bitty shield would get blasted to bit, or burned up from some of the rocks the mountain spews out. If you hit up the Bazaar in Castle Town, tell em Jericho sent you, it should get you a discount."

I grimaced at the idea. Four and a half days back to a town that was simmering with unease thanks to Ganondorf and his people? Not my idea of a fun trip. Also an unnecessary delay, since Link had gotten the shield already.

"Well, it's up to you, little heroes," and he snickered again. "Go on and save Hyrule for the princess!"

I ended up stomping past him as he started laughing again, wishing I dared kick him in the shins like I really wanted to, with Link trailing along behind. The mountain trail wasn't that steep or narrow, so it took me a while to calm down. Link just followed behind, eventually catching up once we reached a brief plateau of sorts. A giant boulder blocked what looked to be the entrance to a cavern, and cast enough shade that it was good place to sit and relax for a couple minutes.

"He didn't believe her," Link said after a minute, looking back down the path with a frown.

"Well, no. She's a kid," I shrugged a little, annoyed. "Adults don't really take the time to listen to kids, even when we're right about things." After a moment I sighed, adding, "At least he let us through. He could have thought we were faking the letter and arrested us."

Not that he would have succeeded had he tried, but it had been a viable option. Link frowned a little.

"But he told us to get a better shield..."

I just shrugged again, and had a drink of water from the skin Impa had supplied me with.

"Adults are weird."

That made him grin a little, nodding. Even Navi giggled a little as I glanced up the path that would take us upwards to the Goron City. I was not looking forward to walking the rest of the way up the path, but there was no helping it.

"Let's get going. Maybe we can make it all the way up there before it gets dark!"

It was, maybe, an overly optimistic hope, but walking the path in daylight would be difficult enough. Walking at night wasn't something I wanted to attempt.

I hugged the inside of the path as we wound up the side of the mountain, a wise choice to my mind when we reached the halfway point and a boulder—really a Goron wrapped around a bomb flower—came hurtling down the path at us. I yelped, flattening myself up against the stone as Link squawked in surprise and jumped left, just barely managing to stay on the path.

Less than three feet beyond us, the boulder seemed to blow up, coming to a halt as Link scrambled back in my direction. We both stared wide-eyed at the now halted boulder, trying to work out what had just happened. After exchanging uncertain looks, I just made a face and continued up, Link following far closer behind me.

As we entered the cave that contained the Goron city, we met our first Goron. What we thought was a boulder moved, making us both jump to the side and ready our weapons. The Goron's smiling face became puzzled at he looked from Link to me and back.

"You're visitors, goro?" he asked. "It might not be the best time for visitors, goro. Big Brother Darunia is waiting for the messenger from the Royal Family. He closed his door, goro, and even took our tribe's treasure from where it was on display."

"Is... did something bad happen?" I asked.

"Someone blocked the entrance to the Dodongo's Cavern," the Goron said, looking a bit upset. "We Gorons live on a diet of succulent rocks, and the Dodongo's Cavern has the very best... With the Cavern closed, Big Brother is worried that we'll all end up starving, goro."

"Can't you just... eat other ricks?" Link asked, confused.

"They... disagree with our systems," the Goron admitted sheepishly. "Only Dodongo's Cavern rocks are good food for us, goro."

"So... if we were the Royal family's messengers, how would we go about getting to him?" I asked.

The Goron immediately perked up.

"Big Brother Darunia's rooms are on the bottom floor," he said cheerfully. "He said he would wait for the Royal messengers there, and if they knew the right song, they could come in! Oh, but it's really dark in there, goro, so be careful! Falling would hurt someone as soft as you!"

We thanked the Goron and walked the rest of the way into the city. It was built in tiers, that grew smaller the farther one went down. And it was dark, as we'd been warned; with only a little ambient light filtering in from the entrance casting light down into the city itself. With Navi's light to help guide our path, we found more Gorons—we tripped over a couple, really—and managed to make it to the bottom without more than a few bruises.

There was a shop on one side, a sealed door at the far end, and a large pot with three Goron faces in the middle. There were also some braziers that were stacked with wood, but cold. Clearly they hadn't been lit for some time, and I grimaced a little, feeling sympathy for the Gorons. Starving and left in the dark just seemed unfair. It made me wish I knew a fire spell, but that was not the sort of magic Impa taught.

When we reached the sealed door, we frowned, then looked at one another.

"If they know the right song," I said after a minute. "There's really only one song connected to the Royal family that someone would know to listen for."

"The lullaby?" Link asked.

I nodded after a minute.

"It's worth a shot, if nothing else."

He nodded too, and dug around in his pouch for a moment, coming up with a well-crafted ocarina. I couldn't help but be amused; that just seemed to poetically perfect, and a little ridiculous all at once.

He wasn't a bad musician either, and I could easily follow along with the notes of the lullaby, though I only hummed quietly. My voice wouldn't carry through stone the way the ocarina did, so exerting myself seemed like a waste of time. Slowly, slowly, the stone door grated upwards, firelight and warmth spilling out from beyond it. We entered cautiously, traversing a small hallway that led to Darunia's chambers.

The boss Goron in question was taller than the other Gorons, with what looked like a mane of hair surrounding his face. He had looked cautiously hopeful when we first poked our heads through the door, but the moment he saw us, a dark scowl began to form.

"I hear the song of the Royal family, and think it is their messenger, when it is just a pair of children?" he demanded. "Have I fallen so far in the eyes of my Sworn Brother, the King, as to be treated this way?! Go away, before I really lose my temper!"

Link stared up at him, wide eyed and plainly frightened. Me? I was irritated, to say the least. We'd come all this way, done all this walking and fighting, and put up with entirely too much crap to just get turned away so arbitrarily.

"What's your issue?" I demanded, standing my ground as Durnia's glare took on an new level of ire. "You didn't even give us time to say hi and you're tossing us out on our asses?!"

"What good can a pair of children do?" He shot back, one large fist hitting the ground hard enough to crack it. "There's a rock shortage, creatures had infested the cavern even before that, making it difficult to get the food, and on top of that, our Special Crops aren't doing so well! But these are Goron problems, and we don't need the help of outsiders! Especially not one that had Gerudo blood."

Stung, I started to move forward, opening my mouth to say... something, I don't even remember what, but Link grabbed me by the wrist, and pulled me away before I could do something stupid. He lit a Deku stick from the torch, and managed to drag me around the room while he lit the other ones, then made me sit on the stairs as pools of firelight filled the bottom floor of the cavern and filtered up.

"What'd ya do that for?!" I demanded, scowling at Link.

"Cause you were gonna make it worse," he pointed out, sitting next to me. "He's got a right to be upset about things, y'know?"

"Yeah, but that comment about Gerudo bl-"

I stopped. Thought for a minute. Then groaned.

"Fine, all right, we can blame Ganondorf for this one too, I bet," I grumbled, leaning back against the stairs. "But his bad attitude doesn't help us get the Stone we need."

"Big Brother kicked you out, huh, goro?"

We both jumped, and turned to see a Goron looked down at us from the level above. He smiled and waved.

"Bring some of that light up here, and I can tell you how to get on his good side, goro!"

Link looked at me, then at the steadily burning Deku stick. After a moment, he shrugged and we both got up, bringing the light with us as we went up the steps.

After lighting the two braziers that were on either side of the passageway the Goron stood before, he sighed in delight, then nodded down the tunnel.

"Big Brother likes the music that comes from the forest," he said. "It has a bright and cheerful beat to it, and he can't help dancing whenever he hears it. So if you learn that song, you should play it for him, goro, and he should be more willing to listen!"

Link grinned, nodding, and ran down the tunnel with his lit Deku stick. I trailed behind, uncertainly; first the plains, then this mountain, and now a forest? I was certainly getting out more, but I was definitely not sure I liked this out.

Link lit one of the bomb flowers—the 'special crop' Darunia had mentioned—that set off four of them, destroying the boulders that blocked the way between us and the forest, then dropped the stick as it was finally fully eaten away at by the fire. Instead, he grabbed my hand excitedly, and towed me along through the tunnel until we came out in the forest.

I stared. Turned in a circle. Stared some more.

Never had I been in a place so green. True, there were parks and gardens in Castle Town, but those things were tamed, and also small. Even the brace of trees near the Temple of Time were somehow neatly maintained and groomed, their harvest plucked every fall, though by whom, and to where it went, I had never known.

Link grinned at me when I turned to finally look at him.

"Pretty cool, huh? This is the Lost Woods, but I can show you the Kokiri forest too!"

"...Lost Woods?"

"Oh, it's not as bad as it sounds," he said reassuringly. "If we get turned around here, we'll just end up back home, and it'll be okay. Just stick with me!"

And he held out his hand. I took it without hesitation, having no desire to get lost in the expanse of green, and he led the way through the forest, following the sounds of an upbeat and cheerful song that I started making out myself as we went farther in. Part of my mind tracked the turnings he took; they weren't random in the slightest, he knew exactly where he was going, and wasn't at all worried about being lost. I could only hope that he wasn't lost, and I clung to his hand to remind myself that I wasn't going to be if I stayed close.

We ended up in a large clearing of earth and stone after making our way through a maze and climbing a long flight of worn stairs. In the middle was a raised stone platform that held both a Triforce symbol, and a strange marking within, at the far end was a tree, a set of broken stairs, and a girl with a fairy sitting on a tree stump. As we approached, she stopped playing, looking up in delight.

She was cute, and she was plainly a fan of green. (Granted, all Kokiri wore green to blend into the forest, a fact I learned much later on.) Her clothes, her boots, even her hair was green. Her eyes though, were a deep, sapphire blue. They were lit with laughter, though once she glanced past Link and saw me, they flickered in confusion.

"Saria, this is my friend Raiha," he said with a grin. "She's helping me do what the Great Deku Tree said I should!"

"Uh... hi?" I said giving her an uncertain smile.

She smiled back warmly, and her fairy danced cheerfully around my head.

"I've been waiting for you guys," she said, putting her ocarina in her lap. "Though mostly you, Link. I was worried you wouldn't come back to visit."

"Aww, I told you I would!"

"What... is this place?" I asked hesitantly.

"This is the Sacred Forest Meadow," Saria replied, beating Link to the punch. "It's a secret place that only a few people know about. I feel..."

She hesitated, glanced at Link, then at me.

"I feel that this place will be important to us someday."

I could feel it too, now that she'd brought it to me attention. A subtle sense of looming, of waiting patience, that suggested we'd come here again, when we least expected it. Link just smiled a little; plainly he was used to his friends saying strange things.

"I like to come here and play my ocarina so I can talk with the spirits in the forest," she continued after a minute. "Link knows the tune, or he should," and she giggled a little at his embarrassed expression, "but would you like to learn it?"

"Ah..." I blinked, then nodded a little. "Sure. I like music."

She played. Link followed along after a minute. I listened, and found a way to blend my voice among the notes of the song. It didn't take long before the three of us were playing, singing, and dancing around the clearing.

It felt... good. I hadn't done much musically since my mother had left me in the market, and this carefree song was uplifting, banishing my worry and unease, even if that freedom was only temporary.

By the time we were all tired, it wasn't hard to think that I had a new friend in Saria.

"Don't forget the song, okay? Not only will it let you talk to the fores spirits here, if you play it somewhere else, I'll hear it. I don't know if I can help you, but if you need it, I'll try!"

Link grinned at her, and gave her a quick hug before we left. I almost did too, but ended up just waving instead; as much as I wanted close contact with people, I didn't want things to get awkward. She waved back, giving me a bright smile, and I couldn't help but grin a bit myself as we trotted down the stairs.

We took the shortcut in the forest back to the Goron City, and hurried back to Darunia's room. Before he could give us another angry lecture, Link played the song, and the music filled the air in a manner that was nothing more than pure magic. Darunia's eyes widened. Slowly, his toes began tapping. His hands began swinging.

I took a prudent step backwards as the Goron leader began dancing in place, a large smile replacing the grumpy look. Considering how widely he was swinging his arms, it was a good choice. He danced for a good five minutes, and by the end of it, I couldn't help but have a smile on my own face as well; it was nice to make people happy.

"I feel much better now," Darunia said, once he'd stopped dancing. "I apologize for my previous bad manners and temperament; it has been very stressful recently. Was there something you wanted to ask me about?"

"Well... it's about the Spiritual stone of Fire," I began cautiously.

The frown immediately returned, but it was not angry. It was, if anything thoughtful.

"That is our race's sacred treasure, also called the Goron's Ruby," he said, his voice turning stern. "While I appreciate the help in brightening my mood, I'm not just going to give you the stone for that."

"But we really need it," Link protested. "Princess Zelda-"

"How about this," Darunia interrupted. "If you can get into Dodogo's Cavern and clear out the monsters inside, I'll give you the stone. My people need to eat, and if you can do that for me, I will give you anything you want. Even the Spiritual Stone."

Link looked at me. I shrugged.

"Deal."

For a moment, Darunia grinned. Then he held out a hand, unfolding one huge fist to reveal a pair of golden bracelets.

"You might need these. You don't look strong enough to heft bomb flowers without them," he said.

Mine didn't want to stay on at first; my hands were more slender than Link's, so it kept trying to slide off, over my wrist. Eventually I switched it to the arm with the archery bracer, and that made it stay put.

We went back out to see if there was something we could do about the giant boulder, splitting up to do so. I went down to stare at the boulder up close, looking for some sort of weakness while Link looked at it from above to see if maybe there was a way to simply break it open. I don't really know what I expected from being in front of it, really. After a few minutes of fruitless studying, I wondered if a Goron could maybe eat through the rock, even if it was inferior in flavor.

Then I laughed a little at myself for wondering how rocks tasted. They wouldn't taste at all good to me; I was Gerudo, not Goron.

"Raiha! Head's up!"

I looked up—Link was a dizzying height above me, and I wanted to look away very quickly—and jumped back as he threw something that hissed and fizzed towards the rock. Recognizing the bomb flower, I scrambled down the path and took cover as it exploded. Rock chunks sailed everywhere; Link had managed to get it right where he wanted on the first try, the lucky sot. I heard him cheering even as my ears rang from the explosion, and carefully crept out from behind my shelter to see the opening to a large cave.

Link met me there ten minutes later, and into the darkness we went. And make no mistake, it was very dark. Navi once again came out to be our light as I wished rather vainly for a lamp of some kind.

The deeper in we went, the hotter it got, until we finally came out in a cavern the glowed a sullen, angry sort of red. The dim light and massive heat reflected upwards from cracks in the floor, and suggested very bad things would happen if we missed a step and slipped into one.

The heat under the mountain is very different from the heat in the desert. Flat arid heat can be moved in. Humid, sticky heat was much less forgiving. As we looked around cautiously, taking care to place our feet where the heat was least evident, I noticed that this large cavern branched out into many more. The tunnels seemed to be Goron sized, and I wondered then if that was because they ate the rock in the shape of the tunnel, or if they blew it up and that was how it turned out.

In the end, it didn't really matter; we had agreed to clear out the creatures in the tunnels, and we set about doing so. We killed dodongo and baby dodongo by the dozens, dodging fire and exploding bodies as we did. I learned very quickly that my throwing knives became useless after being blown up, and I settled instead for shooting them. Arrows, at least, I had plenty of.

It took us... three days, I think, to clear out the side tunnels on the left. Another three to clear out the tunnels on the right. Fortunately, there was only the one tunnel at the back, leading deeper into the mountain, and to the mother of all the dodongo that had been living in the cavern.

It was not, in the slightest, a fun fight. We had found—rather, Link had found—a bomb bag hidden under some rocks that could hold bombs flower inert. The minute they were pulled out of the bag, exposed to air, the fuse lit and it was only a matter of moments before the bomb would explode. So there was that danger.

There was also the fact that Mama Dodongo was flipping huge. Neither Link nor I were short for our age, but this thing made us feel like we were. Her footsteps shook the floor, cracking it more with each stomp, and her breath was certainly hot enough to melt stone. Her first attack had collapsed the cavern entrance.

Staying ahead of her wasn't as easy as it might sound either; while she walked slow and hard, she also rolled like a damn Goron rolled, and getting knocked into a wall—thankfully one not melting—was how I broke my arm and my bow.

Link beat her in the end, by feeding the bombs to her when she took that huge breath the preceded fire, and managing to find a chink in her armor that allowed him to hit a vital point. Mama Dodongo howled in pain, curling into one more ball as she banged into the walls before ending up over the cracked and broken part of the floor, which gave way at last beneath her weight, dumping her into a pool of lava.

As much pain as I was in, that almost made me throw up. It was one hell of a way to die. Judging by Link's expression, he felt the same, or at least similar.

"Now what do we do?" I asked. "She blocked the exit, and if we don't get out..."

Link grimaced a little, nodding as he carefully helped me to stand up. My left arm was broken, and thanks to the remaining adrenaline from the fight, I didn't actually feel it, but I knew when said adrenaline wore off, it was going to hurt like hell. In truth, I was more annoyed about losing my bow; there wasn't really much chance I could get that replaced.

Navi fluttered around our heads momentarily, then lightly landed on Link's shoulder.

"I thiiiink I can get you out," she offered. "You just want to get back out to the front of the cave, right? I can manage that."

"You sure, Navi?" Link asked worriedly.

The small fairy huffed.

"Didn't I get you out of the Great Deku Tree?" she demanded. "I can get you back outside easy-peasy!"

Link hesitated, then looked at me. I blinked, shrugged, and muttered a few curses as the movement jostled my arm.

"She's your partner, not mine, fairy boy," I said blandly. "But if she says she can get us out? I'm all for it. This hurts, and I want a bath and a bed, and food."

Navi gave a chiming giggle, and blue light surrounded us, taking us away from the heat and oppressive darkness out into midday sunshine.