Chapter 5 Kaepora Gaebora
But to suddenly change that environment, from a fantastical enclosure to a grand open wilderness (the wide world as it were) Link felt dizzy and sat down-well, fell down onto his butt-perplexedly to collect himself, which happened to be Navi's amusement as she politely wondered if he let the idea of 'cold feet' get to his head.
Sitting at the borders between his old world and the wilderness, the blond boy studied the elements around him. As of now, he sat on a moderate decline that sloped downwards for only three yards before continuing on as flat grassland, whereas upon the summit rested the woodline of his mystical woodland home. Casting a studious gaze over his shoulder, the young boy felt the pangs of homesickness already as he imagined himself lying in his feather bed, all the way back in his treehouse back at the village.
He shook such thoughts away and directed his attention back to the open land, which stretched for a few miles before coming across forestation. Not as thick as the Lost Woods, the dappled locations of trees and oaks gave some sort of comfort to the young adventurer, as if some spirit from the lost woods was extending its reach to guide him towards the open world. From where he sat, the forestation spanned not too long, but onwards from that was too far from Link's perspective.
Along his left and his right the borders of the Lost Woods extended even further, following the ups and downs of the landscape as they spanned onwards. The area to his left beheld nothing but open land, whereas his right turned out to be more interesting. Clouded by distance and atmosphere, hundreds of leagues away stood objects coming from the earth, their apexes colored by frosty snow, tall into the skies above and piercing their airy surfaces. Sometimes, these objects spawned out of each other while some stood alone. But these were not flexibly moving things, not like creatures; no, they were solid and still like rock.
Navi explained that they were 'mountains' and described them thus: "The earth itself is alive and moving. In our time, it moves impossibly slow, but in the eyes of fairies and elves mountains grow at a moderate rate. These gargantuans are larger than they appear because they are so far away-" and so carried on despite the young boy losing interest. Hearing the word 'mountain' was enough; he knew what they were, just not what they looked like. He heard of such things in the Great Deku Tree's tales. Link frowned upon this memory and looked away to the sky.
It struck him surprisingly as he lay lay flat on his back to gaze at the celestial ceiling. Above him stood a blue roof that had neither an end nor a beginning to it, spanning for millions of miles in all directions- and blue, of all things. Blue. Link always thought the sky was green, for that's all he saw in the Village when he looked up: a green haze. It must have been an effect made by the forest. The forest was magical, after all.
Looking down at the forestation below once more, Link stood and began walking down the slope, determined to get this quest on the move. If all quests began with simple steps, then Link felt no fear of such an endeavor; after all, his boot size was a four. Navi felt uncertain, however, that the boy was driven by the right kind of passion that could be enough until she remembered her inspirational speech that made him leave the village in the first place. Biting her tongue, the blue fairy chose to depend on her own faith that the boy would come through through willpower. He was different than the rest, he may be the exception after all.
She thought about this as she followed Link into the little forest at the foot of the decline, not even remotely noticing the the large, winged, shadowy figure watching them from the treetops of the Lost Woods.
This little 'dabble of trees' (as Navi described it aloud to herself) did not conceal the sun, but it provided enough cover to buffer its heat. Link now understood why heroes in the Deku Tree's tales hated working in the summer. Just resting on that little hill beforehand was challenging; he had never been exposed in the sun like that before. He was surprised to find his clothes already damp with his sweat as he stood under the shadow of an oak.
Navi herself was shocked. "It's the forest," she said; "back at the Village. The trees take in the sunlight, and we end up being protected from the sun. No wonder the sky looked so different back at the village."
Link took out his canteen and took a gulp of water out of it. Navi at once beat him on the head: "Don't gulp it! We need to ration it. We have no idea when the next river or stream will be."
Link nodded in agreement, and then realized that sweet sound to counter Navi's beratement: running water. His ears twitched at it, his heart jumped at it. He followed the sound as acutely as his elfen ears could, meandering around the trees until he found it, and triumphantly took a whole gulp of water from his canteen. A stream of running water extended from somewhere ahead of him (the direction northwards, as Navi pointed out) and moving onwards south. Link took his hood off and drenched it in the stream and slammed his face with it, letting the water mix with his sweat and cooling off his hot head.
They stayed at the stream for ten more minutes, allowing Link to have a good couple rounds of drinking water and fully hydrate, before Navi motioned for moving on. Topping off his current canteen and his empty one with water, he clipped them back in on his utility belt, picked up his travel kit and moved onwards in the small forest.
He gazed at these trees, remarking on their kind. They were different to Deku, which had a radical consistency itself in comparison. Deku bark was rough and hard (unless dead), and it sap was almost impossible to become unstuck to. In the Deku, one could feel the spirit within it, for the tree itself was a living being. It thought, it could communicate (not through words but gestures and sounds), and it had intentions of its own. Malicious they were, but intentions nevertheless. Its leaves were extensions of its body, primarily as digital extenders or sensory organs.
These trees did exist in the forest, but not as popularly as the Deku. These trees were without thought or intelligence, and albeit the bark was rough to the touch it was also dispensible upon rough handling; easily breakable. They had no other need to exist except to exist: they were merely functions of nature.
Navi told to Link about these 'outside' trees. He, meanwhilst, was merely enamoured by the visual difference and the sheer beauty of theiralienage.
The sounds of the open world still plagued Link, for he had never been used to it. The sound of the wind coming, as if from far, far away, and brushing by him, carrying the sent and stories of lands far away, kept his mind aflutter. The twitter of birds calling to one another in the morning, chirping, singing, and heralding that the day was glorious in the eye of the Sun.
They walked through this small forest for the better part of an hour when fewer trees numbered and less of them collected in groups. Ahead of these was the woodline, beyond which lay the rest of the land.
Link's mind raced with the images he concocted back when he heard stories, with the Great Deku Tree's descriptions tagged with them. He wondered if his dreams could match the reality.
"Hold," Navi said. The boy halted confusedly, looking at the floating orb with a questioning look.
"Hold it," she said again, sounding scared. "Do not move."
Link obeyed, saying nothing, but asked, with his eyes, why.
"Do it ever so slowly... reach for your sword... and look up... there's a giant thing glaring down at us right now..."
Listening to the words and doing as told, and suddenly feeling afraid at once, he took his time looking up. Whatever it was, Link imagined it to be something horrible-like Gohma: monstrous, one-eyed, hungry for flesh and malicious.
Treetops. Plain treetops.
Nothing to be scared of, Link's first thought was, until he focused his eyes more. Then, he noticed it: a huge, dark shadow, silhouetted against the light of day above the trees. It was oval shaped, at whose apex sat a a round head.
As soon as Link comprehended that, indeed, something was sitting amongst those branches, it vanished. It must have noticed Link's hand fumbling for the sword and fled for safety.
"It's not gone," she muttered without moving her lips. "It can't be."
Link's eyes darted from treetop to treetop. He heard a branch move and his focus raced to the limb in question: nothing. Then he heard what sounded like wings flapping above him, but the sun glared in his eyes.
And then, he heard: hoot hoot.
"An owl?" Navi gasped, dropping any manner of horrific paralysis for incredulity.
Link asked to confirm if she meant the wood bird.
"The kind that lingers in the night, sleeps in trees and spins its head, yes," she said. Then her wings lilted. "Oooo... so big... what if it likes to eat fairies?"
A loud WHOOSH from flapping wings sang through the air and the fairy darted underneath Link's hood frightfully. He could feel her warm and tingly body shivering on his scalp; it was quite unnerving, really.
The flapping of wings repeated itself, and a treetop shook from being knocked into, making the boy only tense his face in excited reaction.
At once, a giant body crashed through the treetops, pushing them to the side, and bounded towards the boy with a determined speed. The young adventurer barely had time to react when it breached the surface and came full throttle in his direction like a speeding demon.
Stricken with panic, his hand fumbled for the sword hilt as his mind raced with anticipation. He expected it to ram itself into him, take him to the ground and finish the job in its own monstrous ways. And then take Navi afterwards. But it was coming so fast!
Then, it stopped. The giant mass slowed down its speed, hovered in the air a bit and then perched itself onto a branch just feet above the young boy and his concealed fairy. As it nestled on the branch, holding onto it and keeping its large, auburn body balanced with grace, it tucked in its wings along the sides of its body and then stayed absolutely quiet.
It really was a giant bird. Link, as deku scrubs tended to describe him, stood about four feet ten (taller than any Kokiri). If the young boy knew his measurements well, he calculated the owl's to be roughly five foot five. Except for its eyebrows which extended out and increased its headspan a foot.
As tall as it was, its massive chest surpassed Link's entire body width with a robust and masculine tuft of brown and ecru feathers. Its legs were small but strong, the ends of which were grand talons that gripped the tree branch like a vice. Atop its shoulders, the head was... well, at first it was hard to tell where it even began. Initially Link thought its head was upside down, and then realized that, instead, it boasted a tuft of feathers on its face, like a beard, with dots and lines that made it look like another face. Its real face, right side up, was far more realistic and even more intriguing. A small but ornery, fulvous beak and two long feathers that made up its eyebrows (an exaggeration to be honest) construed a basic avian face, but its eyes told a much different story. Instead of them holding the eyes of a natural bird, it seemed to Link that he was gazing into the eyes of another human being such as himself: they were blue and piercing.
The bird then inclined its head while peering down at the boy's boots, and then climbed up the body in examination. In all this time, the bird inspected the boy with a quirky, almost twitchy, nature of manner.
He felt Navi's small, minute hands tap his scalp and her voice whisper: "Is it gone?"
Link slightly shook his head, and in response Navi said: "Then get rid of it!" under her breath.
The bird-sorry, the 'owl-somehow heard it. It moved on its branch to perch even closer than it was before, curiously.
It just stared at him. It did not look like it was preparing to pounce on him. It did not seem hungry or predatory. Instead, it looked as if it were simply observing the boy, studying him curiously. Something else, however, lay in its auburn eyes that Link at first could not describe. Seconds turned to minutes, and Link even wondered if the thing was waiting for him to do something.
Feeling as if it were a last ditch effort before doing the last resort of all actions (kill the bird with the sword), Link spoke out to the beast by asking what it wanted.
"Hoot hoot, you are far from home, Kokiri-boy!" it said jovially.
Link stared dumbfoundedly at the creature. Navi sat still, but he was sure that the fairy was just as confused.
Agape and seeking words, the boy then stuttered a response, inquiring what the bird was.
The bird let out a couple of lofty hoots and then said, "I am called by many names in this world, but you will call me Kaepora Gaebora."
Link nodded, warily, his hand still on his sword hilt.
"Please don't, boy," said the giant owl; "if I had wanted you for meals, I'd have done it when you left the Lost Woods. That's not my purpose. I'm here to help you, hoo."
Navi tapped on Link's head and fed him something to say: "Why?"
The great bird opened its beak to speak, but paused. Then it suddenly darted its head into its wing and bit ferociously. It itched, apparently.
Navi asked why the beast took so long to respond. Link told her about its itch. Navi simply whispered "Oh."
The owl finished itching itself, sighing in relief upon completion. "I am here on orders of a friend. You knew him as the Great Deku Tree."
Link's sword-hand. This was a friend, then!
"Yes, he and I have been friends long before Hyrule was established as a nation. Or, had been, that is..." he looked away frowning. "Yes, I know that he is gone. It still pains me to realize that. He was the best of us, and yet... well..." he looked at Link, proudly. He seemed to have the rest of the words, but he did not say them.
"Anyway, hoo, I am here to help you."
Navi muttered, "Link, repeat after me: how can we trust you?"
Link did as told.
"Navi, please do not play gossipping owls with me, little fairy," the Great Owl growled; "Come out!"
Navi sluggishly crawled out from under Link's hood and jumped into the air. The owl stretched the corners of his face into a smile.
"It is strange, in all the times I had been at the Great Deku Tree's side, that he neither mentioned you nor introduced us. For all we know, you could have been an enemy of his, and are now trying to lead us astray and then do what you like!" the fairy said.
"Hmmmmm," cooed the Owl. "Well, then I'm as good as history to you both!" and began to flap his wings to fly away.
Link, however, pressed upon him to stay, at which Navi slapped him on the ear. The Owl, however, complied.
"It seems the young boy trusts me," said Kaepora, and then he reached underneath his wing and pulled out what seemed to be a small, tied-up burlap sack, which he then tossed to the ground in front of Link. The bag landed with a thud, the contents of which seemed to bounce within. Upon opening it, Link discovered two dead rabbits.
"You will need the energy," said Kaepora.
Link gulped nervously. He asked if he had to eat them.
The Owl's eyes widened in surprise. "Oh. Right. First timer... well... Well, just skin it, roast it and it's good eating."
"Huh!" said the Fairy. "A bribe, then?"
"No, take it or leave it," said the Owl; "but this..." he reached into his wing again with his beak and pulled out a bundle of paper, which he too tossed in front of Link. This time the boy caught it in his hands and examined it. It was a simple roll of paper bound by a red lace.
"That, is a letter," said Kaepora; "of significant import."
"What're we two outcasters s'posed to do with this? Start a subscription?" mused the Fairy.
"Let me tell you..." the Owl soothing spoke.
Navi and Link waited to hear the word.
"Head straight north from these woods and within two days you should come upon a road. That is called Mako Road, and it's one of the main traffic channels for this region. If you find them, ask people the way to 'Fairyn;' it's a town along the road, and there you need to find a man named Flaba. He's a blacksmith. Give him that letter, and then wait for me."
"Wait," said Navi; "you're not coming with us?"
The Owl straightened its back to look dignified. "I am not a simple owl. I have more duties than my talons can grasp for, and I cannot disregard them. Fear not, you two; when you need a hint on where to go, I'll be there at the best point in time."
"Hmmm..." the fairy still seemed wary of him. "So... we hit the road, and ask around for Fairyn Town?"
"Hoo."
"And ask for Flapper?"
"Hatoo, hatoo! His name is Flaba. Get it right! You can't give this letter to the wrong person!"
Navi mumbled her words of acknowledgement in spite.
Link asked if the Owl could repeat how long it would take to find the road.
"It should take two. However, you have never been outside the forest, and this new world is still bewildering you. It may take you longer, and not just because you are just a child."
Link felt indignant to such words.
"There should be very little disturbance on your journey, aside from food and water shortages, as well as exhaustion, so do take rests as much as you can without wasting resources. AND MARK ME!" Kaepora expanded his wings slightly and his eyes widened in emphasis. "There are beasts in the wild. Wolves in particular, and these Hylian breed are quite ferocious; demonic, even. It is strange, though..." the Owl looked away. "They have been roving more often, as of late... STILL!" the Owl glared into Link. "DO... NOT... ENGAGE. Run if you must! You are not trained or proficient enough to slay wild beasts. Look at you, you're not brave enough to look into that sack again."
Indeed, Link felt repulsed by such an idea of eating meat.
"But, if you want to survive, you must be a warrior. And these rabbits will replenish you like no other."
"He is right, Link," said Navi. "You're gonna have to eat them. Our food is just not going to cut it."
"Thank you, Navi," the Owl said, gratefully; "and I expect you to navigate it as much as you can. As you go along, teach him everything you know about the world. As much as you can."
The fairy hesitated a moment, and then lightly nodded. "Okay."
Kaepora switched faces again curiously. "Do you want me to repeat my mission for you, hoo?"
Both of them said yes, and the owl repeated the same thing. Go north, find the road and then find Fairyn Town. Find Flappa- sorry, Flaba -and give him the letter. Once that is done, wait for Kaepora. Got it.
"Do you need me to repeat?" Kaepora asked. Neither of the two asked him to, although Link was trying to hard to think of something. It was during the second walkthrough that he knew what he wanted to ask, but by the time the owl finished its corollary the young lad had forgotten his question completely. It was bugging him, but he made motions that he did not want the owl to speak more.
"Good! Hoo!" Kaepora hooted. "Then that is all I have for now! Follow my instructions and my words of caution, and our journey shall be smoothly done!" it extended its massive wings, once again creating the appearance of a massive giant, and forcibly began flapping for take-off. After two great whips of its wings, it was airborne and hovering over the branch on which it previously stood.
"SO!" yelled Navi, trying to sound audible over the sound effects; "HOW DO WE KNOW WHICH WAY IS NORTH?"
"HOOT HOOT! KEEP THE ASH MOUNTAINS TO YOUR RIGHT SHOULDER!" it hooted loudly, and then swarmed through the air like a giant brown shadow, broke through the canopy of the trees and then vanished into the sun, leaving Navi and Link alone in the wildnerness.
Suddenly, Link remembered what he meant to ask: "WHO IS PRINCESS ZELDA?"
But it was too late. The owl had flown long before he finally asked himself that question.
"So," said Navi. "Let's find this road."